This section examines group decisions.
The objective of this web page is to investigate whether these opposite perspectives are both true.
Wisdom of the crowds
Delusions and madness of the crowds
Each is a cultural idiom. In AI machine learning, using an ensemble of classifiers is considered an advantage. Here we discuss group decisions made by people.
Are groups of humans wise, delusional, or mad? If group decisions made by humans are often not wise, why are the ensembles of classifiers used in AI beneficial?
What are the conditions that create wisdom of the crowds and what are the conditions that create delusions and madness of the crowds?
We start our investigation with the well-known book by Charles Mackay, "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds
Wikipedia:
"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a history of popular folly by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in 1841.
The book chronicles its subjects in three parts: "National Delusions", "Peculiar Follies", and "Philosophical Delusions". Despite its journalistic and rather sensational style, the book has gathered a body of academic support as a work of considerable importance in the history of social psychology and psychopathology.
The subjects of Mackay's debunking include: economic bubbles, alchemy, crusades, witch-hunts, prophecies, fortune-telling, magnetisers (influence of imagination in curing disease), shape of hair and beard (influence of politics and religion on), murder through poisoning, haunted houses, popular follies of great cities, popular admiration of great thieves, duels, and relics."
A free copy of the book is available on Project Gutenberg:
Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1852
Here is a quote from Mackay's book preface:
"Popular delusions began so early, spread so widely, and have lasted so long, that instead of two or three volumes, fifty would scarcely suffice to detail their history. The present may be considered more of a miscellany of delusions than a history--a chapter only in the great and awful book of human folly which yet remains to be written, and which Porson once jestingly said he would write in five hundred volumes! Interspersed are sketches of some lighter matters, amusing instances of the imitativeness and wrongheadedness of the people, rather than examples of folly and delusion."
Groupthink defined in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
"A pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics."
Dr. Irving Janis, a Yale university psychology professor studied the problems inherent in groupthink as described in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Janis
Wikipedia: "He did extensive work in the area of groupthink which describes the tendency of some groups to try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without sufficiently testing, analyzing, and evaluating their ideas. His work suggested that pressures for conformity restrict the thinking of the group, bias its analysis, promote simplistic and stereotyped thinking, and stifle individual creative and independent thought."
The conditions and symptoms of groupthink are described here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Managing_Groups_and_Teams/Groupthink
According to Irving Janis, there are three main antecedent conditions that encourage Groupthink tendencies to occur.
These three conditions are paraphrased below from the wikibooks web page:
"1. The decision makers constitute a cohesive group. For example, if the decision makers in the group have been working together for a long period of time and have had past successes, they will usually operate as a cohesive group.
2. There are structural faults in the organization. Structural faults include: Insulation of the group, lack of traditional impartial leadership, lack of norms requiring methodical procedures, and homogeneity of members’ social background and ideology.
3. The group posses a provocative situational context. When a group experiences high stress from external threats the context is created. The threats are usually compounded with the fact that there is little hope of a better solution than what the leader of the group is offering."
" 1. Overestimation of the Group
Illusion of invulnerability: This symptom can alleviate fears of failure and prevent unnerving fears of failure during a crisis.
Belief in inherent morality of the group: The shared belief that “we are a good and wise group” inclines them to use group concurrence as a major criterion to judge the morality as well as the efficacy of any policy under discussion. The members believe since the group’s objectives are good any means we decide to use must be good as well.
2. Closed-Mindedness
Collective Rationalization: The group will construct rationalizations in order to discount warnings and other forms of negative feedback that, taken seriously, might lead group members to reconsider their assumptions each time they recommit themselves to past decisions.
Stereotypes of Out-Groups: This symptom is when the group uses undifferentiated negative stereotypes of opponents. This symptom enables the group to minimize decision conflicts between ethical values and expediency. Shared negative stereotypes of out-groups support the so-called “evil nature” of the enemy.
3. Pressures Toward Uniformity
Self-Censorship: Victims of Groupthink avoid deviating from what appears to be group consensus. The group members will keep silent about their misgivings and even minimize to themselves the importance of their doubts.
Illusion of Unanimity: An illusion of unanimity is shared within the group concerning all judgments expressed by members who speak in favor of the majority view. This symptom is supported by the false assumption that any individual who remains silent during any part of the discussion is in full accord with what the others are saying.
Direct pressure on dissenters: Members of the group will apply direct pressure on any individual who momentarily expresses doubts about any of the group’s shared illusions or who questions the validity of the arguments supporting a policy alternative favored by the majority.
Self-appointed mind guards: This symptom protects the members from adverse information that might break the complacency they share about the effectiveness and morality of past decisions."
This section will discuss whether having independent decisions combined or group decisions made collectively affects the wisdom of the crowds.
How social influence can undermine the wisdom of crowd effect, by Jan Lorenza, Heiko Rauhutb, Frank Schweitzera, Dirk Helbingb, PNAS May 16, 2011
TBD
This well-researched study tries to determine whether social influence has an impact on the wisdom of the crowds.
Here is the study's central thesis:
"The wisdom of crowd effect is a statistical phenomenon and not a social psychological effect, because it is based on a mathematical aggregation of individual estimates. Nevertheless, social influence plays a role in individual decision-making and affects individual estimating. Therefore, social influence can also have an impact on the statistical aggregate and the resulting collective wisdom of the respective crowd. As social influence among human group members may trigger individuals to revise their estimates, it can have a substantial impact on the statistical wisdom of crowd effect in societies.
When individuals become aware of the estimates of others, they may revise their own estimates for various reasons: People may suspect that others have better information, they may partially follow the wisdom of the crowd, there may be peer pressure toward conformity, or the group may engage in a process of deliberation about the facts."
Here are some of their main conclusions:
1. "It is remarkable how little social influence is required to produce herding behavior and negative side effects for the mechanism underlying the wisdom of crowds."
2. "Our experimental results show that social influence triggers the convergence of individual estimates and substantially reduces the diversity of the group without improving its accuracy. The remaining diversity is often so small that the correct value shifts from the center to outer regions of the range of estimates. Thus, when taking committee decisions or following the advise of an expert group that was exposed to social influence, their opinions may result in a set of predictions that does not even enclose the correct value anymore. From the perspective of decision-makers, such advice may be thoroughly misleading, because closely related, seemingly independent advice may pretend certainty despite substantial deviations from the correct solution.
3. Psychologically, however, the convergence of estimates significantly boosts individuals’ confidence. This confidence gain happens despite a lack of improvements, giving evidence for a psychological trap whereby individuals are led into the false belief of collective accuracy as a result of their convergence."
4. "The statistical effects of undermining are less severe for easier questions and if individuals are more confident in their answers (SI Appendix). This gives weight to the conclusion that the negative effects of social influence occur especially in a certain range of question difficulty and individuals’ confidence, a conjecture that should be explored in follow-up studies.
TBD
My initial comments:
Bug #1: The research paper says: "Already [Galton (1907) Nature 75:7] found evidence that the median estimate of a group can be more accurate than estimates of experts."
However, I do not believe Galton tested or claimed that a "median estimate of a group can be more accurate than estimates of experts". Where in the cited Nature article did Galton make a comparison to estimates of experts?
Bug #2: In their "Table 1 The wisdom of crowd effect exists with respect to the geometric mean but not with respect to the arithmetic mean" they report their empirical data about the closeness of the match between the real answers to their test questions, and the data they gathered accross three metrics: 1) Arithmetic Mean, 2) Geometric Mean, and 3) the Median.
The study found that the Geometric Mean produced the closest value to the true data. The authors say: "It is common to use the unweighted arithmetic mean, but there are many reasonable alternatives, giving ample room for adjustments or “tuning”. In our case, the arithmetic mean performs poorly, as we have validated by comparing its distance to the truth with the individual distances to the truth."
The bug is they expected the mean of the group values to be closest to the true values and don't explain sufficiently why their post-hoc acceptance of the geometric mean as the closest matching statistic provides verification of the wisdom of the crowds effect.
Bug #3: Look at their separate supporting information PDF: http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2011/05/10/1008636108.DCSupplemental/sapp.pdf
They have a section on the effect of question difficulty:
"How question difficulty moderates the undermining effects of social influence: A plausible conjecture is that the undermining effects of social influence are moderated by the difficulty of the question. People may be less socially influenced for easier questions."
Here are the six questions the researchers asked their subjects:
What is the population density in Switzerland in inhabitants per square kilometer?
What is the length of the border between Switzerland and Italy in kilometers?
How many more inhabitants did Zurich gain in 2006?
How many murders were officially registered in Switzerland in 2006?
How many rapes were officially registered in Switzerland in 2006?
How many assaults were officially registered in Switzerland in 2006?
To me all six questions appear equally difficult.
The bug #3 is they did not measure question difficulty although they reported a conclusion purporting to do so.
Here is how the research treats "question difficulty":
"We define the average perceived easiness of a question as the average initial individual confidence over all initial estimates for a particular question."
So bug #3 has two parts:
Bug #3A: The conclusion should have claimed a relationship between social influence and initial individual confidence, not to question difficulty.
Bug #3B: The following conclusion in the discussion section of the main paper, "the statistical effects of undermining are less severe for easier questions and if individuals are more confident in their answers" is at odds with what was actually done as reported.
The study used only the initial measures of confidence, because when measuring the effect of social influence, they found as group estimates converged, confidence grew.
Therefore, I would change the result statement to this: "the statistical effects of undermining are less severe when individuals are more initially confident in their answers".
There is no good reason for the researchers to confuse initial confidence and question difficulty. Another group of subjects could try to answer the same questions and their accuracy results could be used as a measure of question difficulty.
Democratic Reason: The Mechanisms of Collective Intelligence in Politics, by Helene E. Landemore.
Tip-Toeing Through Tulip Mania
" Many of us are conditioned to believe that the collective wisdom of the masses is superior to any one individual’s opinion. When we see people lining up at a new club or restaurant, we eagerly get in line with the crowd, not wanting to miss what we assume must be a fabulous experience inside. This same “herd” mentality is often at work in investing, where following the crowd could result in a more distasteful result than just wasted time.
The herd mentality has led to a number of investing bubbles over the centuries, like the tulip bulb craze of the 1600s and the more recent dot-com boom. The unfortunate fact is, people tend to make irrational investment decisions when the majority of investors are making these same choices."
(Preview) Collective Wisdom: Principles and Mechanisms, Cambridge University Press, Edited by Helene Landemore and Jon Elster, 2012
Here are some terms related to group decision-making
Brainstorming
Collective Decision-Making
Consensus
Crowdsourcing
Ensemble Classification
Groupthink
Herds
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
The group delusion is that Obamacare is a nation-wide version of the Massachusetts Romneycare.
1. The three top health insurance providers in Mass are not-for-profit companies, unlike most other health insurers which are for profit corporations. See note [A] below.
2. The insurance pooling of Obamacare is supposed to be nation-wide, but is in fact only state-wide because people must buy insurance from in-state insurance providers.
3. Romneycare is expressed in about 70 pages of legislation and Obamacare in 2,074 pages before adding several thousand more pages of regulations.
4. Obamacare is designed as a first step toward federal government expansion into the role of a single-payer healthcare insurance provider.
5. Romneycare preserves the federalist idea of competition between states as a means to provide the best and most efficient public services.
6. When Romneycare was enacted in 2006, Massachusetts had about 6% uninsured state residents. Nation-wide, about 15% of the population is uninsured. See note [B] below.
7. Massachusetts has a large number of health professionals and hospitals compared to the rest of the country. See note [C] below.
8. Massachusetts has a large number of young and healthy students.
9. In Massachusetts the average education level is high which is conducive to good health.
10. Wealthy individuals in Massachusetts are healthier than less well off people in other parts of the country. See note [D] below.
11. Massachusetts is a wealthy state that can co-fund federal health programs such as medicare and medicaid.
12. In Massachusetts the employer mandate is required for companies with 11 or more employees rather than Obamacare in which the mandate starts for companies with 50 or more employees.
13. Obamacare is based on the federal taxing power, and Romneycare is based on traditional recognized state powers to provide for health, welfare, and safety.
14. People in Massachusetts who oppose Romneycare are free to move out of the state and thereby leave its legislative regime.
15. Massachusetts does not host a large aging retirement segment such as Florida or Arizona.
16. Massachusetts does not host a large number of illegal aliens who get health services including ER care using false names.
17. Massachusetts does not host dangerous professions such as coal mining and tobacco farming.
18. Massachusetts introduced a guaranteed issue law for pre-existing conditions years before the Romneycare rollout.
19. In Massachusetts, a person or employer who does not purchase healthcare insurance must pay a penalty to the state not to the general national treasury. See note [E] below.
20. Under Obamacare, errors made about the economic models underlying the health plan will be offset by federal tax credits to individuals or federal government subsidies to insurance companies both of which will further exasperate the ballooning national debt.
21. The increased number of people covered by health insurance in Massachusetts did not contain the Massachusetts healthcare costs. Under Romneycare, in 2011, Massachusetts had the highest health insurance premiums for family coverage in the nation. However, premiums as a percentage of median household income in Massachusetts is low. See note [F] below.
22. Obamacare requires that a health plan must cover young adults on their parents' health plan until the age of 26. The federal law is broader than Massachusetts law. Obamacare allows young adults to remain on their parent's insurance policy up to age 26 without regard to dependent status. A young adult will be able to qualify for coverage, without living with a parent, being a dependent on a parent's tax return, or a student.
If the definition of young invincibles enrollment is buying health insurance between the ages of 18 and 34, the provision allowing young adults to stay on their parents' health care plan means they won't be paying high premiums into the insurance pool until they are over 26 years old. See note [G] below.
23. Obamacare requires coverage for pre-existing conditions and does away with exclusions entirely. This provides no incentive for a person to pay for coverage until a health condition occurs. In contrast, under Romneycare health plans can limit coverage of a pre-existing condition for up to six months if the person has not had continuous insurance coverage.
24. Under Obamacare, individual non-group monthly premiums will increase 32%. See note [H] below.
My Conclusions
1) I have documented more than 20 differences between Romneycare and Obamacare.
2) If Obamacare copies the results achieved by Romneycare, in 2011 Massachusetts had the highest health insurance premiums for family coverage in the nation. See item #21 above.
Notes:
A] Not-for-profit insurers in Massachusetts
The three top health insurance providers in Mass are not-for-profit companies.
Across the nation the vast majority of health insurance providers that are emphatically for profit companies will charge higher premiums for the same services.
1) Annual Report on the Massachusetts Health Care Market August 2013
http://www.mass.gov/chia/docs/r/pubs/13/ar-ma-health-care-market-2013.pdf
"The Massachusetts commercial health insurance market remains concentrated with a few large payers that account for the vast majority of enrollees. Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare (HPHC) and Tufts Health Plan (Tufts) make up nearly 80% of the commercial market; BCBS alone accounts for 45%."
2) Massachusetts Blue Cross
http://www.bluecrossma.com/visitor/about-us/index.html
"We are a community-focused, tax-paying, not-for-profit health plan headquartered in Boston, that is committed to working with others in a spirit of shared responsibility to make quality health care affordable. Consistent with our corporate promise to always put our members first, we are rated among the nation's best health plans for member satisfaction and quality."
3) Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Reports 2012 Financial Results March 2013
"Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is a not-for-profit health plan serving more than one million members in New England. Founded in 1969, the health plan has built its reputation on pragmatic innovation with a goal of lowering costs, improving care and enhancing the overall member experience."
4) Tufts Health Plan
http://www.tuftshealthplan.com/visitors/visitors.php?sec=about_us&content=company_profile
"Founded in 1979 as a not-for-profit health maintenance organization, Tufts Health Plan is one of the nation’s most highly rated health plans."
B] Number of uninsured in Massachusetts before Romneycare compared with the uninsured before Obamacare
The 2006 Massachusetts Health Care Reform Law: Progress and Challenges After One Year of Implementation
"In mid-2006, a state survey estimated that 372,000 Massachusetts residents were uninsured, or about six percent of the total population."
Census: Health Insurance Coverage
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb13-165.html
US uninsured 15% in 2012.
C] Number of physicians per 100,000 population by state
State Physician Workforce Data Book 2013
https://www.aamc.org/data/workforce/
"Nationally in 2012, there were 225.6 physicians active in patient care per 100,000 population. Massachusetts had the highest number of patient care physicians per 100,000 population (324.1), while Mississippi had the lowest (164.4)."
"There were 90.1 primary care physicians per 100,000 population in the United States in 2012. Once again, Massachusetts was at the top with a value of 131.9, while Mississippi had the lowest number of primary care physicians per 100,000 population (63.4)."
"Source: July 1, 2012 population estimates are from the U.S. Census Bureau (Release date: December, 2012). Physician data are from the AMA Physician Masterfile (December 31, 2012)."
D] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on What are Social Determinants for Good Health?
http://www.cdc.gov/socialdeterminants/FAQ.html
One factor among several, including education, is how much money a person earns.
Wikipedia List of US States by Income
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income
Massachusetts ranks #5 in the US by income.
E] Penalty for being uninsured does not offset high premiums under Obamacare
Under the Obamacare individual mandate and yet to be phased-in employer mandate, if a person or employer does not purchase insurance they must pay the IRS a penalty. To the best of my knowledge, the federal treasury pockets this amount - instead of disbursing it to the individual states or insurance companies where it could offset high insurance premiums.
For example, if a young and healthy adult pays a $95 IRS penalty rather than purchase a $100/month healthcare policy, or if a company pays a $2,000 IRS penalty instead of purchasing the employer a $400/month health care policy those penalties do not contribute at all to the state treasury or insurance companies to offset the cost of high premiums.
F] In 2011: Mass. Health Insurance Premiums Bounce Back To Highest In Country
http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2012/12/insurance-premiums-mass-expensive
"That high cost of living, and our higher incomes, need to be factored in. If you look at our premiums as a percentage of median household income, we’re actually on the low side: 18% compared to a national average of 22%."
G] National Health Care Reform: What Does it Mean for Massachusetts?
H] Individual non-group cost per member per month will increase 32 percent under ACA, compared to pre-ACA projections
Society Of Actuaries
Search keywords: [affordable care act]
Design and Implementation Considerations of ACA Risk Mitigation Programs June 2012
The Individual Market is expected to grow rapidly starting in 2014
"By year 2017, the total individual market enrollment is projected to almost triple. This is primarily the result of the ACA’s individual mandate combined with the availability of substantial subsidies. Exchange business is expected to grow much faster than non-exchange business due to the availability of subsidies only through exchanges. Much of this increase is expected to come from individuals currently uninsured, but some enrollment is expected to come from individuals currently insured through coverage provided by employers."
Cost of the Future Newly Insured under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) March 2013
"Executive Summary
Finding 1: After three years of exchanges and insurer restrictions, the percentage of uninsured nationally will decrease from 16.6 percent to between 6.8 and 6.6 percent, compared to pre-ACA projections.
Finding 2: Under the ACA, the individual non-group market will grow 115 percent, from 11.9 million to 25.6 million lives; 80 percent of that enrollment will be in the Exchanges.
Finding 3: The non-group cost per member per month will increase 32 percent under ACA, compared to pre-ACA projections."
Also see:
1) The New York Times is a classic example of a self-appointed mind guard. This symptom of Groupthink protects the members from adverse information that might break the complacency they share about the effectiveness and morality of past decisions.
The NY Post is correct in criticizing the NY Times.
New York Times’ Obama cheerleading harms the nation Nov 10, 2013
http://nypost.com/2013/11/10/new-york-times-obama-cheerleading-harms-the-nation/
2) Here are 100 examples of how Obamacare is falling short of what was promised.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/359861/print
3) Impacts on the group insurance market
Federal Register/ Vol. 75, No. 116 / Thursday, June 17, 2010 / Rules and Regulations
By the US Departments of the Treasury, Health and Human Services, and Labor
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2010-06-17/pdf/2010-14488.pdf
Page: 34552
"[T]he Departments’ mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small employer plans and 45 percent of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013."
Page: 34553
Table 3: Estimates of the cumulative percentage of employer plans relinquishing their grandfathered status 2011-2013
Note: When the above Federal Register provision was written the employer mandate for companies with 50 or more employees was to take effect January 2014 and is now delayed to January 2015.
4) The Obamacare fraud December 19, 2013
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/obamacare-fraud-article-1.1553336
By Charles Krauthammer Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist and physician.
"That was a fraud from the very beginning. The law was designed to throw people off their private plans and into government-run exchanges where they would be made to overpay - forced to purchase government-mandated services they don't need - as a way to subsidize others."
5) Health Insurance Exchanges: Aetna's Key Principles
http://www.aetna.com/health-reform-connection/aetnas-vision/health-insurance-exchanges.html
"At a minimum, the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) insurance rating and product design rules should be phased in, rather than confront consumers with costly “rate shock” if all of the new requirements come into play at once in 2014."
"Create greater market leeway for offering lower-cost plan options to consumers. The ACA-specified coverage categories of Platinum, Gold, Sliver, and Bronze will be out of reach for many. The ACA will result in increased prices due to costly minimum benefit requirements, additional taxes, additional administrative complexity and medical loss ratio (MLR) requirements."
Note that Aetna, inc says without any equivocation: "The ACA will result in increased prices". Most people consider increased prices to be less affordable - ie ACA.
6) "ObamaCare’s four biggest lies" January 5, 2014
http://nypost.com/2014/01/05/4-biggest-lies-about-obamacare/
"If you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan. Period."
"The Affordable Care Act is far from inexpensive for most Americans and that it risks being a cruel joke."
"It will prevent people from going into debt."
"ObamaCare will lower costs overall."
"More Americans will be insured."
7) "Insurance expert discusses problems with Covered California" January 12, 2014
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2014/01/12/3437135/insurance-expert-discusses-problems.html
"The act is a political beast, it’s too complicated, and Congress and the president make it more so every day. The original bill was 2,300 pages. It is now over 20,000 pages, and 157 political entities have been created at both the state and national levels. They all are adding their own new regulations. There are in excess of 41 brand-new taxes associated with the ACA."
"You will see thousands of smaller, employer-based health plans just disappear. It’s too big a hassle for a small employer. For larger companies, it’s fraught with danger and liability. Who really understands a 20,000-page opus of regulations?"
"Simple economics says, if I lay off three full-time employees, and replace them with four part-time employees working 29 hours each, I will have cut my costs tremendously."
8) "Another 25 million ObamaCare victims" January 14, 2014
http://nypost.com/2014/01/14/another-25-million-obamacare-victims/
"In truth, the law discourages employers from insuring their workers, making it far easier and cheaper to send them to the exchanges."
"That’s why the management consultants at McKinsey & Co. warned in 2011 that nearly a third of employers surveyed already were considering dropping coverage, with the figure rising among those familiar with the law’s requirements."
"So a conservative estimate is that 25 million people, out of the 60 million in small group plans, get dropped in 2014. Add that to the 5 million or so whose individual-market already canceled on Jan. 1."
9) "The Fed's 'Money For Nothing' Policy is an Illusion of Riches," Forbes Magazine September 10, 2013
This article is a tip of the iceberg, showing President Obama's concepts of "affordability".
"Money For Nothing, a reference to the zero interest rate cost of borrowing, is seen as carrying too far too long the central bank policy of always believing adding money supply to the nation’s reserves will always solve our problems. The movie’s cutting message is that our central bank not only will make sure banks are not closely regulated so that they can become too highly leveraged, ie hold too much debt on their balance sheet, but, if trouble ensues Uncle Alan and now Uncle Ben will bail you out with more federal money so as to absolve you of all sins."
10) "John Goodman: The ObamaCare Carnival of Perverse Incentives," Wall Street Journal January 23, 2104
"With fewer glitches to deter them, millions of Americans are now logging on to the ObamaCare health-insurance-exchange websites. When they get there, many are discovering some unpleasant surprises:"
"The deductibles are higher than what most people are used to, the networks of doctors and hospitals are skimpier (in some cases much skimpier), and lifesaving drugs are often not on the insurers' formularies. Even after the government's income-based subsidies are taken into account, the premiums are often higher than what people previously paid."
11) "Moody’s downgrades outlook for health insurers," Washington Post January 24, 2014
"Major credit-rating firm Moody’s on Thursday downgraded the outlook for health insurers from stable to negative, citing the new health-care law’s botched rollout as a significant factor."
"Moody’s highlighted the relatively low sign-up rate among young adults and a slew of last-minute regulatory changes by the Obama administration as posing risks to health insurers selling policies on the new exchanges."
12) "Obama’s pathetic pitch to millennials," New York Post, February 14, 2014
http://nypost.com/2014/02/14/obamas-pathetic-pitch-to-millennials/
"ObamaCare just isn't a good deal for my generation."
"The problems start with how much plans cost. Insurance rates have skyrocketed for Millennials since the exchanges opened in October. According to the Manhattan Institute, the average 27-year-old man is facing a 97 percent premium hike and the average 27-year old woman a 55 percent increase."
13) ObamaCare: $56,819 To Sign Up Each Enrollee In Hawaii, Investors Business Daily, February 14, 2014
"How much does it cost taxpayers to sign up one ObamaCare enrollee? In President Obama's home state of Hawaii, it's $56,819."
"Washington, D.C., meanwhile, received $133.6 million in federal grants to build its exchange, but so far has signed up just 5,090 — for a per-enrollee cost of $26,242."
"Next in line is Massachusetts, which actually had a functioning exchange website, built as part of its 2006 reform law that served as the model for ObamaCare. But the site had to be rebuilt to suit the health reform law."
"After $180 million in grants, however, Massachusetts has enrolled only 8,139 in its new exchange — or $22,124 per enrollee. It had expected 250,000 people to buy an ObamaCare plan in the first year."
"And these figures could be inflated because some states aren't reporting how many have actually paid. In Vermont, for example, 20% of those who enrolled have yet to pay their first premium. Some states have a much lower payment rate."
14) Even Low Income Families Will Pay Thousands Of Dollars In Obamacare Taxes, Forbes Magazine, February 21, 2014
"There’s 21 different taxes stuffed into Obamacare designed to raise more than $1 trillion in taxes over the next decade."
"This is what a community organizer deems as fair? Stealth taxes from the “most transparent administration in history”? Voters were sold a bill of goods back in 2008. They were promised a plan never delivered: indeed, virtually every major promise made for this law has been broken. Moreover, the plan enacted is not the one being implemented as the president lawlessly tweaks it to his liking."
15) Report to Congress on the impact on premiums for individuals and families with employer-sponsored health insurance February 21, 2014
"Once the new premium rating requirements go into effect, it is anticipated that the small employers that offer health insurance coverage to their employees and their families would have average premium rates. Therefore, we are estimating that 65 percent of the small firms are expected to experience increases in their premium rates while the remaining 35 percent are anticipated to have rate reductions."
"This results in roughly 11 million individuals whose premiums are estimated to be higher as a result of the ACA and about 6 million individuals who are estimated to have lower premiums."
16) Company that makes medical equipment for kids hit hard by Obamacare February 25, 2014
"The world’s only company specializing in making orthopedic equipment for children is slashing its product development budget and freezing hiring as a result of Obamacare’s medical device tax."
“We are a company that is not yet profitable. We’ve only been in the market for 5 years. This is a very burdensome tax because it is based on sales, not profits, and the only way we can pay a tax like this is to cut expenses,” OrthoPediatrics CEO Mark Throdahl told The Daily Caller."
"Obamacare’s medical device excise tax has already created a job loss of 33,000 people in the medical device industry and 132,000 more job losses are expected with other jobs expected to be outsourced outside the United States, according to a recent report from the industry trade group the Advanced Medical Technology Association."
17) Number of Americans Saying ACA Has Hurt Them Inches Up March 6, 2014
http://www.gallup.com/poll/167756/number-americans-saying-aca-hurt-inches.aspx
Gallup poll conducted Feb. 28-March 2, 2014.
1. 23% of Americans say the healthcare law has hurt them or their families, while 10% say it has helped them so far. Still, the majority of Americans (63%) feel the law has had no impact on them or their families.
2. By 40% to 21%, Americans say the law is more likely to make their families' healthcare situations worse rather than better, with the rest saying it will make little difference.
18) How Pakistan succumbed to a hard-drug epidemic, by the Telegraph, March 26, 2014
"a further 110 tons of heroin and morphine from neighboring Afghanistan are trafficked through Pakistan to international markets."
My Comments
For the past five years of President Obama's regime, he has ignored this massive health problem - Afghanistan and Karzai export most of the world's heroin globally.
19) Reining in ObamaCare - and the President July 22, 2014
http://online.wsj.com/articles/reining-in-obamacareand-the-president-1406071746
"Halbig v. Burwell is about determining whether the president, like an autocrat, can levy taxes on his own."
"A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit—a tribunal second only to the Supreme Court—ruled on Tuesday that the Obama administration broke the law. The panel found that President Obama spent billions of taxpayer dollars he had no authority to spend, and subjected millions of employers and individuals to taxes he had no authority to impose."
My Comments
One of the legislative intents of the ACA was to have the states run the health insurance exchanges. At the inception of the ACA, states were required to participate in and enable expanded Medicaid. The SCt ruled that states 1) cannot be coerced by the federal government to establish a state exchange, and 2) the expanded Medicaid became optional, not mandatory, for each state.
Here are two reasons the federal government wants the states to run the health insurance exchanges:
1. The states have the state residents' eligibility data for expanded Medicaid, the existing Medicaid, CHIP, and other state run health subsidy programs.
2. The ACA provides grants to states to set up state exchanges but doesn't provide funding after January 1, 2015. By then the state exchanges are supposed to be "self-sufficient". Having states run the exchanges would mean that 50 states pay for and operate the exchanges from the state budgets instead of from the federal budget.
The implication of the above logic is that the ACA legislation offering premium tax credits for state established exchanges and not for the federally facilitated exchanges is a reasonable construction of the ACA statute.
An administration option is to have Congress "fix" the statute, and/or any state can set up a state exchange if it wants the premium tax credit subsidies. So Halbig is no show-stopper for the ACA.
20) ObamaCare getaway: 5 US territories released from health care law July 24, 2014
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/07/24/obamacare-free-getaway-for-5-us-territories/
"The Obama administration is coming under fire for once again making a unilateral change to ObamaCare -- this time, quietly exempting the five U.S. territories and their more than 4 million residents from virtually all major provisions of the health care law. "
"Last year, HHS told the territories it had no legal authority to exclude them from the provisions in ObamaCare. It furthered its case by saying the law adopted an explicit definition of "state" that includes the territories for the purpose of the mandates."
"But late last week, Tavenner sent a letter to the governments of those same five territories exempting their individual health insurance markets from virtually all the major remaining provisions. She said that after a "careful review," the department determined the definition of "state" actually means "these new provisions do not apply to the territories."
Five U.S. territories become Obamacare-free, with a catch July 23, 2014
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/07/five-u-s-territories-become-obamacare-free-with-a-catch/
"In case you missed it, the HHS said on July 17 that Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands aren’t considered “states” for most ACA insurance purposes, and people who buy and sell in the health insurance marketplace there aren’t subject to most Obamacare mandates. The new ruling effectively overturned a 2013 HHS ruling that said the opposite – that the five territories were “states” under the ACA’s provisions."
21) "The lies that are central to Obama’s agenda", by the New York Post, November 16, 2014
http://nypost.com/2014/11/16/the-lies-that-are-central-to-obamas-agenda
"Damn Americans. They just don’t see the wisdom of surrendering to experts the power they need to remake the country into a progressive paradise."
"Sighing with regret, liberals like Jonathan Gruber admit that they’re forced to hoodwink the citizens. For their own good."
"Gruber, the MIT economist who (in the words of The New York Times) “put together the basic principles of” ObamaCare and helped Congress “draft the specifics of the legislation” is one of a long line of liberals driven by the belief that the stupidity of the American people is so insurmountable that persuasion is futile. Liberalism: the place where compassion blurs into condescension."
“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage and basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically, that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass,” Gruber said, in a newly unearthed 2013 video that went viral last week."
"Gruber’s jocular tone wasn’t surprising. In explaining why a huge tax increase was disguised to conceal it from the American people, he was admitting what was obvious to close observers: The law is really just a redistribution scheme. Even the Democrats didn’t think ObamaCare could pass by being so described."
"That’s why deception, as Gruber says, was central to its design."
22) Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless, by the NY Times, November 14 ,2015
"Obama administration officials, urging people to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, have trumpeted the low premiums available on the law’s new marketplaces."
“The deductible, $3,000 a year, makes it impossible to actually go to the doctor,” said David R. Reines, 60, of Jefferson Township, N.J., a former hardware salesman with chronic knee pain. “We have insurance, but can’t afford to use it.”
“We could not afford the deductible,” said Kevin Fanning, 59, who lives in North Texas, near Wichita Falls. “Basically I was paying for insurance I could not afford to use.”
"But in interviews, a number of consumers made it clear that premiums were only one side of the affordability equation."
“Our deductible is so high, we practically pay for all of our medical expenses out of pocket,” said Wendy Kaplan, 50, of Evanston, Ill. “So our policy is really there for emergencies only, and basic wellness appointments.”
23) Near ‘Collapse,’ Minnesota to Raise Obamacare Rates by Half, October 2016
"Minnesota will let the health insurers in its Obamacare market raise rates by at least 50 percent next year, after the individual market there came to the brink of collapse, the state’s commerce commissioner said Friday."
"The increases range from 50 percent to 67 percent, Commissioner Mike Rothman’s office said in a statement. Rothman, who regulates the state’s insurers, is an appointee under Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat. The rate hike follows increases for this year of 14 percent to 49 percent."
“It’s in an emergency situation -- we worked hard and avoided a collapse.” Rothman said in a telephone interview. “It’s a stopgap for 2017.”
24) An Illegal Bailout for ObamaCare, WSJ, September 2016
http://www.wsj.com/articles/an-illegal-bailout-for-obamacare-1475276262
"The White House plots a Treasury raid without an appropriation."
"News leaked this week that the Obama Administration is moving to pay health insurers billions of dollars through an obscure Treasury Department account known as the Judgment Fund. This would be a cash infusion for an ObamaCare program known as “risk corridors,” an allegedly temporary provision in the 2010 law that enticed insurers to participate in the exchanges."
25) The latest sneaky attempt at an Obamacare bailout, CNBC, September 2016
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/30/the-latest-sneaky-attempt-at-an-obamacare-bailout-commentary.html
"Obamacare hasn't even been in effect for four years and it's already failing faster and more severely than even some of the most conservative and sober critics predicted it would. What's disturbing is seeing the lengths this administration will go to in order to plug the multiple holes in the ACA dike."
"Make no mistake, if Congress or the courts somehow block this latest attempt to use the Treasury money, the Obama team will try something else. It seems there's no amount of taxpayer money or no government agency it isn't willing to use to avoid having to admit failure and at least tear up the ACA and try again. "
26) BlueCross to cut Obamacare coverage; force 112,000 customers to get new insurance, September 2016
"Health insurer drops plans in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, keeps coverage in Chattanooga"
"After losing nearly $500 million on its individual health plans offered through the Affordable Care Act over the past three years, Tennessee's biggest health insurer is scaling back its participation in the so-called ObamaCare program, even after regulators granted the company a record 62 percent rate hike for next year."
"BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee said Monday it is withdrawing its individual exchange plans next year in Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville to help limit the risks of additional losses for the Chattanooga-based insurer."
"Recent events such as the departure of the insurance company Aetna from the vast majority of state exchanges show that ObamaCare is entering the death spiral that experts have long predicted. Insurers are now heading for the exit, fast — and consumers won't be far behind them.
"In the wake of massive losses, insurance companies are instinctively engaging their fight-or-flight instincts. The two big insurers remaining on state exchanges - Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and Cigna - are still evaluating the risks of a collapsing system, trying to determine if they should abandon the ObamaCare exchanges altogether or cope with the realities of increasingly high-cost care and coverage."
"ObamaCare's tailspin is the manifestation of mounting tensions between health insurance companies, their customers, and the federal health care bureaucracy. The inevitable losers in this fight? Those who were promised reliable, affordable coverage for their health needs."
"Premiums are widely projected to skyrocket in 2017, but many Americans have already seen firsthand how ObamaCare has further entangled them and their doctors in a maze of red tape."
27) Why Obamacare failed, Chicago Tribue, September 2016
"Come November, the grim trudge across the increasingly barren Obamacare landscape begins anew. Illinois consumers likely face staggering price hikes for individual insurance policies. Some types of plans could cost an average of 43 percent to 55 percent more. Ditto across the country: A first tranche of states approved 2017 rates with similarly cardiac-arrest-inducing premium increases."
"Many Illinois consumers will find fewer choices because major carriers fled this market. UnitedHealthcare bolted. So did Aetna. Land of Lincoln Health collapsed mid-year, leaving policy holders to scramble for coverage that could cost them plenty. In many places across Illinois and the nation, people will find drastically fewer choices of plans than they did last year."
28) Health care costs rise by most in 32 years, CNNMoney, September 2016
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/16/news/economy/health-care-costs-rise-most-in-32years/
"Premiums on the Obamacare exchanges are expected to rise by double-digits this year."
"Some health insurers, such as Aetna, have recently announced they would pull out of the Obamacare exchanges, saying Obamacare patients have turned out to be sicker and costlier than expected."
The group delusion is that occasional small pieces of news accounts regarding contemporary slavery encompass the entire current global problem of approximately 30 million slaves.
Kidnapped Nigerian girls: We must act fast against Boko Haram terrorists, Fox News, May 6, 2014
"On April 14, the terrorist group Boko Haram abducted more than 230 Nigerian girls at gunpoint from their Chibok boarding school."
"Their heavily-armed kidnappers shot two armed guards, herded the terrified girls into buses, vans and trucks and drove them off into the night. Only a few escaped."
My Comments
See:
Ending Modern-Day Slavery
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/14/watch-in-full-slavery-in-west-africa/
The Global Slavery Index
http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/
Key Findings:
People in Modern Slavery Globally: 29.8 Million
People in slavery in Nigeria: About 700,000
Update May 2016:
People in Modern Slavery Globally: 45.8 Million
http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/
People in slavery in Nigeria: About 834,200
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Slavery_Index
The group delusion is that almost no governments care about the true facts on contemporary slavery in the world other than taking 2 seconds to tweet about it.
DOJ steps into Redskins trademark name fight, by Politico, January 9, 2015
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/doj-redskins-trademark-fight-114133.html
"The battle over the Redskins name has further extended into the federal government as the Department of Justice announced Friday it will intervene in the case."
"The department is stepping in after Pro-Football Inc., the company of Redskins owner Dan Snyder, filed a complaint in August in response to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark trial and Appeal Board ruling in June that the team’s name is a disparaging and offensive term and subsequently stripped the team of its six trademark registrations."
"In its own suit, Pro Football Inc. is challenging the constitutionality of the Lanham Act, which allows the prevention or cancellation of a registered trademark if deemed disparaging and was cited by the PTO in the Redskins case."
"The Justice Department announced in a brief that was filed Friday with the U.S. District Court of Eastern Virginia that it will step in to defend the constitutionality of the federal law."
Washington Redskins, by Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Redskins
"The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team located in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The team belongs to the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League."
List of sports team names and mascots derived from indigenous peoples, by Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports_team_names_and_mascots_derived_from_indigenous_peoples
My Comments
The group delusion is the NFL Washington Redskins name is a unique instance of a bad choice for a team name that deserves special attention and scrutiny by the DOJ.
Names of some US major league sports teams with Native American origins
NFL Washington Redskins
NFL Kansas City Chiefs, play in the Arrowhead Stadium
MLB Atlanta Braves
MLB Cleveland Indians
NHL Chicago Blackhawks
Names of some US weapon systems with Native American origins
Apache attack helicopter
Black Hawk utility helicopter
Chinook heavy lift transport helicopter
Tomahawk cruise missile
My Comments
I mentioned (above) a Redskins name issue in about 2015.
Now in July 14, 2020 the Redskins are changing the team name however they have not yet revealed the new name publicly.
My Comment in July 2020
The Washington Redskins are changing the name of the team. I have a suggestion for them. Instead of Washington Redskins they should call themselves the Washington Potato Skins.
That's diversity neutral, most people like potatoes, and it does not depart far from the current team name.