Your end of year report, Mr. President

Now pay attention, young Trump (well, he is younger than me!), because it is the end of your first year and it is my duty to assess your progress - if any!  After due consideration, er, that is, skim-reading sundry 'Yankee-doodle', political scribblers, I think I can, pausing only to exhale a sigh of relief and wipe my brow, award you a grade 0f 'B-'.  This is deserved mostly because we are not actually at war which is, of course, "A Good Thing"!  It is also a slightly surprising thing because, alas, I feared the worst a year ago.  Oddly enough, I suspect that your, er, bellicose eccentricity might be a factor because I think that many of the mass murderers, fanatics, thieves, rogues and despots who make up most of the world's leaders are equally unable to discern your likely reactions to any given situation.  It was so much easier for them 'back in the day' of 'Obora-rama' who not only spoke softly but carried a soft stick, too!

And then there are the positives, too!  I avoid mention of 'Obamacare' which remains a total enigma to me although I know, I just know, given the twerps who designed it, that it was a shambles.  As I understand it, you have not actually smashed it but you have cut an artery and that over time it will slowly bleed to death.  You have pricked, so to speak, the so-called Paris Climate Accords, the biggest balloon of hot air ever invented, and now you are poised, so I understand, to do a 'Lord Gradgrind' on that other main cause of global warming, the hot air factory known as the United Nations by slashing the amount of money hitherto pumped into it by the US government.  At $622 million a year, 22% of their total budget, that is far and away the largest contribution from any other country - to say nothing of the $2 billion America pays into so-called 'peace-keeping' activities.  Slash all that, Mr. President, and in the future it may make some countries less eager to vote you down in the General Assembly.  You have cut taxes, always an excellent policy from any government.  Your ministers are putting their boots into some of the bloated bureaucracies that blight your nation - perhaps you could lend them to us in due course.

So, all in all, not too bad at all for your first year and certainly much better than I feared at the beginning.  Keep up the good work!

 

 

 

Comments

[Bob]

David, are you sure you know what twerps designed 'Obamacare'? That name was hung on it by Republicans as a pejorative. It was originally designed by the conservative Heritage Foundation as a "free market" alternative to "Medicare for all" and first implemented in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform

[David Duff]

Are you seriously suggesting, Bob, that whatever scheme Romney produced was adopted, word for word including every comma, by the Obama team?

And I hasten to repeat that my detailed knowledge of 'Obamacare' is minimal, so I judge it on the character of the perps involved!

[Peter Whale]

If you like your president you can keep your president. Or words to that effect in case of your Obamacare. Can we not clone Reagan and Thatcher and drive all the socialists wild. My new years resolution is to take the piss out of socialism in all its politically correct dogma, in all its forms. I will treat 2018 as a crusade against snowflakes and socialists which will give me a boost in the swan song of my years.

Happy new year to all blasphemous people everywhere.

I have downed a bottle of Lansome and Halfway through the Macallan.

Go Trump go MAGA.

[Dom]

RomneyCare (and possibly the HE version) did not have the individual mandate, like Obamacare. A big stickler.

My own experience with Obamacare was uniformally bad. $1200 premium, $3000 deductible for services, separate $3000 deductible for prescriptions. Essentially, I paid for someone else’s insurance, got none of my own. That lasted only 6 months (thank god) then Medicare jumped in.

BTW, Obama changed Medicare, and no one noticed. DuckDuckGo IRMMA to read about it. Part A? Not free anymore. Part B? Higher premiums. Part D? Sur-tax.

[Whitewall]

What Peter Whale said! BTW, there are 5 more days to go in 2017. So many ripe targets for Trump to attack...I vote SJW snowflake infested Academia.

[Bob]

Clever, David, but Obamacare and Romneycare are essentially the same:

"The Heritage Foundation, the granddaddy of the right-wing think tanks, fumed when President Barack Obama said it was the source of the concept of the health insurance marketplaces where people could shop for the best deal. (We rated Obama's claim Mostly True.)" ...

"Republican Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island was the point man. The bill he introduced, Health Equity and Access Reform Today, (yes, that spells HEART) had a list of 20 co-sponsors that was a who’s who of Republican leadership. There was Minority Leader Bob Dole, R- Kan., Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and many others. There also were two Democratic co-sponsors.

Among other features, the Chafee bill included:

An individual mandate;

Creation of purchasing pools;

Standardized benefits;

Vouchers for the poor to buy insurance;

A ban on denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition.

"You would find a great deal of similarity to provisions in the Affordable Care Act," Sheila Burke, Dole’s chief of staff in 1993, told PunditFact via email. "The guys were way ahead of the times!! Different crowd, different time, suffice it to say."

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/15/ellen-qualls/aca-gop-health-care-plan-1993/

[Bob]

By the way, the ACA has been resisted every inch of the way and stopped from being fully implemented by Republicans, who wanted Obama to never have a win. That's why it has so many bad points, and why it might eventually be replaced by "Medicare for all". Medicare part D was introduced by Republicans during the Bush II administration, of course with inadequate funding. Politics aside, both parties recognize the employer based system has outlived its usefulness. The fight now is only over who gets credit for the next system. Trump is still promising to enact his own.

Also, wingers, trying to make the left sad by saying nasty things doesn't work anymore, but don't let that stop you.

[Whitewall]

Follow on to Peter Whale above:
https://theodoredalrymple.wordpress.com/2017/12/25/english-intellectuals-and-their-loathing-of-england/

[David Duff]

Bob, I confess to my ignorance concerning Obamacare details but, being a political stich-up, I suspect the worst.

At a more fundamental level there is the problem of a service with a completely insatiable demand but with no-one willing to pay for it, not least because no-one knows the cost!

I'm glad it's not my problem to solve!

[Bob]

David, there's probably no completely good answer for health care or much else, but improvements can be made. Demand for health care ceases upon death, which is only the most obvious reason it's not completely insatiable.

[JK]

Eh Bob?

"It was originally designed by the conservative Heritage Foundation as a "free market" alternative to "Medicare for all"[.]

Well I suppose that's correct, so far as it goes but, I went to the trouble of converting the language of the Massachusetts original legislation into a text-file (I was unable to find a pdf) ... and upon doing so my "office program" indicates - were I to print the damned thing - it'd take fifty-four (54) pages of my limited and valuable copy paper.

On the other hand - I was able to find a pdf of the Obamacare legislation. That I definitely will not be printing as that goes to nine hundred and seventy four (974) pages.

https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2006/Chapter58

https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ppacacon.pdf

Another thing that seems, at least to me, wholly different between the two; the then Massachusetts legislative body was apparently "knowledgeable with its legislation" because they both passed the thing then, after Governor Romney vetoed parts of the thing, the body concerned over-rode the vetoes.

Now as for Obama's party's "knowledge of the legislation" wasn't Nancy Pelosi's infamous description of at least her familiarity with the thing something along the lines of, "We'll have to pass it to find out what's in it"?

Apples and oranges is what I'd say Bob.

Full disclosure: I hadn't the need of Obamacare myself - VA coverage you see but, last time I visited my daughter (2016) over in Oklahoma her husband was beside himself because their premiums had risen $3200.00 and neither of 'em (daughter nor son-in-law) had had the need of any healthcare professional - well, my son-in-law was drug-tested but I think Lockheed Martin picked up that expense - that entire year.

[Up2L8]

First Bob, Romneycare and Obamacare look familiar on the surface and I will give you two words why that is the case, Jonathan Gruber.

Secondly, every person who pays any kind of federal tax, whether it be income, alcohol, tobacco, fuel or anyone of a dozen others are helping to fund the Massachusetts health system. Over 55% of it is funded by the federal government by way of reimbursements.

In 2012 83% of Massachusetts residents who obtained insurance did so through publicly-funded programs underwritten by the federal government.

[Bob]

JK and Up2L8,

The ACA was a dog's breakfast because so many players had to be included to get the thing passed, thus the nearly 1000 pages. The funding was necessarily different on the state and federal levels. Compare it to the recent Republican tax cut, which cut out Democrats entirely, had no public hearings, and is full of surprises.

I'm not claiming the ACA is a good bill. It retains almost all of the inefficiencies of the old system. That's why we still pay twice as much for health care per capita and far more for prescriptions than the citizens of any other country but still don't have the best outcomes. It's only advantage was getting more people covered.

There have been large increases in premiums, but premiums had been increasing rapidly since the 1970's. In the last ten years I worked my share of employer based plans, including yearly premiums and copays, went up drastically and benefits went down. Since Republicans just eliminated the individual mandate, premium prices will go up at least 10% more over the next few years for participants.

Despite Trump's claims, 'Obamacare' hasn't been repealed. Only one provision, the individual mandate, has been eliminated. He promises he'll come up with a "new" system that's better. We'll see. I'm still glad to have Medicare and a supplemental plan.