Commentary Magazine's Jonathan Tobin doesn't even read what he cites, making a hash of Obamacare story

Jonathan Tobin here:

"This is something of a misnomer because, as the Heritage Institute pointed out in a paper published last month, almost all of these people were simply added to the rolls of those receiving Medicare. If you only count those who are actually receiving insurance outside of Medicare, the net increase of those with coverage (the number of those buying these policies is offset by an almost equal reduction in the number of customers who have employer-based plans) is only 260,000 people."

Ah, no.

First of all the paper was from the "Heritage Foundation", not the "Heritage Institute". Perhaps he's heard of it? It's only been a Washington fixture since like the Reagan Administration. He does remember Reagan, right? Well, he is a neoconservative.

And it was the rolls of Medicaid which were expanded, not Medicare. What kind of a dummy gets that wrong? Medicare is for older Americans. Medicare is supposed to be paid for through payroll taxes, and it's blowing up as we speak, but that's another story. Medicaid used to be health coverage for the poor and the indigent, provided by the States. Leave it to Obama to expand it from DC and call it insurance.

The middle class of this country will end up poor and indigent and on Medicaid, too, if someone doesn't put a stop to this train wreck called Obamacare and soon.

Middle class people have just had their taxes raised dramatically to provide coverage and subsidies to pay for that coverage to about 9 million people who didn't have it before or didn't have what they're getting now. Middle class taxes went up in the form of health insurance premium increases, raised deductibles and skyrocketing pharmaceutical price increases. Middle class people buying the cheapest of plans now can expect to shell out over $13,000 in premiums and deductibles before their plans pay out one red cent of a big healthcare bill. The incentive for them is to avoid care even when they need it in order to save money.  

All Tobin had to do to get the article moving in the right direction was to actually read the title of the Heritage paper and the accompanying abstract, but apparently he didn't do even that. One wonders if he even wrote the story himself. He is Commentary's "editor" after all.

What a putz. 

Backgrounder #3062 on Health Care

October 15, 2015

2014 Health Insurance Enrollment: Increase Due Almost Entirely to Medicaid Expansion

By Edmund F. Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski

Abstract

Health insurance enrollment data for 2014 shows that the number of Americans with health insurance increased by 9.25 million during the year. However, the vast majority of the increase was the result of 8.99 million individuals being added to the Medicaid rolls. While enrollment in private individual-market plans increased by almost 4.79 million, most of that gain was offset by a reduction of 4.53 million in the number of people with employment-based group coverage. Thus, the net increase in private health insurance in 2014 was just 260,000 people.

Commentary's Jonathan Tobin must be kidding about "the rising tide of hate"

Here is Tobin:

"By choosing to stay away from the march, the United States expressed not only its public disdain for the effort to respond to the rising tide of hate, but the president also demonstrated that he doesn’t understand that being the leader of the free world occasionally requires him to show up even when he’d rather stay home."

Rising tide of hate?

Charlie Hebdo has had the hate turned up to full-throttle for most of its reincarnated existence, deliberately trying to incite the followers of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad in every Wednesday's 60,000 print run since 1992 when its pro-Israel owner Philippe Val resurrected it from the dustbin of history.

The only hatred rising today, in fact, is at Charlie Hebdo, with Muhammad again on the cover, but on a print run of 3 million, not 60,000.

Tobin is only angry that President Obama didn't join in the chorus attacking faith in Paris on Sunday. We all know that New York intellectuals have a vested interest, just as Charlie Hebdo does, in keeping the flames of enmity burning between the Jews and the Muslims. The calling card of victimhood in Washington insures that the cash and military assistance to Tel Aviv never stops.

We also know why Obama didn't go to Paris. It surely wasn't out of principle . . . he's just too damn lazy. But in this case the sin of omission landed Obama on the correct side of the issue, just as Corinne "Coco" Rey made the fateful conservative choice to save the life of her toddler and let the terrorists into the building to kill her colleagues.

When people make the right choice for the wrong reasons we can still say so in this country, at least until the likes of Commentary decide it's time to circulate a petition to have us outlawed. President Obama may be many things, but the most important of those now is that he's lame.

The surest way to make France safer for everyone, including Jews, would be for the self-appointed elites of liberalism to restrain themselves and stop goading the masses which they claim the right to govern. That they can't bring themselves to do this is the best proof that they are not superior to the rest of us, and that there is nothing to their faith but loathing, for God and for themselves.