The End

Well, it is the end and The moment has been Prepared for.

My Prediction: Supreme Court Justice Eric Holder today helped the Left disband The Constitution of The US to be replaced by the Orwellian Diversity, Fairness, and Inclusion Contract on America.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died, the San Antonio Express-News reported on Saturday afternoon. He was 79.

Scalia passed away in his sleep while on a hunting trip in Marfa, Texas. Foul play is not suspected.

But the Foul stench of Sith Lord Obama is going to smell up the place for generations.

But Paul Ryan and The Republican will stop him….Really? If that’s our only hope then we need help, serious help.

No, it’s campaign season, and Hillary Clinton is fired up. Unfortunately, she’s fired up about who should nominate a judge to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court. Harry Reid and his coalition, which very likely includes the president himself, are urging President Obama to put up a nominee as soon as possible, while Mitch McConnell and crew maintain that the next president should make the decision.

Clinton has weighed in, and, as usual, the “progressive who gets things done” takes a shot at conservatives.

Statement on the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: pic.twitter.com/xazj9dDd5c

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton)

Mind you, she NOTHING BUT PARTISAN Herself.

Talk about NEVER LET A CRISIS GO TO WASTE!!  I’m surprised they haven’t got a nominee already (hence the Holder allusion at the beginning of this blog) for entirely partisan reasons.

And we all know how much the Left respects The Constitution. 🙂

Wait…why is Clearance Thomas trending??????????

— LMR (@LilMissRightie) February 14, 2016

Liberals wishing him dead. That’s where we are. Smdh https://t.co/UJJ6MfgiDk

— Kathleen McKinley (@KatMcKinley) February 14, 2016

It’s certainly no surprise that the No. 1 trending topic in the United States tonight is #Scalia, but why is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas trending just a couple of steps behind?

The Liberals are on Death Watch. They are praying as hard as their non-secular hearts can go for all the Conservatives to just DIE!

Leftists, ever tolerant, loving assholes that they are, want him to die this weekend too.

— Amy Curtis (@moderncomments)

They have your best interests and the interests of The Founding Fathers and the Constitution at their core. 🙂

Their care and compassion overflow this Valentine’s Day with Love. 🙂

The love of Death to your enemies.

This is going to sound cold, but one down, one to go. Uncle Ruckkus (Clarence Thomas) needs to go next. Then our country can start healing.

— George freeman (@Numbers28)

Spread the Love. Here Comes Big Brother to give you Bear Hug. After all, The Constitution and Conservatives are the evil that must be exterminated for real compassion, caring and sensitivity to take over.:)

Now we just need the Grim Reaper to take out Clarence Thomas and Mitch McConnell and there’ll be #DancingInTheStreets!

— Rosetta_GhoSTONED ;D (@RedRoseQueen1)

So a moment of silence for the end. She was a grand country, but the rot is nearly complete.

Conservatives will be hunted down and “re-educated”.

The End is nigh.

(if you’re expecting the Establish Republicans or Paul Ryan to save you…Why?)

United We Fall

President Obama repeatedly promised that his signature health law, the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, would reduce insurance premiums by $2,500 for the typical family.

ObamaCare: United Healthcare’s surprise warning that it may scrap participation in federal health care exchanges is more than bad news for consumer choice. It’s a broader sign of an unsustainable system.

The nation’s largest health insurance provider surprised the markets Thursday by saying losses from its 550,000 individual ObamaCare exchange enrollments were sharply cutting its bottom line. That’s notable because ObamaCare exchange participation only forms a small slice of the $105 billion company by market capitalization.

Yet it was enough to make the giant company and all the value it creates throughout its many operations suffer enough to trigger, as IBD market reporter Jed Graham wrote, “a surge of red ink.”

The company forecast $425 million less revenue in the fourth quarter and cut its full-year 2015 earnings-per-share forecast to $6 from $6.25-$6.35.

Not surprisingly, its stock fell 5.6% by the close of trading Thursday, and other health care and hospital companies such as Aetna, Anthem, Tenet, Cigna, Humana and HCA took similar hits.

“We see no data pointing to improvement,” UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Helmsley said on a conference call. Patients, he explained, were using their plans more than the company had anticipated and, worse still, were dropping coverage when they got well.

Bad as that is for company profits, it’s a predictable outcome given the structure of the law and what it permits.

What Helmsley described was a company caught up in the classic “death spiral” that IBD and reputable economists have been warning about: Insurance policy sales going in the main to the sickest patients who use the most health care services, while the high prices of the larded-up government-mandated packages continue to drive off younger, healthier consumers.

DOH!  It’s not like it was predictable or anything… 🙂

In short, the ObamaCare master plan of having young and healthy consumers subsidize the oldest, sickest patients isn’t working as the White House’s central planners and self-proclaimed experts claimed.

<<chuckle>>

Not that the ideologically rigid Obama and The Democrats will care. They will continue to hammer on it until you give in to government control of who lives and who dies and the Insurance companies go bankrupt leaving only the government left.

That’s Democrat “compassion” for ya… 🙂

What’s striking here is that UnitedHealth is no tiny startup ship with a narrow margin of error riding the big ObamaCare regulatory waves. It’s the biggest of the big, a conglomerate that’s the product of the consolidation of the industry — Anthem and Cigna, UnitedHealth and HCA, HCA and private investors — that was supposed to enable the sector to absorb the blow of higher costs of insuring more customers and still continue to do well.

That’s not happening.

What’s more, UnitedHealth was in the ObamaCare exchanges for only a year, during a window of time when the government was supposed to cushion insurers against losses in the ObamaCare transition. The cushion ends next year, leaving companies on their own.

(Insert “Jaws” theme music here) 🙂

Will smaller health care companies really be able to make a profit in an atmosphere that even UnitedHealth found impossible to sustain a profit in? There’s plenty of reason to wonder, as the markets did Thursday. (IBD)

“We cannot sustain these losses,” CEO Stephen Hemsley said in an investor call Thursday morning. “We can’t really subsidize a marketplace that doesn’t appear at the moment to be sustaining itself.”

Several nonprofit insurance cooperatives that were supposed to compete for customers on the exchanges have folded. Meanwhile, some big publicly traded insurance companies, including Anthem, Aetna, Cigna and Humana, say they are enrolling fewer people than expected or even losing money.

A recent report by McKinsey & Co. found that the industry lost a total of $2.5 billion, or $163 per customer, in the individual market.

Insurance companies have had trouble attracting healthy customers to the exchanges to purchase their insurance products, many of which have deductibles of thousands of dollars.

The industry’s troubles are reflected in the insurance products being offered on the exchanges during the current enrollment period, reports The Wall Street Journal:

“For these plans, which will take effect in 2016, many insurers have raised premiums in order to cover the medical costs of enrollees, which have run higher than many companies originally projected, fueling this year’s losses. Insurers have also shifted to offering more limited choices of health-care providers”

Still, no other big insurer has signaled its intention to leave the exchanges. (NPR)

YET. But it will come. But don’t worry Obama and The Democrats are from the Government and they are here to help you! 🙂

The average premium for medium-benefit plans offered to 40-year-old non-smokers will rise 10.1% in 2016, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

 

 

 

The Secret Pork

Then Speaker of The House Pelosi: “[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Now that someone is opening this can of compressed worms, the stink bugs are escaping too.

Investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee have discovered that a little-known provision in the national health care law has allowed the federal government to pay nearly $2 billion to unions, state public employee systems, and big corporations to subsidize health coverage costs for early retirees.  At the current rate of payment, the $5 billion appropriated for the program could be exhausted well before it is set to expire.

It’s a waiver slush fund BUILT INTO the Law. Gee, now that’s confidence in your legislation.

Unless, of course, the ultimate goal was not “to insure everyone”. 🙂

The discovery came on the eve of an oversight hearing focused on the workings of an obscure agency known as CCIO — the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.  CCIO, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, oversees the implementation of Section 1102 of the Affordable Care Act, which created something called the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program.  The legislation called for the program to spend a total of $5 billion, beginning in June 2010 — shortly after Obamacare was passed — and ending on January 1, 2014, as the system of national health care exchanges was scheduled to go into effect.

The idea was to subsidize unions, states, and companies that had made commitments to provide health insurance for workers who retired early —  between the ages of 55 and 64, before they were eligible for Medicare. According to a new report prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services, “People in the early retiree age group…often face difficulties obtaining insurance in the individual market because of age or chronic conditions that make coverage unaffordable or inaccessible.”  As a result, fewer and fewer organizations have been offering coverage to early retirees; the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program was designed to subsidize such coverage until the creation of Obamacare’s health-care exchanges.

The program began making payouts on June 1, 2010.  Between that date and the end of 2010, it paid out about $535 million dollars.  But according to the new report, the rate of spending has since increased dramatically, to about $1.3 billion just for the first two and a half months of this year. At that rate, it could burn through the entire $5 billion appropriation as early as 2012.

Where is the money going?  According to the new report, the biggest single recipient of an early-retiree bailout is the United Auto Workers, which has so far received $206,798,086.  Other big recipients include AT&T, which received $140,022,949, and Verizon, which received $91,702,538.  General Electric, in the news recently for not paying any U.S. taxes last year, received $36,607,818.  General Motors, recipient of a massive government bailout, received $19,002,669.

The program also paid large sums of money to state governments.  The Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio received $70,557,764; the Teacher Retirement System of Texas received $68,074,118; the California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, received $57,834,267; the Georgia Department of Community Health received $57,936,127; and the state of New York received $47,869,044.  Other states received lesser but still substantial sums.

But payments to individual states were dwarfed by the payout to the auto workers union, which received more than the states of New York, California, and Texas combined.  Other unions also received government funds, including the United Food and Commercial Workers, the United Mine Workers, and the Teamsters.

And Unions make the the majority of people getting the over 1,000 waivers from ObamaCare.

The UAW, which ended up with a majority share of Chrysler (and much of GM) stock after it went bankrupt – they were paid before bond and shareholders – made out like bandits but The Democrats felt the need to pork them anyhow.

But don’t worry, there’s nothing corrupt going on, that dead fish smell is just your imagination. 😦

Republican investigators count the early-retiree program among those that would never have become law had Democrats allowed more scrutiny of Obamacare at the time it was pushed through the House and Senate.  Since then, Republicans have kept an eye on the program but were not able to pry any information out of the administration until after the GOP won control of the House last November.  Now, finally, they are learning what’s going on.

It comes back to the question: If this law was so fantastic, why all the waivers, cons,pork, and Machiavellian maneuvers to avoid it for your political apparatchiks??

Hmm…. Maybe they they knew that Obamacare, the epitome of socialism, and the redistribution of wealth, does not and cannot work.  It never has and it never will.  This is why they cheat the system.

But since they already have a sense of “entitlement” to everyone else’s money and craving for power that is insatiable I suppose we should expect nothing less.

Now that’s “Winning the Future”. 🙂

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”–George Orwell

Happy Birthday ObamaCare

Happy Birthday, ObamaCare. Six months old today and raising the cost of medical care, restricting patient options and causing employers to drop workers three years before even being fully implemented.

Congratulations!!

Steve Kelly

Take Minnesotan Gail C., who hoped to offset a monthly premium increase by raising her deductible. Instead, her insurer advised that such a change would not comply with ObamaCare provisions. She could make the adjustment but would no longer have guaranteed rates and could face penalties for exercising what used to be her freedom of choice.

When Conservatives for Patients’ Rights launched in February 2009, we called for patient-centered, free-market health care reform based on Four Pillars — choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility. Instead, ObamaCare removes choice from patients and doctors, strangles market competition, provides no accountability from government and relegates personal responsibility — and control — to the ash heap of history.

Worse, it includes purchase mandates forcing individuals to buy health care — and employers to provide it — or face stiff fines.

Citing constitutional and statutory grounds, 43 states have now either joined Florida’s lawsuit to oppose ObamaCare, instituted their own legal challenges, filed legislation against coverage mandates or have citizen initiatives in play.

As far back as June 2009, national polls showed that Americans opposed key provisions by more than 55%. A poll taken by CNN hours before the March 2010 vote found that the majority of Americans did not support the bill. Sixty-two percent felt it would increase health care costs, and 70% thought it would swell the deficit. They were right.

The will of the people remains clear. An August poll by the liberal-leaning Kaiser Family Foundation found that 48% of independent voters held unfavorable views, and a recent Rasmussen poll shows that 61% of likely voters and 74% of “mainstream” voters openly favor repeal. With $500 billion in Medicare cuts heading to states and $600 billion in taxes and penalties aimed at consumers and businesses, Americans know that ObamaCare is a train wreck.

Government actuaries are predicting that health care costs could soon rise 20%, faster than if government had done nothing. A Congressional Budget Office analysis released just before the March vote indicated that premiums could double in six years.

Americans don’t need a 14-digit calculator to predict what happens when insurers must immediately take all comers to coverage — even those who got sick yesterday — without higher premiums. Restrictions make private coverage unsustainable. Which, of course, was always the endgame of ObamaCare.

As midterm elections approach, voters’ aversion to ObamaCare is apparent. Many House and Senate Members who voted for the plan are preparing for pink slips. In Arkansas, 64% opposed the “yea” vote of incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln, and 61% approved the “nea” of GOP Rep. John Boozman, who is challenging her. Boozman leads Lincoln by 17 points.

While many incumbents lost to primary challengers, the 34 House Democrats who voted against ObamaCare survived. And it’s impossible to find pro-ObamaCare references in any campaign advertising.

More significant than actual election results, these prevailing political trends demonstrate the resurgent will of the American people. All is not lost; that which has been done can be undone.

In early 2009, CPR met with the editorial board of a major national newspaper. After hearing our Four Pillars and mission to oppose government control of health care and the public option in particular, board members said we were wasting time and money as the debate would be over and government health care passed within 90 days.

Fifteen months later, ObamaCare barely passed, and only when conservative Democrats caved to leadership pressure and the offer of tantalizing political goodies. And it passed without the public option, previously considered a given. Such miscalculations show political elites to be fundamentally at odds with values like choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility.

The people were right last March and are still right today. Because groups like Conservatives for Patients’ Rights embraced real, constructive reform, ObamaCare was passed over the objections of a public educated on its details and the consequences for American health care. Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have needed to pass it to know what was in it, but America didn’t.

The people didn’t want it then, don’t want it now and have always had the power to go back. They want patient-centered reforms that lower cost and expand choice without government control. And they want Obama-Care repealed. Americans will not cease efforts to that end, and no elected official is safe until it’s done. In this republic, the will of the people ultimately prevails. (IBD)

There is ample evidence to show that ObamaCare will cost jobs, raise health care costs and saddle future generations with crippling debt.

But don’t you dare blame the increases in premiums and costs on Obamacare!

Straight from the Horse’s Mouth, or in this case a Jackass (Donkey).

HHS Secretary Sebelius has already threatened them, but now Sen. Max “I never read the bill” Baucus (and Senate Health Care Bill author) is threatening them.

NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Two Democratic U.S. senators are demanding more transparency about premium increases from health insurers and warning them against blaming higher rates on a newly passed reform law. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana and Commerce Committee Chairman John Rockefeller of West Virginia said they sent a letter to the five largest health insurers by enrollment registering their concerns over increases for next year.

“I want health insurance companies to be transparent and honest when increasing premiums  (You First. :))— and health care reform is simply not to blame,” Rockefeller said in a statement.

“Health plans will continue to do everything they can to implement the new law in a way that minimizes disruption and keeps coverage as affordable as possible for individuals, families and employers,” Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans organization, said in a statement. “Political attacks won’t do anything to make coverage more affordable for working families and small businesses that are struggling in a slow economy,” Zirkelbach said.

But Politicial attacks is all the Democrats now how to do. Especially 40 days from an election it’s all they know how to do.

“Health insurers should be transparent about the assumptions they use to arrive at their premium increases,” the senators wrote. “If an insurer thinks it can blame the enactment of the Affordable Care Act for its rising premiums, it is surely mistaken.”

Don’t blame the actual cause, because that’s not politically advantageous to us. So we want you to lie, just like we do and sugar coat it, suck it up, and give them the Orwellian Bovine Fecal Matter that we have been shoveling in their direction for 2 years.

Or at the very least shut up and do as you are told.

Health Czarina and Grand Vizier, the Great and Powerful OZ Says so or else we will bring about our terrible wrath upon you! 🙂

You wouldn’t want to be on their Enemies List now would you? 🙂

ObamaCare gives Ms. Sebelius’s regulators the power to define “unreasonable” premium hikes, which will mean whatever they decide it will mean later this fall. She promised to keep a list of insurers “with a record of unjustified rate increases” and then to bar them from ObamaCare’s subsidized “exchanges” when they come on line in 2014. In other words, insurers must accept price controls now or face the retribution of a de facto ban on selling their products to consumers four years from now.

This is nasty stuff and an obvious attempt to shift political blame for rising insurance costs before the election. It’s also an early sign of life under ObamaCare, when all health-care decisions are political and the bureaucrats decide who can charge how much for a service or product.

Democrats built this system and they now own it politically. The least they could do is take credit for its consequences. (WSJ)

Senator Max Baucus recently admitted that he never read the Obamacare legislation.  But that hasn’t stopped him from trying to re-write it after the fact, asserting that Congress intended to give people even less choice of private health plans than described in the bill!

This overreach should encourage states that are trying to block Obamacare: It’s going to be even worse than we initially thought.

Obamacare reduces choice of health plans by giving government the power to control the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) – the amount of dollars an insurer spends on medical care divided by the total premiums. Under Obamacare, policies that cover large businesses will have to achieve an MLR of 85 percent, while those for small businesses and individuals will have to achieve an MLR of 80 percent. This sounds simple but leaves many issues unresolved.

An important one is the treatment of taxes: Taxes are not medical care, but nor are they under health plans’ control. So, Obamacare excludes taxes from total costs used to calculate the MLR. Senator Baucus leads a group of senators who now assert that what they meant to pass was a bill that exempted some taxes from health plans’ MLR calculations, but not corporate income taxes.

If it prevails, Baucus’ flawed notion will lead to an immediate reduction of choice of health plans.  Suppose two insurers of the same size compete in a region’s large-group market. They earn premiums of $1 million each. They each spend $850,000 on medical claims, thereby achieving an MLR of 85 percent. One insurer is for-profit, earning a profit of 4 percent ($40,000), and pays combined federal and state corporate income tax of 45 percent ($18,000). Its MLR automatically shrinks to 83.5 percent and Obamacare shuts it down.

Even without Baucus’ newly invented interpretation, the MLR is deadly for increasingly popular consumer-directed plans. Suppose a traditional policy costs $4,000 and spends $3,400 on patient care, for an MLR of 85.00. With the consumer-directed policy, the patient controls $800 more of the medical spending than with the traditional policy, through a higher deductible, and his premium goes down by $800. In this case the MLR goes down to 81.25 ($2,600/$3,200). There is no real difference, but the accounting looks worse, and Obamacare shuts it down. (In fact, consumer-driven plans have lower total costs than in this simple example, because cutting out the middleman and giving more health dollars to patients to control themselves motivates them to get better value for money.)

MLRs are also irrelevant because the insured and their employers tend to choose health plans based on other criteria—likely invisible to politicians and bureaucrats. Plans with relatively low MLRs have increased market share in the last few years.

There is no doubt: Obamacare will severely reduce Americans’ choice of health plans. Fortunately, states are using a number of tools to resist Obamacare, until it is repealed. To impose its anti-choice regulations, the federal law relies on state-based “exchanges” that would choose health insurance for their citizens.

Tim Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota, has signed an executive order forbidding state bureaucrats from even applying for federal grants to set up an “exchange” to limit people’s choice of health plan. As Obamacare deploys its regulatory regime, other governors are likely to follow his lead.

So Happy Birthday to the worst political stink bomb in American History.

Covering Their Fannie (and Freddie)

Keep in Mind that the Financial Reform Bill, which is now in some trouble, is written largely by Sen. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. The people who brought you the subprime mess to begin with their insistence on subprime mortgages for people who couldn’t even afford those.

But we were discriminating against the poor!

Oh No! We can’t have that!

Everyone must be equal! 🙂

Subprime Scandal: Missing from stories about finance reform is what Democrats left out of it: a fix for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which continue to bleed billions.

Nor has it been explained why the two mortgage giants at the heart of the housing crisis were excluded. A little research, however, provides answers. Many of the Senate and House conferees who assembled the final overhaul bill are among the biggest recipients of cash from Fannie and Freddie, which over the years have been plagued by Democrat cronyism and corruption.

Some of the Hill’s biggest protectors of the toxic twins and their market-distorting “affordable housing” mission landed key positions as conferees on the panel that wrote the final draft of the bank reform legislation. For example, conference committee leaders Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., respectively raked in more than $133,000 and $40,000 in donations from Fannie and Freddie, Federal Election Commission records show.

The two lawmakers, in turn, have been the congressional chartered companies’ staunchest defenders. Leading up to the housing meltdown, Dodd insisted time and again — despite growing evidence to the contrary — that Fannie and Freddie were “fundamentally strong” and “in good shape.”

Frank maintained that “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies,” Frank griped, “the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

To satisfy such politically mandated lending goals, Washington-based Fannie and Freddie loaded up on subprime and other high-risk home loans. Their exposure was greater than all the major Wall Street players combined. And now they’re insolvent, with taxpayers potentially on the hook for as much as $1 trillion.

Already Fannie and Freddie’s $160 billion government bailout has topped that spent on AIG, Citigroup and other Democrat poster boys of the crisis, making their rescue the mother of all bailouts.

We can’t think of two entities more deserving of overhaul. Yet the Dodd-Frank Act doesn’t even try to reform them. This means nothing will change except the size of government’s hand in the economy. By not addressing Fannie and Freddie, economist Brian Wesbury noted “the government is taking no blame for the subprime crisis and is demanding more power over the U.S. financial system.”

Several other conferees instrumental in keeping Fannie and Freddie exempt from the new financial rules also show up among the top beneficiaries of Fannie and Freddie campaign cash (see table).

President Obama and top aide Rahm Emanuel also ranked among top recipients of Fannie and Freddie gifts when they were in Congress. From the White House, they lobbied Congress for a financial overhaul and got 90% of what they asked — including a pass for Fannie and Freddie, where Emanuel once served as director.

Their private piggy bank for “social justice” — which they used to provide high-risk loans that otherwise were out of reach for constituents — remains safe from promised “sweeping reform.”

In the ultimate insult, the two lawmakers most deserving of blame for the financial crisis carry the name of the legislation that supposedly will deliver us from financial crisis. The villains are, according to the media, the white knights riding in to save us from the havoc they caused. A more sinister script could not have been written. (IBD)

Unless you’re an elitist Democrat who has complete contempt for “the people” and are only out there to push your agenda and nothing else.

But don’t worry, we’re from the government and we are here to help you!! 🙂

UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE: A PREVIEW

Anyone wanting a preview of Obama-Care need just focus on Massachusetts, the state that provided the blueprint for Obama’s plan. It makes a great case for making haste in repealing ObamaCare.

In Massachusetts, health care prices are out of control, emergency rooms are overcrowded, the government is at war with itself and private insurers are running in the red, refusing to enter critical markets on the government’s unrealistic terms.

The party line now is that the Bay State’s reform was not about cost control but rather expanding access to care. The program’s backers claim that the price spiral they find themselves in was expected, anticipated, even if they didn’t actually have a plan for it.

That’s a revisionist’s tale. In early 2006, the plan’s backers — led by then Republican Gov. Mitt Romney — adamantly asserted that his plan would in fact control costs, provide universal coverage and improve the quality of care. (If this sounds familiar, it’s because Obama’s team borrowed the marketing scripts.)

Disinterested outsiders predicted that both prices and total costs would most likely increase under the government-dominated system, since massive new demand, reimbursed at the lowest prices, would be forced on a fixed supply. They were shouted down by insiders vested in getting the reform passed.

Guess who was right? 🙂

Three years prior to reform, insurance premiums for employers were increasing 3.7% more slowly in Massachusetts than in the rest of the country.  Today, the opposite is true.  Prices in Massachusetts are increasing 5.7% more than in other states. In Boston, prices for employer-provided family plans are increasing 8.2% faster than in other large metropolitan areas.

“Because the plan’s main components are the same as those of the new health reform law,” the study’s authors note, “the effects of the plan provide a window onto the country’s future.”

But it’s “fair”. 🙂

******

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION & BORDER SECURITY

While President Obama was meeting at the White House with The Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other Hispanic activists, he sent a Power Point presentation that said virtually nothing to Gov. Brewer.

Now he’s going to make a Campaign Speech tonight on it.

I know I’m excited! 😦

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama hopes to rally new momentum behind the push for an immigration overhaul by explaining why he thinks a comprehensive approach is the only way to fix what he and others say is a system badly in need of repair.

(aka Sen. Jon Kyl’s “hostage” comment) Do it my way, that benefits me or not at all.

Obama was laying out his rationale in a {Campaign} speech Thursday, his first as president on the issue.

Obama wasn’t expected to announce any new proposals or policy changes. But feeling pressure from a range of supporters, he was aiming to jump-start the effort he had promised to make a priority in his first year and which advocates had hoped would be completed by now.

aka “Amnesty”.

The speech follows up on back-to-back meetings Obama had with advocates and lawmakers at the White House this week.

Gov. Brewer got 20 minutes crammed into the schedule at the last minute and then a Power Point presentation nearly a month later. 😦

Obama has said a comprehensive solution means “accountability for everybody” — from the U.S. government meeting its obligation to secure the border, to businesses facing the consequences of knowingly employing illegal immigrants, to those who enter the country illegally owning up to their actions before they can begin the process of becoming citizens.

Has anyone told Labor Secretary Hilda Solis who a week ago put out a PSA saying if your Illegal and being treated or paid unfairly to giver her a call and The US Dept. of Labor would help you out??

Recent developments on immigration influenced his decision to give a speech, White House officials say, most notably Arizona’s enactment of a tough anti-immigrant law and protests across the country against it.

“He thought this was a good time to talk plainly with the American people about his views on immigration,” spokesman Bill Burton said.

Talk Plainly, Obama? Now that’s a novel idea.

Is he even capable of that?

NO.

Oh, and there’s that pesky LAWSUIT against SB1070. You know the one where we are “racists” and “misguided”. 😦

So this is a campaign ploy.

As everything else is.

He looks tough.

He panders to his base.

The Ministry of Truth slobber all over him.

Liberal go all mushy.

Then nothing happens.

But it looks good.

And he wants “to do something”. Or at least look and sound like it.

Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing!  (Richard III)

Just Plain Silly

Massachusetts, The Socialist Commonwealth, has many new Liberal ideas starting out there.

There auto insurance is so heavily regulated they have a lot less competition going on in that state. BTW, did you know you have the option to buy coverage to have it apply out-of-state!

See part 5: This option provides coverage for accidents beyond Massachusetts to anywhere in the United States, its territories or possessions, or Canada.

http://www.mypolicy.com/insurance-personal/automobile-12parts.htm

Universal Health care started there in 2007 and was bankrupt by 2009, but that doesn’t deter anyone.

So here is an editorial from The Daily Caller that stuck my fancy.

If you’re planning to spend the next New Year’s Day in Concord, Massachusetts, don’t get caught nursing your annual hangover with a plastic bottle of cool spring water — you might be breaking the law.

The city of Concord passed a law in April banning all bottled water in plastic containers, effective January 1, 2011. Supporters of the law say ridding the town of bottled water is a first step toward a cleaner planet. Never mind that plastic water bottles only account less than one percent of landfill space. Who are we to let facts get in the way of a good regulation?

In commemoration of the successful campaign to rid Concord of bottled H20, we decided to take a look at a few of the other laws that have come out of the Bay State, a land full of people who clearly think they are incapable of making personal decisions on their own accord.

1. A January 2010 law mandates that all children in Massachusetts daycare centers must brush their teeth after lunch — or else.

It is against the law for daycare providers to not help children brush their teeth after meals. While parents can opt out (either on libertarian principle or family tradition if they’re from some parts of Alabama), they can rest easy knowing that state bureaucrats are looking out for their children’s pearly whites. Heck, the state even provides toothpaste, brushes and holders! What? No floss?! There oughta be a law…

2. It is illegal in Massachusetts to deface a milk carton.

From what we can gather, there was once a rogue band of underground milkmen roaming the New England countryside defacing poor innocent milk cartons with giant Sharpie pens.  The horror! The mayhem! The curdling! Well, the state put an end to that, slapping a $10 fine on anyone who dared to vandalize a container of 2 percent.

3. It is illegal in Dudley, Massachusetts to own more than three cats without government permission.

Here’s to you, Dudley, for finding a way to push that nice lady with kitty litter in her hair and all those pussycats even further into desperate reclusion.  Residents of the town decided to impose a $100-per-day fine for owning too many cats after someone living next to the town cat lady complained about the felines ruining his yard. The cat lady promptly put her home up for sale, packed her 15 cats, and never looked back. Success!

4. Children in Attleboro, Massachusetts are forbidden from playing “tag” or other running games during playtime.

Heaven forbid an American child loses all that self-esteem his teachers worked so hard to build over the years. (Remember, everyone’s a winner!) A school in Massachusetts made national headlines in 2006 for issuing playground rules that restricted children from playing “chasing” games like tag and touch football because they were “dangerous” and “exclusionary.” In a rousing match of phone tag, a spokesman for the school refused to confirm or deny to The Daily Caller that tag is  still allowed today. Guess that means we’re it.

5. A Massachusetts fisherman was fined for saving a whale caught in his net.

As Clare Boothe Luce once quipped, no good deed goes unpunished. A U.S. District Court fined fisherman Robert J. Eldridge $500 after he untangled a whale from his nets and set the giant sea mammal free. What he should have done, the court told him, was call state authorities and wait for them do it. Never mind that the whale may have suffocated if they didn’t arrive in time. But hey, Eldridge should consider himself lucky: He could have faced a $100,000 fine and up to a year in jail. That’ll teach him.

Honorable Mention: Group in Cambridge calls for a ban on all meat on Mondays.

The Cambridge Climate Congress, established to make recommendations for climate laws for the People’s Republic of Cambridge, recently proposed a ban on all meat sales once a week to curb the “climate emergency.” (It didn’t pass.) As the logic goes, meat comes from cows, and cows emit gas (farts) that heats up the planet. Let’s take a moment to thank the selfless citizens of Cambridge for making a good faith effort to rid the world of climate change and those smelly bovine backsides.
So what new hot liberal trend to run your life for you will be coming to a town near you, or even yours.

Let’s Wait and see. 🙂

ObamaCare’s Near Future?

TORONTO (Reuters) – Pressured by an aging population and the need to rein in budget deficits, Canada’s provinces are taking tough measures to curb healthcare costs, a trend that could erode the principles of the popular state-funded system.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, kicked off a fierce battle with drug companies and pharmacies when it said earlier this year it would halve generic drug prices and eliminate “incentive fees” to generic drug manufacturers.

British Columbia is replacing block grants to hospitals with fee-for-procedure payments and Quebec has a new flat health tax and a proposal for payments on each medical visit — an idea that critics say is an illegal user fee.

And a few provinces are also experimenting with private funding for procedures such as hip, knee and cataract surgery.

It’s likely just a start as the provinces, responsible for delivering healthcare, cope with the demands of a retiring baby-boom generation. Official figures show that senior citizens will make up 25 percent of the population by 2036.

“There’s got to be some change to the status quo whether it happens in three years or 10 years,” said Derek Burleton, senior economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank.

“We can’t continually see health spending growing above and beyond the growth rate in the economy because, at some point, it means crowding out of all the other government services.

“At some stage we’re going to hit a breaking point.”

MIRROR IMAGE DEBATE

In some ways the Canadian debate is the mirror image of discussions going on in the United States.

Canada, fretting over budget strains, wants to prune its system, while the United States, worrying about an army of uninsured, aims to create a state-backed safety net.

Healthcare in Canada is delivered through a publicly funded system, which covers all “medically necessary” hospital and physician care and curbs the role of private medicine. It ate up about 40 percent of provincial budgets, or some C$183 billion ($174 billion) last year.

Spending has been rising 6 percent a year under a deal that added C$41.3 billion of federal funding over 10 years.

But that deal ends in 2013, and the federal government is unlikely to be as generous in future, especially for one-off projects.

“As Ottawa looks to repair its budget balance … one could see these one-time allocations to specific health projects might be curtailed,” said Mary Webb, senior economist at Scotia Capital.

Brian Golden, a professor at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Business, said provinces are weighing new sources of funding, including “means-testing” and moving toward evidence-based and pay-for-performance models.

“Why are we paying more or the same for cataract surgery when it costs substantially less today than it did 10 years ago? There’s going to be a finer look at what we’re paying for and, more importantly, what we’re getting for it,” he said.

Other problems include trying to control independently set salaries for top hospital executives and doctors and rein in spiraling costs for new medical technologies and drugs.

Ontario says healthcare could eat up 70 percent of its budget in 12 years, if all these costs are left unchecked.

“Our objective is to preserve the quality healthcare system we have and indeed to enhance it. But there are difficult decisions ahead and we will continue to make them,” Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan told Reuters.

The province has introduced legislation that ties hospital chief executive pay with the quality of patient care and says it wants to put more physicians on salary to save money.

In a report released last week, TD Bank said Ontario should consider other proposals to help cut costs, including scaling back drug coverage for affluent seniors and paying doctors according to quality and efficiency of care.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

The losers could be drug companies and pharmacies, both of which are getting increasingly nervous.

“Many of the advances in healthcare and life expectancy are due to the pharmaceutical industry so we should never demonize them,” said U of T’s Golden. “We need to ensure that they maintain a profitable business but our ability to make it very very profitable is constrained right now.”

Scotia Capital’s Webb said one cost-saving idea may be to make patients aware of how much it costs each time they visit a healthcare professional. “(The public) will use the services more wisely if they know how much it’s costing,” she said.

“If it’s absolutely free with no information on the cost and the information of an alternative that would be have been more practical, then how can we expect the public to wisely use the service?”

But change may come slowly. Universal healthcare is central to Canada’s national identity, and decisions are made as much on politics as economics.

“It’s an area that Canadians don’t want to see touched,” said TD’s Burleton. “Essentially it boils down the wishes of the population. But I think, from an economist’s standpoint, we point to the fact that sometimes Canadians in the short term may not realize the cost.” ($1=$1.05 Canadian). (Reuters)

TORONTO – Canadians with lower incomes have a higher chance of suffering heart attacks, according to a new report.

The poor also have higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, smoking and other cardiac risk factors, the Canadian Institute for Health Information says in a study released Thursday. But heart attack patients receive the same quality of care regardless of their socio-economic status.

The report, Health indicators 2010, says that 67,000 Canadians were hospitalized for a heart attack in 2008-09.

Breaking down the population into five income levels, the study found that Canadians living in less affluent neighbourhoods were 37% more likely to suffer a heart attack than those in more affluent areas.

Heart attack patients from richer neighbourhoods were 7% more likely to get a revascularization procedure, such as angioplasty or bypass surgery, than those from lower-income areas.

“Identifying and measuring disparities in our health care system can help identify areas of potential concern and where to focus improvement efforts,” Indra Pulcins, director of indicators and performance measurement at CIHI, said.

“It is reassuring to see that in our universal system, the quality of care is similar for all heart attack patients. However, important gaps in heart health still exist between socio-economic groups, as well as between geographic regions in Canada. Addressing these gaps could help improve the health of the population.”

“Regions with higher heart attack rates also tend to have higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, smoking and other cardiac risk factors.” Addressing those issues could lower the number of heart attacks and result in cost savings.

If all socio-economic groups had the same heart attack rate in 2008-09 as those from richer neighbourhoods, the hospitalization rate would have gone down by 16%, or the equivalent of 10,400 heart attacks.

That would have represented an estimated savings in hospital costs of $100 million.(Chealth)

So just make everyone the same and everything will be fine.

No one will be rich and no one will be poor, at least no one worth talking about. 🙂

The Future of ObamaCare?

Well, considering Medicare is already basically bankrupt and Social Security is too.

And now Obama wants to run Health Care.

His bureaucrats want to to decide who lives and who dies and will control your life for you.

Yeah, I do think it is.

EDMONTON – Alberta’s New Democrats say government cuts to long-term care have begun hitting home and hurting the most vulnerable.

Party leader Brian Mason says the government needs to publicly account for what’s being done to ensure the cuts are carried out fairly and humanely.

Mason was referring to a three per cent cut to long-term care funding brought in Premier Ed Stelmach’s Conservative government last fall to deal with a spiralling budget deficit.

Mason says recently leaked documents from some nursing homes show that they’re laying off staff or not filling positions.

But don’t worry, We are from the Government and we are hear to run your life for you! 😦

Whether you like it or not!

Drowning in a VAT of Debt

President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation’s economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday.

In its 2011 budget, which the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released Feb. 1, the administration projected a 10-year deficit total of $8.53 trillion. After looking it over, CBO said in its final analysis, released Thursday, that the president’s budget would generate a combined $9.75 trillion in deficits over the next decade.

“An additional $1.2 trillion in debt dumped on [GDP] to our children makes a huge difference,” said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “That represents an additional debt of $10,000 per household above and beyond the federal debt they are already carrying.”

The federal public debt, which was $6.3 trillion ($56,000 per household) when Mr. Obama entered office amid an economic crisis, totals $8.2 trillion ($72,000 per household) today, and it’s headed toward $20.3 trillion (more than $170,000 per household) in 2020, according to CBO’s deficit estimates.

But ask a Liberal or the Fifth Column/MSM/Ministry of Truth and they’ll say it was George W. Bush’s fault and they are “fixing it”.

This like the plumber that comes over to fix your toilet and ends up flooding your house.

It’s not his fault.

God helps us all.

If the president opts to continue with the biggest ideologically based spending spree in history — risk to the economy be damned — federal spending for 2009-2020 will as a percent of GDP increase by an enormous 23% (or more) compared to the Bush/Clinton years, the government’s gross debt (public plus internal) will as a percent of GDP equal or exceed Greece’s, and catastrophe will follow.

Some analysts say that America’s AAA bond rating is already in jeopardy and may be lost by 2014 at the latest.

If one uses the Congressional Budget Office’s more realistic forecasts of interest rates, revenues and GDP growth, adding the president’s extra spending and debt is even more risky: The public debt in 2020 will be 91% of GDP. The gross debt will be 123% of GDP (compared with 115% to 125% in Greece today) and greatly in excess of the “tipping point” identified by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff in their recent landmark study of worldwide data.

On the other hand, the president could decide not to put America at such great risk and, therefore, to forgo adding the additional spending and debt. In that case, the public debt would be 56% of GDP and the gross debt would be 85% (or, according to CBO data, 68% and 100%).

As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh. With the passage of ObamaCare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable.

We are now $8 trillion in debt. The Congressional Budget Office projects that another $12 trillion will be added over the next decade.

ObamaCare, when stripped of its budgetary gimmicks — the unfunded $200-billion-plus doctor fix, the double counting of Medicare cuts, the 10-6 sleight-of-hand (counting 10 years of revenue and only 6 years of outflows) — is at minimum a $2 trillion new entitlement.

It will vastly increase the debt. But even if it were revenue-neutral, ObamaCare pre-empts and appropriates for itself the best and easiest means of reducing the existing deficit. ObamaCare’s $500 billion of cuts in Medicare and $600 billion in tax hikes are no longer available for deficit reduction. They are siphoned off for the new entitlement of insuring the uninsured.

This is fiscally disastrous because, as President Obama himself explained last year in unveiling his grand transformational policies, our unsustainable fiscal path requires control of entitlement spending, the most ruinous of which is out-of-control health care costs.

ObamaCare was sold on the premise that, as Nancy Pelosi put it, “health care reform is entitlement reform. Our budget cannot take this upward spiral of cost.” But the bill enacted last Tuesday accelerates the spiral: It radically expands Medicaid (adding 15 million new recipients/dependents) and shamelessly raids Medicare by spending on a new entitlement the $500 billion in cuts and the yield from the Medicare tax hikes.

Obama knows that the debt bomb is looming, that Moody’s is warning that the Treasury’s AAA rating is in jeopardy, that we are headed for a run on the dollar and/or hyperinflation if nothing is done.

Hence his deficit reduction commission. It will report (surprise!) after the November elections. What will it recommend? What can it recommend?

Sure, Social Security can be trimmed by raising the retirement age, introducing means testing and changing the indexing formula from wage growth to price inflation. But this won’t be nearly enough. As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health care costs — which are now locked in place by the new ObamaCare mandates.

That’s where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1% of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude — if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion).

It’s the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19%. France and Italy: 20%. Most of Scandinavia: 25%.

American liberals have long complained that ours is the only advanced industrial country without universal health care. Well, now we shall have it. And as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation.

Obama set out to be a consequential president, on the order of Ronald Reagan. With the VAT, Obama’s triumph will be complete. He will have succeeded in reversing Reaganism. Liberals have long complained that Reagan’s strategy was to starve the (governmental) beast in order to shrink it: First, cut taxes — then ultimately you have to reduce government spending.

Obama’s strategy is exactly the opposite: Expand the beast, and then feed it. Spend first — which then forces taxation. Now that, with the institution of universal health care, we are becoming the full entitlement state, the beast will have to be fed.

And the VAT is the only trough in creation large enough.

As a substitute for the income tax, the VAT would be a splendid idea. Taxing consumption makes infinitely more sense than taxing work. But to feed the liberal social-democratic project, the VAT must be added on top of the income tax.

Ultimately, even that won’t be enough. As the population ages and health care becomes increasingly expensive, the only way to avoid fiscal ruin (as Britain, for example, has discovered) is health care rationing.

It will take a while to break the American populace to that idea. In the meantime, get ready for the VAT. Or start fighting it.(IBD)

So add to that the “Universal Retirement” where you are forced to fund the National Debt through Treasury bonds and all the Taxes for the Health Care Bill that will not drive you into the hands of the government but your employer as well.

Doom is coming over the horizon.

And the only thing we can do is REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER!

The Day That Will Live In Infamy

No the Japanese have not attacked Pearl Harbor again.

And this was not a sneak attack.

But it was a call to War.

As predicted, the Democrat Socialists sold the American People down the toilet  219-212. That 3 more than they needed.

And guess who caved at the last second, Pro-Life Democrats.

They were promised to issue an executive order (aka BRIBE) from the President saying that the provisions of the now Health Care Reform Law that let the government pay fro abortions will not happen.

Not an actual signed order, just a promise of one.

And this President is a very trustworthy guy. 😦

SUCKER!

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) the “leader” of the now defunct ‘pro-life’ Democrats is now Judas.

“Perhaps Mr. Stupak and his fellow pro-life Democrats forget that President Obama’s first Executive Order was the repeal of the Mexico City Policy to allow for international funding of abortion.”— Phylis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum

To pay for the changes, the legislation includes more than $400 billion in higher taxes over a decade and cuts more than $500 billion from planned payments to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and other providers that treat Medicare patients. (AP)

So bend over and reach deep. The enema you’re going to get is going to be a joyous one, Comrade. 😦

And just to give you some more happy news: This from Bloomberg

President Obama’s budget proposal would create bigger deficits every year of the next decade, with the gaps totaling $1.2 trillion more than his administration projects, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this month. Publicly held debt will zoom to $20.3 trillion, or 90 percent of gross domestic product, by 2020, the CBO forecast.

So anyone for Ramen Noodles??

That maybe all we have left soon.

But at least we’ll have government Health Care!

Hurray! 😦

When asked what Obama was doing during the vote, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs: “Mostly basketball.” (CBS)

He was watching the NCAA.

Well, you have to have your priorities… 😦

It also seems, according to the Senate Republicans website that the Senate Democrats stalled a “bi-partisan” meeting with the Parliamentarian until after the vote, that way it didn’t stall their quest for the Holy Grail.

WASHINGTON DC – Senate Democrats have balked at a bi-partisan meeting with the Senate Parliamentarian to discuss a rule violation that could doom the entire House reconciliation proposal.

DON STEWART, McCONNELL SPOKESMAN: “Republicans have been trying to set up a meeting with Senate Democrats since yesterday to discuss this fatal point of order but have been met with nothing but silence. We suspect Democrats are slow walking us so as to have the House vote first. Since Senate Democrats refuse to meet with us and the Parliamentarian, we’ve informed our colleagues in the House that we believe the bill they’re now considering violates the clear language of Section 310g of the Congressional Budget Act, and the entire reconciliation bill is subject to a point of order and rejection in the Senate should it pass the House.”

That means the Senate bill, which everyone in the House seems to universally hate, will be the law of the land.

And the Partisan bloodbath is probably not over.

But remember, this was the President who was going to be the Post-Partisan, Unifier.

You just did know he was going to be Unified against The American People and any who opposed his will.

Details…Details…details….

So the Reconciliation Fix-it fight is now on.

“Immediately after receiving the final reconciliation bill language, Senate Republican staff was ready and willing to meet with Senate Democratic staff and the Senate Parliamentarian to discuss the fact that the House reconciliation bill may be brought down by the 310(g) point of order in the Senate. Senate Democrats are mysteriously unavailable until after the House votes on the health care bill tonight. The Senate Democrats appear to be pushing off this meeting so that House Democrats will remain in the dark about what is likely to happen to the reconciliation bill on which many have staked their careers in Congress. House Democrats should be alarmed by this latest development, since the survival of the reconciliation bill is clearly at risk in the Senate.”

If Republicans can get the parliamentarian to agree with them even once, whatever ultimately passes the Senate will have to go back to the House.
And Democrats in the House quietly admit that its very likely they will have to vote again on the reconciliation fixes at some point down the road.

So the House Democratic Leadership was potentially Lying to it’s members, especially ‘Judas’ Stupak, that they’re being played.

Admittedly, you have to get the Parliamentarian to agree first, but it show how far the Democrats will go to pass it.

But even then, we still have Government run Health Care.

It doesn’t do it to everyone just yet.

But by the end of the decade it will be.

You can trust the Democrats on that.

or Maybe sooner…

As you know, I am a strong supporter of a public option, and I included the HELP Committee’s public option in the bill I brought to the senate floor last year. I was disappointed when it became clear that we did not have the votes to keep it.
Nevertheless, like you, I remain committed to pursuing the public option. While I believe that the legislation we are considering does much to provide affordable coverage to millions of Americans and curb insurance company abuses, I also believe that the public option would provide additional competition to make insurance even more affordable. As we have discussed, I will work to ensure that we are able to vote on the public option in the coming months. — Sen Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Because we all know by now, you can trust a Democrat lawmaker to keep his or her word, now can’t we. 🙂

And we have to get the Illegals Amnesty so they can be put on the government doles and registered as Democrats so we can fix the messy democratic process.

And then we just need to fix all those greedy, consumer-driven, energy pigs and purveyors of evil CO2 (you know, electricity, oil, cars, people).

We’ll whip them into shape for their own good.

So Welcome to the new Obama’s Amerika, Comrade.

Enjoy your “freedoms”.

The Eides of March

I have not come to praise Caesar, but to bury him.

Caesar Obama, that is.

Beware the Eides of March people.

IBD: But to review, here are just 15 reasons why a government takeover of the finest medical system in the world makes no sense at all:

1. The people don’t want it! This, we would think, should have some bearing on decision-making. Yet the Democrats forge ahead without consent of the governed. In the latest Rasmussen poll, 53% opposed the Democrats’ reform while 42% were in favor. More than four in 10 “strongly” opposed; just two in 10 “strongly” favored. This jibes with other surveys, including our own IBD/TIPP Poll, taken since last year.

2. Doctors don’t want it! A survey we took last summer of 1,376 practicing physicians found that 45% would consider leaving their practices or taking early retirements if the Democrats’ reform became law. In December, the results were validated by a Medicus poll in which 25% of doctors said they’d retire early if a public option is implemented and another 21% would stop practicing even though they were far from their retirement years. Even if the bill doesn’t have a “public option,” nearly 30% said they’d quit the profession under the plans being considered.

3. Half the Congress doesn’t want it! Not a single Republican backed the health care bill that cleared the Senate on Christmas Eve 60-39. House passage was by a slim 220 to 215, and the lone Republican “aye” has since switched to “no.” Columnist Michael Barone says other changes would put the House vote today at 216-215 in favor, and he has doubts Democrats can even muster 216.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her job of securing yes votes even more difficult last week when she told a meeting of county officials that “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.” Members of Congress aren’t waiting: They’ve already exempted themselves from whatever they inflict on us.

4. People are happy with the health care they’ve got! Polls show that 84% of Americans have health insurance and that few are displeased with what they’ve got. Last month, the St. Petersburg Times looked at eight polls and reported that satisfaction rates averaged 87%.
5. It doesn’t even cover the people they set out to cover!  Supporters of government-run health care say there are as many as 47 million Americans — 9 million to 10 million of them illegal aliens — without medical insurance. The Democrats’ plans, however, will put only 31 million of the uninsured under coverage.

6. Costs will go up, not down! Democrats say their plans will cost less than $1 trillion over the first decade. But analyst Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute puts the cost at $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years. Even if we go with the government’s lower estimates, the cost is already on the rise. A new estimate by the Congressional Budget Office puts the cost of the Senate bill at $875 billion over 10 years, $4 billion more than its original projection. Imagine how fast costs would soar if one of the bills became public policy.

7. Real cost controls are nowhere to be found! The Democrats are offering no meaningful tort reform that will help push down the high malpractice insurance premiums that are a burden to doctors and their patients. Nor are they considering any other cost-saving provisions, such as allowing the sale of individual health plans across state lines or easing health insurance mandates.

8. Insurance premiums will rise, not fall! One goal of nationalizing health care is to lower costs, to bend the spending curve downward. Yet, as Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin acknowledged Wednesday, that won’t be the case.

“Anyone who would stand before you and say, ‘Well, if you pass health care reform, next year’s health care premiums are going down,’ I don’t think is telling the truth,” he said from the Senate floor. “I think it is likely they would go up.”

An analysis completed by the CBO at the request of Sen. Evan Bayh confirms Durbin’s suspicions. Insurance coverage in the individual market will “be about 10% to 13% higher in 2016 than the average premium for nongroup coverage in that same year under current law,” it concluded.

9. Medicare is already bankrupting us! The Medicare trust fund, which has unfunded obligations of $37.8 trillion, will be insolvent in 2017. How can lawmakers justify another entitlement that will cost trillions when they can’t pay for existing liabilities?
10. There aren’t enough doctors now! Last month, 26% of physicians responding to a Web poll on Sermo.com, which calls itself “the largest online physician community,” said they had been forced to close, or were considering closing, their solo practices. Providing coverage for an additional 31 million Americans when the number of doctors is shrinking won’t improve our health care.

11. The doctor-patient relationship will be wrecked! The latest IBD/TIPP Poll, taken just last week, found that Americans, by a wide 48%-26% margin, believe the doctor-patient relationship will decline if the Democrats’ plan is passed.

12. Medical care will also deteriorate! IBD/TIPP has also found that 51% of Americans believe care would get worse under government control. Only 10.5% said they felt it would improve. In our doctor poll, 72% disagreed with administration claims that the government could cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.

13. Rationing of care is inevitable! Health care is not an unlimited resource and must be rationed, either by the individual, providers or government. In Britain and Canada, where the government does the rationing, medical treatment waiting lists are sometimes deadly and quite often excessively long.

For instance, late cancer diagnoses in an overcrowded public health care system cause up to 10,000 needless deaths a year in Britain. The reasons cited for the late diagnoses include doctor delay, delay in primary care, system delay and delay in secondary care.

14. Private health insurers will be destroyed! Added mandates and price controls will force many insurers to simply get out of the health plan business because it will no longer be profitable.

15. It’s probably unconstitutional! One way to help bring down the number of uninsured is to demand that those without coverage buy health plans. But the government has never passed a law requiring Americans to buy any good or service. Constitutional scholars say any such mandate would likely draw a legal challenge.

But they’ll do it anyway. Just to say they did it.

And to get the cancer of Socialized Medicine permanently infecting the body politic.

So Remember in November.

Taking The Nuclear Option in The Face!

Here we go again folks.

The Ideologically obsessed are gunning for you again.

Just like last year.

The real issue is Jobs.

So they give it faint attention, propose 1 bill that will create a miracle-that-it-won’t because they aren’t actually interested in it to begin with, then move on to what THEY really want.

To control every aspect of your life by controlling your Health Care.

They don’t care if it’s unpopular.

They don’t just don’t care, period.

The message the people sent with Sen. Scott Brown’s election, according to them, was that they didn’t sell the message correctly. Not that we didn’t want it at all!

They use some unnamed source polls that say 56% of the American public wants a Public Option (see MSNBC).

Well, polling your base is very sleazy manipulation.

But what hasn’t been sleazy and manipulative about this whole thing.

And the kicker…They aren’t even talking about the regular voting process that they failed at so miserably before.

No, this is “reconciliation” a budgetary parliamentary trick where they only need 51 votes to cram it down your throat.

The so-called “Nuclear Option”.

So if the Ben Nelson’s and Mary Landrieu’s don’t wanna play ball, they don’t have to.

And the Republican can go F*ck themselves!!

And so can the American people for that matter.

And all of this just days before Obama’s “bi-Partisan” TV dog-and-pony show.

How Bi-Partisan can it be if reconciliation is the preferred tactic now.

None.

But they want to embarrass the Republicans first.

They want to show them off as the obstruction, not the opposition.

It’s their fault, after all!

Then they will go around them “for the good of the American People”.

So they arrogantly think.

Remember, these are drug addicts.

They crave money and power.

And right now they crave the power to decide who lives and who dies. And they will not be denied!

The legislation the White House will post on its website is expected to reflect common ground negotiated over the past several weeks by House and Senate Democratic leaders.

Those agreements are likely to be combined as a privileged budget reconciliation bill, which only needs a simple 51-vote majority to pass the 100-member Senate instead of the 60-vote supermajority that has become routine in the Senate and gives Republicans power to block the healthcare bill.

“I believe that’s the path we are going to take,” a senior congressional Democratic aide said.

But it is not clear, even to congressional Democrats, what the White House will include in its legislation and whether Obama will try to add proposals aimed at attracting at least some Republican support.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have not signed off on any final agreement, several Democratic aides have said.

“We are still waiting for the president to present to Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi his plan,” a Democratic leadership aide told Reuters.

In other words, effectively, one man is writing and his team are going to write the revised bill, present it to the Congress, embarass  the Republicans on TV to give his party some cover and media fodder, then cram it down your throat.

But he’s not a dictator!

Then we have Cap & Trade and Amnesty for those 12 million new largely illiterate new Democrats for ACORN to register.

But he’s not a dictator! 😦

Oh, and the deficit, he appointed a commission to look into how to fix that so that when they come back with the Tax hikes he wants it will be their ass, n0t his.

He’ll be too busy campaigning, to lead.

“If the president is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan fashion, he must take the reconciliation process — which will be used to jam through legislation that a majority of Americans do not want — off the table,” said Representative Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican.

But he’s not sincere. And the “bi-partisan” summit is put-up job. It’s faker than a $3 bill.

It’s there manly for the Ministry of Truth (Mainstream Media) to get soundbites to use to maul the Republicans with.

So the Republican had better be ready for it.

There is nothing “bi-partisan” about it.

“The Republicans say that they’ve got a better way of doing it. So, I want them to put it on the table,” Obama said in Nevada stumping for Sen Majority Leader Reid.

But he”s going to have HIS plan out there for the media whores to devour beforehand.

And does anyone really think he actually wants to hear what the Republican have to say now??

Really??…

NO.

He just want’s it to look like it, so he can go ahead and ram it through because the Republicans are too “obstructionist” and “too partisan” to let it go through otherwise.

That’s the rationale. It’s all their fault! Wahhhhh… 😦

Forgetting why he lost his supermajority-proof  majority in the first place and that he could get it through even then.

So we’ll go around The American people “for their own good” and cram it down your throat!

So what if you gag.

You’ll love us someday. 😦

So they have to do it.

THEY JUST DON’T CARE.

They must possess the Holy Grail.

The Quest is the Quest!

Aides said the total cost would be between $900 billion and $1 trillion over 10 years. It would be paid for with a combination of a tax on high-end health insurance plans—modified to reflect a deal with union leaders—taxes on upper-income Americans and Medicare cuts.(WSJ)

Yeah, we would want to piss off the Unions!

The American people, yes, but the Unions, no. 😦

There’s a reason this is called the “Nuclear Option”

So get to your bomb-shelter, slather on that SPF-40,000 because your about to get a Nuke in the face!

And that folks is the Congress doing the Will of the People.

So be proud. Stand Tall. And Face into the blast!

‘Twas The Night Before Christmas

WP: Vice President Biden presided over the 60-39, party-line vote, which brings Democrats closer than ever to realizing their 70-year-old goal of universal health coverage.

Notice the not-so-Freudian slip. UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. 🙂

For the first time, most Americans would be required to obtain health insurance, either through their employer or via new, government-regulated exchanges. Those who can’t afford insurance plans would receive federal subsidies.

Subsidies paid for by?

You guessed it.

Us. Not Them.

Congrats.

It’s a Baby.

Vampire that is.

That if allowed to live will suck the life out of Everyone.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared that: “We stand on the doorstep of history.”

Infamy more likely.

And after all, their place in “history” and it’s immortality was far more important than the will of the People.

But since the liberal control education I’m sure the Republicans will be to blame when this Frankenstein’s Monster rampages through The Village.

Republicans fought the Senate bill with every parliamentary weapon they could muster, raising a series of motions on that failed along party lines. The rhetoric grew more harsh as time ran short.

“From rationing care to infringing on the doctor-patient relationship, this government-run system will guarantee U.S. taxpayers a staggering tax burden for generations to come,” Grassley said on the Senate floor. The final bill, Grassley said, “doesn’t do any of these things that we set out to do at the beginning.”

No, Senator. It doesn’t (on the things they SAID were the goals).

A challenge to the Senate health bill’s constitutionality failed on Wednesday afternoon in a party-line vote.
Sens. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Orrin Hatch’s (R-Utah) point of order arguing that the Senate bill is unconstitutional under the Interstate Commerce Clause and Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution failed in a 39-60 vote. (The Hill)

And even the vaunted CBO has recently admitted to an error in their calculations, the one’s Democrats have been touting (Sounds a bit Copenhaegn-y don’t it?)(FOX): The Congressional Budget Office said Sunday that the Senate health care bill would not reduce long-term federal deficits as much as previously estimated, acknowledging that it made an “error” in its original analysis.

In correcting the mistake, Elmendorf noted that projections for a bill 10-to-20 years down the road can be highly unreliable.

“The imprecision of these calculations reflects the even greater degree of uncertainty that attends to them,” he wrote.

But on getting it passed so that they could force the drugs down everyone’s throat so they can addict them and make it look like it’s for their own good, they did succeed.

So Far.

But as Yogi Berra would say, “It ain’t over ‘Till it’s over”.

The House and Senate versions are radically different.

But it’s now about pride of Ideology, and Party. Not actually helping people.

And the American People must rise up and pressure them before the final vote on whatever mutant form of Socialized Medicine comes out in the final product.

Make no mistake, all Democrats are Liberals. And all Liberals are Democrats.

It’s about Ideology.

It’s about Party.

It’s not about You.

It’s about Them.

Their egos. Their Pride. Their “historic moment”.

The ascendancy of the Socialist Liberal Nanny State. Where they control you from before birth to after death.

And they have complete contempt for you and the process as this example From The Hill shows:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) elicited perhaps the strongest reaction after he originally voted no on the health care reform bill he has crafted and ushered through the Senate for months.
Reid quickly threw up his arms in the air and bowed his head to his podium, drawing a hardy round of laughs from senators in the chamber. It’s not clear if Reid’s original vote was a mistake or a joke, but Reid said that he spent Wednesday night trying to think of ways to show some bipartisanship.

Yes, folks, bi-partisanship is a joke to Democrats.

Lest, you think the Fourth Estate, the mighty “journalist” was going to press the White House for answers, and askl tough questions, think again:

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 we got from America’s intrepid practitioners of First Amendment freedoms was a discussion about “a pink polka-dot shirt and a checkered tie.”

“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.

We got touchy-feely questions like, “As the president is winding down this first year in office, as he looks back over this year, is he at the point now where he can say, this is kind of what I expected?”

Oh yes, and we learned that on the president’s upcoming vacation in Hawaii, “he will probably take the girls out for shaved ice.”

The whole thing is a joke to them.

Well, I’m not laughing, because it’s at MY EXPENSE.

When a question was asked about the president not discussing the government-run option for health reform with independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman, no answer was given because, said Gibbs, “if you’re looking back, it’s generally rehashing.”

Old News. We Won. Up yours. <<stick tongue out>>. Move on, nothing to see but a Jon Stewart Comedy Central routine. Next…

Reid during his final floor remarks said that many senators could hear (Teddy) Kennedy’s voice “ringing” in their ears.

I wonder if any of them heard Mary Jo Kopeckne?? 🙂

“This bill is a real threat to liberty because of the precedent that it sets on the federal government being able to tell individuals what to do,” said Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.).

But it’s not night fall yet.

Dusk maybe.

But not night fall.

The Dark Side hasn’t won’t quite yet, young Skywalker. 🙂

Though the Force is strong with The One.

They will ignore you, but keep it up, day after day.

Contact your local TV station news. Ask them why they don’t cover it properly.

It’s about Pressure people.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

http://www.conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3068843

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Twas the night before Christmas, when all through D.C.
Not a creature was stirring — except for sixty.
The health care bill made them wish they weren’t alive,
And they wanted Obama Claus soon to arrive.

The Dems were all anxious, they wanted to leave
For they know, in a year, six or seven will grieve.
The entire debate blew up in the Dems’ faces
And made their polls sink in all of the big races!

They don’t want to remember this nightmare existed,
Nor employ on constituents logic so twisted.
Harry Reid hid the bill, but I think this is it –
I will spell it all out with my rhyme and my wit:

There is no “public option,” progressives are crying
And distorting the CBO, Barry is lying
Mary Landrieu was bought off, but nobody cares
And Ben Nelson is pro-life — really, he swears by it

Medicare’s still insolvent, but we’re gonna slash it –
(But those evil Repukes are the ones who will smash it!)
The majority will says the bill is a clunker –
(But we’ve got cash for that, and the DNC bunker)

Pre-existing conditions? Irrelevant, now –
It’ll reduce our costs, though we can’t tell you how.
Tort reform was avoided with diligent care,
And we left state monopolies all standing there.

Now Obama Claus comes and he asks them to vote –
58, 59 — ah, at last he can gloat! –
For the ayes have it, sir, and the bill has been passed!
We have the damned health care reform here at last!

“Now Nelson! Now, Lincoln! Now, Pryor and Joe!
On, Evan! On, Landrieu! On, Baucus and Snowe!
To the top of the deficit, ceiling of debt!
We’re going to bankrupt the U.S.A. yet!”

I woke up the next morning and saw on TV
I got health care handouts — coming straight from D.C.!
Obama, I thought — you did all this for me?
“Think it costs lots right now? Just you wait ’til it’s free!”

by Alex Knepper

Have a Merry Christmas. It may be your last.

More Choices-No Choice

“What we’ve picked up from the White House is that the president isn’t expected to get into the legislative weeds in tonight’s speech, but instead hopes to explain to Joe and Jane that his health-care reform will 1) cover nearly everyone and 2) cut costs in the long run.” (MSNBC)

And the rub of  “covering everyone”  is that 1) to do that you have to mandate coverage  2) you have to enforce the mandate and 3) you have to cover Illegal Aliens. So that’s where “nearly” comes in, the Illegal aliens  are outside the definition of “everyone” but let’s not talk about that.

But I very doubt anyone in the Ministry of Truth or the The White House is going to touch that live bomb. (notice it did say ‘Nearly’ everyone, fascinating turn of phrase from “universal”).And I wonder how many “nearly” ‘s will be “everyone” tonight.

This will be another Campaign speech by the President. Trying to sell water to a drowning man.

But the most fascinating thing is the insurance is for  ‘nearly’ everyone.

Meaning, mandatory.

Because, as I said in a previous blog, why would you be so irresponsible as to chose NOT to have insurance. That’s just crazy!

We can’t have that. That’s against your better interests.

That can’t be allowed.

And in order for the politicians to claim to cover everyone (or ‘nearly’) they have to force you to be covered.

You do know there are people out there who don’t have coverage because they don’t want it, for whatever reason.

It was their CHOICE.

Don’t you?

Right or wrong, It was THEIR CHOICE.

Oh, sure we’ll make it sound like you can afford it with “tax breaks” and the like. But did you know that a large percentage of people don’t pay any taxes to begin with?

As of 2007, the bottom 50% of taxpayers only paid  2.89% of the taxes to begin with.(Source:  IRS)

The Tax Policy Center estimates that for 2009, 43% of tax units (most of which are lower income households that may or may not file a return) will have no income tax liability or will have a negative income tax liability, meaning the government will actually pay them.

When measuring the tax burdens from income tax and payroll tax combined, the Tax Policy Center estimates nearly 12% of tax units will have zero or negative liability. (CNN)

That’s why I had a problem with then-Candidate Obama’s Mantra of “ “I will cut taxes … for 95 percent of all working families.”

Because, many of them, weren’t paying taxes to begin with!

So is a tax break going to help them?

NO.

So, is it going to a “hardship” subsidy then? Aka, a handout. Freebie. Medicare (which is bankrupt). Social Security (which is bankrupt), Medicaid (which is bankrupt)??

So who’s going to pay for those who still can’t afford the choice.

Guess!

YOU ARE!

The government has no money unless it takes it from you.

Rejoice.

And that still doesn’t address the Illegal Aliens who use the ER as their primary care.

Whose paying for that? 🙂

So, the “more choices” becomes NO Choice.

Mandatory: containing or constituting a command.

And, for those nasty, selfish, inconsiderate people who choose not to choose…

One of the New Proposals, from the Senate Finance Chairman, Sen. Max Baucus:

Americans would be fined up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance under a plan that circulated in Congress on Tuesday as President Barack Obama met Democratic leaders to search for ways to salvage his health care overhaul.
Penalties for failing to get insurance would start at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families.
The complex plan would make dozens of changes in the health care system, many of them contentious. For example, it includes new fees on insurers, drug companies, medical device manufacturers and clinical labs.It would require insurers to take all applicants, regardless of age or health. But smokers could be charged higher premiums. And 60-year-olds could be charged five times as much for a policy as 20-year-olds. (Source: AP)

And remember this from HR3200 (in an earlier blog, The Wisdom and The Fear):

And if you are not “acceptable”, their will be fines for you (2.5%) and/or for your employer ($100 per day) for not being in compliance  with mandatory health insurance for all.

Then there’s the IRS enforcement provisions to consider (HR3200).

So you have more choices, but it’s mandatory.

You have “competition” but it’s mandatory. And one of the “competitors” can use the IRS to fine you or your employer and can raise taxes to pay for any cost overruns.

And if it’s not “acceptable” to the Government then you could be fined for that too.

Lovely. Isn’t it.

That’s your “choice” and “competition”. That’s “fair” isn’t it? 🙂

A far cry from,  “Punishing families who can’t afford health care to begin with just doesn’t make sense,” Then-candidate Obama said during his party’s primaries.

But Political expediency and the burning obsession to pass Nationalized Health Care somehow, anyhow, I guess is too much to pass up.

Even if the People don’t want it.

They, the political elite, know better.

They want to give you “the choice”.

After all, they are vastly superior to you, the ordinary grunt American . You’re “UN-American”,”stupid”, “ignorant”,”a mob”, Nazis”,”racists”.

So, tonight, comes the Campaign Speech to end all Campaign Speeches.

But is it Leadership?

Or Just Save My Ass/Face?

Better check under the hood on this one, there will be some seriously rotten lemons under this one.

This is your Choice.

This is your “competition”

Only, it will be Mandatory, meaning NO Choice.

The perfect Orwellian solution. Doublethink.

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them….To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

Choice.

Competition.

Mandatory.

🙂

Enjoy.