Steyn: "Obama Didn't Know It Was an Entire Phalanx"

This one's so serious, even Steyn can't make it funny.
"In order to meet its target of 7 million enrollees by March 1, Obamacare needs to enroll approximately 46,358 Americans per day. So on its opening day it fell 46,352 short. Were it to maintain that enrollment rate, Obamacare would reach its target of 7 million enrollees in the year 5209. That’s longer than waiting for a hip replacement on the Scottish NHS."
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/362922/phalanx-lies-mark-steyn/page/0/1

What Is A Right?

"Collective bargaining rights" - didn't see that one in the constitution.  "Workers" have many issues, but the legal power to use force against an employer is the least of them.  

http://www.thenation.com/blog/176953/workers-are-under-attack-states#

Kudlow - This Is Not Liberty

May I ask this question? Why is it that Americans don't have the freedom to choose their own health insurance? I just don't get it. Why must the liberal nanny state make decisions for us? We can make them ourselves, thank you very much. It's like choosing a car, buying a home, or investing in a stock. We can handle it.

So why must the government tell me and everyone else what we can and cannot buy?

Charles Krauthammer and the Wall Street Journal's Dan Henninger noted in excellent recent columns that this whole Obamacare business represents the greatest-ever expansion of the liberal entitlement-state dream. But I don't want that dream. And you shouldn't either.

Here's what else I don't want: As a 60-something, relatively healthy person, I don't want lactation and maternity services, abortion services, speech therapy, mammograms, fertility treatments or Viagra. I don't want it. So why should I have to tear up my existing health care plan and then buy a plan, with far more expensive premiums and deductibles and with services I don't need or want?

Why? Because Team Obama says I have to. And that's not much of a reason. It's not freedom.

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/11/02/the_liberal_entitlement-state_dream_is_crumbling_120541.html#ixzz2jaWWyWx9 

Man I don't even want to think about the entities that got their products included in the list of stuff that has to be covered.

Limits? What Limits?

It's a monster

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-carol-bond-case-showcases-government-run-amok/2013/11/01/9146cdf8-4276-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html

This term the Supreme Court will rule on important subjects from racial preferences to restrictions on political speech, but its most momentous case, to be argued Tuesday, concerns the prosecution of a Pennsylvania woman who caused a chemical burn on a romantic rival's thumb. The issue is: Can Congress's powers, which supposedly are limited because they are enumerated, be indefinitely enlarged into a sweeping police power by the process of implementing a treaty?

Limited government was the idea - is it even possible now?

Negative Unintended Consequences

The case against Obamacare is straightforward. For many employers, the cost of providing health insurance to mainly low-income workers would be huge. Logically, many firms would try to evade the expense. There are two ways of doing this. First, businesses with fewer than 50 full-time workers are exempt from the insurance requirement (the “employer mandate”). So, don’t hire that 50th worker. The second way is to make workers part time by cutting their weekly hours to less than 30. That’s Obamacare’s threshold for full-time workers.

Consider an example. A firm has 49 full-time workers. None receives employer-paid health insurance. Each has an annual wage of $30,000. The company adds another worker. Its wage bill totals $1.5 million (50 workers times $30,000). But it must now offer health coverage; in 2011, the average cost of a policy for a single person was about $5,000. For 50 workers, that’s an additional $250,000 (50 workers times $5,000). If the firm had a pretax profit of $250,000, its profits would be wiped out. There’s a powerful incentive to avoid Obamacare, either by not hiring or by pushing full-time workers under the 30-hour cap.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-j-samuelson-is-obamacare-a-job-killer-yes-and-no/2013/10/30/71b4f3d0-416c-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html

This issue of "what is full time" seems like a no solution problem.  It hurts everyone when businesses can't grow, and it hurts workers to have to work multiple part time jobs.  More meddling, more negative unintended consequences.  This is one of the things humans cannot engineer.

BBC News - Thorium backed as a 'future fuel'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24638816

Much to like about this idea - the US Govt will probably become interested in another 100 years. 

Health Consumers Finding Out They Were Sold a Lemon - Bloomberg

U.S. cost-sharing is actually low, by international standards; just 23 percent of our private health spending comes from out-of-pocket expenditures by the consumers of health care. We like being insulated from costs, and we're rich enough to demand it. Assuming that the Cadillac tax goes into effect (though I'm still sort of skeptical), a whole lot of those in the 80 percent category are going to lose a plan they liked because the government made it too expensive for companies to keep delivering it. Yes, of course, companies already cancel plans quite frequently. But these cancellations are going to happen all at once, because the law demanded it. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-01/health-consumers-finding-out-they-were-sold-a-lemon.html