20 | March | 2014

With tax season upon us, Fox News contributor and radio talk show host David Webb debated Jehmu Greene, former President, Women’s Media Center, over the massive confusion people are about to experience due to the implementation of Obamacare.

Greene, confidently asserted that the “sky isn’t falling” as if ObamaCAre was working beautifully. Yet premiums are expected to skyrocket in the coming months.

Insurance industry officials tell the newspaper that premiums will double in some parts of the country, harming Democrats’ chances and hampering the next round of enrollment efforts in 2015.

The worries from the industry come less than a week after HHS Secretary Sebelius downplayed the problem, telling Capitol Hill that increases would grow more slowly than in the past.

From the piece:

“The increases are far less significant than what they were prior to the Affordable Care Act,” the secretary said in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Her comment baffled insurance officials, who said it runs counter to the industry’s consensus about next year.

“It’s pretty shortsighted because I think everybody knows that the way the exchange has rolled out … is going to lead to higher costs,” said one senior insurance executive who requested anonymity.

The spikes are a direct consequence of the delays and changes the White House made during the rollout, indicating the administration’s moves to calm political storms will backfire.

NRO’s Charles C. W. Cooke wonders what the Democrats’ plan is to sell this crap sandwich at this point:

Of late, Harry Reid, Kathleen Sebelius, and a few of their more committed acolytes have started to resemble the host in Monty Python’s Argument Sketch, a man who just flatly refuses to accept whatever charge is thrown at him:

A: Obamacare is really hurting people.
B:   No it’s not.
A:   Yes it is. Look at this woman over here. She’s lost her doctor.
B: She’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with her. Koch Brothers.
A: She’s not fine. And many of her friends are paying higher premiums.
B:   No they’re not. Karl Rove. Misinformation. Pre-existing conditions.
A: They are. This is a matter of public record.
B: This isn’t the case. This would have happened anyway.
A: If it isn’t the case, how can it have happened anyway?
B: I didn’t say it had.

Etc.

Meanwhile, get this – Pelosi is now telling us (again) “It’s Called the Affordable Care Act”:

Boy, liberals do love to police speech:

It’s called the Affordable Care Act. It’s called the Affordable Care Act. I know you didn’t intend any compliment or derogatory – it’s called the Affordable Care Act . . . affordable, affordable – there’s a reason – affordable, affordable, affordable, affordable, affordable.

Because in Obamaspeak “affordable” means “skyrocketing”.

Everyone’s in a celebratory mood. Five Meeeeellion ObamaCare enrollees, you guyz.

Four years ago:

The House passed the Senate bill with a 219–212 vote on March 21, 2010, with 34 Democrats and all 178 Republicans voting against it. At the time, a CNN Opinion Research poll, found that 59 percent of Americans were opposed to ObamaCare. Just 39 percent of the poll’s 1,030 respondents said they favored the bill.

Today:

The most recent Gallup poll pegs the law’s public support at (40/55) and Fox News’ latest has it at (36/57).

WOW –> A packed house for @NancyPelosi‘s #Obamacare anniversary presser: pic.twitter.com/V3O2urf27f

— Wash. Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) March 20, 2014

Thanks to Twitchy.

MORE:

6 Awful Moments From Nancy Pelosi’s News Conference “Celebrating”…

Australian Prime minister Tony Abbott told Parliament Thursday that ‘new and credible information has come to light’ based on satellite images.

Abbott announced that two objects, possibly related to the search for the missing Malaysian airliner, have been spotted in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Officials sent an Orion aircraft to the area to try and locate the objects and it is expected to arrive in the area Thursday afternoon, Abbott said in an appearance before the Australian Parliament in Canberra.

Australian officials are expected to speak publicly on the development shortly.

Here is a report on the news out of China.

The New York Times reports that “the objects were about 2,500 kilometers, or about 1,550 miles, southwest of Perth.

After Mr. Abbott made his statement, Mr. Najib also issued a statement, saying that the two leaders had spoken about the sighting. But after nearly two weeks of almost daily hopes that brightened and then dimmed, Mr. Najib urged caution.

“Australian officials have yet to establish whether these objects are indeed related” to the missing plane, he said in the emailed statement.

Lisa Martin, a spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, said: “There is imagery that suggests that there could be an object. At this stage it is an object in the southern part of the search area.

UPDATE:

The air search for the floating objects possibly from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane ended Thursday without success, but will resume in the morning. It is considered by officials to be the best lead, so far.

The four planes were checking to see if two large objects spotted in satellite imagery bobbing in the remote ocean were debris from Fight 370 that disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board.

One of the objects was 24 meters (almost 80 feet) in length and the other was 5 meters (15 feet). There could be other objects in the area, a four-hour flight from Australia’s southwestern coast, said John Young, manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s emergency response division.

“This is a lead, it’s probably the best lead we have right now,” Young said. He cautioned that the objects could be seaborne debris along a shipping route where containers can fall off cargo vessels, although the larger object is longer than a container.

Another interesting possibility (or as some would call it – wild specuception) was explored by CNN’s Don Lemon.