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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

@HuffingtonPost sees Success in Hordes of Government Workers Marching to your House to get You to Sign Your Papers. Brownshirts are Optional.

From the Huff Po. Kentucky's rollout is considered teh awesum cause it didn't crash and stuff. Let's look at the milestones.
The Bluegrass State’s successful Obamacare rollout has become a favorite retort to the embarrassment of a hobbled federal website. “Look at Kentucky. Gov. Steve Beshear, who's a Democrat -- he is like a man possessed with helping more people get coverage,” Obama said in a recent speech. “He thinks it's the right thing to do. Keep in mind I did not win in Kentucky. But there are a lot of uninsured people in Kentucky, and they're signing up.” 
Beshear is using all the powers of his administration to sell Obamacare, marshaling millions of dollars for branding and market research, heartwarming television spots and eye-catching bus ads. A hired army of true believers have held meetings across the state, spreading the word and rebutting misconceptions.
Millions spent on branding on market research, tv spots, and bus ads. Silly me, I thought it was all about paying for healthcare. Well I'm sure the taxpayer is glad the money is well spent. When the coverage panel starts denying care, I hope they say that they had to spend money on heartwarming ads.
 Instead, during Kynect’s fourth week in operation, Stewart keeps up her exhausting tour, traveling to Floyd County and then on to Leslie, Madison and Jackson counties, with a quick stop through Louisville on her way up to Northern Kentucky and the Cincinnati suburbs. She drove roughly 1,000 miles that week and ate too many Zaxby's chicken strips. 
Well after you're on the exchanges, they'll stop that kinda foolish behavior. Leafy greens for you. Also, no more burning so much carbon.
Stewart expects more road work. Her November schedule looks just like her October schedule, which looked just like her September schedule. She says she is still getting the same volume of requests for presentations. At a recent session before a group of 30 students at a community college in Northern Kentucky, only one had enrolled. All the others, Stewart remembers, thought they weren't eligible. 
At every one of her meetings, there are tiny epiphanies -- like the farmer who showed up in his work overalls convinced his rates were going to double, but walked away relieved that he actually qualified for Medicaid. It's enough, Stewart says, to keep her going.
No no. Much better. Instead of his rates on the insurance he paid for skyrocketing, he gets to chuck it and live off of the taxpayer. This is what's qualified as success, this is what makes her life more satisfying: getting people who once took care of themselves to become wards of the state. This is success, people.
"It seems worth it as soon as you have that moment," she explains. "It seems worth it to come home at 11. It seems worth it to have to find random places to stay. It seems worth it when you have that moment where someone's life is going to change."
Oh boy is it ever. Wait til he gets the same kind of service that rivals the DMV, the TSA, and the IRS. We all love those organizations, don't we?
The Beshear administration views the Affordable Care Act as potentially transformative for Kentucky, making the state healthier and more economically viable. A Beshear-commissioned study estimated the reforms would generate jobs and revenue. The governor is counting on progress to be steady. His administration has ballparked a goal of enrolling a third of the state's uninsured population within the first year. 
To meet that goal, however, Stewart has found that the holdouts need face time with outreach workers like her. They need follow-up phone calls and visits. They need time to feel comfortable with the companies and the plans being offered, and they need reassurance from people they trust. They need Kynect to come to them.
Does any of this sound creepy to you? The government sending out legions of people to call you incessantly, visit your house and make you become part of something you didn't want in the first place because you don't know how to take care of yourself in their opinion. So they send out people, hopefully not wearing brown shirts, to "educate" you. So they get you to trust them. Make you feel good. Wait til they actually need it though.

Is any of this success the HuffPo lists have anything to do with people getting the care that they need, or is it all about getting people stuffed into a bureaucracy? The whole thing is creepy and weird.
To help the hundreds of thousands of uninsured Kentuckians enroll in health care, the state has hired 622 “Kynectors,” advocates trained to work with residents directly. Many work part time. While $60 million has been spent on website construction and operations, according to state figures, $8.9 million has been budgeted for these workers. Many advocates, like Stewart, are not being paid by the state, but through nonprofits. 
60 million on a website? This is how we cut costs? Who's paying for this? Taxpayers. How is that going to help the economy? How is that considered cutting costs? We haven't paid one doctor yet and for the state of Kentucky, we've already blown 60 million. If people wanted insurance, they could get it but no longer because you've blown up the plans people wanted.

Now let's start in on the lone sob story:
Carl Fox, 55, didn’t hesitate to open his Crazy Fox Saloon in Newport to Stewart. He’s had HIV for 28 years, is a 10-year cancer survivor, and was cured of hepatitis C by an experimental treatment. A degenerative disc disease sidelined Fox from steady work. Nine years ago, he could no longer afford health insurance and had to sell everything to qualify for Medicaid. 
At the bar, he was given the title of honorary proprietor ("That's what my business card says") after selling the Crazy Fox to his husband. Whatever his title, Fox learned from his fight for health coverage. He made sure any bar employee who worked 20 hours or more a week got health insurance. 
"All the sudden it hit me like a stone to the head, you lived in this fear, and yet your employees have no health insurance, nothing to fall back on," Fox recalls. "I saw the light." 
With the new health care law, the light has brightened. So far, Fox has hosted three Kynect seminars at the Crazy Fox. He posted fliers near the box of free condoms. He listed the events on the bar's Facebook page. Stewart found out about the bar sessions when a mutual friend tagged her in a comment under the listing. She started answering questions in the comments, and then offered to help moderate the events.
So in order to help this ONE guy, we had to destroy 15 million people's health care plans because just simply fixing medicaid to help these outliers isn't enough. We are blowing 60 million on a friggin website in Kentucky. 290 million for a federal website that doesn't work. Just those two pieces of waste alone is 350 million dollars. Couldn't we have gotten some of that to Carl Fox instead? I bet his health bills were a lot less than that. Do we want to revisit the 65-90 billion wasted every year?

And in the end, he's giving out boxes of condoms but there's nothing in the story that shows specifically how this has helped him. When rubber hits the road, I would love to see if he actually gets through the red tape.

Well the story goes on like this. It's crap. It's all based on an idea that we should be wards of the state. That's success in the HuffPo's eyes. Not taking care of ourselves. Everyone will be equally miserable. We need to send out people to "educate" them. And if they don't want it? If they want the plan they had at the price they had?

Well so much for pro-choice. You now have none. Success! Now go take your one-size fits all plan that helps no one. Enjoy the long lines.

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