Items are archived in this
category in the order of discovery.
ObamaCare
The New York Post
editorializes: It's full steam ahead for ObamaCare -- the radical
health-care "reform" pack age that Congressional Democrats are trying to
steamroll to passage by the end of the summer. And now America is
beginning to learn how much it will cost -- and who'll pay the tab.
• How much? -- somewhere between $600 billion and $1.5 trillion
--
depending on whether the Senate or House version ultimately is adopted.
• Who pays? --you do!
-- in cash, for sure -- and maybe with your job,
too.
Indeed, an analysis by the watchdog Tax Foundation shows
that the top combined federal and state income-tax rate in 39 states
would exceed 50 percent under the House version.
For New York
state taxpayers, the top rate would hit 56.92 percent, third-highest in
the nation. And in the five boroughs, the top rate would be 58.68
per cent -- highest in the nation.
Having abandoned any notion
of lightening the load with spending cuts, House Democrats have put
forward a 1,000-plus-page proposal dripping with new taxes, surcharges
and fees.
The biggest losers? Small businesses --
companies with as few as five employees, who'll have to pay a penalty of
up to 8 percent of income unless they provide their workers with health
insurance.
Steven Crowder talks Socialized ObamaCare with Neil Cavuto
(02:58)
Obama Admin Wants Veterans To Forgo Medical Care
Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in
Health Care
advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning
document,
"Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and
later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast
network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House
took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral
issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under Resident
Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."
Who
is the primary
author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics
evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for
physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme
Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.
"Your Life, Your Choices" presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at
steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political
"push poll." For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various
scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be
"not worth living."
The circumstances listed include ones common
among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a
wheelchair and not being able to "shake the blues." There is a
section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If
I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing
scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well
being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's
situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."
The
document below was downloaded directly from the Veterans Administration,
and the content suggests that both family finances and depression -- a
non-terminal illness -- could constitute Lebensunwerte Leben,
or "life unworthy of life." Smoke is generally indicative of fire
and, although HR 3200 says nothing about mandatory end of life planning,
euthanasia, or anything else similar to Germany’s Aktion T4 program --
the euthanasia program that served as a precedent for the Holocaust --
that there is indeed fire to go with the smoke. "Your Life, Your
Choices" is simply more evidence, and it even suggests that war veterans
with depression consider themselves a burden on the society that sent
them to war.
Here is a screenshot of Page 21 of "Your Life, Your
Choices," downloaded directly from the Veterans Administration. As
stated in the Wall Street Journal, this document was withdrawn when the
Bush Administration saw content that could have come straight from
Aktion T4, but Obama put it back into service. Note that it
invites our veterans to define even non-terminal conditions (such as
being in a wheelchair or having depression), to which few if any living
wills apply, as "Lebensunwertes Leben."
The following portion of the document also talks about money as
a factor in defining "Lebensunwertes Leben."
If Resident Obama is sincere in stating that he is not
trying to cut costs by pressuring the disabled to forgo critical
care, one good way to show that commitment is to walk two blocks
from the Oval Office and pull the plug on "Your Life, Your
Choices." He should make sure in the future that VA
decisions are guided by values that treat the lives of our
veterans as gifts, not burdens.
Cash For Codgers
Politico
reports that A reader points out that Obama's call with rabbis today
-- as recorded in Rabbi Jack Moline's and other clerics' Twitter feeds
-- freights health care reform with a great deal of religious meaning,
and veers into the blend of policy and faith that outraged liberals in
the last administration.
"We are God's partners in matters of
life and death," Obama said, according to Moline (paging Sarah
Palin...), quoting from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that says that in the
holiday period, it is decided "who shall live and who shall die."
Just more more Bravo Sierra from the Obamamessiah, but a comment
left by one "Seatalker" caught my attention:
You ain't no partner of mine in matters of
life and death, Barry. If ever we were to see a clear demonstration
of Mr. Obama's Chicago lawyering skills it is with his eloquence
here when trying to sell his 'Who shall live and who shall die?"
legislation. The slime-ball-attorney seeps out of every pore of his
being and he just can't wait to enact
Cash For Codgers! Cash
For Codgers! CASH FOR CODGERS!
The new Obama plan where you
turn in your old, expensive to maintain, mother or father for
euthanasia and the government pays you $4,500.00. Yes folks, it's
CASH FOR CODGERS. So don't miss out on this limited
opportunity. Mothers and fathers of Senators, Congresspersons,
Whitehouse administration and employees are exempt from this offer
inasmuch as their plan will maintain health for their families long
after we are all dead.
Vehicular Homicide
Patriot Room is running a
video
that shows how Obama's economically perverted and ridiculous
Cash for Clunkers program kills cars. Car lovers will want to sit
down. Warning -- some language.
That's a salt/water/silica mix they're pouring into that engine.
The vehicle is then started and ran till the engine seizes. Then
the whole thing is put into a crusher.
This shows what a wasteful program Cash for Clunkers really is. This C4
Corvette appears to be free of any body damage and its engine
compartment is clean -- could use some new tires. It's a beautiful automobile, starts
right up, and yet it enters its death throes at about the 3:00 mark and by 4:00 the thing is
belching so much pollution, it probably exceeds Al Gore's monthly carbon
footprint.
Obama did to
this Corvette, what he plans to do to us old-timers. This
administration is evil and Obama is its core.
IRS To Be ObamaCare Enforcer
Thomas Lifson
asks, what do you get when you cross health care with the IRS?
Something very scary. William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection
explains that the IRS will getting reports of who has health care
coverage, and enforcing taxes as part of the deal in both House and
Senate versions.
The Senate bill imposes a new requirement
that all persons who provide health care coverage to others must
file a return with the IRS listing the names, addresses, social
security numbers, and the coverage period for each person, and "such
other information as the Secretary [of Health and Human Services]
may prescribe" -- (Section 161(b) starting at page 107).
The bill does not limit what information the Secretary may request,
so it is conceivable and likely that information as to the nature of
the coverage, the family members included, and other details will be
reported to the IRS.
The House bill contains similar
provisions in section 401(b) -- (at pp. 175-176).
Employers who don't offer coverage will be taxed, and that opens the
door to the IRS as health care enforcer:
These reporting provisions would allow the
IRS to cross-check income tax returns and health coverage filings,
and withhold tax refunds or utilize other collection methods for
persons who do not have coverage unless they can prove they have
acceptable coverage from some other source. This is similar to
the cross-checking the IRS does on income reported separately by the
person making the payment and the taxpayer receiving the payment.
But for the first time the IRS is not checking for income to tax,
but for lack of health coverage.
These provisions should have
people interested in privacy greatly concerned. While income
information already is reported to the IRS, the IRS traditionally
has not received personal health care information about individuals.
Update: David Hass asks some practical questions:
How is the
government going to check up on us? How many government employees
are going to be added to a new agency to audit 350 million Americans to
see if we have adequate health insurance? How is the government
going to verify that we have acceptable coverage? Are all health
insurance companies going to be required to issue some form of notarized
birth certificate type document, renewable annually, that we will have
to present to a government agent twice a year? Are insurance
companies going to be required to contact the government if we cancel
our policies? When a person dies, will the government be informed
in a timely manner so they don't fine us for not complying after we have
left this earth?
Obama's Trojan Donkey
Obama Misleads On Health Care For Illegals
Rick Moran
reminds us that this is part and parcel of the White House strategy
on selling health care reform; ask people to put blinders on so that the
intended/unintended effects of his health care reform proposals are
ignored.
Case in point; everyone with an ounce of intelligence
can see that Obama's proposals for reform will include health care for
illegal aliens -- even though it is not specifically written into any
proposed bill. It will simply be the consequence of a government
takeover of health care.
Here's Obama yesterday on the Michael
Smerconish radio show:
"This has been an example of just pure
misinformation out there. None of the bills that have been
voted on in Congress, and none of the proposals coming out of the
White House propose giving coverage to illegal immigrants -- none of
them. That has never been on the table; nobody has discussed
it. So everybody who is listening out there, when you start
hearing that somehow this is all designed to provide health
insurance to illegal immigrants, that is simply not true and has
never been the case."
Mark Kirkorian of NRO:
Well, that's not quite a lie because our
silver-tongued attorney-in-chief is right that the bills are not
"designed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants," but
they will do so nonetheless. As Jim Edwards and Jon Feere
demonstrate in some detail, the supposed bar on illegal aliens
getting subsidies is inadequate: The bar applies only to one
section of the bill; there's no requirement that applicants'
eligibility be verified, as is the case with other welfare programs;
and the Democrats specifically rejected amendments to require
verification.
In the narrowest technical sense, Obama is sort of telling the
truth. But like denying that the public option will eventually
result in the destruction of the private health insurance industry,
Obama refuses to acknowledge the legitimate "slippery slope" arguments
of his opponents.
The bottom line, is that the proposed health
care reform will not exist in a vacuum. Language in the bill will
be interpreted by bureaucrats who will then promulgate rules that could
easily result in illegals having their health care paid for by tax
payers.
Not acknowledging this is disingenuous at best.
Either that, or the Harvard educated Obama is a dunce who lacks critical
thinking skills and has an inability to extrapolate based on the facts.
Or maybe he's just a bald faced liar.
Semper Fidelis
Town Hall Meeting with U.S. Congressman Brian Baird (02:19)
"I, David William Hedrick, a member of the silent majority, decided
that I was not going to be silent anymore. So, I let U.S.
Congressman Brian Baird have it. I was one questioner out of
38, that was called at random from an audience that started at 3,000
earlier in the evening. Not expecting to be called on, I
quickly scratched what I wanted to say on a borrowed piece of paper
and with a pen that I borrowed from someone else in the audience
minutes before I spoke. So much for the planned talking points
of the right wing conspiracy."
I will be leaving this near the
top through Monday. I hope David Hedrick's example will
encourage you to engage.
Shovel Ready
Why Is Obama Dissing Doctors
Obama has taken to a unique and possibly quite macabre strategy into
the August recess. In speech after speech on the need for the
federalizing control of a national health care system he has taken to
insulting the wrong people -- physicians. But beyond that he has
turned them into orated illustrations of terror. I believe that by
doing this he is demonstrating the unusual degree of deception to which
he is willing to stoop -- all for the cause of saying he did "something"
about health care.
Roughly one month ago Obama said this at a
White House press conference:
"So if you come in, and you've got a bad sore
throat, or your child has a bad sore throat, or has repeated sore
throats. The doctor may look at the reimbursement system, and
say to himself, 'You know what, I make a heck of a lot more money if
I take this kid's tonsils out.' Now that may be the right
thing to do but I'd rather have that doctor making those decisions,
just based on whether you really need your kids tonsils out, or
whether it make just make more sense just to huh... change... huh...
maybe they have allergies, maybe they have something else that would
make a difference."
Right there, in just one swipe, the president has slandered
thousands of the very best pediatricians, not to mention ear, nose and
throat specialists. He does so with an assumption that those who
practice medicine are driven by greed, and not the welfare of their
patients. Yet let me ask you this, how many children's doctors do
you know, or have you visited to treat your family? All across
America, in many case, just one doctor has been the family pediatrician
for two to three generations of children, and extended family, and
friends of that family. In all honesty, do you think such a
reality would exist, if these doctors were treating kids like clunkers
that can be cashed in for parts?
Roughly two weeks ago, at a town
hall meeting, President Obama said:
"Let's take the example of something like
diabetes, one of uh... A disease that's sky-rocketing, partly
because of huh... obesity. Partly because it is not treated...
huh... as effectively... as it could be. Right now if we paid
a family... If a family care physician, works with his or her
patient, to help them lose weight, modify diet, monitors whether
they are taking their medication in a timely fashion. They
might get reimbursed a pittance. But if that same diabetic
ends up getting their foot amputated, that's $30,000, $40,000,
$50,000, immediately the surgeon is reimbursed."
There he was again with the profit motive. Only this time he was
actually making the argument that the doctor would be so malevolent as
to allow the diabetic in question to purposefully worsen the condition,
just to cash in. I cannot repeat this strongly enough -- his
willingness to view doctors with such contempt and disrespect sickens
me, as it should every medical practitioner in the nation.
Drew Brown
asks
us to just pay attention to the next two
weeks. The organization Barack Obama developed to get elected and
still leads, Organizing for America, is attempting to hold
pro-healthcare rallies throughout the country right before Congress
reconvenes. Said another way, Obama, who swore to represent you is
sending his promoters to tell you to support his agenda.
Americans, Obama neither listens to you nor cares what you think.
I'm not too worried about the rally-goers. I've seen a
pro-healthcare rally recently. It was at one of the town hall
meetings. It consisted of five people. I talked with four of
them. One had a story about having to pay a few thousand dollars
more for a surgery than he thought he should have. One didn't
think it was fair that her uneducated daughter should have to pay for
insurance, because it was expensive and she didn't make much money.
One was the teenage son of a local politician. One was a college
student who did nothing but brag about "turning people in" to the White
house (remember flag@whitehouse.gov?). I'm not concerned about
these people, the believers in nationalized healthcare. I expect
many of them believe in UFO abductions too.
What I am concerned
about, and warning everyone about, is the media machine that uses these
organized events to broadcast the agenda. Framed differently,
these activities aren't meant to convince attendees that healthcare is
good; these activities are meant to manufacture the news, spread
propaganda tropes, and over-inflate the image of the pro-socialized
healthcare forces. PR stunts. The Obama modus operandi is to
make his goons look bigger than they are. These are the people who
will make a group of twenty conservatives appear diminutive with a
far-away camera angle, and then give individual interviews to all three
liberal attendees. It's just like a real estate agent
photographing a small house from the best angle. Organizing for
America is an illusion. It is the Wizard of Oz.
The operating
methods are predictable enough. Health Care for America Now is the
other group involved, and they've enlisted union leaders to send their
grunts along. You'll recognize Obama-style unionists when you see
them; they are good at getting media attention; they're frequently loud,
make for good angry mobs, and get bulk rates from Kinko's on the signs
their illiterate members carry. I'm just grateful many unionists
aren't this way, and oppose this bill, too.
And you will see
them. The operation will be simple; bus in supporters, give
speeches, tell lies, and do not give any opposition an opportunity to
speak. It's Obama's election campaign all over again, brought to
you by Obama's own campaign committee. America, we have seen this
tired strategy over and over, and here it comes again. I wouldn't
be surprised if Green Day put on a free concert to get a crowd so they
could record all those people listening to the local senator for the 30
second pause. Again.
Don't believe me yet? Check the
news every night. Tuesday night MSNBC did its part of the campaign
with an
article entitled "Health care claim costs may rise 10.5 percent,"
added fuel to the fear-mongering fire. After restating the intro,
the bulk of this article then says two things: (1) "expect to pay about
10.5 percent more in claims costs in the next year" and (2) Employees
may have to carry these costs through higher premiums, lower pay
increases, etc.
Contradictory arguments are mentioned casually
near the end.
The Obama campaign machine is about to explode on
to the scene again. Obama is sending his campaign comrades to tell
you what to think. Look forward to many more pro-healthcare
articles in the coming weeks. Look forward to massive media mania
around Democrats' large and fabricated or small and sparsely attended
rallies. And look for the media to ignore key events from the
opposition, like the Cincinnati tea part on September 5th (by last count
nearly 2000 Ohioans had RSVP's, I am told. And they don't even need a
concert).
Entrench yourselves. The media will put in
overtime these next few weeks telling us we're a minority again.
Look for the words "fringe," "ultra-conservative," and their kin to
resurface. Remember all that has changed in the last few weeks --
we are the majority, and we are the power base. Our weakness is
our disorganization, and it is their strength, but we do outnumber them.
Stay strong in our beliefs and stand up, wherever you can, in your
respective home towns and rally against government-run healthcare.
They will attack your fiercely in the coming weeks. Band together
with friends, keep the conversation going. Be heard, be seen, be
public. Public opposition is as American as the revolution itself,
and it is what the radical left, like their socialist founders, fears.
If we stand still and quiet they can push us over, but if we push back,
they can not win.
ObamaCare Will Cover Illegals
Mark Tapscott
says that among the many claims being made during the August recess
by Democrats, from Obama to the lowliest back-bencher, is that ObamaCare
absolutely, positively, cannot possibly ever in a million, zillion years
provide coverage to illegal immigrants.
Just this past weekend
during his regular Saturday address -- devoted to addressing what he
called "false claims about reform" -- Obama said he wants "an honest
debate" on health care reform, "not one dominated by willful
misrepresentations and outright distortions."
In what he called
the "first myth" being spread by critics of his proposal for a
government-run health care system, Obama said they are wrong in claiming
illegal immigrants will be covered: "That is not true.
Illegal immigrants would not be covered. That idea has not even been on
the table." Obama said.
Well, that idea must have been
tucked under a stack of background briefing papers over there in the
corner of the table because the Congressional Research Service (CRS)
says this about H.R. 3200, the ObamaCare bill approved just before the
recess by the House Energy and Commerce Committee chaired by Rep. Henry
Waxman, D-CA:
"Under H.R. 3200, a 'Health Insurance
Exchange' would begin operation in 2013 and would offer private
plans alongside a public option…H.R. 3200 does not contain any
restrictions on non-citzens -- whether legally or illegally present,
or in the United States temporarily or permanently -- participating
in the Exchange."
CRS also notes that the bill has no provision for requiring those
seeking coverage or services to provided proof of citizenship. So,
absent some major amendments to the legislation and a credible, concrete
enforcement effort in action, looks like the myth on this issue is the
one being spread by Obama, Reid, Pelosi, et. al.
Defeating ObamaCare And The Taliban
Six months into the Obama term of office, conservatives and
Republicans have occasion for some good cheer.
It's not simply
that key and noxious elements of Obama's legislative agenda are in
serious trouble. It's not simply that his approval numbers are
down. It's not simply that the evidence is increasingly conclusive
that 2008 didn't mark a sharp break to the left on the part of public
opinion, and that "conservative" remains a term of approbation for much
more of the electorate than "liberal." And it's not simply that
the term "Republican" is less poisonous than many feared (or hoped): The
GOP has recently improved its comparative position in most 2010 generic
congressional polls.
The most heartening development in the Age
of Obama so far is this: the impressive behavior of conservatives and
Republicans. They have been principled in their major domestic and
foreign policy positions, have opposed Obama and advanced their own
agenda in a savvy and sensible way, and have begun to find new and fresh
spokesmen. There are some conservative pundits and GOP
talking-heads who've kept themselves busy with navel-gazing and
fratricidal-sniping--but they haven't distracted most on the right from
the job at hand.
In domestic policy, it's the American public who
deserve much credit for slowing down and perhaps capsizing ObamaCare.
But Republican politicians and conservative policy analysts and
polemicists have done their part. GOP senators and congressmen
refused to be intimidated by claims that a victory of some version of
ObamaCare was inevitable. They therefore weren't suckered into
foolish equivocations and compromises.
U.S. Rep. Paul Broun is again
raising the specter of Democrats turning the United States into a
totalitarian state.
Broun, R-Athens, apparently has not changed
his belief that Obama may be a fascist since he made similar remarks in
Augusta in November and then in an Associated Press interview.
He
told a meeting of the Morgan County Republicans on Wednesday night that
Obama already has or will have the three things he needs to make himself
a dictator: a national police force, gun control and control over the
press.
"He has the three things that are necessary to establish
an authoritarian government," Broun said. "And so we need to be
ever-vigilant, because freedom is precious."
As he did when
comparing Obama to Hitler and the Soviets last year, Broun cited a
speech Obama gave in Colorado during the campaign last July calling for
"a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as
strong, just as well-funded" as the military.
In the speech,
Obama called young Americans to serve both at home and abroad, and said
he would expand the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps and other volunteer
opportunities. Broun, however, said Obama was referring to a
national police force.
"'The liberals say, 'What is wrong with
Americorps?' " Broun said. "Well, this is not Americorps."
Broun also said he thinks the national media is openly supporting
Obama's policies. He also said he believes Obama and Attorney
General Eric Holder will enact new gun-control policies. older
said in February that he wants to renew a Clinton-era ban on assault
weapons, but Obama said in April that he is putting the issue on the
back burner.
Broun also cited the dozens of so-called "czars"
Obama has appointed to oversee areas like the troubled car industry as
evidence that he is overstepping his bounds to seek power. They're
developing a shadow government that (does not) answer to the American
people," Broun said.
At a town hall meeting in Clarkesville last
month, Broun called Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid a "socialistic elite" and agreed with a
constituent who said they might use a flu pandemic to declare martial
law. "They're trying to develop an environment where they can take
over," Broun said. "We've seen that historically."
More
than 1,000 people combined turned out to hear Broun speak mostly on the
topic of health care at town hall meetings Wednesday in Madison and
Greene County.
About 300 attended the Madison meeting. At Lake
Oconee, the audience filled three 300-seat movie theaters, where Broun
spoke on the invitation of three local doctors who have been giving
presentations on Democrats' proposals for health care reform, said Bob
Cowles, one of the organizers. Broun spoke live in one theater, while
crowds in the other two listened in over a closed circuit.
Health
care reform also is about Democrats seeking more power, Broun said.
"It gives them more power, more control over your life," he said.
Health care is too expensive, he said, and he attributed the cost to
government regulations like HIPPA, a 1996 patient privacy and insurance
portability law. Rather than create a government-run insurance
program to compete with private insurers, the current system's framework
should be kept, but with changes like expanded tax-free health savings
accounts, more tax credits for medical expenses and tax breaks for
doctors who provide charity care, Broun said.
"Just like (when)
you have a dog with fleas, you don't kill the dog, you put on a flea
collar," he said.
Don’t Be Fooled
David Limbaugh says don’t be fooled by Obama’s "Public Option"
retreat.
The key to stopping Barack Obama's far-left agenda is to
understand where his heart is. If politicians let their guard down
and compromise, the Obama steamroller will regain its momentum and forge
ahead to gobble up our individual liberties.
Obama's heart is
and always has been on the farthest reaches of the left wing of
politics. His driving ambition is to force fundamental change on
America. That should go without saying, but it must be repeated --
and repeated -- lest people's forgiving spirits and short memories
generate just enough complacency to allow Obama to get back on track.
It is remarkable that Obama has lost public favor so quickly.
But the other side of that coin is that he is receiving a wake-up call
early enough in his first term to allow him to recover well in time for
the crucial 2010 elections.
Some erroneously believe that Obama
will continue to bash his stubborn leftist head into the wall against
the wishes of the public. I don't believe the modern myth that
Obama is an erudite political philosopher, but I do think he's savvy
enough to understand that he must significantly repackage his message in
order to win back popular support for his policy goals.
The
major obstacle to selling ObamaCare has been the public's realization
that the "public option" is a euphemism for socialized medicine.
So it's time for Obama to take his Machiavellian talents to the next
level.
Thomas Sowell believes the most important thing about what anyone
says are not the words themselves but the credibility of the person who
says them.
The words of convicted swindler Bernie Madoff were
apparently quite convincing to many people who were regarded as
knowledgeable and sophisticated. If you go by words, you can be led into
anything.
No doubt millions of people will be listening to the
words of Barack Obama Wednesday night when he makes a televised address
to a joint session of Congress on his medical care plans. But, if
they think that the words he says are what matters, they can be led into
something much worse than being swindled out of their money.
One
plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the
impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He
tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the
nation's medical care before the August recess -- for a program that
would not take effect until 2013!
Whatever Obama is, he is not
stupid. If the urgency to pass the medical care legislation was to
deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the
legislation goes into effect for years-- more specifically, until the
year after the next presidential election?
If this is such an
urgently needed program, why wait for years to put it into effect?
And if the public is going to benefit from this, why not let them
experience those benefits before the next presidential election?
If it is not urgent that the legislation goes into effect
immediately, then why don't we have time to go through the normal
process of holding Congressional hearings on the pros and cons,
accompanied by public discussions of its innumerable provisions?
What sense does it make to "hurry up and wait" on something that is
literally a matter of life and death?
If we do not believe that
Obama is stupid, then what do we believe? The only reasonable
alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government
takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood
what was in it.
Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012
before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be.
Unfortunately, this way of doing things is all too typical of the
way this administration has acted on a wide range of issues.
Thomas Sowell believes the most important thing about what anyone
says are not the words themselves but the credibility of the person who
says them.
The words of convicted swindler Bernie Madoff were
apparently quite convincing to many people who were regarded as
knowledgeable and sophisticated. If you go by words, you can be led into
anything.
No doubt millions of people will be listening to the
words of Barack Obama Wednesday night when he makes a televised address
to a joint session of Congress on his medical care plans. But, if
they think that the words he says are what matters, they can be led into
something much worse than being swindled out of their money.
One
plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the
impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He
tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the
nation's medical care before the August recess -- for a program that
would not take effect until 2013!
Whatever Obama is, he is not
stupid. If the urgency to pass the medical care legislation was to
deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the
legislation goes into effect for years-- more specifically, until the
year after the next presidential election?
If this is such an
urgently needed program, why wait for years to put it into effect?
And if the public is going to benefit from this, why not let them
experience those benefits before the next presidential election?
If it is not urgent that the legislation goes into effect
immediately, then why don't we have time to go through the normal
process of holding Congressional hearings on the pros and cons,
accompanied by public discussions of its innumerable provisions?
What sense does it make to "hurry up and wait" on something that is
literally a matter of life and death?
If we do not believe that
Obama is stupid, then what do we believe? The only reasonable
alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government
takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood
what was in it.
Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012
before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be.
Unfortunately, this way of doing things is all too typical of the
way this administration has acted on a wide range of issues.
In a
move that demonstrates his desperation, Obama is going to appear on
five Sunday talk shows -- five -- to press his case for socialized
health care, White House officials disclosed. That is a record.
He is going to appear on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" on
ABC, "Meet the Press" on NBC, and "Face the Nation" on CBS. In
between, he is going to sit down for interviews on CNN and Univision. (Fox News didn’t make the cut).
Newsmakers in the past have
managed to pull of the unlikely feat of hitting the big three Sunday
interview shows on CBS, NBC and ABC, but this is a first.
Obama will also make an
appearance on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman on next Monday’s
show.
He will be the sole guest on the broadcast.
Who in the hell is going to want to
watch this guy for 30 minutes, except his wife and the White House staff?
-- and they'll be on the clock.
At least, with Dave lobbing the
Whiffle Balls, Obama won't need to bring
TOTUS along.
Legal Experts Say ObamaCare Is Unconstitutional
More legal experts are questioning the
constitutionality of ObamaCare. In today’s
Washington Post, two former
Justice Department lawyers, David Rivkin and Lee Casey,
argue that a central provision of Obama’s health-care plan -- the
"individual mandate" -- is unconstitutional, and beyond Congress’s
powers under the Constitution, such as its powers to tax and regulate
interstate commerce.
Earlier, other legal experts and the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights
criticized major provisions
of ObamaCare, such as its affirmative-action and racial preferences, and
its intrusive regulation of medicine, as being unconstitutional.
Obama yesterday repeated his false claim that ObamaCare will not cover
illegal aliens. But it effectively will
cover illegal aliens, if they want coverage,
as many commentators have
explained, including
think-tanks like the
Heritage Foundation, legal experts,
publications like National Review,
and syndicated columnists. (Most other countries
do not provide national health insurance for illegal immigrants.)
It's not every day that you hear a Democratic senator charge that a
fellow Democrat is proposing to raise taxes on the middle class, but
that is what happened on Tuesday when Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.,
ripped into the health-care bill developed by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mt.,
the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
The Baucus proposal
would impose, starting in 2013, a 35 percent excise tax on insurance
companies for "high-cost plans" -- defined as those above $8,000 for
individuals and $21,000 for family plans.
Health economists
believe a tax on high-priced benefits could help slow the growth of
health costs by making consumers more sensitive to prices.
The
tax contemplated by Baucus is also a big revenue raiser. It is
expected to raise $200 billion, money that Baucus is hoping to use to
pay for subsidies for the uninsured.
Given how much money this
kind of tax can raise, Rockefeller says he understands why it is
"tempting."
The West Virginia Democrat worries, however, that a
lot of middle class workers, like the coal miners in his state, will end
up facing "a big, big tax" under the Baucus bill because they currently
enjoy generous employer-provided health care benefits which they receive
tax free.
Referring to Baucus, Rockefeller said, "He should
understand that (his proposal) means that virtually every single coal
miner is going to have a big, big tax put on them because the tax will
be put on the company and the company will immediately pass it down and
lower benefits because they are self insured, most of them, because they
are larger. They will pass it down, lower benefits, and probably
this will mean higher premiums for coal miners who are getting very good
health care benefits for a very good reason. That is, like
steelworkers and others, they are doing about the most dangerous job
that can be done in America."
"So that’s not really a smart
idea," Rockefeller continued. "In fact, it’s a very dangerous
idea, and I’m not even sure the coal miners in West Virginia are aware
that this is what is waiting if this bill passes."
Flopping Aces reports on a survey that finds doctors do NOT support
Obama's plan and will quit if ObamaCare passes.
They cite a new
survey from the Investors Business Daily that shows 45% of doctors
would consider quitting if Congress passes ObamaCare:
Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.
Doctor opposition to health care overhaul proposals is broad and deep, revealing concerns not just about soaring costs, declining care, possible rationing and a lack of limits on malpractice suits, but also about government competence and motives, detailed responses to a new IBD/TIPP Poll show. The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors’ own lobby -- the powerful American Medical Association -- both of which
suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.
It also calls into question whether an overhaul is even doable; 71% of the doctors polled disagree with the administration’s claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.
Continue reading
here . . .
Obama Wants Health Care For Illegals, And Others
Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal
immigrants, but
argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they
eventually do get coverage.
He also staked out a position that
anyone in the country legally should be covered -- a
major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most
federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime
immigrants.
"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage
to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can
simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Obama
said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who
are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance
under this plan, just like everybody else.
Mr. Obama added, "If
anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive
immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented
people living and working in this country once and for all."
Republicans said that amounts to an amnesty, calling it a backdoor
effort to make sure current illegal immigrants get health care.
Obama wants to cover everybody in
the country, legally or illegally. I guess that includes foreign
students, vacationers, and in-transit airline passengers as well.
That's good news to anyone in the world who has a critical illness and
who can afford a plane ticket -- just but a round-trip ticket to the
good old USA and fall down in the airline terminal -- I can see it now
-- tens of thousands of third-worlders hopping on planes to take
advantage of ObamaCare.
But what this is really all about is
those 12 million new Democratic voters, who will ensure Obama
re-election for a second term, and if his supporters
have their way, his third, and fourth and . . .
Death Panels By Proxy
Paul, at Powerline blog,
says
that the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have refused to allow
the final text of their health care bill to be posted online prior to
their vote on it. They claim the language is too technically
difficult for ordinary people to understand, so that releasing the text
would just sow confusion.
More likely, the Dems don't want people
to see language like that which appears at pages 80-81 of the bill.
There it says: "Beginning in 2015, payment [under Medicare] would
be reduced by five percent if an aggregation of the physician's resource
use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization."
Thus, in any year in which a particular doctor's average per-patient
Medicare costs are in the top 10 percent in the nation, the feds will
cut the doctor's payments by 5 percent."
This Washington Times
editorial explains the consequences:
if a doctor authorizes expensive care, no
matter how successfully, the government will punish him by scrimping
on what already is a low reimbursement rate for treating Medicare
patients. The incentive, therefore, is for the doctor always
to provide less care for his patients for fear of having his
payments docked. And because no doctor will know who falls in
the top 10 percent until year's end, or what total average costs
will break the 10 percent threshold, the pressure will be intense to
withhold care, and withhold care again, and then withhold it some
more. Or at least to prescribe cheaper care, no matter how
much less effective, in order to avoid the penalties.
This is certainly a form of rationing. And the editors of
the Times don't exaggerate when they say that, while there are no formal
death panels, the Democrats' bill will give us the functional
equivalent, except that the accountants who serve as the "proxy panel"
won't know whose deaths they are causing.
Buy Insurance Or Go To Jail
Politico is reporting that Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a
handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of
Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to
$1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.
Violators could be
charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a
$25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it,
"Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."
The note was a
follow-up to Ensign's questioning at the markup.
Under
questioning from Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Barthold said the IRS would
"take you to court and undertake normal collection proceedings."
Ensign pursued the line of questioning because he said a lot of
Americans don't believe the Constitution allows the government to
mandate the purchase of insurance.
"We could be subjecting those
very people who conscientiously, because they believe in the U.S.
Constitution, we could be subjecting them to fines or the interpretation
of a judge, all the way up to imprisonment," Ensign said. "That
seems to me to be a problem."
Ensign's argument , however, wasn't
persuasive to the committee -- which rejected an amendment from Sen. Jim
Bunning (R-Ky.) to eliminate the individual mandate.
Sen. Olympia
Snowe (R-Maine) was the only Republican to vote with Democrats to
preserve the mandate.
Case Closed
John at the Powerline blog
reminds us that one of Obama's mantras with regard to the Democrats'
health care proposal (whatever it turns out to be) is that if you like
your present health insurance coverage, you will get to keep it.
More recently, when the fraudulent nature of that pledge was revealed,
he changed the formula to "the bill won't require you to lose your
coverage." That's right; it won't require you to lose your
coverage, it will just cause you to lose your coverage.
On
Thursday, as the Senate Finance Committee was marking up the Baucus
version of the bill, Senator Orrin Hatch tested the Democrats' sincerity
on this issue by offering a simple amendment:
The purpose of this amendment is simple.
If the secretary of Health and Human Services certifies that more
than 1 million Americans would lose the current coverage of their
choice because of this bill, then this bill would not go into
effect.
It seems like a very, very simple but perfect
amendment for those of us who have integrity. This amendment is
simply trying to safeguard Obama's pledge to the American people,
you'll get -- that you will get to keep what you have.
You already know, of course, how the amendment fared.
Here is the roll call of the Democrats' votes:
Rockefeller:
No; Conrad: No; Bingaman: No;
Kerry: No (by proxy); Lincoln: No;
Wyden: No; Schumer: No (by proxy);
Stabenow: No; Cantwell: No; Nelson:
No; Menendez: No; Carper: No
(by proxy).
The Democrats are perfectly well aware that millions
of Americans will lose the coverage they have under their proposal,
whatever form it finally takes. In fact, that's their objective:
in the long run -- Obama has said it may take 10 to 20 years -- they
intend to force all of us to lose our private health care and be forced
into a socialized medicine system.
John Stossel Exposes ObamaCare
Stossel Destroys/Pulverizes/Crushes ObamaCare Plan (06:43)
The Public Is Against The Public Option
I have always thought that the members of Congress "represented" the
American People, but they certainly aren't representing us in the matter
of ObamaCare. They are dictating what the American People must
accept, and on their terms.
"Most people don't feel that they
personally have a voice in this debate," said Mollyann Brodie, director
of public opinion and survey research for the Kaiser Family Foundation.
"In fact, 71 percent told us that Congress was paying
too little attention to what people like them were saying."
And the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that
56% are
opposed to the plan.
The Democrats in Congress are clearly
trying to shove ObamaCare down our throats, and against the wishes of
the majority.
Who's for ObamaCare? ACORN, the SEIU, the
tens of millions on welfare and illegals. They're for it.
And the Democrats want to take half-a-trillion dollars from Medicare to
pay for Obama's plan to nationalize the health insurance industry --
those evil profiteers who operate on a
net income, including investment income, that was equivalent to 2%
of premiums in 2007.
The Democrats want you to believe that the
government will provide a higher quality product, at a savings -- that's
rich! -- the government has never done anything cheaper -- ever! -- this
is all about control of 17% of the economy -- the 17% that affects you
most personally -- this is socialism, plain and simple.
If you
are opposed to ObamaCare, you must take the time to write to your
representative in Congress. Tell them that you will actively
campaign against them, financially support their opponents, and lose
your vote, if they continue to force you to accept a health plan that
you reject.
Mail is best. They take a letter seriously.
You can find your congress-critter's
contact information here.
However, fax is second best.
Here are two services that allow 2 FREE faxes per day, or 4 in total.
Please use it:
www.faxzero.com
-- Send a fax for free to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada.
Both services allow you to
create and send a typewritten text fax, or to upload a word processor
document.
No more crying or hand wringing. Take action!
Send these links to your friends, neighbors, and family members.
Props to FReeper Frantzie.
A Communist For ObamaCare
New Zeal blog
comments on Margarida Jorge, the Washington DC National Field
Director for Health Care for America Now-HCan, a nationwide network
based around ACORN, Jobs with Justice and some labor unions, dedicated
to promoting "single payer", or socialized health care.
In this
role, Jorge works with labor, community, faith, grassroots, and
progressive organizations to move Members of Congress to support HCAN’s
vision of health care reform in ways that build power for permanent
local organizations. Previously, Jorge directed Americans for
Health Care, SEIU’s grassroots campaign to win health care for all and
also worked on candidate elections, state legislative fights, and ballot
initiative campaigns in the states.
Margarida Jorge began her
career in the labor movement, where she organized low-income health care
workers in the South and the Midwest for nearly 10 years.
She is
closely associated with the Communist Party USA.
In September
2006 the Peoples Weekly World listed several associates and members of
the Missouri/Kansas club of the Communist Party USA. They were;
Colan Holmes , Glenn Burleigh , Jim Wilkerson , Jocelyn
Cochran-Biggs , Joey Mooney , John Pappademos , Julie Terbrock , Katrina
Molnor , Kaveh Razani , Margarida Jorge , Mary Barbur ,
Nafisa Kabir , Phil Webb , Quincy Boyd , Russ Ford , Steve Johnson ,
Tony Pecinovsky , Yvette Harris , Zenobia Thompson. According to
the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, Jorge was keynote speaker
at a People's Weekly World function in St Louis in April 2009.
Contact for the event was Tony Pecinovsky of the Communist Party USA.
In August 2009 Margarida Jorge wrote an extensive memo to HCAN field
partners offering guidance on how to deal with "right wing" protestors
at health care town hall meetings.
A few months ago, Margarida
Jorge was a low level supporter of the Missouri Communist Party, working
with ACORN, Jobs with Justice and the like. Now she plays a key
role in a nationwide organization at the center of of the national
healthcare debate.
Her job is to defuse the opposition to Obama's
health care reforms by applying the skills and techniques developed by
her Communist Party friends.
ObamaCare Will Erode Medical Quality
Patient advocate Betsy McCaughey intends to let Congress know what
doctors fear most about the healthcare reforms it is considering.
McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York, began gathering
information about physicians' concerns when she convened 16 of them in
January to discuss healthcare.
One of the doctors, kidney
specialist Dr. Richard Amerling of New York’s Beth Israel Medical
Center, detailed his concerns during an exclusive interview with
Newsmax.TV's Ashley Martella: "I think the most scary aspect is
the loss of physician autonomy. Doctors are literally going to be
prevented from treating patients to the best of their ability, to the
best of their judgment by what will become guidelines coming from
central authority, central committees on what are so called best
practices."
Amerling, whose writings have been published in
major newspapers, noted that medicine practiced at its highest level is
very individualized and never "prepackaged."
He also contends
that the reform package has a punitive factor.
"Doctors are
going to be under the gun to conform to these guidelines under penalty
of being paid less. This is the system of payment for performance
which is a way of cost control," Amerling said.
"So the doctors
are going to be brought into a system of rationing of care under the
guise of pay for performance that will lead them to be forced to provide
less than adequate care for some of their patients," Amerling told
Martella.
Medical care will be denied to some of the most
vulnerable patients, particularly the elderly, if proposed reforms
become law, he said.
Morgen Richmond says the public option has been a political football
since early summer. Obama has said more than once that he prefers
it but will not demand it. This was considered capitulation by
many on the left who see the public option as necessary for "real"
reform. Meanwhile, belying the Obama’s public statements, there
are reports that the Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel has been quietly but
firmly twisting arms in the back rooms to insure the public option is
included in the final bill. Even now, pressure is mounting on
Harry Reid to include the public option in the health reform bill he
brings to the Senate floor.
In response to the tumult over what
appears to be a small feature of the effort, more than one critic has
wondered aloud why Democrats don’t just give up on the public option --
which is opposed by every Republican -- in order to reach a more
bipartisan outcome. What exactly is so important about the public
option anyway? And why do Democrats in particular seem so wedded
to the idea?
There is a simple answer to these questions, but
it’s an answer you’ve likely not heard from any institution in the
mainstream media. The truth is that the public plan is a carefully
devised scheme, a sneaky strategy, to deceive American voters.
It’s a political marketing ploy designed to move the nation to a
single-payer system -- like the one in Canada -- over the next decade.
The public option is the Trojan horse. On the outside it’s all
about "choice and competition," but once it has been dragged within the
walls of American medicine it’s true nature will become evident.
By that time, it’ll be too late.
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) has reviewed
H.R. 3962,
the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" that has been introduced by
Nancy Pelosi --all 1990 pages of it. ATR
points out that this gargantuan beast contains thirteen new tax
hikes. Here they all are, with description and page number:
• Employer Mandate Excise Tax
(Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single
employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the
employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages.
Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax
rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent
($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).
• Individual Mandate Surtax (Page
296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay
an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted
gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the
foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.
• Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324):
Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased
from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs),
or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.
• Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs would
face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped).
• Increased Additional Tax on
Non-Qualified HSA Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions
from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10
percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts
(e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)
•
Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating
with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector
participation in delivery of Medicare services.
• Surtax on Individuals and Small
Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI
over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the
itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top
marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45
percent -- a new effective top rate.
•
Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise
tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the
wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical
devices sold to the general public.
•
Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires
that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for
trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small
business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to
exchanges of property.
• Delay
in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years
the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision
from the American Jobs Creation Act
•
Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page
346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking
to avoid double taxation of earnings.
•
Codification of the "Economic Substance Doctrine" (Page 349):
Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other
tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer
was not primarily business-related.
•
Application of "More Likely Than Not" Rule (Page 357):
Publicly-traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts
in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there
is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove
that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been
sufficient to cover final tax liability.
Premiums To Skyrocket Under ObamaCare
David Patten says that several studies indicate consumers' premiums
could more than double next year if healthcare reform takes effect.
The rate hikes stem from the hundreds of billions in proposed fees and
taxes levied on providers.
Skyrocketing insurance premiums will
slam millions of consumers next year because of "indirect taxes"
contained in both the House and Senate versions of healthcare reform,
according to various medical and insurance industry experts.
Healthcare reforms that were supposed to contain costs actually will
cause a sharp hike in premiums, they add. In fact, several studies
indicate consumers' premiums could more than double next year if
healthcare reform takes effect.
"So even though this bill tries
to hide these costs as indirect taxes," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah,
recently told a business symposium, "average Americans who purchase
health plans, take prescription drugs, or use medical devices will end
up footing the bill."
The rate hikes stem from the hundreds of
billions in proposed fees and taxes levied on providers.
Senior Congressional Democrats
told
ABC News today it is highly unlikely that a health care reform bill will
be completed this year, just a week after Barack Obama declared he was
"absolutely confident" he'll be able to sign one by then.
"Getting this done by the by the end of the year is a no-go," a senior
Democratic leadership aide told ABC News. Two other key
Congressional Democrats also told ABC News the same thing.
This
may come as an unwelcome surprise for the White House, where officials
from Obama on down have repeatedly said the health care bill would be
signed into law by the end of the year.
"I am absolutely
confident that we are going to get health care done by the end of this
year, and Nancy Pelosi is just as confident," Obama said Oct. 27 at a
fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Obama To Strip Abortion Language From ObamaCare
White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod suggested Sunday that Obama
will intervene to make sure a controversial amendment restricting
federal funding for abortion coverage is stripped from final health care
reform legislation.
In doing so, Obama would be heeding the call
of abortion rights supporters like Planned Parenthood that have called
the White House their "strongest weapon" in keeping such restrictions
out of the bill.
The abortion amendment was tacked on to the
House health care bill and was a key factor in securing the votes of
moderate Democrats before the bill was approved by a narrow margin last
weekend. The amendment, authored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich.,
went beyond preventing the proposed government-run plan from covering
abortion to restrict federal subsidies from going toward private plans
that offer abortion coverage.
Axelrod said in an interview
Sunday that the amendment changes the "status quo," something the Obama
cannot abide.
"The president has said repeatedly, and he said in
his speech to Congress, that he doesn't believe that this bill should
change the status quo as it relates to the issue of abortion," Axelrod
said. "This shouldn't be a debate about abortion. And he's
going to work with Senate and the House to try and ensure that at the
end of the day, the status quo is not changed ... I believe that there
are discussions ongoing to how to adjust it accordingly."
Last week, the Federal Government Ivory Tower trumpeted important
news. One of its illustrious Task Forces has decided that women in
their 40’s would be the first to experience "Medical Darwinism."
The United States Preventive Services Task Force, comprised of 16
appointees, decreed that:
• Women
in their 40’s no longer need routine yearly mammograms
• Women aged 50-74
are to have mammograms only every other year
• Self breast exams
are no longer to be done at any age
Of note, this Task Force does NOT have even one member
who is a cancer specialist or oncologist, let alone a breast cancer
specialist. This panel based its recommendations NOT on
comprehensive new clinical studies or research, but rather on computer
projections of certain data points. A review of previous
recommendations by the same Federal Government reveals that these
recommendations are diametrically at odds with recommendations made just
six months ago. So, what changed in six months?
The Wall Street Journal
reports that 56% of voters disapprove of Obama's handling of health
care.
John Fund says that on the very morning Senate Democrats
claim to have reached a "broad agreement" on a health care bill that
will allow Americans over age 55 to "buy" into Medicare, a new
Quinnipiac poll shows just how little support the Senate efforts inspire
among the American people.
Voters oppose the bill by 52% to 38%,
and Obama's handling of health care gets even more of a thumbs down,
with 56% of those surveyed registering disapproval. By more than
two to one, Americans say extending health care to the uninsured will
cause their own costs to go up, and a plurality expect quality to
decline as well. By 71% to 21%, voters don't think universal
coverage is worth lower quality of care.
"It's a good thing for
those pushing the health care overhaul in Congress that the American
people don't get a vote. At this time, supporters are down 14
percentage points," says Peter Brown, assistant director of the
Quinnipiac Poll.
The poll also reports that Obama's personal
approval rating has fallen to 46%, an all-time low. Among
independent voters, only 37% now like the job he's doing.
Does ObamaCare Cover Imbecility?
Larry Elder
says that Americans overwhelmingly like their health care and
insurance. While they reject ObamaCare, Obama and Congress insist
on driving it through.
Up to 85% of us already have health
insurance and are satisfied with it. Lacking health insurance is
different from lacking health care -- which, by law, emergency rooms
must supply. Millions go without health insurance by choice.
Deduct from the number without insurance, those who have access to
it via entitlement programs, those temporarily without it while between
jobs, those here illegally and those who could go on their parents'
insurance plans by paying affordable amounts -- and you're down to 10
million to 15 million people without insurance for longer than a year.
This is 5% of Americans.
To address this, Obama and the Democrats
want a complete government takeover of health care. And a takeover
it is. Assuming some kind of plan reaches Obama's desk, it will --
at minimum -- force all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay
fines or worse.
It will force nearly all employers to provide
health insurance or pay fines. It will tell health insurers that
they must accept applicants with pre-existing illnesses and restrict
their ability to "discriminate" based on factors like sex and age.
Incredibly, Obama and Congress tell us that our economic recovery
hinges on "health care reform" and that they can achieve it -- providing
millions of people with health insurance estimated to cost a trillion
dollars in the first decade -- while simultaneously reducing the
deficit.
The plan anticipates cutting hundreds of billions from
the popular Medicare programs, whose beneficiaries vote in numbers
greater than any other age group. Doctors and hospitals already
complain that Medicare reimbursements fall short of costs, let alone
profits. Good luck with that.
"Health care reform" achieves
its deficit-reducing magic by collecting taxes in the early years --
building up money -- while paying out very little. Only after the
first four years does money go out. It also forces states to pick
up part of the tab. So, voila, it actually reduces the deficit --
at least in the first decade. Then what?
The Congressional
Budget Office -- in cost estimates full of caveats, conditions and
on-the-one-hands -- says that it could/might/may reduce the deficit in
the second and third decades, too. Again, this assumes continued
cuts in doctor and hospital reimbursements.
Despite the White
House photo-op of docs in their white frocks, most physicians oppose
ObamaCare. They resent further government supervision and control
over their practice. An IBD poll found that 65% "oppose" ObamaCare
and that 45% would consider taking early retirement or leaving their
practice if the bill went through.
Just Got This Email
A reader watched
this interview
of Jim Demint on O’Reilly last night and was deeply concerned, not so
much about Franken dissing Lieberman, but about comments Jim Demint
made. About 5:30 into the interview he talks about the process of
the Dems writing the health care bill. It is extremely disturbing
to her, that Obama's staff is involved in writing a Senate bill while
Republican Senators are locked out.
Demint: We’ve been debating for two or
three weeks now but they’ve been developing the real bill behind
closed doors and Harry Reid and his office…
O'Reilly:
Who is they? Harry Reid and who else is in there?
Demint: His staff, the president's staff and they’re
bringing different members in, seeing what they need, threatening to
take their air bases, giving money to Louisiana. It’s become a
bag of, I think, political promises and bribes. I mean I’m
afraid I’m very cynical about the process. A bill of this
magnitude and importance should be out for weeks before we have to
vote on it. But they’re going to bring it out in the next day
or two and Harry Reid will immediately file cloture to end the
debate as soon as we see the bill. So we’ll have a couple of
days to decide about it and it takes weeks to study these bills when
they’re that big. Bill, this is outrageous. It’s not
anything like a real democratic process here. I frankly think
it verges on tyranny. I just hope Americans will look up from
their Christmas shopping and see what’s going on here.
O'Reilly: Alright, so you haven’t seen the final bill.
It’s changed from the initial 2000 bill that was a couple of weeks
arrived upon. You’re saying that it’s Harry Reid and some of
the President’s guys are behind closed doors doing this, that and
the other thing. They’re going to throw it out there over the
week end to you. You expect to get that big package, this
thing, over the weekend. Is that what you expect?
Demint: Yeah, the next day or two and when we say we want
to take a day or two to read it, they’re going to say Republicans
are obstructing again, as they’ve been saying all along.
Any 5th grader knows that the Constitution declares
the separation of powers, The Executive, the Legislative and the
Judicial. Why is the Executive Branch involved in this process,
designated only to the Legislative Branch? This is clearly
unconstitutional! Is anyone in Congress going to protest this usurpation
of their Constitutional responsibility? Are Americans going to look up
from their Christmas shopping to offer support to our Representatives
and Senators and demand that Obama get his hands of Congress! Are we on
the road to becoming a dictatorship? Where are the Patriots on this one?
ObamaCare Totters On The Precipice
The Washington Examiner
says Obamacrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are peddling the
notion that passage of ObamaCare is a stone-cold inevitability.
Don't believe it for a second, if for no other reason than the fact that
nothing the Senate has done on its version of ObamaCare in recent weeks
actually amounts to a legislative hill of beans. All of the sound
and fury about the latest "compromise" and amendments being introduced,
then defeated or adopted, means nothing. In fact, if 60 senators
showed up at noon on the Senate floor and demanded a final vote, it
couldn't be done. There's no bill to vote on, never mind that it
would have to clear multiple procedural hurdles first.
As Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said, "They want us to vote
on a bill that no one outside the majority leader's conference room has
even seen. That's right. The final bill we'll vote on isn't
even the one we've had on the floor. It's the deal Democrat
leaders have been trying to work out in private. That's what they
intend to bring to the floor and force a vote on before Christmas.
So this entire process is essentially a charade."
Even if such a
vote happens in the Senate, a Senate-House conference committee will
have to be appointed and convened. There, many of the battles that
have so entangled the Senate will be revisited, as well as the multiple
substantial differences between the respective ObamaCare versions
approved by the two chambers. So there is no guarantee that a
viable conference report will be produced. If that hurdle is
overcome, the Senate and House will have to hold yet another vote on the
conference report before the measure can be sent to Obama for signature.
Oh, and don't forget that ObamaCare isn't the only issue the Senate
must address in coming days: The defense appropriation, Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the debt ceiling increase must
also be voted on before the Senate can adjourn for the holidays.
In other words, contrary to the whistling-in-the-dark Obamacrats and
their enablers in the liberal media, there is nothing inevitable about
ObamaCare being approved by the Senate before Santa Claus hitches up his
reindeer and takes off from the North Pole on his annual world tour.
Still hovering over the Senate is that magic number of 60. The
inevitability mythmakers would have us believe that Sen. Joe Lieberman,
I-Conn., is the last remaining Senate holdout on the road to 60 votes.
That will come as news to half a dozen other Senate Democrats, most
notably Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
ObamaCare appears to have reached its high-water mark and has nowhere to
go now but down.
SOLD: Sen. Nelson’s Bribe
Big Government says -- We’ll be blunt. The "health care reform"
legislation under consideration in the Senate is the most corrupt piece
of legislation in our nation’s history. Yes, we understand that is
a strong statement and there have been other abominations throughout our
nation’s life. But never before did corrupt legislation threaten
to radically and forever change the lives of every American.
For
days, Senator Nelson
insisted that his pressing concern was abortion. He didn't
like the language in the Reid legislation that would effectively allow
taxpayer subsidies to flow to insurance plans covering elective
abortions. He told his colleagues and his home state pro-life
supporters that he wouldn't settle for anything less than Hyde-like
language, such as was successfully pushed by Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak
in the House.
It appears, however, that Senator Nelson's price
has been met -- beginning in 2017, the federal government will pay
100 percent of the costs for new Medicaid enrollees in Nebraska.
No other state gets such treatment. You have to wonder what
senators from other states (and their constituents) will think of such a
deal. At least Senator Nelson can say he didn't sell out his
pro-life concerns on the cheap.
Exhibit A is the outright
bribe extracted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Corn Huckster State) from Sen.
Harry Reid. As a result of Nelson’s performance in his role of
Hamlet in the health care deliberations, we will have two health care
systems in this country; one for Nebraska and one for the other 49
states.
In its quixotic attempt to ensure everyone has health
insurance, the Reid legislation greatly expands Medicaid eligibility.
Because Medicaid is a program whose costs are split between the federal
and state governments, this expansion in eligibility raise costs
dramatically for states. States will be forced to either raise
taxes or cut other services to accommodate the forced increase in
Medicaid spending.
Unless that state is Nebraska.
Here
is the text for Nelson’s bribe. Under this language the federal
government will forever cover the costs of Medicaid expansion in
Nebraska. Taxpayers in every other state will forever be
responsible for the expanded Medicaid program in Nebraska.
Nelson
secured full federal funding for his state to expand Medicaid
coverage to all individuals below 133 percent of the federal poverty
level. Other states must pay a small portion of the additional
cost. He won concessions for qualifying nonprofit insurers and for
MediGap providers from a new insurance tax. He also was able to
roll back cuts to health savings accounts.
$100,000,000 For a
"Health Care Facility -- At A Public Research University In The United
States That Contains A State’s (Nebraska)
Sole Public Academic Medical And Dental School." "(a) APPROPRIATION. --
There are authorized to be appropriated, and there are appropriated to
the Department of Health and Human Services, $100,000,000 for fiscal
year 2010, to remain available for obligation until September 30, 2011,
to be used for debt service on, or direct construction or renovation of,
a health care facility that provides research, inpatient tertiary care,
or outpatient clinical services. Such facility shall be affiliated
with an academic health center at a public research university in the
United States that contains a State’s sole public academic medical and
dental school." (Manager’s Amendment To H.R. 3590, Pg. 328)
Outrageous doesn’t do justice to describe this situation. Sen.
Nelson also secured an exemption from a new insurance tax for non-profit
companies in his state. Mutual of Omaha and Nebraska’s Blue
Cross/Blue Shield won’t have to pay a tax other companies will be
required to pay.
There is next to nothing honest about the entire
health care debate anymore.
The Wall Street Journal says ObamaCare is a bill so reckless, that
it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.
And tidings of comfort and joy from Harry Reid too. The Senate
Majority Leader has decided that the last few days before Christmas are
the opportune moment for a narrow majority of Democrats to stuff
ObamaCare through the Senate to meet an arbitrary White House deadline.
Barring some extraordinary reversal, it now seems as if they have the 60
votes they need to jump off this cliff, with one-seventh of the economy
in tow.
Obama promised a new era of transparent good government,
yet on Saturday morning Sen. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the
world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and
replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together
in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even
bothering to pretend to care what's in it, not that any Senator had the
chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1
a.m. this morning. After procedural motions that allow for no
amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24.
Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce.
The rushed,
secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced
on the country shows that "reform" has devolved into the raw exercise of
political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the
American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in
health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so
large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance
Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal
is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and
clean up the mess later.
FOXNews.com is reporting that organizations and lawmakers opposed to
the health care reform package are getting their legal briefs in a
bunch, threatening to challenge the constitutionality of the sweeping
overhaul should it make its way to Obama's desk.
Republicans
have agreed to allow the Democratic-led Senate to move up the time for a
final vote to 8 a.m. Thursday so that lawmakers and their staff can go
home for Christmas. But GOP supporters aren't backing down on
their threats to put a stop to the legislation using whatever legal
means possible.
Two key issues seem to be attracting the bulk of
the legal threats: a mandate for individuals to purchase health
insurance and the special treatment that states like Nebraska are
getting in the bill.
On the first issue, Sen. John Ensign,
R-Nev., on Tuesday renewed the call to examine the constitutionality of
whether the federal government can require Americans to purchase a
product. "I don't believe Congress has the legal or moral
authority to force this mandate on its citizens," Ensign said in a
statement, raising what's known as a "constitutional point of order."
Such procedural challenges are rare and typically lead to a vote.
The non-profit Fund for Personal Liberty, as well as a
Virginia-based group called the 10th Amendment Foundation, already have
threatened to file suit in federal court over this issue if the health
care bill passes.
The Constitution allows Congress to tax,
borrow, spend, declare war, raise an army and regulate commerce, among
other things. Proponents of the insurance mandate point to the Commerce
Clause in arguing that Congress is within its rights to require health
insurance and dismiss such potential legal challenges.
But foes
say the across-the-board requirement is too broad.
Mark Tapscott says it looks like the steadily growing
list of constitutional, ethical and political outrages that constitute
the Harry Reid version of ObamaCare is sparking a rebellion in the
states, as AP reports South Carolina's attorney general plans to
investigate the vote-buying that surrounded the proposal in the Senate
majority leader's office.
According to AP, South Carolina's Henry
McMaster is being joined by the attorneys general of Michigan and
Washington state in a suit to determine the constitutionality of the
ObamaCare proposal. Their initiative was prompted by a request
from South Carolina's two senators, Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint, both
Republicans.
Attorneys-general in at least four other states are
also considering joining McMasters, according to the AP.
Graham
has been all over cable news today visibly angry about the vote-buying
by Reid that secured the votes of Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana,
Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, as well as
possibly other senators as yet unknown.
DeMint has also been
active, especially on the issue of the Reid amendment's provision
seeking to bar future congresses from changing even a single word of
Section 3403 on the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (IMAB).
Meanwhile, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
hysterically
referred to opponents of ObamaCare as, "...nearly hysterical at the
very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the
fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan
support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama
should exist."
Whitehouse is
just another progressive who sees conservatives as the enemy, while
completely ignoring these guys.
Obama Lap Dogs To The Very End
Investor'e Business Daily
says that following Senate passage of the most
destructive legislation in U.S. history, the White House press secretary
substituted a stand-up comedy act in place of a briefing -- and no
reporter seemed to mind.
With the thousands of pages passed by the U.S. Senate at 1 a.m.
Monday available online, you'd think the press corps would have some
questions for Obama's spokesman about the Democrats' health care plans
during the first White House press briefing since the vote, and also the
last of the year. Instead, what we got from America's intrepid
practitioners of First Amendment freedoms was a discussion about "a pink
polka-dot shirt and a checkered tie."
A press conference that began with White House press secretary Robert
Gibbs announcing that since "last week we did a sort of happy hour
briefing," he thought "today we'd do sort of a brunch briefing," got
more trivial -- and insulting by the minute.
"What color are your socks today?" Gibbs asked one member of
the press corps. Then it was on to the reporter "with the snappy
blue tie and hopefully darker socks," as Gibbs described his attire.
Not long after that came a question that must have kept C-SPAN
junkies on the edge of their seats: "Does the president support
Senator Akaka's native Hawaiian government reorganization act, creating
a native Hawaiian government within the state of Hawaii?"
There were jokes about cell phones going off -- "Is somebody ordering
a pizza?" Gibbs asked -- and of equipment being noisily dropped --
"Careful ... this room isn't paid for!" said Gibbs. "This is just
a rental!" But there were no serious questions about what is
contained in Congress' worst-ever piece of legislation, rammed through
in the middle of the night on a party-line vote.
What, for instance, does Obama think about Democrats adding
last-minute language that changes rules so parts of their bill may not
be repealed by majority vote in future Congresses?
Republican Sen. Jim DeMint wonders if such a provision is even
constitutional, since it affects "the fundamental purpose of Senate
rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the
minority or of future Congresses."
What does Obama, who campaigned on "change we can believe in," think
of the buying and selling of swing votes with a fortune in taxpayer
money? And when Gibbs asserted that the legislation would "help
with the skyrocketing cost of premiums," why did no reporter point out
that independent studies warn that ObamaCare itself will raise premiums
by thousands of dollars?
ObamaCare Imposes $15,000 Fee On Middle Class Families
CNSNews.com reports that the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis
of the final Senate health care bill indicates it would slap a mandatory
annual fee of about $15,000 on middle-class families that earn an annual
income greater than 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($88,200
for a family of four) and are not provided with health insurance by
their employer.
On Dec. 19, the CBO sent a letter to Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) analyzing the fiscal impact of the
bill the Senate is poised to vote on before Christmas.
The CBO
analysis cites five basic facts about the bill that acting together
would deal a devastating financial blow to many middle class families if
the bill is enacted and enforced as written. Here are these facts:
Fact 1: You will be forced to buy health insurance.
Fact 2: You will be eligible for a federal subsidy to help you buy
health insurance, but only if you earn less than 400 percent of the
poverty level ($88,200 for a family of four), your employer does not
offer you coverage, and you purchase a government-approved plan in a
government-regulated insurance exchange.
Fact 3: Your
employer will not be required to offer you coverage, and will face a
maximum fine of $750 per worker per year if it does not.
Fact 4:
Your insurance provider will face new federal mandates that will
increase its cost for any plan it offers you.
Fact 5: Your
family insurance plan -- if your employer drops your coverage and you
are forced to buy it on your own -- will cost about $15,000 per year
when the legislation is in full force in 2016.
Rasmussen Reports -- 61% say it’s time for Congress to drop
ObamaCare.
Sixty-one percent (61%) of U.S. voters
say Congress should drop health care reform and focus on more
immediate ways to improve the economy and create jobs.
Fifty-nine
percent (59%) say given the country’s current economic situation, Obama
should wait on health care reform until the economy improves.
Fox News -- Obama
pledges he won't "walk away" from ObamaCare.
On Friday, Obama
pledged not to "walk away" from health care reform, telling a crowd in
the Cleveland suburbs that he's still committed to driving down health
care costs despite the crippling effect his party's loss in the
Massachusetts Senate election had on the Democrats' bill.
Obama
strongly defended the unpopular actions he has taken against banks and
insurers and the nationalization of automakers. Such measures have
fueled anger across the country about growing government intervention
and ballooning deficits to help Wall Street while many throughout the
country remain jobless and struggling.
More evidence that Obama is
following Alinsky's paradigm, and ignoring the wishes of the American
People. Yesterday, he said,
"Let me tell you, so long as I have the privilege of serving as your
president, I'll never stop fighting for you. I'll take my lumps,
too. I'll never stop fighting..."
He's going to continue
with his agenda and direct the "voter anger" he discovered in
Massachusetts against the "fat cat bankers." Obamunism depends on
the existence of an enemy -- the bourgeoisie -- specifically, in this
case, the "fat cat bankers" of Wall Street.
Update: The global banking industry was
thrown into turmoil on Thursday after Obama, responding to his bogus
"public rage" over the financial crisis -- which he created -- the rage
and the crisis, both -- proposed the most far-reaching overhaul of Wall
Street since the 1930s.
In the middle of the "defeat in Massachusetts," Obama is making a
move on Wall Street.
