Fact Checking False And Misleading Democratic Assertions About Obamacare

Obama Care is back, front and center, in electoral politics. The Obama campaign uses hyperbole to warn of medical disasters of untold proportions if Republicans win.
Among the deliberate distortions of the Obama campaign are:

Obama’s media collaborators warn that a Romney victory would make shameful America the only “rich nation in the world (that) fails to provide comprehensive health care that is free or inexpensive to its entire population.” Without Obama Care “roughly 50 million Americans, 16 percent of the population, have no health insurance at all; most of them are relatively poor ….” A Republican repeal will cause “45,000 deaths per year and limit (or) ability to enjoy a full life for fear of accident or serious disease.” (What drama!)
Obama, in a prime time interview stresses that he will ”make sure that the 30 million people who don’t have health insurance can get it.” (His advisors corrected the statement to say that Obama meant 36 million U.S. citizens without health insurance, after excluding non-citizens).
Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services  somehow manages to estimate that half the American population has preexisting conditions that threaten their access to health insurance. But do not worry: “Under the Affordable Care Act, these Americans cannot be denied coverage, be charged significantly higher premiums, be subjected to an extended waiting period, or have their benefits curtailed by insurance companies.”



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News Trivia: Putin Finds a New Demographic: Gay Men

Vladimir Putin’s PR experts use photos of him bare-chested, horseback riding, judo fighting, assault rifle shooting, and  other macho activities to appeal to his demographic – women aged 40 and above.

Newspapers and other information sources claim that photos of the physically fit Putin have been circulating like wildfire through gay chat-rooms on the Internet.  On one such site there is an item entitled “Russian dictator seeks love,” in which Putin is referred to as "Pootie-Poot.”

I imagine that Putin’s growing following among this demographic group is another one of those unintended consequences of Russian political PR. 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/russian-bare-armed-half-naked-putin-excites-gays-gun-owners-a-503248.html

http://www.queerty.com/putin-looks-for-gay-love-20070816/

Obama Care’s Commissar’s Conceit

As a writer on  Soviet planning, I am struck by its parallels with Obama Care.  Both believe their planning is “scientific” and executed by “the best of the best,” who know what is best for ordinary people. Both types of planning commissars suffer Hayek’s “fatal conceit” – the belief that they can plan incredibly complex economic systems. Their “scientific” plans, however, fall apart under the weight of unintended consequences as ordinary people circumvent their genial rules and instructions.

The New York Times’ Mr. Health Care Mandate features economics professor cum scientific planner, Jonathan Gruber. After the Supremes’ brutal questioning, the Times probably felt that Obama Care needed a boost from Gruber, who, by his own admission, “knows more about this law than any other economist.” It was to Professor Gruber that the White House turned to design its new health care law.

The Times reassuringly describes Gruber as “the numbers wizard at MIT,” who has “spent decades modeling the intricacies of the health care ecosystem.”  Gruber has “brought a level of science to an issue that would otherwise be just opinion.” The Soviets reserved such praise for their planning commission, Gosplan. I draw little comfort from Professor Gruber’s scientific-planning credentials, especially when I learn “he’s the only person you can go to for that kind of thing.”  Gruber, aided by his MIT graduate student assistants, is a one-man Gosplan. Science is better served by competing ideas not by monopoly.

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