Yet another critical flaw in the Exchange based system of ‘health care reform’ pushed by our industry captured President and his idolatrous fanboys(and girls):

THURSDAY, Feb. 3 (HealthDay News) — Under the new Affordable Care Act, the health reform package signed into law by President Barack Obama last March, millions of Americans whose income fluctuates during the year may lose health insurance for periods of time as their eligibility for different programs changes.

The authors of a new study appearing in the February issue of Health Affairs estimated that as many as 28 million U.S. adults might “churn” in and out of health insurance programs during the course of a year, sometimes losing coverage more than once.

“It’s a critical issue,” said Cathy Schoen, senior vice president of The Commonwealth Fund, who was not involved with the study. “You could get a raise or lose a week of work or gain a week, and move in and out of coverage.”

…

By taking a look at U.S. Census data from the last five years, Sommers and a colleague estimated that in the first six months, 35% of families with incomes below 200% of the poverty level will change eligibility while half (28 million) would have crossed the threshold at least once during the first year.

An estimated one-quarter of beneficiaries will likely have their coverage disrupted by crossing the income dividing line at least twice in one year, and 39% will over the span of two years, the authors added.

Within four years, up to 38% will have their coverage disrupted four times or more, they predicted.

…

“It would be easier to fine-tune if it was a continuous program,” Schoen said, and it would reduce costs.

Yes, Medicare for all really *would* be better, in that it would stand a snowball’s chance in hell of actually working.

But hey, good job, Balloon Juicers. Now not only have you helped turn us into an official corporatocracy, but millions of people will be constantly losing health coverage, which they probably won’t be able to afford to use anyway, every year.

It’s like the O-bots built a machine to kick people in the teeth, over and over again. Fantastic.

So this happened:

Five South Dakota lawmakers have introduced legislation that would require any adult 21 or older to buy a firearm “sufficient to provide for their ordinary self-defense.”

The bill, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2012, would give people six months to acquire a firearm after turning 21. The provision does not apply to people who are barred from owning a firearm.

Nor does the measure specify what type of firearm. Instead, residents would pick one “suitable to their temperament, physical capacity, and preference.”

The measure is known as an act “to provide for an individual mandate to adult citizens to provide for the self defense of themselves and others.”

That idiot John Cole thinks this is inherently ridiculous, but for all the wrong reasons; Atrios doesn’t think it makes sense either. But here’s the thing: of course it does, if you agree with the ‘logic’ of HCR.

Here’s how that ‘reasoning’ goes: everyone needs healthcare at some point in their lives, therefore it’s a necessary function. Instead of providing that necessary function via government, it is legal to FORCE your citizens to pay private companies up to 20% of their income, annually, who are then not actually required to provide any meaningful care, not even the care necessary to keep them alive.

True story.

So the gun-nut version of that logic is: everyone needs *security* at some point in their lives. Sensible people would want to provide this security through a public option, ie, government operated police and military forces. But HCR shows us that you can instead force citizens to pay unreliable private companies for their necessary functions instead.

A slightly better analogy would be to abolish all police forces in the state and then force everyone to hire Blackwater mercs to patrol the streets, but otherwise it’s a spot on comparison. Actually, I take that back; Blackwater is bound by contract laws, whereas insurance companies routinely violate their policies with impunity.

So you’d get a better deal from Blackwater. (and no, I won’t call them ‘Xe’ or whatever Artist-Formerly-Known-As name they’re using this week)

Remember this?

President Obama claims that he likes to take his time and check his facts before making public statements.

So why did he lie about Social Security to promote his tax giveaway to the wealthy?

President Barack Obama rewrote the history of the Social Security system during a Dec. 7 press conference, claiming that only widows and orphans originally benefited from the program.

…

But the president’s claim is not true. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935, benefits were not originally intended just for widows and orphans. From the SSA’s own historical page:

SSA: The two major provisions relating to the elderly were Title I- Grants to States for Old-Age Assistance, which supported state welfare programs for the aged, and Title II-Federal Old-Age Benefits. It was Title II that was the new social insurance program we now think of as Social Security. In the original Act benefits were to be paid only to the primary worker when he/she retired at age 65. Benefits were to be based on payroll tax contributions that the worker made during his/her working life. Taxes would first be collected in 1937 and monthly benefits would begin in 1942. (Under amendments passed in 1939, payments were advanced to 1940.)

*cue sad trumpets*

In fact, Obama has it precisely backward; Social Security advanced its most critical, longest-lasting and core benefits FIRST, then expanded to cover widows and orphans, not the other way around.

This is important because it counteracts the core of his ‘point’; in Obama’s world, Good Moderate Centrist Ideas Advance Incrementally. There’s no goal that you can’t advance in tiny bits and pieces to make compromises and everyone feel all warm and fuzzy.

The real world doesn’t work that way; sometimes a compromise is worse than no policy at all, like with his ‘health care reform’, which delivers the citizens into serfdom to line Wellpoint’s pockets.

It’s true that Social Security advanced over time, but that’s because its core, critical, initial function was solidly designed and wildly popular. You can build, but you need to build on success, on a solid foundation, a well-executed central portion of your plan. Obama doesn’t believe that because it means there’s not always room to bargain with his friends across the aisle, so he twists the facts about the single most immensely successful Progressive program of all time to fit his pet political theories.

Think it’s a casual slip-up? Well, if it is, then he’s about as incurious and ill-educated as our last Commander in Chief, because he’s been peddling this revisionist history (also known as a ‘lie’) despite being called on it, for months:

This isn’t the first time the president has made the error when discussing Social Security’s origins. The conservative Media Research Center’s Newsbusters.org found the president made a similar claim during an interview with Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart back in October of this year.

When the hacks at Newsbusters are better scholars of Progressive history than you are, you have a serious problem.