Weird: Obamacare Rates Set To Rise 30% On Average

If memory serves, the entire points of Ocare was to make sure those who didn’t have health insurance could get affordable health insurance (or the government would fine their asses) and “bend the curve down”, right? Remember this?

“We agree on reforms that will finally reduce the costs of health care,” Obama said. “Families will save on their premiums; businesses that will see their costs rise if we do nothing will save money now and in the future. This plan will strengthen Medicare and extend the life of that program. And because it gets rid of the waste and inefficiencies in our health care system, this will be the largest deficit reduction plan in over a decade.

“Now, I just want to repeat this because there’s so much misinformation about the cost issue here. You talk to every health care economist out there and they will tell you that whatever ideas are — whatever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce costs for families, businesses, and government, those elements are in this bill.”

Yeah, uh huh, we told you this would happen

Average Obamacare premiums are set to rise 30 percent, documents show

Premiums for the most popular types of plans sold on the federal health insurance marketplace Healthcare.gov will spike on average by 30 percent next year, according to final rates approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and shown in documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

The price increases — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — are by far the largest annual premium increases in recent years. The higher premiums, along with the likely expiration of pandemic-era subsidies, mean millions of people will see their health insurance payments double or even triple in 2026.

The premium spikes arrive during a protracted and bitter congressional battle over health insurance costs that prompted a government shutdown since Oct. 1. Democrats have urged an extension of enhanced subsidies for plans sold through the Affordable Care Act to soften the blow of rising insurance costs, while Republicans have said the additional assistance was never meant to be permanent.

Got that? Without those subsidies which hid the price increases the curve is bending way up. Isn’t that the complete opposite of what Obamacare was supposed to do? We were there during the debates, opinions, etc., and all the Democrats and their media mouth pieces said health insurance would bend the curve down

(American Action Forum) In 2009, the year prior to passage of the law, the net cost of health insurance was at a relative low point with a price tag of $138 billion, it has risen to $210 billion in 2015. The annual percent growth in the net cost of health insurance has also dramatically increased since 2009. Percent growth in the years after the individual markets were implemented were 12.4 percent in 2014 and 7.6 percent in 2015. Costs and growth in future years will not buck this trend. Insurance companies in the individual and employer markets are raising premiums substantially to cover costs. The ACA will not be able to live up to the President’s promise.

Those subsidies hid the constant premium increases the past few years, and now they are coming all at once. Let’s also not forget that the deductibles were high from the get go, making a lot of plans worthless because people couldn’t afford to pay the deductibles and out of pocket costs, and have only gotten worse.

Read: Weird: Obamacare Rates Set To Rise 30% On Average »

HotTake: Trump Wants Greenland Because He Knows Climate Doom Is Real

I remember a story way back during the Bush43 admin, where someone with Bush Derangement Syndrome woke up, grabbed a cigarette and non-alcoholic beer, and sat around thinking of what type of Hate Bush story she should write. That’s what this looks like, a climate cultist with TDS looking to RageWrite

Trump knows climate change is real — that’s why he wants to mine Greenland

Thawing permafrost in Greenland creates access to critical minerals that were previously difficult to extract or were otherwise inaccessible. Within the last month, rumblings about a major U.K. mining deal in Greenland were matched with chatter about an impending agreement between the U.S. government and Critical Minerals Corp., causing shares of that company to surge.

The latter partnership would provide the U.S. with a stake in a valuable, heavy rare-earth elements mining operation in Southern Greenland. These elements are essential in the energy transition including for clean energy battery storage and components for electric vehicles. They are also necessary for defense applications ranging from unmanned aerial systems to submarines. (snip)

“Greenland is often considered ‘ground zero’ for the climate crisis because even small shifts in temperature can have outsize impacts across the entire Arctic region,” writes the auditor of an independent technical assessment on Critical Minerals Corp.’s Tanbreez Rare Earth Project. “Scientists have estimated that if the Greenland ice sheet were to melt completely, it could raise global sea levels by more than seven metres. This will be a matter for infrastructure planning in the future as it is proposed to position the plant at the edge of the Fjord.” (snip)

When President Trump stated at the United Nations General Assembly that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” what he really meant is that he intends to propel fossil fuel extraction and use in the U.S. to benefit the industries that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get him and the 119th Congress elected. But he will also attempt to gain a stronger toehold in a region that has been destabilized because of climate change, even capitalizing on that destabilization. National security is at risk, and there is money to be made.

Not only does Trump know climate change is real, he’s banking on it.

The lengths the cultists will go to prop up their cult and hate on Trump is astounding.

Read: HotTake: Trump Wants Greenland Because He Knows Climate Doom Is Real »

If All You See…

…is wine which will soon be grown in Finland due to Extreme Warming, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Last Refuge, with a post on Trump terminating trade negotiations with Canada.

Read: If All You See… »

Pro-Hamas Demonstrators Force Restaurant To Close All Stores In D.C.

Remember, the protesters say they aren’t Jew haters, they just go after everything Jew

Israeli restaurant chain in DC hit by Gaza protests permanently closes

Cancel Culture Friendly FireShouk, a plant-based kosher street-food chain in Washington, D.C., permanently shut down its final locations this month in part due to protests and boycotts from anti-Israel activists.

Once featured by the Food Network and The Washington Post for its “Shouk Burger,” the chain had five stores in the region. The closures come after two years of protests and boycotts over the war in Gaza crippled the business.

Local activist group DC for Palestine led a boycott campaign that claimed the restaurant’s falafel and other menu items “appropriated” Palestinian cuisine and that the owners were “complicit in Israeli apartheid.”

Co-owner Dennis Friedman, a Jewish American who opened the first Shouk location over a decade ago with Israeli co-owner Ran Nussbacher, rejected those accusations. He said the mission of Shouk was to bring people together.

“I don’t agree with that because the intention of Shouk was pure, and good,” Friedman told Fox News Digital. “When my business partner came to me, it wasn’t ‘let’s make Israeli food.’ He wanted to make plant-based food that reminded him of his childhood and home. That was the core of where we started to build the recipes. For the most part, Shouk has been promoted as Mediterranean, plant-based, and Middle Eastern. Very rarely have we claimed anything else. That’s why Shouk is written in both Arabic and Hebrew in all the stores — because we are a place to bring everyone together.”

He called Shouk “a gathering place for people of all races, colors, and creeds to come together to enjoy food,” that was good for customers and the planet.

I’m suspecting that the owners of Shouk are good little Democrat voters, who just learned that Democrats and the Islamists Democrats brought in to the US hate them. Shouk doesn’t have a website I could find, but, their twitter feed has all sorts of left win stuff, like hating the Supreme Court decision on abortion.

While he said business was booming before Oct. 7, the protests quickly started tanking their income.

Friedman said they reached out to local business groups and representatives and hired security outside their stores, calling the experience of being harassed by protesters over the past two years “scary and unnerving.”

“We had everything from little children coming into the store during a busy lunch screaming ‘Free Palestine’ while their parents videoed for social media,” he said. He said the protests were part of a “very coordinated” and successful “effort by the BDS to hurt Shouk.”

These are your people. You vote with them. And their abject hatred of all Israel and Jews. I feel for the owners, and all the employees, but, if you support the people who hate you don’t be surprised when they turn on you

They’ve forgotten.

Read: Pro-Hamas Demonstrators Force Restaurant To Close All Stores In D.C. »

Has ‘Climate Change’ Brought Mosquitos To Iceland?

No.

End of story. Oh, right. Post

Has climate change brought mosquitoes to Iceland?

Mosquitoes were detected in Iceland for the first time this month, resulting in the country losing its status as one of the only places in the world without them. The findings were confirmed by the country’s national science institute on Monday.

This follows record-breaking heat this past summer, which has sped up the glacial melting in the country.

On October 16, insect enthusiast Bjorn Hjaltason posted on a Facebook group Skordýr og Nytjadýr Á Íslandi (Insects in Iceland) that he had spotted mosquitoes in Kidafell, Kjos at dusk that day.

He said he had caught some using a red wine ribbon, a trap using sweetened wine as bait to attract insects. Kjos is a glacial valley around 52km (32 miles) northeast of the Icelandic capital Reykjavik.

Hjaltason sent the mosquitoes to the Natural Science Institute of Iceland, where entomologist Matthias Alfredsson confirmed they were indeed mosquitoes.

Not to go conspiracy theory, but, how do we know that the mosquitos weren’t brought into Iceland by Warmists in order to scaremonger in cult?

Alfredsson identified the mosquitoes as belonging to the Culiseta annulata species. This cold-resistant species is native to the Palearctic, which refers to Europe, North Africa and most of Asia north of the Himalayas. The Cuilseta annulata are not known to carry disease, but are generally considered a nuisance.

Did ‘climate change’ magically transport the mosquitos to Iceland?

Before mosquitoes were spotted this month, the closest they had come to Iceland was in the 1980s, when biologist Gisli Mar Gislason spotted one inside his aeroplane that had arrived at Keflavík International Airport from Greenland. The mosquito is preserved at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History.

Huh

In a statement, the Natural Science Institute said it is unclear how these particular mosquitoes came to be in Iceland. However, it added: “It is likely that it was transported by freight. It is uncertain whether it has settled here permanently, but everything indicates that it can survive in Icelandic conditions.”

So, like so many other “invasive” species, global transportation brought them to Iceland (or, cultists did it). North Carolina has plenty of these. So do most, if not all countries.

A growing number of new insect species are being observed in Iceland due to a warming climate and increased transportation, the institute said.

They do not magically appear because of a 1.7F increase in global temperatures since 1850. Let me know when they start reproducing in the wild.

Read: Has ‘Climate Change’ Brought Mosquitos To Iceland? »

Bay Area Residents Melt Down Over Coming Immigration Enforcement

Me, I think Trump should ship more illegals to Sanctuary City San Francisco, let them deal with all that comes with it

Bay Area Protesters Try to Block Base Entrance Before Immigration Operation

More than 200 protesters demonstrated and tried to block the entrance to Coast Guard Island in Alameda, Calif., on Thursday morning.

Federal officials said on Wednesday that the base was being used as an operations center for federal immigration raids that were expected to start later this week in the San Francisco Bay Area.

But President Trump announced on Thursday morning that federal agents would not be deployed to San Francisco after tech leaders convinced him that Mayor Daniel Lurie, a Democrat, was making progress on public safety.

It was unclear whether federal agents still intended to conduct operations elsewhere in the Bay Area.

Maybe Trump could do the operation in California’s capital city?

As the Alameda protest grew on Thursday morning, the playful spirit that has animated recent anti-ICE protests in Portland, Ore., was also on display. While protesters circled the intersection singing peace songs, a woman in a clown outfit made balloon animals, a folk singer strummed a guitar and an artist set up an easel to paint the gathering.

Huh

Protesters violently clash with federal agents, riot police as immigration officers arrive in Bay Area

At least one person was arrested, another was taken to the hospital and a pastor was shot in the face with a less-lethal munition in a violent clash with federal agents and about 100 California Highway Patrol riot police in Alameda today.

Guess the NY Times missed that part. Meanwhile

ICE arrests and deportations rising sharply in North Carolina, with more expected

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, arrests of people accused of being in the country illegally have ramped up in North Carolina.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested about three times the number of people in the first half of this year in Mecklenburg County compared to the same time last year.

That’s a steeper increase than the rest of the state, where data shows at least 2.6 times the number of arrests compared to last year.

Excellent!

Read: Bay Area Residents Melt Down Over Coming Immigration Enforcement »

Say, What Is The Scariest Book?

I have my own pick, but, I’ll get to it

What is the scariest book? 10 horror authors pick the most terrifying stories ever

Joe Hill doesn’t have to go very far to find the scariest book ever. Just up a rung on his family tree.

The bestselling horror author of “King Sorrow” knows he’s biased, but the “correct answer” is still “It” by Hill’s father, Stephen King.

“That’s the gold standard when it comes to scaring the pants off people. No one’s ever going to touch that,” Hill says. “The classics – ‘Dracula,’ ‘Frankenstein,’ ‘Dr. Jekyll and ‘Mr. Hyde’ – I love those books but they were written in a more conservative time. People didn’t go for the throat the way my dad went for the throat in ‘It.’ “

Dracula and Frankenstein are way more scary than the movies, but, yes, written for a different time, much different type of prose. But, hey, there was a vast difference between early Robert Heinlein and 70s and 80s Heinlein. These are from the 10 authors (each one has a description, worth reading

  • ‘Bird Box’ by Josh Malerman (saw the movie, didn’t read the book. Movie was somewhat scary)
  • ‘The Call’ by Peadar Ó Guilín (no clue)
  • ‘Geek Love’ by Katherine Dunn (no clue)
  • ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson (never read, not much into ghost stories)
  • ‘Hex’ by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (never read, looks interesting, downloaded from Kindle Unlimited (lord knows I have enough books to read, though, and many coming out)
  • ‘Let’s Get Invisible!’ by R.L. Stine (heard of Stine, never read, though they were for kids)
  • ‘Penpal’ by Dathan Auerbach (no clue)
  • ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ by Ira Levin (never read, but, the movie is terrifying)
  • ‘The Ruins’ by Scott Smith (this is the same as the movie The Ruins, and, I suspect the book is terrifying, as the movie sure is. Love it)
  • ‘Salem’s Lot’ by Stephen King (I’ve read it, and seen the original mini-series, yeah, pretty scary, especially since I was in my teens when I read it)

Really, one of the scariest I’ve read was King’s Pet Cemetary. I had a broken ankle at the time, remember lying in bed late at night, nothing had really happened yet in the book, but, looking around getting the chills.

TW Brown, who disappeared during COVID, has a 12 book series “The Dead”. It is horrifying, and Brown makes sure you know this is straight fire horror. Very bad things happen during his zombie apocalypse, often coming out of the blue, and he writes in a way that doesn’t strain believability. For instance, in one of the main two groups, one guy gets bit. But, some are immune. He gets sick, gets better, then he and his longtime girlfriend have sex. Whelp, the zombie virus can be passed that way, and she quickly turns into one. In book 3, I believe, Brown kills off the main character in the other main group without fanfare, and just moves on. Because this is the apocalypse. Pig-tailed little girls get it. He did not play.

Bob Howard also has a zombie series, up to 13 books now. Each one tends to have a theme. Shelter For Now includes what happens to the rat population when mankind is not around to keep them down and they have lots of zombie food around. Scream For Now includes spiders (as I wrote in my review at Amazon “Thanks for the nightmares, Bob!”).

L. Marshall James has In Hell. Infected people. With a horrific ending. Stephen King’s short story The Mist, which is where the movie comes from, ends on a horror note. His short story The Jaunt, which I think is being made into a movie (bad idea, better as a short episode), is also horrific. Really, though, I don’t read that much horror, except zombie books. I watch a lot of horror movies, mostly read science fiction, with a smattering of zombie, adventure, and mystery. Though, Greig Beck’s books can go pure horror, like his Mysterious Island series (not sure if he was going to write a 4th book in the series, but, people complained a lot about the horror ending of book 3), and his current series The Devil’s Peak.

What do you think is the scariest book?

Read: Say, What Is The Scariest Book? »

If All You See…

…are trees that will soon die from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The First Street Journal, with a post on girls refusing to compete against mental illness boys.

Read: If All You See… »

Shutdown Follies: Food Aid Is The Next Thing To Run Out, Putting Democrats On The Hook

Let’s remember, Democrats voted for a clean funding bill numerous times before deciding not to vote for the exact same thing, wanting a fight. Now, their constituents who Dems like to keep poor and voting Democrat will get hit

Food-aid cliff bears down on Democrats as shutdown nears 1-month mark

Missed paychecks, canceled infrastructure projects and mass firings haven’t yet convinced congressional Democrats to change their government shutdown stance. But they are now facing down another pressure point threatening a program they’ve long championed benefiting millions of Americans.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps feed more than 40 million people, will start to run out of funds Nov. 1, President Donald Trump’s USDA is warning. At least 25 states plan to cut off benefits starting on that date — including California, the overwhelmingly Democratic state with 4.5 million SNAP recipients.

The food-aid cliff has largely flown under the radar as Democrats focus on another Nov. 1 development: the launch of open enrollment for Affordable Care Act insurance plans in most states. They believe massive premium hikes prompted by the expiration of key federal subsidies will compel Republicans to relent and negotiate an extension at that time.

So far, despite the possible food assistance fallout in just over a week, top Democrats are pushing ahead and refusing to shore up the votes to reopen the government.

Asked Tuesday if the cliff would change his party’s calculus, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said it would not: “It should change Republicans’ calculus, that they should sit down and negotiate — negotiate a way to address this crisis.”

Let’s not forget what this is all about, as Speaker Johnson notes

(Breitbart) Let’s remember the true origins of the boondoggle that is American health care. Under Obamacare, Democrats wrote that bill. They passed it into law without a single Republican vote. During the COVID pandemic, Democrats created temporary Obamacare credits, again without a single Republican vote. Democrats then voted to extend those credits. They set the expiration date on and then when they held the majority in the Senate, it was Democrats who chose not to extend those credits beyond this year. Now, as we approach their own self imposed expiration date, now they are breathlessly insisting to you and on all the interviews that somehow it’s a Republican crisis.

They created this issue to start with. All the data said this would happen, though, COVID skyrocketed the costs, which was not part of the initial assessments. And here’s Hakeem Jeffries

Host Chris Hayes asked, “What do you say to people who say, look, the subsidies at issue were first passed during COVID as an emergency measure. They have been extended now, it’s 2025. Is there some fundamental failure of the Affordable Care Act or the entire system, if, absent this kind of band-aid, you’re going to see these sort of price spikes?”

Jeffries answered, “Well, listen, we believe that our healthcare system is broken and it’s in need of comprehensive reform. Republicans, of course, have aggravated that situation in the most extraordinary way and in a variety of [ways], largest cut to Medicaid in American history. Their policies are closing hospitals and nursing homes and community-based health clinics all across the country. Of course, they’re assaulting medical research, have basically shut that down in the country. They want to trigger the largest cut to Medicare at the end of the year, $536 billion. And, of course, this issue with their refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. (part of a much longer quote)

Wasn’t Ocare supposed to fix the health insurance system? Or, was it the whole healthcare system? No one was ever clear on that during the debate over Ocare all the way back when it was passed up through when it went into effect in 2013. Maybe they should be negotiating on how to actually fix the mess, not throw more and bigger subsidies. Perhaps the answer to this shutdown should be “let’s keep the subsidies for a year, let’s make sure people get their food assistance, work towards creating an insurance system that actually works, and open the government.”

Healthcare for illegals, DEI projects in foreign countries, get rid of border security, and more.

Read: Shutdown Follies: Food Aid Is The Next Thing To Run Out, Putting Democrats On The Hook »

Oh Noes: Climate Doom Driving Concern In Real Estate Market Or Something

Not sure about you, but, I know plenty of real estate agents and people who have bought and plan to buy homes, and none of them are mentioning ‘climate change’ as a concern

After Helene, climate concerns ripple through North Carolina real estate market

When floodwaters from Hurricane Helene tore through western North Carolina last year, the damage extended far beyond washed-out roads and broken homes. It also changed how many people think about where they live and what their homes are really worth.

Now, climate risk is emerging as a new force in the state’s housing market, influencing everything from insurance premiums to buyer confidence. Real estate agents say the conversation has shifted, with stormwater maps and flood histories becoming nearly as relevant as square footage and school districts.

Ashley Rummage, a Raleigh-area Realtor who grew up in Boone, said Helene was a wake-up call.

“We really have an ethical duty to our clients to be more informed about sustainability and the built environment,” she said. “We need to be educated on how to advise people when it comes to where to look for floodplain information.”

In other words, an excuse to jack up home prices more, which are already up 150% since COVID.

Traditional FEMA maps, long used to determine flood risk, are now being supplemented and sometimes contradicted by new predictive tools. One example is the First Street Foundation database, which is integrated into Zillow listings through a “climate check” feature that estimates a property’s future vulnerability to flooding or wildfires.

The websites are the ones pushing this, but, the buyers mostly do not care. Now, they might care about purchasing in a flood zone, just like always. When I bought my townhome back in 2009 it was a concern, being pretty close to the Neuse River, but, those maps show me in a once in 5000 years zone. You’d really have to get like 30-40 feet of river rise to come close.

That kind of extra effort has become more common in a state where climate patterns and real estate trends are changing together. Sharon Gupton, president of the Raleigh Regional Association of Realtors, said awareness has grown dramatically among both buyers and builders since she started selling homes in the 1980s.

“Every homeowner and home seller is more inclined now to understand that weather affects so much of our properties,” Gupton said. “As agents, we talk through that with them. The public is just much more knowledgeable about how the environment affects our homes.”

It’s rather a good idea to understand flood patterns, is it not? Something that has always been a concern (though, ignored at times, like the idiots who build homes on the Outer Banks, which, being barrier islands, move), and, with all construction becoming denser, more roads, more pavement, etc, causing runoff patters to change, yeah, it’s a concern. Doesn’t have to be climate doom.

In North Carolina, those questions are colliding with the realities of rapid urban growth. Cities such as Raleigh and Wilmington are rewriting long-term development plans that integrate stormwater design, tree canopy protection and denser, more efficient housing.

“We’re seeing places flood that have never flooded before,” Gupton said. “So municipalities are rethinking zoning, in some cases going higher instead of wider.”

Nothing to do with climate, natural or anthropogenic. I saw flooding in a spot that I’d never seen flood when we had some seriously hard rain because it was running off from a construction site, where all the vegetation and trees were eliminated. These people are acting like this stuff has never happened before. Because they’re a cult.

Read: Oh Noes: Climate Doom Driving Concern In Real Estate Market Or Something »

Pirate's Cove