Obamacare is one of the biggest examples of false advertising in history. In 2010, Democrats passed the “Affordable Care Act.” But on July 17, 2024, CBS News reported, “Americans spend more on health care than any other nation. Yet almost half can’t afford care.”

By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)

September 2, 2024

Obamacare is one of the biggest examples of false advertising in history.

According to this article from wikipedia, the original, official name of Obamacare was “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” and it was later changed to “Affordable Care Act.”

Please note the use of the word “affordable” in both versions of the official name.

That was how Democrats advertised Obamacare to the voters: “affordable” health care.

However, on July 17, 2024, CBS News published this article, which revealed the actual truth about Obamacare. The article is called, “Americans spend more on health care than any other nation. Yet almost half can’t afford care.”

This proves that Democrats are guilty of false advertising.

They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Democrats had originally promised to air Obamacare negotiations on C-SPAN, but Democrats broke their promise.

The secrecy of these negotiations was so strong that Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

Here’s video of Pelosi saying those words:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-05TLiiLU

Obamacare is so horrible that I was able to write this blog post, which I titled, “Here are 341 reasons why Democrats and unions that support Obamacare want exemptions for themselves.”

Here are the first five examples that I cited in that blog post. You can click on this link to read the entire list:

https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/obamacare-59/

1) After Obamcare was passed, unions that supported its passage requested and received special exemptions

Within months after Obamacare was passed, Obama gave some organizations an exemption from some of the requirements of Obamacare. As time went on, more than 1,300 organizations received these exemptions.

More than half of the people who are covered by insurance plans that received these exemptions are in union insurance plans. These unions supported the passage of Obamacare. But immediately after Obamacare was passed, these unions wanted exemptions from the very same law that they wanted to force everyone else to obey. This reveals an extreme level of hypocrisy among many of the supporters of Obamacare.

In addition, these exemptions are illegal for two reasons – because Obama granted the exemptions without approval from Congress, and because the Constitution requires the law to treat everyone the same.

The Washington Times wrote of this:

“Selective enforcement of the law is the first sign of tyranny. A government empowered to determine arbitrarily who may operate outside the rule of law invariably embraces favoritism as friends, allies and those with the best-funded lobbyists are rewarded. Favoritism inevitably leads to corruption, and corruption invites extortion. Ultimately, the rule of law ceases to exist in any recognizable form, and what is left is tyranny.”

“The now-familiar monthly trickling down of new waivers is, at best, a tacit admission that Obamacare is a failure. So far, seven entire states and 1,372 businesses, unions and other institutions have received waivers from the law. The list includes the administration’s friends and allies and, of course, those who have the best lobbyists.”

“More than 50 percent of the Obamacare waiver beneficiaries are union members, which is striking because union members account for less than 12 percent of the American work force. The same unions that provided more than $120 million to Democrats in the last two elections and, in many cases, openly campaigned in favor of the government takeover of your health care, now celebrate that Obamacare is not their problem.”

2) After Obamacare was passed, politicians who voted for it asked for a special exemption for their own districts

Even the politicians who voted for Obamacare want exemptions for their own districts.

In response to the medical device tax that is part of Obamacare, some medical device manufacturers have announced plans to layoff employees, including Welch Allyn (275 planned layoffs), Stryker (1,170 planned layoffs), and Medtronic (1,000 planned layoffs).

In December 2012, Al Franken, Elizabeth Warren, John Kerry, and 15 other Democrats who supported the passage of Obamacare wrote a letter to Harry Reid, asking him to delay the tax on medical devices, claiming that the tax would hurt job creation in their districts.

3 ) Politicians who voted for Obamacare wanted an additional exemption for themselves and their staff after it was passed

This is another example of how the politicians who voted for Obamacare want exemptions for themselves.

In 2010, Obamacare was passed by the House and Senate, and signed by President Obama.

Three years later, members of Congress and their staff complained that Obamacare was going to cost them a lot of money, and said that this would likely cause a brain drain among their staff. In response to this, Obama made changes to Obamacare so that these things would not happen. However, Obama’s actions were illegal, because he made these changes without Congress voting on them first.

The New York Times wrote of this:

… the language of the health care law requires Congressional employees to obtain health insurance through an exchange created by the law, but other parts of the federal legal code restrict the ability of the federal government to pay the usual employer share for group insurance programs approved by the Office of Personnel Management.

A straightforward reading of the law thus means that Congressional staff members, starting in January 2014, will have to obtain insurance through the Affordable Care Act but pay for it on their own without the normal contribution from their employer — Congress. This would be a multi-thousand-dollar income hit for those affected… many… would potentially feel the pain, giving rise to concerns over a potential brain drain of Congressional staff members finding other employment.

… the federal personnel office initially ruled that Congressional staff members would not be eligible for the subsidies, and then changed this decision under pressure from the White House…

4) An entire state that supported Obamacare asked for an exemption

The people of Massachusetts were huge supporters of Obamacare when it was passed, and they voted for Obama in both elections. But even they eventually ended up asking for their own special exemption from Obamacare.

In August 2013, Obama gave an Obamacare waiver to Massachusetts.

This waiver was illegal for two reasons. First, the waiver was not approved by the U.S. Congress. Second, the U.S. Constitution requires that the federal government treat all states the same.

5) Obamacare supporters at Democratic Underground later complained about it

For some really hilarious displays of shock and outrage by supporters of Obamacare at how it’s harming people, check out these threads at Democratic Underground: one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act

Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and colloquially as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/health-care-almost-half-of-americans-struggle-to-afford-medical-care/

Americans spend more on health care than any other nation. Yet almost half can’t afford care.

By Aimee Picchi

July 17, 2024

Americans spend more money on health care on a per capita basis than people in any other developed nation, yet almost half say they’ve struggled recently to pay for medical treatment or prescription drugs, according to a new study from Gallup and West Health.

About 45% of those polled by the organizations said they’d recently had to skip treatment or medicine either because of cost or lack of easy access. Of those, about 8% said they also wouldn’t have access to affordable care if they required it today, a group that Gallup and West Health termed “cost desperate.”

While 55% of Americans are “cost secure,” meaning they can afford care and medicine, that’s a decline from 61% who fell into that category in 2022, the study found.

More people are struggling with health care costs partly due to higher inflation as well as a long-term trend toward insurance plans with higher deductibles and less comprehensive coverage, Tim Lash, president of West Health, a nonprofit group focused promoting affordable medical care, told CBS MoneyWatch. About 94% of those surveyed believe they or Americans in general are paying too much for health care and not getting their money’s worth.

“We see individuals and families making decisions that no one should have to make, from, ‘Should I go on vacation or do I pay for health care and medication,’ or at the worst, ‘How do I ration my food to afford my prescriptions?'” Lash said. “As the wealthiest and most developed country, that’s not where we should be.”

Americans spend an average of $12,555 per person annually on health care, according to the Peterson-KFF Health Care Tracker. By comparison, typical health care spending across other developed nations is about $6,651, their analysis found.

“What we found as we string together the trend of data points is really quite concerning,” Lash said. “It’s that health care affordability has been getting worse — it shines a light on the number of families that can’t afford things like prescription drugs.”

Rising insurance costs

The average family insurance deductible in the U.S. stood at about $3,800 in 2022, up from $2,500 in 2013, according to KFF. The IRS considers insurance for families with deductibles of $3,200 or more to be high deductible plans.

Americans with health care insurance are also struggling to afford coverage, with some complaining that their insurers are putting up roadblocks to gaining access to care. On Monday, for example, demonstrators outside of UnitedHealthcare headquarters protested what they allege is the company’s practice of refusing to approve care through prior authorization denials or through claim denials.

“Health insurance coverage has expanded in America, but we are finding it is private health insurance corporations themselves that are often the largest barrier for people to receive the care they and their doctor agree they need,” Aija Nemer-Aanerud, campaign director with the People’s Action Institute, told CBS Minnesota.

A spokesperson for UnitedHealthcare told CBS Minnesota it had resolved the issues raised by protesters.

The Gallup-West Health study also found that bigger gaps in affordability for some demographics, with Black and Hispanic people more likely to face problems in paying for medical treatment or prescriptions. Older Americans between 50 to 64 — those who don’t yet qualify for Medicare, which kicks in at 65 — are also facing more challenges, the study found.

“For me, there is an opportunity in the data — this clearly demonstrate this is a pain point that isn’t acceptable,” Lash said. “I’m hopeful we can leverage theses types of results to engage in meaningful reform.”

September 2, 2024. Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Democrats, False advertising, fraud, Government waste, Health care, Obamacare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Barack Obama, Government waste, Health care. Leave a comment.

Under Obamacare, black women “have insurmountable challenges just getting health care in this country”

By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)

July 4, 2022

Under Obamacare, black women “have insurmountable challenges just getting health care in this country.”

And you don’t have to take my word for that.

NBC News just reported: (the bolding is mine)

Black women are underserved when it comes to birth control access. The Roe decision could make that worse.

Discrimination, stigma and systemic barriers in the health care system have already led to a gap in contraceptive access for Black women.

The Supreme Court’s ruling to gut nationwide rights to abortion last week has highlighted the importance of access to birth control, which already proves difficult for many women of color due to discrimination, stigma and systemic barriers in the health care system.

While the decision does not directly impact access to contraception, legal experts say that states and municipalities that are aiming to ban abortion at the point of conception may also challenge contraceptives like Plan B and intrauterine devices. Some state legislators have already taken steps to try to restrict birth control. In Tennessee, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, earlier this year called Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that ensured birth control access to individuals who were married, “constitutionally unsound.” (A spokesperson for Blackburn told The Washington Post in June that she “does not support banning birth control, nor did she call for a ban.”)

“The hardest burden is going to largely fall on Black women who already have insurmountable challenges just getting health care in this country,” Jennifer Driver, senior director of reproductive rights for the State Innovation Exchange, a national resource and strategy center, said about the impact of the decision. “And now it’s going to be even harder.”

So there you have it. NBC quoted a health care expert as saying that, “Black women who already have insurmountable challenges just getting health care in this country.”

Obamacare has been in effect since 2014.

What percentage of black women voted for Obama? Well, the Washington Post reported:

“… black women have been Obama’s most loyal supporters at the ballot box. They accounted for 60 percent of all black voters in 2008 and supported Obama to the tune of 96 percent. In 2012, 98 percent of black women under 30 voted for Obama, compared to 80 percent of young black men.”

So 96% of black women voted for Obama in his first election.

And 98% of black women under 30 voted for Obama in his second election.

Liberals refer to this as “diversity.”

But I don’t see any “diversity” there.

Instead, all I see is conformity.

Anyway, the fact that under Obamacare, black women “have insurmountable challenges just getting health care in this country,” is a direct result of the fact that elections have consequences.

The vast majority of black women voted for the President who gave them Obamacare.

So the fact that these same black women “have insurmountable challenges just getting health care in this country” is a direct result of their own voting choices.

July 4, 2022. Tags: abortion, Barack Obama, birth control, Health care, Obamacare, Racism, SCOTUS, Sexism. Abortion, Barack Obama, Health care, Racism, SCOTUS, Sexism. Leave a comment.

How Obamacare blew up the student loan crisis

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/how-obamacare-blew-up-the-student-loan-crisis

How Obamacare blew up the student loan crisis

July 2, 2019

Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to cancel student loan debt for 95% of debtors. Fellow 2020 hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to cancel all of it. What they and every other statist and socialist eager to default on trillions owed to taxpayers forget that President Barack Obama nationalizing student loans brought us to this catastrophe in the first place.

Lost in the kerfuffle and fuming of the Affordable Care Act’s passage in 2010 was the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, signed into law just seven days after Obamacare. Half of the act consisted of small and otherwise innocuous amendments to the ill-fated Affordable Care Act, but the other half, Title II, radically overhauled the country’s student loan industry, replacing federally backed bank loans with direct government lending.

The private student loan industry was already dysfunctional and never truly private. The largest private student loan lender, Sallie Mae, originated as a government-sponsored lender, and the government-subsidized market only emerged out of a small but much older federal student loan market. But Title II replaced a mess with a nightmare.

Universities took advantage of the new, easier loan requirements to raise tuition rates still further. From 1995 to 2012, the average tuition at a 4-year private college had risen by 30%. In the following four years alone, it spiked by another than 12%. Researchers at the New York Federal Reserve Bank famously found in 2015 that the pass-through effect of subsidized federal student loans on tuition raised rates by 60 cents for every dollar of loans spent. Although lefty politicians love to hate on fraudulent for-profit schools and blame them for the problem, only 9% of all college students in the country attend for-profit institutions. More to the point, nonprofits still act like for-profits anyway.

For decades, student loan debt had remained in the low hundreds of billions, but during Obama’s presidency, it exploded from $150 billion to more than $1 trillion, the overwhelming majority of which is owed to the government. As student loan debt continues to spiral upward, the federal government’s revenue streams for the programs are becoming more tenuous than ever. For instance, the Department of Education has found that income-driven repayment plans, which allow lower-income borrowers to dodge payments and receive complete debt forgiveness 25 years after the loan initiation, increased by 625% alone.

Now Sanders and Warren want to erase the whole thing with a magic wand and nationalize the colleges’ tuition-hiking scam.

On a moral level, canceling student debt more or less translates to defrauding taxpayers. On a practical level, it defeats whatever incentive structure we’ve attempted to build into the loan process. Whereas home loans are secured by houses as collateral, debtors can’t exactly take your brain away when you default. To send a message both to students and colleges that loans constitute free cash will then only exacerbate the tuition crisis we face.

The federal government set the stage for this problem, exacerbated it by subsidizing and regulating private student loans, and finally sent it into a trillion dollar tailspin by nationalizing the whole mess. If the past serves as any lesson, the government’s best bet is to get out of this imploding industry entirely and refocus on forcing colleges to get some skin in the game.

August 15, 2019. Tags: Barack Obama, Obama, Obamacare, Politics, student debt. Barack Obama. 2 comments.

Hypocrites who voted for Obama falsely blame Trump for the high cost of Obamacare

The Los Angeles Times recently published this article, which is called, “Rising health insurance deductibles fuel middle-class anger and resentment.”

The article cites numerous examples of middle class people who are having trouble paying their health care bills, despite the fact that they have the Obamacare mandated health insurance that became law in 2010.

The article states:

“Half of Democrats struggling with the costs of their job-based health coverage blame the Trump administration for the cost pressures.”

This belief is completely irrational. The health insurance that these Obama voters are complaining about is based on Obamacare, which was passed in 2010.

For these Obama voters to blame Trump for the high cost of Obamacare does not make any sense.

And for those of you who have never seen it, or haven’t seen it in a long time, I’d like to draw your attention to this previous blog post of mine, which is called, “Here are 341 reasons why Democrats and unions that support Obamacare want exemptions for themselves.”

Republicans and Libertarians have been consistently opposed to Obamacare – both before and after it was passed.

Democrats, on the other hand, loved Obamacare before it was passed. But now that it’s actually taking effect in the real world, many of them are now against it.

Perhaps these Democrats should have paid attention to the specifics of Obamacare before it was passed, instead of being blindly obedient to it.

July 20, 2019. Tags: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Health care, Obama, Obamacare, Politics. Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Health care. Leave a comment.

I just added items #1,367 through #1,375 to my list of Obama’s lies and lawbreaking

The complete list can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/

Here are the new entries:

1,367) Chicago community organizers accused Chicago community organizer Obama of not practicing what he preaches

Before Obama ran for political office, he was a community organizer in Chicago.

Later, as an ex-President, he was planning to build his presidential library in Chicago.

However, the city’s other community organizers accused Obama of not practicing what he preaches.

In November 2017, the Washington Post reported:

In what local pundits are calling the irony of ironies, Obama — who cut his teeth as a South Side community organizer — is now in the bull’s eye of the area’s community organizers.

Dozens of groups have asked the city, the Obama Foundation and the University of Chicago (the official library host) to sign a legally binding pledge to protect low-income housing and homeowners, set aside 80 percent of jobs for immediate neighbors and bolster support for black-owned businesses, among other things.

At a community meeting last month, Obama said he wasn’t interested, according to the Chicago Tribune. Agreements such as those, he said, can be highly successful for communities dealing with for-profit developers.

“But here’s the thing,” he said. “We are a nonprofit and aren’t making money. We are just bringing money to the community.”

1,368) Obama was photographed smiling with racist and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan is a racist and anti-Semite.

Askia Muhammad is a professional, award-winning journalist who “doggedly covered” Obama.

In 2005, Muhammad took a photograph of Obama and Farrakhan smiling together.

However, Muhammad did not let the photograph be published at the time.

It wasn’t until a year after Obama left the White House that Muhammad allowed the photograph to be published.

In January 2018, Muhammad said that he held the photograph back from publication because, regarding Obama’s chance of getting elected President:

“I insist. It absolutely would have made a difference.”

1,369) Photographs show how horribly the Obama administration treated illegal aliens

The photographs at this link show how horribly the Obama administration treated illegal aliens.

1,370) Obama supporters falsely blamed President Trump for a 2014 photograph of illegal alien children being mistreated by the Obama administration

In May 2018, Obama supporters falsely blamed President Trump for a 2014 photograph of illegal alien children being mistreated by the Obama administration.

1,371) “Obama administration approved $200G grant to group with Al Qaeda ties”

In July 2018, Fox News reported:

Obama administration approved $200G grant to group with Al Qaeda ties

The Obama administration approved a $200,000 grant to a group in Sudan with ties to Al Qaeda even though it had been designated a terrorist-financing organization by the U.S. years earlier…

Further, an agency official acknowledged the prior administration allowed taxpayer money to flow to the group even after its designation was discovered.

The 2014 grant to the Islamic Relief Agency, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, was revealed by Sam Westrop of the Middle East Forum in a story for the National Review.

“More stunningly, government officials specifically authorized the release of at least $115,000 of this grant even after learning that it was a designated terror organization,” Westrop wrote in the article.

1,372) The “most transparent administration in history” did not tell the public when it approved a $200,000 grant to an organization with ties to Al Qaeda

In 2014, the Obama administration approved a $200,000 grant to the Islamic Relief Agency, a Sudanese organization with ties to Al Qaeda. However, the grant was kept secret until 2018.

1,373) After Obama said “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” he signed a book deal which was worth at least $30 million

In April 2010, Obama said

“I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

You can see him saying it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpoTSeuLffA

However, less than two months after leaving the White House, he signed a book deal which was worth at least $30 million.

1,374) At the same time that Obama criticized rich people who owned mansions, he owned an $8.1 million mansion

In July 2018, Obama said:

“There’s only so much you can eat. There’s only so big a house you can have. There’s only so many nice trips you can take. I mean, it’s enough.”

“History shows that societies which tolerate vast differences in wealth feed resentments and reduce solidarity and actually grow more slowly. And when economic power is concentrated in the hands of the few, history also shows that political power is sure to follow and that dynamic eats away at democracy.”

However, in June 2017, Obama had purchased an $8.1 million mansion in Washington D.C.

1,375) Obama nominee Judge Staci Michelle Yandle illegally maintained the U.S. citizenship of al-Qaida terrorist Iyman Faris, who had met with Osama bin Laden, had planned to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, and had falsely claimed to be a student on his immigration application

In January 2014, Obama nominated Staci Michelle Yandle to be a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

In July 2018, Yandle ruled that an immigrant and al-Qaida terrorist named Iyman Faris could keep his U.S. citizenship.

However, Yandle’s ruling was in violation of federal law. Federal law required Faris to be deported because he had lied on his immigration application.

Faris had traveled to Afghanistan, where he had met with Osama bin Laden.

Faris had also traveled to Pakistan, where he had met with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was named as “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks” in the 9/11 Commission Report. Mohammed told Faris that he was setting up a plan to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge by slashing its suspension cables. Faris agreed to participate in this.

Like the 9/11 terrorists, Faris had come to the U.S. on a student visa, but never actually enrolled in school.

ABC News reported that Faris had

“admitted he was an al Qaeda sleeper – a terrorist lying in wait for instructions”

and that he

“had access to airports and was licensed to haul flammable, poisonous chemicals”

August 6, 2018. Tags: Barack Obama, corporate welfare, Economics, Government waste, Green Party, Health care, Jill Stein, Libertarian Party, Medical marijuana, News, Obama, Obamacare, occupy-wall-street, Police state, Politics, Ron Paul, Solyndra. Barack Obama, Politics. Leave a comment.

I just added items #1,343 through #1,366 to my list of Obama’s lies and lawbreaking

The complete list can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/

Here are the new entries:
(more…)

August 9, 2017. Tags: Barack Obama, corporate welfare, Economics, Government waste, Green Party, Health care, Jill Stein, Libertarian Party, Medical marijuana, News, Obama, Obamacare, occupy-wall-street, Police state, Politics, Ron Paul, Solyndra. Barack Obama, Politics. 2 comments.

Bernie Sanders repeatedly refuses to answer a small business owner’s question about how she’s supposed to pay for Obamacare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8tabnxTXa4

May 24, 2017. Tags: Bernie Sanders, Health care, Obamacare, Politics. Bernie Sanders, Health care. Leave a comment.

I have published an amazon kindle book about Obamacare

I have published an amazon kindle book about Obamacare.

You can buy it at

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E9X8AIW

You can read it for free at

https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/obamacare-59/

March 14, 2017. Tags: Barack Obama, Health care, Obamacare, Politics. Barack Obama, Health care. Leave a comment.

I just added four new items to my list of Obamacare criticisms

The complete list can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/obamacare-59/

Here are the new entries:

338) After Obamacare caused Obama supporting graduate students at the University of Missouri to lose their insurance, they falsely blamed it on the school

In August 2015, the University of Missouri issued the following message to its graduate students:

“The Affordable Care Act prevents employers from giving employees money specifically so they can buy health insurance on the individual market. Graduate teaching and research assistants are classified as employees by the IRS, so they fall under this ruling.”

However, in November 2015, left wing graduate students who had voted for Obama, falsely blamed their loss of insurance on the school, instead of on Obamacare.

339) A federal judge ruled that some of the funding for Obamacare was unconstitutional

In May 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled that some of the funding for Obamacare was unconstitutional, because it had not been approved by Congress.

340) Obama falsely said that opponents of Obamacare did not have a plan to replace it

In November 2016, when talking about Republican opponents of Obamacare, Obama said:

“You watch the press conference and you realize, they got no plan… It’s not like, they don’t even have a pretense of a plan. They don’t even have a semblance of a plan. Not even a hint of a plan. Not even a remote — not even a — there’s no plan. Nothing, zero, nada. You can’t just be against something. You gotta be for something.”

However, several months earlier, in June 2016, the Republicans had announced this plan to replace Obamacare.

341) Obama falsely said that none of the predictions that were made by Obamacare opponents came true

In November 2016, when talking about predictions made by Obamacare opponents, Obama said:

“None of what they said has happened.”

However, in the real world, Obamacare opponents accurately predicted that Obamacare would cause millions of people to lose their insurance.

March 13, 2017. Tags: Health care, Obamacare, Politics. Health care. Leave a comment.

Vox asks readers for Obamacare success stories, plan backfires horrifically

Go to the link to see lots of examples:

https://milo.yiannopoulos.net/2017/02/vox-asks-readers-obamacare-success-stories-plan-backfires-horrifically/

Vox Asks Readers For Obamacare Success Stories, Plan Backfires Horrifically

February 18, 2017

Vox decided to ask people on Twitter about how the Affordable Care Act has changed their lives – they didn’t get the answers they were looking for…

Of the over 600 replies, very few were positive. Many people replied detailing the horrible impact of Obamacare on their lives…

February 19, 2017. Tags: Health care, Obamacare, Politics, vox. Health care. Leave a comment.

Obamacare replacement: the Rand Paul plan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KTyQYh6SBA

February 1, 2017. Tags: Health care, Obamacare, Politics, Rand Paul. Health care. Leave a comment.

Washington Post: “6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008… Obama won more than 80 percent of the votes of non-citizens”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/24/could-non-citizens-decide-the-november-election/

Could non-citizens decide the November election?

October 24, 2014

Could control of the Senate in 2014 be decided by illegal votes cast by non-citizens? Some argue that incidents of voting by non-citizens are so rare as to be inconsequential, with efforts to block fraud a screen for an agenda to prevent poor and minority voters from exercising the franchise, while others define such incidents as a threat to democracy itself. Both sides depend more heavily on anecdotes than data.

In a forthcoming article in the journal Electoral Studies, we bring real data from big social science survey datasets to bear on the question of whether, to what extent, and for whom non-citizens vote in U.S. elections. Most non-citizens do not register, let alone vote. But enough do that their participation can change the outcome of close races.

Our data comes from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). Its large number of observations (32,800 in 2008 and 55,400 in 2010) provide sufficient samples of the non-immigrant sub-population, with 339 non-citizen respondents in 2008 and 489 in 2010. For the 2008 CCES, we also attempted to match respondents to voter files so that we could verify whether they actually voted.

How many non-citizens participate in U.S. elections? More than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples indicated that they were registered to vote. Furthermore, some of these non-citizens voted. Our best guess, based upon extrapolations from the portion of the sample with a verified vote, is that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent of non-citizens voted in 2010.

Because non-citizens tended to favor Democrats (Obama won more than 80 percent of the votes of non-citizens in the 2008 CCES sample), we find that this participation was large enough to plausibly account for Democratic victories in a few close elections. Non-citizen votes could have given Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health-care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) won election in 2008 with a victory margin of 312 votes. Votes cast by just 0.65 percent of Minnesota non-citizens could account for this margin. It is also possible that non-citizen votes were responsible for Obama’s 2008 victory in North Carolina. Obama won the state by 14,177 votes, so a turnout by 5.1 percent of North Carolina’s adult non-citizens would have provided this victory margin.

We also find that one of the favorite policies advocated by conservatives to prevent voter fraud appears strikingly ineffective. Nearly three quarters of the non-citizens who indicated they were asked to provide photo identification at the polls claimed to have subsequently voted.

An alternative approach to reducing non-citizen turnout might emphasize public information. Unlike other populations, including naturalized citizens, education is not associated with higher participation among non-citizens. In 2008, non-citizens with less than a college degree were significantly more likely to cast a validated vote, and no non-citizens with a college degree or higher cast a validated vote. This hints at a link between non-citizen voting and lack of awareness about legal barriers.

There are obvious limitations to our research, which one should take account of when interpreting the results. Although the CCES sample is large, the non-citizen portion of the sample is modest, with the attendant uncertainty associated with sampling error. We analyze only 828 self-reported non-citizens. Self-reports of citizen status might also be a source of error, although the appendix of our paper shows that the racial, geographic, and attitudinal characteristics of non-citizens (and non-citizen voters) are consistent with their self-reported status.

Another possible limitation is the matching process conducted by Catalist to verify registration and turnout drops many non-citizen respondents who cannot be matched. Our adjusted estimate assumes the implication of a “registered” or “voted” response among those who Catalist could not match is the same as for those whom it could. If one questions this assumption, one might focus only on those non-citizens with a reported and validated vote. This is the second line of the table.

Finally, extrapolation to specific state-level or district-level election outcomes is fraught with substantial uncertainty. It is obviously possible that non-citizens in California are more likely to vote than non-citizens in North Carolina, or vice versa. Thus, we are much more confident that non-citizen votes mattered for the Minnesota Senate race (a turnout of little more than one-tenth of our adjusted estimate is all that would be required) than that non-citizen votes changed the outcome in North Carolina.

Our research cannot answer whether the United States should move to legalize some electoral participation by non-citizens as many other countries do, and as some U.S. states did for more than 100 years, or find policies that more effectively restrict it. But this research should move that debate a step closer to a common set of facts.

November 29, 2016. Tags: Barack Obama, Election fraud, Health care, illegal voting, Obama, Obamacare, Politics, vote fraud, Voter fraud. Barack Obama, Health care, Politics, Voter fraud. 3 comments.

Video: Former Obama speechwriters laugh at ‘you can keep your plan’ promise

This does not surprise me.

It disgusts me. But it does not surprise me.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ex-obama-staff-laugh-at-you-can-keep-your-plan-pledge/article/2590943

Former Obama speechwriters laugh at ‘you can keep your plan’ promise

May 10, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkqn6wsrUfs

Charlie Rose and a trio of former Obama speechwriters laughed it up this week at the mention of the president’s infamous promise that that under the Affordable Care Act, “if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan.”

The moment occurred during the Monday edition of “Charlie Rose: The Week,” as the host and former speechwriters Jon Lovett, Jon Favreau and David Litt discussed the president’s writing abilities and his gift for oration.

Lovett mentioned that he was most proud of the president’s more serious speeches on the economy and healthcare, and that’s when Favreau ribbed him for the “you can keep your plan” line.

“My point is, do you have equal impact on serious speeches? Because it’s about style, use of language, etc.?” Rose asked.

“I really like, I was very — the joke speeches is the most fun part of this. But the things I’m the most proud of were the most serious speeches, I think. Healthcare, economic speeches,” said Lovett.

Favreau interjected, “Lovett wrote the line about, ‘If you like your insurance, you can keep it.'”

“How dare you!” Lovett joked back.

The panel laughed and laughed.

“And you know what?” Lovett added later. “It’s still true!”

An estimated 4.7 million people were told in the fall of 2013 that their health insurance plans would be cancelled for noncompliance with the recently enacted federal healthcare law, according to the Associated Press.

The Obama administration reportedly knew in 2010 that 50-75 percent of the 14 million people in the United States who buy their insurance individually would probably receive cancellation letters, NBC News reported at the time.

On Nov. 7, 2013, Obama went on television to apologize for the mass cancellations.

Later, on Dec. 12, 2013, the fact-checking website PolitiFact gave President Obama the “Lie of the Year” award for promising repeatedly that people who liked their insurance could “keep it.”

May 10, 2016. Tags: Barack Obama, Health care, Obama, Obamacare, Politics, Videos. Health care. 3 comments.