The official name of ObamaCare is the “Affordable Care Act.” So, as it enters its third year, how is it living up to its moniker? Not every well, according to a new Gallup poll. Cost and access to care remain the top concern of 42% of Americans, which is actually up from 2013, the year before ObamaCare went into effect, when 39% cited these as top concerns. And it’s far above 1997, when just 22% listed cost and access as top health concerns.
Oops.
It’s not hard to understand why. Even those getting generous subsidies through ObamaCare exchanges often find that they can’t afford treatments because of the health plans’ high deductibles.
The New York Times found that more than half the plans offered through the federal Healthcare.gov exchange had deductibles of $3,000 or more. In some states, the median deductible was $5,000 or more.
Sky-high deductibles like that high used to come with extremely low premiums. But thanks to ObamaCare’s many rules and regulations and fees, such plans are a thing of the past.
The Times notes that an Albuquerque, N.M., woman pays $4,800 a year for a plan with a $6,000 deductible. Before ObamaCare, a plan with a $2,500 deductible was available in that state for just $1,625 a year, according to aGovernment Accountability Office review of pre-ObamaCare premiums.
IBD’s Jed Graham found that deductibles for the cheapest ObamaCare plans in 37 major markets climbed an average 7.4% to more than $5,600.
Then, of course, there are the premium spikes many will find when they go to sign up or renew their ObamaCare polices. Not to mention the increasingly narrow doctor networks and other hidden costs imposed by insurers to keep premiums from going up even more.
Yes, health care premiums are way, way up. Obama told us during his election campaigns that health care premiums would go down an average of $2,500. How did he intend to achieve that? By reducing choice and competition, and require insurance companies to cover more stuff, like drug addiction therapy, onto every health care plan.
Here he is promising things to young voters:
The young people believed his honeyed words, and did not ask for evidence to prove the claims that made them feel good. After all, if the words made them feel good, then the words must be true, right?
Should we pick a candidate based on our emotional response to his confidence?
So what happened? Health care premiums went up, because the more stuff that your health care plan has to cover (e.g. – drug addiction treatment) the more you have to pay for that health care plan. And so, as I blogged about before, health care premiums have actually gone up $4,865 on average, per year. Yes, this is another case of keep your doctor / keep your health plan claims. Either Obama knows that what he says is false, and says it anyway (evil Obama) or he does not know what he is talking about, but says things that will make people like him anyway (imbecile Obama).
It’s been a fun game for conservatives over the last 7 years to try to decide whether we elected an evil man or a stupid man. My view has always been that Obama is a stupid man, and that’s because unlike every other politician, he’s never released his transcripts. I can pretty much guarantee you that it is all Fs straight down the line. We elected a moron, who just says whatever makes him look good. He has no more idea what he is talking about than a parrot trying to explain the stock market. But he made Democrat voters feel good – and that’s what mattered to them.
Straight talk on the doctrine of Hell from cold case homicide detective J. Warner Wallace.
Number 1:
In the wake of Rob Bell’s new book, “Love Wins,” many people are beginning to question the nature and existence of Hell and how exactly God decides who must go there. For many, the idea that our temporal, finite sin on earth should deserve an eternal punishment of infinite torment in hell is ridiculously inequitable. Why would God torture infinitely those who have only sinned finitely? Jim addresses this objection and answers listener email.
A loving God would never create a place like Hell, would He? Any God that would send people to a place of punishment and torment is unloving by definition, right? In this podcast, Jim responds to these foundational objections to the existence of Hell. In addition, Jim comments on the Harris / Craig debate and answers listener email related to hearing God’s voice.
In this podcast, Jim answers the objection that God would send people like Gandhi to Hell (simply because they are not Christians) alongside people like Hitler (who have committed unspeakable atrocities). How can a reasonable and just God be the source of such inequitable punishment? Also Jim answers listener email related to the power of prayer, the importance of evidential apologetics and the grounding for objective morality.
Isn’t it unfair for God to penalize people who are otherwise good, just because they haven’t heard about Jesus? A good God would not send good people to Hell. Jim responds to this objection and answers listener email related to the Craig/Harris debate, pre-existing mythologies that are similar to Jesus, and the difficult, exclusive nature of “election”.
If God is all-loving, why doesn’t he “reform” people rather than simply “punish” them in Hell? Skeptics sometimes argue that a God who simply punishes his children in Hell is a sadistic and vengeful God, unworthy of our worship. Jim responds to this objection and answers listener email related to the nature of “election”, the evidence for “annihilationism”, and a political quote related to same sex marriage.
A couple of my “Christian” friends are in favor of welcoming in Syrian refugees, because “the Bible says we have to be nice”. Does the Bible really support their view? Let’s take a look.
Imagine a scenario where a Christian watches arsonists burn down a neighbor’s home, then demands that you house the neighbor as their house is in smoldering rubble.
That is basically why we have a Syrian refugee crisis. A group of Christians and secularists demanded we do nothing while ISIS sacked, raped, and pillages across the Middle East, displacing millions of Syrians. Now, we are supposed to take them all in.
[…][I]n addition to doing nothing as the situation worsened in the Middle East, the President has consistently refused to provide arms to Christian militias in the Middle East — Christians eager to protect and defend their homeland.
[…][I]t does little good for Christians to quote scripture to claim their Christianity is better than ours and that we should go along with them to house and feed Syrian refugees. Christ did command us to be charitable and open our doors. But he did not command us to do so foolishly.
In Judges 12:5-6 we find this:
And the Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. And when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead said to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” When he said, “No,” they said to him, “Then say Shibboleth,” and he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time 42,000 of the Ephraimites fell.
In the early Christian church the Christians used an ichthus as a secret symbol so Christians knew friend from foe. Both were bits of discernment to ensure the faithful were not slaughtered by their enemies.
If we can find a shibboleth or ichthus to separate friend from foe, bring in the friendly refugees. But if not, we ask to much of our fellow citizens in a time of war and subterfuge where evil masquerades as good.
Christians and secularists using this issue to claim they are better, more sincere, more devout, or less racist than those who object should more readily be considered fools. Christ said to pick up our cross, not rush on out to the lions in the Coliseum.
Frankly, whenever “Christians” on the left talk to me about politics, I usually find that their compassionate approach (e.g. – retreating from Iraq, etc. ) causes the very problems (e.g. – refugee crisis) that they now want to solve with more compassion. Guess what? A better way to fix problems in the world is by 1) naming and destroying evil and 2) encouraging people to adopt Western values, like capitalism and freedom. If you look at history (e.g. – World War 2), what you find is that it is always the weak, pacifist left that emboldens aggression from tyrants. Let him who desires peace prepare for war – because preparedness for war is a deterrent against aggression.
The difference between micro and macro
And the second article comes from legal rock star and moderate conservative David French, writing in National Review. (I don’t link to National Review any more, because the site is so cluttered it )
He writes:
As a general matter, advocates of open borders often refer to Mosaic law requiring the Israelites to treat the “foreigner residing with you” as if foreigners were “native-born,” and to “Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” The laws of Israel, they point out, applied equally to the “foreigner” and the “native-born.”
Putting aside that Mosaic Law would prohibit refugees from worshiping Allah, demand the death penalty for many of the core activities of the sexual revolution, and impose dietary restrictions that the latté Left might find a bit onerous, we can see that these critics are making a basic error: interpreting commands directed at individuals as mandates for national policy. Jesus commanded his followers to “not resist an evil person” — to turn the other cheek when struck and to hand over your coat when they demand your shirt. He did not mandate that we surrender New Mexico if an invader demands Texas, or capitulate to Japan when it bombs Pearl Harbor.
It’s very important to ask people who quote the Bible for one issue whether they consider the Bible an authority on other issues. In my view, Obama is an atheist, and does not respect the Bible on issues from definition of marriage, to flat taxes, to self-defense, to abortion. When a secular leftist quotes the Bible, always ask them if the Bible is an authority first, so yu can spot the hypocrisy.
More:
Indeed, Scripture draws a clear line between the responsibility of the individual and the role of the state. Individuals are to forswear vengeance, leaving justice to earthly rulers as God’s “agents of wrath” who bring “punishment on the wrongdoer.” The state has an affirmative responsibility to protect its citizens, even to the point of bringing a sense of “terror” to those “who do wrong.” There is no contradiction between personally welcoming the “strangers” among us while our leaders endeavor to protect us from a genocidal terrorist force that uses refugee status as a shield and disguise to perpetrate brutal attacks against innocent civilians.
This is not to say that Scripture creates a paradigm of compassionate individuals and heartless governments. Throughout the Bible, entire nations — not just individuals — are condemned for injustice, including unjust treatment of the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. But to say that the only way to meet that standard is to open our doors to migrants when we know our enemy intends to plant terrorists within their ranks is once again to read far too much into Scripture.
Christianity is not a worldview that just advocates for doing whatever makes us feel good, whatever makes us look nice to others. We have to think about actually DOING good – achieving good results. We don’t have enough money to solve poverty if all we do is encourage people to be poor. We don’t have to stop evil if we let it grow from a regional annoyance into a world-class threat. We should be acting to punish and deter evil, and we should only be giving to the poor only when it helps them to rise up out of poverty. If we condone evil and encourage people to make decisions that lead to poverty, it just makes the situation worse for everyone. Sometimes, Christians need to set moral boundaries on others, and vote for the state to punish evil, so that we don’t have to deal with expensive and painful consequences later on.
The costs of pacificism and compassion
By the way,the estimate for the cost of taking in 10,000 refugees is $6.5 billion. Did you know that money doesn’t grow on trees? We already have doubled our national debt under these Democrats to $20 trillion. The spending has to stop somewhere – and that doesn’t mean that individual Christians and charities cannot give to solve the problem. But government is run off of taxpayer money, and right now, WE DON’T HAVE ANY. Interesting that many of the people who want to spend more on these refugees live off of taxpayer money themselves.
And here are a couple of stories just from this morning about Christians suffering because of our military pullout:
I think it’s important to ask the Christian left how they feel about their anti-war views now that we know the costs and also the results of their pacifism for Christians abroad. When we go into battle, we should stay the course until the battlefield stabilizes. That’s what we did in Japan, South Korea and so many other places with cultures that were hostile to Western values. Western values do “take”, but it takes patience and time.
WINTERY KNIGHT 