Saturday, December 21, 2013

CHILDLIKE?



I hope most of you have children or already raised your children. Why?  Because anyone who has had a child knows that when they are very young they sometimes have a hard time accepting facts and reality. For example, they cover their eyes when playing peekaboo, as if; since they can’t see you, you can’t see them. Further along in life, they become more sophisticated in their self-delusion, sometimes to excess. For example, one little (well not so little, more like 9) boy refused to accept the fact that a clock told time and changing it on the watch, his father gave him, didn’t actually allow him to play outside longer, but arrive home in time for dinner.  Truth be told I was that second kid. Unfortunately, our president has taken “juvenile denial” (a phrase I like to use) to an extreme.

Let’s take for example negotiations with Iran. President Obama argues additional sanctions against Iran that go into effect “if” they don’t meet their obligations under the current agreement are a bad idea. His argument goes like this, “existing sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table”, therefore the proverbial stick drove Iran to negotiate. He also claims “if we’re serious about negotiations, we’ve got to create an atmosphere in which Iran is willing to move in ways that are uncomfortable for them.” How does that logic work? Sanctions made them talk, but the potential for additional sanctions would make them stop talking. I am honestly confused by this negotiating strategy.  The only reasonable way to look at this administration’s approach is that they are in a situation driven by their desired outcome being already determined and that outcome is a deal with Iran. Not a deal that means Iran does not have nuclear capability for peaceful purposes only, or not at all, but a deal for the sake of a deal. The result is a State Department negotiating with its hands over its eyes, as if Iran is too stupid to see the weakness and feckless foreign policy of the Obama administration. You can read how I forecast the results of this buffoonery at Home Free. Further proof of his outcome-based approach (Yes, just like the educational theory, a dumbed-down egalitarian scheme that stifles individual potential for excellence and achievement by holding the entire class to the level of learning attainable by every child) is President Obama’s threat to veto the new sanctions. A bi-partisan bill with new sanctions being debated in Congress could be a very valuable tool to expedite verification of current agreement compliance by Iran and lay the ground work for the next agreement, but he chooses to threaten a veto, so no one gets in the way of his predetermined outcome, a deal itself versus a nuclear weapon free Iran.

Another example of this administration’s “juvenile denial” is President Obama’s response to the Affordable Care Act’s (ie Obamacare) complete failure in its actual first quarter of operations. The president wants us to believe that Obamacare is fine it just needs more time for the website to work. He said, "The basic structure of the law is working, despite all the problems," and “the bottom line also is that we've got -- several million people are going to have health care that works”. He later “clarified” several million as two.  President Obama completely overlooks the fact that according to his own HHS Secretary’s account over 5.9 million policies have been cancelled this year and they expected 7 million new people to be signed up by the end of March 2014. I am not good at math, but if you expected 7 million, you add the people who need new insurance as 6 million, and  you get excited over 2 million; there’s a deficit of around 11 million people (disregard the difference between “selected plans” and purchased. FYI, I “selected” a new car on-line today want a ride in it?). Folks, over 5 million people have lost their insurance because this “law” was enacted, plus the elusive 30-45 million uninsured that drove this law into being, makes this a complete disaster. In order to avoid peering directly into the buffoonery that is Obamacare, President Obama’s administration continues to change the law autonomously in an attempt to delay the inevitable, just like I did with my dad’s watch.  Believe me when I tell you delaying consequences everyone knows are inbound only makes it worse. I think if he tries real real hard, we can all lose our insurance.  Here are “6 ways Obamacare isn’t what it used to be”, according to the right wing nuts at NBC News:

1. The exemption. a special “hardship exemption” to people whose individual plans were canceled and who have yet to arrange other coverage. They can get either extremely cheap, bare-bones plans known as catastrophic coverage, or skip health insurance without paying the tax.

2. The slip. the administration gave people an extra week to get signed up, slipping the deadline from Dec. 15 to Dec. 23 for people who wanted to enroll and get health insurance starting the first day possible, Jan. 14.

3. The slide. officials gave people another week to pay their first premiums and still get coverage. This was forced on insurers: the industry later said it would let people pay as late as Jan. 10 and still get credit for coverage starting Jan. 1, so long as they had already signed up.

4. The fix. Obama formally apologized and said that people could, in fact, keep their policies – even if they were policies his administration said were rotten and provided lousy coverage.

5. The redefinition. There was October’s redefinition of what the March 31 deadline meant, made after it looked as if people needed to actually sign up by Feb. 15 to make the March 31 deadline to have coverage or pay a tax.

6. The delay. the administration delayed for one year the requirement that large employers provide health insurance for their employees.”

They don’t even mention (I am sure it was an oversight), that the SHOP (Small Business Health Options Program) was delayed for a year or that Congress got their good deal for staff weenies, if they chose to do so, a la Sen Reid. The President is clearly out of touch with reality (read more at: Incompetent-or-Disconnected), incompetent like no other president this country has ever seen, or a super-genius running the country headlong into a single-payer system. The one thing you can be absolutely sure of with this president, he will do whatever he wants regardless of the law and it will cost all of us a lot more in the end, just like an unruly child.

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