Twelve Dimensional Chess
Barack Obama just won Gallup’s man most admired by US adults poll for the 11th straight time.
Also, in spite of the Republicans’ determined efforts including elimination of the mandate, Healthcare.gov signups are only 4% fewer than last year’s.
Finally, I am thinking about “eleven dimensional chess”. This was a joke about Obama and Obamaniacs who ascribed his amazing luck to brilliantly subtle strategy. To be honest I was thinking of Hillary Clinton (second to Michelle Obama after 16 first place finishes) as someone who managed eleven dimensional fools mate.
And I recall that the original 11 dimensional chessplaying was cleverly promising health care reform could work without an individual mandate. A merely sly politician would promise this, because he knew that reform was popular, mandates are not popular, and it is better to break a promise after being elected than never to be elected at all. But, it was argued, Obama campaigned in the obvious way on an obvious lie exactly, because he knew that reform without a mandate would be a catastrophe and especially catastrophic for the insurance companies. By making a promise which shouldn’t be kept, he scared them and their tame senator Max Baucus into supported reform if and only if there were a mandate. He also 11 dimensionally managed to cede control to the Senate as is necessary to flatter senators (and avoid the blame for the necessary tradeoffs). The Clinton’s sacrificed their king (and hurt the electoral chances of their queen) by setting up a committee and keeping Senators waiting for months.
But wait. Didn’t I just mention that health care reform is actually functioning without a mandate ? Is it possible that it can work with subsidies which prevent an adverse selection death spiral ? As Obama claimed in t008.
Now that, that is 12 dimensional chess. He was so brilliant that he managed to promise something which was possible (and hasn’t hurt the insurance companies) yet terrified them into supporting health care reform. In this way he 12 dimensionally convinced Republicans that they could destroy healthcare reform by eliminating the mandate, so they did, and we ended up with the policy he most slyly proposed.
Either he is a true genius of 12 dimensional chess or he is very very lucky.
How much idiot chess did it take to drone tens of thousands of civilians to death, turn Libya into a failed state where the slave trade thrives once again, kick off a failed war in Syria which along with Libya has swamped Europe with millions of refugees, looked the other way as Saudi Arabia kicked off genocide in Yemen, order a failed surge in Afghanistan that left the Taliban stronger than ever and preside over a presidency that failed average Americans so badly that American life expectancy began dropping for the first time since World War 1? Because I think I’m better at chess than that and I’ve never played anything more than the conventional kind.
Karl,
How you dare not to admire the winner of the Nobel Peace Price?
The president who introduced into the English language the phrase “change we can believe in” which now got its own independent life and is now applicable to most Trump election promises.
The innovator who introduced intelligence agencies as a powerful, if not decisive, player in the US political life. And thus invented a new type of democracy.
To say nothing about bringing on the advanscene of history a gallery of female chickenhawks such as Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, and Victoria Nuland.
P.S. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for everybody !!!
Eh, IMO there never was much of a mandate. The penalties were too low to matter much. The real choice, with or without, the penalties was about the risk of going uninsured and facing very large bills or being unable to afford care vs the cost of premiums. The penalties were a rounding error.
On the other hand I do hear people I know squawking about how maybe they should not pay for insurance because the penalty is gone, and I explain to them that the max $2000 a year penalty (which some of these people probably actually did face) is small compared to premiums and small compared to the cost of a fairly simple ER visit, so it really shouldn’t be much of a factor in their decision.
Welcome to Angry Bear Jeffery. First time comments are held in moderation due to spam and such filters.
Jeffrey:
Without insurance, you are exposed to hospital ER Chargemaster rates which are far more than what you would pay with insurance. If you happen to hit an ER which subcontracts doctors is even worse off (Texas is great for this). The bills can run from $hundreds to $thousands. If you wish to be a part of the community rating and costs, you have to join the community. ERs are money makers for hospitals.
The real ‘penalty’ is the average of 5 months you have to wait for open enrollment.
Karl,
How you dare not to admire the winner of the Nobel Peace Price?
Ordering USAF KC 135 refueling missions over the great desert is not looking the other way on genociding Yemenis.
Using US intelligence and Justice employees to spy on Hillary’s opponent would have been Watergate II but: Trump!!!! Spying on US citizens is okay if it aimed to deny Trump (supposedly good for the US).
If you blithely assassinate US citizens because of terror you can do 12 dimension chess. with the Nobel committee shamed.
Easy to spot the trolls on this thread. The topic is the ACA. The trolls try to hijack the thread by changing the topic. Sad.
Can the moderator please stop the trolls?