Obamacare, the Scrooging

People signing up for Obamacare are being robbed by the government. This time it’s not metaphorically, like when your perfectly satisfactory insurance plan is made illegal and all the compliant plans are more expensive and have worse terms but literally. People are having their accounts debited improperly during the Christmas season. And because it is being done by the government, there is little recourse to sue due to sovereign immunity and, of course, those most injured haven’t the money to hire representation anyway. I think Pope Francis calls it ‘despoliation of the poor’.

Double debits, wrong day debits, wrong amount debits, these are all standard hazards with any sort of Electronic Funds Transfer (ETF) system. There’s nothing particularly new about these issues. It’s all part of the back end errors that those dastardly Republicans have been hyperventilating about and Democrats have been pooh poohing for weeks now.

You never know when Tuttle will turn into Buttle in one of these systems. But what’s in a name?

Merry Christmas

Cross posted: Flit-TM

20 thoughts on “Obamacare, the Scrooging”

  1. There is no end of talking about what is stupid and wrong about Obamacare: the impossibility of writing a multi-thousand page law that begets multi-million lines of regulation that must be correct from implementation day; the impossibility of modeling the regulations in computer code which must work on the first day; the impossibility of requiring every (once-free) American—every curmudgeon, every coke head, every deinstitutionalized insane bum– to sign up via a website, telephone, or paper form; the impossibility (I hope) of building a single database of medical knowledge and rules for 320 million people;….

    and lastly, the deep and sick immorality of the people who not only think this is a good idea, but actually did it.

    They wished for it; they willed it; they voted for it; they celebrated it. They got what they wanted. Now they will get what they deserve.

    I do not want to see them re-elected. I do not want to see them retire. I do not want to see them resign. I do not want to see them sued. I do not want to see them exiled. I do not want to see them imprisoned. I want to see their heads picked up out of baskets.

  2. ErisGuy,

    That is the stuff of my nightmares.

    I am not looking for a Cadillo on a white horse to lead a counter-revolution.

  3. Trent: mine, too. I think it is important, though, not to be taken by surprise should that calamity come to pass.

  4. Repeat after me: It is all for the Greater Good in the Long Term.

    That’s what they were told after the Bolshevik Revolution and after Mao’s Long March and so many others we’ve all lost count. And in each incarnation it’s going to be different this time, but it always seems to end the same way.

    Now playing in an America near you.

  5. You are all forgetting –

    He looks real kewl in that bomber jacket, and He is totally hip, so….

    … that’s all that really matters.

  6. The Founding Fathers started a rebellion and an eight-year war over a tax. Say, Obamacare’s a tax, isn’t it? What would the Founding Fathers do? Vote, write pamphlets, make speeches, live well, sleep well. Oh, yeah, one more thing: war. War until victory.

    Do nothing [effective] and nothing will be done. The opposition to the New Deal failed. The opposition to the New Frontier failed. The opposition to Jimmy Carter failed. (He didn’t have cute name for his polices like FDR & Kennedy.) The opposition to the New Beginning failed (Clinton, if you’ve forgotten; the “new” meme was tired by then). The opposition to Obamacare failed (the Tea Party).

    Peace leads to the EUSSA.

    “I am not looking for a Cadillo on a white horse to lead a counter-revolution.”

    Perhaps he will walk among the people, in no need of secret services, closed roads, motorcades, and fighter escorts—all the tools the tyrants (and “presidents”) use to protect themselves from their subjects.

    If the internal enemies of America accept their fate, no revolution or war will be necessary. It is within their power to guarantee peace by surrendering to let justice be done upon them.

    Their lives were forfeit the moment they called for the abolition of the Constitution whose lawful restraints they ignored.

    But they need not die: confiscation of all wealth, lifetime house arrest, lifetime deprivation of all rights, and lifetime of shame. I can be more merciful than the French were to their overthrown socialist rulers in 1944-45, though ours are equally deserving.

  7. ErisGuy,

    Starting a Spanish Civil War in America, as opposed to a “War Between the States” is what is on the table.

    It did not turn out well for Spain after the Cadillo died.

  8. Obamacare is working as designed, it’s destroying the healthcare and finances of those within it’s grasp.

    When you look at how Communism was actually implemented it’s quite similar, they just didn’t walk in and announce all’s in common. They destroyed private wealth and the value of money piecemeal. It took usually the better part of a decade to get to the Soviet system.

    We are watching how they did it happen here.

    Now for God’s sake, for America’s sake, for our posterity’s sake DO NOT look again to the Republicans.

    As there is no party to vote for, and no Coalition of Superheroes could fire the actual Bureaucracy without recourse to traditional methods face that No Election Saves Us.

    The fact is our government and our ruling elites are bent on doing us all the harm they can and to profit from the harm.

    No system of government can overcome such malice.

  9. “the criminalization of political differences is precisely what we don’t want.”

    It’s what we have.

    And it’s not about “what we want.”

  10. ErisGuy – If we’re going to bring back the guillotine, be very aware that you are likely going to be one of its victims. We are not France. Our situation is much more dangerous.

    VXXC – If you think that we’re going piecemeal to the Soviet system, the most revolutionary thing that you can do right now, today, is to fix your county’s property registration system. Tear the scab off and lance the wound, make sure that it’s honest. You can’t depend on it being honest right now and the opposition you will get will be very frustrated because they can’t be open about what they are doing. Boil the frog.

  11. Trent Telenko Says:
    December 15th, 2013 at 2:43 pm

    and

    VXXC Says:
    December 15th, 2013 at 6:05 pm

    The decision as to whether such happens is not totally in our hands. I reference José Calvo Sotelo at the beginning of that conflict. Given the rule of law does not hold for the Left in this country; a Calvo Sotelo moment could happen at any time.

    Subotai Bahadur

  12. Since the topic is Obamacare, this Preview of single payer.

    Three damning reports last night laid bare the crisis in NHS hospitals, maternity units and GP surgeries.

    One investigation revealed that a quarter of new mothers were abandoned by their midwives during labour, with some left to give birth on the floor or in corridors.

    The second found that mistakes deemed so serious they should never happen are being made in hospitals five times a week.

    And the third survey said thousands of patients have all but given up trying to secure appointments with their family doctor.

    The reports come only a day after the NHS watchdog detailed a catalogue of failings at GP surgeries, including consulting rooms infested with maggots and patients being given dangerous, out-of-date drugs.

    Welcome to government medicine.

  13. Subotai, VXXC,

    Yes to both of you–but I maintain that a pushback against that criminalization, rather than joining in with the left in their assaults against civility, is (part of) what we need to survive in the long run.

    What, you think it would have been better, in the long run, if Idi Amin were brought up on charges instead of living out his live in Saudi Arabia? You think it would have been better if someone (Spain perhaps, or the ICC) had been able to haul Pinochet before their docket? Maybe, just perhaps maybe, but then the lesson would be well learned by every leader in a precarious situation and none of them would be willing to depart quietly.

  14. For those who missed Subotai Bahadur reference, see this passage from Wikipedia on José Calvo Sotelo —

    José Calvo Sotelo, 1st Duke of Calvo Sotelo (6 May 1893 – 13 July 1936) was a Spanish politician prior to and during the Second Spanish Republic. His murder by a unit of the urban police force known as the Assault Guard and several socialist (PSOE/UGT) activists (including the bodyguard of Indalecio Prieto), just the day after a harsh confrontation in Parliament with Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and Communist Party of Spain (PCE) ministers of the Popular Front, aroused strong suspicions of a government involvement in the crime and contributed greatly to precipitate the Spanish Civil War, which was being prepared since February, the month of the electoral triumph of the Popular Front.
    Biography

    Calvo Sotelo was born in Tui, Galicia.

    An economist and jurist, he was secretary of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Ateneo Mercantil de Madrid and a university professor of the Universidad Central. He was a member of Antonio Maura Montaner’s Conservative Party. He first served as an administrative officer in the Ministry of Grace and Justice. In 1919, he was chosen as a deputy to the Cortes for the district of O Carballiño, in Ourense, and in 1922 he was made civil governor of Valencia.

    When Miguel Primo de Rivera became dictator of Spain in 1924 he appointed Calvo Sotelo as finance minister in 1925. As such he performed a successful redressment of the Spanish economy and industry.

    Calvo Sotelo was later forced into exile when the Republic was proclaimed (1931), but returned to Spain when he was amnestied in May 1934, becoming then a deputy for Renovación Española. He soon became one of the most important right-wing political figures in the country. Calvo Sotelo unsuccessfully attempted to gain control of the Falange Española from José Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1935. Calvo Sotelo was harshly critical of the Republican government after the electoral victory of the leftist Popular Front in February 1936. He was the Leader of the Opposition at the time of his assassination.

    In the first hours of the next day, 13 July 1936, members of the Assault Guards, Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas, PSOE, Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) and the captain of Civil Guard Fernando Condés, went to Calvo Sotelo’s house, took him in front of his wife and children, showing a fake arrest warrant, and later killed him with gun shots in a police truck. His body was later dropped at the entrance of one of the city’s cemeteries. According to all later investigations, the perpetrator of the murder was a socialist gunman, Luis Cuenca, who was known as bodyguard of PSOE leader Indalecio Prieto.

    In the days following, the Spanish Government undertook a routine investigation that never reached any conclusion. This only accelerated the preparations for a military revolt that was being developed since the electoral triumph of the Popular Front in the month of February. These preparations led to the uprising of the Army of Africa in Melilla on 17 July 1936 that, under the assumed command of Generals Emilio Mola, Francisco Franco, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano and José Sanjurjo, marked the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

    References
    Bibliography

    Alfonso Bullón de Mendoza y Gómez de Valugera. José Calvo Sotelo. Barcelona, Ariel, 2004. ISBN 84-344-6718-6
    Luis Romero – Por qué y cómo mataron a Calvo Sotelo. Planeta. Barcelona. 1982. ISBN 84-320-5678-2
    Ian Gibson. La noche en que mataron a Calvo Sotelo. Plaza & Janés. Barcelona. 1986 ISBN 84-01-45061-6
    Paul Preston. Franco, Caudillo de España. Mondadori. 1994. ISBN 84-397-0241-8

  15. Refusing to fight for one’s freedom because it might be dangerous or it might not work out is not an argument I find compelling.

    I wonder if the Founding Fathers considered that argument? That they might be hanged for treason?

    I think tyrants and their supports should be punished, expelled, or executed as appropriate. I do not think wait and see, or hope and pray, or attentisme is a survivable strategy. If the USA falls to socialism no one will come help us, for there is no one else. I am not calling the police for law enforcement. I am not asking politely for the rights of Englishman or Americans. I am calling for rebellion and war to secure those rights.

    “the criminalization of political differences is precisely what we don’t want.”

    There is a baker in Denver and photographer in Albuquerque who agree. Too late.

    I think Obama should obey the Constitution and not rule by decree. He doesn’t and has. I want him punished. (I’d prefer impeachment and imprisonment, but that doesn’t seem possible.) Silly me. What was I thinking?

    Calling the difference between Stalin and Jefferson a political difference that you don’t wish to criminalize rather understates the difference and the consequences of failure, don’t you think?

    If you think you can still work within the system have at. Where do I donate? I have a spare fiver.

    “if Idi Amin were brought up on charges instead of living out his live in Saudi Arabia? “

    Yes. Saudi Arabia should have returned Amin to Uganda for justice. If the Saudis as guardians of Islam (and Amin was moslem), choose to try him in a religious court, then that, too, is their business.

    “if someone (Spain perhaps, or the ICC) had been able to haul Pinochet before their docket?”

    No, that’s up to the people of Chile. While EUropeans habitually announce they are the judges of all the Earth, I don’t agree with their delusions.

    —–

    OTOH, I suppose you and age and the zeigeist have convinced me. I will talk and vote just as I have for decades against the policies of the Democrat/Communist party, and all that talk and all that voting will continue to be ineffective.

    We are still relatively free. I will live happily and hope it all works out right. If people in future want to be free, let them fight for their own freedom. Not my responsibility. And if they curse my generation for indifference and ineffectuality–the dead won’t be listening.

    —–

    I will post no more on this topic.
    I have written too much already.
    Thanks for the opportunity and interlocution.

  16. ErisGuy,

    There may come a time for open fighting. It is not here…yet.

    Talking about it before it is time, before a “José Calvo Sotelo event” is counterproductive.

    Talking about it after a “José Calvo Sotelo event” is _countersurvival_.

    After a “José Calvo Sotelo event” will be the time of quiet conspiracy followed by actions…only some of which will be public.

  17. Trent–indeed:

    Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies…

    –Some famous guy, I forget exactly who…

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