Obama-Care

`Obama Misrepresenting My Work` ~ Princeton Professor Harvey Rosen (Plus: Eulogizing Killers)

Published by Papa Giorgio

…the United States is actually more dependent on rich people to pay taxes than even many of the more socialized economies of Europe. According to the Tax Foundation, the United States gets 45 percent of its total taxes from the top 10 percent of tax filers, whereas the international average in industrialized nations is 32 percent. America’s rich carry a larger share of the tax burden than do the rich in Belgium (25 percent), Germany (31 percent), France (28 percent), and even Sweden (27 percent). ~ Washington Times

To set the stage for lowering taxes and Mitt Romney’s tax plan — the rich… the American rich specifically, pay the most taxes when compared to the rest of the world

This lack of understanding by the left leads to how they fight and lie and misrepresent what Mitt Romney says and will even twist other peoples work to win the day:

Here is the Weekly Standard’s “blurb” of the Obama Campaign lie:

Last night, the Obama campaign blasted out another email claiming that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would either require raising taxes on the middle class or blowing a hole in the deficit. “Even the studies that Romney has cited to claim his plan adds up still show he would need to raise middle-class taxes,” said the Obama campaign press release. “In fact, Harvard economist Martin Feldstein and Princeton economist Harvey Rosen both concede that paying for Romney’s tax cuts would require large tax increases on families making between $100,000 and $200,000.”

But that’s not true. Princeton professor Harvey Rosen tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD in an email that the Obama campaign is misrepresenting his paper on Romney’s tax plan:

I can’t tell exactly how the Obama campaign reached that characterization of my work.  It might be that they assume that Governor Romney wants to keep the taxes from the Affordable Care Act in place, despite the fact that the Governor has called for its complete repeal.  The main conclusion of my study is that  under plausible assumptions, a proposal along the lines suggested by Governor Romney can both be revenue neutral and keep the net tax burden on taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 about the same.  That is, an increase in the tax burden on lower and middle income individuals is not required in order to make the overall plan revenue neutral.

Dennis Prager touched on the “wonderful eulogy” the New York Times gave the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, and how the left loves killers, dictators, and Communists. Here is the Wall Street Journals take on all this:

In 1987, Jean-Marie Le Pen called the gas chambers of Nazi concentration camps “just a detail in the history of World War II.” Explaining himself a few years later, the head of France’s National Front said: “If you take a 1,000-page book on World War II, the concentration camps take up only two pages and the gas chambers 10 to 15 lines. This is what one calls a detail.”

Such remarks cemented Mr. Le Pen’s reputation as Europe’s leading fascist. So what was one to make of the reception accorded the publication, in 1994, of “The Age of Extremes,” by the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm?

The book—subtitled “a history of the world, 1914-1991″—was hailed as “bracing and magisterial” by the New York Times. “Facts roll off Hobsbawm’s pages like thunderbolts,” gushed the New Republic. But search the index, and the words “Holocaust” and “Auschwitz” never appear. Nazi concentration camps get about 10 or 15 lines. As for the Soviet gulags, Hobsbawm devoted exactly two paragraphs to them.

Hobsbawm, who died in London Monday at age 95, was no Holocaust denier. Nor was he ignorant of the human toll imposed by communism, the ideology to which he remained faithful nearly his whole life. He acknowledged that the victims of Stalin’s tyranny “must be measured in eight rather than seven digits,” adding that the numbers are “shameful and beyond palliation, let alone justification.”

Yet Hobsbawm did justify them. “Like military enterprises which have genuine popular moral legitimacy, the breakneck industrialization of [Stalin’s] first Five-Year Plans (1929-41) generated support by the very ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’ it imposed on the people,” he wrote. “Difficult though it may be to believe, the Stalinist system . . . almost certainly enjoyed substantial support.”

The rest of the book is shot through with similar rationalizations. That included the observation that “for most Soviet citizens the Brezhnev era spelled not ‘stagnation’ but the best times they and their parents, or even grandparents, had ever known.” As for Soviet dissidents, they were “anti-plebeian” elitists who “found themselves up against Soviet humanity as well as Soviet bureaucracy.”

None of this should have been surprising coming from a man who, over the years, gave his political assent to everything from the Nazi-Soviet Pact to the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Asked by the BBC whether the achievement of a communist utopia would have justified “the loss of fifteen, twenty million people,” he answered “Yes.”

Yet what are we to make of the warmth with which Hobsbawm is now being eulogized? Only this: That the world is far from recognizing that the crimes of communism were no less monstrous than those of Nazism. In treating the gulag as a detail of his history, Hobsbawm proved himself to be the moral equivalent of Mr. Le Pen. And in treating Hobsbawm as a paragon among historians, his admirers prove they’ve learned nothing from history itself.

Scientific Evidence Proves Obamacare Will Harm Seniors ~ Betsy McCaughey

Published by Papa Giorgio

From video description:

Betsy McCaughey is the Chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, the former Lt. Governor of New York, and author of the book, “Obama Health Law.” On September 21st she gave a speech at Accuracy in Media’s “ObamaNation: A Day of Truth” conference proving with hard facts how the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will inevitably harm America’s seniors.

Survey: `55% of physicians reported they would vote for Romney while just 36% support Obama`

Published by Papa Giorgio

The America’s Medical Society mentions that some questioning should happen at the debates:

Mr. President, please explain how you plan to maintain the same level of  medical acuity and acumen, when, within a mere two years, there will be tens of  millions of additional patients added to waiting rooms nationally?

They continue,

The President should have a prepared answer to this key concern of healthcare  providers and patients. It’s inconceivable that any question could be more  primary to the intrinsic workings of our health systems in the United States.  With all other concerns aside, nothing really matters if there are not properly  trained physicians available to evaluate and treat the added influx of thirty  million new patients.

Let’s assume that the polls are wrong, and that anywhere from thirty to  sixty-five percent of practicing doctors will not, indeed, cut back their hours or retire early in the next decade. Let’s answer this question then, honestly,  for the President in a stand-alone textbook-style essay response. There is  really only one–albeit vague and evasive–answer that the President can  give:

“…We will rely on ancillary healthcare personnel [non-physicians: nurses,  technicians, physician’s assistants] to step up and do more of the supporting  work now done by doctors.”

This is the answer that Mr. Obama’s handlers have likely prepared for him.  There is only one problem, however, with this answer: it is disingenuous and  factually incomplete.

First of all, the President’s men know very well that the decades-old slow  decline in inflation-adjusted income of physicians has already squeezed every  ounce of efficiency out of non-physician helpers in the workforce. There is no  way these ‘non-M.D.s’ can be asked to simply ‘give more’ without sacrificing  quality.

What will really happen in Obama’s new world medical order is that  non-physicians will be charged with higher levels of functioning in patient  care—assessment, treatment, and even prescription-writing, as more nurse  practitioners and (state law depending) others are required to practice medicine  without the benefit of a medical training and degree. Essentially, some will be  given the equivalent of a medical degree through legislative and executive fiat.  In other words, time-honored requirements and benchmarks for medical training  will be lowered.

…read more…

Obama-Care, however, is already crumbling and has two more times to visit the Supreme Court (HHS and the “Exchanges” between states). Here is one state that took the law into their own hands, as Walter William would say, Constitutionally:

Missouri voters dealt Obamacare a significant setback yesterday, approving a statewide ballot measure with an overwhelming 71 percent of the vote.

The vote was the first time citizens had an opportunity to cast a ballot on the unpopular health care law. Missouri’s measure prohibits the federal government’s enforcement of the individual mandate to buy health insurance. The victory sends a strong message about Obamacare in a bellwether state.

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A recent survey from the the third largest health care staffing company in the United States shows that most doctors are for either “repeal and replace” or “implement and improve.” These feelings work out towards the candidates in the following way:

A new survey shows Mitt Romney with a commanding lead over President Barack Obama among doctors, with Obamacare helping to sway their votes.

If the election were held today, 55 percent of physicians reported they would vote for Romney while just 36 percent support Obama, according to a survey released by Jackson & Coker, a division of Jackson Healthcare, the third largest health care staffing company in the United States

Fifteen percent of respondents said they were switching their vote from Obama in 2008 to Romney in 2012. The top reasons cited for this change was the Affordable Care Act and the failure to address tort reform.

Leadership style, failure to follow through on campaign promises, unemployment and the general state of the economy were also factors.

“Doctors are highly motivated this year to have their voice heard, particularly after passage of the Affordable Care Act,” said Sandy Garrett, president of Jackson & Coker. “No doubt, the health care law has stirred many passions in the medical community.”

Fifty-five percent of physicians said that they favored “repeal and replace” Obamacare, while 40 percent said “implement and improve”.

A Gallup poll from July found that 46 percent of Americans feel Obamacare is more harmful than helpful to the economy; 36 percent responded the opposite.

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Promises, Promises: Health Care Should `Never Be Purchased With Tax Increases On Middle Class Families`

Published by Papa Giorgio

From Gateway Pundit:

The American Spectatorreported:

Critics of the majority’s decision will say for the foreseeable future that Chief Justice Roberts rewrote Obamacare to save it. Michael Carvin, who argued against Obamacare before the Supreme Court, noted dryly, “I’m glad he rewrote the statute instead of the Constitution.”

Carvin’s summary of the Supreme Court’s ruling was on target: “What the Obama Administration… thought they were doing was completely unconstitutional; what they lied to the American people about was constitutional.… Unfortunately they got away with that bait-and-switch. A fraud has been perpetrated on the American citizenry.”

In oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the administration’s attorneys argued — as they knew they had to — that the mandate was constitutional as a tax. This despite the fact that Democrats passed Obamacare by stating specifically and repeatedly that the mandate was not a tax, including a testy response by President Obama himself to unusually challenging questioning by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in 2009.

As recently as a few months ago, President Obama’s budget director said in a Congressional hearing that the mandate is not a tax, with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying “it operates as a tax, but it is not per se a tax.”

If the bill had been marketed to members of Congress and the public as a tax, it is unlikely that even the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase would have been enough to pass the law, despite the large Democrat congressional majorities at the time. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that “if it had been seen as a tax, they wouldn’t have gotten ten votes, much less sixty.”

As for those Democrats in Congress who have argued, and may continue to argue, that the Obamacare mandate is not a tax, Graham said “they either don’t know what they’re doing, or they lied to us. So this is a huge issue in the fall.” Graham called for every Congressional Republican who is up for election to ask their Democratic opponents whether they support this tax increase; given that Democrats have little choice but to support Obamacare, this is the political equivalent of asking someone if he has stopped beating his wife yet, and a solid political tactic.

If It Walks Like a Duck, Sounds Like a Duck, Is It Constitutional?

Published by Papa Giorgio

This “Tax,” per the Supremes, started in the Senate…

Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution:

  • Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union…

Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution:

  • All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.

Since its law, why not? HotAir making a point?:

…First, the government needs to issue a mandate that all households must own at least one firearm. We will need a federal agency to ensure that people aren’t just buying cheap BB guns or .22 pistols, even though that may be all they need or want.  It has to be 9mm or above, with .44 magnums getting a one-time tax credit on their own.  Let’s pick an agency known for its aptitude on firearms and home protection to issue required annual certifications each year, without which the government will have to levy hefty fines.  Which agency would do the best job?  Hmmmm … I know!  How about TSA?  With their track record of excellence, we should have no problems implementing this mandate.

Don’t want to own a gun?  Hey, no worries.  Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says citizens have the right to refuse to comply with mandates.  The government will just seize some of your cash in fines, that’s all.  Isn’t choice great?  Those fines will go toward federal credits that will fund firearm purchases for the less well off, so that they can protect their homes as adequately as those who can afford guns on their own.  Since they generally live in neighborhoods where police response is appreciably worse than their higher-earning fellow Americans, they need them more anyway.  Besides — gun ownership is actually mentioned in the Constitution, unlike health care, which isn’t.  Obviously, that means that the federal government should be funding gun ownership….

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