Loyal Obama Supporters, Canceled by Obamacare

San Francisco architect Lee Hammack says he and his wife, JoEllen Brothers, are “cradle Democrats.” They have donated to the liberal group Organizing for America and worked the phone banks a year ago for President Obama’s re-election.

Since 1995, Hammack and Brothers have received their health coverage from Kaiser Permanente, where Brothers worked until 2009 as a dietician and diabetes educator. “We’ve both been in very good health all of our lives – exercise, don’t smoke, drink lightly, healthy weight, no health issues, and so on,” Hammack told me.

The couple — Lee, 60, and JoEllen, 59 — have been paying $550 a month for their health coverage — a plan that offers solid coverage, not one of the skimpy plans Obama has criticized. But recently, Kaiser informed them the plan would be canceled at the end of the year because it did not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. The couple would need to find another one. The cost would be around double what they pay now, but the benefits would be worse.

“From all of the sob stories I’ve heard and read, ours is the most extreme,” Lee told me in an email last week.

I’ve been skeptical about media stories featuring those who claimed they would be worse off because their insurance policies were being canceled on account of the ACA. In many cases, it turns out, the consumers could have found cheaper coverage through the new health insurance marketplaces, or their plans weren’t very good to begin with. Some didn’t know they could qualify for subsidies that would lower their insurance premiums.

Via: Pro Publica

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Throwback Thursday: Barack Obama’s 1995 Interview On His Own Conception

Via: Weasel Zippers

Myths about Government Shutdowns

Young people often don't realize that government shutdowns used to be common, until the middle of the Clinton administration. The George W. Bush presidency was an exception to the rule. The Miami Herald's Glenn Garvin debunks the myths promoted by the left-leaning "chattering classes" to people too young to remember earlier shutdowns, and people with bad memories.

Myth: "This kind of thing never used to happen." Reality:

"Actually, it used to happen all the time. What's unusual is the quiet stretch since the last shutdown, when Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton were facing off in 1995. Before that, there were 18 shutdowns in 19 years as various Congresses and presidents squabbled over raising the national debt limit. My personal favorite is the one in 1982, when Congress didn't feel like working late to pass a spending bill the night before the new fiscal year started. The Republicans were all going to a barbecue at the White House, while the Democrats had a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner to attend."

Myth: "it wouldn't happen if not for all these crazy ideologues who've been elected the last few years. In the old days, Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill would have just had a drink after work and settled everything." Reality:

"More likely they would have broken some bottles over one another's heads. The federal government shut down seven times while Reagan was president and O'Neill speaker of the House. No wonder, the way they talked about each other.

"O'Neill called Reagan 'an absolute and total disgrace' and added that it was 'sinful that this man is president of the United States.' Reagan, in his diary, wrote that budget negotiations with the speaker were an ordeal because 'Tip O'Neill doesn't have the facts of what was in the budget. Besides he doesn't listen.'"

Via: CNS News

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OBAMA'S NEGATIVE POLLING WORSE THAN CLINTON'S IN 1995 SHUTDOWN

Gallup released a poll last week showing President Barack Obama's negative polling among Americans during the current government shutdown is substantially worse in comparison to the numbers the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, had during his administration's shutdown in 1995. 

According to Gallup:

A majority of Americans, 57%, say they now view President Obama more negatively as a result of the shutdown, while 28% see him more positively. By contrast, during the December 1995 shutdown, 49% of Americans viewed Clinton more negatively and 35% more positively. Clinton's overall approval rating would tumble to 42% by the end of the 1995-96 shutdown, but rebounded later in 1996.

Gallup points out that Americans view the present shutdown as more serious than the 1995 government shutdown. Republican Congressional leaders are viewed similarly to how they were viewed during the 1995 shutdown, with 61 percent viewing them negatively. Democratic Congressional leaders are also viewed negatively by 58 percent of Americans.

President Obama's overall job approval rating has taken a sharp drop since he first came to office. Gallup's recorded Obama's approval rating at 67 percent when he first took office. That number has since plunged to 44 percent. 

Via: Breitbart

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