Mr. Obama accepted Ms. Sebelius’s resignation this week, and on Friday morning he will nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace her, officials said.What will be her legacy?
The departure comes as the Obama administration tries to move beyond its early stumbles in carrying out the law, persuade a still-skeptical public of its lasting benefits, and help Democratic incumbents, who face blistering attack ads after supporting the legislation, survive the midterm elections this fall.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Sebelius Resigns
"Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, is resigning, ending a stormy five-year tenure marred by the disastrous rollout of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act."
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Legacy? Millions in the bank, no accountability and a cushy no-show job. Just like Obama, Hillary! and all the rest of those commies.
Good, she's a private citizen again, that means punching her in the face won't be a high crime worthy of beheading in this administration. Beyond that, she will land in a lobbying position to rake in a shit ton of money on her prior administration position. Fuck her, I hope she is shunned and rots in hell.
Holder should resign
Reid should resign
Pelosi should resign
It's called... draining the swamp.
What will be her legacy?
Bwahahahahaha! Eyahahahahaha!
Oh, and what 60-Grit, Methhadras, & April Apple said.
Legacy?
Good soldier. Took one for the team.
Tire tracks will wash out.
Yes! Cull the opposition. AKA "April also said this!"
Imagine how such people would act if they were actually governing and not just in permanent oppositional complaint mode!
Oh yeah. We did. 2008. 2001. Banner years for America. Bookends of greatness. Wonderful ideas advanced for America. Wonderful accomplishments made. God/FSM bless the amazing wonderment done by such awesome people as they.
(I was going to just skip but just watched a George Carlin video. Must have riled me up enough to take the above comments seriously. Sorry!)
We must move to Nevada and San Francisco with enough Republicans to change their elected officials!
Schmendrik's got his orders to push single payer next. Right, shitstain?
As always, Ritmo can't rebut, so he tries to create some philippic about the last Administration.
Lessee now, how many liars did Dubya have on the scale of the Silver Haired Angel of Death?
None, not even close.
Colbert is gonna need a sidekick.
I read a few of the early write-ups and it looks like the administration's anonymous officials dumped on her pretty hard. There's a word for that.
The new girl will be a sort of palate cleanser after the stinkburger. She has big teeth. Kennedy teeth.
Eric CantorVerified account
@GOPLeader
I thank Secretary Sebelius for her service. She had an impossible task: nobody can make Obamacare work.
If Obama can win a Nobel Peace Prize, surely she should get some kind of award for executive excellence.
Yesterday, Obama's budget was rejected 413 to 2.
Today Obama promoted the author to run health care.
In the Obama administration failure is a means to promotion.
Hillary is banking on it.
I think Ritmo was picking up on Ezra Klein's rationale.
Sad.
Then again, he may just be trying to one up the Messiah for non sequitur of the century.
Ed is a funny guy. No shame felt over allowing the greatest terrorist attack on American soil or crashing the economy to a near oblivion twice in 80 years, but Democrats are supposed to feel ashamed over increasing the coverage to 7 million Americans in about 7 months! When will Democrats learn! Terrorist attacks and economic crashes are good! Allowing 7 million to avoid bankruptcy by increasing their health care access BAD!
You really think Americans identify with this level of irrationality? Wouldn't it just be easier to accept that they're not as irrational or immoral or irresponsible as you? Wouldn't that be easier to accept?
Oh whoops. There I go assuming you're capable of being rational again. Apologies. Back to the emotionalizing of everything for you eddie boy.
No administration can ever be compared to how much better or worse it's doing than the last one because the last one, if it's shitty enough, is always a Republican one. And that would hurt their feelings.
When it comes to political accomplishments, Republicans are the party opposed to competition. They are like the special needs party. In constant need of praise (and insult for others), never able to honestly appraise what they're doing right or wrong. Well or not so well. They're the party of gold stars and no grades.
So they thrive on general misanthropy and crank up the hatred and complaint from midterm-to-midterm. Lord knows they don't have any real ideas worth electing to an actual office like president. They don't have anything positive to add. Just negative. The House should just become known as "The Complaint Chamber".
I think the millions of people who lost the medical plan they "liked" and who now have double the premiums and triple the deductibles will have something to say this November.
No amount of blaming Bush will cover it up. Sorry.
From Forbes:
The government obfuscates when it comes to the Obamacare enrollment figures. Today’s data dump is no different. Today’s figures count people who have signed up, but haven’t cut checks for their premiums. The numbers don’t even bake in early enrollees who still haven’t paid (and are unlikely to do so). They also don’t tell you how many of the new enrollees lacked prior coverage.
Goldman Sachs is out with an analysis tonight that builds in some of these assumptions. They get at a final enrollment figure closer to my early estimates of 4-5 million people in the Obamacare exchanges.
The investment bank’s analysts project that the Obamacare exchanges will end up enrolling a total of 4 million people – including 1 million who were previously uninsured. To get to their numbers, they assume a further 1.3 million to 1.8 million enrollments in Obamacare, to arrive at a cumulative exchange enrollment figure of 5.5 million to 6.0 million. However, like the government figures, that counts everyone — even those who selected a plan but didn’t pay their first premium.
The government figures also don’t show how many exchange enrollees were previously insured, and transitioned into the exchanges, either because their prior coverage was dropped as a result of new regulations; or they had insurance, but voluntarily dropped it and self selected to enroll in Obamacare plans because the exchange subsidies made it a better economic deal for them.
Goldman Sach’s tries to estimate all of these numbers by extrapolating from the most recent survey figures published by the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform. Goldman models an 80% completion rate for enrollment (people following through, and paying their premiums) and a mix of 25% uninsured (the McKinsey survey figures were 77% and 27%, respectively).
From that, Goldman’s analysts refine their total Obamacare exchange enrollment projection to 4 million (versus their prior estimate of 3 million) with about 1 million representing people who lacked insurance prior to Obamacare.
One million who were not previously insured. One million.
Hey even if we accept your faulty premise no ideas are better than horrible destructive ideas like Obamacare.
But keep blaming Bush. That should really resonate with the people who lost their affordable plans and are not eligible for the bogus credits administered by the corrupt and politicized IRS.
That should work out just fine.
I think the average American thinks to himself, "What have Republicans done for me lately?" Ed says, "It doesn't matter. Don't judge them on their merits or demerits. That's not the point."
They're all in it for themselves. How's Christie doing, the supposed savior of the right? How's Jeb Bush doing? Oh right. Nothing will save the cause of Republican moderation now. It's all about imagining the entire country being as far to the right as Ted Cruz. Unleash the conservatism! Unleash the Krakken!
I think the millions of people who lost the medical plan they "liked" and who now have double the premiums and triple the deductibles will have something to say this November.
Not in two Novembers, though. But complaint is like that. It doesn't require better ideas, or better solutions. Hey, it's just the House. Get elected to it, get some influence, bitch about things you have no interest in changing for the better, and enrich yourself. No need to have a platform worth the presidency for these days. Not for Republicans. Just complain. No ideas, just ideology.
And the market is now closed until January 1st, so if you lose your job this summer - no insurance for you!
Christie and Jeb Bush are only the saviors of the Rhinos and the press who want to push another pussy candidate on us.
I think the average American is going to say who has fucked me lately. Who has destroyed my medical plan. Raided my personal emails and cell phone records. Used the power of the government to attack private citizens who they disagree with. They know who that is. It is Pimp Daddy Barry.
Do you believe taht an American president who respected his fellow citizens would close the insurance market for nine months?
Hey even if we accept your faulty premise no ideas are better than horrible destructive ideas like Obamacare.
I think a guy who complains about premium raises and a perception of decreased quality of coverage would really have a problem with no coverage or going bankrupt having to pay for life-saving procedures. But apparently not. 7 million with no coverage don't matter, but many others with adequate coverage should get sympathy that they don't have for those who had (and still have, as the numbers are still growing) even less. Yep, that's logical. Sympathy for people that have so that they can perpetuate callousness for those without. How's that going to work as a rallying cry?
There are plenty of better ideas out there than the dismal failure that is Obamacare.
If the House and the Senate we will see what the Republicans come up with. At the very least they can constrain the criminal tendencies of this corrupt Nixonian failure.
" increasing the coverage to 7 million Americans"
This is a knowingly-delivered bald-faced lie. How appropriate for an Obama apologist. You now believe lie number 172 in a row. Quite the quick study, you are. In a few weeks, like every other time, every honest person will except the the truth of that lie, but you will ignore that, try to explain it away, and then prepare to support the next lie. Isn't that the least bit embarrassing to you? How many times does he have to make a fool of you before you change the locks?
The rallying cry is that Obama took away your insurance. Obama lied and people died.
Keep it simple for the stupid people who voted for this miserable failure.
Do you believe taht an American president who respected his fellow citizens would close the insurance market for nine months?
How much is going to be said to avoid addressing the extension of coverage to 7 million (and more, as time goes on) who lacked any before? How do you propose to get an electorate sympathetic to your complaint of inferior coverage when for three years your entire raison d'etre has been to not give a damn about people who lacked any?
How do Republicans think they can get any traction with mindframes this blatantly irrational, inconsistent and (I'm sorry to say it, but) immoral? How?
"There are plenty of better ideas out there than the dismal failure that is Obamacare."
Every other idea or nothing are all better.
It's ok, Bag. Make up your own facts. We know you don't care about the uninsured, either. Unless they work for you, supposedly.
"...who lacked any before?
Ha! Good one!
GOP 2014 (because they already know it won't fly in 2016): Insurance for me, not for thee.
You guys are seriously left with people who don't get that this already lost in 2012.
"It's ok, Bag. Make up your own facts. "
If I was good at that, it would get me a cabinet post faster than you accept a flaming turd, any flaming turd from this Administration. You no longer have any credibility on anything Obama.
Bag, we know you're not taking your own argument seriously. You're just getting weaselly, as is typical when you're losing. But it's funny that we can assume you mean that an ambulance ride to the E.R. equals good quality coverage. Which is a joke but then, you seem to make it a point to not know what you're talking about. Why should you? You can pay someone to advertise the "truth" they want to.
We get it.
She can get back to her hobby of sewing her coat of dalmatian puppies.
If I was good at that, it would get me a cabinet post faster than you accept a flaming turd, any flaming turd from this Administration. You no longer have any credibility on anything Obama.
When Bag starts waxing scatological and talking about the inferior credibility of people who actually, you know, WIN the elections, then you know he's just getting desperate.
A rich man feeling desperate. Imagine that.
"You guys are seriously left with people who don't get that this already lost in 2012."
Yea, you cuddle up to that little Teddy bear of delusion. Close your eyes and hope for the best.
Ritmo, stop lying. Seven million people did not receive coverage.
Ok Bag. Let's pretend everyone now suddenly wishes for President Romney. Funny.
This is what taking responsibility is like. Not fun. Just grown-up.
"They're not even [within] 100 miles [of Baghdad]. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion ... they are trying to sell to the others an illusion."
Michael - don't accuse me of lying. If you disagree with a well-cited fact, you're always free to cite your own. Even FOX advertised the seven million. They just cut off the bottom of the bar graph at six million. Fun with graphics.
I know Bag. That was funny ten years ago. People have other things to worry about today, just not you.
And yet, you're still arguing like a desperate person.
Ritmo, you are repeating a lie, and you know it.
Do you have information better than Goldman Sachs or McKinsey? Both of whom, by the way are not conservative leaning organizations.
You have to realize that the continual moving of the deadline is simply an effort to push back the destructive effects of this failed policy so it does not effect the election. They destroyed the self employed. They delayed the destruction of business plans. But it's coming. Unless this misbegotten abortion of a plan is repealed. But that tells me why the Democrats voted for it.
It's okay, dude, you've done your evening's work for MMFA, so you've got that going for you.
Adios.
Cite it, Michael - with a link, not a name, and it doesn't behove you to make dishonorable accusations.
In any event, tell us what the real numbers are, then? I mean, apparently one more person with coverage is one too many for the GOP, but why admit that when you can simply yell "LIAR!" and hope for some traction that way? Ok, I get it...
"Adios"? Methinks someone wasn't serious about getting to the bottom of what they believed anyway.
Seven million allegedly signed on to a website and filled out a form. English matters.
There is no evidence that any of them were not covered before, that they will pay, that they have coverage, that a doctor will accept it, or that they are any better off than they were before, but hey, for 4 years and billions of dollars what do you expect?
Can you even imagine accepting this from a Republican administration that has been shown to have lied to you about nearly everything they ever told you? I'm sure you would, because it's all about the facts, right?
Obamacare is like everything the Democrats do. They are dining and dashing. Ordering up a big meal and cutting out when the bill comes due.
All of the people who lost their plans are going to want them to pay their bill.
Seven million allegedly signed on to a website and filled out a form. English matters.
There is no evidence that any of them were not covered before...
Oh ok. I see. Now you're getting into some interesting theoreticals but at least your point is clear.
But let's just say that I'd put more credibility to people making this claim if it wasn't coming from a side with a recent history of entertaining the idea of Kenyan birth and an agenda of Islamic infiltration.
Rand study released April 8: Obamacare's Exchanges Enrolled Only 1.4 Million Previously Uninsured Individuals
"I promise I'll pull out in time."
I think it's wrong to ask for as much time to increase coverage as Bush got to win some kind of a war in Iraq. Everyone knows that infrastructure advancement happens overnight. Wars however should take forever. Or decades. One of those two.
In any event, tell us what the real numbers are, then?
"Goldman Sach’s tries to estimate all of these numbers by extrapolating from the most recent survey figures published by the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform. Goldman models an 80% completion rate for enrollment (people following through, and paying their premiums) and a mix of 25% uninsured (the McKinsey survey figures were 77% and 27%, respectively).
From that, Goldman’s analysts refine their total Obamacare exchange enrollment projection to 4 million (versus their prior estimate of 3 million) with about 1 million representing people who lacked insurance prior to Obamacare."
One million new enrollees. What part of that confuses you?
GOP 2014/2016/2018/2020, etc: "The uninsured aren't as important as YOU!"
Ritmo, the moment you mention Bush, you've lost the arguement. If that's all you've got - the name of a president and not data - you've lost.
One million new enrollees. What part of that confuses you?
The part that you hadn't explained it to me before but assumed their analysis should be not only common knowledge, but Gospel.
In any event, I thought any increase in coverage is supposedly a disaster for the country, so why doesn't the GOP just stick with that?
Ritmo, the moment you mention Bush, you've lost the arguement. If that's all you've got - the name of a president and not data - you've lost.
What nonsense. An entire administration won an election on how bad Bush was. If there's no benchmark for success in the Republican mind, then the country already has no use for them. Except as a token opposition party.
If presidents can't be judged against other presidents then, again, your basis for picking one is just choosing the one that you like giving a gold star to. If you resent Bush being a comparator, that's understandable but pretending the country gets to start over from scratch and that circumstances are idea for each candidate's administrative success is too nonsensical for me to take seriously.
"This week, in a fit of his standard intellectual honesty, President Obama asked why opponents of Obamacare are “so mad about the idea of folks having health insurance.” Would that the administration had enough of an interest in that idea to even keep track."
~Mary Katherine Ham
Well Bag, if it's a metric you're suddenly interested in, Kudos on the conversion. Let's hope it's for honest reasons and not political ones. But you never know.
Honesty can't possibly matter to an Obama defender. It's not possible to respect both.
But honesty is certainly the province of someone who, like the commenter above, starts by using his premise as a conclusion. Yep, all the great and honest discoveries of mankind have surely occurred this way. Make a declaration, or an accusation, end debate and shut down inquiry. That is how we find truth.
I think at the moment Obama looks like a pretty mediocre to somewhat poor president, for the record. But I can't respect the credibility of so many people who ask me to have sympathy for their perception of their own coverage as poor when they ask that it come at the expense of any sympathy for those who lack it entirely. That's entirely how I approach this and that's entirely how I'll judge the success of anything having to do with it. And again, no one has explained that one to me.
It looks, increasingly and disappointingly, like they don't even care.
Well medical care as I understand is based on one important principle.
First do no harm.
You must realize that Obamacare has done a lot of harm. A lot more harm than good. I would venture to surmise that some people who were not covered got coverage. I agree that is a good thing. I would also be willing to bet that exponentially more people lost their plans. They plans that they liked. The plans that Obama lied about when he said "If you like your plan you can keep your plan." Even worse is how many people lost their doctors. Which Obama also lied about. "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor."
First do no harm.
I think Obama's first thought is that you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. One of heroes taught him that.
That is one of his heroes taught him that.
Rhythm & Balls:
You can't possibly know that people with health insurance have no sympathy for their fellow citizens who have no health insurance. They may care deeply yet still consider Obamacare a very bad law. What you can know for sure, though, is that they were lied to by Obama and the Democrats about being able to keep their plans, and being able to keep their doctor, period.
All this worry about enrollment numbers is premature.
When the large employers start dropping coverage late this year, there'll be plenty of new sign-ups on the exchanges.
Win-Win!
So you would characterize Obama as an honest and transparent leader? I find him absolutely exceptional in this respect, and not in a good way. I think a clear majority of people, both foreign and domestic, favor my view of him. Even many who like him don't believe what he says - which says a lot about those people.
Harm:
"Last week I removed a brain tumor from an owner of a small welding shop in his mid-50's who had been unable to afford insurance until the ACA. I am a physician who supports the ACA. I have patients who, on principle or because they don't want to pay, decided not to get coverage. I wish them well and hope their spin of the roulette wheel comes out in their favor."
"I'm a physician in California and I will say that without a single doubt the ACA (Obamacare!) has saved several lives and prevented horrible disabilities in many others in my clinic population. These are real people who would not be ALIVE today without ACA. There are many others happily paying less for their new health care coverage.
I sure hope they ALL vote for those who supported their healthcare needs."
There are other comments there giving balance to the complexities and shortcomings of the law. But to say that for a physician not to harm means supporting deaths that have now been prevented and saved sounds like a huge misunderstanding of the Hippocratic Oath. The oath is to patients, not to systems. Physicians are chiming in to write of lives now saved, not lost. How can anyone seriously argue against that? Yes there are probably disadvantages as a systemic issue, and less over time. No, there doesn't seem to be any way to compare them against this. Show me physicians saying more lives are lost than were saved before and then I can compare that. But how do we address any bureaucratic distinction or other administrative issue without looking at that? How does one even address the system without looking at the basics of lives saved versus lost? I don't get it.
You can't possibly know that people with health insurance have no sympathy for their fellow citizens who have no health insurance. They may care deeply yet still consider Obamacare a very bad law.
I just addressed this upstream. Show me physicians saying lives are being lost due to bad or nonexistent coverage versus the status quo ante and I'll listen. But I just quoted two who demonstrate the opposite. Medicine is meaningless without factual, scientific evidence. Let's start with that sort of evidence before going into what it means to "care deeply" about these lives absent a look at it. Thanks.
I don't think it is a numbers game. If more people are harmed than helped is it then considered a failure? Or can this rigid and uncompromised ideologue not agree to make changes that will allow people to make their own choices instead of demand they follow his choices. You know get a policy that is less expensive but doesn't cover mandates that most people don't want coverage. You see Obama wants to control what you do. He wants men to pay for pregnancy and nuns to pay for birth control and abortion. He is just not Pro-choice. It is his way or the highway. That is why this will be considered a massive failure on the order of Prohibition.
He will be the new measure for failed Presidents replacing Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter.
I disagree that numbers are just about "gaming" though. Numbers matter. Without vaccination people get awfully sick and more die, yet some people are foolish (or principled!) enough to think they are devastating Saurons of technology. Nevermind Edward Jenner's and previous civilizations' state of technology. Numbers matter.
Physicians have to advance their knowledge and their employers are in no way interested in promoting interventions that lead to greater death and disability than those that decrease it. I can't think of a single physician capable of maintaining his license who refuses to read the latest study showing the number of patients with improved health or survivability versus those who don't with the competing intervention or lack thereof. I simply can't understand any critique of medicine that says the numbers of lives improved or saved per intervention doesn't matter. There is no other way to judge the effectiveness of a practice standard. None at all.
To argue otherwise breaches the limits of anti-empiricism. Yes, it works for certain political practices. But medicine does not remain viable as a profession and endeavor by refusing a look at evidence, including numbers. This is where a crucial segment of society simply will not yield to numbers hatred, no matter how intense.
I do think that your characterization of Obama is well said Ritmo and an admission against interest. Well done my friend.
On my part although I generally supported W I can point to many disastrous policies that he foisted on us. Many of which Obama continued when he ran against them to get elected. But you see that is history. He is responsible for what he did. Obama is responsible for what he does. It is as simple as that.
In any event. Well done.
And for the record, can I just say how much I hate being in the position of defending the ACA? It's so much more invigorating to rally against it, to pine for a more market anarchistic approach. But I need evidence for the superiority of one approach or the other. I do wish people hating the ACA would show me evidence for the superiority of an alternative. I think they don't because they prefer that alternatives remain undefined and undefinable. I think that sucks because it sets back market-friendly aspects that could potentially be legislated or implemented, or even promoted. I don't like being in this position; but I find ignorance of the outcomes and their analyses intolerable.
Lol. Hey man, if Obama stole my hubcaps I'd report him pronto!
I think it's logical to stay aware of the reality. There is a lot of discontent out there on this domestic issue, and with good reason. I can't deny it any more than I can deny my interest in the outcome. The last thing I'd want to do is be more for him than for a better policy. It doesn't do him or anyone a favor to ignore the downsides of what he does. Even if I could I think I'd only be able to for so long. I'm too much a fly in the ointment anyway.
On a strictly personal level, I liked W.
Rhythm and Balls said...
Ed is a funny guy. No shame felt over allowing the greatest terrorist attack on American soil or crashing the economy to a near oblivion twice in 80 year
Lessee now, who was it that built the "impenetrable wall" so intel agencies couldn't communicate?
Who swept the Enron mess - and the Dot Bomb one, as well - under the rug for the next Admin?
Who gave us subprime mortgages?
Who cut and run from Mog after going out of his way to pick a fight?
Who turned down bin Laden when he was offered on a silver platter?
Who blew up aspirin factories, rather than go after the bad guys?
Who, O who?
Balls is cool with the corruption(D). That is embarrassing.
So, Ball, if a majority of Americans oppose corrupt democrats like Reid, Holder and Pelosi -that means "Reichstag fire"?
Sure.
Whenever the leftwinger blind faithful get cornered, they yell the same tired clichés: Reichstag fire, McCarthyism, racist.
Sure.
Glad I missed this one.
Ritmo has nothing to say but "Blame Bush!" Will repeat for as long as you like.
And Ritmo the Rebel is a brown noser for the current authority.
The real Obamacare Numbers
It's not 7 million. Not that 7 million, in a nation filled with almost 400 million people, is an impressive number.
But no worries - the MSM parroted the big lie so it must be true.
Hillary and Bill know how to enjoy life on the tax payer dime.
Hillary dodges more than a shoe.
Rhythm and Balls said...
I think the average American thinks to himself, "What have Republicans done for me lately?" Ed says, "It doesn't matter. Don't judge them on their merits or demerits. That's not the point."
The average american, I believe also realizes that Republicans don't have the white house or the senate therefore there isn't a thing they could have done for them. But democrats? Oh yes, they did a lot to the average american.
Do I understand correctly that in Florida TPTB filled out applications for folks who hadn't signed up and snail mailed 'em letters saying "here's your plan, just mail a check." Anyone else read that story last week? I figure that's how the administration could claim the 7m nobody believes.
Everything else about this galactically stupid constantly-amended clusterfuck has been a big fat obvious political fraud resulting in a net negative for the nation but you must believe this week's big fat obvious fraud because otherwise you are "mad about the idea of folks having health insurance."
Oh, mummy, why does the President always blame women for his failures? Starting with his own mom (of whom he does not dream), granny typical (who paid for everything while grandpa lay around the house chatting with Marxists), Hillary (Benghazi, 2008 campaign), Lois Lerner (IRS). Always ready to cut a bitch, and his base seems fine with this. #WarOnWomen!
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