IBD: OCare Exposes Lies About Uninsured

From Investor's Business Daily:

The truth is that Democrats had been misleading the country about the uninsured for decades, mischaracterizing who they were, exaggerating their plight, and grossly inflating their numbers.

ObamaCare is now exposing this fraud for all to see.

Of the 46 million who supposedly lacked insurance, for example, more than 40% were either eligible for Medicaid, enrolled in Medicaid, or weren't U.S. citizens. ObamaCare helps none of these groups.

Of the rest, they are predominantly young and in good health. Most of their intervals spent without insurance are relatively short and a significant portion have incomes over $50,000, which means they aren't eligible for ObamaCare subsidies.

Meanwhile, just 5% said they were refused insurance because of poor health or age, according to a Kaiser survey. Most cited cost as the barrier.

But while ObamaCare claims to solve the first problem through its guaranteed issue requirement, it largely fails to fix the cost problem. Even with subsidies, ObamaCare's inflated premiums are still unaffordable for many uninsured.

In fact, the McKinsey survey found that more than half of the uninsured who shopped for an ObamaCare plan cited cost as the reason for not buying one.

There are better, more targeted, and far less expensive ways than ObamaCare to help those who truly need it. ... But getting these done means first being honest with the public about just who the uninsured really are.

Backward Progressives

"There's nothing progressive about progressivism, just as there is nothing liberal about modern liberalism," write Investor's Business Daily editors.

Progressivism. It sounds positive and uncontroversial. After all, we all want progress, don't we?

But progressivism ... is not a road to progress or any attempt to make progress. It is a return to a tribal existence in which groups fight among each other for government-distributed resources.  Progressivism dates back to the late 19th century. Its animating objective is to use the power of government to design, order, mold and control society.

Under this idea, professional politicians and master bureaucrats identify what they believe to be societal flaws and use government to "fix" them. It results in the practice of unlimited government and the supremacy of the state, which has the duty, according to progressive political scientist John Burgess, to perfect humanity.

Burgess, who rose to influence in the late 19th century, also believed the state should have "original, absolute, unlimited, universal power over the individual subject, and all associations of subjects."

To realize their goal, progressives must reject the Constitution, the Founders, individualism, God-given freedom and, in fact, God himself.  
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The divide between progressivism and the march toward free people and markets could hardly be wider. One is a system of compulsion and threats, the other an order of voluntary associations in which individuals decide how much they want to participate.

In fact, no one has to participate at all. In a truly free society, all of us can choose for ourselves. But those who don't participate should not expect to receive benefits from those who do.

There's nothing progressive about progressivism, just as there is nothing liberal about modern liberalism. Neither promotes liberty. Both return society to a tribal status in which individuals are sacrificed to the collective. This is not the American ideal. It's something much more ancient and foul.

Read more Progressivism is a Move Backward, Not Forward.

What will Mainstream Media Do Now?

With the election over, MSM will now be forced to report serious issues they largely covered up during the campaign. IBD lists a few of the stories MSM will soon "discover."

The economy really does stink.

The press studiously ignored the ongoing economic catastrophe under Obama, while parading any "green shoot" they could find that suggested growth was around the corner.

Don't be surprised if, after the election, they start to notice that three years of subpar growth have left the middle class further behind and more mired in poverty, and created a vast pool of long-term unemployed.

Massive debt and entitlement crisis loom.

Despite four straight years of $1 trillion-plus deficits and a national debt that now exceeds total GDP, the media largely treated the debt crisis with a collective yawn.

Ditto the looming bankruptcy of Medicare and Social Security. These crises are nevertheless real and will have to be dealt with soon, a fact the press will almost certainly acknowledge after Nov. 6.

The debt ceiling is fast approaching.

The Treasury Dept. warned last week that it expects the government to reach its borrowing limit before the end of the year. Congress and the White House will have to deal with that just as they're trying to avoid the fiscal cliff.

ObamaCare is fundamentally flawed.

Reports are sure to appear pointing out the law's lack of cost controls, its adverse impact on doctors and hospitals, and the fact that, after spending $1.76 trillion, it will still leave 30 million uninsured.

Obama's deficit cutting plan won't work.

The press let the president get away with one of the biggest whoppers yet — that his tax hikes on "the rich" would be enough to pay for his spending binge and bring down the deficit $4 trillion. Obama's own budget proved this wasn't the case. And after the election, you can bet the media will be "shocked" to find that his numbers didn't add up.

Questions about Benghazi still remain.

After almost two full months spent burying the Benghazi story, expect the mainstream press to wake up and notice that, as the Washington Post admitted in an editorial last Friday, "a host of unanswered questions" remains. So far, only Fox News has bothered to pursue this story, but we expect that other outlets will pick up on it after the elections.

Christian: Will Liberty Suffer under 'Roberts Court'?

Yes, if the Roberts court "refuses to protect people from the excesses of presidents and members of Congress," writes Ernest Christian, who takes apart Roberts's 'tax' rationale.

The question is why did Roberts climb so far out on such a shaky limb. The opinion he wrote on the status of ObamaCare under the Commerce Clause is profound and sure-footed. In contrast, his opinion on the tax issues seems to have been written by a different person who is far from a master of the subject, and himself not fully convinced, but feels compelled to uphold ObamaCare.

The ObamaCare saga may signal a new kind of "activist" judicial philosophy that, given Roberts' young age and the advanced years of many of the other justices, may in time develop into the "Roberts Court." The chief justice says it is the duty of the court to uphold what Congress and the president do if it possibly can, and, in this case, he actively sought to do so, going well beyond what the dissenting justices and many others seem to think is reasonable.

In the future, instead of the court going to great lengths to protect individuals from government, as many liberals and conservatives have done in the past, and instead of trying to preserve the rightful role of the states in a federal system, as many conservatives have so often tried to do, the court under Roberts' leadership may primarily seek to protect the growing power of the federal government from court challenges by those who disagree with its decisions.

If that is the course taken by the Roberts court, and if it refuses to protect people from the excesses of presidents and members of Congress who by hook or crook have managed to get themselves elected, liberty will suffer.

Women Waging War on Big Government

The Tea Party isn't waging a war on women, argues Amy Kremer, chairman of the Tea Party Express; but its women are certainly waging a war against Big Government, big spending, and big debt policies. 

One of the most recent attempted diversions is the invention of a "Tea Party-led war on women." Ironically, much of the Tea Party leadership is made up of a new generation of powerful conservative women.

The truth is that Tea Party women are leading the charge to tackle the fundamental problems brought on by the ever-expanding Big Government agenda. Women are not only the most protective of loved ones. They are also the most familiar with how policies will affect their family on a micro level.

Common-sense conservative women are now driving the movement to shrink the size of government and rein in the out-of-control spending. We are going to get this country back on track, and thanks to the millions of conservative mothers, sisters, wives and daughters across this nation, we are going to restore the American dream for our children's generation and all future generations to come.

16 States with Real Job Growth

The 16 states that have seen job growth since President Obama took office have a few things in common, reports John Merline at Investor's Business Daily (IBD). They are more likely to be business friendly, to keep taxes, spending and regulations low, and to be, on average, more red (conservative) than blue (liberal).

[S]ince the recovery started, red states have had a job growth rate of nearly twice that of blue states.
Tossup states, meanwhile, have performed worse than either red or blue states. In fact, 9 of the 11 battleground states have fewer people employed now than when Obama was sworn in.

IBD: Unemployment Rate is Meaningless

"[I]n the upside-down world of Obamanomics, the jobless figure is increasingly useless, hiding more than it reveals," writes Investor's Business Daily, noting that April's "official" reported unemployment rate was 8.1%.

 Had the participation rate stayed where it was in June 2009 — the month the recession officially ended — the unemployment rate would be more like 11% today. And when you add in all those who can't get full-time work because of the lousy job market, the jobless rate reaches Depression-era levels of 14.5% — unchanged, by the way, from the month before.

Nor does the unemployment number adequately capture the many other ways the job market has deteriorated on Obama's watch. There are, for example, 5.1 million people who've been out of work for 27 weeks or more — nearly double the number when Obama took office. The median length of unemployment is now 19.4 weeks — also nearly double from what it was in January 2009.

Obama has, in other words, managed to give a whole new meaning to the term "jobless recovery," one that the traditional unemployment measure simply isn't able to capture.

 Recent college grads aren't finding jobs either, according to the New York Times.

Another Global Warming Icon Recants Alarmism

"Not many years ago, a celebrated scientist predicted a global warming disaster awaited humanity," writes Investor's Business Daily. "Today, that same scientist admits his warning was too 'alarmist'." 

James Lovelock, father of the "Gaia" theory that the entire earth is a single living system, was one of the many voices that's predicted environmental calamity will result from carbon dioxide emissions.

"We thought we knew 20 years ago," he said. "That led to some alarmist books — mine included — because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened."

The 92-year-old Lovelock notes that "the climate is doing its usual tricks" and concedes "there's nothing much really happening yet" even though "we were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now."