What's $300 million divided by 44?

That's the math question of the day, for those into cost/benefit analysis on Obamacare.  And for the rest of us as well.

The Oregon health insurance exchange signed up only 44 people through the end of November, according to a report by the Department of Health and Human Services. Oregon was unable to reach triple figures despite receiving nine figures in federal money to build and promote its exchange. The amount of federal aid exceeded $300 million.

As Philip Klein notes, Obamacare fans can’t blame Republican resistance for the program’s failure in Oregon. The state is run by Democrats and it embraced Obamacare from the start. Indeed, its outreach program has been praised by Obamacare supporters, according to Klein.

For those who don't have a pencil handy, that works out to over $6,800,000 per signup.  And we don't even know how many of those actually went through the whole process to get functioning insurance with payment.

And for anyone thinking, we'll that's Oregon's problem - remember that "federal aid" is just code for "USA taxpayer money".  As in you and me.

Personally, I think most of the 44 would have just rather gotten the money and worried about paying medical bills from it.  You know....that might even be the rational economic thing to do.  Anyone have a phone number in Salem, Oregon to call the governor with an idea?

H/T to Powerline.

Obamacare and Me

Well, the Obamacare letter came in from my insurance company today.  And thanks to the diligent work of Mrs OC, all is well.

We basically self-insure ourselves for regular medical care and carry a high-deductible "catastrophic" plan for the big stuff.  Which luckily hasn't been necessary.  Nor do I hope it to be.  It's a $10,000 deductible, which is enough to put a dent into our finances but not so bad as to bankrupt us.  It's insurance the way the word should be used.  Not as it has been corrupted in regards to "healthcare".

You see....the whole thing is an example of our bastardized language on this issue.  For it's not about "insurance", nor about "healthcare".  It's about "payment".  Who's going to pay for it?  Under what conditions?

No one in America is denied "healthcare".   The care is there, available in the free market.  If I want, I can get care from the most expensive doctor in New York City.  No one is stopping me by regulation or law.  But there is the factor of the free market in action.  Think of it like the criminal legal system.

If you are destitute, it's not like you can't get legal representation.  The courts have ruled that you are entitled to counsel in all criminal maters.  But that doesn't mean you get a Racehorse Haynes or an F. Lee Bailey.  Same with medical care.

You see, it all comes down to paying for it.  Who pays for it.  How much will they pay for.  Not whether you can get it, but who pays the bill.  Me and Mrs OC have said we're willing to pay for the day in, day out care and have "insurance" for the disasters.  Just like our car insurance and homeowners insurance.

My car insurance doesn't pay for an oil change.  Or tire rotation.  Or a tune-up (or whatever it is nowdays with all the fancy electronic ignition and fuel injection).  It pays when I'm in an accident and the damage is in the thousands.  Same with insurance on my house.  I pay to have it painted.  I pay to have it heated.  But if a tree falls on the roof, or there's a fire -- that's when "insurance" comes into play.

So, when you hear all the wailing about "healthcare", think of it in terms of your car or house.  And how the debate language has been hijacked.  It's not about "healthcare", it's about the money.  And the control.  Because those are the things government loves to get its fingers into.

As for the OC household....luckily we have a policy that is grandfathered, and an insurance company that isn't playing the game of changing deductibles or co-pays or anything.  So we get to keep our "insurance".  Maybe our company saw how screwed up Obamacare is and decided to insulate itself by making some plans stay the same.  I hope so.  And I hope that decision maker stays at his job til Obamacare dies.  And may there be a DNR order firmly on view at the bedside.

ACORN is back

Judicial Watch has news of how nearly a half billion dollars of your money is funneling through an ACORN alumnus.

The Obama Administration has given a former director at the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) nearly half a billion dollars to offer “struggling” Illinois homeowners mortgage assistance, a Judicial Watch investigation has found.

It means the ACORN official (Joe McGavin) will go from operating a corrupt leftist community group that’s banned by Congress from receiving federal funding to controlling over $445 million in U.S. taxpayer funds.  The money is part of a $7.6 billion Treasury Department program to help the “unemployed or substantially underemployed” make their mortgage payments.

In this case, JW found that a subcomponent of the state-run Illinois Housing Development Authority, known as the Illinois Hardest Hit Program, received a generous $445,603,557 Treasury infusion. The Obama Administration established Hardest Hit in 2010 to provide targeted aid to families in states hit hardest by the economic and housing market downturn, according to its website.

In early 2011 McGavin was appointed as director of Hardest Hit. Before that he was director of counseling for ACORN Housing in Chicago and operations manager for a Chicago ACORN offshoot called Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA). His strong ties to ACORN make him a suspect candidate to handle such a huge amount of taxpayer dollars.

You see...all the ACORN ban did was force them to change names.  But the money still flows.  Your money.

Now, some may say that the real story is the $7.6 billion being given to bail out two groups....the Democrat voters who borrowed money they could never repay, and the Wall Street bundlers who made those bad loans in the first place.  Both of which give their support and votes to The One.

Rather than ban ACORN from receiving money, stop giving the money in the first place.  If there's no federal funding, there's nothing to steal.

Hat tip to Moonbattery for the heads up.

Do as I say, union style

We keep hearing from the unions that those evil banks are against the "worker".  Well, Peter Schweizer, has a different story for us from Business Insider:

Big unions are morphing into the kinds of big businesses and banks they decry, hawking to their members everything from high interest credit cards to home loans.

And contrary to Big Labor’s claims, these products offer no real benefit to union members—only to the union bosses.

Consider, for example, the “SEIU New Rewards Visa Card” and the AFL-CIO “Union Plus” card.  With each new enrollment and subsequent swipe of the card, the union bags a fee and a percentage respectively.

This turns into huge money:  In FY2011, according to its LM-2 filing with the Department of Labor, the AFL-CIO received approximately $28,163,266.00 from credit card revenue.

And it's not like this is good for the card holder:

Both the AFL-CIO and SEIU try to give their members the impression that their cards are superior to others on the market, but they’re not.  The SEIU, for example, offers an introductory rate of 12.24% APR to 22.24%, which is consistent with the industry standards the union have labeled “predatory.”  The SEIU card boasts that it doesn’t charge a late fee.  But union members should read the fine print; if they miss a payment, their rate skyrockets to 27.99%.

Nerdwallet, which Money magazine calls the “Best Credit Card Site” on the web, compares the value of more than 1,000 credit cards.  They thrashed the Union Plus card’s slick advertising and complex fine print.

Worse, Nerdwallet points out that many of the card’s so-called benefits are already available by virtue of union membership.  “We are appalled at the popularity of the Union Plus Credit Card,” says Nerdwallet.  “Avoid the Union Plus Credit Card.”

But it's good for the union treasury.  And thus, the Democratic Party.

In light of Tuesday's vote in Wisconsin, we just wanted you to know.  Read the whole article.

Thanks to Powerline for the pointer.

Tax dollars at Gitmo

The American Thinker lets us know of one more way the federal government is wasting our dollars.

They're cutting military pensions and health benefits but the Pentagon found $750,000 for a new soccer field at Guantanamo for the terrorist detainees.  Fox News reports:

At a time of record deficits, a new soccer field for detainees at Camp 6 in Guantanamo Bay is just getting the finishing touches -- at a cost of $750,000 to taxpayers.

The project was the highlight of a tour Tuesday of the detention camp for reporters at the facility covering the arraignment in a military court of Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident and the only legal U.S. resident on trial at Guantanamo.

The project began in April 2011 and is due to finish this spring. The detainees will now have three recreation facilities at Camp 6, which is home to "highly compliant" detainees who live in a communal setting.

In addition to an indoor recreation field and the existing outdoor recreation field, the new soccer field -- selected because it is such a popular sport with detainees -- is half the size of an American football field.

The new field has been specially constructed so that the detainees "have maximum access" -- about 20 hours a day. Special passageways allow the detainees to pass into the new recreation yard without being escorted by the military.

On the tour, a military police representative who asked not to be identified by name said allowing high levels of activity outdoors helped reduce behavioral problems at the camps, and it also limited the amount of interaction between detainees and the guards.

I am very happy for the terrorists. Have their ever been prisoners treated in such a grand manner? These guys were living in hovels and mud huts before their capture. Now they've got 3 squares and a bed, a soccer field, a big library -- stuff they never dreamed of possessing back home. Not to mention a government lawyer provided free of charge.

Something is wrong with this picture.

You can say that again.  Remember, they always know how to spend OPM.

Hat tip to I Own the World for the pointer.

Fundraiser in Chief

From Keith Koffler at White House Dossier:

With Republicans steamrollering ahead with a group of well-fed Super Pacs and an increasingly successful money effort by Mitt Romney, President Obama Friday will attend six fundraisers, a possible sign of budding desperation for a campaign that is lagging far behind its initial fundraising expectations.

Obama will travel to Minneapolis, where he will ensconce himself at the Bachelor Farmer Restaurant for three successive fundraising events. Afterward, he moves on to Chicago for a fundraiser at the Chicago Cultural Center and then two events at what appear to be separate private residences.

In April, Obama’s fundraising total actually declined by nearly $10 million from the $53 million he took in during March.

Meanwhile, Romney raised $40.1 million in April, nearly on pace with Obama.

Before heading to Minneapolis, Obama will hold an event at the Honeywell Golden Valley Facility in Golden Valley, Minnesota, where he will call on Congress to pass his “To Do List” of economic proposals.

And, of course, that speech at Honeywell will be an "official" visit, thus paid for by us, the taxpayers.

Michael Ramirez of IBD nails that one:

 

It's about the motives

From John Hinderaker at Powerline:

White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked about Solyndra. He responded that the government made a number of “green energy” investments; some of the companies failed, but most haven’t (not yet, anyway). So an alert reporter asked Carney how that is any different from Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital experience, which has been so bitterly attacked by Barack Obama. As Romney has often said, Bain made many investments, frequently in troubled companies; most succeeded, but some failed. Carney’s deer-in-the-headlights response is entertaining.

Actually, of course, Bain’s record was far better than the Obama administration’s. There is a good lesson here: Bain’s record was better because it decided to invest based on the numbers, not based on favoritism and political influence.

You see...it's different because Democrats care and Republicans just want to make money. 

Follow the money

You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.  From Breitbart:

Eric Whitaker, one of Barack Obama’s closest friends and Michelle Obama’s former colleague at the University of Chicago Medical Center, allegedly offered to bribe Jeremiah Wright $150,000 into shutting up during the 2008 presidential campaign, according to Edward Klein, author of a new book about the Obamas. Obama allegedly met with Wright ten days after giving his famous race speech and pleaded with him to be quiet and cancel his speaking engagements, but Wright refused.

The news of Whitaker’s alleged bribery comes just days after theDepartment of Health and Human Services awarded a $5.9 million grant to Whitaker’s Urban Health Initiative (UHI) at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and months after Whitaker served on a host committee for a January Chicago fundraiser for Obama. In 2011, the feds sent four subpoenas to Whitaker-funded organizations.

UHI is one such program he now heads as a vice president at the University of Chicago. It was one of only 26 grantees awarded out of an applicant pool of more than 3,000. Interestingly, none other than Michelle Obama worked at UHI and received a six-figure salary increase just after her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate. (Her position was eliminated after the Obamas left for the White House.)

Whitaker, who is a parishioner at Trinity United Church of Christ, would have had ample opportunity to bribe Wright. In fact, he may have felt like he owed Obama. In April 2003, Whitaker landed the job as director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, where he oversaw a $400 million budget, until he resigned in October 2007 to serve as an executive at UHI. Obama apparently got him the job by hooking him up with Tony Rezko.

Calculator in Chief

The calculating side of Barack Obama came to the fore this past week.  As noted by the ever-observant Richard Fernandez:

Perhaps the cruelest thing about President Obama’s “evolution” on the gay marriage issue was the element of cold calculation. Trapped between alienating the white, liberal gay establishment and dissing the black churches who were anti-gay marriage, he decided to curry favor with the white, gay and moneyed constituency because deep in his heart he knew that no matter how hard he stepped on them the black community would not abandon him.

Having now sided with the people who call these black pastors and congregations “bigots,” especially in North Carolina where two-thirds of black voters supported Amendment One, Obama is not at risk of having them flip to Mitt Romney — but he does risk losing that enthusiasm, fundraising, and organization.

It would not of course have worked the other way. Had he sold out the gay community there would have been hell to pay. The lesson everyone should learn is this: cheat on the girl who loves you the most. She’ll forgive you. Ask Elizabeth Edwards.

Yep.  Follow the money.  I can see Obama and Axelrod crunching the numbers, both votes and dollars, and deciding what way to go.

Calculation was always part of Obama’s rise to power. His priorities appear to have been him, him, him and himself. Anything else was a distant second. After the contents of Jeremiah Wright’s sermons were revealed to his embarrassment, the candidate denied ever hearing anything while attending his church. Then Obama sent an emissary to pay Wright to clam up and avoid the press.

Read the whole article here at PJ Media.

Who's the real buyer??

An informative graphic on who is really trying to buy elections in America.

From Mike Cornelison, via a link at I Own the World.

How things have changed

The Old Curmudgeon is, well, old.  Or at least old enough to remember the violence of the 60s.  Race riots, war protests and some out-and-out revolutionary activities.  I can remember Chicago in 1968, and even Judge Julius Hoffman and the Chicago Seven.  So this article from Robert Verbruggen at National Review Online brought back some memories.

Bernardine Dohrn has a history with the Justice Department. More specifically, in the early 1970s, she was one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives because of her actions with the Weather Underground, a violent radical organization.

Times have changed. In 2010 and 2011, the Justice Department saw fit to give $400,000 in grants to an organization that lists Dohrn as a member of its board of directors: a $150,000 grant in September of 2010 and a $250,000 grant a year later.

And she and her husband are just passing acquaintances with Obama.  No long time political connections.  No personal relationships or mutual ideology.  Yeah, right.

Follow the money.  And it's oh too often the people's money.

Irony of the Day

From CNS News:

A federal government that is $15.6 trillion in debt is currently using its “bully pulpit” to run 16 different programs to teach citizens “financial literacy,” according to the Government Accountability Office, the accounting agency of the U.S. Congress.

Physician, heal thyself.

Quote of the Day

From a post at House of Eratosthenes:

But it’s wrong to spend real money to feel smug. There’s a reason we don’t have a Prius…

Spoken like a true market conservative.

Campaigner in Chief

Sure....Osama was killed during his term.  But what Barack Obama can really do is fundraising.  He's more at home on the campaign trail than in the White House.  From the UK Daily Mail:

Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book.

Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.

The figures, contained a in a new book called The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, due to be published by University Press of Kansas in July, give statistical backing to the notion that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.

Doherty, who has compiled statistics about presidential travel and fundraising going back to President Jimmy Carter in 1977, found that Obama had held 104 fundraisers by March 6th this year, compared to 94 held by Presidents Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Snr, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined.

Since then, Obama has held another 20 fundraisers, bringing his total to 124. Carter held four re-election fundraisers in the 1980 campaign, Reagan zero in 1984, Bush Snr 19 in 1992, Clinton 14 in 1996 and Bush Jr 57 in 2004.

And on our dime.  Air Force One isn't cheap.

Hat tip to The Lonely Conservative.

The List

For those of you old enough, you can remember the outcry over Nixon's "Enemies List".  Well, it's back.  No, not Nixon's.  Take three guesses who has that kind of list and the first two guesses don't count.  From Kim Strassel at the Wall Street Journal:

Try this thought experiment: You decide to donate money to Mitt Romney. You want change in the Oval Office, so you engage in your democratic right to send a check.

Several days later, President Barack Obama, the most powerful man on the planet, singles you out by name. His campaign brands you a Romney donor, shames you for "betting against America," and accuses you of having a "less-than-reputable" record. The message from the man who controls the Justice Department (which can indict you), the SEC (which can fine you), and the IRS (which can audit you), is clear: You made a mistake donating that money.

Are you worried?

Richard Nixon's "enemies list" appalled the country for the simple reason that presidents hold a unique trust. Unlike senators or congressmen, presidents alone represent all Americans. Their powers—to jail, to fine, to bankrupt—are also so vast as to require restraint. Any president who targets a private citizen for his politics is de facto engaged in government intimidation and threats. This is why presidents since Nixon have carefully avoided the practice.

Save Mr. Obama, who acknowledges no rules. This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled "Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney's donors." In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having "less-than-reputable records," the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that "quite a few" have also been "on the wrong side of the law" and profiting at "the expense of so many Americans."

.......

The Obama campaign has justified any action on the grounds that it has a right to "hold the eventual Republican nominee accountable," but this is a dodge. Politics is rough, but a president has obligations that transcend those of a candidate. He swore an oath to protect and defend a Constitution that gives every American the right to partake in democracy, free of fear of government intimidation or disfavored treatment. If Mr. Obama isn't going to act like a president, he bolsters the argument that he doesn't deserve to be one. 

We don't have a president.  Will we have one next year?  Read the whole story.

And some music too

Along with the graphic in the previous post, let's have some music from Ray Stevens.




Ray's got a number of politically incorrect (but factually spot on) videos out there, both on his website and on YouTube.  Give him a listen.

Friday One-Liner

From Patterico:

Finally, to paraphrase iowahawk on Twitter: what’s more important? That Romney made millions of his own money? Or that Obama has spent $5 trillion of ours?

That, my friends, will be a central question this fall.

From Wretchard

For the political and international junkies, Wretchard has long been a source of thought provoking material.  His Belmont Club was a leading "stand-alone" blog, and he now writes it at PJ Media under his real name, Richard Fernandez.

Fernandez is on my first page of blogs to read (I organize using the Speed Dial addon in Firefox).  His latest post "The House that Jack Built" gets to the heart of liberal activism.  An excerpt:

The chief problem with money, as Walter Russell Mead observes, is that the Blue Model is running out of it. Once upon a time the money was just out there. The dollars were mooing and lowing like the buffalo on the Great Plains. The only problem was divvying it up. But now that it’s getting harder to come by, a whole host of professions based on the dollar hunting and skinning business is becoming endangered. Mead describes the situation in his vivid prose:

The dream machines of the blue social engineers don’t sail serenely across the azure sky anymore. Think of the various carbon exchanges and environmental planetary schemes; think of high speed rail proposals like California’s $100 billion train to bankruptcy; think of Obamacare. These days the experts, “social entrepreneurs” and smart young blue twenty somethings fresh out of the Ivy League whomp up social programs with as much verve and dedication as their New Deal and Great Society predecessors, but the new Dreamliners don’t take off. At most they roll around the runway, emitting clouds of noxious smoke; wings fall off, windows pop out, turbines misfire and the tires go flat.

The Big Tent is the house that  jack built. And jack has left town.

So don’t be surprised if the the Big Tent is sagging at the edges. The marketing department has been particularly hard-hit. Al Gore’s Current network was paying Keith Olbermann $50 million to attract viewers they hoped to have.  Olbermann was supposed to be its primary liberal voice. But the New York Times explained that Olberman wasn’t attracting anybody, even though he acted like he was:

In his 40 weeks on Current TV, he had an average of 177,000 viewers at 8 p.m., down from the roughly one million that he had each night on MSNBC. Just 57,000 of those viewers on any given night were between the ages of 25 and 54, the coveted advertising demographic for cable news.

He goes on to discuss Rosie, Huffington, Sharpton, and Obama.  Worth the read.  The whole post can be found HERE.

Quote without comment

From the Washington Examiner:

Vice President Joe Biden addressed 87 wealthy Democrats last night attending a fundraiser at the home of Sen. John Kerry in Georgetown. As they dined on grass-fed New York strip steaks and white truffle mashed potatoes underneath a outdoor tent, Biden criticized Republicans for being out of touch.

“These guys don’t have a sense of the average folks out there,” Biden said according to the pool report, “They don’t know what it means to be middle class.”

87 guests paid a minimum of $10,000-per-couple to attend the dinner.

Your tax dollars

Hard at work in the Motor City:

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - An audit has found that a portion of an $11 million federal grant intended to provide business attire to 400 low-income job-seekers in Detroit helped only two people.

The audit of the city’s Department of Human Services found the department failed to control the operations and finances of a boutique that was to provide clothes, the Detroit News reported. The city’s auditor general conducted the review for the period from July 2009 to September 2011.

The center, at 1970 Larned, included the Customer Choice Pantry, the New Beginnings Clothing Boutique and a call center that had the capacity to service 60,000 families in need. The boutique was to provide business attire for low-income residents for job interviews.

To receive clothing, residents were required to have a job interview scheduled. According to the audit, the DHS was supposed to help 400 people between October 2010 and September 2011 but instead served only two.

Must have been all those shovel-ready jobs - folks didn't need to go to interviews.  That's it.

When will people learn that government merely takes the citizenry's money and distributes it to their favored subjects?  Government doesn't create anything, it merely takes and redistributes.