Emma Kuziara

I've been slacking on my babe blogging.

The ClusterCare news has been just overwhelming, lol.

Here's Emma K., via Twitter.

'Charles Krauthammer was surprised when President Barack Obama invited him to the White House last month...'

Heh.

At Politico, "Krauthammer on Krauthammer":

Since Obama took office, the columnist and Fox News contributor has been among the most forceful critics of the president’s policies. Krauthammer’s long been widely read among conservatives, but has recently raised his prominence with unrelenting and searing attacks on the president’s health care plan, proclaiming earlier this month that the “unraveling” of Obamacare, the administration, and the Democratic Senate majority could amount to nothing less than “the collapse of American liberalism.”

With Obama’s approval rating at an all-time low, and the Republican establishment at odds with the conservative base, Krauthammer had become more than “critic in chief.” Blending high-mindedness with strong conservative values, he has commanded respect on both the extreme and moderate sides of the spectrum, becoming the closest thing the factionalized GOP could have to a spokesperson, a de facto opposition leader for the thinking right.

But on that October day when a small group of conservative writers gathered for an off-the-record session with Obama, Krauthammer checked his criticism at the gates to the White House.

“I wouldn’t presume to be schooling the president of the United States in his own house on political philosophy,” Krauthammer told POLITICO in a recent interview. “I wouldn’t do it to a friend, let alone to a president who invites me to see him. The role of that encounter is for me as a journalist, as an observer, as an outsider and as a critic to try and get a sense of how his mind works, so I can more accurately understand him and what he does. So it’s not my role to go in there and say ‘You’re a romantic, sir.’”

Such diplomacy goes right to the heart of Krauthammer’s temperament. Despite bold statements and dire predictions, Krauthammer is revered by colleagues on the right and widely respected by those on the left. Fellow pundits call him one of the most important voices in conservatism. Top Republican lawmakers read his columns, as does the President of the United States.

He's a classy guy.

Continue reading.

And here's Krauthammer's book at Amazon, Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics.

Sarah Silverman Returns Ex-Boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel's Things During Interview - UPDATED!!

Poor guy.

Kimmel was with Sarah Silverman? And whatever moved him to invite her on the show? Magnanimity, I guess.

From Kathy Shaidle, "Not only was Silverman’s cleavage more charismatic than her ex Jimmy Kimmel but her bit about returning Kimmel’s belongings was the funniest thing we’ve seen all week. Take note, ladies — this is how you win a breakup."

ADDED: That link is to a blog Kathy tweeted ( nd she commented at the post). My bad. Here's her entry, at Five Feet of Fury, "Five years later, Sarah Silverman still pushing ‘Jimmy’s ex-girlfriend’ schtick."

UnitedHealth Group Purges Doctors Amid Massive #ObamaCare Funding Cuts

It's the country's largest private Medicare provider --- getting slammed by Barack Obama's monstrosity.

Remember, Democrats had to destroy the American healthcare system in order to save it.

These cuts will essentially mean healthcare rationing for the elderly, long wait-times and curtailed doctor visits. Because equality!

At the Wall Street Journal, "UnitedHealth Culls Doctors From Medicare Advantage Plans: Physicians in 10 States Notified; Insurer Cites 'Funding Pressure' From Federal Government":

Doctors in at least 10 states have received termination letters, some citing "significant changes and pressures in the health-care environment." The notices also tell doctors they can appeal within 30 days. That means many physicians and patients won't know for sure who is in or out of UnitedHealth's Medicare Advantage networks before the open-enrollment period to switch Medicare plans ends on Dec. 7.

UnitedHealth said its provider networks are always changing and that it expects its Medicare Advantage network "to be 85% to 90% of its current size by the end of 2014," although it declined to say how many doctors are being cut in individual states or what criteria it is using.

The company said it is managing its network, in part, to provide more value for members, particularly given Medicare's new five-star rating system that ties bonus payments for insurers to certain measures of cost and quality.

"That's what's driving our actions," said Austin Pittman, president of UnitedHealth's networks. He also said, "It's no secret that we are under substantial funding pressure from the federal government."

UnitedHealth Group reported a third-quarter profit of $1.57 billion last month, but Chief Executive Stephen J. Hemsley has issued cautious outlooks for 2014, citing expected cuts in Medicare payments tied to the Affordable Care Act.

Medicare Advantage, an alternative to traditional Medicare, combines hospital and doctor coverage and often includes prescription drugs and perks like gym memberships. Enrollment has more than doubled since 2004 to 13 million in 2012, which represents about 27% of Americans on Medicare.

The federal government pays private insurers a per-capita fee to manage the benefits. The rate is currently about 12% more than the average Medicare patient spends annually. The Obama administration plans to cut those extra payments to insurers by about $150 billion over the next 10 years to help pay for the health law. Some experts expect enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans to decline sharply if that occurs.

Other Medicare Advantage providers, including Humana Inc., Aetna Inc. and WellPoint Inc., said they are always evaluating their provider networks, but doctor groups say none appear to be shrinking them to the extent of UnitedHealth.

UnitedHealth is the biggest player, with nearly three million members in Advantage plans, many of them sold under the AARP brand. The company says it had over 350,000 doctors in its Advantage provider networks.

Among the practices UnitedHealth has dropped are Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and the Yale Medical Group in New Haven, Conn., which includes 1,200 faculty physicians.

"Instead of a scalpel, United is using a chain saw," said Michael Saffir, a rehabilitation specialist and president of the Connecticut State Medical Society, which estimates the insurer has cut 2,200 doctors across the state.

Two Connecticut county medical groups filed suit against UnitedHealth in U.S. District Court, alleging that the terminations violated contract provisions.

Several state attorneys general are investigating. Congressional delegations have complained about the company's timing and tactics to Medicare administrator Marilyn Tavenner, as did 43 national medical associations and 40 state medical societies in a joint letter on Nov. 6.

A spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said CMS is reviewing UnitedHealth's and other provider's networks "to ensure that beneficiaries have full, transparent and timely information and access to needed care."

"We recognize that change is hard," said Mr. Pittman. "This is about meeting the needs of patients in specific geographic areas, improving the quality and sustainability of our networks and deepening our relationships with providers over the long term." The company said it had no comment about the investigations.

AARP issued a statement saying it "has heard from a small number of our members regarding this decision" and was encouraging anyone with concerns to contact UnitedHealth directly.

Some terminated physicians predicted that UnitedHealth's patient satisfaction, a factor in Medicare quality ratings, would suffer with fewer doctors in the network.

"Fewer practitioners mean longer waits, longer drives, less convenience," said ophthalmologist Steven Thornquist of Trumbull, Conn., who said he is the only specialist in adult strabismus—which causes double vision—in a 20-mile radius.

"Patients battling cancer should be focused on their treatment, not on finding another doctor," said gynecological oncologist Johnathan Lancaster, one of more than 200 doctors dropped from UnitedHealth's network at Moffitt, which is a nationally recognized cancer center.

Dr. Lancaster said the cuts mean that about 2,500 current Moffitt patients will have to switch plans or find other cancer doctors—and that thousands more who come for consultations and second opinions can no longer use their UnitedHealth Medicare Advantage plans there.

IMAGE CREDIT: Michelle Malkin.

The Only 'Fix' Is to Scrap #ObamaCare

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "The President's ObamaCare Backpedal":

The White House "fix" was likely also groundwork to shift the blame for canceled policies to insurers and state regulators, trusting the public won't notice the difference between "can" and "may." It is highly unlikely that most insurers "can" rip up their business plans (rates, policies, eligibility, actuarial tables), get state regulator approval, reprogram their computers, send out notices and new explanations, give consumers time to think, and then re-sign people up in the one month that remains before the Dec. 15 deadline. But as Mr. Obama has now said they "may," and you can bet he'll blame the failure for this to happen on anyone but his administration.

The question is whether blame-shifting is even possible. The Obama announcement was designed to quell the cancellation furor, to push it beyond next year's midterms. But what's becoming clear to horrified Washington Democrats is just how successfully they re-engineered health care. ObamaCare's pieces are vastly complex, intricately linked, and built upon each other. For Democrats who want political cover, there are no "fixes" around the edges.

A great piece. Strassel's one of my very favorite political writers.

RTWT.

Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers on 'The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson'

She's weeks away from having another baby!

What a great lady.

The #ObamaCare Implosion is Real — And it's Spectacular!

From Director Blue, "HEADLINE O' THE DAY: ClusterCare":

The cover of today's New York Post, subtle as always. pic.twitter.com/peF0g6ejpL

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) November 15, 2013

BONUS: From Johah Goldberg, "Obamacare Schadenfreudarama":

If you can’t take some joy, some modicum of relief and mirth, in the unprecedentedly spectacular beclowning of the president, his administration, its enablers, and, to no small degree, liberalism itself, then you need to ask yourself why you’re following politics in the first place. Because, frankly, this has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. I wake up in the morning and rush to find my just-delivered newspaper with a joyful expectation of worsening news so intense, I feel like Morgan Freeman should be narrating my trek to the front lawn. Indeed, not since Dan Rather handcuffed himself to a fraudulent typewriter, hurled it into the abyss, and saw his career plummet like Ted Kennedy was behind the wheel have I enjoyed a story more.

Jean-Claude Van Damme Epic Volvo 'Split' Ad

From Mary Katharine Ham, at Hot Air, "Video: Jean-Claude Van Dammmmmnnnn."

Socialist Kshama Sawant Wins Seattle City Council Seat

Well, it's Seattle.

I doubt this is a bellwether, especially considering how socialism's taking a beating at the national level.

At the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Socialist Sawant wins City Council seat."

Seattle City Council candidate Kshama Sawant, a “Socialist Alternative” insurgent, has unseated four-term incumbent Richard Conlin, with the latest batch of mail-in ballots nearly tripling Sawant’s lead to 1,148 votes.

A year ago, Sawant was running against the Legislature’s most powerful Democrat, House Speaker Frank Chopp, charging that the “Democratic Party-majority government” had slashed billions from education programs while bestowing tax exemptions on “rich corporations.”

On Thursday evening, however, the victorious “working class activist” Sawant was headed for a 36th District Democratic fundraiser sponsored by State Sen. Jeanne Kohn-Welles. Sawant’s tireless journalist booster, Stranger news editor Dominic Holden, is appearing on a post-election panel at the event.

The Sawant victory comes exactly 97 years after Seattle voters put their first outspoken radical into office, Seattle School Board member Anna Louise Strong. Strong would write about the Wobblies, oppose U.S. entry into World War I and eventually end her days in China, where she was on friendly terms with Mao Zedong.

While the Occupy Seattle organizer is about to occupy an office in the council chambers, ballots are still being counted in several close races. One big ballot measure is still hanging, while other contests appear narrowly decided.

The $15-an-hour minimum wage proposal in SeaTac, already under legal challenge, leads by exactly 53 votes. The margin was cushioned by 12 votes in Thursday’s count.

The proposal for taxpayer-financed elections in Seattle, Proposition 1, has climbed in the late vote count. Unlike Sawant — who overcame a 6,193-vote election night deficit — Prop. 1 hasn’t quite climbed enough. The “No” side still has a lead of 2,656 votes.

So, an "Occupy Seattle" organizer wins a seat on the city council. Maybe she can personally clean the defecation off the city's police cars, the idiot.

And wouldn't you know it, but the folks at Democracy Now! are down with it, to say nothing of Katrina vandenHeuval at the Nation.

Again, thank goodness the left's socialist agenda is imploding at the national level. You'll always have the local communist kooks, but folks are finally waking up to the socialist nightmare that's darkly enveloped the country since at least 2008.

IMAGE CREDIT: Kshama Sawant on Twitter.

39 House Democrats Vote for Upton Bill

At LAT, "Dozens of House Democrats back Republican healthcare bill":

WASHINGTON — Dealing a blow to President Obama’s effort to fix problems with his healthcare law, more than three dozen House Democrats voted Friday to support a Republican-sponsored bill to address the crisis, brushing aside White House warnings that the legislation would only make matters worse.

Thirty-nine Democrats joined Republicans in a 261-157 vote  to approve the legislation, offered by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), which would allow insurers to continue selling individual policies that do not meet new federal standards.

The Democratic defections, which the White House and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) had hoped to prevent, highlighted the growing unease among House Democrats over the botched rollout of the program and dissatisfaction with the administration's proposed fix, announced by the president on Thursday.

Both the Upton bill and the president's administrative fix were crafted to respond to the number of cancellation notices being sent to customers in the individual insurance market, despite repeated promises by Obama that Americans would be allowed to keep their plans if they wanted.

The GOP-controlled House was always expected to approve the bill, which Republicans described as the first step in a campaign to kill the Affordable Care Act.

“The president repeatedly said that if you liked your healthcare plan you could keep it,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). “We knew this was a promise he could not keep, and now it’s a promise he has broken.”

The vote was seen as a critical test of Democratic unity. The president sought to tamp down a revolt from congressional Democrats by announcing the administrative remedy, which gave insurance companies federal permission to renew policies for one year.

Also at NYT, "House Passes Bill Letting People Keep Their Health Plans."

Democrats Won't Apologize for Destroying America's Healthcare System

From John McCormack, at the Weekly Standard, "House Democratic Leaders: We Will Not Apologize to Americans Losing Their Health Insurance":

One week ago, President Obama apologized for giving millions of Americans false assurances that they could keep their health care plans if they liked them. At a press conference Thursday evening, House Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Xavier Becerra, and Jim Clyburn were asked if they would like to apologize for making the same false claim. All of them declined.

"I don't think there's anything for us to apologize for," said Clyburn.

"There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act that said that your insurance company should cancel you," said Minority Leader Pelosi.

In fact, the Affordable Care Act says that plans created after March of 2010 must be cancelled, and the law also gave the administration the authority to write regulations that forced the cancellation of some policies that existed prior to March 2010.

"Did I ever tell my constituents that if they liked their plan they could keep it?" Pelosi asked. "I would have if I'd ever met anybody who liked his or her plan. But that was not my experience."

In fact, Pelosi said in 2009: "If you like what you have, you can keep it." Pelosi's website still states: "Keep your doctor, and your current plan, if you like them."

"As far as the Affordable Care Act is concerned, what the president said was completely accurate," Pelosi said.

More at the link.

Mitt Romney on CBS 'This Morning': 'The Real Problem the President Has' Isn’t a Website, 'It’s Dishonesty...'

I caught this earlier --- and was reminded of how much better things would be if Romney'd have won last year.

Instapundit has it, "Related: Romney’s Uncanny Predictions About Obama’s Second Term Make Him Look Like He Had Psychic Superpowers."

#ObamaCare Implosion Signals Collapse of Radical Progressivism

There's lots and lots of coverage of the implosion of the president's signature legislation.

I'll be posting as much as I can throughout the day, but certainly the biggest story is now, whatever happens with the law, Obama has personally crossed a political threshold over which he'll never return. He's just not the same old ego-driven big-talker, with his chin stuck up high in the air like a pompous know-it-all. Nope. Now he's a mumbling dishonest groveler struggling to appear reasonably competent in the face of the biggest government debacle in decades. It's been an absolutely stunning political defeat. But of even bigger significance is what the president's collapse means for modern progressivism --- not "liberalism," mind you, but "progressivism," as the left adopted that term to escape the disastrous political baggage of modern liberalism and reinvent leftist ideology as big-government socialism with a wink and a nudge. With enough race-baiting and political demonization of the right, the ruse worked well enough to earn the presidential impostor a second term. But the jig is up. The bloom is off the progressive rose.

Charles Krauthammer offers a devastating autopsy, "Why liberals are panicked about Obamacare":

At stake ... is more than the fate of one presidency or of the current Democratic majority in the Senate. At stake is the new, more ambitious, social-democratic brand of American liberalism introduced by Obama, of which Obamacare is both symbol and concrete embodiment.

Precisely when the GOP was returning to a more constitutionalist conservatism committed to reforming, restructuring and reining in the welfare state (see, for example, the Paul Ryan Medicare reform passed by House Republicans with near-unanimity), Obama offered a transformational liberalism designed to expand the role of government, enlarge the welfare state and create yet more new entitlements (see, for example, his call for universal preschool in his most recent State of the Union address).

The centerpiece of this vision is, of course, Obamacare, the most sweeping social reform in the past half-century, affecting one-sixth of the economy and directly touching the most vital area of life of every citizen.

As the only socially transformational legislation in modern American history to be enacted on a straight party-line vote, Obamacare is wholly owned by the Democrats. Its unraveling would catastrophically undermine their underlying ideology of ever-expansive central government providing cradle-to-grave care for an ever-grateful citizenry.

For four years, this debate has been theoretical. Now it’s real. And for Democrats, it’s a disaster.

It begins with the bungled rollout. If Washington can’t even do the Web site — the literal portal to this brave new world — how does it propose to regulate the vast ecosystem of American medicine?

Beyond the competence issue is the arrogance. Five million freely chosen, freely purchased, freely renewed health-care plans are summarily canceled. Why? Because they don’t meet some arbitrary standard set by the experts in Washington.

For all his news conference gyrations about not deliberately deceiving people with his “if you like it” promise, the law Obama so triumphantly gave us allows you to keep your plan only if he likes it. This is life imitating comedy — that old line about a liberal being someone who doesn’t care what you do as long as it’s mandatory.

Lastly, deception. The essence of the entitlement state is government giving away free stuff. Hence Obamacare would provide insurance for 30 million uninsured, while giving everybody tons of free medical services — without adding “one dime to our deficits,” promised Obama.

This being inherently impossible, there had to be a catch. Now we know it: hidden subsidies. Toss millions of the insured off their plans and onto the Obamacare “exchanges,” where they would be forced into more expensive insurance packed with coverage they don’t want and don’t need — so that the overcharge can be used to subsidize others.

The reaction to the incompetence, arrogance and deception has ranged from ridicule to anger. But more is in jeopardy than just panicked congressional Democrats. This is the signature legislative achievement of the Obama presidency, the embodiment of his new entitlement-state liberalism. If Obamacare goes down, there will be little left of its underlying ideology.

And realize that it's not just people like Krauthammer who recognize the impact of ObamaCare's implosion on the entire leftist project. Ezra Klein, perhaps the progressive left's biggest ObamaCare booster outside of the White House, grudgingly acknowledges how this disaster is crushing modern progressivism, even if he's loathe to express it in so many words. See, "Wonkbook: Obamacare’s troubles threaten Obama’s core political project":

Like many Democrats of his generation, Obama believes that the government is necessary — but that the government must be redeemed if it's to be trusted. He thinks the American people are rightly suspicious that the government doesn't do big things well. He venerates the market's capacity for innovation and efficiency even as he struggles against its ruthlessness and cruelty. And he ran for office convinced that if the American political system was going to be able to address the country's problems going forward, it would require an end to the old ideological battles and the forging of a new policy consensus.

The Affordable Care Act is the purest incarnation of these theories. It's meant to protect Americans from the predations of both the job market and the health-insurance market by making sure the poorest Americans can afford coverage, the sickest Americans can't be denied it and no one is tricked into plans that prove inadequate when health crises strike.

But it's also meant to avoid the pitfalls — both substantive and political — of big-government programs by relying on private insurers competing in tightly regulated, highly transparent, government-structured marketplaces. That's why Obama modeled the plan off of Mitt Romney's largely successful health reforms in Massachusetts. What better way to absorb Republican ideas and generate Republican buy-in then to adopt an idea from one of the GOP's leading lights?

Obamacare's success would've affirmed the theories underlying Obama's presidency — theories that could then be picked up by future presidents. Instead, Obamacare is systematically blowing apart the very premises it's based on.

Of course we'll be seeing last gasp efforts on the left to spin the ObamaCare collapse as the fault of Republicans or the insurance companies, but at this point the most common word I'm hearing on television news is "panic." It's indeed a turning point.

Now there's lots of shadenfreude on the right, and for good reason. This is a wholly owned Democrat debacle. The important thing for conservatives is to avoid acceding co-ownership of the sundry healthcare fixes now being floated on Capital Hill. Sure, constituents need relief. But short-term fixes to the law aren't smart. We need to repeal and replace ObamaCare in toto, and despite the meme that Republicans haven't offered alternatives, the fact is market-based healthcare reforms have been in wide circulation throughout the entire past five years of the Obama interregnum. What matters is for Republicans to win majority control of Congress and the presidency. Then they'll have the institutional political power to unwind the plague of progressivism that's been destroying America for these last few sorry years.

BONUS: At Hot Air, "Krauthammer: Obama’s insurance “fix” just another example of him “rewriting a law unilaterally”."

Obama Offers Fake Solution to #ObamaCare Crisis

At IBD, "Obama's Phony Cancellation Solution":

Fraud: President Obama's attempt to fix the insurance cancellation problem that his own law created isn't meant to help anyone. It's an attempt to shift blame for the mess onto the backs of insurance companies. Some fix.

Even a cursory glance at Obama's "plan" shows that it won't solve anything. Obama says state insurance commissioners could, if they want, let insurance companies extend existing individual plans another year. But they don't have to.

Obama would also leave it up to the insurance companies whether they'd extend these policies, while requiring them to send letters to millions who've already gotten cancellation notices explaining why their current plans suck — thereby loading still more costs onto the backs of insurance companies.

Let's put aside for the moment the question of whether Obama can even do this legally.

This is a president who, after all, has already arbitrarily changed and postponed various parts of ObamaCare — such as the congressional opt-out, the employer mandate, various enforcement rules, cuts to Medicare Advantage, out-of-pocket caps — when they would have proved politically hazardous.

The question is: Why should anyone trust Obama's latest "you can keep your plan" promise?

It turns out, no one should.

Even if Obama's proposal were legal — and he hasn't even convinced liberal stalwarts like Howard Dean, who wonders whether Obama "has the legal authority to do this, since this was a congressional bill that set this up" — it is logistically impossible. And Obama knows it.

Continue reading.

Democratic Lawmakers Running for Cover

At WSJ, "As Her Poll Numbers Drop, Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina Steps Up Pressure on President Obama to Fix Health Law":

WASHINGTON—After President Barack Obama outlined his health-law retreat Thursday, Sen. Kay Hagan, a Democrat from North Carolina, joined some colleagues in expressing misgivings. "A one-year fix is not enough and we need to do more," she said.

To understand why Democrats are increasingly nervous about the health law, and why Mr. Obama rushed through a patch to calm their anxieties, look no further than Mrs. Hagan, who defeated Sen. Elizabeth Dole in 2008 when the president carried North Carolina.

Up for re-election in 2014, and with her poll numbers tumbling, Mrs. Hagan has emerged as a leader of the Democratic caucus openly criticizing the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act. In the past month, she has called for extending an enrollment deadline, requested a formal investigation and vented her frustrations personally to the president. She took the rare step of publicizing that exchange after a White House meeting with other Senate Democrats.

Many of the vocally critical Democrats are up for re-election next year, including Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu. She's leading an effort to ensure that people can keep insurance that was canceled as a result of the law, the problem Mr. Obama sought to fix Thursday when he announced a one-year reprieve for that category of plan. Mrs. Hagan backs the Landrieu plan.

The imperative for Mrs. Hagan, however, is particularly acute, and is a warning sign for other incumbents facing voters in the midterms. A new poll this week showed a dramatic narrowing of the North Carolina Senate race that hadn't been particularly close. Americans for Prosperity, an outside group aligned with Republicans, is spending $1.7 million on a television ad criticizing Mrs. Hagan for supporting the health law.

President Obama said that Americans who received insurance cancellation letters will be able to keep those plans, though he urged people to look at other options availble on state and federal marketplaces.

Enrollment Under the Affordable Care Act
See the number of people who have selected a private health insurance plan sold on the new federally run or state-run exchanges in their first month of operations, as well as the number of people deemed eligible for Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor that is being expanded in some states.

"If we can get [the health law] rectified between now and the spring, Kay Hagan may be all right," said state Rep. Marvin Lucas, a Democrat from Spring Lake who supports the senator. "If not, she'll be in trouble."

Despite her consistent support for the health law, Mrs. Hagan also has been pushing for years to make changes. She backed a repeal of the 2.3% tax on the sale of medical-devices and co-sponsored a bill to eliminate the 15-person panel to find savings in Medicare.

"My focus has always been working to fix this law, rather than turning the issue into a political football," Mrs. Hagan said in a statement Thursday, responding to a Wall Street Journal request for comment.

Mr. Obama acknowledged the headaches the law was creating for his party. "There is no doubt that our failure to roll out the [Affordable Care Act] smoothly has put a burden on Democrats, whether they're running or not, because they stood up and supported this effort through thick and thin," he said Thursday.

Republicans seeking to topple Mrs. Hagan in next year's midterm elections said she is simply trying to distance herself from a law she helped pass and has supported since.

"Democrats like Kay Hagan weren't being honest when they promised everyone could keep their health plans," said Brook Hougesen, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the chamber's campaign arm. "Now, in an act of pure political desperation, Hagan is attempting to hide the fact that she was the deciding vote on Obamacare."

A poll released this week by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm based in North Carolina, showed that the Republicans vying for the chance to face Mrs. Hagan next year are locked in a statistical dead heat with her. For much of the year, they were trailing by double digits.

The poll also found that 49% of North Carolina voters disapprove of Mrs. Hagan's performance, up 10 percentage points from September. Noting the torrent of attack ads, Tom Jensen, of Public Policy Polling, said, "Watching TV in North Carolina right now, you'd think it was September 2014 instead of November 2013."

Janie Benson, the head of the Democratic Party in Haywood County, acknowledged that the health-law implementation woes have given Republicans ammunition despite some unpopular bills passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature.

Like most other incumbents, Ms. Hagan enters 2014 with a sizable war chest. She had $5.4 million in her campaign account at the end of the September, according to the Federal Election Commission. Her next closest rival, GOP statehouse Speaker Thom Tillis, had $838,000.

Diana Vickers

At FHM, "Why we went old school on Diana Vickers' FHM cover."

'Because admitting that their god, the Lying King Obama, has lied is just too much to ask of their fine, libtard, nuanced minds...'

From Emperor Misha, "New York Slimes, the Grey Meth Whore, Digging Desperately for New Euphemisms":

The more we observe the desperate contortions our so-called “press” twist themselves into in order to protect their village idiot president, the more we realize how wrong we were to shake our heads at the blatant lies of Pravda and Izvestiya that we monitored in our youth. Those guys were the very epitome of honesty compared to the “free press” of the United States of America.

And still it says less about the propaganda-spewing weasels of papers such as the New York Times than it says about the drooling idiots who subscribe to them. Who’s the bigger idiot? The publisher or the fucktards who pay for his propaganda?

Meanwhile, the Liberal Fascist Party members in DC are scrambling for the life boats, realizing all of a sudden that perhaps playing the part of the band on the Titanic while Obama sails off into the sunset for a life of ease isn’t all it’s been cracked up to be.

RTWT.

The 100 Things Every 20-Something Needs to Realize

From Elite Daily, "If you don’t work to improve yourself every day then you are wasting your life" (via Instapundit).

Adrift, Confused, and Over His Head: President's Statement on 'Fix' for #ObamaCare (VIDEO)

From Jennifer Rubin, at the Washington Post, "The Obama-disaster news conference" (via Memeorandum):

President Obama’s just-completed press conference was arguably worse than the Obamacare rollout. Alternately confessing, apologizing and blame shifting, he inadvertently made the case against his own executive skills, Obamacare and big government in general.

His announced fix is aimed at remedying the mass cancellation of individually-purchased insurance plans by letting insurance companies re-offer non-compliant policies. This makes clear that contrary to the statements from Jay Carney and Valerie Jarrett, Obamacare and not the insurers were the cause of the cancellations. Obama let slip that this is one big blame-shifting exercise when he announced that no one would be able to say Obamacare caused them to lose insurance. It is of course false because it is unlikely all the canceled policies can be restored.

The fix undermines the essential premise of Obamacare, namely that young, healthy people need to be herded into the  exchanges. Not only will this explicitly encourage many people to stay out but also will communicate that the entire program is in flux. Don’t sign up now — the deal may improve as the president gets more desperate!....

This is a president adrift, confused and entirely over his head. He has, in essence, confirmed what his harshest critics have long been arguing: he is incompetent and unknowledgable about how the world operates.  And we have three more years left of this.

More at the link.

Repeal: It's the Only Cure

At Dianny's Rants:

Those of us who reside on planet earth and not in Hopey/Changey Land knew this would be the outcome of passing Obamacare. We shouted it from the rooftops all through 2009 and into 2010 before the law passed. We continued to warn about the damage it would do, most recently, during Ted Cruz’s 21-hour filibuster at the end of September.

And here it is.

Everything we told you would happen is happening.

You didn’t listen to us then, please listen to us now.

There is no “fix” to “problems” that are arising with Obamacare. The problems are built in to the very structure of the law. What is happening is exactly what they wanted to have happen. Destroy the private insurance industry. Collapse the healthcare system. Then, proclaim that the only solution is complete government control in the form of single-payer, socialized medicine.

In a phrase: Medicaid for America.

The Republicans in the House and Senate: You too need to be reminded of that fact. Because if you lose sight of the reason Obamacare became law, you too will fall for the idea of “fixing” it.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was never meant to “work” in the sense that it will protect patients or make healthcare affordable.

I’m going to repeat myself here. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is doing exactly what they wanted it to do. It is destroying the private health insurance market. It is stripping the individual of any sovereignty over his or her own life, health and well-being. It is creating a vacuum in which these scurvy Liberals can then declare the need for a single-payer, government-run healthcare system.

There is nothing to “fix” because Obamacare is working exactly the way it was designed to work.

These Liberal Democrats who are proposing to “fix” it, have no interest in changing any aspect of the law. Their only hope is to change your opinion of them.

The only solution, the only cure to this law and the mess it has made is to repeal it.

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