The below paragraphs are excerpted from a larger article available at American Commitment.Org Explaining the changes to all Americans under Obamacare structural standards testing, “Essential Health Benefits”:

According to HealthPocket: “The data shows that there will be a near complete transformation of the individual and family health insurance market starting in 2014. Less than 2% of the existing health plans in the individual market today provide all the Essential Health Benefits required under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).”
Even the best of the best plans are being canceled in the individual market. Bob Laszewski, a top industry analyst, described his cancelation:

“I have been in this business for 40 years. I know junk health insurance when I see it and I know ‘Cadillac’ health insurance when I see it. Right now I have ‘Cadillac’ health insurance… The new plan would have a deductible $500 higher than the one I now have and a lot more if I go “out-of-network” inside the rest of the Blue Cross national network… And, wait all you people telling me rate shock does not exist, the new far more restricted plan costs 66% more than our current monthly premium.”

Not in the individual market?  Scott Conover did an extensive analysis on Forbes showing that there are also changes in the small-group market – where only five percent of plans offered required pediatric dental check-ups – and the large-group market.  He found that overall 129 million Americans will no longer have the health plan they had, including millions whose previous employer coverage will be outright dropped.  (read full article)

CNN obtains White House internal communication (memo) sharing the Obama administration’s anxiety that if the website actually begins working people will find out Obamacare costs more with less coverage and fewer options. 

In our estimation there will be roughly  “NINE stages” of national outrage.  The high pricing and limited coverage options are only “stage THREE“.

Washington (CNN) – Officials expressed concern that the next shoe to drop in the evolving story about the Affordable Care Act would be disappointment from consumers once they are able to get on the troubled HealthCare.gov website – disappointment because of sticker shock and limited choice, according to a new document obtained by CNN.
(more…)

(*note, we are predicting nine stages)

Axelrod-isms:

• People didn’t lose their health insurance – They’re “transitioning” to better coverage.

• The website is not broken – It’s encountering a “glitch”.

• They didn’t promise you could keep your healthcare plan TODAY –  They promised only the plans you liked which were being used before the law was signed were protected.   Not the ones issued over the past 3 years.

• The law was created to protect a breathtaking, and extraordinarily massive, number of people who were uninsured (30 million) – The number of people who have, or will, lose their coverage is a very, very small number, a “sliver” (15 million).

*Note:  I love how David Gregory is just filled with angst.   Why were we, your loyal supporters, defenders of ‘the one’,… why were we, set up for this pounding ?   You could have avoided it…. why…. oh why… didn’t you stop him ?   Whyyyyyyy?   

The best thing that can happen to turn public opinion solidly against Obamacare is to keep putting this guy, Ezekiel Emanuel, out there as the face of it.  He absolutely personifies all that is associated with the ‘we-know-better-than-you’ arrogance:

You can watch him in action HERE

He hides his construction of socialized death health panels by asserting he is against euthanasia.   However, this is belied by the fact, in his own admissions, he is a noted advocate for the withdrawal of medical treatment for the “elderly” or those “beyond help”.

Deception is an uncomfortable characteristic to witness.

(FOX NEWS) The architect of the Affordable Care Act insisted on “Fox News Sunday” that President Obama isn’t to blame for the rocky rollout of ObamaCare and deflected charges that the administration misled Americans about being able to keep their current health plans.
Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist, was part of the president’s health care reform team for two years and is the brother of former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

“We grandfathered in plans,” Emanuel said.
Host Chris Wallace pressed Emanuel to defend the growing number of cancellation notices sent to people whose plans changed after the law was implemented, but Emanuel could not.
Instead, he blamed much of the problems on insurance companies and not the new law. (more…)

We’ve written about the intellectual debate capability of Kirsten Powers before.    As a self-described avowed liberal you can often see her struggle to reconcile the flaws within liberalism, as a political ideology, with current events.   
Powers is honest enough to notice the “consequences” of liberalism when exhibited to its natural conclusion; yet the foundational anchors of her youth, and the modern social circle of greatest influence, i.e. ‘the society of her comfort’, make it difficult to walk it all the way out.  
Her recent article posted at Christianity Today is well worth the read.
(Christianity Today)  Just seven years ago, if someone had told me that I’d be writing for Christianity Today magazine about how I came to believe in God, I would have laughed out loud. If there was one thing in which I was completely secure, it was that I would never adhere to any religion—especially to evangelical Christianity, which I held in particular contempt. (more…)

David Gergen appeared on the AC360 Later show on Wednesday October 30th.    Gergen is a Clintonian Liberal, and gave his assessment of how President Obama appears disengaged from governance. 
However, his more accurate summary was when he described the White House as a command center for purely politically driven operations, and not actually governing or accomplishing anything.
…. at least he started out that way until the Kool-Aid drinkers, Andrew Sullivan and Charles Blow, were able to pick their aghast jaws off the floor and begin to push back.  D’oh…. It was quite humorous to watch.
The Copyrighted Video of the segment is available HERE.  It is well worth the watch.   Also, below is the CNN transcription from the segment.
(more…)

For those following the backstory surrounding the players in/around the Benghazi consulate on 9/11/12,  things again took an unusual twist.    Within 48 hours after appearing on the 60 minutes expose’,  Security Agent, Morgan Jones, was ‘outed’ by the Washington Post – as intelligence operative “Dylan Davies”.   It appeared to be a strategic attempt to discredit his reporting to Lara Logan and CBS’s 60 minutes.
Someone, presumably from within the State Dept, leaked an unsigned incident report, to the Washington Post, supposedly written by Dylan Davies while he was contracted by Blue Mountain – the UK security firm.    However, Davies is now disputing the report saying he never wrote it – and apparently it might have been authored by an executive inside Blue Mountain specifically for the FBI and Congressional Committee investigation.

(The Daily Beast – Eli Lake)  The Benghazi whistleblower whose new book details massive security failures in the run-up to the September 11, 2012 attacks denies he wrote an incident report made public this week that undermines key details in his memoir.
The debate over the Obama administration’s actions before and after the attack on the U.S. mission was reignited following an Oct. 27 60 Minutes report featuring an interview with Morgan Jones, a pseudonym for a British security contractor who trained and advised the local Libyan guard force for the U.S. mission in Benghazi. Jones’s book, The Embassy House, was released two days later and contains a firsthand account of his time in Benghazi and his actions during the series of attacks that resulted in the death of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. (more…)

In September 2010, Senate Republicans brought a resolution to the floor to block implementation of the Obamacare HHS grandfather rule. 
The Republicans were warning the current HHS regulations would result in canceled policies and violate President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their insurance if they liked it.   The HHS own regulatory rules were predicting this outcome.
The Republicans were referencing HHS Rule 34553 which can be found on page 17 of this pdf and predicted insurance companies would cancel their coverage.

On a party line vote, Democrats killed the resolution, which would have protected people from losing their health insurance policies. (more…)