Still Looking For Alternatives-Charlie Martin At PJ Media: ‘Obamacare vs. Arithmetic’

Full piece here.

Let the markets work!

Click through for some spit-balled suggestions, including some kind of mandate upon all individuals to purchase a basic minimum plan (as Martin acknowledges, this is always open to abuse and expansion of power).

‘Whatever solution we look for though, the really important point is this: the whole basis of Obamacare, the notion that we can have more people, getting more benefits, and pay less, is just impossible. The arithmetic doesn’t work. And if you think that’s “unfair,” I’m sorry.

Avik Roy addressed this before the 2012 Romney/Obama presidential election, before we really started taxiing Obamacare down the runway:

‘Obamacare’s approach to pre-existing conditions, in summary, may help a tiny minority with pre-existing conditions to gain coverage in the short term, but the law will drive up the cost of insurance for everyone else, leading to adverse selection and higher premiums for all. And the price of Obamacare is steep: the individual mandate; trillions in new spending and taxes; deep cuts to Medicare providers.’

Epstein’s position:

The best way to deal with the risk of catastrophe is for people to buy their coverage early, when they are young, so that premiums are low. In any well-functioning market, they can acquire a renewable policy with guaranteed rates. At that point, does it become morally reprehensible to deny additional coverage to those individuals who passed on this possibility? No. Sadly, the abysmal performance of the American healthcare system lies not in the market economy that Kristof deplores, but in the elaborate network of regulation that shrinks the domain of voluntary choices, and leaves consumers with fewer choices than they would have had if the government had just stood by.’

Now the government isn’t just standing-by, it’s forcing people out of their current plans onto exchanges that don’t function, exacting high costs on individuals as part of an enormously flawed law in theory, which is being put into practice.

Via Mediaite: CBS 60 Minutes’ Lara Logan Apologizes for Erroneous Benghazi Survivor Report: ‘We Were Wrong’

Full video at the link.

This blog linked to the erroneous story, too, and shares in the wrongness:

‘In late October, 60 Minutes ran a report featuring the account of British security expert Dylan Davies – though he called himself Morgan Jones – who recounted in detail his actions in the early morning hours during the Benghazi attack.

It was later revealed that Davies told the FBI he did not visit the American diplomatic compound on the night of the attack and had not, as he claimed, seen the body of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.’

Apologies.   Journalists and even rogue bloggers need to get the facts right as much as possible and use good judgment, even prudence, when in doubt.

This issue continues to be a hot-button politically while investigations continue (comments highlight the emotions and the partisan divide).

In the meantime, it’s probably more worthwhile to be thinking about how to come-up with a budget that lines-up with our expectations, tactics that line-up with strategy, and a strategy that lines-up to what’s possible politically at home, and what’s happening on the ground in other countries.

Update: Instead of using all available channels to pressure the Iranian regime from getting deliverable nukes, Obama has been easing those crippling economic sanctions to gain leverage.  More here.  This is probably not going to position us well at all.

Addition:  Eli Lake at the Daily Beast: Benghazi’s Al Qaeda Connection.

Eli Lake At The Daily Beast: ‘U.S. Officials Knew Libya Attacks Were Work of Al Qaeda Affiliates’ From The BBC Via Michael Totten: ‘Libya: Islamist Militia Bases Stormed In Benghazi’

Via Reuters: ‘U.S. Ambassador To Libya Killed In Benghazi Attack’

Walter Russell Mead At The American Interest Online: ‘Obama’s War’From The WSJ: “Allies Rally To Stop Gadhafi”From March 27th, 2009 At WhiteHouse.Gov: Remarks By The President On A New Strategy For Afghanistan And PakistanFrom The New Yorker: ‘How Qaddafi Lost Libya’