Until repealed by Congress, Trump's duty is to enforce Obamacare's individual mandate

Note that there is no right to refuse to enforce laws one doesn't like in the enumerated powers of the executive branch.

       President Trump has announced that he may not enforce the individual mandate required under Obamacare. If he goes through with this it will effectively kill the program, which was already dying a not-so-slow death.
    I hate Obamacare and look forward to its demise, but Trump is wrong to simply stop enforcing the individual mandate for one reason: it’s the law. It’s the sworn duty of the president under Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” It’s really that simple. There is no provision allowing a president to refuse to enforce laws because Congress refused to "cooperate" with him in changing them.
    Of course, that view changed under the Obama presidency. When Congress refused to pass laws he wanted, he simply ruled by edict and his disciples were fine with it. Thus when Congress refused to grant amnesty or citizenship to millions of criminals in this country illegally, Obama simply quit enforcing our immigration laws. When Obamacare didn’t work exactly as he wanted, he unilaterally transferred money outside of the authority of law. Facing election pressures, Obama delayed various unpopular aspects of the law purely for electoral advantage. For the past eight years Obama has essentially operated as a dictator, and he got away with it because too many people were afraid to challenge our first black president for fear of being called “racist.”
    Now Trump is in office; the Obamaites who were so willing to go along with this massive usurpation of power into the executive branch are now going to discover that sauce for Obama’s goose is sauce for Trump’s gander. He can and will rescind most of Obama’s executive orders; in addition, Trump seems ready to follow Obama’s example of refusing to enforce those laws with which he disagrees. I expect to hear a lot of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth by idiots wearing hats made to look like vaginas.
    I suppose Trump is entitled to demand the same rights as those exercised by Obama, but at some point Congress and the states need to use the courts to rein in our out-of-control executive branch. In the meantime Trump will use all of the tools of executive power that Obama created for him. Most of what he may do I will probably approve of, but there is value in obedience to the law and the Constitution.
    In our military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush (and H.W. Bush as well) sought authorization from Congress before committing U.S. troops to action. Obama chose to ignore the War Powers Act in his unjustified attack on our enemy-turned-ally, Libya, committing numerous war crimes in the process. The results have been disastrous (as I said they would be back in 2011), including the rise of ISIS and the Syrian civil war. Congress should have impeached him over this, but they lacked the will. It’s time to give the War Powers Act additional teeth by imposing criminal penalties on soldiers who knowingly violate it by participating in an offensive military action for more than 60 days without Congressional approval. Soldiers are expected to disobey orders given by commanders that violate the Geneva Convention or that are illegal, and they should be expected to disobey orders given in violation of the War Powers Act. Any soldier who can’t count to 60 has no business of being in the military.
    In 1974, in Train v. City of New York, the Supreme Court ruled that President Nixon could not “impound” funds appropriated by Congress; in other words, if the law said spend the money he had to spend the money. There can be no tolerance for the executive branch to simply refuse to enforce laws that the current president doesn’t like. I’m not prepared to advocate for the impeachment of Trump for engaging in behavior that is identical to that of Obama, but at some point Congress is going to have to involve the courts in restraining our nation’s out-of-control executive branch.
    I support Donald Trump and almost everything he says he wants to do as president, but as a matter of long-term policy Congress and the states must claw back their powers from the executive. The president’s job is to direct foreign policy, command the military, commission officers and judges subject to Senate approval, propose laws to Congress, and faithfully enforce those laws enacted by Congress. That’s it. The right to make laws and appropriate funds rests solely with the Congress, subject to a presidential right to make proposals and attempt to veto. The president is not supposed to  rule by edict or unilaterally refuse to enforce laws he doesn’t like. The fact that I may like the current president doesn’t make the executive’s usurpation of power any more acceptable from a constitutional standpoint.
    To get back to where I started, we can and should repeal Obamacare, but until it is properly repealed those provisions which are enacted into law should be enforced. It’s just the law, and it’s the job of the president to enforce our laws whether he likes them or not. Obama acted as a dictator; Trump should act like a president.

Marco Rubio gave Trump a taste of his own medicine after his silly health care comments

     I'm not complete opposed to the idea of Donald Trump as president. If my main man, Ted Cruz doesn't make it, I will likely switch my support to Trump. I don't like Trump, but I believe he and Cruz are the only two candidates who will actually do something about illegal immigration, and that's the only issue that really matters to me.
    But I do admire honest talk from political candidates, and found Trump's comments on health care during the Feb. 25 Republican debate to be intentionally dishonest or dumb beyond belief. I was glad to see Marco Rubio just absolutely mop the floor with him, as can be seen in the video, above.
    The question Trump was asked was how he planned to deal with people with pre-existing conditions if Obamacare were to be repealed. His solution was to eliminate rules that prevent insurance from being sold across state lines. That's it; just increase competition and nothing else.
    I hate Obamacare and find it to be the worst possible health care solution possible for our nation. But Trump's plan isn't going to help people with pre-existing conditions very much. Increased competition might reduce someone's insurance premium from $5,000 a month to $4,500 a month, but that really isn't going to solve the problem, is it?
    Asking insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions is like asking them to write a fire insurance policy after a house has burned down. It's a losing proposition.
    There are really only three ways to provide insurance to people with pre-existing conditions:

1. Charge people with pre-existing conditions a higher rate, or charge the same price for insurance that is more highly managed;
2. Shift some of the cost to other purchasers of insurance or health care, by mandated risk pools;
3. Direct subsidies from the state or federal government; or
 4. Some combination of the above.

    I'm not asking anyone to be specific, and in fact recognize that being too specific can bring certain death to a political campaign. But I think it's wrong to essentially lie and state that the problem of covering pre-existing conditions can be solved by removing the "lines around the states."
    Some sort of subsidy is going to be required. The issue is how much subsidy, how is it going to be provided, and who is going to pay for it. It's perfectly acceptable to dodge all of these questions, but at least acknowledge that the need for the subsidy is there if pre-existing conditions are to be covered.

When patients fail to pay their Obamacare premiums health care providers are left holding the bag

    The important thing to understand about Obamacare is that virtually everything is broken. It's a bad, poorly thought out law.
    It had to be, by the very nature of it. The Democrats rammed it through Congress as part of a reconciliation bill. Even the people supporting it had little idea what they were voting for. Nancy Pelosi made headlines when she explained that the bill would have to be passed before people would really understand what was in it.
    The American people are starting to understand and many simply do not like it.
    One little feature of Obamacare is that anyone purchasing subsidized insurance is automatically covered for four months after making a single payment. In other words, there is a 90-day grace period before policies are cancelled.
    I suppose that is something that can be priced into insurance. But what happens next is the shocker.
    During the first 30 days of the 90-day grace period insurance claims will be paid and processed. Any claims during the next 60 days simply will not be paid unless the premiums are paid.
    So doctors and hospitals will be told that a patient is insured, only to find out later that they aren't going to be paid.
    Obamacare already has really low reimbursement rates for doctors. In California, for example, a majority of doctors are simply refusing to see those insured through exchanges. They can't afford to. Refusing to pay doctors and hospitals for services provided is going to make them even more loathe to accept exchange insurance.
    Failure to pay premiums is a big problem with Obamacare. The administration has been trying to hide the numbers, but roughly 20 percent of those who signed up never paid their first premium, and that may be a low number. So instead of 4.2 million being enrolled through the exchanges the number is more like 3.3 million or fewer. If 20 percent of this number eventually defaults on their insurance payments, then roughly 600,000 people will be able to run up doctor and hospital bills under the guise of being insured. Providers will be falsely told that their patients are insured only to find out later that they are being stiffed.
    No doubt many people are going to be upset over the fact that they've paid for insurance and can't find a doctor to accept it. How bad is the problem? Well, it depends on the state. Forbes did an analysis of the availability of specialists and found substantially fewer participate in Obamacare.

    The chart at right shows specialist availability offered by Athen in its PPO plans versus its Obamacare Bronze plans. In some cases the differences are extreme. For example, Anthem PPO customers in Indiana have a choice of 1055 cardiologists to choose from in their plan. Obamacare customers have 74. In other words, only one in about 14 doctors in its regular PPO plans are willing to accept Obamacare patients.
    Anthem was chosen for the comparison because the data was readily available, and its exchange plans tend to be as good or better than most.
    Understand that President Obama has declared policies which don't cover things like maternity care for senior citizens junk. But most Americans would prefer to pay less for their insurance, forego the free birth control they don't need, maternity benefits they don't want, and so forth, and instead have a wide choice of doctors who would be glad to see them.
    Roughly half of American doctors aren't going to accept Obamacare, and that number is likely to rise after they don't get paid.
    Even worse, because of all the money being spent on Obamacare there is no money to pay for the annual Medicare/Medicaid "doc fix," which increases reimburse levels for these programs. Doctors are about to take a 24 percent pay cut and many will respond by refusing to see Medicaid patients.
    So the problem isn't limited to just purchasers of junk Obamacare policies. Soon Granny won't be able to find a doctor, either.
    Thanks Obama!

A single chart shows how doomed Obamacare relies on the victimization of young males to succeed

This chart shows what a really bad deal Obamacare is for males of almost any age. Roughly 50 percent of the premiums paid by young males go to women and wealthy older insurance customers. Note the bottom portion of the chart, which shows that older customers receiving giant subsidies are signing up at roughly twice the expected rate while young people have signed up at about half of what was expected and needed.

    It should be apparent by now that the government's attempt to take over and micromanage one-sixth of the American economy is a complete and total flop. Obamacare will fail, and it should fail. The chart above, from the ACA Death Spiral website, shows why.
    One of the myriad faults with Obamacare is that it limits or outlaws all insurance ratings, save for those based on geography. Age ratings are permitted in part. Older patients cost as much as five times as much to insure as younger ones, but Obamacare imposes a 3:1 maximum premium differential. In other words, young people just starting out in life are forced to subsidize their wealthier elders.
    Oddly enough, liberals don't seem to care about premium differentials when it comes to auto insurance. The differential is often huge: young males pay premiums several times those of older females. If we are going to limit age differentials in insurance, shouldn't we do so for all types of insurance? Shouldn't we require all citizens to purchase auto insurance, whether they own a car or not?
    The chart above shows that roughly 50 percent of premiums paid by younger males will go to provide free insurance coverage to other groups, a subsidy being a form of free care. Consider the fact that 20 percent of insurance benefits are actually overhead costs and young males as a group will receive only 40 cents of medical care for every dollar in premiums paid.
    But wait there's more! I'm operating on guesstimate here, but we've all observed that in any group the bulk of medical costs are incurred by a relatively small number of individuals. Using a proper rating system I dare say that out of a group of 100 men I could identify 10 up front who would be likely to consume 50 percent of the group's medical services over the next year.
    Technically insurers are allowed to charge a smoker's premium under Obamacare. But those who lie won't have their policies cancelled or coverage denied. With Obamacare, those who engage in risky health behaviors now have their costs passed over to the healthy. So the Type 2 diabetic who weighs 300 pounds, drinks like a fish, and chomps on pork chops and pies all day won't have to pay a dime in extra insurance costs. His costs are covered by gouging vegetable-eating joggers.
    I suspect that when you factor out the costs of the intentionally or unfortunately ill, you'll find that young, healthy males will receive less than 20 cents in health-care benefits for every dollar paid in premiums. For young males -- and males of most ages really -- Obamacare is a sucker deal.
    The Obama administration has been in an all-out effort to get young people to sign up for Obamacare. And many administration officials have been up front about why these younger signees are needed: to subsidize health care for those being sold discounted health plans. The president is actually making (bad) comedy videos in an effort to woo the young.
    But these Obamacare shills have a terrible sales pitch. It's essentially, "Hey young people, come sign up for insurance so we can charge you four times as much as we should and use the money to give free coverage to people who are older and wealthier than you!" Many young people will qualify for health-care subsidies when purchasing low-quality policies through the exchanges, but unless these subsidies equal 75 percent of their premiums it's a bad deal.
    Suppose you were to go to a restaurant and be told that your $25 meal would cost $125 in order to provide everyone with unlimited fine wine with dinner. This might be a good deal, except for those who are satisfied with a $5 glass of wine, or no wine at all. Soon such a restaurant would find that teetotalers and cheap-wine drinkers would stay away, and it would quickly go broke as its changing customer base slurped down vast quantities of Cristal, Château Petrus, Opus One, etc., for the low price of $125 per meal. Would you go to such restaurant? I wouldn't.
    Of course, with the Obamacare mindset such a restaurant needn't go broke. The government would just agree to cover the tab of any patron who drank too much expensive wine and pass on the costs to the taxpayers. But is this a rational government policy?
    Should young males buy health insurance? Perhaps. They should base their decision on their own best interests and not on some stupid comedy skit by the president. If they are dreadfully ill, of course they should buy the now-partially-free insurance. If they have a substantial estate, yes. But for the average male with a modest estate a better choice is probably to buy plenty of accident coverage on one's auto policy and hope for the best.
    Yes, bad things can happen, but uninsured young people can get emergency health care. If a chronic condition should surface they can wait a few months and enroll in Obamacare. And if their bills are just impossible to pay off they can declare bankruptcy and get a new start. This is the best choice young males have under Obamacare, and it's the one most are taking.
    Maybe more young people could be persuaded to sign up, if only they could be shown videos like the one made by Richard Simmons, as part of the "Tell A Friend -- Get Covered" campaign (shown below). Please watch this video, young males of America! Doesn't it make you want to pay four times as much as you should to "Get Covered"?

Say hello to the 28-hour work week as companies start to gear up for Obamacare

    We warned you! We did! Don't say we didn't tell you!
     The Obamiacs assured us that all we had to do was require every employer who hired someone for 30 or more hours each week to buy them insurance and all of our problems would be solved. And of course, it couldn't be a low-cost policy. It had to be the most expensive, comprehensive insurance money can buy, with low deductibles, low co-pays, no lifetime limits, and free birth control. Welcome to the good life!
     Many public-spirited employers of lower-wage employees were already providing insurance for their full-time workers. They didn't need a new law. But the insurance they have been providing isn't good enough for the government, which under the Obamacare law requires them to spend substantially more so there will be lots of extra money to provide college girls at expensive private colleges with free birth control and other extras that many working people neither need nor want to pay for.
     And so, faced with skyrocketing health costs under Obamacare, employers are acting rationally. They are cutting lower-wage workers back to a 28-hour-per-week work schedule. Remember, the employer-mandate only applies to full-time workers, so as long as the workers are kept under 30 hours the employer has no obligation to provide insurance.
     The Orlando Sentinel reports, for example, that the Darden Corporation, which owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Longhorn restaurants, is testing a new 28-hour work week in anticipation of new insurance rules that go into effect in 2014. If successful the shortened workweek will likely go into effect at all restaurants on the rollout of Obamacare.
     This isn't an outlier. This is going to be the new normal of employment for low- and moderate-wage workers. Obamacare is just going to make it too expensive to keep these workers on full-time.
     And sad to say for these semi-displaced workers, but because of the individual mandate they are still going to be required to purchase insurance or face fines. So instead of getting employer-sponsored insurance they can afford they are going to be forced to purchase subsidized, luxury policies entirely on their own or pay a fine -- and they will have a lot less money to do it with.
     Obama gave his word of honor that people who liked their current health insurance could keep their current health insurance. But that doesn't apply to many low-wage workers, who are losing both their low-cost insurance plans and the hours of work that they need to survive. These people don't want free birth control or to be forced to pay for lots of extras, they want the affordable insurance they used to have and plenty of hours at work to help pay for it. Those days are apparently gone forever, thanks to Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et al.
     As a matter of public policy, Obamacare did just the opposite of what it should have done. Instead of outlawing bargain health plans, we should have concentrated on providing every American with limited health coverage. But the Democrats were too concerned with forcing the Catholic church to buy birth control for rich, unmarried college girls to think about the needs of actual working people.
     Obama would no doubt say that Change is hard, but he sure Hopes you have enough money to pay your bills once you are semi-unemployed. But at least those stuck without full-time work or health insurance will be able to rest easy knowing that any full-time job they get will come with insurance. Of course, they'll never again get a full-time job for as long as they live.