Fund Your Utopia Without Me.™

02 February 2012

Ann (Coulter) Disaster



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Dear Ann,

Are you attempting to do get a job doing stand-up impersonating Kathleen Parker?  Maybe, menopause is finally kicking in, eh?  Ran out of Prozac?  Got to see Mitt with windblown hair wearing his magic underwear?  Bill Maher hasn't called in a week?
Girlfriend, I just don't get you.  We are both women.  We are both lawyers by training and writers by nature.  We are both acerbic blondes with penchants for LBDs, ridiculously expensive handbags, 'tinis, and the occasional fag.  We depart on the religion thing and Bill Maher, but for the life of me, I could have sworn that we were blood sisters when it came to standing against hypocrisy.

So, while I'm not going to go all S.E.-Cupp-on-Newt on you - Wasn't she divine?  My new anthem for Newt is Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" - nor am I going to eat a box of Chocopologie while lying in my bed watching old Joan Crawford movies, but I just have to say, I'm just not that into sellouts.  Just so that you can see that I don't make such a charge lightly, I have taken the time to read, review, and compare some of your old columns raging against the Obamacare machine with "Your Cream of Knickers / My Syrup of Ipecac" article, "Three Cheers For RomneyCare!"




Ann, you'll recall in this column that you were castigating Democrats for the saying that "National health care will punish the insurance companies."  You missed the whole point that they want to punish them out of existence, but you made the statement, "You want to punish insurance companies? Make them compete."

My dear, Ann, do you think that insurance companies compete in Massachusetts?  

Not particularly.  The Governor has to deign to allow them to increase premiums and guess what, he drags his feet when he deigns at all.  And, here's the kicker:  You can't blame any of this on those mean, old, "profits-before-people" corporations because the insurers are non-profits.





Ann, you'll recall you were calling the Democrats liars for saying that there would be no rationing under Obamacare.  Of course there will be rationing, but you might wish to ring up Governor Deval Patrick and talk to him about his threats to issue price and cost controls, which ALWAYS lead to rationing.  Oh, I know, Mitt didn't do it, but he created the monster.  He wasn't always going to be around to control it.

You'll also recall that you were laughing at Dems for claiming that "National health care will reduce costs." 

Do you know what happened to costs after RomneyCare?

In 2008, the cost projections were revised. The new estimates indicated that the plan was to cost $869 million dollars in 2009 and $880 million dollars in 2010, an upwards increase of nearly 20%. MittCare has done nothing to bend the cost curve down. Since 2006, the cost of the state’s insurance programme has increased by 42% or almost $600 million dollars.  According to an analysis by the Rand Corporation, “in the absence of policy change, health care spending in Massachusetts is projected to nearly double to $123 billion in 2020, increasing 8% faster than the state’s gross domestic product (GDP).”

Oh, and it also has the highest insurance premiums and longest wait times in the country. 





You'll recall that this was the column where you excoriated Democrats because you said that Obamacare would cover illegals, which it will, and claimed they were lying.  

Guess what, Ann?   MittCare did cover illegals.





You wrote: 


"12) Only national health care can provide "coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job" -- as Obama said in a New York Times op-ed."



Did you know that Jonathan Gruber, the architect of both RomneyCare and ObamaCare, said RomneyCare and ObamaCare are "the same f—ing bill”?

Do you know that more and more Massachusetts firms are dumping their employees and opting to pay the fine of $2,000 a head?  

Do you know that Medicaid costs have risen $7.5 billion to an estimated $9.2 billion and of the 407,000 newly insured, only 32% paid for their insurance entirely on their own? 

Do you know that the remaining 68% were either partially or wholly subsidised by the taxpayers?

Do you know that only 5% of newly insured Massachusetts residents, who are not receiving any taxpayer benefits, obtained their coverage through the state's "Connector" health care exchange?

Do you know that upwards of 60% of American companies could dump their sickest employees through a loophole and 75% of American companies, that are informed that the fine is less than the premiums either will or are considering dumping their employee health coverage and opting to paying the fines?  

Do you know that if even just 50% of people covered by company plans get dumped, federal health care costs will rise by $160 billion a year in 2016, in addition to the $93 billion in subsidies already forecast by the CBO?

You also wrote:



"(14) National health care will not cover abortions or illegal immigrants."



You castigated Democrats and called them liars for claiming that Obamacare wouldn't cover abortions or illegal aliens.  I've already shown that MittCare covered illegal immigrants in a programme called Health Safety Net, which allowed undocumented immigrants to get needed medical care along with others who lacked insurance, but let's turn to abortion....

RomneyCare explicitly provided abortions for free for everyone, who was below the poverty line, and subsidised participation (there was a $50 co-pay) was made available to those above the poverty line. 







You wrote:




"Hospitals across the country are going bankrupt because the federal government forces them to provide free services to illegals. This situation appears to have angered some segment of the population, in particular, American citizens who pay taxes to support the hospitals, but then are forced to spend hours writhing in pain in hospital waiting rooms."




Yes, all true.  You'll recall that it was Ronald Reagan, who signed EMTALA into law in 1986.  But, let's look at Massachusetts.  MittCare, as I have shown, covered illegals, specifically.  Illegals, who were unable to pay for health insurance, could get coverage through a programme called "Health Safety Net."  Health Safety Net provides free health care insurance for residents earning less than 150% of the federal poverty level (FPL) who are not eligible for Mass Health (Medicaid). The law also partially subsidises healthcare insurance for those earning up to 300% of the FPL.  Last year, Health Safety Net cost $400 million.

Guess who pays for Health Safety Net?

YOU, Ann Coulter ... even though you aren't a resident of Massachusetts.

Now, the hospitals in Massachusetts aren't going bankrupt so much, but doctors are refusing to take on more Medicare and Medicaid patients and even the some of the NOT-FOR-PROFIT insurance companies are refusing to write new policies because they are being driven into bankruptcy.

As for Americans being "forced to spend hours writhing in pain in hospital waiting rooms, MittCare didn't solve that problem either.  Since MittCare was signed into law, ER visits have increased by 9%.  In 2010 alone, the Health Safety Net programme paid for an additional 1.1 million hospital and clinic visits.






You wrote:




"(15) Democrats lost Congress in 1994 because President Clinton failed to pass national health care. 

That's not the way I remember it. The way I remember it, Republicans swept Congress in 1994 not because Clinton failed to nationalize health care, but because he tried to nationalize health care. HillaryCare failed because most Americans didn't want it. (For more on this, see "ObamaCare.")
 
(snip)

The Times' own polling showed that two-thirds of voters believed that "government should be less involved in solving national problems" -- which doesn't sound to me like voters being huffy with Clinton for failing to stage a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy. 

In a Hail Mary pass just before the election, President Clinton pulled Hillary off the health care beat. CNN's repository of liberal cliches, Bill Schneider, reported that Clinton was trying to calm voters by 'removing the most visible symbol of the liberal tilt of the last two years, which is the first lady.'

And what a morale boost for the Democrats that must have been! Kind of like firing the manager of a losing baseball team in the last week of the season. 

Too late. Shouldn't have tried to socialize health care."



And, what, dear Annie, happened when Mitt Romney socialised healthcare in Massachusetts?  You hated Bill Clinton for attempting to socialise healthcare.  You hate Barack Obama for socialising healthcare.  But, you love Chris Christie, who is the only Republican governor that did not challenge Obamacare, and you want us to vote for Mitt Romney, who did socialise healthcare in Massachusetts.  

Please, please, please, do not go with the Tenth Amendment excuse.  Technically, it is correct, but ideologically and principally, it is an anathema to anyone, who is a champion of limited government and liberty.

Plus, look at how lovely (/s) the "little, temporary safety" obtained by RomneyCare is for those in Massachusetts who gave "up essential liberty." 

The median health insurance monthly premium for a policy holder in Massachusetts was $442 in 2009, a 21% jump from 2005.

A study published in The American Journal of Medicine, “Medical Bankruptcy in Massachusetts: Has Health Reform Made a Difference?”, compared bankruptcy filers from 2007, before reforms were implemented, to those filing in the post-reform 2009 environment to see what role medical costs played. The study found that: 1) From 2007 to 2009, the total number of medical bankruptcies in Massachusetts increased by more than one third, from 7,504 to 10,093; and 2) Illness and medical costs contributed to 59.3% of bankruptcies in 2007 and 52.9% in 2009.  

A survey published by Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts Foundation in April, 2011, found that per capita health care spending in Massachusetts is projected to nearly double by 2020.

Methinks that Ben Franklin, in addition to most certainly being appalled, would say that they "deserve neither liberty nor safety."



More to come.  I think her series is 12 pieces long...

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