ObamaCare: Death or Deductible?

“I should have gone to the hospital. [But] I knew there was a big bill waiting for me if I did, and I rolled the dice.” – Dr. Ashish Jha, Harvard University employee

Remember, the entire purpose of health insurance is the ability to receive inexpensive medical attention. In 2017, not even a M.D. can afford the so-called Affordable Care Act (known colloquially as ObamaCare). This big government behemoth—which swallowed 1/6 of the U.S. economy—is so costly, it actually discourages enrollees from seeking care. In George Orwell's dystopian novel “1984”, how is real-life ObamaCare any different than Big Brother's “Ministry of Peace” that actually makes perpetual war?

Harvard heath-policy researcher, Dr. Ashish Jha's heart had raced dangerously for more than an hour. His home remedies were ineffective. Was his condition life threatening tachycardia which can lead to a heart attack? He couldn't be sure. He admitted to his wife that the solution was an emergency room visit. Yet, this doctor feared his potential demise less than the 6,000 deductible that awaited him if he sought treatment. Cowed by the economics, like so many others, he didn't go.

When Dr. Jha signed up for the “lower” premium higher out-of-pocket plan, it had been a kind of personal experiment for him. An academic's quest to better understand how a trade-off—the cost-benefit ratio—influences heath. Unfortunately, his ivory tower scenario resulted in a life and limb gamble no different than Russian roulette. With the clock ticking, what matters more: money or mortality?

Today, that's a concrete question for the Republican-controlled Congress to answer. Why do they continue to dither over repealing ObamaCare? You know, the action they pledged to take six years ago? Dr. Jha is in the same boat as at least 46 million Americans with deductibles of $1,000 a year or more. For context, patient liability has increased a whopping 67 percent in the employer market since 2010. (ObamaCare was signed into law on March 23, 2010.) Furthermore, The Health Policy Brief by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation summarizes Dr. Jha's dilemma rather clinically:

“Increasing plan deductibles has emerged as one potential solution to slowing health care cost growth by reducing use”.

Besides increased medication, Dr. Jha's cardiologist indicates a procedure will likely to cure his infirmity. Despite his health scare, Dr. Jha's decided to roll the dice for yet another year. Although he's clear on the solution, he's still stymied by the gargantuan deductible. Can one blame him if he's waiting on the Republicans' cost-effective ObamaCare replacement?

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Nail-biting Binary Politics

One way or another, Neo [an anagram meaning “the one”], this war is going to end. Tonight, the future of both worlds will be in your hands... or in his. – The Oracle from “The Matrix.”

Due almost entirely to anti-American progressives (read: lawless Obama and his lying would-be successor Hillary Clinton), national politics are so polarized, they are binary. That's exactly like on/off computer code. In the almost 8 years under the corrupt ministrations of Barack Obama (much like his O-shaped symbol) America has been a zero (0). In practical terms, that means off an economic cliff (with an escalating 19.3 trillion debt) and an impotent void (0) overseas. In truth, our republic's vitality and viability hangs by a thread. A 50/50 rescue/ruin paradigm to be determined by November's presidential election. Will America continue to be a zero (0), helmed incompetently by yet another lying Democrat? This one arrogantly exclaimed:

“For goodness sake, that is not gonna happen [a campaign-ending federal indictment]. I’m not even answering that question.” — Hillary Clinton

Or will it be revitalized to a First World one (1) by Donald Trump? The stakes could not be higher, the outcome more uncertain.

Make no mistake: neither Hill nor Bill care not one whit (0) for our country. Mrs. Clinton's potential election is a victory solely for them (2 = 0). The Oval Office is the ultimate economic trough for this tag team of amoral sows to stick their collective snouts back in. It's retaining political power for even greater shakedowns: power brokering for stratospheric self-enrichment. See the well-established pattern: how else does one go from Hillary's “dead broke” to worth over 100 million in 15 short years? So they can do better, become billionaires in 4 (or 8) short years from further ripping off America to the highest bidder?

That's a zero-sum (0) game for everyone else. One wonders if divine intervention is necessary for average Americans to finally wake up to the insidious truth. It is insanity to elect another America-hating, Constitution-disregarding Democrat to high office. Progressives Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are anti-Reagan and anti-Lincoln. They are twin scourges of Founding Fathers' nightmares. What their built-in checks and balances have failed to rein in (read: the Congressional do-nothing Republican establishment and “Notorious RBG” on the Supreme Court).

Let me be clear, a plague has flourished on the U.S. political landscape: hard left big government control fascists, equal parts lawlessness, lies and corruption. To ignorantly choose such creatures to “lead” America in the future is yet another self-inflicted wound with domestic, global and historical consequences. Liberty has been greatly dimmed at home—and virtually extinguished abroad (read: the Middle East takeover by ISIS, the Iran nuclear “deal” etc.). In the extreme, one no longer wonders how monstrous figures rise to absolute power like in Germany in 1933:

“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” – Adolf Hitler

This is why progressives (fascists), abetted by a propagandist MSM, make empty promises to the next generation of “free” stuff. This blatant trolling for votes is a resounding warning (school bell) to the wise.

Related specifically to Mrs. Clinton, the fix has been since the beginning. Specifically, way back in February during the Iowa Caucuses, how else does one explain 6 different dead-locked precincts tossing tie-breaking coins all fall Ms. Clinton's way? (Per Las Vegas oddsmakers, six consecutive appearances of heads or tails is a statistical probability of 1.5%. That's 64-to-1 against.) An outcome that luck has nothing to do with. Likewise, during the sham contest between she and now vanquished socialist Bernie Sanders, he kept winning state elections, but losing in the all-important delegate count. Moreover, fast forward to the political theater of last week. On the same day, the first day Clinton and Obama appear together on the campaign stump, FBI's Director James Comey announces his boundary-overstepping recommendation that criminal charges not be filed against Hillary for Server-gate?

So it's no rules or consequences for the elites like Hillary ‘scot-free’ Clinton, is that what our dilapidated democracy's come to? A coin flip that may place the fate of the nation (and perhaps the world) in immoral hands such as hers? In a poll released last Monday, despite clear evidence of law breaking—and treasonous espionage—only 56% disapprove of the decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton? That's little more than another coin toss. (How about completely failed Mr. Obama's approval ratings that also inexplicably hover at 50%?) Despite unambiguous criminality, why do half of those surveyed not seem to care?

This tragic political phenomenon is not exclusive to America of late. A case and point was the successful Brexit vote to leave the ‘bananas’ European Union. That was 52% for and 48% against, another virtual 50/50 split. In every one of these situations the political establishment (via the media) throws its nefarious weight in an autocratic direction beneficial to itself. That direction always maintains the status quo. This is the reason for moral equivalency, and the infestation of political correctness in today’s national politics. Since Obama, world-shaping decisions are either left in wicked hands, or to the whims of fate. A highly risky numbers game favoring the powerful (and enmeshed) establishments of both political parties (2 = 0). Therefore, for the voters to unite (1) behind the outsider—the unconventional candidacy of Donald Trump—remains the average citizen’s best bet to return America to her deserved First World (1) glory. It's a 50/50 proposition so choose wisely. One (1) or zero (0)?

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
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Blathering “badder” Ginsburg

“I can’t imagine what the country would be with Donald Trump as our president. For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be—I don’t even want to contemplate that. Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand.”

“He is a faker; he has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He [as she] really has an ego.”

— “Objective” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It's no surprise an egotistical crone supports a lying witch. (Still, as every American citizen, jurist Ginsburg is entitled to her personal opinions, warped as they obviously are.) As she was appointed to the high court by Hill's philandering hubby Bill, it would be somewhat understandable if her stated reason for support of the coronated Democrat was misguided nepotism. But it's not. This veteran of the Supreme Court is just another partisan; an unapologetic ideologue wearing a black justice's robe. How can a person charged with faithfully interpreting the Constitution—an ultimate arbiter of our laws—support a plainly immoral, lawless creature for U.S. president?

The mind frankly boggles at Ms. Ginsburg's shameless audacity. In what alternative universe does one as she publicly excuse the candidate constantly under threat of multiple federal indictments, but criticize the populist outsider who isn't? This “great legal mind” is so pickled she can't imagine a Donald Trump presidency? Obviously insulated by her lofty perch, she is so far removed from reality she feels threatened by the pro-Constitution Republican (pledged to make America great again)? Does this Big Sister timeshare in “The Twilight Zone” or just perpetually reside in George Orwell's “1984”?

Barack Obama's fascist “fundamental transformation of America” has completely mangled Ronald Reagan's First World beacon of liberty. Now, America is an unrecognizable ultra-constitutional husk, no better than a Third World banana republic. Indeed, the wrongdoing of Obama's imperial “leadership from behind” has seeped like sludge into every major aspects of the executive branch: the White House, the weaponized IRS, the incompetent EPA, the blind Justice Department—and the hobbled FBI. Even the politically cowed do-nothing Republican Congress is not immune. Further, with the tragic passing of conservative icon Antonin Scalia, even the Supreme Court hangs in the most precarious balance: philosophically stalemated 4 to 4. This razor's edge is borne out by Ms. Ginsburg's fellow travelers on the bench. Specifically, I refer to the high court's “Leona Helmsley,” the coddled Sonia Sotomayer. One more rotten apple such as these (the next president may chose as many as three replacements) will doom the country to unimaginable leftist ruin for decades to come.

It's no laughing matter. Even given millennials' misbelief that TV's “Judge Judy” (Sheindlin) is a member of Ruth Ginsburg's elitist country club. (Much as one wishes she is, she's not. Yet, Ms. Sheindlin's no-nonsense adherence to law makes the future New Zealand bound Ms. Ginsburg the real faker here). A simple truth: a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for Judge Judy's America.

As a cautionary tale, see the untold collateral damage of electing Democrats/progressives. That specifically means all politicians surnamed Clinton—and their bad judicial appointees like the appropriately nicknamed “Notorious RBG.”

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
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