Obamacare Puts Transparency and Accountability on Death Bed

At this point, most of us understand "Why the rush?".  With Obama's approval rating tanking, the Left side of Congress knows there's not much time remaining to ram through their agenda, one of their biggest being government run health care.

But, haste makes waste, in light of the $600 million dollar error in scoring by the CBO on a recent Sen. Debbie Stabenow amendment to the Baucus Bill. $600 million dollars!  Slow Down.

The Heritage Foundation puts a campaign promise on the table:


Obamacare Puts Transparency and Accountability on Death Bed
September 25, 2009

The New York Times released a new poll today finding that 55% of Americans believe President Obama has not clearly explained his plans for changing the health care system and 59% said they thought the health care changes under consideration in Congress were confusing. In a follow-up interview, Paul Corkery, a Democrat from Somerset, N.J, said: “The Obama administration seems to have a plan, but I’m not understanding the exact details.” Corkery shouldn’t feel that bad. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the independent nonpartisan agency responsible for reviewing legislative initiatives with budgetary implications, has no idea what is in the legislation either. During yesterday’s Senate Finance Committee mark-up, the CBO realized only after the vote, that they had made a $600 million mistake in scoring an amendment by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).

The issues that the CBO does not have enough information to analyze are not minor either. In letters released on September 22nd, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf told Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) respectively that his agency simply had not been provided with sufficient legislative language and time to analyze whether insurance premiums would go up under Obamacare or how many unauthorized billions of dollars in health benefits illegal immigrants would receive.

To ensure that the Senate would actually know what they were voting on, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) offered an amendment that would have required that actual legislative text, as well as a final Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate of the cost of the bill, be posted for 72 hours on the Senate Finance Committee website for public review before the Senate Finance Committee could vote on its final passage. The Bunning amendment was defeated on a largely party-line vote, with all Senate Democrats - with the exception of Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AK)- voting against it.

Since proponents of Obamacare have shown themselves to be completely indifferent to what their legislation will actually do to the American people, conservatives have offered other amendments that would hold President Obama accountable for his promise that Obamacare would not cause Americans to lose their current doctor or health care coverage:

• Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) offered an amendment that would have required the Secretary of HHS to certify that at least 75 percent of the physicians in the United States would accept Medicaid patients before the proposed mandatory Medicaid expansions are implemented. That amendment was defeated.
• Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) offered an amendment that would have required the Secretary of HHS to certify Obamacare would not cause more than 1,000,000 Americans to lose the current coverage of their choice. That amendment failed on a party line vote.
• Another Hatch amendment provided that if the Medicare funding reductions in the Medicare Advantage program were to result in a loss of benefits for seniors using Medicare Advantage, those provisions would be nullified. That amendment was also rejected.

The majority in the Senate has completely gutted any semblance of transparency or accountability in the health care debate. They refuse to provide the legislative language and time necessary for the CBO to analyze their legislation and they have rejected all measures that would protect the Americans people from Obama’s broken health care promises. Common sense dictates that Congress needs to step back and start over instead of passing a plan that would reorganize one-sixth of our entire economy without even understanding what the consequences to average Americans would be.

PRINCIPLES OF A FREE SOCIETY

The idea that Baucus feels he has a right to penalize Americans for not having his government run healthcare, is ludicrous. Where in the Constitution does it give him that authority -- the authority to fine citizens $25,000.00 and/or jail time?

It's time to brush up on the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The Ayn Rand Center has set up a new web site full of information on our rights. Here's a sample:


Principles of a Free Society
A New Web Site from the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights

What makes a society free? What does it mean for an individual to be free—free to pursue his rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness? Just how free are we in the “home of the brave and the land of the free”? And most importantly, what must we now do to achieve the type of free society that our Founding Fathers envisioned? What did they miss that we must now fight for?

In a free society the government's role is crucial but delimited: the government possesses only those powers delegated to it and necessary for the protection of each citizen's individual rights against force and fraud. So long as men are dealing with one another voluntarily when they are trying to reach agreement or going their separate ways when they can not (i.e., exercising their individual rights), the state has no role to play in the affairs of men.

Consider these questions: In a free society, should there be:

• regulations imposed on businesses in addition to objective criminal and civil laws?
• a public education system implementing state-influenced curricula and teaching methods?
• restrictions on free speech in the name of not offending others?
• an ability for the government to seize real estate in the name of eminent domain?
• a central banking system that holds a monopoly over the supply of money?

Principles of a Free Society is a new Web site that explores Ayn Rand's answers to these and many other questions. It presents and defines the principles that are necessary for a truly free society.


» Browse Principles of a Free Society

OBAMA'S PLAN TO SPREAD THE WEALTH

It seems like an eternity since we heard those infamous words by Obama, "spread the wealth around" as he answered the man in the street, now known as Joe the Plumber. Some of us heard it for what it was, but most chose not to see it.

One question -- Is this the Hope & Change you wanted?

The ever informative, and always elegant Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum writes:


Obama's Plan to Spread the Wealth
by Phyllis Schlafly, September 25, 2009

When Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber he planned to "spread the wealth around," many people didn't realize he was not talking about spreading the wealth only of the super-rich. Now that Obama is elected, he is moving rapidly to expand welfare handouts for non-taxpayers, running up a tremendous national debt that will inevitably lead to higher taxes on the Middle Class.

The enormity of this transfer of money away from working, taxpaying Americans to non-taxpayers (who voted overwhelmingly for Obama for President in 2008) has just been detailed in a sensational 53-page report by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation. There are not enough superlatives in the English language to adequately describe the colossal amounts of money involved in the Obama Administration's shocking cash transfers.

Most people don't realize that the federal budget has become a vast machine for transferring wealth from the upper third of Americans (who pay 90 percent of federal income taxes) to the lowest third who earn less than 200 percent of the government-stipulated "poverty" level and pay no income tax. The size of this massive annual transfer rose by 40 percent to $714 billion over the last ten years, and is projected to rise to $1 trillion per year by the end of Obama's first term.

The term "welfare" embraces much more than the single program formerly called AFDC that was "reformed" (and renamed TANF) in 1996. It includes 70 other programs that provide unearned cash and non-cash benefits to people living in low-income households (but does not include Social Security, Medicare and unemployment compensation, which are earned through work and available to almost everyone).

Obama didn't invent these means-tested transfers; they mostly started with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society welfare programs. Like most government programs, the cost of these welfare and aid-to-poor-and-low-income persons has increased, and Obama demanded vast additional increases, which Congress passed in the Stimulus and Omnibus bills.

Welfare spending was 13 times greater in FY 2008 than it was when LBJ started the Great Society in 1964. Means-tested welfare spending then was 1.2 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and now has reached 5 percent.

These programs are now the third most expensive government activity, ranking below Social Security and Medicare spending, and education spending. National Defense ranks only fourth.

The real cost of these programs is unknown to the American people (one could say, kept secret from them) because the spending is distributed by 14 departments and agencies though 71 different programs. We are fortunate that Rector, a numbers expert, has made a painstaking analysis and shone light upon these transfers.

In fiscal year (FY) 2008, government spending on means-tested welfare or aid to the poor amounted to $714 billion, of which approximately three-fourths was federal spending and one-fourth came from state government funds. States are required to match a percentage of federal welfare outlays.

Of the total means-tested spending in FY 2008, 52 percent was spent on medical care for the poor and low-income persons, 37 percent was spent on cash, food, and housing aid, and 11 percent was spent on social services, training, child development, federal education aid, and community development for low-income persons and communities. Roughly half goes to disabled or elderly persons, and the other half to households with children mostly headed by single mothers.

Rector ran an adding machine tape and concluded that means-tested handouts in FY 2008 amounted to about $16,800 for every poor person, defined as below 100 percent of the designated poverty level. When welfare spending is related to the larger group of persons who qualify for benefits below 200 percent of the "poverty" level, we are giving $28,000 per year to every lower-income four-person household.

Why are we told that we have so inequality in the United States? That's because the Census counts only 4 percent of these welfare gifts to low-income people as their income, and most government discussions of poverty do not even refer to the massive transfers of money taking place.

To get an idea of how big is the debt Obama is creating, which ultimately will have to be paid by the Middle Class, let's compare spending on welfare to spending on fighting wars. Since the beginning of LBJ's Great Society spending, our government has spent $15.9 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars) on means-tested welfare, which is more than twice the cost of all major fighting wars in U.S. history. We spent only $4.1 trillion (in 2008 dollars) on World War II, which was the most expensive single undertaking in U.S. history.

Under Obama's budget, which has already been passed by Congress, federal welfare spending will increase by $88 billion in 2009, plus an additional $175 billion in 2010. This two-year increase of $263 billion will bring total federal and state welfare handouts to $890 billion a year, which is more than 6 percent of GDP.


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URGENT! Don't Be Fooled by Sen. Baucus

Congress really thinks we are idiots, but then again... Why are they refusing to let us see the bills now?  Whatever their cunning reasons may be, if America is to prevent a total fascist centralized governmental takeover, we must keep our eye on the ball.  And that ball, right now, is Baucus.  Fax or phone Congress here.

The Heritage Foundation writes about such a deception:

Don't Be Fooled by Sen. Baucus

September 25, 2009

"When I use a word," says Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," "it means just what I choose it to mean."

Members of Congress have this down to a fine art. Take the health care legislation recently introduced by Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat and Finance Committee chairman.

Some say the senator made a bold decision in not including a government-run public option in his proposal. Indeed, he seemed to be responding to the many people who see the public option as politically divisive and merely a Trojan horse for a single-payer health system.

But instead of embracing a "public option," he included a "co-op" as a way of ensuring that Americans would have a familiar and effective alternative choice to traditional health insurance.

The word "co-op," short for "co-operative," is indeed quite familiar to Americans. Many Americans live in apartments in co-op-owned buildings. You can order a live lobster from the Maine Lobsterman's co-op and have it delivered promptly to your door. Over in Wisconsin you'll encounter the sheep breeders' co-op. Or maybe you keep your bank account with a credit union, another co-op.

They all have something in common. They are private associations organized by private people, and they are jointly and privately owned and controlled.

So being able to get health insurance through a co-op would seem to be a good idea and very different from a government public option, right? So this part of the Baucus proposal makes sense?

Ah, but remember Lewis Carroll. It turns out that the word "co-op" in the Baucus plan has a different meeting from the way the rest of America understands it. In fact it isn't even a word. It is an acronym. It stands for a Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan, and it is a new federal health program, not a private entity like the one that sends you lobsters or gives you your cash at the ATM.

Rather than the familiar private co-op, the Baucus COOP program has start-up funds provided by the federal government and allocated by a federal board. The new membership plan cannot even be an existing co-op organization - sorry, no health plan delivered with your Maine lobster. And while chartered by a state, it must operate according to rules established by the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

In fact, suggesting that Mr. Baucus' COOP is a true private co-op is a bit like saying a bill titled the Treasury Agents to eXpand the Crackdown on Unsuspecting Taxpayers must reduce taxes because its acronym is TAXCUT.

What's so frustrating is that the federal government could and should be removing barriers to ordinary Americans getting health insurance through a range of organizations they trust, such as farm bureaus, churches, AARP, unions - and yes, real co-ops. Members of Congress and millions of federal workers can do this to a degree. They can sign up for union-sponsored plans and even a "faith-based" plan certified as containing no services objectionable to the Catholic Church.

Thus federal employees can choose coverage through organizations they trust, with benefits that suit them. So why can't the rest of us?

The main reason is tax policy. Health coverage obtained through your employer counts as tax-free compensation. But if your family wants to buy coverage directly from the Virginia Farm Bureau, or the National Postal Mail Handlers Union, you typically get no tax break. Federal employees choosing a Mail Handlers Union plan get a tax break and a subsidy.

Congress needs to give families the same tax relief for affinity-group plans obtained outside the place of work as it does for employer-sponsored coverage. That would mean new choices. And new, private competition for traditional health plans, to "keep them honest" as the president claims only a public plan can do.

True co-ops should be included as a new private option. Today's tax law bars member-owned mutual insurance companies, like Mutual of Omaha, from functioning as a nonprofit health insurance company. If Congress changed that we would at last see mutual insurers teaming up with organizations to offer private co-op health insurance as an alternative.

That's what we need to improve choice and competition. Not a public plan. And we need a public-funded COOP program about as much as we need a TAXCUT bill.

OBAMACARE: TAXES FOR EVERYONE

Turns out the "affordable coverage" Obama promised is not so affordable, but a massive tax increase on the average uninsured American, no matter what he calls it. In fact, taxes will be across the board, not just the rich as he also promised.

Knowledge is power, and we all have to know the numbers before they try and pull the wool over our eyes. Demand to see these bills before they are passed in Congress. Your faxes and phone calls help.

Dick Morris writes an excellent op-ed that should get your blood boiling:


OBAMACARE: TAXES FOR EVERYONE
by Dick Morris, September 24, 2009

Now that the various healthcare plans are being reduced to print, the financial details are emerging and with them a fundamental conclusion is becoming evident: The Obama plan is a giant tax increase for much of the American people (not just the rich).

Start with the mandate that falls on those whose welfare is the supposed object of the entire program -- the uninsured. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the average uninsured person or family will have to pay between 15 and 20 percent of his or their total income on health insurance (counting premiums, deductibles and co-payments) before any of the subsidy in the Baucus bill kicks in. Even in the more generous House bill, the tab that the uninsured must pay is very, very high.

Most uninsured would likely be quite happy to avoid paying this much of their income for health insurance. But they will be forced to shell out the money under the program. Others would want catastrophic coverage (which for the young would likely not be too costly) but the Obama program requires comprehensive insurance that is costly to satisfy the government requirement.

Having spent the entire campaign speaking about "affordable" coverage, it turns out the program is not at all affordable, but a massive new tax on the average uninsured American.

Then there is the tax on health insurance premiums that is to finance about a quarter of the subsidy for the uninsured. This tax, billed as only to be levied on "gold-plated" policies, will, in fact, reach down to the average American. The Baucus bill specifies that the tax of 35 percent would be put on all premiums over $8,000 for an individual and on proportionately higher premiums for families. Current estimates are that about one-tenth of the current health insurance policies would be taxable. But the $8,000 premium level that will trigger coverage is not indexed for inflation, let alone for medical inflation, which typically runs twice as high. ObamaCare will take effect in 2013. By then, the percentage of Americans subject to the tax will doubtless expand dramatically. Indeed, this trigger is a new Alternative Minimum Tax waiting to happen. As inflation pushes more and more Americans into tax eligibility, it will become a universal health insurance excise tax of 35 percent. While the tax will be imposed on health insurers and employers, it will, obviously, be passed along to the policyholders.

So if you are insured, you will increasingly have to pay 35 percent more for the privilege. And if you are uninsured, you will have to pay one-fifth of your income in premiums, deductibles and co-payments before any subsidy kicks in.

And then there is the final piece of the puzzle -- the $500 billion cut in Medicare that will pay for the bulk of the subsidy under the bill. We are literally slicing services to the elderly in order to transfer healthcare to others. Obama's claim that only "waste and inefficiency" in Medicare will be cut is, at best, disingenuous. Most of the cuts will be in reimbursement for doctors and hospitals. That will lead to less care, shorter office visits, fewer tests, fewer surgeries and less care. And it will lead to fewer doctors. As a result, a survey by the Investor's Business Daily indicates that 45 percent of all doctors would "consider retiring or closing their practices" if the Obama bill passes. The result will be a greater scarcity of medical services, even as the patient load expands by at least 30 million people.

Each of these fiscal pieces is movable. The left will pressure Obama to increase the subsidy to the uninsured. But that will necessitate raising the Medicare cut borne by the elderly or increasing the tax on health insurance policies -- or adding to the deficit. Any of these options will alienate moderate senators. Balancing these competing priorities only works if the taxpayers don't know what is going on.

If the average middle-income American family realizes that it will have to pay one-third more for health insurance or the uninsured learn that they will have to pay a fifth of their income to get insurance, they will make their dissatisfaction felt by their Democratic senators.

All of which begs the fundamental question: How willing are Democratic congressmen to commit political suicide? Are they willing to lose the elderly and to antagonize the uninsured as the health insurance cops chase them around the block? When does JFK's comment kick in: "Sometimes party loyalty asks too much"?

CAP & TRADE DESTROYS JOBS and DESTROYS WEALTH

One has to wonder if all this attention being spent on government run health care is a shield to the real threat, otherwise known and Cap & Trade.  The ramifications of this threat are huge and will effect each and every one of us in a time when struggling to keep food on the table is about all we can bear.

The Heritage Foundation has a series of analysises on Cap & Trade, and this report states:


Cap and Trade Destroys Jobs and Destroys Wealth
Waxman-Markey proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
September 24, 2009

When it comes to cap and trade, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu says it’s an economic stimulus. President Obama says it’s a jobs bill. Is it either?

Reporters asked Chu if he though the green movement would generate the townhall pushback the health care debate and he responded, “I don’t think so…maybe I’m optimistic, but there’s very little debate” that a new green energy economy will bring economic prosperity.

George Mason economist Russ Roberts offers his own facetious response to Chu:

“That’s right. It’s a free lunch! There’s no trade-off between cleaner air and economic growth.”

Unfortunately for Americans, as taxpayers and energy consumers, the trade-off is rather large:

• Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035;
• A typical family of four will pay, on average, an additional $829 each year for energy-based utility costs; and
• Gasoline prices will rise by 58 percent ($1.38 more per gallon) and average household electric rates will increase by 90 percent by 2035.
• Net job losses approach 1.9 million in 2012 and could approach 2.5 million by 2035. Manufacturing loses 1.4 million jobs in 2035;

But President Obama said the opposite was true in an endorsement of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill in June:

“The energy bill that passed the House will finally create a set of incentives that will spark a clean energy transformation in our economy. It will spur the development of low carbon sources of energy – everything from wind, solar, and geothermal power to safer nuclear energy and cleaner coal. It will spur new energy savings, like the efficient windows and other materials that reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer. And most importantly, it will make possible the creation of millions of new jobs. Make no mistake: this is a jobs bill.”

Those “incentives” are subsidies and tax credits complements of the taxpayer. And the jobs President Obama speaks of are in fact real. He gave a few examples in his speech: “In California, 3000 people will be employed to build a new solar plant that will create 1000 permanent jobs. In Michigan, investment in wind turbines and wind technology is expected to create over 2,600 jobs. In Florida, three new solar projects are expected to employ 1400 people.”

There’s that free lunch concept again. The subsidies and government handouts for renewable projects means diverts those workers away from more productive use. Moreover, a cap and trade policy will destroy more jobs than it creates. Because cap and trade is a tax on energy, the cost of producing goods for businesses increases, and consumer demand falls for two reasons; price hikes on goods reduce demand and people have less disposable income due to higher energy prices.

Higher energy prices force businesses to make production cuts and reduce labor. Furthermore, as we see in the current recession, reduced consumer spending only exacerbates this. The overall result is increased unemployment and slow economic growth.

And we’re not the only ones projecting such losses. In fact, at a recent Heritage event on the costs of cap and trade, not one of the 6 speakers representing groups who modeled the bill discussed economic benefits from cap and trade – it was all about the magnitude of the losses


>> Visit Heritage's Rapid Response page for a collection of the latest research and policy resources on cap and trade.

KILL OBAMACARE THROUGH A BACKDOOR

This is something to keep in mind in each and every state, county and district. It's done in little, but very crucial steps, and campaigning for conservative principles and against big government, deficit spending and open borders.

From the ever diligent Erick Erickson of RedState:


Kill Obamacare Through a Backdoor
by Erick Erickson, September 24, 2009

I went to a Virginia Conservative Campaign Fund party last night for Ken Cuccinelli, Bob McDonnell, and Bill Bolling.

If you will recall, in 1993 the Republicans took over Virginia. It was a clear signal to the nation that a backlash was coming against the Democrats. Consequently, the Democrats ran for cover and Bill Clinton’s liberal agenda was largely shut down.

If McDonnell, Bolling, and Cuccinelli sweep Virginia this year as Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General respectively, the same thing will happen. Democrats will run scared. Couple that with New Jersey and the willingness of Democrats to carry Barry O’s and Nancy’s water will greatly diminish.

Consider donating to the Virginia Conservative Campaign Fund by going here. They’ll target the money and help the candidates whose victories will mean the destruction of Obamacare.

It’s a backdoor defeat, but it is still a defeat.