$1 Trillion Attack on Health Care
February 22, 2010
Physician: Two-thirds of ObamaCare passed in stimulus package
A nationally-recognized physician has written a stunning article in which she says that two-thirds of the government takeover of healthcare is already law under the provisions of the stimulus package approved by Congress last year.
She further asserts that the bill that is now being debated, which Obama unleashed yesterday morning, is the dreaded ‘third rail’ that will effectively seize the remaining third of the industry that is not under government control.
While most citizens, including conservatives such as this writer, were focused on the avalanche of proposals with which Obama and company bombarded Congress last year, apparently the fact that hidden within the massive trillion-dollar stimulus package, which most Congressmen and Senators never bothered to read, was a key healthcare provision that was overlooked.
The stimulus bill laid down two-thirds of the government takeover of healthcare by creating a national database for the health information of all Americans, thus ditching the time-honored principle of privacy, and by approving a provision that will mandate healthcare rationing based upon the ultimate cost and value of treating certain citizens.
Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet lays out in frightening detail what has already happened and what is to come in the proposed ‘third rail’ that Obama proposed yesterday.
That ‘third rail’ is the takeover and control of the health insurance industry.
Arrogant, self righteous, elites. Blinded by their own self-importance. No common sense or decency. That’s my opinion. November 2, 2010 – vote ‘em out! Again in 2012 and 2014.
NO NEW TAXES!
$1 Trillion. That’s what the news said Obama’s “health care proposal” will cost. It seems that it’s too vague and secretive for the CBO to “score” it and come up with a cost estimate:
Congressional Budget Office Director’s Blog: The Obama Administration’s Health Care Proposal
This morning the Obama Administration released a description of its health care proposal, and CBO has already received several requests to provide a cost estimate for that proposal. We had not previously received the proposal, and we have just begun the process of reviewing it—a process that will take some time, given the complexity of the issues involved. Although the proposal reflects many elements that were included in the health care bills passed by the House and the Senate last year, it modifies many of those elements and also includes new ones. Moreover, preparing a cost estimate requires very detailed specifications of numerous provisions, and the materials that were released this morning do not provide sufficient detail on all of the provisions. Therefore, CBO cannot provide a cost estimate for the proposal without additional detail, and, even if such detail were provided, analyzing the proposal would be a time-consuming process that could not be completed this week.
Show of hands! Everyone who thinks the politicians ramming this “health care proposal” forward have no clue, no idea of what they are doing, raise their hand!
http://tw0.us/6Z2
A mere three days before President Obama’s supposedly bipartisan health-care summit, the White House yesterday released a new blueprint that Democrats say they will ram through Congress with or without Republican support. So after election defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and even Massachusetts, and amid overwhelming public opposition, Democrats have decided to give the voters what they don’t want anyway.
Ah, the glory of “progressive” governance and democratic consent.
Obama’s revived health plan revives individual mandates Mandates? Only 21% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed
http://tw0.us/6Z1
What are the democrats thinking?
“The President’s Proposal,” as the 11-page White House document is headlined, is in one sense a notable achievement: It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into something more destructive. It includes more taxes, more subsidies and even less cost control than the Senate bill. And it purports to fix the special-interest favors in the Senate bill not by eliminating them—but by expanding them to everyone.
YIKES!
The bill’s one new inspiration is a powerful federal board that would regulate premiums in the individual insurance market. In all 50 states, insurers are already required to justify premium increases to insurance commissioners, who generally have the power to give a regulatory go-ahead, or not. But their primary concern is actuarial soundness and capital standards, making sure that companies have enough cash to pay claims.
The White House wants to create another layer of review that will be able to reject any rate increase that is “unreasonable or unjustified.” Any insurer deemed guilty of such an infraction by this new bureaucracy “must lower premiums, provide rebates, or take other actions to make premiums affordable.” In other words, de facto price controls.
Insurance premiums are rising too fast; therefore, premium increases should be illegal. Q.E.D. The result of this rate-setting board will be less competition in the individual market, as insurers flee expensive states or regions, or even a cascade of bankruptcies if premiums are frozen and the cost of the care they are expected to cover continues to rise. For all the Dickensian outrage about profiteering by WellPoint and other companies, insurance is a low-margin business even for health care, and at least 85 cents of the average premium dollar, usually more, is devoted to actual health services.
Price controls are always the first resort of national health care—i.e., Medicare’s administered prices for doctors and hospitals. This new White House gambit is merely a preview of ObamaCare’s inevitable planned medical economy, which will reduce choice and quality.
Are they serious? How many times did president Obama promise “if you like your insurance” and “if you like your doctor” you can keep them?
The coercive flavor that animates this exercise is best captured in the section that purports to accept the Senate’s “grandfather clause” allowing people who like their current health plan to keep it. Except that “The President’s Proposal adds certain consumer protections to these ‘grandfathered’ plans. Within months of legislation being enacted, it requires plans . . . prohibits . . . mandates . . . requires . . . the President’s Proposal adds new protections that prohibit . . . ban . . . and prohibit . . . The President’s Proposal requires . . .” After all of these dictates, no “grandfathered” plan will exist. [...]
And more again, because the White House has adopted the House’s firehose insurance subsidies. People earning up to 400% of the poverty line—or about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016—will qualify for government help, and, naturally, this new entitlement is designed to expand over time.
The Administration also claims to have discarded the House’s 5.4-percentage-point surtax on joint-filers earning more than $1 million a year, but it sneaks it back in by expanding the Senate’s expansion of the 2.9% Medicare payroll tax to joint income about $250,000. The White House would now apply that tax for the first time to income from “interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents,” details to come.
***
The larger political message of this new proposal is that Mr. Obama and Democrats have no intention of compromising on an incremental reform, or of listening to Republican, or any other, ideas on health care. They want what they want, and they’re going to play by Chicago Rules and try to dragoon it into law on a narrow partisan vote via Congressional rules that have never been used for such a major change in national policy. If you want to know why Democratic Washington is “ungovernable,” this is it.
Here is an AP story. Frankly, it seems to me they are in favor of it. How about a bill that has NO TAX INCREASES?
Obama puts forward $1 trillion health care plan
It starts out this way:
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama is putting forward a nearly $1 trillion, 10-year health care plan that would allow the government to deny or roll back egregious insurance premium increases that infuriated consumers.
Really? Who wrote that, Rahm Emanuel or David Axelrod? Instead of mentioning disastrous price fixing controls that will cripple the entire healthcare industry… if it costs $1 Trillion then they have to collect $1 Trillion of taxes… at least!
Let’s hope the GOP can do their job and KILL THE BILL:
GOP Leader: “The President has crippled the credibility of this week’s summit by proposing the same massive government takeover of health care based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected.”
White House: If GOP Filibusters, We’ll Pass Health Reform Via Reconciliation
The game of chicken commenceth — right now.
In the course of unveiling Obama’s new health reform proposal on a conference call with reporters this morning, White House advisers made it clearer than ever before: If the GOP filibusters health reform, Dems will move forward on their own and pass it via reconciliation.
Arrogant, aren’t they? Are they trying to commit political suicide?
Obama healthcare plan nixes Ben Nelson’s ‘Cornhusker Kickback’ deal
That’s the headline, but it leaves the LOUISIANA PURCHASE, and I’m sure lots of other things “negotiated” behind closed doors.
Obama’s bill, however, does not specifically remove $300 million of Medicaid funds pegged for disaster relief for which Louisiana is the only state eligible.Republicans dubbed it the ”Louisiana Purchase” and said it was a corrupt bargain to win the support of holdout Sen. Mary Landrieu (D).
So where is the transparency?
* As expected, the plan has no public option — but this does not preclude a reconciliation vote on the public option later.* The proposal boosts the threshold for the “Cadillac” tax on the most expensive health plans from $23,000 for a family plan to $27,500. That’s actually a better deal than some labor officials were expecting, though some House Dems will still be angry that the tax is being included at all.* The proposal also preserves the Senate bill’s state-based exchanges, and does not have a national exchange, as the House bill did.* However, House Dems will be cheered by the fact that Obama’s compromise closes the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole” coverage gap.
* Also, the bill nixes Ben Nelson’s Nebraska deal and boosts Federal financing for Medicaid expansion in all states.
* And finally, as expected, Obama’s proposal creates a Federal panel to monitor and block exorbitant rate hikes and other unfair practices by the insurance industry.
The federal government gets to decide what is “exorbitant” and what is “fair?”
They want to takeover healthcare – a power grab.
The Obama plan: Price Controls, Mandates… Is Obama’s New Health Plan Unconstitutional?
How is this not redistribution of wealth: Marxism?
And after months of losing the messaging war on health care, the White House put a new frame on the subsidies for lower-income Americans to purchase health insurance, describing them as the “largest middle class tax cut for health care in history.” At the same time, the plan would raise the Medicare payroll tax on couples earning more than $250,000 a year.
A “healthcare subsidy” is not a “tax cut.” I think that is downright deceptive. Why should we start believing them now?
Rush: I am pro-choice, I CHOOSE LIFE – But there is no life or humanity in this ObamaCare Bill – Time to Abort This Bill
Amen to that.
Obama Health Plan Costs $950 Billion Over 10 Years
Proposal Delays Tax on High-End Health Insurance Plans Until 2018
It could also be said that “OBAMA’S PLAN CONTAINS MAJOR NEW TAX ON HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS!!!”
The Senate bill included a new tax on high-end “Cadillac” health-insurance plans, an effort to raise money for the bill and to discourage those plans, which economists say lead to higher health spending. Unions and many Democrats opposed the measure.
Last month, union leaders negotiated changes to lessen the impact of the new tax, including a delay in its effective date until 2018 for those with union contracts—a plan that came under fire as a special deal for labor, a key Democratic constituency.
The White House is now backtracking, saying that the tax should be delayed for all workers until 2018. The president also proposed raising the threshold for the tax to plans valued at $27,500 for a family. Under the Senate bill, plans valued at $23,000 and above would be affected.
AND THAT’S WHAT SECRET MEETINGS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS WILL GET THEM!
The proposal increases penalties on business that fail to insure their workers and individuals who fail to get health insurance, as would be required under the new law.
The Obama plan calls for giving the federal government authority to block insurers from making premium-rate increases. A new Health Insurance Rate Authority would lay out what it viewed as reasonable rate increases, and those considered unjustified could be blocked.
Price controls? What prehistoric century are they living in?
McConnell: Obama’s Proposal ‘Disappointing’
“It’s disappointing that Democrats in Washington either aren’t listening, or are completely ignoring what Americans across the country have been saying. Our constituents don’t want yet another partisan, back-room bill that slashes Medicare for our seniors, raises a half-trillion dollars in new taxes, fines them if they don’t buy the right insurance and further expands the role of government in their personal decisions.
Teaparties. VA. NJ. MA. Can they hear us yet? Apparently not.
Obama’s fellow Dems are cannon fodder in his plan
No one believes that the president’s health care summit with Republicans is about bipartisanship.Republicans fear that it is a trap intended to hold them and their ideas up to ridicule. And though the president and his party certainly want to shift the blame to Republicans after months of unilateral failure by Democrats, that’s not the real purpose of the health gabfest.
This summit is all about Barack Obama.
Yep.
You see, the president has a big problem: He may be our chatterer in chief, but Americans have stopped listening to him.
Does anyone actually believe anything he says?
Where did the love go?Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said of Obama: “He’s beginning to not be believable to me.”
Yeah, and all the healthcare negotiations that led up to his current “plan” were broadcast on CSPAN, right? He went over it line-by-line with anyone who wanted to do that with him, right? Yeah… okey-dokey.
…………………………
Stay tuned!
Campaign Obama Still In WH – Fails To Read Own Site!
WH has Zero Credibility, Zero Believability
…and they want to control our health care??????
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Obama’s Health Care Summit
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Obama sez HCR gets between you and your doctor
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Single-payer Healthcare. #killthebill
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Obama’s Deficit of Trust
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No More Secrecy – Change we can Believe (Thanks Axelrod)!
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Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi work to make healthcare reform More Liberal
Here are more pages about the super-dooper-double-secret healthcare bill “negotiations.”
Pelosi’s Reconciliation
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Healthcare Reform Conflict of Interest Leads to Discrimination
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Secret Healthcare Meetings This Week
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Healthcare Bill. Now I get it!
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Obamacare Tax Increases For All!
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Ben Nelson: Trader or Traitor?
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Secret Healthcare Bill
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Al Franken vs Obamacare Facts
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Your Healthcare Cost Will Rise, Congress Exempt
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Cradle to Grave Single Payer Medicare
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No Obamacare. Here’s why:
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Senate Health-Care Bill’s Costs
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Corruption In The Senate: Landrieu’s Vote
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Contact Your Senators. NO HARRYCARE
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Socialized Medicine – Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan
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Cost of Healthcare Reform
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Healthcare. Pelosi. Horror. A plan to destroy the US healthcare system.
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What’s next for Healthcare
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Government Overthrow of Healthcare – Update
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Congress Wants a Pony (Healthcare)
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Pelosicare Part Deux
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Pelosicare
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I Got Your Public Option. Right Here, Pal.
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Obamacare Update#3 – The Public Option
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Constitutionality of Health Insurance Mandates
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Obamacare Update #2
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Obamacare Update #1
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Healthcare Negotiations
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Forcing “Healthcare” through Congress by Hook or Crook
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Pelosi promotes government takeover of healthcare
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Path to single payer?
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U.S. health-care overhaul: New Taxes. Raising the costs of health insurance.
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Imposing Statism or Socialism on a people
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Million Med March
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Obama tries to get the support of doctors
Related:
Health care – the final scare!
http://wp.me/pFeEj-li
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