What we really got with Obamacare

[CaneZach]

Since we haven't had a good political discussion lately, allow me to stir the pot:

Uncovered: New $2 billion bailout in Obamacare

By: Byron York 03/31/11 11:02 PM
Chief Political Correspondent

Investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee have discovered that a little-known provision in the national health care law has allowed the federal government to pay nearly $2 billion to unions, state public employee systems, and big corporations to subsidize health coverage costs for early retirees. At the current rate of payment, the $5 billion appropriated for the program could be exhausted well before it is set to expire.

The discovery came on the eve of an oversight hearing focused on the workings of an obscure agency known as CCIO -- the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. CCIO, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, oversees the implementation of Section 1102 of the Affordable Care Act, which created something called the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. The legislation called for the program to spend a total of $5 billion, beginning in June 2010 -- shortly after Obamacare was passed -- and ending on January 1, 2014, as the system of national health care exchanges was scheduled to go into effect.

The idea was to subsidize unions, states, and companies that had made commitments to provide health insurance for workers who retired early -- between the ages of 55 and 64, before they were eligible for Medicare. According to a new report prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services, "People in the early retiree age group…often face difficulties obtaining insurance in the individual market because of age or chronic conditions that make coverage unaffordable or inaccessible." As a result, fewer and fewer organizations have been offering coverage to early retirees; the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program was designed to subsidize such coverage until the creation of Obamacare's health-care exchanges.

The program began making payouts on June 1, 2010. Between that date and the end of 2010, it paid out about $535 million dollars. But according to the new report, the rate of spending has since increased dramatically, to about $1.3 billion just for the first two and a half months of this year. At that rate, it could burn through the entire $5 billion appropriation as early as 2012.

Where is the money going? According to the new report, the biggest single recipient of an early-retiree bailout is the United Auto Workers, which has so far received $206,798,086. Other big recipients include AT&T, which received $140,022,949, and Verizon, which received $91,702,538. General Electric, in the news recently for not paying any U.S. taxes last year, received $36,607,818. General Motors, recipient of a massive government bailout, received $19,002,669.

The program also paid large sums of money to state governments. The Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio received $70,557,764; the Teacher Retirement System of Texas received $68,074,118; the California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, received $57,834,267; the Georgia Department of Community Health received $57,936,127; and the state of New York received $47,869,044. Other states received lesser but still substantial sums.

But payments to individual states were dwarfed by the payout to the auto workers union, which received more than the states of New York, California, and Texas combined. Other unions also received government funds, including the United Food and Commercial Workers, the United Mine Workers, and the Teamsters.

Republican investigators count the early-retiree program among those that would never have become law had Democrats allowed more scrutiny of Obamacare at the time it was pushed through the House and Senate. Since then, Republicans have kept an eye on the program but were not able to pry any information out of the administration until after the GOP won control of the House last November. Now, finally, they are learning what's going on.



Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/...#ixzz1IayM2d62

[salsashark]

...and they fired up the big campaign bulldozer yesterday.

a billion dollars needed to earn a 400K job?!

[dirkterrell]

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it

That's the way our "representatives" in DC think these days, and a large enough fraction of us are dumb enough to believe it's a good thing. Well, it's going to come crashing down on our heads one way or another. Both the right and the left have made the mistake of using the federal government to enforce moral positions, and the beast has snapped free of the chains. They're bickering about $60 billion in cuts when the deficit is $1700 billion. Why aren't they looking at where the real cuts need to be made: entitlement programs? Because we're dumb enough to believe that we can pay for all the crap that's been promised by politicians past in order to get elected. Exponential growth will bite you in the ass. Just ask King Shihram.

The chickens are coming home to roost. I hope everyone is ready for it.

Dirk

[Wrider]

Yay for politicians ruining everything yet again.

[salsashark]

Top Gear on BBC last night... They took three budget compact cars down to the financial district to show the financiers what they could look forward to driving after ruining the markets.

Richard Hammond commented something to the likes of "While you're all out here, you're not inside screwing everything up"

Think we could get them to set up in DC?

[Wrider]

Top Gear on BBC last night... They took three budget compact cars down to the financial district to show the financiers what they could look forward to driving after ruining the markets.

Richard Hammond commented something to the likes of "While you're all out here, you're not inside screwing everything up"

Think we could get them to set up in DC?

And NYC..

[modette99]

I say let them, let it crash so we can start over. Lets first off cancel our debits with China and the rest of the world, yeah it will mean the dollar becomes shit...but int he end its what we need. yeah it be some hard times, but hell in the end it be worth it for our kids, grandkids and future generations.

[DFab]

I say let them, let it crash so we can start over. Lets first off cancel our debits with China and the rest of the world, yeah it will mean the dollar becomes shit...but int he end its what we need. yeah it be some hard times, but hell in the end it be worth it for our kids, grandkids and future generations.

"Hard times" does not even begin to describe what would happen if we canceled our debts.

[Finklestein87]

Going straight to the voting booth after work tonight. David Prosser FTW!!! I'm proud to be from Wisconsin and finally have a governer that was elected to make budget cuts and did so immidiately!

[Canuck]

I will post this (without permission from the author) as it's not just the US thats in trouble.
by Bill Bonner
Even before the Richter needle began to quiver and the pots began to fall, Japan's finances were already shaky. The country began running huge budget deficits following the stock market sell-off of 1990. Economists called this "fiscal stimulus" back then. Two decades later, the deficits are bigger than ever - 7.5% of GDP this year - and they stimulate nothing.

Japan has gotten in the habit of living beyond its means. The country has an accumulated debt equal to twice national output and 20 times tax revenues.

Japan has become a "zombie state." Its people are getting old. Net of private and public borrowing, its savings rate is now hugely negative.

Japan is "fiscally and demographically doomed," as Dennis Gartman puts it.

The zombie state survives only by feeding off the next generation. The government borrows, spends the money, and then counts on the next generation to make good on the loans. But the next generation is disappearing.

CNN carried an interview with an emergency worker in Japan. He noted that there were very few children among the dead. The interviewer speculated that the young were faster and better able to scramble to safety. Another reason may be that young people in Japan barely exist. There are no immigrants. Women do not get married. They do not have children - at least not enough to replenish the population anyway.

Obviously, a change of direction is in order. But what's the hurry? One of the remarkable features of our financial world is the low yields on US and Japanese sovereign debt. Japanese investors - who own 94% of Japanese government bonds - lend money to the central government for 10 years at only 1.2% yield. At that rate, the carrying cost of debt is so low borrowers are under no pressure to reduce their debt load or to change their habits. It is easier to add more debt than it is to face up to the challenge of a major political and economic restructuring.

No wonder the debt increases. Adding debt is the path of least resistance. And this is the path politicians tend to follow. As we mentioned here two weeks ago, the Bank of International Settlements estimates that Japan's debt will reach three times national output by the end of this decade.

This was the status of things when the teacups began to rattle and fall. Zero interest rates, money-printing and large fiscal deficits were already regular, every-day, business-as-usual components of the Japanese economy. Take them away, and all the unhappiness that the Japanese authorities had tried to avoid for so long would suddenly fall upon them.

As it turned out, the teacups fell upon them first. And then the sea rose up and threatened to swallow them whole. And if that weren't enough, their power plants turned against them too. Their recent quake was the most expensive natural disaster in history - likely to cost $200 billion to repair, according to an estimate from Goldman Sachs. The Tokyo stock exchange saw its biggest sell-off in 24 years - a loss in market value of $610 billion.

Under these circumstances, austerity was not only out of the question, it was no longer even part of the conversation. Reprising almost the exact words used by Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers and Tim Geithner in the autumn of 2008, the Japanese announced they would deal with the emergency at hand and worry about the long-term integrity of their national finances later.

In came the Bank of Japan with ¥15 trillion ($189 billion) of QE on Monday and another ¥21 trillion ($264 billion) on Tuesday. By Wednesday, almost $700 billion of new funds had been made available. On Tuesday, the price of gold also sank $30, prompting observers to speculate that Japan was selling gold in order to raise cash.

Japan hardly needed to sell gold. Like the US, Japan uses debt monetization (now politely called "quantitative easing" but more accurately described as money-printing) to fill in the gaps in its budgets. But as the Japanese age, they save less and less. And the window on "borrowing from ourselves" closes. QE is surely destined to play a larger role in financing both the Japanese reconstruction...and Japanese self-destruction, too.

As to the reconstruction, no one is going to complain if the Bank of Japan buys a few more government bonds. The country is repatriating capital from all over the world. In anticipation of this the yen has spiked to record highs versus the dollar. This makes QE seem not only like a sensible way to make funds available for reconstruction, but a way to help the economy too. It will help push the yen back down, helping Japan's export industry.

In the long run, no program of unbridled money printing goes unpunished. Sooner or later, Japan will add hyperinflation to its long list of torments.

[Canuck]

Going straight to the voting booth after work tonight. David Prosser FTW!!! I'm proud to be from Wisconsin and finally have a governer that was elected to make budget cuts and did so immidiately!

Wow!
On this sunny, non-election day, may I suggest voting yourself back to English class. Since the (I presume) public school system in Wisconsin failed at teaching you proper grammar.

Welcome to the club NooB.
Civic's class would be a good one to (re)take as well.

[Finklestein87]

Wow!
On this sunny, non-election day, may I suggest voting yourself back to English class. Since the (I presume) public school system in Wisconsin failed at teaching you proper grammar.

Welcome to the club NooB.
Civic's class would be a good one to (re)take as well.

Tnx! I rilley apriseight ur encouragemant!!!

[Finklestein87]

Wow!
On this sunny, non-election day, may I suggest voting yourself back to English class. Since the (I presume) public school system in Wisconsin failed at teaching you proper grammar.

Welcome to the club NooB.
Civic's class would be a good one to (re)take as well.

On a more serious note, I currently reside in WI, and we DO have an election... http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/elect...ne-kloppenburg

Its actually a VERY critical election and its outcome will hugely effect the proposals our newly elected govna is positioning.

As far as grammar, I try to be as clear as possible, but unfortunetly I'm lacking in that department.

[Canuck]

Just busting balls. It's apart of the atmosphere during ethical and political debates here.

[CaneZach]

Just busting balls. It's apart of the atmosphere during ethical and political debates here.

A part.

Apart would indicate separate from or away from one another in space or time.

Maybe you would like to type in French, eh? You hoser!

[Canuck]

A part.

Apart would indicate separate from or away from one another in space or time.

Maybe you would like to type in French, eh? You hoser!

Hahaha! Got me on that one.


[Fucking iPhone]

[tecknojoe]

I'm not reading any posts before this because I'm a asshole today.

I would like to say I am severely disappointed in our leadership for not approving SOME kind of budget. A lot of Americans are going to suffer because of their crybaby political bullshit. I'm blaming dems and reps. what a failure.

[stitch]

I'm not reading any posts before this because I'm a asshole today.

I would like to say I am severely disappointed in our leadership for not approving SOME kind of budget. A lot of Americans are going to suffer because of their crybaby political bullshit. I'm blaming dems and reps. what a failure.

Actually not that many will suffer. Almost all who do will be recipients of entitlement programs (with the exception of the military). Of course the military should get paid no matter what! Congress will continue to get a paycheck through this but our military members fighting 3 wars (technically four) will get nothing. So I say let's show the country how much we can get by without this bloated government. Let it shut down. We don't need 50% of what we have today. Let's also have our military stand down and let the world see what it would be like without our military to defend them. We kill two birds with one stone. Show the people of the United States how much they don't need this bloated useless government and show the world how much they need the US military.

[tecknojoe]

No. MANY contractors (myself included) will be told not to show up to work because the govt customers cannot be there to give direction. It actually has a MASSIVE hit on the economy. There's actually a very large number that will be impacted by this right here in the denver area alone. When we are told to not show up and not get paid, we have to keep our money in the bank, which means we won't be spending on anything, which means it hits the local economy.

There is a much bigger work force at stake than just the govies in washington. They are fucking a lot of americans because they are being crybaby assholes with folded arms.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/...#ixzz1IayM2d62

Yeah, big surprise, huh? Oh, wait, NOT!

[dirkterrell]

Read this. It sums up the big picture pretty well.

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=183789

[dirkterrell]

Interesting read. Pretty much my take on the big picture...

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=183855

[Wrider]

In response to the original title...
Fucked
/thread

[stitch]

No. MANY contractors (myself included) will be told not to show up to work because the govt customers cannot be there to give direction. It actually has a MASSIVE hit on the economy. There's actually a very large number that will be impacted by this right here in the denver area alone. When we are told to not show up and not get paid, we have to keep our money in the bank, which means we won't be spending on anything, which means it hits the local economy.

There is a much bigger work force at stake than just the govies in washington. They are fucking a lot of americans because they are being crybaby assholes with folded arms.

Technojoe,
Believe me I feel your pain. But you and other contractors are still a small part of the American economy. I would wager less than 10%. BLS reports something along the lines of 8%.

Yes from your point of view it is a huge hit but from a big picture view, your loss of work is a small part of the American economy. In your personal view that is huge, believe me I understand and I am sorry. I get to make my sacrifice as well. But from a bigger picture stand point this is good for the country. If we don't correct this spending issue now, we wont be able to fix it with short term shutdowns in a few years. Our economy will tank and NO ONE will have a job. I prefer a smaller sacrifice now to a death of the economy a few years down the road (it might not even be that far down the road).

Now ask yourself is your job vital to the operation of the country. Normally I would say since you are being furloughed it is not, but since they consider the military non essential as well....who knows what is going through the heads of who decides what is essential and what is not. The point is there are far too many goverment programs that are considered wasteful spending and we need to put a stop to that. Our government has become so large and ineffective we need to pull the reins in considerably. Only way this is going to happen is to cut the money supply off.

I think so many people have come to rely on the goverement entitlement programs that it is expected as a right. It isn't a right. It is a privilege and one that is all too often abused. We need to put a stop to these things or else there won't be anything left. Then you'll know what it is really like to have nothing and no one to count on.