John Boehner Takes on Tea Party Conservatives

At LAT, "House Speaker Boehner lashes out at conservative groups":

WASHINGTON — In an uncharacteristically forceful tone, House Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday lambasted the conservative advocacy groups that helped bring his party to power, saying their opposition to a bipartisan budget proposal amounted to an effort to manipulate Republicans and the American people "for their own goals."

The rare outburst from the often poker-faced speaker, a reversal of his past approach toward influential conservative groups, underscored long-simmering tensions between them and mainstream Republicans, who appear to be moving to reestablish their control over the party's agenda.

The hard-line groups have bedeviled Boehner and his leadership team all year by opposing efforts to compromise with Democrats and influencing primary campaigns aimed at unseating establishment Republicans, whom they accuse of abandoning conservative ideals on controlling government spending.

Boehner's words also reflected his apparent confidence that the recently announced $85-billion budget deal will be approved by the House this week despite attacks by conservative groups like Club for Growth and Heritage Action. Even if as many as 100 Republicans vote against it, as some predicted, Boehner is counting on Democrats to make up the shortfall, something he has been loath to do in the past.

Only weeks ago, Boehner sidestepped questions about the influence of the outside groups, who promote limited government and are mostly funded by rich conservative donors and business leaders. When asked in late October how they were affecting his members, Boehner answered simply: "Pass."

Though tensions have been rising for the last two years, Republican leaders resisted airing the frustrations publicly. But on Wednesday, tensions boiled over. At a news conference on the budget plan, Boehner interrupted a question about the developing opposition from conservative groups to charge that they "opposed it before they ever saw it."

"They're using our members and they're using the American people for their own goals," Boehner said. "This is ridiculous. If you're for more deficit reduction, you're for this agreement."

The outburst was long in gestation, Republicans close to Boehner said, and stemmed in part from many of the groups' support for a strategy led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that triggered the government shutdown in October. Boehner and other GOP leaders believe, as polls show, that it damaged the party.

"Boehner had warned them, having gone through this before, that this was a route that would not reap the rewards that people thought," said David Winston, a Republican pollster who has advised the House GOP. "And he was correct."

Also, "Boehner criticizes GOP groups again, but also wants to move on."

And the GOP leadership is purging so-called traitors in the ranks.

See the Washington Post, "House GOP leader Steve Scalise fires top aide, Paul Teller, citing breach of trust." Apparently Teller was an inside source for outside conservative groups, who see his firing as a declaration of war. See the Heritage Foundation, "Conservative Leaders Voice Outrage at Firing of RSC Executive Director."

There's lots more at Memeorandum.

And at National Journal, "Why Boehner Can Thumb His Nose at the Right."

Obama's Orwellian Image Control

From Santiago Lyon, at the New York Times:

THE Internet has been abuzz over the spectacle of President Obama and the prime ministers of Britain and Denmark snapping a photo of themselves — a “selfie,” to use the mot du jour — with a smartphone at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in South Africa on Tuesday.

Leaving aside whether it was appropriate, the moment captured the democratization of image making that is a hallmark of our gadget-filled, technologically rich era.

Manifestly undemocratic, in contrast, is the way Mr. Obama’s administration — in hypocritical defiance of the principles of openness and transparency he campaigned on — has systematically tried to bypass the media by releasing a sanitized visual record of his activities through official photographs and videos, at the expense of independent journalistic access.

The White House-based press corps was prohibited from photographing Mr. Obama on his first day at work in January 2009. Instead, a set of carefully vetted images was released. Since then the press has been allowed to photograph him alone in the Oval Office only twice: in 2009 and in 2010, both times when he was speaking on the phone. Pictures of him at work with his staff in the Oval Office — activities to which previous administrations routinely granted access — have never been allowed.

Instead, here’s how it’s done these days: An event involving the president discharging his official duties is arbitrarily labeled “private,” with media access prohibited. A little while later an official photo is released on the White House Flickr page, or via Twitter to millions of followers. Private? Hardly.

These so-called private events include meetings with world leaders and other visitors of major public interest — just the sorts of activities photojournalists should, and used to, have access to.

In response to these restrictions, 38 of the nation’s largest and most respected media organizations (including The New York Times) delivered a letter to the White House last month protesting photojournalists’ diminished access.

A deputy press secretary, Josh Earnest, responded by claiming that the White House had released more images of the president at work than any previous administration. It is serving the public perfectly well, he said, through a vibrant stream of behind-the-scenes photographs available on social media.

He missed the point entirely.

The official photographs the White House hands out are but visual news releases. Taken by government employees (mostly former photojournalists), they are well composed, compelling and even intimate glimpses of presidential life. They also show the president in the best possible light, as you’d expect from an administration highly conscious of the power of the image at a time of instant sharing of photos and videos.

By no stretch of the imagination are these images journalism. Rather, they propagate an idealized portrayal of events on Pennsylvania Avenue.

If you take this practice to its logical conclusion, why have news conferences? Why give reporters any access to the White House? It would be easier to just have a daily statement from the president (like his recorded weekly video address) and call it a day. Repressive governments do this all the time.

American presidents have often tried to control how they are depicted (think of the restrictions on portraying Franklin D. Roosevelt in his wheelchair). But presidents in recent decades recognized that allowing the press independent access to their activities was a necessary part of the social contract of trust and transparency that should exist between citizens and their leaders.

Social contract? Screw your social contract. It's all about the cult of Obama these days.

"We can choose a world defined not by our differences—but by our common hopes." —Obama at Mandela's memorial service: pic.twitter.com/GQdSdMLl8h

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 11, 2013

White House Delays #ObamaCare Premium Payments Until December 31st — Wants Insurers to 'Retroactively Cover' Consumers Who Miss Payments

And to think, leftists were all jazzed about that so-called enrollment surge.

I dare say this news might kill the buzz.

At the Hill, "HHS extends another ObamaCare deadline":

The Obama administration on Thursday pushed back the deadline for consumers to make their first payment for coverage under the healthcare law.

Rather than a deadline of Dec. 23, insurers will be required to accept premium payments through Dec. 31 for people who are seeking coverage that starts on Jan. 1.

In a conference call with reporters, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said insurers have the latitude to accept premiums even beyond Dec. 31, and that the administration was “strongly encouraging” them to retroactively cover consumers that submit late payments.

In addition to the one-week extension for premium payments, the administration on Thursday formalized its announcement that consumers have until Dec. 23, instead of Dec. 15, to sign-up for healthcare coverage that goes into affect Jan. 1.

Thursday’s announcement is the latest in a string of unilateral delays the administration has implemented to buy time after the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov.

More epic fail at that top link.

The Left's Latest Lie: An #ObamaCare Enrollment 'Surge'

Greg Sargent, the Washington Post's far-left Obama shill, is the worst.

RT @sarahkliff: Breaking: HHS reports 1.2M Obamacare enrollments since October. 365K are in private insurance. http://t.co/Be6ixr2mgK

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 11, 2013

HHS predicts admin will hit 7 million enrollment target by spring: http://t.co/s8Y4zrJo5r

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 11, 2013

But see Mandy Nagy, at Legal Insurrection, "Health insurance enrollment numbers increase but still fall short of goals." Also from Jim Treacher, "Look out, wingnuts: Baghdad Kathy’s pushin’ back!"

And see WSJ especially, "Juking the ObamaCare Stats":

Most of Washington seems to have bought the White House claim that the 36 federal exchanges are finally working, and glory, glory, hallelujah. But if that's really true, then what explains the ongoing secrecy and evasion?

On Wednesday the Health and Human Services Department continued its Victorian-era strip tease and allowed a glimpse into the Affordable Care Act's "enrollment" for November. Out of respect for a free press, reporters ought to boycott these releases because they're so selective that they reveal little about real enrollment. But we'll try to parse the data as best we can without the White House high gloss.

A charitable reading suggests that ObamaCare's net enrollment stands at about negative four million. That's the estimated four million to five and a half million people who had their individual health plans liquidated as ObamaCare-noncompliant—offset by the 364,682 who have signed up for a plan on a state or federal exchange and the 803,077 who have been found eligible to receive Medicaid. HHS is boasting of enrollment for November that was four times as high as October, yet 62% of the total was in the state exchanges, some of which are marginally less prone to crashing than the federal version. Then again, 41 states posted sign-ups only in the three or four figures, including eight states that run their own exchanges. Oregon managed to scrape up 44 people. Among the 137,204 federal sign-ups, no state is reaching the critical mass necessary for stable insurance prices.

The larger problem is that none of these represent true enrollments. HHS is reporting how many people "selected" a plan on the exchange, not how many people have actually enrolled in a plan with an insurance company by paying the first month's premium, which is how the private insurance industry defines enrollment. HHS has made up its own standard....

In other nondisclosure news, the House Oversight Committee turned up letters Wednesday showing that HHS ordered the private contractors partly responsible for the Healthcare.gov fiasco not to cooperate with congressional investigations or hand over documents. For no pertinent reason, HHS reminds them that they signed contracts obligating them not to share information with "third parties."

HHS goes on to note that "If you receive a request for this information from Congress, CMS will respond directly to the requestor and will work with the requestor to address its interests in this information." Explaining how the government managed to waste hundreds of millions of dollars building a website in 2013 might be in the public interest, so what are they afraid the contractors will produce?

The reason for all this obstruction and statistical juking is so the White House can get the press corps and Democrats to believe that the worst is over and that ObamaCare is now rolling toward success. On that score they've succeeded. But it's impossible for an outsider to know what the truth really is because HHS and the White House continue to manipulate and bury the real statistics.

YouTube's Top Videos for 2013

At WaPo, "YouTube releases list of 2013’s top videos":

It turns out we’re all really interested in knowing what the fox says. According to YouTube’s annual list of top-trending videos, Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis had the hottest video of the year with “What Does the Fox Say?” The posting drew 276 million views since it was posted in September.

Actually, it was a good year for Norwegians: The Norwegian Army version of the Harlem Shake dance craze came in right behind Ylvis’s video as the most popular of the 1.7 million versions of the dance that got uploaded to the site, YouTube said Wednesday in announcing the statistics.

Overall, the Google-owned video site said that 1 billion users watch 6 billion hours of content on its site every month — the vast majority of those view come from outside of the United States.

Continue reading.

Pope Francis is Time's Person of the Year

I guess über-traitor Glenn Greenwald wasn't pleased, via Politico, "Greenwald mocks Time magazine":

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the story of Edward Snowden's National Security Agency leaks earlier this year, mocked Time magazine for picking Pope Francis over Snowden for their "Person of the Year."

In an e-mail to Talking Points Memo and on Twitter, Greenwald called Time magazine "meaningless" and "cowards of the decade" for not choosing Snowden, whose revelations have been and continue to be a major news story that has shaken the government surveillance industry.

"It's a meaningless award from a meaningless magazine, designed to achieve the impossible: to make TIME relevant and interesting for a few fleeting moments," Greenwald told TPM.

He's such a loser.

TIME Magazine: as edgy, bold, courageous and innovative as ever: http://t.co/L1tSbEbgeV - Edward Snowden "Runner-up" http://t.co/Hxq48AQZN9

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 11, 2013

Dana Loesch Moves to Texas!

To join Glenn Beck on the radio.

Congratulations Dana!

Behati Prinsloo at Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2013

Via Twitter.

And at Theo Spark's, "Video Highlights from the 2013 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show."

Inequality: The Defining Lie of the Radical Left

From Roger Simon, at PJ Media, "‘Income Inequality’ — The Biggest Lie of All":

In the last few days Barack Obama has attempted to change the subject of public discourse from healthcare to income inequality,  which he has dubbed “the defining challenge of our time.”

Now he tells us!

Since POTUS hasn’t paid much attention to this problem for the first five plus years of his administration, even with African-American unemployment through the roof and the middle class disappearing from American economic life,  and with Rand Paul (of all people) the only one to come up with a concrete suggestion of how to elevate people out of poverty, as he has recently with Detroit, this should come as some surprise.

But it doesn’t.  The fight for “income inequality” is and has been for a long time the defining lie of modern liberalism.

This is not to say that income inequality does not exist.  Of course, it does.  But what liberalism does is pretend to do something about it, to whine and complain about it, in order to ensure the support of the poor, the semi-poor and minority groups, while doing nothing that changes the substance of their inequality in any permanent way.  Indeed, it often exacerbates it.

Consciously or unconsciously, these liberals may actually want the lower classes to remain the lower classes.  After all, if they bettered themselves, they might leave the Democratic fold.  That wouldn’t do.  So the system goes on.

Meanwhile, for all their pious progressive talk, George Soros gets to keep his palazzo in Katonah (among many others),  Jeff Katzenberg his beach shack in Malibu, and Obama the beach shack that some say awaits him on Oahu.  And we all know about Al Gore’s many eco-friendly homes.  (Oops, I think that one’s now Tipper’s house.)

So, on the surface, all this income inequality chatter is nothing more than hypocrisy, that “homage that vice pays to virtue,” as La Rochefoucauld put it.  But it’s really worse.  It’s cynical and mean because all these so-called liberal solutions to poverty, solutions that have been tried hundreds of times since the Great Society, and probably before, to no avail,  suck the energy from the room, befuddle the media and the body politic and make it impossible for other methods to be tried, as with the Rand Paul idea referenced above.

A great piece (keep reading).

Leftists don't care about the poor. They care about power, and they exploit to poor to gain power and to keep it.

And now that the president's pandered on the issue, in a pathetic attempt to distract from the ObamaCare debacle, idiot regressive leftists are all over it. See Alec MacGillis, at the New Republic, "Democrats Shouldn't Be Scared to Talk About Inequality." Also, from Thomas Edsall, at the New York Times, "Does Rising Inequality Make Us Hardhearted?" (No, it's a just a distraction from the left's epic policy failures.)

A Two-Term President and the Shoals of a Midterm Election

From John Harwood, at the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — History says President Obama should brace for another round of midterm election losses next year — and be grateful for the opportunity.

Unlike presidents who never got the same chance, Mr. Obama is in line to become only the fifth president since World War II to serve long enough for a second mid-term election, and the possibility that his party might hold or gain ground in Congress in his sixth year in office.

But the unhappy record of his two-term predecessors — none of whom gained control of either legislative chamber — offers scant comfort about his prospects.

Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 set the standard for sixth-year losses. With the nation reeling from economic recession and the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik satellite, his fellow Republicans lost 13 seats in the Senate and 48 in the House, turning narrow Democratic majorities into overwhelming ones...

Continue reading.

The Dems are gonna get hammered. It's as simple as that.

Obama Disapproval Surges to All-Time High of 54 Percent in Latest WSJ/NBC News Poll

Great news.

At the Journal, "Poll: Health Law Hurts President Politically":

The federal health-care law is becoming a heavier political burden for President Barack Obama and his party, despite increased confidence in the economy and the public's own generally upbeat sense of well-being, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests.

Disapproval of Mr. Obama's job performance hit an all-time high in the poll, at 54%, amid the flawed rollout of the health law. Half of those polled now consider the law a bad idea, also a record high.

The survey of 1,000 adults conducted between Dec. 4 and Dec. 8 found a sharp erosion since January in many of the attributes—honesty, leadership, ability to handle a crisis—that had kept Mr. Obama aloft through the economic and political turmoil of his first term.

In a clear parallel to sentiment toward President George W. Bush at the same point in his second term, just over half in the poll said events in recent months had dealt Mr. Obama a setback from which he wouldn't likely recover.

Asked what shaped their view of the president this year, almost 60% cited the 2010 health-care law, the Affordable Care Act, as a chief factor. The poll found faith in Mr. Obama had dropped noticeably in recent months among young voters and Hispanics, two groups that had been among his steadiest supporters.

"The president is being weighed down by one issue, his health-care law," said Democratic pollster Fred Yang, who helped direct the poll. "It's probably fair to say that as goes health care, so goes the Obama presidency for the next year."

Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who worked on the poll alongside Mr. Yang, said the damage to the president's standing could linger. "When you dent a president on honesty and straightforwardness," he said, "you have done major damage that can be difficult and time-consuming to repair."

The poll illustrated a deepening distaste for all Washington institutions. More than half of those polled rated the current Congress as one of the worst ever, by far the most negative verdict going back to 1990.

Despite the angst over Washington dysfunction, the poll found participants surprisingly upbeat about their own lives. Nearly two-thirds expressed satisfaction with their financial situation. Eight in 10 said they were satisfied with their health care and insurance coverage, a higher number than had that view in 1994—and even in September, before the rocky rollout of the Affordable Care Act.

Those polled also were more optimistic about the economy, with 75% saying it would improve or stay the same next year, compared with 65% who had that view in late October. But disapproval of Mr. Obama's handling of the economy jumped to 58% from 52% in September.

In all, the health-care law came in for rough treatment more than two months after it became apparent that technical problems were bedeviling the online marketplaces for buying insurance policies. Millions of Americans received notices that their policies were being canceled because they didn't meet standards in the law, yet had trouble using government websites to buy new policies.

More at the link.

Interesting how folks are feeling better, more optimistic, but see President Clusterf-k damaging their opportunities and well-being.

Worst. President. Ever.

Gisele Bundchen Posts Breastfeeding Photo on Instagram

Well, more power to her, I say.

And see Fashionista, "Gisele Bundchen Is the Most Gorgeous (and Lucky) Breastfeeding Mom Ever."

And at USA Today, "Gisele Bundchen breastfeeding photo prompts buzz."

Castro-Coddling Obama Snaps Funeral Selfie at Mandela Service

At the New York Post, "Michelle not amused by Obama’s memorial selfie."

And at Twitchy, "‘HAHA!’ How did ‘headline crush’ NY Post blast President Funeral Selfie, FLOTUS? [pic]," and "Funeral selfies? Obama’s selfie face, FLOTUS’ furious face at #MandelaMemorial [pics]."

Plus, "Surprise! Guess what ‘subtext’ Oliver Willis sees in hilarious NY Post Obama-jabbing cover."



PREVIOUSLY: "President Obama Shakes Hands with Cuba's Communist Leader Raúl Castro."

Tenured Radicals Cannot Be Trusted with Our Academic Freedom

An outstanding entry, from William Jacobson, at Legal Insurrection:

Academic supporters of the Israel boycott should understand that what goes around comes around....

The anti-Israel Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement is a frequent focus here because it embodies so much of the pathology of the Leftist-Islamist anti-Israel coalition.

While disavowing anti-Semitism, BDS singles out and holds only Israel to standards not applied much less met by any other country in the Middle East or Muslim world. Israel, and Israel alone, is put under a microscope and each defect found turned into grossly exaggerated and often outright false claims of racism, Apartheid, colonialism and so on. Only Israeli academics and institutions are subjected to boycott even though by any objective standard non-Jews are far more free academically and otherwise in Israel than non-Muslims are in the Muslim world.

We also witness the bizarre self-parody of LGBT and Women’s rights groups siding with Islamists who hate LGBT and women’s rights, all in the cause of BDS. There is a sickness beyond reason behind BDS, as witnessed by the BDS claim that Israeli soldiers failing to rape Arab women is racist and open support for Hezbollah as part of the BDS campaign.

BDS and anti-Semitism go hand-in-hand, particularly in Europe. There is a thin line between organizing abusive disruptions of speeches, concerts and lectures by Israelis and throwing the punch or thrusting the knife. That thin line has been breached in Europe, as harsh demonization of everything Israeli stokes and promotes anti-Semitic violence by Muslims to the silence or tacit endorsement of the European Left.

The rhetoric emanating from BDS supporters in the U.S. also is so extreme that even some harsh left-wing critics of Israeli policies have dared call it was it is. It is no surprise that strong BDS supporters like Roger Waters of Pink Floyd conflate criticism of Israel and Jews, and BDS campus activists in South Africa sang “shoot the Jew.”

BDS, because of the facade of supporting Palestinian “civil society,” is in vogue in many corners of American academia. Those academics stand apart from the U.S. population, where support for Israel is at historic highs.

Continue reading.

Dashcam Video Shows Car Speeding Past Troopers, Followed by Fatal Crash

Via Twitter.



Also at WNWO, "OSHP releases video of fiery Thanksgiving double fatal [GRAPHIC VIDEO]."

President Obama Shakes Hands with Cuba's Communist Leader Raúl Castro

At the Nelson Mandela service in South Africa.

Don't let idiot leftists deceive you. It's a significant move, a gesture that bestows legitimacy on Cuba's Communist regime. Obama should have snubbed Castro.

At the New York Times, "Will Handshake With Castro Lead to Headache for Obama?," and "The Distraction of a Handshake in South Africa":

...the gesture was of special interest for Cuban exiles in the United States, and news organizations in Florida naturally took note. The Miami New Times curated a collection of reactions, while referring to a post on babalu, a Cuban exiles blog, that said Mr. Obama gave “credence and recognition to a vile and bloody dictatorial regime responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of innocent people.”

Yes, and compare Obama's shame to the dignity of Senator Ted Cruz, at Twitchy, "Sen. Ted Cruz walks out on Raúl Castro’s speech at Mandela memorial."

Vulgarity: The New Normal

From Lee Siegel, at WSJ, "From Elvis to Miley Cyrus to Lady Gaga: America the Vulgar":

"What's celebrity sex, Dad?" It was my 7-year-old son, who had been looking over my shoulder at my computer screen. He mispronounced "celebrity" but spoke the word "sex" as if he had been using it all his life. "Celebrity six," I said, abruptly closing my AOL screen. "It's a game famous people play in teams of three," I said, as I ushered him out of my office and downstairs into what I assumed was the safety of the living room.

No such luck. His 3-year-old sister had gotten her precocious little hands on my wife's iPhone as it was charging on a table next to the sofa. By randomly tapping icons on the screen, she had conjured up an image of Beyoncé barely clad in black leather, caught in a suggestive pose that I hoped would suggest nothing at all to her or her brother.

And so it went on this typical weekend. The eff-word popped out of TV programs we thought were friendly enough to have on while the children played in the next room. Ads depicting all but naked couples beckoned to them from the mainstream magazines scattered around the house. The kids peered over my shoulder as I perused my email inbox, their curiosity piqued by the endless stream of solicitations having to do with one aspect or another of sex, sex, sex!

When did the culture become so coarse? It's a question that quickly gets you branded as either an unsophisticated rube or some angry culture warrior. But I swear on my hard drive that I'm neither. My favorite movie is "Last Tango in Paris." I agree (on a theoretical level) with the notorious rake James Goldsmith, who said that when a man marries his mistress, he creates a job vacancy. I once thought of writing a book-length homage to the eff-word in American culture, the apotheosis of which was probably Sir Ben Kingsley pronouncing it with several syllables in an episode of "The Sopranos."

I'm cool, and I'm down with everything, you bet, but I miss a time when there were powerful imprecations instead of mere obscenity—or at least when sexual innuendo, because it was innuendo, served as a delicious release of tension between our private and public lives. Long before there was twerking, there were Elvis's gyrations, which shocked people because gyrating hips are more associated with women (thrusting his hips forward would have had a masculine connotation)...

Continue reading.

I've mentioned this trend numerous times. There's entertainment value in it, especially among young people. And so much nudity in popular culture. Sometimes folks push back. See Rashida Jones, at Glamour, "Why Is Everyone Getting Naked? Rashida Jones on the Pornification of Everything."

High Deductibles Fuel #ObamaCare Sticker Shock

Yeah, and mind you, this is exactly how it's supposed to work.

At the Wall Street Journal, "High Deductibles Fuel New Worries of Health-Law Sticker Shock: Some Lower-Cost Plans Carry Steep Deductibles, Posing Financial Challenge" (via Google):

As enrollment picks up on the HealthCare.gov website, many people with modest incomes are encountering a troubling element of the federal health law: deductibles so steep they may not be able to afford the portion of medical expenses that insurance doesn't cover.

The average individual deductible for what is called a bronze plan on the exchange—the lowest-priced coverage—is $5,081 a year, according to a new report on insurance offerings in 34 of the 36 states that rely on the federally run online marketplace.

That is 42% higher than the average deductible of $3,589 for an individually purchased plan in 2013 before much of the federal law took effect, according to HealthPocket Inc., a company that compares health-insurance plans for consumers. A deductible is the annual amount people must spend on health care before their insurer starts making payments.

The health law makes tax credits available to help cover insurance premiums for people with annual income up to four times the poverty level, or $45,960 for an individual. In addition, "cost-sharing" subsidies to help pay deductibles are available to people who earn up to 2.5 times the poverty level, or about $28,725 for an individual, in the exchange's silver policies.

As enrollment picks up on HealthCare.gov, many people with modest incomes are encountering a troubling element: deductibles so steep they may not be able to afford the portion of medical expenses that insurance doesn't cover. Christopher Weaver discusses. Photo: Getty Images.

But those limits will leave hundreds of thousands or more people with a difficult trade-off: They can pay significantly higher premiums for the exchange's silver, gold and platinum policies, which have lower deductibles, or gamble they won't need much health care and choose a cheaper bronze plan. Moreover, the cost-sharing subsidies for deductibles don't apply to the bronze policies.

That means some sick or injured people may avoid treatment so they don't rack up high bills their insurance won't cover, according to consumer activists, insurance brokers and public-policy analysts—subverting one of the health law's goals, which is to ensure more people receive needed health care. Hospitals, meantime, are bracing for a rise in unpaid bills from bronze-plan policyholders, said industry officials and public-policy analysts.

Because all health plans now are required to provide certain minimum benefits, "consumers may be tempted to shop on premium alone, not realizing that the out-of-pocket costs can have a dramatic effect upon the annual costs of health care," said Kevin Coleman, head of research and data at HealthPocket.

Mr. Coleman said he expects the high deductibles will "produce some reduction in medical-service use" for enrollees who don't qualify for subsidies.

Of course, millions of Americans who went without insurance before the health law are in better shape today, despite the high deductibles. They are covered for much of the cost of expensive health care such as cancer treatment or major operations that could be a financial catastrophe for people lacking insurance.

And deductibles had been growing for years. It is unclear how much deductibles would have risen for individually purchased policies if the health law didn't exist. But deductibles for employer-sponsored plans, which generally are much lower than for individually purchased policies, nearly doubled over the past seven years to $1,135 in 2013, according to a Deloitte study published this year.

Meantime, hospitals likely will be treating more people who have insurance than before the law, which means they will be paid by insurers for some services that formerly ended up as bad patient debt.

Federal health officials emphasize that the exchange's pricing tiers accommodate people's different situations, and give consumers better coverage of essential services including doctor visits for preventive care that are exempt from deductibles.

"In the current individual marketplace, consumers can face unlimited out-of-pocket expenses for plans with limited benefits and high deductibles, if they can even get coverage without being denied for a pre-existing condition," said Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Joanne Peters. "In the new marketplace, out-of-pocket expenses are capped, there are no denials based on your health and you can compare plans to find one that meets your needs."

Total out-of-pocket expenses under bronze plans are capped at an annual $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for families of four; some older policies left consumers liable for significantly more. These totals include all deductibles, copayments and coinsurance charges for covered medical services from in-network health-care providers.

The issue of deductibles is coming into sharper focus as more people enroll thanks to improvements to the HealthCare.gov website since its botched Oct. 1 rollout. An uptick in traffic at the site and new data from states that are operating their own exchanges indicate that enrollment is picking up, although federal officials haven't released specific enrollment numbers. President Barack Obama has endured an uproar over the cancellation of millions of individual-insurance policies after he promised repeatedly that people who liked their coverage could keep it. Many policyholders whose old plans were canceled because they don't meet the coverage standards of the health law are facing higher prices in the exchanges.

"They're seeing sticker shock" in transitioning to the more-comprehensive coverage, and "once they start to use the policy, they will see a second sticker shock" of high deductibles, said Jamie Court, president of public-interest group Consumer Watchdog in California.

And they call it the "Affordable Care Act." George Orwell warned about this kind of stuff. It's leftist depravity.

More at the New York Times, "On Health Exchanges, Premiums May Be Low, but Other Costs Can Be High" (via Hot Air and Memeorandum).

And don't miss the huge "sticker shock" roundup at the Senate Republicans' homepage, "Obamacare Deductibles 'Way Higher'."

State #ObamaCare Exchanges Vulnerable to Wi-Fi Attacks

At Fire Andrea Mitchell, "ObamaCARE exchanges in multiple states vulnerable to Wi-Fi attacks."

Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Tonight!

It's the evening you've all been waiting for.

The program airs at 10:00pm (9:00pm Central) on CBS.