Did you see this character on "Fox News Sunday" yesterday? If not, you've got to watch this video. Here's the transcript, but you won't get the high anxiety feeling from the text alone. It must be experienced visually and aurally.
Now, I've watched this twice (and read the transcript), and I believe Zeke — older brother of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and Hollywood-based talent agent Ari Emanuel — is damned sharp and even honest and he's willing to argue and stand his ground and more. I appreciate that. There is something to be defended here — Obamacare — and so if they aren't willing to acknowledge the fraud and to resubmit healthcare reform to Congress — which I believe is the only morally correct response — then they'd better step up, take the hard questions, and give real answers. And that's what Ezekiel Emanuel is doing there. It's spectacular!
But this is not the kind of harsh, in-your-face talk America is used to! This is the kind of guy you expect to be working hard behind the scenes. A mellower, friendlier face is what we expect. Did you see Deval Patrick on "Meet the Press" yesterday? That's the norm. So soothing! Everything's going to be all right. Ezekiel Emanuel? That was so weird! That was not Everything's going to be all right. That was PANIC!!!!
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Did you see this character on "Fox News Sunday" yesterday?
Catch up with the reality, Althouse. He is the architect of Obamacare. It all emanated from his genius. Add Cass Sustein next to him for PR, er.. give real answers and you got government knows best team. Panic is right, not to mention he looks like a slithering eel (white, of course).
Isn't community rating health insurance pricing a regressive tax on the middle class? A healthy person earning $100K will pay extra for their HI in order to lower the payments of those who are sick or who signup for insurance only when they need extensive care. That extra amount paid will be the same if they earn $500K per year.
I saw him on Morning Joe blaming the insurance companies for the cancellations. No mention of the regulatory changes that forced the cancellations.
That's something that needs bringing to light: who are the actual peepul who wrote the umpty-ump pages of the O-Care bill?
What are the names of Satan's imps and lesser devils?
He is an odd choice. He is smart and willing at least partially to engage in honest debate. But his obnoxious, know it all personality renders his smarts and partial honesty worthless as an advocate. I assume the administration approves his appearances, but is that necessary the case? He is a private citizen. They need a more accomplished liar (like Clinton, although he would never do it) to hold the fort while they see if the can manufacture some actual data (regardless of how misleading) to support their arguments. I think the most likely result is that most of Obamacare goes up in flames. It would be nice if Obama (or even someone on the Republican side) grabbed this moment for an honest and best case approach to providing health care for the poor and other aspects of health care. Obamacare is a failed attempt to regulate health insurance, which we need to largely abandon and move on.
It is not true that only bare bones plans are being cancelled. That is a lie. I have a Gold plan with maternity coverage that is being cancelled. And I know for a fact that it pays out because it paid out a fortune earlier this year when one of our children was hospitalized.
They lie about keeping plans. They lie about the exchange being low cost. They lie about the exchange coverage being better. They lie about keeping doctors. Now they try to cover these lies with lies about the insurance that existed before.
Lies, lies, lies.
Somebody should shout, "You lie!" everywhere these people go.
The abandonment is of Obamacare, not health insurance. I have long thought the best approach is to hold persons accountable for failure to insure, not by denying care (which is not done now), but in some ohter tax/financial way.
The other thing is that it is "only 5% of Americans" who are having their policy cancelled. Well, it was only 15% of Americans who were uninsured in the first place. That is hurting people on the same order of magnitude as the people you are trying to help, many of whom who were voluntarily uninsured.
It probably in the end works out to feeding one shit sandwith for every free lunch.
Freeman makes a good point. They are trying to escape one set of lies with another set of lies, lumping all 15 million on private individual health care plans as fools who have bought junk insurance. Some of the smarter people in the media should secure some facts/data to use in response to those arguments. And on a much easier lever, they should be able to counter by pointing out 15 million affected persons is not a small number -- after they had been assured they would not be affected.
Did your plan cover pre-existing conditions? (Whose did?) Then it doesn't meet ACA guidelines. It will go the way of the Dodo.
I think Zeke "death panel" Emanuel is the perfect spokesman for Obamacare.
Read his own words published in The Lancet:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60137-9/fulltext
One of his criteria for allocating medical care is "promoting and rewarding social usefulness."
So we have the government decide who is socially useful? Look at the IRS and the Tea Party to see where this is going.
I watched the entire discussion with Dr. Emanuel. This guy has more degrees than a Celsius thermometer, but has the class of loud mouth, obnoxious clown. In your face, constantly interrupting - just a first rate jerk. He couldn't have come off any worse.
I suspect he went on Morning Rino this morning to repair the damage.
Our insurance costs went up. We ended up dropping me from my husband's plan because I'm a service-connected disabled veteran and my VA care is Obamacare certified (I got a letter to that effect). By dropping me, we end up with the same premiums, but less coverage for the rest of the family.
I think that something that has to be communicated here is that the reason that the unsubsidized exchange plans are so expensive is they, by necessity, have to be larded with benefits which statistically will be rarely used. Thus 50 year old women are paying for maternity coverage, not because that is a better plan or a non-junk plan would have it, but because it will be rarely used and thus that money will be used to subsidize other plans. Dr. Emanuel was sort of admitting this in the conversation in the video, but using obfuscating language to avoid the fact that this coverage is of little value to the person doing the paying.
Talk to the Cancer patient (WSJ article) who got her plan cancelled -- it is a lie to say only crappy insurance, junk insurance plans are getting cancelled.
What a Biblical name. He's there to "put the fear of God" into people, as Obama says is his personal goal
I've seen Emanuel debate twice now in the last couple of weeks. What a prick.
What a Biblical name. He's there to "put the fear of God" into people, as Obama says is his personal goal
Since the Unaffordable/Unattainable Care Act was passed, our premiums (spouse and I) have gone from $8k/ year to $13k/ year. We have been notified by Blue Cross/ Blue Shield that our policy will not be cancelled (hooray), but effective 12/1 our premium will increase an additional $1.3k/ year.
I would like the Prevaricator-in-Chief to show anyone whose premiums were reduced by $2500/year.
"How I learned to stop worrying and love The Plan!"
"I saw him on Morning Joe blaming the insurance companies for the cancellations."
Yep. He's done that the two times I've seen him, too. Contrary to Althouse's perception, Emanuel is NOT honest, at least on this point.
The ObamaCare "five percent" is the new "one percent".
"Since when do you destroy people and it doesn’t count because it’s too small a percentage?” asks Jackie Mason
I think that first commenter might be a moby.
As to the Jewish question, I'll go there:
I'd argue that the black/Jewish alliance that found common ground typically under 60's activism is probably still in play, or at least some of the ideas motivating it, if not the sentiment.
The Emmanuels and the Obamas likely gravitated towards each other in Chicago machine pol politics and developed strong-bonds over time
A kind of activist, passionate, outsider, let's-change-the-system kind of solidarity made them allies as they rose to greater prominence.
They would and could design use their good educations and skills to design systems and 'private/public' partnerships that would help the poor, unite people, and bring justice, if not social justice, to the world.
I think you can see here on full display, and with Obamacare, where many of their ideas lead, how they really think America is, and ought to be.
Oh, they'll push these ideas through right into your doctor's office and into your living-room if they can.
They've gone national.
He is partially honest. If you pin him down and do not let him get away on an issue, he likely would honestly answer the question. I think he acknowledged at some point that there would be winners and losers under Obamacare, which had a whiff of honestly to it.
Can anybody point to data regarding plans cancelled after people got sick? They're beating this drum hard, but at this point I don't believe them. The only reported experiences I've seen (e.g. Freeman Hunt's post above) have said the opposite.
Zeke was waving broccoli around on TV the morning the Supreme Court decision was announced. He's a classy guy...
I like this interaction with Zeke and Jonathan Bush (yes that Bush!) last year here. Bush is on the front lines of healthcare and a straight shooter. He's my new healthcare hero and a welcome voice amidst the administration's stooges...
Remember too the employer mandates were conveniently delayed until after the elections next year. Everyone will be in the same boat in 2015...
Taking a cue from Tingle Leg, Emanuel assumes you win debates with increased decibel levels and constant interruptions. Facts? We don't need no stinkin' facts.
kimsch, my husband is a 60% disabled vet so he also gets his medical care through the va. We got a letter several months ago that was basically an advertisement for the obamacare exchanges for his family members. He's retired military, so we're on tricare. I thought at the time what a waste of money that letter was.
By the way, we have retired friends that have been kicked out of the military facilities and have to use civilian doctors now. They're doing that more and more. We live no where near a military facility, so we use tricare standard. Basically we pay a flat twenty percent of every medical bill with no premium. I know they'd like nothing more then to get us all off of tricare and into the exchanges. I would be more than willing to pay a premium.
Emmanuel is one guy they should keep away from TV. He actually understands what Obamacare is all about and doesn't mind telling you. In fact, you can't shut him up. The GOP should pay to have him on TV every day. He is far too arrogant to lie. Here you see the philosophy of Dearth Panels and Peter Singer's Bioethics .
The central argument of the book is an expansion of the utilitarian idea that "the greatest good of the greatest number" is the only measure of good or ethical behaviour. Singer argues that there is no reason not to apply this to other animals. He popularized the term "speciesism", which was originally coined by Richard D. Ryder, to describe the practice of privileging humans over other animals.[16]
This is the philosophy at the heart of leftist thought and practice.
I Advise the Medicinal Drink "The ImPeachMint:
Three Shots Vodka
One Shot Peach Schnapps
One Splash of Crème de Menthe
Repeat as Necessary Until the Anger Subsides.
Zeke here is described in his bio as a "bioethicist". His forte is "moral discernment".
And here he is on national TV trying to bullshit people.
No wonder he looks uncomfortable.
"I think that first commenter might be a moby."
That's what I thought and I deleted it as soon as I saw it and before reading your comment.
The commenter name isn't one I remember seeing before and it only dates back to October 2013.
I call bullshit. That had no place being the first comment and it got this thread off to a bad start. Sorry I didn't squelch it sooner.
In addition, other people with similar ideas become attracted to the administration, and bringing their ideas to fruition:
On foreign policy, the liberal internationalists like Anne-Marie Slaughter and Samantha Power, who was a human-rights activist and journalist in Bosnia. Susan Rice shares much of Obama's worldview.
Hillary could be got on board by shining the Presidency and respect for her own political capital.
Jack Lew, and even Robert Reich still defending the administration's policies and in law/economics, less affiliated with Obama, Cass Sunstein and nudging paternalism.
He's also kept Valerie Jarrett and stays in touch with Rahm Emmanuel so I hear. That's his team and his message.
They've got their vision and they probably got where they could go a few years into the first-term.
After that point it was no more "who is this guy" glamour and hope and more: 'let's unpack what his policies have gotten us."
Here we are with Obamacare.
"Catch up with the reality, Althouse. He is the architect of Obamacare."
Yeah, my point is he's not an in-front-of-the-camera type guy.
There are probably more "geniuses" behind the scenes, guys even less camera-ready.
He would be good on "Saturday Night Live!" as is; no script or direction necessary.
He's just saying that you have to lose your coverage so what's the big deal.
Somebody should shout, "You lie!" everywhere these people go.
Joe Wilson was more right than we knew.
I prefer Emmanuel's style over the pap. Just come out and say it- they screwed us, by design. They pulled off the biggest bait and switch con job in history. It was a big f'in deal.
At least be honest about it now. Half the country already knew this, and a lot of the rest are having the scales fall from their eyes.
Hey! Obamacare decreased my family' spremiums by 10K a year! By...making insurance unaffordable. So for the last year we've paid 0$ and just paid cash for all medical treatment.
The funny thing is, the exchange plans have even HIGHER deductibles and premiums than the plan we dropped b/c it got too expensive after the first changes went into effect....
Kelly,
I'm lucky I'm near the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center, the only Federal Health Care Center in the world. They see veterans, military, and civilian dependents. I've been quite satisfied with the quality of care there, and I don't have a "civilian" doctor. My husband and son see the same family practice doctor close by. My husband is retired military and he got a letter about VA care too. But that wouldn't cover our son. That flyer to give to other people about Obamacare was circular filed immediately...
I prefer Emmanuel's style over the pap. Just come out and say it- they screwed us, by design. They pulled off the biggest bait and switch con job in history. It was a big f'in deal.
I think this will be the emergent style coming from the left. They've been conditioned by the voters to believe they can get away with pretty much anything so long as they don't act like they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
Good point about these "better" plans having higher deductibles. How are these "better?" They cover less, offer fewer doctors, and cost more. That's called "worse."
This guy is the primary author of Obamacare. History will not be kind.
Ann's bullshit comment should be aimed at Zeke.
Kimish, You're very lucky. The VA hospital my husband uses is so old and decrepit that it's been closed several times because of infections. I told my husband that he will never have surgery in that place no matter what. You can just look at the it and know it's crawling with MRSA and who knows what else. But yay for free healthcare!
This guy is the primary author of Obamacare. History will not be kind.
Ann's bullshit comment should be aimed at Zeke.
This guy is the primary author of Obamacare. History will not be kind.
Ann's bullshit comment should be aimed at Zeke.
This guy is the primary author of Obamacare. History will not be kind.
Ann's bullshit comment should be aimed at Zeke.
This guy is the primary author of Obamacare. History will not be kind.
Ann's bullshit comment should be aimed at Zeke.
This guy is the primary author of Obamacare. History will not be kind.
Ann's bullshit comment should be aimed at Zeke.
tim in vermont said...
The other thing is that it is "only 5% of Americans" who are having their policy cancelled.
Someone should point out to them at 5% of the US population of 317 million comes to 15.85 million people who're having their policies cancelled as a result of Obamacare.
why didn't capretta point out that one group of people shut down the government to try to prevent this?
Also, Dr. Emmanuel's debate style is apparently a family trait. If it wasn't for the glasses, I am not sure I could tell he and Rahm apart.
Finally, As a number of us have been saying for years (before it was a law in fact) this legislation does nothing about health CARE. All it does is takeover a large piece of private industry for the government, increase the chances for graft and corruption, and increase the chances for fraud.
SquatchPride69 @AceofSpadesHQ 27m
is anyone in the media going to actually CHECK if these new policies are actually "better," or will they just keep parroting Obama's lines?
According to Wikipedia, he is a supporter of a health care system overhaul that moves away from employer-based and Medicare/Medicaid models and is opposed to a both requiring individuals to purchase health insurance or a single payer system. He became a shill for Obamacare some time later.
kansas city said:
"He is smart and willing at least partially to engage in honest debate"
I don't doubt that he is smart, but the part about honest debate is laughable. Especially when he tried to lay the blame for cancelled policies at the feet of the insurance companies. He acted like insurance policies were defined through subjective, arbitrary criteria: :"If the insurance companies decide....". This totally ignores the actuaries that use a scientific basis for determining risk. But then, Americans don't view health insurance as a transfer of risk, like other forms of insurance.
Lem said:
"The ObamaCare "five percent" is the new "one percent".
"Since when do you destroy people and it doesn’t count because it’s too small a percentage?” asks Jackie Mason"
Now who else in history said that a small number was a tragedy but a large number (millions) is just a statistic?
Dr. Emanuel's logic is baffling: he argues that if an individual's policy didn't cover something, then the cost would be shifted to all, which is bad. At the same time, he argues that Obamacare is important because it shares the cost among all the insured.
Huh?
Ezekiel is more like most of my liberal friends than not. Aggressive, smart, unyielding. I much prefer his bluntness to the bullshit artist he is trying to protect. Remember, he is not a politician and so is less oily than we have come to expect. I also note that he was not particularly snarky like most dumb liberals. He has an intellectual case and he is trying his best to make it.
The plan is a clusterfuck, of course, no matter what Ezekiel says.
C Stanley said...
I prefer Emmanuel's style over the pap. Just come out and say it- they screwed us, by design.
There will be one significant benefit moving forward. Democrats have always lied about both their plans and the likely effects and costs. But it was hard to call them lies because they dealt with future events, so most people just accepted the leftist cant.
"If you like your plan you can keep it" just became a political slogan which will resonate even with the apolitical. When Elizabeth Warren tells Americans her government fairy wand can deliver healthcare, government jobs and pensions, and unicorns for all there that slogan will remind people voters are the adults, and that desiring to be a child and hide from the tough decisions doesn't actually reult in unicorns.
Holy on-camera meltdown, Batman!
Two points:
(1) Was anyone else taken aback by Emanuel suggesting that Ms. Tadder might need maternity & pediatric coverage if her 24-year-old son gets someone pregnant? I don't see that. Yes, her son could be on her insurance until he turns 26. But I doubt very much that that would extend to his significant other, or even to his wife.
(2) In the same statement, Emanuel said basically, well, if she can't get pregnant any more, something else expensive will probably happen to her instead. That doesn't explain, at all, why someone who can't get pregnant has to carry maternity coverage. Between men, post-menopausal women, and sterilized women, that's an awful lot of people forced to carry insurance against an event that literally can't happen to them. We take out insurance against unexpected and costly expenses, not flat-out impossible ones. I might as well have to carry insurance on my wholly nonexistent luxury yacht as insurance against childbirth expenses.
Of course, what this means, actuarially speaking, is that fertile women ought to have more expensive insurance -- kind of like the way young male drivers pay more for car insurance than middle-aged female drivers do, ceteris paribus. So?
MDT:
Big LIKE on your comment.
I am beyond needing chemical birth control, maternity care, or newborn care and yet I'd have to take coverage for those. From what I've been hearing, people on MEDICARE are required to have coverage for maternity and birth control as well. At least that's what it sounds like when 68-year-olds and above are complaining about that coverage.
Catch up with the reality, Althouse. He is the architect of Obamacare.
Is he a dancer too?
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
"Of course, what this means, actuarially speaking, is that fertile women ought to have more expensive insurance"
So why does the ACA exempt women under 30? That is, if you are a woman under age 30, you can buy a plan that does not include maternity care. Also, since the law depends on young people enrolling, why does it allow "children" top stay on their parents' plan until age 26? Good giref, my grandfather was fighting in France at age 20, by 23 had a farm of his own and a child, and by 26 had increased the acreage of his farm and had 3 kids. Now look at what has become of this country. This is "progress"?
> Did your plan cover pre-existing conditions? (Whose did?)
Pretty much everyone's did.
One part of HIPPA (Passed in 1996) concerned pre-existing conditions.
Basically, if you had coverage, you couldn't be turned down when you switched plans (regardless of why you're switching). If you were switching from no policy (aka a "coverage gap") there could be a waiting period.
Yes, this works when you're going from employer-sponsored to individual, individual to employer-sponsored, employer-sponsored to employer-sponsored, or individual to individual.
If someone has a serious pre-existing condition, why are they letting coverage lapse?
If you're going to rant about pre-existing conditions, shouldn't you know the pre-ACA law?
...resubmit healthcare reform to Congress — which I believe is the only morally correct response...
No. Get Congress out of Health Care Reform ... unless by Heath Care Reform you mean the repeal of any and all laws passed by US Congress attempting to regulate Health Care.
And by Repeal, I mean all of the laws. Every single one of them. Including the laws passed to create the Dept of HHS.
Repeal them until there are no more laws and regulations. And then where the regulations and laws are all gone, turn off the lights and leave town, and go back to the States, where regulations belong.
There is no national health care reform. It could have been Medicare, but that is premised on economic development, which is local or regional. It could have been charitable, but that requires voluntary compliance, which would exclude government and affiliated organizations. Unfortunately, people voted for instant or immediate gratification, which will serve to preserve and exacerbate the status quo.
Anyway, dismember it, vacuum it, flush it. I can neither understand nor appreciate the emotional attachment that some people have formed with this clump of policies and regulations.
ThinkProgress is now on the case, elaborating on Dr. Emanuel's narrative in a most un-panicked fashion.
And the answer is still the same: "Hey, don't blame us when insurance companies act rationally in response to Obamacare. What do you expect of evil capitalists?"
(And @Freeman Hunt, of course, there's no mention whatsoever of the fact so many ACA plans are substandard when compared to the now-canceled plans).
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/04/2881581/wall-street-journal-horror-story-cancer-patient-losing-doctors-wrong/
When people start migrating into catastrophic policies and paying the "noncompliance with essential benefits" tax -- accelerating the death spiral of adverse selection and destroying the individual market -- Dr. Emanuel will say, "hey, it's not our fault that rational people act to advance their own economic interests. Obamacare played out exactly as forecast."
RecChief,
So why does the ACA exempt women under 30? That is, if you are a woman under age 30, you can buy a plan that does not include maternity care.
Do you have a link for this? I haven't been able to find it. The closest I could find was a provision according to which people under 30 can purchase catastrophic (i.e., not-PPACA-compliant) insurance if they make too much for Medicaid, but still can't afford anything on the exchanges.
If there is a specific exception to the maternity-coverage requirement for women under 30, that's beyond daft. Making the large majority of the population that can't get pregnant pay for maternity coverage, while specifically exempting the small slice of the population most likely to get pregnant, sounds too insane even for this law.
Of course, in the highly-educated-professional atmosphere in which the law was written, it may well be taken for granted that nowadays babies are something you get around to in your 30s, after you've taken care of the important stuff, like professional degrees. (My mom had me when she was 23 and in grad school, but that's not so common now.)
Andy Freeman is right: HIPAA does just what he says.
Of course, you run into trouble if you were uninsured prior to HIPAA due to a pre-existing condition, or if you were unemployed long enough to be unable to pay your premiums for a substantial time. "Gap" insurance is not cheap, as we found this summer when my husband switched school districts and there was a one-month gap between the old insurance cutting off and the new starting up; one month of COBRA sets you back quite a bit. Not that we used it, any more than we used the previous year's insurance at the old district.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
Of course, what this means, actuarially speaking, is that fertile women ought to have more expensive insurance -- kind of like the way young male drivers pay more for car insurance than middle-aged female drivers do, ceteris paribus. So?
Also, women tend to live longer than men so they pay lower life insurance premiums. However, it's illegal to charge women more for health insurace despite the fact they consume far more health care over their lives than men. Why? FAIRNESS!! It only works one way, don't you know.
The question no one asked Zeke (no one ever has asked any administration flak so far as I can tell) is, what happens next year, when the employer mandate kicks back in, and and all THOSE policies start getting cancelled? Because they aren't exempt, or grandfathered, and they have the same infirmities of coverage for their group populations. The cancellees will go up from 15 million to about 93 million (the administration's own estimate, remember?) and how are they going to pass that one off, right before the elections?
Yeah, he came off as rude and arrogant. "We know what's best for you!"
The most informative part of the show was that of the people on the exchanges, most signed up for Medicaid. Free. He Ezekial had to admit the system would fail if they didn't have enought private insurerers. Of course, those insurers will come when corporations in 2014 start dumping their employees when they are unable to mee Obama's standard of coverage. Corps got a reprieve this year.
Larry J,
Also, women tend to live longer than men so they pay lower life insurance premiums. However, it's illegal to charge women more for health insurace despite the fact they consume far more health care over their lives than men.
And it's not just that female life expectancy at, say, 65 is years longer than male, but that disproportionally more men die of things that often don't involve much in the way of medical expense at all -- e.g., murder, suicide, industrial and workplace accidents, enemy action in wartime, reckless driving, dangerous sports, &c. That is, they are much more likely than women to die, suddenly, at a youngish age, too quickly to rack up a ginormous hospital bill.
To me it seems obvious that women ought to pay more then men at comparable age and state of health for health insurance. Especially women of childbearing age, but not only them.
CatherineM,
Yes, the Medicaid thing will be bad news. Not quite as bad as it would've been if half the states hadn't turned down the Medicaid expansion, but bad. People who were actually paying into the system on the individual market are now being switched to Medicaid. They were paying the insurers; now we're picking up the bill, gratis.
In fairness to Oregon, though, the reason it has only enrolled people on Medicaid is that the state private exchange wasn't ready for prime time when it was supposed to go live, and unlike the Federal government, the OR government had the sense to delay the launch until it was working properly.
"Since when do you destroy people and it doesn't count because it’s too small a percentage?” asks Jackie Mason
In answer to a later poster, it was Joseph Stalin who said "One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."
I'll plagiarize Whittaker Chambers in that when one hears Emmanuel talk about the ungrateful, healthy youths who will elect penalties over policies, " To the gas chambers — go!"
The question no one asked Zeke (no one ever has asked any administration flak so far as I can tell) is, what happens next year, when the employer mandate kicks back in, and and all THOSE policies start getting cancelled?
Another elephant in the room is what happens to the economy and discretionary spending when all this extra money taken from people's pockets is funneled into shoring up healthcare instead of helping to revive the economy. Rahm Emanuel was right before he changed his mind--Obama should have focused on the economy first before ObamaCare. Too late now. He needed to get his revenge.
I saw a story today that David's Bridal is going to all part time workers.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
The Obama people probably think the health insurance company defense will work, and may have planned it all along. However, if it was the plan, then Obama would have spinkled in some insurance company comments early on that he could point back to. I don't think it will work now, because it is a simple proposition and so clear that Obama was misleading at the time. He also no longer has virtually complete protection from the media. I think he counted on the media protection (once again) in deciding he should lie to sell his program.
The closest I could find was a provision according to which people under 30 can purchase catastrophic (i.e., not-PPACA-compliant) insurance if they make too much for Medicaid, but still can't afford anything on the exchanges.
The "catastrophic" plans actually are Obamacare-compliant in the sense that the law allows for them. (I put "catastrophic" in quotes because if you look at them, they still are larded up and generally cost more.). They have a deductible equal to the out-of-pocket maximum, so everything after you hit the deductible is covered, but you pay full cost for most things until then.
Maternity and prenatal care are not excepted: you pay full retail price for these things until you hit the deductible, which means you'll likely be paying fully out of pocket if you have an uncomplicated pregnancy. These "catastrophic" plans do not cover maternity and prenatal until you hit the out of pocket maximum, so yes: 28-year-old women are not required to carry maternity coverage, but 60-year-old women are.
You can verify this by going to one of the functioning state exchanges and entering, say, an age of 28. You'll see a "Catastrophic" category in addition to Bronze, Silver, etc. I looked at Oregon's exchange.
Ezekiel Emanuel always gives off that Dr. Strangelove kiloton/megadeath vibe, like he spends all of his time thinking about the unthinkable, and wouldn't mind a minor apocalypse or two, just for practice.
Speculation: Obama likes aides who are arrogant, self confident, fast talkers (and male). Those kind of people are more interesting in short conversations, and tend to take over poorly structured discussions.
In this video, the slow talking, careful guy utterly takes Emanuel apart. But he only does that when the host makes Emanuel stop talking long enough for him to get a word in edgewise.
Emanuel belabors love thy neighbors
Does it work for thee or against thee?
The mute point (h/t Titus) begs bespoken.
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