“I think Democratic politics drove yesterday more than anything else. There was widespread panic on Capitol Hill this week… But you know the bigger, the thing we’re not really talking about – he didn’t fix anything. There was nothing that was fixed because he doesn’t have the power to do it. John Boehner’s right.”

UPDATE – Oops, original post had wrong link to McDonough article —  Fixed now, Sorry.

WASHINGTON DC – […]  McDonough, speaking privately to Democrats in a closed session Thursday  afternoon, said the president’s hands were tied, to an extent, in trying to move  the policy to fit his promise.
“We do not have a deal where everyone who has received a cancellation notice  that they can re-buy. We can’t mandate that,” he said,  according to sources present. But, he argued, the new policy shifts the  burden for cancellations to state insurance commissioners and insurance  companies — an important political distinction. If a tea party Republican  contends that someone lost his or her insurance because of the law, McDonough  said “that is absolutely untrue.”
At one point, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) asked why the White House isn’t  doing more to blame insurers for policy cancellation notices.
McDonough replied that there are good actors and bad actors in the insurance  industry.
“I think it is dangerous to paint with a broad brush,” he said.  (LINK)

In essence Obama’s “fixer”, Denis McDonough, is saying there are people in the Insurance industry who are “with us“, and there are some “against us“.

The problem looks like this: (more…)

Obama: improvements to http://t.co/UYIQyILmM7 by 11/30 to be "marked and noticeable"; no guarantees will always work http://t.co/ApETgi0aKf

— Reuters Politics (@ReutersPolitics) November 14, 2013

“McConnell isn’t a liberal, a conservative or a moderate,” said Horowitz, whose group also has endorsed Bevin. “His ideology is power. That’s all he cares about.”

KENTUCKY – U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is a vocal critic of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and its glitch-stricken website, HealthCare.gov, repeatedly calling for repeal of the law “root and branch.”
“At this point, senators from both parties can agree: HealthCare.gov is a rolling disaster. Every day seems to bring more, newer comic calamity,” McConnell, R-Ky., said Oct. 29 in a Senate floor speech. “The only thing the website seems to be good for right now is creating punch lines for late-night comedians.”
However, since 2011, McConnell has accepted more than $75,000 in political donations from health care giant UnitedHealth Group, which owns the technology company that helped build and launch HealthCare.gov for a reported $155 million and now is responsible for fixing it. (more…)

Did you skip the 6th Grade ?

This billboard was spotted today in Oregon:

The formatting of presentation as a question makes this excellent.
Why lie?…  Indeed

In a follow-up to President Obama’s declaration of his “insurance policy cancellation fix”, he outlined his real concern.
It is not a concern for the American People who are seeing the deconstruction of their individual healthcare;  it is not a concern for anyone now thrown into chaos by their loss of health insurance;   no, for Obama the concern is about how it might hurt his party and their re-election.
WASHINGTON DC – President Obama acknowledged Thursday that the problem-ridden rollout of open enrollment in the new health care law had hurt Democrats politically.
“There is no doubt that our failure to roll out the ACA smoothly has put a burden on Democrats, whether they’re running or not, because they stood up and supported this effort through thick and thin,” Obama said Thursday, announcing that insurers could allow customers to stay on cancelled plans for another year.
“I feel deeply responsible for making it harder for them rather than easier for them to continue to promote the core values that I think led them to support this thing in the first place,” he added.  (continue reading)

(Via Washington Post)  […]   [President Obama’s Plan is to] Allow insurers to renew existing plans in 2014 (which means they could continue into 2015) while forcing them to send Landrieu-like letters explaining why their plans don’t conform to the Affordable Care Act’s standards.

This doesn’t really ensure anyone can actually keep their plan — which means it also doesn’t affect premiums in the exchanges. But it makes it easier for Democrats to blame insurers for canceling these plans. And it perhaps makes it easier for the White House to stop congressional Democrats from signing onto something like Landrieu or Udall.
The insurance industry is furious. They’ve been working with the White House to get HealthCare.Gov up and running and they’ve been devoting countless man hours to dealing with the problems and they’ve been taking the heat from their customers over canceled plans, and now the Obama administration wants to make them into a scapegoat. (more…)

Earlier today we proposed a counter campaign, “Got Cancellation?”  to counter the ridiculous “Got Insurance?” Obamacare propaganda campaign.    The basic premise is to highlight the insufferable contrast between the lie which Obamacare represents and the reality.
Here are some excellent examples of “Lost Insurance?”  Or, “Got Cancellation” from reader Opinionated Vogon:
Ridden to ruin

(more…)