In the Weekly Republican Address, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell discusses the flawed health care bill passed by Democrats and why it should be repealed and replaced.
McConnell says, "In one of the most divisive legislative debates in modern history, Democrats decided to go the partisan route and blatantly ignore the will of the people. Americans opposed this legislation, and, now theyre clamoring to see it repealed and replaced. Democratic Leaders and White House officials may be celebrating their victory this week, but most of the rest of the country is not. Most people arent interested in celebrating a bill that makes their lives more complicated, takes more out of their paychecks and puts decisions theyre used to making themselves into the hands of federal bureaucrats."
Even if Nancy Pelosi conjures up parliamentary tricks to pass Obamacare, expect a long legal battle as states line up to sue the federal government over the unconstitutional federal takeover of the health-care system. Pennsylvania is one of 37 states that have threatened to sue over Obamacare.
From The Associated Press:
Idaho's governor on Wednesday became the first state chief executive to sign a measure requiring his attorney general to sue the federal government if the U.S. Congress passes health care reform that forces Americans to buy insurance.
"What the Idaho Health Freedom Act says is that the citizens of our state won't be subject to another federal mandate or turn over another part of their life to government control," Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter said.
Constitutional law experts say Otter's action is mostly symbolic because federal laws supersede those of the states. But the movement reflects a growing national frustration with President President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
Similar legislation is pending in 37 other states nationwide.
Democratic leaders in Washington D.C. are hoping to vote on the U.S. health care bill this weekend, but it is not clear if they have enough votes to pass it. The bill is Obama's top domestic priority and the health care issue could help determine whether Democrats retain control of Congress in the November election.
Last week, Virginia legislators passed a measure similar to Idaho's new law, but Otter was the first state chief executive to sign such a bill, according the American Legislative Exchange Council, which created model legislation for Idaho and other states. The Washington, D.C.,-based nonprofit group promotes limited government.
Otter, a Republican, already warned U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in December that Idaho was considering litigation if health reform went through.
Shocking AP Fact Check: Premiums Will Rise Under Obamacare
From a new "Fact Check" by The Associated Press on Obamacare:
Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.
Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don't look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help cover the cost for millions of people.
I cannot believe Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have been lying to us all this time!
When billionaire Warren Buffett (the second richest man in America behind Bill Gates) speaks, people tend to listen.
From POLITICO:
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett advised President Barack Obama on Monday to scrap the health care bill and start over.
In an interview with CNBC, Buffett said the current bill does not focus on controlling costs, which he sees as the central problem that must be addressed to reform the system. He added that while he does not like the Senate bill, he'd vote for it in preference to doing nothing.
"What we have now is untenable over time," said Buffett, an early supporter of Obama's candidacy. "That kind of a cost compared to the rest of the world is really like a tapeworm eating, you know, at our economic body."
If the Obama Administration is starting to feel like the movie, "Groundhog Day," you're not far off. After wasting an entire year pushing a government takeover of health care that the majority of Americans oppose, Barack Obama is still peddling the same snake oil.
From Investor's Business Daily:
Health Reform: The linchpin of ObamaCare 2.0 is that 31 million uninsured will be covered at little added cost. But in fact, White House estimates for low costs are based on little more than accounting tricks.
The president's plan "puts our budget and economy on a more stable path by reducing the deficit by $100 billion over the next 10 years — and about $1 trillion over the second decade — by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse," the White House says on its Web site.
Sound too good to be true? It is.
None of the numbers can be believed. The plan is a result of blatantly dishonest accounting for the real costs of the program, while grossly overstating its benefits. Americans should know the actual 10-year cost is closer to $2 trillion over 10 years, not the $950 billion claimed, when all the actual costs are toted up.
How can there be such a wide gap? Mainly because the president's plan doesn't provide benefits until the second half of the first decade. So it pretends that it will "only" cost $950 billion. But once the program kicks in, the full 10-year cost of benefits will be included — at a real current cost of $2 trillion or more.
Or, as columnist Charles Krauthammer, himself a trained physician, told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly: "It's a trick. The way the Democrats got under (the spending limit imposed by Obama) was by making 98% of the expenditures, the benefits that you and I would get under the bill, occur in the second half of the decade."
Rafferty backs bill to keep doctors in Pennsylvania
From state Sen. John Rafferty:
Seeking to keep doctors in Pennsylvania, state Sen. John C. Rafferty Jr. R-44th Dist., joined medical representatives at a Harrisburg news conference Wednesday to push for legislation he is sponsoring that would create an MCARE Commission to oversee the future disbursement of MCARE Funds.
Rafferty was joined by Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli, president of the Pennsylvania Orthopaedic Society, who said the legislation is crucial to keeping young orthopaedic surgeons in the state and make health care available for more state residents.
Under Senate Bill 1174, the MCARE Commission will consist of representatives from the physician and hospital communities, the four legislative caucuses, the administration and a medical student.
"The major focus of this legislation is to allow practitioners who pay into this fund to control its disbursements and to keep insurance rates at a high level to protect doctors and patients," Rafferty said. "The MCARE fund should not be used as a checking account to be tapped by the Administration when state funds are low. Those who pay in should be able to determine how it is used."
Rafferty said his legislation would also ensure that future physicians will have a part in decisions, since they will pay the MCARE liabilities for their entire careers.
The MCARE Fund is a medical liability coverage fund run by the state of Pennsylvania. Currently, physicians are required to have $500,000 in primary liability coverage plus $500,000 in excess coverage above that. They can get the first $500,000 layer either in the private market or through the Joint Underwriting Association. They get the second layer from the MCARE Fund.
The MCARE Abatement Program subsidizes 100 percent of the MCARE surcharge for high-risk specialty surgeons and 50 percent of the MCARE surcharge for other healthcare providers. The program is the keystone of the medical liability reforms enacted during 2002 and 2003.
The program was renewed annually three times. In late December 2007, however, it became evident that the General Assembly could not agree on how to allocate the MCARE Fund's surplus, and the MCARE Abatement Program was not renewed by the year-end deadline.
If the MCARE phaseout schedule contained in Act 13 remains, in a few short years physicians may be required to carry $1 million of private market coverage while continuing to pay MCARE annual assessments. This eventual outcome creates a huge medical liability burden for society members and puts in place a significant barrier to recruiting the best and brightest young orthopaedic surgeons to Pennsylvania. SB 1174 will finally put physicians in the decision loop in regard to their money.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)— the nation's largest nonpartisan individual membership association of state legislators — congratulates Pennsylvania State Reps. Matthew Baker and Curt Schroder for filing House Bills 2053 and 2179, which protect the right of individuals to make their own health care choices.
Pennsylvania joins 31 other states where legislators have introduced, or will introduce, legislation modeled after ALEC's Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, according to a press release issued today by ALEC.
Under the legislation, any state attempt to require an individual to purchase health insurance — or forbid an individual from purchasing services outside of the required health care system — would be rendered unconstitutional. The measure may also cause a federalism clash if Congress passes a law with either of these provisions.
Baker and Schroder will hold a joint press conference Wednesday at 10 a.m. in the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg to discuss their efforts.
Read the rest of the ALEC press release at the link below:
The Wall Street Journal believes Barack Obama can salvage what's left of his failed presidency by listening to the American people instead of the "Democratic delusionists" who have been advising him over the past year.
Tuesday's stunning victory by Republican Scott Brown, which the newspaper calls a "historic election rebuke," was a clear signal that the majority of Americans want Obama to rethink most of his policies, especially government-run health care.
From the editorial:
Yesterday's vote wasn't a repudiation of Mr. Obama's Presidency, or at least it needn't be. The President remains more popular than his policies, and voters want him to succeed. But they are also telling him he needs to steer a more moderate, less partisan course, returning to the pragmatism and comity that shaped his political rise but have vanished in his first, squandered year.
Who you gonna trust with your family's health care? Harry Reid and Barack Obama or your doctor?
More than 500,000 U.S. doctors oppose the Obamacare bill about to be rammed through the U.S. Senate.
From TakeBackMedicine.org:
To date 43 state, county and national medical societies, representing nearly one‐half million physicians, have stated their public opposition to the Senate healthcare overhaul bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590). It is time for Congress to slow down, take a step back, and change the direction of current reform efforts to ensure that it is done right!
Syndicated columnist and liberal icon Nat Hentoff plans to publish a three-part series on the many troubling aspects of Obamacare. Hentoff is scared to death about a government takeover of health care and says you should be too.
The highlights below are from his first column, "Be scared: Obamacare endangers Americans' lifespans"
Hentoff writes:
Much of the press coverage of the Democrats' health-care legislation, now fiercely embattled in Congress, focuses on the public option, the actual long-term costs and tax increases, and the amendment barring funding for abortions, but the cold heart of Obamacare is its overpowering of the doctor-patient relationship — eventually resulting in the premature ending of many Americans' lives for being too costly.
To call the dangers of this legislation "death panels" obscures the real-life consequences to Americans, not only the elderly, of a federal government-run health-care bureaucracy. In the Senate bill, for instance, Medicare doctors whose treatments of certain, mostly elderly, patients costs more than a set government figure each year, will be punished by losing part of their own incomes.
Is this what presidential candidate Barack Obama meant by "Change we can believe in?" Even if you voted for him, is this the change you will believe in if your doctor is overruled by the government in his or her treatment decisions about you?
Remember those federal bureaucrats recently ruling on breast cancer screening? Dr. James Thrall, chairman of the American College of Radiology and a Harvard Medical School professor, said the resulting furor of dissent by doctors showed (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 18) that rulings "based on costs and large group averages, not individuals" lead him to fear that, "we are entering an era of deliberate decisions where we choose to trade people’s lives for money."
Is there anything you want to say to your representatives in the House or Senate before the final vote is taken? If you don't act urgently now, you may become part of another collective statistic — American annual death rates.
I'm scared, and I do mean to scare you.
We do not elect the president and Congress to decide how short our lives will be. That decision is way above their pay grades.
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid leads the Democratic Party to its Waterloo, a new Rasmussen poll shows just 38% of voters favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats.
That's the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June by Rasmussen Reports.
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey finds that 56% oppose the plan a clear majority and a warning to Democrats that their control of Congress will likely slip away in 2010 as they continue to push their big government higher taxes agenda.
From Rasmussen Reports:
Half the survey was conducted before the Senate voted late Saturday to begin debate on its version of the legislation. Support for the plan was slightly lower in the half of the survey conducted after the Senate vote.
Prior to this, support for the plan had never fallen below 41%. Last week, support for the plan was at 47%. Two weeks ago, the effort was supported by 45% of voters.
Intensity remains stronger among those who oppose the push to change the nation's health care system: 21% Strongly Favor the plan while 43% are Strongly Opposed.
Rasmussen Reports is continuing to track public opinion on the health care plan on a weekly basis. Next week's Monday morning update will give an indication of whether these numbers reflect a trend of growing opposition or are merely statistical noise.
Only 16% now believe passage of the plan will lead to lower health care costs. Nearly four times as many (60%) believe the plan will increase health care costs. Most (54%) also believe passage of the plan will hurt the quality of care.
As has been the case for months, Democrats favor the plan while Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party are opposed. The latest numbers show support from 73% of those in the president's party. The plan is opposed by 83% of Republicans and 70% of unaffiliated voters.
Seniors advocacy group targeting Pelosi bill supporters
Attention Democrats who supported the Pelosi Health Care Bill that guts Medicare to pay for expanded coverage to younger people: Seniors have long memories and they tend to vote in every election.
The 60 Plus Association is targeting 15 Democrats, including two from Pennsylvania.
In case you're wondering which Pennsylvania members of Congress supported the Pelosi Health Care Bill, which will raise taxes and put your family's current health care coverage at risk, see the list below.
If you see any of the names on a ballot next May or November, vote for the other person:
Robert Brady (D-PA-1) Chaka Fattah (D-PA-2) Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA-3) Joe Sestak (D-PA-7) Patrick Murphy (D-PA-8) Christopher Carney (D-PA-10) John Murtha (D-PA-12) Paul Kanjorski (D-PA-11) Allyson Schwartz (D-PA-13) Mike Doyle (D-PA-14)
The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) House Republican staff, which earlier this year created a chart mapping the bureaucratic complexity of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's original health care proposal (H.R. 3200), has combined similar analysis by the House Republican Conference with the earlier chart. The analysis details new additions to the health care bureaucracy contained in the new version of the Speaker's bill (H.R. 3962) that were not previously listed. Let's just say the Speaker's vision for government-run health care hasn't gotten any simpler.
"This is the blueprint for a taxpayer-funded mega-bureaucracy," Boehner said "The new chart is an astonishing and unsettling glimpse of the future that awaits American health care, should H.R. 3962 be passed by the House and signed into law."
The chart, completed at the direction of Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), the committee's ranking House Republican Member, shows that the Pelosi plan has grown even more complex in the months since it was originally unveiled by congressional Democrats.
Remember all the grief former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin received from the liberal media when she pointed out that the health care reform bills pushed by Democrats included provisions for the so-called "death panels" to advise elderly Americans on alternatives to medical treatment after they reach a certain age?
Guess what? Sarah Palin was right. The House bill touted by Nancy Pelosi includes end-of-life counseling by government-sponsored "death panels."
From The Associated Press:
It's alive! End-of-life counseling in health bill
WASHINGTON (AP) — It's alive.
The Medicare end-of-life planning provision that 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said was tantamount to "death panels" for seniors is staying in the latest Democratic health care bill unveiled Thursday.
The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death.
For years, federal laws and policies have encouraged Americans to think ahead about end-of-life decisions, and make their wishes known in advance through living wills and similar legal documents. But when House Democrats proposed this summer to pay doctors for end-of-life counseling, it touched off a wave of suspicion and anger.
Prominent Republicans singled it out as a glaring example of government overreach. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, at the time a lead negotiator on health care legislation, told constituents at a town hall meeting they had good reason to question the proposal.
"I don't have any problem with things like living wills, but they ought to be done within the family," he said. "We should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma."
Consumer Watchdog lists Top 5 health care 'time bombs'
"If this bill becomes law, consumers will find themselves still at the absolute mercy of private insurance companies," said Judy Dugan, research director of Consumer Watchdog. "Premiums and co-pays will be uncontrolled, even as patient rights are eliminated. Congress must stand up to the corporate lobbies and add better consumer protections, or pay the price in voter anger at being stuck with a bait-and-switch reform."
Consumer Watchdog said the proposal's top 5 health time bombs are:
* Elimination of a public health insurance option; * Evasion of state patient-rights laws; * Weak "employer mandate;" * Omission of price regulation of insurance; * Lack of recourse to hold insurers accountable.
Democrats are pulling out all the stops to push for government-run health care. A Democratic senator thinks government regulation and taxing of Internet gambling could help pay for part of the massive cost of Obamacare.
An amendment offered by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) would dedicate Internet gambling tax revenue generated through implementation of the currently pending Internet Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2267) to increase low-income subsidies provided through the America's Healthy Future Act of 2009, according to a group called the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative.
I wonder if Obamacare will cover addiction to Internet gambling?
A PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis shows that collecting taxes on regulated Internet gambling would allow the U.S. to capture up to $62.7 billion over the next decade, says the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative.
"We applaud Senator Wyden's proposal to collect and put to good use tens of billions in Internet gambling revenue that would otherwise be lost in the underground marketplace," said Michael Waxman, spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. "The Senate Finance Committee should approve the resolution, finally putting to an end a failed prohibition on Internet gambling that leaves Americans unprotected and unlicensed offshore operators as the only beneficiary in a thriving marketplace."
The Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2267), introduced in May by House Committee on Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA), would establish a framework to permit licensed gambling operators to accept wagers from individuals in the U.S., says the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative.
Is this the same Barney Frank who presided over the financial collapse of the past year? And just one more question: If Obamcare will cost at least $1 trillion, how is $62 billion going to cover the cost? I'm sure Barack Obama and Barney Frank have it all figured out.
Columnist: 10 More 'You Lie' Moments On Health Care
South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson was taken to the woodshed by Congressional Democrats for his "You Lie!" outburst during Barack Obama's recent speech on health care, but what the liberal media is failing to focus on is the fact that Wilson was telling the truth. Obama is lying about his government-run plan.
In fact, Obama told at least 10 lies during his speech, according to columnist John Hawkins.
From his column:
Unfortunately, this sort of deception has been the rule, not the exception in the Democrats' health care push. In fact, Barack Obama has sold health care by saying, in effect, "Anybody who has anything negative to say about health care reform is just spreading myths."
It's a shame that Barack Obama has chosen to go this way, because our health care system does desperately need to be reformed and conservatives would be very willing to work with the Democrats to do it. In fact, in a recent poll of 74 conservative bloggers, every single one of them said that they'd be "willing to support health care reform that primarily emphasized market based reforms." If Obama were to take that approach or even if he were to simply focus on helping the 8-10 million Americans who want health insurance but can't afford it, I suspect he'd have no trouble at all getting strong bipartisan support for a bill.
Here is the list compiled by Hawkins:
1. The President is working with Republicans. 2. Republicans haven't suggested a plan for health care. 3. The public option won't put the insurance industry out of business and lead to a government takeover of health care. 4. Medicare won't be cut to fund this health care bill. 5. The health care plan won't add "one dime to our deficits either now or in the future." 6. Preventative care will be required in these bills and it'll save money. 7. Health care reform will help create more jobs. 8. Abortion won't be covered under the bill. 9. This bill won't lead to rationing of health care and people being denied life saving operations. 10. Obama's "Plan" doesn't have these problems you're talking about.
Read "10 More 'You Lie' Moments On Health Care" at Townhall.com
Congressman Joe "You Lie!" Wilson notwithstanding, Barack Obama appears to have received a boost from last Wednesday's health care speech to a joint session of Congress.
A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows 48 percent of voters supporting Obama's plans for government-run health care although another 48 percent oppose it.
From Rasmussen Reports:
The post-speech bounce continues with the nation now evenly divided over the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, but the increase in support is still coming from Democratic voters rallying to their leader.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll shows 48% of voters favor the plan and 48% are opposed. That's up from 43% support at the end of August and from 44% earlier this week. Support has been growing since the president's speech to Congress Wednesday night aimed at getting his troubled health care initiative back on track.
Thirty percent (30%) Strongly Favor the plan while 40% are Strongly Opposed (see day-by-day numbers). In late August, just 23% were strongly in favor of the plan and 43% were strongly opposed.
More than 1,000 physicians from all 50 states will converge on the Capitol in scrubs and lab coats this week to bring an angry message to Congress: "Stop meddling in medicine!"
The doctors, all traveling as individuals and at their own expense, will hold a rally at the Capitol, lobby their Members of Congress, and meet with the doctors of Congress, including Tom Price, M.D., of Georgia and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
The event, co-sponsored by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and Tea Party Patriots, was prompted by the American Medical Association's misguided endorsement of House Bill HR 3200, a bill that would turn more control over to the government, rather than restore it to patients and doctors.
Ann Coulter: Liberal Lies About National Health Care, Part 2
Best-selling author and columnist Ann Coulter has launched a series of columns exposing "Liberal Lies About National Health Care."
The first part covered five major lies:
(1) National health care will punish the insurance companies. 2) National health care will "increase competition and keep insurance companies honest" -- as President Barack Obama has said. (3) Insurance companies are denying legitimate claims because they are "villains." (4) National health care will give Americans "basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable" -- as Barack Obama claimed in his op/ed in the Times. (5) Government intervention is the only way to provide coverage for pre-existing conditions.
The Commonwealth Foundation has released a report showing that President Obama's proposed takeover of health care by the federal government would have dramatically negative effects on Pennsylvanians.
The report, written by a research team headed by noted economist and former presidential advisor Dr. Arthur Laffer, entitled, "The Prognosis for National Health Insurance: A Pennsylvania Perspective," finds that President Obama's health care proposal would have the following effects:
* It would add $4,453 in additional health care costs for every man, woman, and child in Pennsylvania.
* Despite the additional $1 trillion in expected health care subsidies, 30 million people nationally would remain uninsured. The cost to reduce the number of uninsured by 16 million is $62,500 per person insured.
* Pennsylvania's economic growth in 2019 compared to the baseline scenario would be reduced by 5.1 percent.
The American College of Surgeons is upset with the "uninformed" comments Barack Obama is making about the American health-care system.
From a press release issued by the American College of Surgeons:
The American College of Surgeons is deeply disturbed over the uninformed public comments President Obama continues to make about the high-quality care provided by surgeons in the United States. When the President makes statements that are incorrect or not based in fact, we think he does a disservice to the American people at a time when they want clear, understandable facts about health care reform. We want to set the record straight.
* Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation. This payment also includes the evaluation of the patient on the day of the operation plus patient follow-up care that is provided for 90 days after the operation. Private insurers pay some variation of the Medicare reimbursement for this service.
* Three weeks ago, the President suggested that a surgeon's decision to remove a child's tonsils is based on the desire to make a lot of money. That remark was ill-informed and dangerous, and we were dismayed by this characterization of the work surgeons do. Surgeons make decisions about recommending operations based on what's right for the patient.
Poll: 51% Fear Government More Than Insurance Companies On Health Care
More evidence Obamacare is on life support.
From Rasmussen Reports:
When it comes to health care decisions, 51% of the nation’s voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 41% hold the opposite view and fear the insurance companies more. Seven percent (7%) are not sure who they fear the most.
Among those who have insurance, 53% fear the government more than insurance companies while 39% take the opposite view. Those without insurance fear the insurance companies more.
Adults under 30 fear the insurance companies more while those in their 40s are evenly divided. However, a solid majority of those over 40 fear the government more.
These findings help explain fears by some of a government "takeover" of health care under the reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats.
AN URGENT ACTION ALERT FROM THE COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION:
Americans For Prosperity’s Patients First Bus Tour is rolling into across Pennsylvania Monday, August 10th through Saturday, August 15th. Everyone will have an opportunity to sign a petition telling the government to keep their Hands Off Our Healthcare! Look at the list of cities below and see which bus tour stop you will attend! We need to educate ourselves and our neighbors about this issue. Click here to read and print Commonwealth Foundation's Health Care Policy Points. We must send members of Congress, who are coming back to their districts for a recess, a loud and relentless message that government control of our health care is wrong for America. Send an email to everyone you know about the Patients First bus tour. Bring a friend. Bring your signs. Sign the petition. For a listing of event dates, times and cities, click here.
Rory Cooper of The Heritage Foundation offers the Top 10 Reasons Obamacare Is Wrong For America:
1. Millions Will Lose Their Current Insurance. Period. End of Story: President Obama wants Americans to believe they can keep their insurance if they like, but research from the government, private research firms, and think tanks show this is not the case. Proposed economic incentives, plus a government-run health plan like the one proposed in the House bill, would cause 88.1 million people to see their current employer-sponsored health plan disappear.
2. Your Health Care Coverage Will Probably Change Anyway: Even if you kept your private insurance, eventually most remaining plans — whether employer plans or individual plans — would have to conform to new federal benefit standards. Moreover, the necessary plan "upgrades" will undoubtedly cost you more in premiums.
3. The Umpire Is Also the First Baseman: The main argument for a "public option" is that it would increase competition. However, if the federal government creates a health care plan that it controls and also sets the rules for the private plans, there is little doubt that Washington would put its private sector "competitors" out of business sooner or later.
4. The Fed Picks Your Treatment: President Obama said: "They're going to have to give up paying for things that don't make them healthier. … If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half for the thing that’s going to make you well." Does that sound like a government that will stay out of your health care decisions
5. Individual Mandate Means Less Liberty and More Taxes: Although he once opposed the idea, President Obama is now open to the imposition of an individual mandate that would require all Americans to have federally approved health insurance. This unprecedented federal directive not only takes away your individual freedom but could cost you as well. Lawmakers are considering a penalty or tax for those who don't buy government-approved health plans.
6. Higher Taxes Than Europe Hurt Small Businesses: A proposed surtax on the wealthy will actually hit hundreds of thousands of small business owners who are dealing with a recession. If it is enacted, America's top earners and job creators will carry a larger overall tax burden than France, Italy, Germany, Japan, etc., with a total average tax rate greater than 52%. Is that the right recipe for jobs and wage growth?
7. Who Makes Medical Decisions? What is the right medical treatment and should bureaucrats determine what Americans can or cannot have? While the House and Senate language is vague, amendments offered in House and Senate committees to block government rationing of care were routinely defeated. Cost or a federal health board could be the deciding factors. President Obama himself admitted this when he said, "Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," when asked about an elderly woman who needed a pacemaker.
8. Taxpayer-Funded Abortions? Nineteen Democrats recently asked the President to not sign any bill that doesn't explicitly exclude "abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan" or any bill that allows a federal health board to "recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package." Currently, these exclusions do not exist.
9. It's Not Paid For: The CBO says the current House plan would increase the deficit by $239 billion over 10 years. And that number will likely continue to rise over the long term. Similar entitlement bills in the past, including Medicare, have scored much lower than their actual eventual cost.
10. Rushing It, Not Reading It: We've been down this road before — with the failed stimulus package. Back then, we also heard that we were in a crisis and that we needed to pass a 1,000-plus-page bill in a few hours — without reading it — or we would have 8% unemployment. Well, we know what happened. Now, one Congressman has even said it's pointless to read one of the reform bills without two days and two lawyers to make sense of it. Deception is the only reason to rush through a bill nobody truly understands.
The Heritage Foundation has several more informative articles about genuine health care reform at its Web site.
Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?
Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:
The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.
They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.
Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.
The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.
Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.
Study: 4.1M Pennsylvanians Could Lose Private Insurance Under Obamacare
From a new analysis by The Heritage Foundation of the Obamacare bill making its way through Congress:
An estimated 4.1 million residents in Pennsylvania could lose their private, employer-based coverage if Congress passes a House health reform bill.
Of the estimated 7.6 million Pennsylvanians with private health insurance, 51 percent would transition out of private coverage. Plus, 59 percent of the state's population who get their private insurance from the workplace could have their existing coverage change or disappear under the House health bill.
Also, 32 percent of Pennsylvania's uninsured population would still lack coverage. Of the estimated 1.4 million people without health coverage, the legislation would only reduce the uninsured by 952,600, leaving 447,400 Pennsylvania residents without coverage.
Poll: Just 23% Believe Health Care Costs Will Go Down under Obamacare
Why is Barack Obama expending so much energy on a health care reform bill that will not lower the cost of health care for the average American family?
It's clear most Americans have figured out that Obamacare is the latest big-government plan to move the nation toward socialism.
From Rasmussen Reports:
Americans are fairly evenly divided on the health care reform proposals working their way through Congress, but most remain convinced that the plans will raise costs and hurt the quality of the care they receive.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% are in favor of the reform effort proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats while 49% are opposed. Those figures include 25% who Strongly Favor the plans and 41% who are Strongly Opposed.
The specifics of what will be in a health care reform plan remains hotly debated in Congress at the moment. When a final proposal emerges, it is possible that support could move significantly in either direction.
Currently, 76% of Democrats favor the proposal and 76% of Republicans are opposed. Among the unaffiliated, 35% are in favor and 60% are opposed. Notably, just 16% of unaffiliateds Strongly Favor the legislative effort while 47% Strongly Oppose it.
It's time to pull the plug on Obamacare. We've seen the damage Obama and his minions have done to the economy. Do you want to entrust your family's health to Obama?
If this proposal is so much better than what we have now (80% of Americans have health insurance), why won't Barack Obama and his family, as well as members of Congress and their families, be covered under Obamacare?
If the goal is to cover all Americans and provide them with better health care, why can't we have the same plan that politicians get?
Second, why the rush? Why the artificial deadline of Congress' August recess?
If this is an improvement over the current system, why hide so much of it and push it through Congress before anyone has had a chance to read the 1,000-plus pages of the bill?
We rushed into a bank bailout plan that has failed. We rushed into a bailout of the auto industry that resulted in two of the three major U.S. car companies going bankrupt. We rushed into a "stimulus" package that has failed. We rushed into an energy bill (cap-and-trade) that does nothing to address our energy needs but imposes a huge tax burden on everyone who uses electricity.
So why are we rushing to adopt a "reform" of the health care system without adequate debate?
From a column by in today's New York Post by Michael D. Tanner, a Cato Institute senior fellow and co-author of "Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It" --
Health care represents one-sixth of the US economy, and some of the most important, personal and private decisions in people's lives. Reform will affect everything from jobs to what treatments your doctor can prescribe. It will cost well over $1 trillion over the next 10 years, more beyond that, and impose enormous costs on the economy and higher taxes on millions of Americans. If we get health-care reform wrong, it won't be easy to go back and fix it.
Tony Phyrillas is the city editor and political columnist for The Mercury, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning daily newspaper in Pottstown, Pa. Phyrillas has won several national and state awards for his columns. Phyrillas has been featured on National Public Radio (NPR) and in The New York Times and is a frequent commentator on radio and television programs. He co-hosted "Talking Politics with Tony Phyrillas & Mike Pincus" on WPAZ 1370 AM.
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