August 3: Day of Reckoning

On Tuesday evening, President Obama was being interviewed by Scott Pelley, who asked the President whether he could guarantee that Americans would get their Social Security checks if the debt ceiling weren't raised:

Can you tell the folks at home that, no matter what happens, the[ir] Social Security checks are going to go out on August the 3rd?

Obama:  Well, this is not just a matter of Social Security checks. These are folks on disability and their checks. There are about 70 million checks that go out each month.

Pelley: Can you guarantee, as president, that those checks will go out on August the 3rd?

Obama: I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved the [debt] issue, because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.

A howl of protests that the President was being disingenuous, at best, went up immediately. On Wednesday morning, Terence Jeffrey, writing for CNSNews.com, noted that according to the Daily Treasury Statement for June 30 there was plenty of income to cover all the government’s expenses for the month, with a little left over. Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland, said, “You do not have to default and you don’t have to shut down the government if you choose not to.” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) was quick to point out that the President’s doubts about being able to pay the country’s bills and consequently being forced to default were a “misnomer:”

This is a misnomer that I believe the president and the treasury secretary have been trying to pass off on the American people, and it’s this: That if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion, that somehow the United States will go into default and we will lose the ‘full faith and credit’ of the United States. That is simply not true.

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) charged the President with bullying: “My concern is that we have a president who is not willing to do his job, and that is to prioritize the spending, that he is digging in his heels, being very intransigent, and he’s being a rigid ideologue.” Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) came close to suggesting that the President was lying:

We know from the House rules that the president never lies, but he is taking advice and information from somebody apparently who is willing to lie, because it’s just not true. The fear mongering needs to stop.

In the event that the debt ceiling debate is not resolved by Friday, July 22, there would be no time to avoid the drop dead date of August 3, and the Treasury would appear to face some daunting decisions. Jay Powell, former Undersecretary of the Treasury under President George H.W. Bush, has published an analysis of the options facing the Treasury on August 3 without a debt ceiling resolution. According to Powell, August revenues to the government will be $172 billion, while payments are expected to total $306 billion, with a shortfall of $134 billion. At least three interactive tools have been developed for those willing to make the decisions of who to pay and who to stiff have been developed here, here, and here.

No matter which one is selected, the numbers, if they are to be believed, are grim, and the choices limited. The Treasury could spend all of its revenue on just six bills that are due in August: interest on the national debt ($29 billion), Medicare ($28.6 billion), Medicaid ($21.4 billion), Social Security ($49.2 billion), defense vendor payments ($31.7 billion), and unemployment insurance ($12.8 billion). That would leave unpaid Active Military Duty pay ($2.9 billion), Veterans Affairs programs ($2.9 billion), IRS tax refunds ($3.0 billion), food stamps ($7.1 billion), federal government employees’ salaries ($14.2 billion), Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Energy, and Environmental Protection ($31.3 billion), the Federal Highway Administration ($4.5 billion), the General Services Administration ($41.7 billion), the Justice Department ($1.4 billion), and “other spending” ($42 billion). In addition there would be no funds for the Small Business Administration, the Department of Labor, the Federal Transit Administration, Health and Human Services grants, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, or the Centers for Disease Control.

Credit rating agencies Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s have stated that the United States faces a possible credit downgrade if the government is allowed to default. As the White House Press Secretary put it: “You would have to make heinous choices about which bills you would pay.”

In an effort to inform about (some would say lend support for) raising the debt ceiling, Powell’s study was presented to several Republican Senators on Wednesday evening.

A careful reader should take note of three points. First, the numbers in the Powell study have not been vetted and are merely informed estimates of revenue flow for August. Second, in the perspective of an economy that is generating nearly $15 trillion of goods and services annually ($1.25 trillion a month), the alleged estimated shortfall of $134 billion for the month of August is small change). And remember that June numbers showed revenues exceeding expenses. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the government finds itself in the same position as a family whose primary breadwinner has just lost his job, and they now have to cut their standard of living by 40 percent overnight. It seems somehow just, proper, and right that the profligate government would now be faced with the same situation if the debt ceiling weren’t raised. The adjustment, long overdue, would be painful, but necessary. Extending additional credit to the family (or the government) to “get over the hump” merely pushes the day of reckoning off into the very near future, when the financial difficulty will be even more painful to resolve.

Related:

How about we start tightening our belt by skipping “O’s” Lavish B-day Party?

Krauthammer:  Call Obama’s Bluff

What Happened to the $2.6 Trillion Social Security Trust Fund? (Madoff would be proud)

Republicans to Vote on $2.4 Trillion in Cut With Debt Ceiling Increase  -  Obama and Dems… Still No Plan Offered~

UN Reveals Its Master Plan for Destruction of Global Economy

Debt Crisis, Ron Paul, the Fed and the IMF  

Return of the Gold Standard as world order unravels (Gold has already replaced the dollar)

Boehner Verses the Freshmen:  Debt Ceiling Battle Lines Are Drawn

Video: (you gotta see this one!)  Juan Williams Pwned: Sean Hannity Makes Williams Look Like Complete A$$  -  Sean Hannity completely pawned Juan Williams last night on Hannity. Sean asked Williams to respond to Eric Cantor's comments on raising the debt ceiling. When Juan got through trashing Cantor, Hannity told him that actually those were Obama's comments from 2006. Watch Juan Williams' expression when he finds out he got totally pawned.

Video:  Congressman Joe Walsh:  The Obama Movie – Stop Lying

And as usual there is Sheila Jackson Lee… playing the race card!:  Jackson Lee:  Congress Complicating Debt Ceiling Because… Obama IS Black  -  Am hearing a lot of gag reflexes out there!!

 

We Need Leadership… What We Got Was: The Tantrum in a High Chair (and Then Fear Mongering to Seniors)

Every mom who has ever been at her wit’s end recognizes Barack Obama. The president who earlier nagged Congress that it was time for Americans to “eat our peas” finally threw his own peas to the floor and banged his spoon on his supper dish. Such a tantrum in a high chair is a familiar sight in a lot of kitchens.

“Enough is enough,” the president cried, frustrated by the tense budget talks at the White House. “Don’t call my bluff,” he told his Republican tormentors. “I’m going to the American people.”

If a pout and a sulk is familiar to Mom, every 2-year-old in town can understand the president’s angry frustration. Throwing your peas on the floor, particularly if they’re of the English variety, tasting of copy paper and sliding down a tiny throat like un-lubricated ball bearings, is the instant gratification every tantrum-thrower yearns for. But it’s a presidential strategy we haven’t seen before

These are not the cheers and hosannas the prince of Hyde Park imagined for himself when he agreed to step down from on high to assume the presidential purple. It’s going on three years and the natives are restless. They keep asking impertinent questions. Rep. Eric Cantor, the leader of the Republican House majority, ignited the president’s ire when he suggested the president and the Democrats take a smaller budget deal than His Excellency wants. The president—“he got very agitated,” in the telling of Mr. Cantor, who was there—did not appreciate such lack of respect for royalty.

Harry Reid, the president’s liege man in the Senate, wanted to boot Mr. Cantor from the talks. “He shouldn’t even be at the table,” the majority leader said. No tea and cookies for him. Some Democrats disputed the details in the Republican account, but there was general agreement that Mr. Obama lost his celebrated cool. And why not? So far the budget talks have been a classic standoff between the president, who is determined to raise taxes to make the welfare state grow, and the Republicans, who are determined to cut the bipartisan spending that threatens to spin the economy into an abyss of unknown depth.

The president’s tantrum can have a positive effect, however, if it captures the full attention of the public. Talk of the economy makes the average voter’s head hurt, his teeth itch, and his Jockey shorts bunch up under his belt. The economy has always been like algebra, difficult to grasp, and voters have been willing to leave the algebra to the advocates for the tax-eaters. That may be changing, as one and all begin to recognize that the good life is at risk—the car, the boat, college for the kids, tropical vacations in Maui. The exceptional nation may be at risk of becoming like the toy nations of Europe.

President Obama plays the empty threat to withhold Grandma’s Social Security check. Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, warns of “a huge financial calamity” if Congress refuses to raise the debt limit. This echoes the lamentations of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner as well as the new chairman of the International Monetary Fund. Moody’s, the financial service that measures such things, piles on, with the dire threat that U.S. bonds could be downgraded. Maybe. It all smells like a contrived campaign to put pressure on the Republicans to cave, just as they have the attention of the president and his frightened Democrats.

The scheme of Sen. Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, to give the president the authority to raise the debt limit without serious cuts and bear the consequences, looks better to the Republicans than it did when he introduced it and for his trouble was scorched by some conservatives as the usual Republican sell-out artist. Democrats squealed like stuck pigs. They naturally don’t want this responsibility because they understand the eventual consequences of continuing to live it up like pigs in the slop-house. Mr. Obama wants Republicans to share the “credit” for his incompetent management of the economy.

The verdict of history, though on the way, is not quite at hand. The verdict of 2012 soon will be, and looms over everything. It’s enough to make a president, swaddled with a bad situation he made much worse, bang his supper dish with his spoon and throw his peas on the floor.

Life, Health, Prosperity,  Diane G.

h/t to Deonia Copeland and Jean Stoner

And Here is the Latest The latest demagoguery from AARP… The Senior Group That Sold Out Their Members for Profit… 

Wake up Seniors… Join One of the Other Groups!

I'm No Pushover

Congress Must Prevent Harmful Cuts to Social Security and Medicare

AARP ^ | 7/12/2011 | Government Affairs and Campaigns

Posted on Friday, July 15, 2011 9:42:50 PM by Mangia E Statti Zitto

Right now, President Obama and Congress are considering a deal to pay the nation's bills that could cut the Social Security and Medicare benefits seniors have earned through a lifetime of hard work.

(Excerpt) Read more at aarp.org ...

Post #23
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2749323/posts?page=23#23

To: Mangia E Statti Zitto; All

Seniors may not get cost of living raises anymore and have their SS checks withheld, but Omuslim is going to take care of his muzzie bros and throw himself a big 50th B-Day party!

THIS is the sh*t that should be cut!

BILLIONS FOR JIHAD!

Obama’s 2009 Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Pandemic Flu was revised and “passed by the full committee.”
It gives billions http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/obamas-supplemental-bill-passes-gives-billions-to-enemies/  of U.S. taxpayer dollars to countries and entities that support Sharia law and/or harbor, hide and support those who want to destroy the U.S. and our allies.

Read the summary from David Obey’s office that was quietly released last week with nary a word from any media.

• $3.6 billion, matching the request, to expand and improve capabilities of the Afghan security forces

• $400 million, as requested, to build the counterinsurgency capabilities of the Pakistani security forces

• Afghanistan: $1.52 billion, $86 million above the request

• West Bank and Gaza: $665 million in bilateral economic, humanitarian, and security assistance for the West Bank and Gaza

• Jordan: $250 million, $250 million above the request, including $100 million for economic and $150 million for security assistance

• Egypt: $360 million, $310 million above the request, including $50 million for economic assistance, $50 million for border security, and $260 million for security assistance

• Pakistan: $1.9 billion, $591 million above the request

• Iraq: $968 million, $336 million above the request

• Oversight: $20 million, $13 million above the request, to expand oversight capacity of the State Department, USAID, and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan to review programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq

• Lebanon: $74 million

• International Food Assistance: $500 million, $200 million above the request, for PL 480 international food assistance to alleviate suffering during the global economic crisis… for people who hate us

• Refugee Assistance: $343 million, $50 million above the request, …including humanitarian assistance for Gaza. Funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency programs in the West Bank and Gaza is limited to $119 million (Note: Gaza = Hamas)

• Disaster Assistance: $200 million to avert famines and provide life-saving assistance during natural disasters and for internally displaced people around the world, including Somalia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, the Middle East and South Asia

•Peacekeeping: $837 million for United Nations
peacekeeping operations, including an expanded mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a new mission in Chad and the Central African Republic

• Department of Justice: $17 million, matching the request, for counter-terrorism activities and to provide training and assistance for the Iraqi criminal justice system
The mainstream media remains silent on this but the International News has now picked up the story http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=22164
— and then there is Obama’s $108 billion IMF bailout scheme http://michellemalkin.com/2009/05/13/obamas-100-billion-imf-bailout-scheme/
in addition to the Supplemental.

And THIS is what Obama is doing to American taxpayers:

THE BIGGEST TAX HIKE IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
http://www.atr.org/days-thebr-largest-tax-hikes-history-a5370
PDF Version:
http://www.atr.org/files/files/090310pr-jan2011taxes.pdf
Obama gives your tax dollars to rebuild Muslim mosques around the world
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/26990#

ACCORDING TO THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION WILL GIVE AWAY NEARLY $6 MILLION OF AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS TO RESTORE 63 HISTORIC AND CULTURAL SITES, INCLUDING ISLAMIC MOSQUES AND MINARETS, IN 55 NATIONS. See the State Department document here.
http://exchanges.state.gov/media/pdfs/office-of-policy-and-evaluations/ambassadors-fund/afcp2010list.pdf

23 posted on Friday, July 15, 2011 10:14:11 PM by patriot08

Obama “Fixed” Medicare…With Rationing

A Shovel Ready Project

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Guest Writer  John Goodman

While charges and counter-charges about Medicare are flying back and forth in Washington, hardly anyone seems to have noticed that Medicare’s financial problems have already been solved. They were solved by the health reform bill enacted last year, what some people call ObamaCare.

So why isn’t this front page news? Why aren’t people dancing in the street? Why isn’t the Obama administration boasting about this accomplishment far and wide? Probably because Medicare’s financial problems are slated to be solved by the unconscionable

rationing of health care for the elderly and the disabled, which will lead to the equivalent of death panels for senior Boomers and some disabled persons! Please stop laughing at Sarah Palin, she’s telling you the truth, and stop listening to the mainstream media and AARP, they aren’t!!

The most recent Medicare Trustees report conveys the same message as the last one: On the day that Barack Obama signed the health reform bill, Medicare’s long-term unfunded liability fell by $53 trillion. That sum is about three times the size of the entire U.S. economy. And, it gets better. Once the Baby Boomers work their way through the system, Medicare spending will grow no faster than the payroll taxes, premiums and general revenue transfers that pay for that spending.

So what does this mean for senior citizens who rely on Medicare? No one knows for sure. But it almost certainly means they will get less health care.

Last August, the Office of the Medicare Actuary predicted that within nine years Medicare will be paying doctors less than what Medicaid pays. Think about that. In most places around the country Medicaid patients have extreme difficulty finding doctors who will see them. As a result, they end up seeking care at community health centers and in the emergency rooms of safety net hospitals. In a few more years seniors will be in that same position — with this difference. From a financial point of view, the seniors will be perceived as less desirable customers than welfare mothers. Also, by that point one in seven hospitals will have to leave the Medicare system.

As Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster (page 282) said in the 2010 Medicare Trustees’ report, “Well before that point, Congress would have to intervene to prevent the withdrawal of providers from the Medicare market and the severe problems with beneficiary access to care that would result.”

But suppose Congress didn’t intervene. Suppose that the law continues on the books exactly as it is written.

Consider people reaching the age of 65 this year. Under ObamaCare, the average amount spent on these enrollees over the remainder of their lives will fall by about $36,000 at today’s prices. That sum of money is equivalent to about three years of benefits. For 55-year-olds, the spending decrease is about $62,000 — or the equivalent of six years of benefits. For 45-year-olds, the loss is more than $105,000, or nine years of benefits.

In terms of the sheer dollars involved, the planned reduction in future Medicare payments is the equivalent of raising the eligibility age for Medicare to age 68 for today’s 65-year-olds, to age 71 for 55-year-olds and to age 74 for 45-year-olds. But rather than keep the system as is and raise the age of eligibility, the reform law instead tries to achieve equivalent savings by paying less to the providers of care.

What does this mean in terms of access to health care? It almost certainly means that seniors will have extreme difficulty finding doctors who will see them and hospitals who will admit them. Once admitted, they will certainly enjoy fewer amenities (no private room, no gourmet meal choices, and no cable TV perhaps) as well as a lower quality of care. We will have a two-tiered health care system, with the elderly getting second class care.

All these problems will be exacerbated by what ObamaCare does in the rest of the health care system. In just two years, 32 million people will become newly insured. If economic studies are correct, they will try to double the amount of health care they have been consuming. In addition, almost everyone else (including most above-average income families) will be forced to obtain more generous insurance than they have today. With more coverage for more services these people will also try to greatly expand their consumption of care. Yet the health reform act did not create one new doctor or nurse or other paramedical personnel to meet this increased demand.

We are about to experience a system wide rationing problem, which will be reflected in longer waits at doctors’ offices, emergency rooms and clinics and delays in getting almost every kind of care.

In such an environment you will be at a real disadvantage if you are in a health plan that pays doctors less than what private plans are paying. The disadvantaged patients will be the elderly and the disabled on Medicare, poor families on Medicaid, and (if Massachusetts is any guide) people who are newly enrolled in government subsidized health plans.

And here is the final tragic irony: The most vulnerable population are the ones whose access to care is likely to decrease the most under a health care act that was widely touted at the time of its passage as a humanitarian measure~

John Goodman is President and CEO/Kellye Wright Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

This article originally appeared on Conservative Battleline Online and is reprinted with permission.

h/t to A at  Sovereignty in Colorado  -  re-posted at Floyd Reports and at True Health Is True Wealth

And the items covered in this article are only the tip of the iceberg of what is wrong about ObamaCare!

There is only one solution to this and that is to repeal and replace ObamaCare in its entirety and well as the people who engineered and passed it!!

In True Alinsky Fashion… the Left Accuses the GOP of What They Are Planning

If you are not familiar with Saul Alinsky and his book that is a Bible to our present administration,  Rules for Radicals, its time…  The Obama White House and election committee will use Alinsky Methods, Cloward and Piven’s blueprint, Cass Sunstein’s Nudging and if necessary the tactics of their friends, like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn of the Weather Underground to promote their globalism, their Progressive goals and to steal the 2012 election if America does not wake up!!

It is ObamaCare that will through the Grandma over the cliff and in front of the death panel through rationing, but one of the Rules for Radicals is to turn the focus from yourself and from what you plan to do onto your adversary or opponent.

AARP is in the bag for the administration, but they are using their power and database to scare seniors into voting the opposite of what will save them and their healthcare… Medicaid and Medicare.  ObamaCare is big money for AARP!

Video:  Commercial shows Paul Ryan "Throwing Grandma over the cliff" commercial

How moral is it to create an anti-GOP political ad showing "Grandma thrown off a cliff" asks Neil Cavuto, today, interviewing  progressive advocate and creator of that ad, Erica Payne, Agenda Project Founder, "when you know that the plan being discussed exempts those  55 and older?"  Cavuto's outrage was enough to make him resurrect the "Death Panels".  Read Rest of Article Here

ObamaCare: 1,000+ Pages of Socialized Health-Care Rules? Obama’s Private Army? And the Road to Socialism Through Health-Care By Reagan

Kathleen Sebelius said the regulations will be out in the 'next couple weeks.' | AP Photo

By DAVID NATHER & J. LESTER FEDER | 3/29/11 5:22 PM EDT

Health care lobbyists and advocates are bracing for six pages of the health care reform law to explode into a phonebook-sized federal regulation when the Department of Health and Human Services releases its long-delayed accountable care organization rule expected this week.

“What, you expected less than a thousand pages for legislation that only took a page and half?” a staffer with one of the current proto-ACOs asked.

The staffer exaggerated; the Affordable Care Act devoted about six pages, not one and a half, to the accountable care organizations — networks of hospitals and doctors that are supposed to drive down costs and improve care by sharing responsibility for patients. A senior administration official said the rule is not a thousand pages, but he declined to say how many pages it is.

How do you turn six pages of legislation into hundreds of pages of rules? You kind of have to, in order to settle all of the questions that hospitals and doctors want settled so they don’t get into trouble.

They have to know who can become an accountable care organization – a formula that could be different in different parts of the country – and how you’d know if the organization actually saved money. They’d need to know how to report what they’re doing. And they need to know how to join together without breaking the antitrust laws that are already on the books.

At one point, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Don Berwick had suggested the rules would be out by Jan. 15. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who had promised that the regulations would be out by the end of March, said last week that they’d be out “in the next couple weeks.”

The silence has left room for plenty of speculation. Several industry sources have told POLITICO that they’re expecting at least 1,000 pages of regulations to emerge from the process.

One of them is John Gorman, a former official with the predecessor office to CMS who is now CEO of the Medicare/Medicaid consulting firm Gorman Health Group. He said he expects the rule to come out on Thursday, March 31—because he doesn’t think HHS will want to deal with releasing the regulation on April Fool’s Day.

UPDATE: This story has been updated to add the comment of a senior administration official that the rule will not be 1,000 pages…. but probably close!

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52170.html#ixzz1ILPuySGm

Video:  Rep. Gohmert: Libya Goal Is To "Deplete The Military" So Obama Can Call Up Private Army

I knew all this was in the ObamaCare Bill… Did You?

Video:  ObamaCare - Live Your Carefree Lifestyle Ad

Related:

NHS director dies after operation is cancelled four times at her own hospital

Sebelius: Health Care Outcomes in U.S. Like 'a Developing Country'  - Really??  Not yet but it will be if ObamaCare Goes Into Affect!!

AARP's Non-Profit Status Under Fire Over Insurance Income

Health Care Repeal Update by the Numbers

Video:  Ronald Reagan On the Evils of Socialized Medicine (i.e. ObamaCare) (1:05 mins)

Video:  Full Original Speech (10:77 mins)  -  Flashback:  Reagan's full 10:07 minute speech on socialism, using socialized medicine and unions to get there...

Tell AARP Goodbye and Checkout ASA: American Seniors Association

I have gotten madder and madder at the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) for claiming to represent America's elderly when, in fact, it is just a vendor seeking to get revenue under the Obama health care plan. It was just such a conflict of interest that impelled the AARP to endorse Bush's prescription drug plan. The AARP has morphed from a group that speaks for seniors to one that tries to make money from them.

My wife, Eileen, and I were thrilled to learn of a rival to the AARP that has sprung up -- The American Seniors Association (ASA) -- which opposes Obamacare and is willing to be an independent, disinterested voice speaking up for the elderly. We reached out to Stuart Barton, its President, and suggested that we send a letter from him to our readers (this is not a paid mailing; we are sending it around because we deeply believe in fashioning an alternative to AARP).

We both suggest that you do as we are doing -- join ASA -- as a way of showing AARP that they do not speak for America's seniors. Obama's proposals represent a wholesale transfer of medical services away from the elderly and will force government rationing and denials of care for the very old and very ill. We need to fight against them and that is what ASA is doing and AARP is not!

The letter from ASA's President, Stuart Barton, is below.

Thanks,
Dick Morris

Order a Copy of:

Catastrophe

The American Seniors Association (ASA) invites any members of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) to mail us your torn AARP card in order to receive a 2-year-for-1-year ASA membership. Indeed, anyone of any age can become an ASA member -- especially since young people, baby boomers, seniors, and just about all Americans are now under assault by various Obama healthcare proposals and by the sell-out AARP leadership.

ASA is fighting congressional healthcare proposals that could cost perhaps $1.8 trillion or more over the next 10 years, to be accompanied by cuts in Medicare of $500 billion. ASA opposes a government-run plan that increase taxes and limit doctor-patient choice. We object to one House bill that would actually force individuals or their employers who do not have approved health insurance plans to pay a fine. Furthermore, none of these congressional proposals have a provision that people enjoying healthcare benefits must have their citizenship and legal residency status verified by all 50 states. That opens the door for citizen taxpayers to be gouged for the healthcare coverage of possibly 15-20 million illegal aliens!

Please visit our website at AmericanSeniors.org and consider joining our important crusade. We are for targeted healthcare reforms, but Obamacare and a dismantling of our private enterprise system is not the cure! Also check out the rich variety of membership benefits that ASA provides.

With kindest regards,
Stuart Barton

News exposes AARP and reveals ASA as an excellent option for seniors.

Related Resources:

• ObamaCare and me – Doctor Zane F. Pollard
• Why Won’t abc and nbc run this ad?
• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly
• Unease in Britain Following Assisted Suicides
• Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors
• Healthcare: Does Canada Do It Better?
• Canadian Health Officials: Our Universal Health Care Is 'Sick,' Private Insurance Should Be Welcomed
• Outcry Over Vets’ ‘End of Life Care’
• Click here to read the "Your Life, Your Choices" guide.
• Woman in Oregon Told Healthcare Would Not Pay for Cancer Treatment But Would Pay for Assisted Suicide… Welcome to Government Controlled Healthcare
• Video: Oregon says no to chemotherapy, offers assisted suicide instead
• Dr. & Rep Tom Price: Americans Need Patient-Centered Reform, Not Democrats’ Costly Government Takeover of Health Care
• Senator Lieberman: Postpone Universal Healthcare
• Rep. Tom Price (former physician) Admonishes Government Takeover of Healthcare
• Kristol: Kill It, And Start Over
• Obamacare: Beware the Rhetoric
• No Turning Back from Obamacare

USA Today fact-checks Obama’s town-hall assertions

They’re not terribly enthusiastic about it, but USA Today corrects the record — in a sidebar — on a number of assertions made by Barack Obama yesterday at his Portsmouth, NH forum. They leave out the biggest whopper, which is Obama’s claim that he has never favored single-payer health-care systems, but they do catch a couple of other big fibs, including Obama’s snow job on AARP endorsement. One of the best catches from USA Today concerns Medicare Advantage, about which Obama has lied for over two years:

“Insurance companies basically get $177 billion of taxpayer money to provide services that Medicare already provides.”

About 10.2 million Medicare recipients are in Medicare Advantage. Under that program, the government pays insurers a set amount per Medicare beneficiary. Obama ridiculed it as costly and redundant, but the plan provides additional benefits, such as vision, dental and hearing, to seniors and helps coordinate health care for those with chronic conditions, says Robert Zirkelbach at the trade association, America’s Health Insurance Plans.

In fact, Medicare Advantage is a Godsend for those trapped within the Medicare system. Recipients pay substantial monthly premiums, but the plan allows for better provider payments, which keep providers from locking patients out of their clinics. The extended insurance provides coverage for services which Medicare ignores, and some create a co-payment system rather than the 60/40 system Medicare gives seniors and the disabled in practice.

How do I know this? The First Mate has Medicare Advantage, and we saw what Medicare did before we got the supplemental coverage. It’s a disaster for anyone needing anything more than just maintenance care.

Next:

“Under the reform we’re proposing, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”

Not necessarily. In an analysis of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 10 million workers could lose employer-provided benefits and would have to find other insurance.

Some analyses put that number much higher — as high as 83 million. Obama insists on making this argument despite all evidence to the contrary, especially since businesses control insurance options for most people in the US. If Obama makes it attractive for businesses to dump their employees into a public plan, then most people won’t be able to keep their existing plans. And thanks to ObamaCare, they won’t have many options to find private insurance, either.

“The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for ‘death panels’ that will basically pull the plug on Grandma. … (T)he intention. .. was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready, on their own terms. … (O)ne of the chief sponsors of this bill originally was a Republican … (Sen.) Johnny Isakson from Georgia.”

Isakson issued a press release saying Obama misused his name. A provision he attached to a Senate health care bill would allow seniors to obtain help in formulating a living will something Isakson said is different from House language. The House bill would require Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling sessions, but it would not mandate that anyone use the benefit.

The media had a field day with this yesterday, using Isakson as a bat with which beat conservative critics, but it never occurred to the layers of fact-checkers and editors that a Senator would have had nothing to do with a clause in a House bill. In fact, Isakson does support making end-of-life planning available, but doesn’t support the mandate for it that exists in Section 1233 of the House bill.

Kudos to USA Today for doing a good job of fact-checking, even if they couldn’t devote a separate article to it. (via QandO)

POSTED AT 11:36 AM ON AUGUST 12, 2009 BY ED MORRISSEY

Sources: USAToday and Hot Air

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8/12 Lie of the Day… Possibly The Century

Less than a week after the world has seen the clips of President Obama (then Senator Obama or Candidate Obama) talking about his plans for the single-payer program, he stands in front of the world and denies it.

8/12 Sen. McCaskill Asks A Question That She Really Doesn’t Want Answered

8/12 Prez Sez AARP Endorses Health Plan… Guess what… AARP has not endorsed it.

Although one major question in all this is, "What exactly is going on with AARP?" Are they endorsing the President's Plan under the table, have they cut a deal that they won't admit to with Team Obama, and why aren't they putting up a major fight against rationing, duty to die lectures, etc etc??? AARP sent a rep to both the Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly shows who looked like he was already dead or at least totally clueless and lying!!

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

President Obama, Linda Douglas, And The Very, Very Stubborn Facts

Could you be on President Obama’s “enemies list” and not even know it?

If you dare to disagree with him, you might be.

Just to be clear, the allegation that President Obama has been compiling an “enemies list” was officially raised last Thursday by Senator John Cornyn of Texas. Left-wing bloggers were quick to determine that Senator Cornyn is crazy, and to dismiss the entire incident, yet the White House regarded Cornyn’s remarks seriously enough that by Friday, it was responding to Cornyn and insisting that he is wrong.

So what was the “incident?“ By now you’ve probably learned about an apparent attempt by the Obama Administration to gather details about Americans who are allegedly “spreading disinformation,” in the midst of the national healthcare reform debate. The controversy stems from some language posted at the official web site of the White House (whitehouse.gov), wherein Linda Douglas, the communications director for the White House Health Reform Office, attempts to refute the claims that President Obama prefers a “single payer” (that is, an all government-run approach) health insurance approach.

"Facts are stubborn things," Douglas begins (a quote from President John Adams). Then she goes on to write:

“There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag @ Whitehouse.Gov. ”

Now, to put this incident into broader context, you need to first understand that Ms. Douglas’ remarks appear to be made in response to content posted on another web site. And adjacent to her text, Ms. Douglas provides a video greeting, recorded while she sat at a desk, wherein she recites many of the same things that were written in her textual message on the web site.

But at the desk where Ms. Douglas is seated, there is a computer beside her, and on the computer screen is, quite vividly, the homepage for the web site Drudgereport.com . And it just so happened that, earlier in the week, Drudgereport.com posted links to video recordings, one dating back to 2003 and the other to 2007, wherein Barack Obama stated before two live audiences (and in no uncertain terms) that he wants our country to adopt a “single payer,” “universal” health insurance system. That’s not what President Obama is promoting now. Today, he insists that he envisions a government-run healthcare plan to be only one among many options available to Americans. Yet, there he was - six years ago, and two years ago, respectively - saying the exact opposite of what he is saying today.

For her part, Ms. Douglas attempts to refute the “single payer” concern in her own video, by introducing - and then displaying - a clip of President Obama from July 28^th of this year, wherein he reassured an audience that government run healthcare will not supplant private healthcare. But that fails to address the fact that before becoming President, Barack Obama argued for the elimination of private health insurance altogether (on the 2003 video clip, Obama even lamented that it would probably take ten to fifteen years to get private insurers out of the healthcare market completely).

And not only is Douglas ignoring the “facts” about Obama calling for an elimination of private health care insurers during his pre-presidential years, she is also changing the topic just a bit. She reiterates that President Obama is actively pursuing “health insurance reform,” rather than “healthcare reform.” Those two subjects are inextricably attached, but they are not the same thing, and to place emphasis on “insurance,” takes the spotlight off the most ugly facet of Obama’s agenda - he’s “selling” government-run healthcare, and thus far Americans are not buying it.

It’s nothing new to see “political spin” emerging from the White House. Spokespersons for the Presidents are always attempting to quell controversies and avoid negative attention being placed upon the President, all the while advancing the President’s message. And while Ms. Douglas is not the official Press Spokesperson for President Obama (that job belongs, of course, to Robert Gibbs), she is nonetheless fulfilling a similar role, as it regards communicating about Obama’s healthcare agenda.

What is disturbing, however, about Ms. Douglas’ message on the web site, is her apparent attempt to have Americans “snitching” on each other. She is, quite literally, asking you, if you identify something on the web about health insurance that is “fishy,” to “report” what you encountered to the U.S. Government. If you happen to have published a blog entry, or an opinion piece, or even a “letter to the editor” that expressed an opinion about the health care debate that may have been different from President Obama’s, well, perhaps your government has collected data on you.

Barack Obama once wanted to eliminate private health insurance, and the White House is snooping on private citizens. Those are very, very stubborn facts, now aren’t they?

by Austin Hill – Townhall.com

Related Resources:

• My Fishy Letter of Encouragement for the Town Hall Rebels
• Stop Talking And Get Out of the Way
• Memo: How to Beat the Right-Wing Mob
• Prescription for Truth: Daniel Hannan from England – Healthcare Worse for Elderly
• Senator Grassley (and Others): Democrats Want to Nationalize Healthcare
• The Community Organizer Doesn’t Like People Organizing???
• Healthcare Town Hall Event Listing for August and September
• White House Initiates “Snitch” Program On What They Call Misinformation Being Disbursed on Healthcare
• Obama in 2007 Said He Wanted to Eliminate Private Health Insurance
• American Senses Something’s Not Right
• Why is the White House Attacking and Making Fun of Americans?
• Acorn Cracked: Exposes ACORN’s Push for Socialized Medicine
• Seniors Left Behind
• Who Will Michael J. Fox He Needs to Die?
• Malkin on Obamacare Thuggary – Anatomy of Nancy Pelo-cchio’s Astroturf Brigade & RightMarch.com Pac Update
• Seniors Left Behind?
• Abortion Can’t be Swept Aside
• Obama Health Plan: Rationing, Higher Taxes, and Lower Quality Care