Tea Party GOP against ObamaCare subsidies, but okay with taxpayer subsidies for high risk pools, business deductions, Ryan and McCain's reform plan, Medicaid and Medicare subsidies...etc.

In its futile efforts to appear news like, the MacIverInstitute reported another fact-less story specifically geared to low information knuckleheads who believe these scholarly “fellows.” Here’s the empty headline:

"Less than 50 Sign Up for Obamacare in Wisconsin."

Cool, I'm one of the 50 or less. After that attention getter, they unbelievably wrote this:

The Department of Health and Human Services is still not capable of providing official numbers, but after calling every insurer on the exchange in Wisconsin, the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance discovered "minimal participation" … through the online exchange is "under 50," according to Dan Schwartzer, deputy commissioner at OCI. Schwartzer said that figure is "really a guess," because there are no official numbers available from the feds. 

A guess? Now that's solid reporting.

But I found the following comment just as interesting, because it shows how little conservative health care whiners know about our anything:

Martin- "Just say ‘Thank you‘ to those of us who will be subsidizing your health insurance policy. If your premium dropped it's because you're relying on others who make more to pull you in the wagon."

Martin still doesn't know he's already subsidizing care for those who don't have insurance. He must be okay with that. Add to that the fact that taxpayers have supported high risk pools for years. Sen. John McCain's reform plan while running for president, including Paul Ryan, still gave a taxpayer subsidies (relying on others Martin?). Still want to complain?

But then I came across this story that Martin and his MacIver Institute losers should make note of:

WaPo: The political right has paralyzed government over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, on the grounds that the ACA represents an unacceptable government intrusion into what today is the province of private markets. But the premise is fundamentally untrue. Government’s hand has long shaped and subsidized health-care markets, for example, in Medicare and Medicaid, or the requirement that hospitals treat urgent care needs of indigents.

Government for decades has directly subsidized individuals’ costs of employer-based health care, to the tune of roughly $250 billion every year, sums far greater than the annual costs of the subsidized insurance coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

That fact makes the ongoing debate positively perverse. What we are witnessing today are individuals who already receive government health-care handouts attempting to prevent others from obtaining similar (but smaller in aggregate amount) health-care subsidies, as well. 

And if Martin and his friends get health insurance through their employer, they're also getting a subsidy: 

The vast majority of Americans get their health care through employer plans, which of course will continue under the Affordable Care Act … the tax code expressly allows you to ignore the value of the health-care costs that your employer pays on your behalf in calculating your taxable income. If your health-care insurance costs your employer $10,000 each year, you are saving up to $4,000 or so on your income tax bill, plus saving payroll tax costs on that $10,000, as well.

But so what? Why is the first subsidy somehow lost in a fog of flag waving and free enterprise talk, and the second the sure sign of galloping socialism? The plain fact is that those who have paralyzed government over the Affordable Care Act today feed at the trough of government health-care subsidies, while seeking to exclude others from sharing the bounty. This is simple selfishness in action.  If you claim to stand on principle in your demands to destroy the Affordable Care Act, first give back the $250 billion you’ve been taking every year in government help.----Edward D. Kleinbard is a law professor and former chief of staff of the U.S. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation.