ObamaCare… Like a Restaurant Where the Owners, Chefs, Workers and Their Families Refuse to Eat…

ObamaCare… Like a Restaurant Where the Owners, Chefs, Workers and Their Families Refuse to Eat…

By Marion Algier – Ask Marion

Would you really eat in a restaurant, trusting their food or service, where the owners, chefs, workers and their families refuse to eat?  Of course you wouldn’t.  Nobody would, but that is what the Democrats, some GOP establishment career politicians and the Obama administration and their staffs are asking you to do.

They are asking, no mandating, that you to sign up and subject yourself and your family’s health, and in many cases losing better coverage, for healthcare coverage that they refuse to sign up for and be covered by themselves.

The so-called tea party Republicans, who are following their constituents wishes, but have now pretty much backed away from all their demands about the budget and upcoming debt ceiling raise, in what seems like their 20th compromise when the left has refused to negotiate or compromise on anything, were willing to pass and extend the budget and debt ceiling negotiations for several months with a clean bill, except for one provision… The Republicans attached the Vitter amendment (DeSantis bill in the House) which would demand that the House of Representatives, the Senate, the White House and their staffs and federal appointees would have to sign up for and live under the same ObamaCare bill that we all will have to suffer under, without any extra provisions or exemptions.  The Democrats’, RINOs’ and administration’s response:  NO…!

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) (KEVIN DIETSCH/UPI/Newscom)

The Vitter Amendment on Obamacare: Senate Liberals’ Curious Complaint

The Foundry:

Last week (mid-September) Senator David Vitter (R–LA) proposed an amendment that would end exemptions for White House political appointees and stop illegal taxpayer subsidies for Congress and staff enrolled in Obamacare’s new health insurance exchanges. In other words, political appointees, Members of Congress, and their staffs would receive the same coverage and be eligible for subsidies available to every other American enrolled in the exchanges. No special deals.

On September 17, Senator Dick Durbin (D–IL) charged that Vitter’s proposed amendment was “unfair” because it would eliminate the employer payment for Members of Congress and 16,000 congressional staffers.

But this is a curious complaint. In 2010, Senator Durbin and all other Senate Democrats voted—lockstep—for final passage of Obamacare, which included Section 1312, which ended Members’ access to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and instead placed them into the Obamacare health insurance exchanges. Without access to employer coverage, there is no employer subsidy—not for Congress and not for any other worker dumped out of job-based coverage into the exchanges. That’s the law.

Durbin also tries to use Vitter’s vote for an amendment (Amendment No. 3564) offered by Senator Chuck Grassley (R–IA) during debate over Obamacare to undermine his current efforts. Yes, Vitter voted for the amendment. The amendment would have put the President, his appointees, Congress, and staff into the exchanges but would have preserved the government contributions for Congress and staff in the new exchanges.

Here’s the catch: Senator Durbin voted against the Grassley amendment, as did Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–NV), Senator Barbara Boxer (D–CA), and 53 other Senate Democrats. (See The Congressional Record, March 24, 2010, p. S1996.) In other words, these Senators voted to protect the President and his appointees from their own law but also voted to remove the employer contribution to Congress and their staff. Yet these Senators now oppose it.

Senate liberals say they like Obamacare. If that’s the case, it is only reasonable for them to want to make sure they get what they like on the same exact terms and conditions as every other American enrolled in the exchanges, as put forth by Senator Vitter.

So why wouldn’t the Democrats from both Houses of Congress (as well as the Establishment RINO GOP) vote for the Republican’s compromise and embrace ObamaCare on the same terms the American people are getting… the terms they voted for?  And if they aren’t why should the American people?

Why?  Because our politicians know it is a bad plan, bad coverage, certainly worse and more expensive if you compare apples to apples, than they have now, and it opens them up to the same IRS mandates and access into all their records and information.  It also opens them up to having a non-medically trained review board tell them which services they will and will not get… essentially death panels.  But although they don’t want it, it is good enough for the rest of us in their book.  After all what better advertisement for his signature program would there have been than President Obama and Vice President Biden signing themselves and their families up for all to see for the ObamaCare exchanges the day the program opened on October 1st?

Don’t be fooled by the propaganda being fed us through the mainstream media. ObamaCare was never about healthcare, and definitely not about better healthcare, it was always about ideology and control… about the federal government controlling you… all of us!

Just like President Obama and Harry Reid’s refusal to negotiate with the Republicans has nothing to do with what is good for the country or even the budget, or even the truth for that matter, it is about demonizing the Republicans so that the Progressive Democrats win the next election… so they can maintain their control of you!!

Do your homework and then you be the judge… But in my kitchen, the cook eats his own food and no matter how the present shutdown ends… Our politicians still don’t want to eat theirs!

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ObamaCare Explained

Video:  ObamaCare Explained

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,ObamaCare surprises,ObamaCare mandates,ObamaCare rationing,Obamaland,you be the judge,videos,ObamaCare explained

States’ refusal to establish exchanges could undo Obamacare

The Daily Caller:  The Obama administration is waiving the deadline for states to establish a health insurance exchange in accordance with Obamacare, reports The New York Times. But it should not be taken as a sign of deference to the states, or a willingness to be flexible; it should be taken as a sign of desperation.

The announcement is in fact an attempt by the administration to shore up the health care law’s inherent weaknesses and to cajole states into enacting a federal scheme. Contrary to what the feds now claim, the latest and most glaring weakness of Obamacare is that it was crafted to depend on states to establish health insurance exchanges. These exchanges are meant to be the vehicles for the distribution of tax credits and subsidies to buy qualified health insurance plans.

If a state refuses to set up an exchange, and so far 25 have refused,the federal government must step in and create one. However, the law does not authorize tax credits and subsidies to flow through federally created exchanges, only those created by states. An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule issued in May 2012 attempted to fix this problem — initially dismissed as a “drafting error” — by extending credits and subsidies to federal exchanges and so-called “partnership exchanges,” which a number of states have indicated they will adopt.

But the law’s plain meaning, and Congress’ intent, cannot be swept aside by a rule issued by the IRS. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is challenging the IRS in federal court over the rule and the case will likely end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. It has huge implications. If federal exchanges cannot facilitate tax credits and subsidies, they also cannot be used to impose penalties on employers that fail to comply with the law’s “employer mandate” — a fine of $2,000 per employee per year. States that refuse to set up an exchange could therefore shield thousands of their residents and small businesses from onerous federal taxes and penalties.

The Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon has made this argument forcefully and in great detail, and it seems to be gaining ground. Cannon, along with Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, have authored what will likely be the definitive argument against the legality of the IRS rule in a forthcoming Health Matrix article.

They argue that once it became clear that a significant number of states were not going to set up exchanges, the IRS sought to fix the problem by regulatory decree. However, by stipulating that tax credits and subsidies would be available only through state-created exchanges, Congress sought to create an incentive for states to set up their own exchanges — because it could not simply order states to create them without overstepping constitutional boundaries. It seems that it did not occur to Obamacare’s authors that many states would simply refuse, or that offering tax credits and subsidies would not be sufficient inducement for them to comply. It was a gross miscalculation, and could mean the undoing of Obamacare.

Seen in this light, this week’s announcement by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius looks more like a plea to recalcitrant states to cooperate and set up exchanges so the feds won’t have to. Sebelius was supposed to determine by January 1 whether states were prepared to run an exchange, but she knew as far back as Nov. 15 that Texas, at least, would not establish one.

Waiving the deadline isn’t a deferential gesture by HHS to the states; it is the latest attempt by the federal government to deputize states into implementing federal policy, and a desperate attempt at that.

Texas and other states should remain steadfast in their resolve not to become tools for Washington, D.C. If the feds want Obamacare exchanges, let them set up those exchanges themselves. Americans would be much better off with weak federal exchanges than they would with the state-based exchanges Congress first envisioned in the law.

John Davidson is a policy analyst for the Center for Health Care Policy with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin. He may be reached at jdavidson@texaspolicy.com.  -  Cross-Posted at Ask Marion and at True Health Is True Wealth

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,healthcare,ObamaCare Exchanges,passive resistance,stand-up America,Repeal and Replace ObamaCare

Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee

Think the contraception decision was bad? Wait until bureaucrats start telling your insurer which cancer screenings to cover.

Offended by President Obama's decision to force health insurers to pay for contraception and surgical sterilization or my religious institutions mandated to go against their core beliefs? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis—and largely insulated from public view. This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more.

Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans.

The task force already rates services with letter grades of "A" through "D" (or "I," if it has "insufficient evidence" to make a rating). But under ObamaCare, services rated "A" or "B"—such as colon cancer screening for adults aged 50-75—must be covered by health plans in full, without any co-pays. Many services that get "Cs" and "Ds"—such as screening for ovarian or testicular cancer—could get nixed from coverage entirely.

That's because mandating coverage for all the "A" and "B" services will be very costly. In 2000, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the marginal cost of similar state insurance mandates was 5%-10% of total claims. Other estimates put the cost of mandates as high as 20% of premiums.

Health plans will inevitably choose to drop coverage for many services that don't get a passing grade from the task force and therefore aren't mandated. Insurance companies will need to conserve their premium money, which the government regulates, in order to spend it subsidizing those services that the task force requires them to cover in full.

David Klein

Americans first became familiar with the task force in November 2009, when it made the controversial decision to recommend that women ages 40-49 shouldn't get routine mammograms. More recently, it rebuffed routine prostate-cancer screening and the use of tests that detect the viruses that can cause cervical cancer.

The task force relishes setting a very high bar. Like the Food and Drug Administration in approving new drugs, it usually requires a randomized, prospective trial to "prove" that a diagnostic test or other intervention improves clinical outcomes and therefore deserves a high grade of "A" or "B."

This means its advice is often out of sync with conventional medical practice. For example, it recommended against wider screening for HIV long after such screening was accepted practice. As a result, many of its verdicts are widely ignored by practicing doctors.

The task force is a part-time board of volunteer advisers that works slowly and is often late to incorporate new science into its recommendations. Only in 2009 did it finally recommend aspirin for the prevention of stroke and heart attack among those at risk—decades after this practice was demonstrated to save lives and had become part of standard medical practice.

The task force is also the only federal health agency to have the explicit legal authority to consider cost as one criterion in recommending whether patients should use a medical test or treatment.

Over time, the task force will surely recommend against many services that patients now take for granted, while mandating full insurance coverage for things that they'd be just as happy paying for. Among the interventions that it plans to consider in 2012 are screening for hepatitis C in adults, for osteoporosis in men and for depression in children; counseling for obesity in adults and for alcohol use in adolescents; and daily aspirin for heart-attack and stroke prevention in people over 80.

The task force's problems are compounded by the fact that it is deliberately exempted from the rules that govern other government advisory boards and regulatory agencies. Thus it has no obligation to hold its meetings in public, announce decisions in draft form or even consider public comments. Consumers have no way to directly appeal its decisions. And health providers or product developers affected by its decisions can't sue it for recourse.

To begin addressing these problems, Congress should make the task force subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which would at least require it to hold its deliberations in public. Congress could also make it a full-fledged part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which already convenes its meetings. That would make the task force subject to the Administrative Procedures Act and all the rules that bind other regulatory bodies, including the legal requirement to consider public comments and provide avenues for appeal.

Better still, Congress could let private health plans—and their members—decide on their own how preventive tests and treatments should be covered. If not, Americans will soon be surprised by all the important tests and treatments that become more costly, and all the less relevant stuff that's suddenly free.

It's all a reminder that President Obama's decision on contraception isn't a one-off political intervention but the initial exploit of an elaborate new system.

by Dr. Gottlieb, a physician and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has served as deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and senior policy adviser to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He consults with and invests in health-care companies.  -  WSJ

As time goes on… if people don’t start reading the ObamaCare Bill and make sure it is repealed in its entirety, either by the Supreme Court or a New President and a primarily new Congress in November 2012, Americans will soon find out that former Alaska Governor and GOP VP candidate in 2008, Sarah Palin plus others who were paying attention, was 100% right about rationing, death panels or whatever you want to call it in ObamaCare and a lot more that we all won’t like… especially seniors, the disabled and special needs children and adults!  Wake-up America… before it is too late.

Related:

** Breaking:  U.S. Supreme Court Meeting Today on Health Care/Eligibility Challenge (Purpura vs. Sebelius) **

Senate Republicans Ask Supreme Court to Strike Mandate

Judge Rejects Health Care Law

SCOTAS ObamaCare Hearing

More Doctors Fire Vaccine Refusers

Great Candid Discussion By “Real” Doctors on Healthcare and Healthcare Reform – Definitely Worth a Watch! Plus RFK Jr. on Vaccines…

Doctors speak candidly about upcoming cuts and what will happen if ObamaCare passes; about what really needs to be done; and offers and suggestions of what to do.

Today Glenn Has His OWN Doctors in White Coats Meeting - No Shills, No SEIU Affiliates

Congress to Make HC Decisions & Can’t Make War Decision

Glenn to Doctors: How Many of You Cut Feet off For Extra Dollars?

Doctor: “Government HC Causes Us To Compromise With Patients Care”

Has Anyone Notices the Absence of Lawyers in HC Debate?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tells Truth About Government Cover-up of Vaccine Dangers

Part I – Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy Present RFK Jr.

Part II – Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy Present RFK Jr.

Mind you… these are the same people that are going to making decisions about your and your family’s health…

Related Resources:

"The" Dr. Oz Bait for Vaccine: Why Did He Do It?? Oz Kids and Wife Not Getting H1N1

Reid Admits Healthcare Costs $2 Trillion

DoctorsforPatientFreedom.com

Cato Expert: Medicare Cuts Coming

Conservatives for Patient's Rights

Stop Paying the Crooks

Source: Knowledge Creates Power – Cross-Posted: the Daily Thought Pad

Posted: True Health Is True Wealth – Cross- Posted: Marion’s Place

The fraud and dishonesty in the Baucus bill

You really have to read this entire piece by Jeffrey Anderson in the New York Post to get a sense of how frighteningly dishonest the gimmicks used by Senator Baucus to get the CBO to sign off on his health care bill.

The first bit of rank dishonesty lies in the fact that the CBO is calculating the bill's cost in the next decade starting next year. The problem is that the bill wouldn't even take effect fully until 2015!

But the CBO exposed the truth by taking the rare step of calculating what the bill would cost in its second 10 years. In its second decade alone, the CBO projects, the bill's costs would triple -- to $2.8 trillion. The taxes and fines it levies would also triple -- to $1.8 trillion. And its cuts to Medicare and related federal health programs would quadruple -- to $1.9 trillion.
In its first two decades combined, the bill would cost $3.6 trillion and would raise taxes by $2.3 trillion.

We're just getting started folks.

Baucus' most elementary trick was to have the bill's "first 10 years" include several years when it hadn't really kicked in. It was scored for 2010 to 2019, yet it wouldn't be in full swing until 2015 -- when its costs would exceed those of its first five years combined.

In fact, the bill wouldn't cost anything in 2010. In its real first decade (2011-20), it would cost more than $1 trillion.

Furthermore, the CBO projects that, by the end of 2030, the Baucus bill would have cut spending on Medicare and other existing health programs by more than $2.6 trillion.

Incredibly, the payments to doctors and hospitals will almost guarantee that no doctor will come within a country mile of a Medicare patient in the future:

Also, Baucus' savings are highly suspect. As the CBO notes, his bill would cut Medicare payments to doctors by 25 percent in 2011, then hold them at that level perpetually. In other words, given inflation, Baucus proposes endless cuts in what the program pays physicians and others.

Assuming 3 percent annual inflation, by 2014 doctors' real incomes from Medicare payments would be cut by a third from 2010. By 2025, they'd be cut in half.

If Baucus' cuts actually go through, physicians' willingness to see Medicare patients would dwindle alongside their pay. But if the cuts don't actually get made, Baucus' plan would explode the federal deficit.

Thankfully, this plan is DOA in the House and whatever compromise is reached in conference committee, very few elements of the Baucus bill will pass muster.

But the important thing about this bill is that getting it through committee moves the process along. What we've seen so far in the health care reform drama is simply the prologue.

The final act will play out behind closed doors as Democrats try to forge a consensus on what a majority of them can vote for.

Rick Moran – American Thinker

Sadly, the entire so-called healthcare reform process is riddled with fraud, deceit, ulterior motives and in the end a major power grab by the progressives and Obama. The end game for Obama, Pelosi, Reid and other Liberals is a single payer system… Beware!! No Trigger, NO government-run Co-op or Consortium and NO Public Option for they will all end up being a single-payer system including govt’ making the decisions about your healthcare, rationing and shortages… which will become death panels of one sort or another! (See Video Below)

DFA “senior adviser” Jacob Hacker (above) is an Obamacare architect who laughed at criticism of the plan being a Trojan Horse for single payer coverage. “It’s not a Trojan Horse, right” he retorted at a far Left Tides Foundation conference on health care. “It’s just right there! I’m telling you. We’re going to get there.”

Related Resources:

Health Care Solutions: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Health_Care_Solutions_072909.pdf
Five Steps to a Better Health Care System.
http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Five_Steps_to_a_Better_Health_Care_System_Web.pdf
Dr. John Goodman's Blog - Current, up-to date information on the debate: www.john-goodman-blog.com
Heartland Institute's Health Care Solutions: http://www.chcchoices.org

Congressman John Campbell Co-Sponsored H.R. 2520 – Patient’s Choice Act

Flexible Spending Accounts

5 Thoughts on the Baucus Bill

Senate Approves Baucus Bill With One GOP Vote: Snowe

Stop Paying the Crooks

The Healing of America

Catastrophe

Source: True Health Is True Wealth

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power – Cross-Posted: the Daily Thought Pad

FOUR STEPS TO SAVE HEALTH CARE - Updated (Gibbs says Obama Will Not Read HC Bill)

After President Obama promised last week that he would sit down with any and all Republicans and any other Congresspeople and Senators that wanted to and review the Healthcare Bill line by line, Robert Gibbs said today that President Obama would not read the Healthcare Bill.

Let us hope that he will have to read it multiple times as congressional leaders to to the White House and hold Obama to his word that her would review any of the present bills and final bills with them!!

It is a disgrace and an insult to the American People that anyone would pass sign bills like Cap and Tax, Healthcare Reform and multi billion and trillion dollar Stimulus and Budget Bills without reading them!!!!

SEE THE NEW TV AD DICK SAYS CAN DEFEAT OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER -- CLICK HERE!

August is THE crucial month! While the Senators and Congressmen are home in their districts, let's give them a barrage of attacks on Obama's proposals to deform our health system! Even as public opinion has turned against the plan, he still has sixty votes in the Senate and an ample margin in the House to pass it. Unless we unleash a FIRESTORM of public outrage, the bill will pass! And your own personal health care will never be the same.

Here's how to fight it:

1. Arm yourself with the facts: Read Chapter 4 in Catastrophe, "Obama's Health Care Catastrophe", which details how Obamacare will destroy American health care and explains what has happened in Canada!

2. Donate Money: The League of American Voters is running an advertisement Dick wrote in the swing states with key Senators. Give them as much as you can to run these ads.

Click here to see the ad and donate online!

To send checks by mail:

The League of American Voters
4152 West Blue Heron Blvd, Suite 1114
Riviera Beach, FL 33404
FedEx if possible! Time is of the essence.
We need to run these ads this month!

3. Email your friends, family and associates: We need a massive outpouring of public opinion. Email your Christmas card list, your colleagues from the office, your friends, and your family. Bring them the facts about health care and Obama's dangerous proposals. Think particularly of anyone you know in the following states

(where the key Senators live):

a. Maine (Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snow)
b. New York (Senator Kirsten Gillibrand)
c. Virginia (Senator Mark Warner and Jim Webb)
d. Indiana (Senator Evan Bayh)
e. Ohio (Senator John Voinovich)
f. North Carolina (Senator Kay Hagan)
g. Florida (Senator Mel Martinez)
h. Louisiana (Senator Mary Landrieu)
i. Arkansas (Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln)
j. Nebraska (Senator Ben Nelson)
k. South Dakota (Senator Tim Johnson)
l. Iowa (Senator Chuck Grassley)
m. North Dakota (Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan)
n. Montana (Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester)
o. Wyoming (Senator Michael Enzi)

4. Write or call your Senators and Congressman: Then sit down and write (by hand if possible) a letter to each of your Senators and your member of Congress. If you are not sure who your Congressman or Senators are, go to these links to find out:

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Simply address the letter to:

Your Senator or Congressman:
US Senate or US House of Representatives, Washington DC 20510 (Senate) or 20515 (House)

Sending a letter by snail mail is much more effective than by email.

They haven't really caught up with the 21st Century in Washington. So buy a real live postage stamp and mail your letters directly. Use the info from Catastrophe in your letter. Explain how your personal health care and that of our family will be adversely affected.

Even if your Senator or Congressman is a liberal Democrat or a Republican, write then anyway. It can influence the atmosphere in Washington. Senators and Congressmen talk and the more mail they get, the more public opinion weighs on them all. Even the ultra-liberals.

You can call Congress at (202) 224-3121.

Believe us. It works. Write today!

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN - Published on DickMorris.com on August 3, 2009