Via Weasel Zippers:
Government policies effectively redistributed more than $2 trillion in income from the top 40 percent of American society to the bottom 60 percent in 2012, according to a new study from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
Obama-Care
7-million Lost Healthcare So Far ~ Only 50,000 Have Been Able To Sign Up Under Obamacare
Pacific Legal Foundation and House Members Sue the Obama Administration
Remember I said this in July of 2012:
❖ Obama-Care will be overturned… no worries [Roberts Knows This!]:
a. The HHS mandate will be coming down the pipeline… it will be overturned on this basis (this may demand one more conservative judge);
b. The “Exchanges” between states being an impossibility both Constitutionally (the majority opinion eviscerated this concept), and Republican governors [like Jindal for instance] have said they will not implement them.
c. Since this is a direct tax, via the Court, this has another Constitutional ground to lose on or for Congress to overturn on. That is this:
Article 1, Section 3, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution [Apportionment of Representatives; Direct Taxes]: 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, Paragraph 1 [Bills of Revenue Originate in House]: 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.
d. BECAUSE it is a tax, reconciliation can be used to repeal the law.
e. The Affordable Care Act made a one-word mistake in the 2800-page bill that [c]ould demolish the entire law.
“We are grateful for this powerful support from Congressman Franks, a leading authority on the Constitution, and from many other key lawmakers,” said PLF Principal Attorney Paul J. Beard II. “This support from members of the House is especially significant because PLF’s lawsuit defends the constitutional authority of the lower chamber, the legislative body that is closest to the people. We argue that Obamacare was enacted in a way that deprived the House of its authority to ‘originate’ new taxation. By extension, taxpayers were deprived of a core constitutional protection against reckless and oppressive use of the federal taxing power.” (see more)
Via Gateway Pundit:
In addition to Representative Franks, House members who have joined the brief as amici in support of PLF’s Obamacare challenge include: Michele Bachmann (MN); Joe Barton (TX); Kerry L. Bentivolio (MI); Marsha Blackburn (TN); Jim Bridenstine (OK); Mo Brooks (AL); K. Michael Conaway (TX); Steve Chabot (OH); Jeff Duncan (SC); John J. Duncan, Jr. (TN); John Fleming (LA); Bob Gibbs (OH); Louie Gohmert (TX); Andy Harris (MD); Tim Huelskamp (KS); Walter B. Jones, Jr. (NC); Steve King (IA); Doug Lamborn (CO); Doug LaMalfa (CA); Bob Latta (OH); Thomas Massie (KY); Mark Meadows (NC); Randy Neugebauer (TX); Steve Pearce (NM); Robert Pittenger (NC); Trey Radel (FL); David P. Roe (TN); Todd Rokita (IN); Matt Salmon (AZ); Mark Sanford (SC); David Schweikert (AZ); Marlin A. Stutzman (IN); Lee Terry (NE); Tim Walberg (MI); Randy K. Weber, Sr. (TX), Brad R. Wenstrup (OH); Lynn A. Westmoreland (GA); Rob Wittman (VA); and Ted S. Yoho (FL).
George Will Likens Obama To a Baby ~ Sarah Palin says Bill Clinton was Right
As if the President Has the Authority To Allow or Disallow This! This is the Crux of the Issue
I applaud Bill for saying this, and he may be saying it as a lead up to his wife using this as an issue to get the nomination for the Dems… who knows. But people are not catching that the President of the United States should have NO SAY whatsoever in a private citizen having a contractual agreement with a private business about a healthcare plan. The sickness in thinking government is the answer and has the right to even be involved in these levels of contractual agreement of its body-politic is something that needs to be rectified in conversations with friends and family.
Two Left Leaning Journalists Dissect Obamacare ~ Michael Medved
Here are the two article excerpts and links below that Medved references, the first is from the NYT’s and is by Anemona Hartocollis:
Talk of Penalty Is Missing in Ads for Health Care
New York’s health exchange slogan is “Today’s the Day.” Minnesota has enlisted Paul Bunyan. Oregon held a music contest, and California stresses the “peace of mind” that will come with insurance.
The state and federal health insurance exchanges are using all manner of humor and happy talk to sell the Affordable Care Act’s products. But the one part of the new system that they are not quick to trumpet is the financial penalty that Americans will face if they fail to buy insurance.
On state exchange websites, mention of the penalty is typically tucked away under “frequently asked questions,” if it appears at all. Television and print ads usually skip the issue, and operators of exchange telephone banks are instructed to discuss it only if asked. The federal website, now infamous for its glitches, mentions the penalty but also calls it a fee, or an Individual Shared Responsibility Payment.
The euphemisms and avoidance of any discussion of the penalty are no accident, both supporters and critics of the law say. While the mandate for all Americans to buy health insurance — with a penalty if they do not — was the linchpin of the Supreme Court decision upholding the law, and is considered the key to its success, poll after poll has found that it is also the least popular part of the program.
State exchange operators say that they are not trying to hide the penalty, but that their market research has taught them that, at least in the initial phase, consumers will be more receptive to soothing messages and appeals to their sense of collective responsibility than to threats of punishment.
“We feel that the carrot is better than the stick,” said Larry Hicks, a spokesman for Covered California. “This is a new endeavor. We want people to come in and test our wares.”
Here is Lori Gottlieb’s article via the NYT’s:
Daring to Complain About Obamacare
THE Anthem Blue Cross representative who answered my call told me that there was a silver lining in the cancellation of my individual P.P.O. policy and the $5,400 annual increase that I would have to pay for the Affordable Care Act-compliant option: now if I have Stage 4 cancer or need a sex-change operation, I’d be covered regardless of pre-existing conditions. Never mind that the new provider network would eliminate coverage for my and my son’s long-term doctors and hospitals.
The Anthem rep cheerily explained that despite the company’s — I paraphrase — draconian rates and limited network, my benefits, which also include maternity coverage (handy for a 46-year-old), would “be actually much richer.”
I, of course, would be actually much poorer. And it was this aspect of the bum deal that, to my surprise, turned out to be a very unpopular thing to gripe about.
“Obamacare or Kafkacare?” I posted on Facebook as soon as I hung up with Anthem. I vented about the call and wrote that the president should be protecting the middle class, not making our lives substantially harder. For extra sympathy, I may have thrown in the fact that I’m a single mom. (O.K., I did.)
Then I sat back and waited for the love to pour in. Or at least the “like.” Lots of likes. After all, I have 1,037 Facebook friends. Surely, they’d commiserate.
Except that they didn’t.
Instead, aside from my friend David, who attempted to cheer me up with, “My dad, who never turns down a bargain, would take the sex change just because it’s free,” my respondents implied — in posts that, to my annoyance, kept getting more “likes” — that it was beyond uncool to be whining about myself when the less fortunate would finally have insurance.
“The nation has been better off,” wrote one friend. “Over 33 million people who did not have insurance are now going to get it.” That’s all fine and good for “the nation,” but what about my $5,400 rate hike (after-tax dollars, I wanted to add, but dared not in this group of previously closeted Mother Teresas)? Another friend wrote, “Yes, I’m paying an extra 200 a month, but I’m okay with doing that so that others who need it can have health care.”
I was shocked. Who knew my friends were such humanitarians? Has Obamacare made it un-P.C. to be concerned by a serious burden on my family’s well-being?
Single-Payer/Government Run Healthcare IS a Monopoly/Corporate
Definitions:
a situation in which the government owns and controls a particular industry and there is no competition.
Except, government often times is impossible to fire through not buying a product the market does not need or want any longer! GM — as you will read — is a prime example. But first, Health “Care”:
NHS targets ‘may have led to 1,200 deaths’ in Mid-Staffordshire
NHS managers were yesterday accused of putting targets and cost-cutting ahead of patients as a report into at Mid-Staffordshire Hospitals trust found up to 1,200 people may have died needlessly due to “appalling standards of care” at a single hospital.
“The problems first emerged after the hospital was reported in 2007 to have high mortality rates among patients.
But the trust’s board of directors “fobbed off” NHS investigators by saying the rates were a result of statistical errors.
Yesterday the Healthcare Commission concluded this was not that case. The report stated that staff members claimed care of patients had become secondary to government-imposed targets.
The report said there was a “reluctance to acknowledge or even consider that the care of patients was poor”.
Nurses were threatened with the sack because of the number of breaches of the target to treat A&E patients within four hours and felt they were “in the firing line”.
Patients in danger of breaching the target were put in a ‘clinical decision unit’ which was a “dumping ground” for patients in order to “stop the clock” on the waiting time.
Relatives came forward to report, nurses shouting at patients, staff failed to treat patients with compassion or dignity and respect, lack of help with meals or drinks, and failures to treat bed sores. One compared the hospital treatment to the “Third World”.
A survey found two thirds of doctors would not be happy to have a relative of theirs treated at the hospital….
The Mirror added:
…After the paper by Robert Francis QC into how bosses at Stafford simply stopped caring for patients, it emerged eight more hospitals were being investigated over high death rates…. Mr Francis said: “This is a story of appalling and unnecessary suffering of hundreds of people. “They were failed by a system which ignored the warning signs and put corporate self-interest and cost control ahead of patients and safety.”
The, “Death Panels,” if-you-will, Sarah Palin was exonerated for. The following is from a FaceBook response to a friend:
…the was to show how the Obama admin is stacking the books with GM. You see, when the government chooses winners-and-losers instead of getting contracts with private companies (like Ford, GM, etc.), they are invested to [i.e., forced to] only choose a government run business and stock their fish (so-to-speak) with GM fleets… leaving the non-government company to flounder.
This next audio deals with the differences of the Koch brothers, in comparison to the Left’s version of them, Soros. There are many areas that one can discuss about the two… but let us focus in on the main/foundational difference. One wants a large government that is able to legislate more than just what kind of light-bulbs one can use in the privacy of their own home. Soros wants large government able to control a large portion of the economy (see link to chart below), and he has been very vocal on this goal. The other party always mentioned are the Koch brothers. These rich conservatives want a weak government. A government that cannot effect our daily lives nearly as much (personal, business, etc) as the Soros enterprise wants. And really, if you think about it, what business can really “harm” you, when people come to my door with pistols on their hip… are they a) more likely to be from GM, or, b) from the IRS?
The possibility of them being from the IRS is even more possible with the passing of Obama-Care [i.e., larger government]. So the “fear” (audio in next comment) I think the Left has of “Big-Business” is unfounded, and the problem comes when big-business gets in bed with big-government. Here I am thinking of (like with the penalties that were found to be Constitutional in the recent SCOTUS decision) a government that can penalize you if you do not buy a Chevy Volt, or some other green car in order to save the planet. When this happens, guys coming to my door because of unpaid (hypothetical… but historical examples abound of the tax history of our nation) “fines” are likely to be IRS agents because of a personal choice made in the “free-market.”
Adding to the above, I note that what other area of life a person would want single-payer in:
An after thought. Since the DNC leadership has said — recently — the goal is single-payer… the question becomes this then: “what other area of life would a person want single payer in?” The airlines? Fast-food? Grocery stores? Car dealers? Education? Gyms?… coffee shops?
In other words, why would someone reject a single airline, a single grocery-store (sorry weekend BBQ’ers, no more carne-asada from Vallerta), one gym, etc. — competition drives prices down and offers the best way (supply and demand) to get to the consumer what they want… but reject all that for a system that is failing in Canada, Britain, and the like?
It seems counter-intuitive that the left likes to break up large companies/corporations that get too big, and speak about/to the “evils” large companies inflict on the consumer, but then want single-payer. Odd indeed.
CS Lewis:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
Perfect! Felon`s Can Have Access to All Your Information, Via Obamacare
You`re a man child begging mommy to pay your bills
This comes via Libertarian Republican. Kurt Schlichter is an attorney living in California. He is a small businessman and a US Army Veteran of the Gulf War. From Townhall.com,
“Maybe Pain Will Teach You Millenials Not To Vote For Your Own Serfdom”
You Millenials voted for Obama by a margin of 28 percent, which will make it a lot easier for me to accept the benefits you will be paying for. We warned you that liberalism was a scam designed to take the fruits of your labor and transfer it to us, the older, established generation. Oh, and also to the couch-dwelling, Democrat-voting losers who live off of food stamps and order junk from QVC with their Obamaphones.
You didn’t listen to us. Maybe you’ll listen to pain. I have been told that being hard on you Millennials will turn you against conservatism, that I should offer you a positive, hopeful message that avoids the touchy problem of your manifest stupidity.
No. There’s no sugar-coating it – your votes for Democrats have ensured that you are the first generation in American history that will fail to exceed what their parents attained. Embracing liberalism was a stupid thing to do, done for the stupidest of reasons, and I will now let you subsidize my affluent lifestyle without a shred of guilt.
Bam!
You bought into the line of crap that Obama was oh, so cool, and Republicans just meanie “Jesus Freaks” who hate dancing, and don’t know how to have a good time.
Continuing from Libertarian Republican:
Why do you support an ideology that pillages you to pay-off Democrat constituencies? Your time in the indoctrination factories of academia trained you in a form of “critical thinking” that is neither.
Somehow, you came to embrace the bizarre notion that conservatives are psychotic Jesus freaks who want to Footloosisze America into a land of mandatory Sunday school and no dancing. But liberals, in contrast, are nice. Obama is cool. You chose petty fascism with a smile. Not a lot of thought went into it. Facts, evidence – these were mere distractions from the feelings-based validation that came from rejecting us wicked conservatives.
It gets worse, (or better from our perspective). The near final and killer paragraph:
You live with your parents, and Obamacare encourages sponging until you are 26 years old. At 26, I was leading Americans in a war, not begging mommy to pay my bills. The liberals want you to be eternal man-children, wearing cargo shorts and passively pumping money into their socialized medicine nightmare in return for “Brosurance” you don’t want or need.
Liar-In-Chief (36-Times)
Via the Daily Caller:
President Barack Obama told his enthusiastic supporters Monday night that he never promised what video recordings show him promising at least 29 times.
The videos show Obama promising 300 million Americans that “if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period.”
But that’s not what he really said, Obama announced Monday in a speech to about 200 Organizing for Action supporters, gathered at the St. Regis hotel in D.C.
“What we said was you could keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed,” he told Obamacare’s political beneficiaries and contractors.
That claim is not supported by his videotaped statements, which don’t include any mention of his new “if it hasn’t changed” exception.
But the newly-revealed exception is justified by a higher-priority promise in Obamacare, Obama declared.
“If we had allowed these old plans [to continue]… then we would have broken an even more important promise — making sure that Americans gain access to health care that doesn’t leave them one illness away from financial ruin,” he announced.
“So the bottom line is, is that we are making the insurance market better for everybody,” he declared, prompting loud applause by supporters eager to ignore his three years of fraudulent statements.
Obama’s higher promise is now causing the cancelation of insurance policies chosen by at least 3.5 million Americans.
[….]
“We decided we need to build something better, no matter how hard it is,” he declared.
Under that better progressive-managed system, some people’s health-care costs are going to jump, but it will be good for them, Obama said.
The “we” is not a single Republican vote type of “we.” So… In other words, “we” in Obama-speak are the central planners within the Democratic Party. (Follow link in the graphic below)
Persistent Myths about Pre-existing Conditions and Insurance Companies ~ Denny Weinberg Interviewed by Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager interviewed Denny Weinberg (of http://www.wellpoint.com/), and they work through some misunderstandings [fomented] by the cultural left in today’s debate about healthcare. Very illumination to say the least!
David Cutler`s Warnings 3-Years Ago About Obamacare (Bonus: Dianne Feinstein Spins)
Via HotAir:
…David Cutler, who worked on the Obama 2008 campaign and was a valued outside health care consultant wrote this blunt memo to top White House economic adviser Larry Summers in May 2010: “I do not believe the relevant members of the administration understand the president’s vision or have the capability to carry it out.”
Cutler wrote no one was in charge who had any experience in complex business start-ups. He also worried basic regulations, technology and policy coordination would fail.
“You need to have people who have understanding of the political process, people who understand how to work within an administration and people who understand how to start and build a business, and unfortunately, they just didn’t get all of those people together,” Cutler said.
The White House dismissed these and other warnings. It relied on appointed bureaucrats and senior White House health care advisers.
[….]
The White House didn’t heed this warning for the same reason they embarked on this project in the first place. The bureaucrats and the activists thought they were smarter than the markets, and smarter than the people who have actual experience in the private sector. It’s the same infection that creates the monumentally tone-deaf argument that people should be happy that the government forced them out of existing plans they chose for themselves in order to pay more for coverage that the consumers know they don’t need. It’s unbridled hubris, and it produced this inevitable Greek tragedy that also doubles as farce.
Now, keep this in mind, too. Did the White House bring in ground-up business people and web-savvy firms to take over from the bureaucrats and the contractors who wasted $400 million on a web portal that doesn’t portal anything? No — they brought in Jeffrey Zients, one of Obama’s economic advisers, and kept everyone else in place. With this background in mind, just how likely will it be that the November 30th deadline for full functionality will be met?
More from HotAir. Dianne Feinstein spins Obama’s promises:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation yesterday in part to face the music. Bob Schieffer led off this portion of her appearance by noting that the Obama administration has failed to deliver on many promises of ObamaCare, not the least of which was “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Feinstein tries to explain that the promise was true … up until the bill passed.
No, seriously (via Eliana Johnson at The Corner):
More from HotAir:
So let’s get this straight. The promise made by Barack Obama from 2007 forward all the way through the 2012 election, made dozens if not hundreds of times in those five years, meant that you could keep the plan you liked only if we never enacted the reform he proposed? I’ve heard some pretty fanciful spin on the “keep your plan” promise, but that really does take the cake. “Never made clear,” indeed.
Here’s another question for Senator Feinstein. You voted for this bill and helped push it through Congress with zero Republican votes. Why is it only now that we find out that you had no idea how this bill, drafted in the Senate by senior Democratic leadership, would impact Americans who liked the insurance they already had?…