If Supremes slap ObamaCare, it’s health insurers who lose

Photo: Reuters

This week health insurers announced they will hike premiums on ObamaCare plans by double digits in 2016. Yet it’s not ObamaCare buyers who are getting gouged.

For the most part, what consumers have to pay is calculated based on their income.

They don’t pay the sticker price. It’s you — the taxpayers — who get taken to the cleaners, because you foot the bill for the subsidies paid directly to the insurers.

That makes the Supreme Court ruling in King v. Burwell, expected this month, even more consequential. It will determine the fate of these subsidies in 37 states.

Without subsidies, ObamaCare buyers in those states will have to pay the actual — and unaffordable — sticker price of ObamaCare. And you — taxpayers — will not have to fork over hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize insurers over the next decade.

But the dirty secret is that insurers stand to lose the most from King v. Burwell.

The Affordable Care Act compels the public to buy their product, and forces taxpayers to subsidize it. What a sweetheart deal.

The giant players — United Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna, Anthem and Humana — have seen stock prices double, triple, even quadruple since the law was passed in 2010. The coming ruling threatens to put an end to their gravy train.

Democrats are predicting disaster if the court rules against President Obama.

Republicans will “rue the day” they let millions of people lose their subsidies, says Nancy Pelosi. That’s crazy talk.

No one will lose their coverage immediately, the poor will be unaffected and the biggest losers will be insurance companies.

Employers, job-seekers and taxpayers actually stand to win here.

In addition, most Republicans in Congress are inclined to compromise with the president to provide some type of financial help for insurance buyers. If the Supremes gut ObamaCare, there will be many more winners than losers. Here’s how it shakes out:

Via: New York Post

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Another accomplishment -- Obama first President to have a Triple Crown winner since Carter

 

Dan Pfeiffer‏@danpfeiffer

Another accomplishment -- Obama first President to have a Triple Crown winner since Carter

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3:59 PM - 6 Jun 2015

What King v. Burwell and the downfall of Obamacare would really mean

Before the ACA was passed, Democrats screamed, “The sky is falling!  We must pass this law!’  Now that the Supreme Court stands poised to finally drive a stake through the heart of one of the worst misuses of legislative power exercised by a single party this century, the Democrats are again screaming, “The sky is falling!”

But is it?

Betsy McCaughey’s June 3rd New York Post article, “If Supremes Slap ObamaCare, it’s health insurers who lose” nails the post-decision fallout from King v. Burwell, should the Supremes actually apply the “plain meaning” of the ACA and gut Obamacare’s subsidies.  (Emphasis added)…

Any of the 37 states that want to can set up an exchange and immediately qualify for the subsidies. But most are controlled by the GOP and won’t do it.

Without subsidies, the employer mandate is toothless, because employers are only fined if their uninsured workers go to an exchange and get a subsidy.

Employers who have been struggling to keep their workforce under 50 (where ObamaCare kicks in) and use part-timers (who aren’t subject to ObamaCare) won’t have to worry any more.
Nullifying the employer mandate is likely to ignite a hiring boom.

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, that looming mandate has caused 21 percent of small businesses to reduce workers’ hours, 41 percent to delay hiring and 27 percent of franchises (such as fast-food restaurants) to replace full-timers with part-timers.

People facing a penalty for being uninsured will also come out ahead. Without subsidies, most will be exempted from the penalty, saving them $2,000 on average next year.

Despite Democrats’ dire warnings, the poor won’t be hurt. An amazing 89 percent of people who are newly insured because of ObamaCare are on Medicaid, which won’t be affected.

Ignore the alarmist rhetoric. A loss for the Obama administration in King v. Burwell will be a win for most Americans.

We all know Democrats are nothing if not audacious, so here’s the rub – If the subsidies are overturned, the Dems will then take credit for the sure-to-follow hiring boom! 

The ACA choked economic growth by forcing small businesses to stay below 50 employees to avoid paying unaffordable health insurance premiums for all their employees.  Striking down the subsidies adds certainty to an unstable market and small business can finally invest and expand, putting many hundreds of thousands of the unemployed to work.

Dems caused the economic slowdown with trillions upon trillions of spending with virtually nothing to show for a 6 year malaise, which they deliberately aggravated and accelerated in order to expand the liberal socialist agenda and governmental power.


Via: American Thinker

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[VIDEO] ‘Total Failure’: Obama Admin Reportedly Tried To Recruit Taliban 5 Members As Informants

The U.S. government tried to recruit members of the Taliban Five as assets, so they could gather intelligence and the U.S. could influence their future actions, Fox News has learned.

The effort to "flip" the five Taliban leaders into becoming informants, however, didn't work. A source familiar with the strategy described it as a "total failure." 

Other sources, who discussed the option on the condition of anonymity, backed up the account. 

The move was pursued to strengthen the Obama administration's ability to prevent the ex-Guantanamo prisoners -- traded more than a year ago for American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl -- from returning to terrorism. The Taliban Five have been living in Qatar under a travel ban, which was set to expire earlier this week but was temporarily extended amid ongoing talks between the U.S. and Qatar. 

Asked about the strategy of flipping Taliban Five members, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest offered little information at Friday's press briefing. 

"Even as a general matter, this is an intelligence matter that I won't be able to discuss from here," Earnest said. 

The Taliban Five were held for 12 years at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, where military reviews concluded they were a likely security threat and had "high intelligence value." For those reasons, among others, seasoned military officers believe the Taliban Five were obvious recruitment targets. 

"We would definitely have tried to work that with these people because of who they are, and because of the relationships they have," Fox News military analyst and retired Gen. Jack Keane said. "These are people that had significant senior positions inside this organization." 

Via: Fox News

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AMERICAN PHAROAH BECOMES FIRST TRIPLE CROWN WINNER SINCE '78

ELMONT, N.Y. – American Pharoah accomplished one of the rare feats in sport Saturday, becoming the first horse in 37 years and just the 12th horse ever to win the Triple Crown.

The heavily favored colt completed the quest by running away from seven rivals in the Belmont Stakes, three weeks after a rain-soaked dash in the Preakness and five weeks after a gritty,stretch-duel victory in the Kentucky Derby.

American Pharoah's name now moves into the history books alongside equine immortals like Secretariat, Seattle Slew, Citation and War Admiral. And horse racing finally has the superstar it has hungered for – a fluid athlete with a massive stride who seems to float over the ground.

The last horse to win all three of North America's biggest races was Affirmed in 1978. Since then, 13 horses have come to this historic track having won the first two legs of the Crown. All had failed (with I'll Have Another scratched prior to the 2012 running), raising doubts whether the quest was still attainable for the modern thoroughbred.

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Victor Espinoza reacts after crossing the finish line with American Pharoah to win the Triple Crown. (AP)

In front of a roaring crowd, American Pharoah eradicated those doubts in stirring fashion, going wire-to-wire at the Belmont, beating second-place finisher Frosted by 5½ lengths.

Pharoah didn't break well from the gate, but it didn't matter. Jockey Victor Espinoza steered him to the lead, which he never relinquished.

As he came down the stretch, American Pharoah never slowed, widening his lead to win going away in a time of 2:26.65 – the quickest Belmont time since 2001.

The result gave triumphant closure to trainer Bob Baffert's 18-year quest to win the Triple Crown. Three times previously, he had won the Derby and Preakness only to encounter Belmont heartbreak. In 1997, his Silver Charm was passed in deep stretch. In '98, Real Quiet was nipped at the wire. And in 2002, front-running War Emblem stumbled leaving the gate and was never a factor.

Now the 62-year-old Californian finally has his Triple.

Via: Yahoo Sports

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EXCLUSIVE–IOWA GOP CHAIRMAN REACTS TO BERNIE SANDERS’ AND MARTIN O’MALLEY’S RECEPTION IN IOWA: ‘SOCIALISM IS SO ODD TO US’

DES MOINES, Iowa – Although underdogs, Hillary Clinton’s competition in the Democratic Party drew large crowds in Iowa last weekend, as Breitbart News previously reported.

The self proclaimed socialist, “Sanders attracted overflow crowds in Ames and Davenport, then Sanders capped his three-day trip with a Saturday night stop in Kensett, where more than 300 people greeted him,” Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson wrote earlier last week.

“To a certain degree, I think socialism is so odd to us – I think there would be people that want to hear how in the world an American could promote socialism,” Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kauffman told Breitbart News – adding that he is interested in how Sanders will put his campaign message all together.

Breitbart News questioned if Iowans were interested in both Sanders and O’Malley because they aren’t Clinton – as Clinton’s honesty and trustworthiness has been crumbling among independent voters, a recent poll suggests.

“The Democrats I know certainly are – I don’t know if a socialist is going to provide that – but you know, if you look at Hillary’s voting record she’s a socialist in the making – and wait until she gets in the Obama White House and picks up whatever he leaves, in terms of his policies,” Kauffman added.

Breitbart News noted how Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is the favorite in Iowa in many recent polls but that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

93%

 were the only two candidates in a recent poll that Iowans selected in an individual match up with Clinton.

“These polls are going to be so fluid … I listen to the polls obviously – you know, I’m not going to get real serious about the polls at least for the top ten until – I’ll tell you it’s going to almost have to be October before I start listening,” he said.

Kauffman said it’s hard to believe anything in a June or July poll can be of any predictive value of what is going to happen in February.

Via: Breitbart.com

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Hillary's huge lead over the GOP? Maybe it never existed

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers a speech at Texas Southern University in Houston, Thursday, June 4, 2015. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

Through all of Hillary Clinton's recent troubles — emails, foundation, Benghazi — Democrats have taken comfort in their all-but-assured nominee's formidable lead over top Republicans in head-to-head matchups. Now that lead is shrinking, and the Democratic comfort level is falling along with it.

 

But it's possible Clinton's big lead was never as big as Democrats thought. Yes, some of the margins looked enormous:

* A CNN poll in March showed Clinton up by 15 points over Republican Jeb Bush, 13 points over Marco Rubio, 11 points over Rand Paul, and 15 points over Scott Walker.

* An ABC News poll in March showed Clinton up by 15 points over Rubio, 14 points over Walker, and 13 points over Bush.

* A CNN poll in April showed Clinton up by 22 points over Walker, 19 points over Paul, 14 points over Rubio, and 17 points over Bush.

Big margins. But at the same time, at least one other poll — by Public Policy Polling, the Democratic polling firm — showed Clinton with much more modest leads over her GOP rivals. A PPP survey in late February showed Clinton with an eight-point lead over Walker, a seven-point lead over Rubio, a seven-point lead over Paul, and a 10-point lead over Bush.

A PPP poll at the end of March showed Clinton with a four-point lead over Walker, a four-point lead over Paul, a three-point lead over Rubio, and a six-point lead over Bush — at a time the other polls showed Clinton far ahead of those rivals.

"I am definitely skeptical that Clinton was ever really up by 15 points like some of the early polls were showing," says PPP director Tom Jensen. The reason for those big leads, Jensen suggested in an email conversation, might have more to do with the other polls' methods rather than any overwhelming Clinton advantage.

We use tighter controls on who we call for our polls than most national surveys do. Although we don't do an actual likely voter screen this far out, we do pull lists based on people who have voted in at least one of the last three elections. So I think we end up with samples that are a little bit more conservative than if we were calling all adults or even just registered voters with no respect to voting history.

If Jensen and PPP are correct, then the core assumption of much political analysis in the last few months was little more than irrational exuberance. Now that Clinton is returning to earth in other polls as well — PPP has a new poll out in about 10 days — the question will be how Democrats react to the realization that there once-inevitable shoo-in president might not be an inevitable shoo-in after all.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Stratcom Deploys Bombers Near Baltics

Three B-52s join war games

Three nuclear-capable bombers deployed to Europe this week for large-scale military exercises near Russia, the Strategic Command announced Friday night.

The B-52s from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, are currently operating from a base in Britain and joined maritime naval exercises in the Baltic Sea called Baltops 15, the largest naval exercise by NATO forces in the region this year.

The exercises are being held on and above international waters in the Baltic Sea and in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia—the Baltic states—and Poland.

All four nations fear Russia’s military aggression in Crimea and continuing destabilization in eastern Ukraine will be followed by Moscow’s use of military force against them.

The Baltic states last month asked NATO to permanently deploy up to 5,000 troops to the region to deter NATO aggression. Poland also wants a permanent NATO military presence.

Russian generals told U.S. officials in March during a meeting in Germany that Russia would take destabilizing actions against the Baltic states if NATO troops are stationed there.

Russia threatened to conduct a “spectrum of responses from nuclear to non-military,” the Times of London reported, quoting a participant at the meeting.

The Russian generals compared the situation in the Baltics to the conditions in Ukraine prior to the annexation of Crimea.

The U.S. bomber deployment to Europe also comes amid a sharp increase in Russian long-range bomber flights in both Europe and North America, including close flights within U.S. and Canadian air defense zones in recent months.

The bombers also will take part in an international U.S. Army Europe-led exercise called Saber Strike. That exercise aims to boost cooperation and war-fighting capabilities of regional allies for future contingency operations.

Baltops 15 will include practicing mine clearing, anti-submarine warfare, and surface-to-air defenses. Other activities include counter-piracy and small boat operations.

For Saber Strike, the bombers will take part in air intercept training for regional air forces, simulated mining operations, inert bomb drops and close air support.

“The deployment demonstrates the United States’ ability to project its flexible, long-range global strike capability and provides opportunities to synchronize strategic activities and capabilities with allies and partners in the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) area of operations during the month of June,” Stratcom said in a statement announcing the deployment.

Via: WFB

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[VIDEO] Ed Schultz: ‘Why Give Obama Fast Track Authority On Trade Deal? Because He’s African-American?’

NEW POLL:  55% OPPOED TO FAST TRACK!!!

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz continued his critique of President Barack Obama’s push for Fast Track Authority on trade Friday by invoking the president’s race as he looks to push through a deal against Democratic opposition.

In his opening monologue, Schultz wondered why Democrats should “give the president fast track authority,” before going on to invoke Obama’s ethnicity into the debate

“Why give the president fast track authority? Because he’s African-American? I don’t think so,” Schultz said. “I don’t care if the president’s Asian, African-American, from Nigeria, if he’s a fat white guy from Minnesota, it doesn’t matter.”

ED SCHULTZ: The bottom line in all of this is that we have a track record of trade agreements that have gutted American jobs. In fact, we have seen the Chinese cheat when it comes to trade agreements. We have seen them dump stuff on our market. And the trade agreements aren’t set up where we can recoil fast enough and straighten things out. By that time, the jobs are lost down the road. So this is more of the same.

So why give the president fast track authority? Because he’s African-American? I don’t think so. I don’t care if the president’s Asian, African-American, from Nigeria, if he’s a fat white guy from Minnesota, it doesn’t matter. The fact is, this is a bad deal for America. And no one’s telling the truth exactly what is in this. And why do we have to have a trade deal with Brunei? Sharia law. Really? That’s going to make our economy better? No. This is a Wall Street deal. This is a corporate deal. It’s not for the betterment of raising wages in this country.

Via: Daily Caller

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National Security Problems Aren’t Caused by Climate

Earlier this month, the Obama administration released its latest blast on climate change: A cut-and-paste job from its own reports proclaiming that climate change has serious national security implications. This is embarrassingly shoddy stuff. But it’s shoddy for a reason.

Now, nothing says credibility like a pile of old federal reports. But these reports do seem like scary stuff: rising sea levels, wildfires, refugees, and a lot more. It reminds me of the scene in “Ghostbusters,” when Bill Murray tells the mayor that, if he doesn’t let the team go, dogs and cats will be living together.

But get serious. Just for the sake of it, I’m going to assume that climate change is really happening, and that it’s really caused by people. Even if that’s true, climate change still isn’t a national security issue.

Here’s why: National security problems aren’t caused by climate, changing or not. They’re caused by what people do. And people don’t do things because it’s getting hotter, or colder. They do things because of what they believe. The problem is never weather: It’s always ideology.

The White House’s report argues that climate change is “contributing”—note the weasel word—to “conflicts over basic resources like food and water.” There’s no evidence of this. But fundamentally, wars aren’t caused by natural resources like food, water, or even oil.

Did Japan decide to attack Pearl Harbor because it was running out of oil? No. It waged war because it believed that war was the way to get what it wanted. What drove Japan wasn’t a shortage of oil. It was a surplus of fanaticism.

Saying natural resources cause conflicts isn’t merely shallow. It’s wrong. It deprives people of their moral agency. It attributes the decisions they make to outside forces beyond their control. Like crime, wars are caused by people. Banks don’t cause bank robberies: Bank robbers cause bank robberies.

Via: Daily Signal

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NYT: Billionaire George Soros Financing Dems' Voter Rights Lawsuits

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has agreed to spend as much as $5 million on Democrats' court battles against voting laws passed in recent years by Republican-controlled state governments such as in Ohio and Wisconsin.

"We hope to see these unfair laws, which often disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in our society, repealed," the Hungarian-born investor has said about the legal battles, describing himself as being "proud" of his involvement, reports The New York Times. 

Soros political adviser Michael Vachon said the billionaire has given $1 million so far this year to the liberal research super PAC American Bridge. 

Backers of Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has made the voting laws a cornerstone of her campaign, have been pushing Soros to commit millions of dollars to her super PAC.  Soros has not done that so far, the Times says.

The lawsuits against the states are being led by attorney Marc Elias, who is the Clinton campaign's general counsel, the newspaper reports. 

This is not Soros' first involvement in voting issues. His first major push in American politics included the America Coming Together voter-mobilization drive in 2004, in an effort to defeat President George W. Bush. 

The lawsuits include attacks on voter ID requirements, time restrictions on early voting that make it difficult to cast ballots on the weekend before Election Day, and rules nullifying ballots that are cast in wrong precincts. 

The Times reports that Soros was in contact with Elias in January 2014, while the attorney was exploring federal lawsuits before the midterms and before the 2016 cycle, said Vachon, Soros'  adviser, Michael Vachon. Elias himself refused comment Friday about the lawsuits' funding.

Soros is supporting lawsuits filed in Ohio and Wisconsin last month, and is helping finance a case Elias and other groups filed in North Carolina last year.

Clinton and Democrats argue that the states' voting laws affect poor, minority, and young voters, but Republicans say the new laws, enacted since 2010, serve as protection against election fraud. 

Via NewsMax

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Shocking at Vox: 'I'm a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me' -

A top article trending on Vox, an exclusively online (and leftward leaning) news platform is entitled "I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me." According to a professor of a "mid-size state school" who preferred to remain anonymous to protect his job, "The student-teacher dynamic has been re-envisioned along a line that's simultaneously consumerist and hyper-protective, giving each and every student the ability to claim Grievous Harm in nearly any circumstance, after any affront, and a teacher's formal ability to respond to these claims is limited at best.

" Of course for anyone paying a speck of attention to the free speech environments of American campuses, this is nothing new. In 2012, George Will penned an article in The Washington Post entitled "Colleges have free speech on the run." He described, "The right never to be annoyed, a new campus entitlement" and the "Legions of administrators, who now outnumber full-time faculty, are kept busy making students mind their manners, with good manners understood as conformity to liberal politics." 

Meanwhile FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), whose president Greg Lukianoff describes himself as "a liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, lifelong Democrat," has been trying to bring the lack of free speech on public and private college campuses to public attention since its founding in 1999. 

But no matter. Now that college intellectual oppression is affecting not only the few conservative professors who dared to enter the polarized world of American academia but also liberal professors, some in the liberal media are prepared to listen. 

The professor described the he fear he held that students would rate him poorly on evaluations or report him for insensitivity to the administration if he assigned readings that "affect the student's emotional state." He pointed to "a simplistic, unworkable, and ultimately stifling conception of social justice" that focuses on emotions, as the culprit for turning millennial students into fragile flowers. 

According to the professor, this trend toward ever-increasing censorship "affects liberal, socially conscious teachers much more than conservative ones." It remains unclear how that logic pans out. However, he also believes these conservative professors will be liberal academia's savior from itself, as "there's nothing much to do other than sit on our hands and wait for the ascension of conservative political backlash.

" PS: The Wall Street Journal had the story of students going after liberal prof Laura Kipnis for an essay on "growing sexual paranoia" on campuses.

Via: Newsbusters

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