And in other Friday afternoon news dumps…
By Norman Leahy | Friday, October 14th, 2011 | Catch-AllThe Obama administration admits that the long-term care portion of its health insurance overhaul (otherwise known as Obamacare) won’t work and will be scrapped:
Officials said Friday the long-term care program has critical design flaws that can’t be fixed to make it financially self-sustaining.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress in a letter that she does not see a viable path forward at this time. By law, implementation of the program was contingent on Sebelius certifying it financially sound.
The program was supposed to be a voluntary insurance plan for working adults regardless of age or health. Workers would pay an affordable monthly premium during their careers, and could collect a modest daily cash benefit if they became disabled later in life.
The problem all along has been how to ensure enough healthy people would sign up.
It seems like the answer to that problem would have been to force people to buy it, as they will be regular health insurance (assuming the legal challenges to the individual mandate are turned aside by the Supreme Court).
And in other, put-it-out-before-closing-time news, the federal deficit for 2011 is the second largest in history:
The U.S budget deficit for fiscal year 2011 is $1.299 trillion, the second largest shortfall in history.
The nation only ran a larger deficit for the 2009 fiscal year, which included the dramatic collapse of financial markets and a huge bailout effort by the government. The nation’s deficit that year was $1.412 trillion.
This year’s deficit is slightly higher than fiscal year 2010, when the nation ran a $1.293 trillion deficit. Fiscal years run through Sept. 30.
Just how much money is a trillion dollars? UBS’ Art Cashin put it this way:
Thirty years ago an older member of the NYSE (there were some then) gave me a graphic and memorable (at least for me) example. “Young man,” he said, “would you like a million dollars?” “I sure would, sir!”, I replied anxiously. “Then just put aside $500 every week for the next 40 years.” I have never forgotten that a million dollars is enough to pay you $500 per week for 40 years (and that’s without benefit of interest). To get a billion dollars you would have to set aside $500,000 dollars per week for 40 years. And a…..trillion that would require $500 million every week for 40 years. Even with these examples, the enormity is difficult to grasp.
The federal government reached that goal, and more, in 12 months.
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About the author
Norm Leahy has written about Virginia and national politics online since 2002, beginning with One Man's Trash (OMT), and continuing through Bacon's Rebellion (both the blog and the e-zine), Sic Semper Tyrannis, NBC12's Decision Virginia, Richmond.com and Tertium Quids. He is the chief blogger at "The Score" and a producer of "The Score" radio show as well as being a Washington Examiner contributor.
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8 Responses to "And in other Friday afternoon news dumps…"
Norm, and your point is? Frankly, republicans would love for the nation to have developed amnesia in regard to the financial debacle they created by the Bush tax cuts, fighting two wars and adding to the cost of medicare, and paying for both on a credit card. So why would any citizen agree to put the same party back in power? Of course, that does not include those who profited from the disaster like hedge fund managers, the ultra rich, and the mortgage industry which knew what they were selling. You Norm may wish for sane citizens to simply forget these transgressions but finally, the nation seems to be awakening to those who caused our current malaise and our now fighting for the privledged and the wealthy. None too soon.
Mike, are you texting from the Wall Street “occupation” rally? When are you going to stop blaming Bush for everything and focus your angst at the current occupant of the White House? Or Harry Reid? Or Nancy Pelosi?
The point, Mike, is that Friday afternoons are the traditional time to release bad news. These items are bad news for the current administration.
Blame Bush all you want for his many, many, many faults in dealing with the economy. Those are fair game and his record, and its consequences, deserves the scrutiny.
But do not pretend that the current administration is blameless. It took all those Bush lapses and doubled-down on them — and has been more than happy to cash campaign checks from the very Wall Street monsters and the “ultra rich” the OWS crowd is out protesting against today.
Actually, I will stop blaming republicans when they start acting in the public interest rather than in the interest of the republican party. Of course, no one on these pages can deny that this is the stated objective of the party; that is, to defeat the President, no matter what the effect is upon us, the citizens of this great nation. Therefore, they have abandoned positions they themselves have taken in the past to defeat the President, and our interests, at every turn, in a vain attempt to regain the Presidency no matter how they effect the fiscal, social, and economic situation in this nation. Further, the debacle they caused in bringing the nation to its knees over the debt extension cost me and millions of Americans angst and money. Frankly, anyone who votes for these clowns has a memory too short.
Re Friday afternoon dumps and something I’d read about was the Henrico County GOP Committee KICKED OUT Ken Cucilnelli AND Eric Canter for backing the guy running for Commonwealth Attorney who is running as an Independent even though the GOP has no candidate, because they revoked their approval of him reasons not ever clearly explained. What’s up with all this?
It is all about purity; if you don’t drink every drop of cool aid,the are excommunicated from the flock. That helps explain the rigidity of the republican party today. With some 70% of the party knowing that most of the republican mantra is pure bunk, they do not want to risk being thrown out, so they pay lip service to the extremists. One day, this charade is going to come crashing down, because it is difficult to fool all of the people all of the time. If Romney is the nominee, then the challenge will come; do we want to get elected, in such case, reality will have to set in, or do we want to continue with the ideological purity that caused this entire mess in the first place. I guess we’ll see.
Mike,
I had no idea that the Democrats were acting solely in the public interest with no regard to the interest of the Democratic Party. Thanks so much for enlightening me. Also, I was apparently badly misinformed when I was led to believe that Blue Dog Democrats in the House lost their seats in the 2010 mid-term elections because they followed the “rigidity” of the Democratic Party and voted for ObamaCare against their constituents’ wishes. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Yes HisRoc, you quite correctly point out that the national will has been hood winked into believing government excess is the root of the problem we are now facing. Even though the Great Recession was caused by incompetence, greed, and illegal behavior by the private sector, the republicans have been very successful in blaming all our problems on government. The fact that they are simply wrong should not detract from their success, but none of us needs to believe this lie forever.
I would never deny that government did not play some role, but the failure of the Bush administration was political, not governmental. It was the decision making of the administration that caused the fiscal debacle from which we are now recovering. No one can deny that the excesses of Wall Street under Bush were the root of the problem, and new regulations on banks and the financial system are both mandatory and required.
How republicans coopted this issue is a testimony to telling the big lie. And frankly, it worked for awhile. I thing this strategy is coming apart at the seams as even tea party republicans realize that they have been tricked and abused by a republican party who cares not one with for their interests, just their votes.
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