Inevitability

I still recall hearing the news of Steve Irwin’s death. You remember Steve Erwin - He was the Australian wildlife guy famous for putting his head between the jaws of crocodiles, petting highly venomous snakes or whatever other thing he could do to taunt death, and deadly animals for ratings. So when I came upon the news story of Irwin’s death I was struck by an incredible lack of surprise. I tried to Google the antonym of surprise but could not find a word that could adequately convey my utter lack of astonishment that Steve Irwin was killed by an annoyed stingray sticking a huge venomous barb through his heart, which is stingray for “I’d really like for you to leave me alone now!”

Likewise I was similarly struck with an immense sense of inevitability when it was announced that Amy Whinehouse had done herself in from some kind of substance abuse. When encountering these, and so many more inevitabilities in life, and I suppose that is probably the word I was searching for, inevitabilities, that one is left with but one option as a response: “Of course they did, what took them so long?” Really, I would have been surprised if these did not go out this way, or similarly.

So as I encounter the “news” this morning I am again underwhelmed with an enormous sense of, well, nothing…  As I read that it has just been announced that the ObamaCare numbers have been grossly underestimated by about  $111 (b)illion dollars (about 30%) the story does not elicit so much as a yawn.

Really? Did anyone really not think that the numbers would not be found to be grossly underestimated shortly after the ink was dry on the passed bill? So I do not find the Republican incredulity at the find surprising.  After all, they shouted to the mountain-tops that this would happen. And of course they would diligently search to prove themselves right. Not that the true numbers were difficult to find, after, as Nancy Pelosi so aptly said, the bill was passed so that we could discover what was in it; and we did, and are. So as the Republicans bask in the glow of their “I-told-you-so” festival I am barely roused out of my stupor, other than to perhaps suggest that they tone down the incredulous act - “I’m shocked - shocked to find there is gambling here…” Of course they cooked the numbers - majestically. So as to not destroy our own credibility I suggest they nix the shocked act and just stick to the basic “I told you so.”

That the Democrats are downplaying the significance of this also barely elicits a yawn. And though I am  - whatever the opposite of surprised is, by their audacity I am however perpetually amazed by the Obama team’s incredible Jedi-mind-trick: “These are not the droids you are looking for, nothing to see here, these new ObamaCare numbers are of no concern, Hope, Change, Nothing to concern your little heads about…”
 
So as I am contemplating the idea of inevitability of outcomes I am intrigued by the idea of the Oxymoron of Governmental-thrift. Going once again to the faithful Google I search for an antonym for the word Oxymoron. As it turns out there is such a word: “Tautology.” Tautology is defined as: “needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word. An example might be: “a Catholic Pope,” or a wonderful tautology that I hope I have just invented: tautologously redundant.

So history has proven that governmental under-estimating of projected costs of its latest schemes is axiomatic. There is virtually no governmental project that has not gone at least two times over budget, and with the norm being many times that. Long term social engineering schemes of course, with Medicare, Social Security, and Medical leading the pack are really inestimably over their initial and even their revised estimates conservatively by at least twenty-fold. And these have gone so incredibly far in the red as to render the term bankrupt meaningless. Such are the flights into majestic absurdity of magic-math that not even the most sycophantic Marxist could believe, and yet the ability of man to disregard inexorable truths is unrelenting.

So as the news pretends that we did not all already anticipate and know for a certainty that the numbers in this latest governmental scheme were ridiculously under-estimated and that the numbers will continue to climb as surely as Jason will come back for Halloween parts 26, 27, 28(In 3D)…, One is left to wonder if anyone will still be able to plausibly feign surprise when the whole banana of ObamaCare is announced to be nine or twelve times over estimates?

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AP

Feb. 10, 2012: President Obama, accompanied by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, speaks at the White House.

WASHINGTON – Cost estimates for a key part of President Obama's health care overhaul law have ballooned by $111 billion from last year's budget, and a senior Republican lawmaker on Friday demanded an explanation.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., wants to know by Monday why the estimated ten-year cost of helping millions of middle-class Americans buy health insurance has jumped by about 30 percent.

Administration officials say the explanation lies in budget technicalities and that there are no significant changes in the program.

The revised numbers, buried deep in the president's budget, stumped lawmakers and some administration officials for most of the week. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is in charge of carrying out the health care law, indicated she was unaware of the changes.

At issue are subsidies that will be provided under the health care law to help middle class people buy private coverage in new state insurance markets that will open for business in 2014.

Last year's budget estimated the cost of the aid to be $367 billion from 2014-2011. This year's budget puts it at $478 billion over the same time period.

"This staggering increase ... cannot be explained by legislative changes or new economic assumptions, and therefore must reflect substantial changes in underlying assumptions regarding the program's ... costs," Camp wrote Friday in a letter to Sebelius and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

Republicans say they're concerned that either the estimated cost of the insurance has gone up, or that the administration has determined many more people will be losing employer coverage and going into the new government-subsidized markets, which will be called exchanges.

Administration officials say the big increase from last year's estimates is no cause for alarm and that the administration is not forecasting an erosion of employer coverage or higher insurance costs.

About two-thirds of the increase is due to effects of newly signed legislation that raises costs for one part of the health care law, but still saves the government money overall. The rest is due to technical changes in Treasury assumptions about such matters as the distribution of income in America.

"The estimates do not assume changes in what exchanges look like, the cost of insurance, or the number of Americans who will get their insurance in this new marketplace," Treasury spokeswoman Sabrina Siddiqui said in a statement Friday.

That explanation has drawn skepticism from Ways and Means Committee Republican staff members.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/02/lawmaker-wants-answers-after-cost-estimate-for-health-insurance-aid-rises-by/#ixzz1nzBqsgcT