Michael Barone of the American Enterprise Institute goes to town on the selective, discriminatory, and politically motivated dispensation of Obamacare waivers. I particularly like how he zings the left by asking why, if Obamacare is so wonderful, so many millions of people trying to escape the President’s new scheme. But the more important message in his article is how arbitrary application undermines the rule of law.
1,372 businesses, state and local governments, labor unions and insurers, covering 3,095,593 individuals or families,…have been granted a waiver from Obamacare by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. All of which raises another question: If Obamacare is so great, why do so many people want to get out from under it? More specifically, why are more than half of those 3,095,593 in plans run by labor unions, which were among Obamacare’s biggest political supporters? Union members are only 12 percent of all employees but have gotten 50.3 percent of Obamacare waivers. Just in April, Sebelius granted 38 waivers to restaurants, nightclubs, spas and hotels in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco congressional district. Pelosi’s office said she had nothing to do with it. On its website HHS pledges that the waiver process will be transparent. But it doesn’t list those whose requests for waivers have been denied. …One basic principle of the rule of law is that laws apply to everybody. If the sign says “No Parking,” you’re not supposed to park there even if you’re a pal of the alderman. Another principle of the rule of law is that government can’t make up new rules to help its cronies and hurt its adversaries except through due process, such as getting a legislature to pass a new law. …Punishing enemies and rewarding friends — politics Chicago style — seems to be the unifying principle that helps explain the Obamacare waivers, the NLRB action against Boeing and the IRS’ gift-tax assault on 501(c)(4) donors. They look like examples of crony capitalism, bailout favoritism and gangster government. One thing they don’t look like is the rule of law.
A few months ago, I had a post about cronyism and corruption crippling Argentina. Sadly, the same thing is now happening to America.
My contention is that this is the inevitable result of giving more power to Washington. And this gives me an excuse to reuse my video showing the link between big government and corruption.
[…] This is true for health policy. […]
[…] This is true for health policy. […]
[…] Big government makes life worse for the average person while the special interests get special deals. […]
[…] the whole video is amusing, including the references to the corrupt waiver process that has exempted many unions from provisions of […]
[…] Barone has exposed the sleaziness of the waiver process, Tim Carney revealed the special deals for politically connected companies, […]
[…] Barone has exposed the sleaziness of the waiver process, Tim Carney revealed the special deals for politically connected companies, […]
[…] part of what defines a banana republic (with Obamacare being a perfect example), but arbitrary law is another […]
[…] part of what defines a banana republic (with Obamacare being a perfect example), but arbitrary law is another […]
[…] Whether we’re talking about TARP bailouts, our loophole-ridden 72,000-page tax code, Obamacare favoritism, or green-energy scams, it seems like the federal government is a giant favor […]
[…] Whether we’re talking about TARP bailouts, our loophole-ridden 72,000-page tax code, Obamacare favoritism, or green-energy scams, it seems like the federal government is a giant favor […]
[…] Whether we’re talking about TARP bailouts, our loophole-ridden 72,000-page tax code, Obamacare favoritism, or green-energy scams, it seems like the federal government is a giant favor […]
[…] is the mother’s milk of cronyism, sleaze, unearned wealth, and other forms of corruption. I posted my video on this topic just a few weeks ago, but this is a perfect opportunity to include it again for those who didn’t see […]
P.S. I should have said that the American political class is much better than the European political class because in the USA people have much more power on deciding who will represent them
Zorba: Very interesting comment by you. Perhaps the essential force behind all this is the baby boomers becoming old and forcing the young to sustain them in old age.
I think that Western Europe is a depressing place but the USA is not depressing and I think the USA will not become as Europe. I think it is so because 1) Americans and Europeans are such different people and 2) Because Americans will never allow the nauseating arrogant sadistic parasitic incredibly boring political class to have as much power as it has in Europe.
It’s too late. Medicare for the Middle Class at Any Age Act (Obamacare) has now firmly implanted itself within the electorate as the third major entitlement (Social Security and Medicare being the other two) that will convert the US into a stagnating European Style Welfare state, destined to economic extinction under the relentless compounding of sub-par 1.5%-2% average growth, surrounded by a world that grows by yet another 4.5% every year.
People will soon modify their lives (2014 seems to be the magic start year) to take advantage of the ObamaCare fact that as long as you don’t add more than $ 90K of wealth to American prosperity you get someone else to pay you $15-$20k towards your healthcare insurance.
“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704628404576265692304582936.html”
Medicare, when enacted, had some serious opposition. Now it is bankrupting the nation, and still, less than 20% of the population supports any trimming of the program. Who really thinks that Obamacare will somehow follow a different political and electoral trajectory?
“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704728004576176741120691736.html”
….“In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was “unacceptable” to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security “unacceptable.” “
So why should the US ultimately follow a different trajectory than European Welfare states when Americans are essentially adopting the very same dis-incentives to excellence?
Few things speak better of American exceptionalism than having a president who is half black and the son of an African immigrant from a single parent home. Yet, ironically, no president will be more responsible for destroying this very exceptionalism, through his systematic copying of the core policies of the economically dying European continent. Just like the production dis-incentives of the European continent drive the otherwise most competent Europeans to indolence so will the same incentives drive Americans to mediocrity.
It’s too late. The Medicare for the Middle Class at Any Age Act (Obamacare) has now firmly implanted itself within the electorate as the third major entitlement (Social Security and Medicare being the other two) that will convert the US into a stagnating European Style Welfare state, destined to economic extinction under the relentless compounding of sub-par 1.5%-2% average growth, surrounded by a world that grows by yet another 4.5% every year.
People will soon modify their lives (2014 seems to be the magic start year) to take advantage of the ObamaCare fact that as long as you don’t add more than $ 90K of wealth to American prosperity you get someone else to pay you $15-$20k towards your healthcare insurance.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704628404576265692304582936.html
Medicare, when enacted, had some serious opposition. Now it is bankrupting the nation, and still, less than 20% of the population supports any trimming of the program. Who really thinks that Obamacare will somehow follow a different political and electoral trajectory?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704728004576176741120691736.html
….“In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was “unacceptable” to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security “unacceptable.” “
So why should the US ultimately follow a different trajectory than European Welfare states when Americans are essentially adopting the very same dis-incentives to excellence?
Few things speak better of American exceptionalism than having a president who is half black and the son of an African immigrant from a single parent home. Yet, ironically, no president will be more responsible for destroying this very exceptionalism, through his systematic copying of the core policies of the economically dying European continent. Just like the production dis-incentives of the European continent drive the otherwise most competent Europeans to indolence so will the same incentives drive Americans to mediocrity.
It’s too late. Obamacare has now firmly implanted itself within the electorate as the third major entitlement (Social Security and Medicare being the other two) that will convert the US into a stagnating European Style Welfare state, destined to economic extinction under the relentless compounding of sub-par 1.5%-2% average growth, surrounded by a world that grows by yet another 4.5% every year.
People will soon modify their lives (2014 seems to be the magic start year) to take advantage of the ObamaCare fact that as long as you don’t add more than $ 90K of wealth to American prosperity you get someone else to pay you $15k-$20k towards your healthcare insurance.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704628404576265692304582936.html
Medicare, when enacted, had some serious opposition. Now it is bankrupting the nation, and still, less than 20% of the population supports any trimming of the program. Who really thinks that Obamacare will somehow follow a different political and electoral trajectory?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704728004576176741120691736.html
….“In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was “unacceptable” to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security “unacceptable.” “
So why should the US ultimately follow a different trajectory than European Welfare states when Americans are essentially adopting the very same dis-incentives to excellence?
Few things speak better of American exceptionalism than having a president who is half black and the son of an African immigrant from a single parent home. Yet, ironically, no president will be more responsible for destroying this very exceptionalism, through his systematic copying of the core policies of the economically dying European continent. Just like the production dis-incentives of the European continent drive the otherwise most competent Europeans to indolence so will the same incentives drive Americans to mediocrity.