Monday, July 11, 2011

Monday LinkFest

As is so often the case, these are items of interest which don't seem to merit their own, dedicated post. Still, we'd hate to miss mentioning them:

■ Buckeyes Buck BambiCare©?

Maybe so:

"More than 540,000 voters in the state have signed petitions in favor of a ballot initiative to amend Ohio’s state constitution to directly conflict with Obamacare’s individual mandate."

Assuming those half-a-million-plus signatures prove valid (and sufficient), there's a good chance that we'll see this on the ballot in a few months. The initiative is doubly-interesting: in addition to contesting the (Evil) Individual Mandate, it's worded to prevent the state from passing its own version of the federal train-wreck. Not that there's any great rush to do so: just check out our last item (below).

One of the major "accomplishments" of ObamaCare© is to move more folks off of their own private (and group) health plans and onto Medicaid. Whether or not that's such a great idea economically is, of course, a matter of great debate. What's not so debatable, though, may be whether or not it's good for our physical health:

"[S]tudies that show big mortality impacts from being uninsured show even bigger mortality impacts from being on Medicare and Medicaid, even after controlling for age and income: you are more likely to die if you are on government insurance than if you have no insurance at all." [emphasis added]

Ooops!

Clunkers and Insurance

Government Motors has added a new "service;" in addition to selling, servicing and financing your new car purchase, they'll even throw in free insurance:

"To spur sales, General Motors is offering a year's worth of car insurance along with any new GM car purchased in the states of Washington or Oregon ... The insurance ... includes both liability and physical damage coverage."

I'm reminded of an old saying.

Slow and Easy Does It (Not)

Whether or not Ohio voters are successful in blocking implementation of ObamaCare© here, at least one piece is facing an uphill battle in at least a few of the other 57 states:

"State insurance exchanges are not being set up fast enough to meet the 2014 deadline set by the healthcare law ... a number of state legislatures are at risk of handing over the central component of the reform effort to the federal government."

If your state hasn't set up its version of the notorious Exchange by '14, HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious is set to do so, like it or not. How that would play against any state-specific law barring such a move I'll leave to the lawyers to ponder.
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