Friday Health Care Reform Update

I normally end each week with a fun and frivolity post, but due to the seriousness of the health care debate and the stage of the game, I'm going to skip it this week.  Instead, every single person who reads this post needs to forward this information to everyone in their e-mail address book.  We're now at crunch time, and a vote is probably coming in the next few days.  If we don't spread the word now, it will never happen.  You can download and read the bill yourself here if you want to.

First, let's hear from Minority Leader John Boehner:

Rep. Mike Rogers offers an excellent rip, saying Congress can do better because the American people deserve better.  I especially like what he says about breast cancer...think about it:

Sen. Lamar Alexander addresses the sheer length of the bill, and Sen. John McCain chips in:

Nicely done!

Doug Bandow points out an obvious connection with a current event:

The administration can't get flu vaccines out to people.  But these folks want the government to run the entire health care system. 

Reports the New York Times:

The moment a novel strain of swine flu emerged in Mexico last spring, President Obama instructed his top advisers that his administration would not be caught flat-footed in the event of a deadly pandemic. Now, despite months of planning and preparation, a vaccine shortage is threatening to undermine public confidence in government, creating a very public test of Mr. Obama's competence.

Don't worry.  Next time they will do better!  We should trust them with the health care for nearly 308 million Americans.

An excellent point.

Missouri Rep. Sam Graves points out several of the worst provisions:

Page 94—Section 202(c) prohibits the sale of private individual health insurance policies, beginning in 2013, forcing individuals to purchase coverage through the federal government

Page 110—Section 222(e) requires the use of federal dollars to fund abortions through the government-run health plan—and, if the Hyde Amendment were ever not renewed, would require the plan to fund elective abortions

Page 111—Section 223 establishes a new board of federal bureaucrats (the “Health Benefits Advisory Committee”) to dictate the health plans that all individuals must purchase—and would likely require all Americans to subsidize and purchase plans that cover any abortion

Page 211—Section 321 establishes a new government-run health plan that, according to non-partisan actuaries at the Lewin Group, would cause as many as 114 million Americans to lose their existing coverage

Page 225—Section 330 permits—but does not require—Members of Congress to enroll in government-run health care

Page 255—Section 345 includes language requiring verification of income for individuals wishing to receive federal health care subsidies under the bill—while the bill includes a requirement for applicants to verify their citizenship, it does not include a similar requirement to verify applicants’ identity, thus encouraging identity fraud for undocumented immigrants and others wishing to receive taxpayer-subsidized health benefits

Page 297—Section 501 imposes a 2.5 percent tax on all individuals who do not purchase “bureaucrat-approved” health insurance—the tax would apply on individuals with incomes under $250,000, thus breaking a central promise of then-Senator Obama’s presidential campaign

Page 313—Section 512 imposes an 8 percent “tax on jobs” for firms that cannot afford to purchase “bureaucrat-approved” health coverage; according an analysis by Harvard Professor Kate Baicker, such a tax would place millions “at substantial risk of unemployment”—with minority workers losing their jobs at twice the rate of their white counterparts

Page 336—Section 551 imposes additional job-killing taxes, in the form of a half-trillion dollar “surcharge,” more than half of which will hit small businesses; according to a model developed by President Obama’s senior economic advisor, such taxes could cost up to 5.5 million jobs

Page 520—Section 1161 cuts more than $150 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, potentially jeopardizing millions of seniors’ existing coverage

Page 733—Section 1401 establishes a new Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research; the bill includes no provisions preventing the government-run health plan from using such research to deny access to life-saving treatments on cost grounds, similar to Britain’s National Health Service, which denies patient treatments costing more than £35,000

Page 1174—Section 1802(b) includes provisions entitled “TAXES ON CERTAIN INSURANCE POLICIES” to fund comparative effectiveness research, breaking Speaker Pelosi’s promise that “We will not be taxing [health] benefits in any bill that passes the House,” and the President’s promise not to raise taxes on families with incomes under $250,000

Let's review some of these again:

- this plan will fund abortions

- it will be illegal to purchase private insurance ever again

- this will cost over $1 trillion, paid for by massive tax increases and drastic cuts in Medicare for seniors

- death panels will exist

- jobs will be lost due to harsh penalties on businesses

- illegal aliens will be covered
- this will be government controlled health care
- Congress will be exempt from this plan

Is this what you have in mind when you think of health care 'reform'?

That last one should be all the red flag you need...if this is such a great plan, then why isn't Congress taking part?  For the record, Republicans put forward an amendment that would have forced Congress to participate in whatever plan they force onto the rest of us, and Democrats voted it down.

Rep. Michelle Bachman nails this plan to the wall of socialism:

Did you catch the bombshell she dropped in there?  The federal government has already -- ALREADY -- taken over 30% of the private sector in this country, and if this bill goes into law, that number will jump up to 48%!!!  Do you trust the federal government to control half of this nation?

And where is the Senate bill?  The House bill came out Thursday, but the Senate version is nowhere to be found.  Every single Republican Senator signed a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid asking where it is, and why it's being kept secret.  I'll bet you any amount of money he won't respond, the Senate bill will be well over 1,000 pages itself, and we'll have only a couple days of exposure before the Dems will rush a vote on it.  The methods being used by the Democrat leadership should cause this nation to stomp on the brakes here, no matter what the actual content of the bill turns out to be!

Finally, here is John Boehner again, summing up the bill and talking about the Republican alternative:

Contrary to what the Left wants you to believe, there is an alternative, and it is as simple as it would be effective for lowering costs and improving quality:

• Number one: let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.
• Number two: allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do.
• Number three: give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.
• Number four: end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.

So, which would you prefer:

1. government control of your health care, massive tax increases, death panels, and abortion funding, OR...

2. allowing Americans to buy whatever plan they want from any state, increasing innovation and competition to lower costs, and cracking down on frivolous lawsuits

That's your choice.  There is no third option, there is no sitting on the fence, there is no avoiding of the consequences.  This is the most vast and sweeping legislation this country has seen in decades, perhaps ever.  It will have devastating effects on the economy, as well as the literal lives and well-being of every man, woman, and child living in America today and in the years to come.

For those of you who aren't political junkies like me, here's the situation.  Right now Democrats hold majorities in both the House and the Senate.  Every Republican in both houses is likely to oppose this bill, but it really doesn't matter since they don't have enough votes to actually stop it.  This is all about Democrats.

The Democrat leadership wants this thing to go through because it gives them an unprecedented amount of control over the American people.  Not every Democrat in Congress agrees with them or this bill, but the leadership is putting an incredible amount of pressure on them to fall in line.  The only thing that can stop this nightmare from becoming reality is if the American people -- YOU -- unleash such a fierce opposition to it that the rank-and-file Democrats in the House and Senate cannot possibly justify supporting it.  This means that every American citizen, regardless of political party or affiliation, needs to make his or her voice heard.  The opposition must be overwhelming, and it must continue from this moment until the vote actually occurs.

If ever there was a time to make a single phone call or send a single e-mail, it is now.  Contact your Senators and Representative and tell them you don't want this, and that you'd rather have the 4-point Republican plan.  The Senate contact list is here, the House contact list is here.  The capital switchboard number is 202-224-3121; just ask to speak with the Senator/Rep for your state, and they'll connect you.  Even better would be to call or e-mail every day.  I know it's a pain, and I know it takes effort, but if you've read this far down in this post, you've seen what this bill will do to this nation.  Isn't protecting the American way of life -- and your own freedom to make your own health care decisions -- worth a couple minutes every day?

The future of America -- and the lives of you and your loved ones -- is at stake.  Right now.

There's my two cents.

Obamessiah Miffed That Americans Don't Approve Of Paying For His Dates

How dare we:

The elitist in the White House is upset with the commoners for criticizing his £45,000 ($74,000) date night in New York City during the worst recession since the Great Depression .

"The notion that I just couldn't take my wife out on a date without it being a political issue was not something I was happy with."

The Daily Mail reported at the time that Obama's date night in New York City cost £45,000.
It was not your average night out on the town.

The Daily Mail reported:

That's for three private jets, two helicopter rides, extra planes for security and closing roads for motorcade

It was a campaign pledge that Barack Obama didn't dare break – a promise to take his wife out for dinner and a show once the election was over.

So on the weekend he booked a babysitter, asked Michelle to put on a little black dress and swept her off for a date…

The romantic jaunt is estimated to have cost the taxpayer more than £45,000 in transport and security costs – because the date was in New York.

The President used three planes, one to carry the couple and two to ferry aides and reporters all the way from Washington.
The cost of each flight was thought to be nearly £15,000.

The bill was pushed even higher with the use of two helicopters, one to take the Obamas to catch their plane in Washington and another to zip the party into Manhattan from JFK airport.

And, it seems like it was just yesterday that Barack Obama was telling us that everyone was going to have to sacrifice for the greater good.
Well… Some of us have to sacrifice anyway.

Um...hello?  When you're the President, and when everything you do is funded by taxpayer money, EVERYTHING YOU DO IS A POLITICAL ISSUE!

Someone call the waaaaaahmbulance.  Maybe he would like some cheese with his whine.  Personally, I'd like a refund of my wasted tax dollars.

There's my two cents.

Is Obama Conceding That Iran Will Get Nukes...?

It's extremely disturbing, yet completely predictable, if you understand Obama's liberal mindset:

They're spinning this as an "in the off chance sanctions don't work..." contingency plan, but it sounds like an administration succumbing to its own impotence:

The Obama administration is quietly laying the groundwork for long-range strategy that could be used to contain a nuclear-equipped Iran and deter its leaders from using atomic weapons. U.S. officials insist they are not resigned to a nuclear Iran and are pressing negotiations to prevent it from joining the world's nuclear club. But at the same time, the administration has set in place the building blocks of policies to contend with an Iran armed with atomic weapons.

Those elements, former officials and analysts said, include the newly revised defense shield for Europe and deeper defense ties to Gulf states that feel threatened by Iran.

Iran will probably have the bomb before our 2012 election, which means Israel is on its own. What's concerning here is that the administration clearly doesn't understand the deeper strategic implications of Iran owning a nuke and having that launch-on-warning missile technology enjoyed by the US and Russia for decades. Deterrence isn't the point here. We deterred the Soviets from attacking us with nuclear weapons, but that didn't stop them from exporting communism by means of violent proxy wars (which we were often sucked into, costing us billions of dollars and thousands of American lives). 

Imagine what happens to the balance of power in the Middle East if Iran, like Russia, could safely shield its terrorist proxies under the protective cover of nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting our regional bases, Israel, Europe, and ultimately the continental United States. Allowing Iran access to nuclear weapons is a guaranteed formula for widespread Mid-East strife and a potential nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel. The Obama administration seems to be resigning itself to that avoidable fate.

Yet another proof that Barack Obama is the greatest danger facing America today.

There's my two cents.

'Saved Or Created' Nonsense

*sigh*

The White House is lying about the economy again:

The White House put out its new fuzzy porkulus math report — and then patted itself on the back for "transparency:"

More than 650,000 jobs have been saved or created under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, the White House said Friday, saying it is on track to reach the president's goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

New job numbers from businesses, contractors, state and local governments, nonprofit groups and universities were not scheduled to be released publicly until Friday afternoon. But White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein says officials have been told the figures. When adding in jobs linked to $288 billion in tax cuts, Bernstein says the stimulus plan has created or saved more than 1 million jobs.

The data will be posted on recovery.gov, the web site of the independent panel overseeing stimulus spending.

"It's a great example of the unprecedented transparency, where the American taxpayer can point and click and see their taxes creating jobs," Bernstein said.

This particular lie is so egregiously outrageous that not even the Associated Press could swallow it.  In fact, here's how they had reported the initial claim of 30,000 jobs just yesterday:

An early progress report on President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, a mistake that White House officials promise will be corrected in future reports.

The government's first accounting of jobs tied to the $787 billion stimulus program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money. But that figure is overstated by least 5,000 jobs, according to an Associated Press review of a sample of stimulus contracts.

The AP review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.

...

There's no evidence the White House sought to inflate job numbers in the report. But administration officials seized on the 30,000 figure as evidence that the stimulus program was on its way toward fulfilling the president's promise of creating or saving 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

The reporting problem could be magnified Friday when a much larger round of reports is expected to show hundreds of thousands of jobs repairing public housing, building schools, repaving highways and keeping teachers on local payrolls.

Yep, I'd say we got that magnification, wouldn't you?

Ace of Spades offers this analysis and example:

When the WH demanded that those who received Spendulus money "report" back on how many jobs were "saved or created," they insisted upon a nonsensical rule: If a single dollar of Spendulus was spent on an employee's salary, whether that employee was a new employee or an old one, that gets counted as a job "saved or created." If he's a new employee, that job was created. If he's an existing employee, that job was saved.

For $1.

Yes, $1. Because the nonsensical rules the White House told these people to count "saved or created" jobs by simply stated: If any employee's salary is paid, in whole or in part (any part!), count that as a job "saved or created" by the spending.

And then report that number back to us.

Note that the White House's rules do not seek to discover which jobs really were "saved or created." To come to that conclusion, one would need a set of more rigorous rules -- which excluded some jobs from the "saved or created" category, rather than attempting to include them all under that rubric.

For example, you'd need a rule like: "If the funding pays more than 10% of an employee's salary, and the management feels the employee would not have been hired, or would have been fired, but for that spending, then this job should be counted as 'saved or created. "

They didn't do that. They didn't set a 10% threshold, or even a 1% threshold. A single dollar counts as saving or creating a job.

Further, they never asked if the employee would be out of a job but for that spending.

Because they didn't want to actually find out which jobs were saved or created. They just wanted as large a number as possible, even if it made no sense, and had nothing at all to do with jobs really affected by the spending.

So, if a factory gets $5000, and divides that, $50 a worker, among 100 workers, you know how many jobs were "saved or created" according to Obama?

100. Even though $5000 obviously doesn't cover a single part-time salary, let alone 100 full-time salaries.

If a factory gets $5000, and divides that, $1 a worker, among 5000 workers, Obama's rules say 5000 jobs were saved or created.

And note that in neither case does the employee have to be a new one. It could be a guy working there for 30 years, whom the company would never even consider firing. Per the rules, if he gets 50 bucks, or even a single dollar, his job was right there "saved" by Bonny Prince Barack.

Hot Air adds the icing on the cake:

The "majority of funds" came from state governments because Porkulus distributed the money in block grants to the states.  What did the states do with that money?  They did save jobs, but primarily bureaucratic jobs.  States used the money to temporarily paper over budget gaps which would have forced the layoffs of state employees, which should have been a necessary step in slimming down state-level spending.

The administration will claim that it saved the jobs of teachers, police officers, and firefighters with the data submitted by the states.  Indeed, we have already seen this in New Hampshire, which listed almost all of its "saved or created" jobs from their education system. ...

No one was going to have a mass layoff of police officers and teachers in New Hampshire or anywhere else.  The jobs really at risk were administrative jobs within state government, primarily union jobs (in large part represented by Obama's ally, the SEIU), as states had to confront an economic reality of lower revenue and rising spending.   Porkulus provided a one-time method of ignoring that reality for a few months by burdening the entire nation with the bad policy decisions of the individual states.

But all that did was to delay that day of reckoning, not eliminate it.  When the grant money runs out, those states will still have to make tough decisions on the size and costs of their bureaucracies.  They will still have to either raise taxes or start trimming their payrolls, and it won't be the teacher or the firefighter who gets the pink slip.  Porkulus will do the same thing that Cash for Clunkers did, which was to postpone the inevitable — and cost us a fortune in doing so.

You know, at least Bill Clinton could lie well enough to be believed.  This latest round of lies from Barack Obama is so utterly, incompetently performed that not even the official transcribers and genuflecting lapdogs in the mainstream media will accept it.

Yes, it's that obvious.

There's my two cents.

About That Jobless Recovery...

First of all, the very idea of a recovery without new jobs is just stupid.  I mean, think about it - our economy is something like 70% based on consumption, which means people buying stuff.  If you don't have a job, how much buying are you doing?  Zippo, or as close to it as possible.  So, the key to our economy is jobs, and an unemployment rate fast approaching 10% isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for this supposed recovery.

But, a look at history shows us some other very interesting things:

Columnists and reporters need to fill daily news quotas. Thus, each ebb and flow of the stock market, the GDP, the data on housing starts, and so on receive massive discussion. Historians, however, care more about long-term results, and it's too early to discern any pattern for economic recovery in the Obama administration. Yes, housing prices are up slightly this month, and GDP is now up as well. But unemployment is still trending downward, and the uncertainties on taxes, health care, cap-and-trade, and sensitive foreign diplomacy all make short-term reports of limited value.

Many have compared the current economic crisis to the Great Depression, and it is useful to study FDR's statistics on recovery to understand the problem with relying on short-term data. Unemployment, for example, was 21.4 percent in May 1934 and dropped to 13.2 percent by May 1937. That impressed many pundits and voters. But in May 1939, unemployment was back up to 20.7 percent. Why? FDR had raised taxes, introduced a new corporate tax, enacted a minimum-wage law, and granted unions unprecedented federal support to organize during the late 1930s. When those government interventions took hold, the economic recovery was thwarted. In fact, capital goods in May 1937 had almost returned to 1929 levels, but in May 1939 capital goods stood at a mere 59 percent of 1929 levels.

The key issue here is economic philosophy. FDR believed that massive intervention (followed by high taxes) would lead to economic recovery. Obama has a similar belief. They are wrong, and thus any short-term recovery we see during 2009 and 2010 is likely to be ephemeral. By contrast, Ronald Reagan and Calvin Coolidge believed that cutting tax rates and reducing federal intervention was the recipe for economic recovery, and both saw economic recoveries during the first terms of their presidencies. Economic growth during the 1920s and 1980s was, in fact, spectacular. When people are unshackled and allowed to be free, they can accomplish much. When that belief takes hold again in the United States, we will likely see a serious recovery.

Unfortunately, that will be a long time coming, and you can bet it won't ever happen while Barack Obama remains in the White House.  His governing philosophy is antithetical to this kind of progress and policies that actually prompt recoveries.  It's great that there are signs of recovery - they're more a tribute to the hard work of the American people than anything the White House or Congress is doing.  In fact, the policies the White House and Congress are implementing will stifle, strangle, and essentially kill any hope of a real, significant, and lasting economic recovery.

Rush Limbaugh spoke about this GDP number on his radio program earlier in the week, and it helped put things into perspective:

Look, you can try to cover up 10% unemployment all you want with a phony GDP number of 3.5%, you can go out there and say you saved the economy, but there are no jobs.  Obama is gratified, but by his own benchmark his economy is still failing.  Now, let me see if I can put this GDP number into context for you, 'cause it's phony.  It is a fake number.  Gross domestic product needs to be understood as the sum of three things:  consumption by consumers, investment by business, and spending by government, CIG.  Consumption, investment, spending by government.  So they say the total GDP went up 3.5%.  But was there any new consumption by consumers?  No.  Was there any new investment by business?  No.  Was there spending by government?  Yes.  That's the G.  The increase is in G, spending by government. 

There was no investment in business.  There was no consumption by consumers.  You've seen all the numbers.  Home sales down; consumer spending down.  There was no economic growth.  What happened here, you had the Clash for Clunkers fiasco and now the Edmunds.com bunch estimates that that program cost taxpayers $24,000 for every car sold, and then there was that first time home buyers fraud, all kinds of government spending which was government borrowing.  So the government spending sector goes up, and they, oh, the economy grew by 3.5%.  It did not.  Government grew.  All that's happened here is that money has been shifted from taxpayers today and tomorrow into Obama approval ratings today.
BREAK

RUSH: I want to take another stab at this GDP thing, because checking e-mail during the break, "What do you mean, Rush, you have never said that gross domestic product increases in the past were fake.  You're just anti-Obama."  No, no, no, no.  I am anti-Obama, but don't you find this suspicious right before some elections hit next week?  You know that this number is going to be revised downward later this month and nobody is going to pay any attention to it.  But folks, there is no economic growth, at least in the private sector, and that's what everybody cares about.  The private sector is where you and I operate.  The private sector is where you and I test the waters.  It's where we pursue the American dream.  Gross domestic product equals the sum of consumption by consumers, investment by business, and spending by government, so the total goes up by three-and-a-half percent, it seems like growth, but all the increase is in G, spending by government, financed by an increasing deficit.  It's fake. 

Look at it this way.  It's called the Keynesian fallacy.  If I buy a refrigerator, that's a real transaction.  It counts toward C, consumption.  If I own a business and I buy a new machine tool or a forklift or whatever, that's real also.  It counts toward I, investment.  Real recoveries are led by consumption and investment, and there ain't any of that going on, I'm sorry.  I wish there were.  Now, the Keynesian fallacy is based on the multiplier theory -- I've done my economic homework on this -- and it is that government spending causes growth.  That's what Obama believes, that's what all these liberals believe, the government spending, that's the engine.  They think government creates jobs.  They think government does all these wonderful things.  The private sector is where all the fraud takes place.  The private sector is where all the cheating goes on, the private sector is where the real people get cheated by the big shots on Wall Street and ExxonMobil and Big Oil, Big Pharma, big whatever.  They think government is the engine.  And so when it grows, ooh, baby, we're smoking, cool.  That's the Keynesian fallacy. 

Now, government spending could cause growth if the money is spent on certain things like infrastructure and keeping us safe.  But then the growth that it causes comes from the consequences later that increase in consumption and investment.  Now, this growth that they're talking about here today, this GDP number, is just an accounting trick.  Suppose I borrow $10,000 on my credit card, and then I tell my wife, "Look, honey, here's the $10,000, I just got a raise."  And then I go out and I spend that income on a new car or boat or whatever.  You know, my wife, my girlfriend, whatever, would hit me with a chair.  Borrowing money and spending it is not increased income.  It's sort of like baseline budgeting, if I can remind you of that lecture.  Let's say you go and buy a car, you're looking at buying a car, and you want to spend, oh, $70,000 on a car. 

So you go to some dealerships, start kicking the tires, look around.  You go to Mercedes, you go to Ford, go to Chrysler, go to GM.  And the car you end up liking costs $50,000, not 70.  And you tell your family, we just saved 20 grand, when you didn't.  You just spent 50.  It's the same thing here.  You borrow $10,000, you go spend it on something, and you tell yourself you got a raise, your income went up.  That's what's happened here with this GDP number.  This 3.5% growth is all in government, and as we know government doesn't have any money.  Government's printing money.  We're running a deficit of $1.4 trillion this year.  We don't have any money.  So this growth is fake, it is fraudulent, it is phony, it doesn't exist, there is no growth, and Obama himself even admitted it out there. 

Charles Krauthammer offers a similar diluting of this 'good news':

...let's look at one of the factors. About a point and a half of the three and a half is from autos. And a lot of that is from the "Clunkers" program, which, of course, was a one-time gimmick which stole demand from the future into the present.

 

And we know that because when it [the "Cash for Clunkers" program] ended, September saw a collapse of auto demand. Which means that if you increase it [demand] artificially, as we did -- [increase] demand in the summer for autos -- it [demand] will be lower in the fall, lower in the winter, lower next year. Which means that the point and a half added to this year is probably going to be zero added in the next year, or even that autos will be a drag on the economy.

 

So even though it is a healthy number now, it doesn't tell us if it is going to remain healthy.

 

The larger issue is that, again, a lot of this [growth] is from the billions sprinkled on the economy out of Washington. Ultimately, it creates debt that ultimately has to end up being repaid -- either in higher taxes or in inflation and then higher interest rates -- which means we're going to have a drag on the economy.

 

And the longer you wait [to reduce the debt], the higher the inflation and the bigger the drag.

…

 

And the parallel is the second worst recession since the Great Depression, which was in the early '80's in Reagan's first term where he insisted on huge tax cuts. So even though unemployment hit almost 11 percent, when that [recession] abated, there was a huge spike in employment and in growth, almost 6 percent…

 

And that's unlikely to happen because instead of tax cuts and incentive for employment, what we're doing [today] is sprinkling all kinds of stimuli which are going to expire and dissipate, and I'm not sure what we're going to have left at the end of it except a huge hole in the federal deficit.

 

[And] there will be a lot of sprinkling next year, especially as Election Day approaches, you can be sure of that.

The only real hope for a lasting, genuine RECOVERY is to get those Dems out of power and end their economy-killing policies as soon as possible, and let some genuine conservatives begin the restoration project.  There's only so much of this sort of 'recovery' that this nation can take.

There's my two cents.

The Final ObamaKennedyDeathCare House Bill: Nasty Bits

Here are some of the nasty bits that people are already identifying:

The bill contains the word "shall" 3,425 times. But I'm sure all those are used to tell you how the government "shall" stay out of your health-care decisions, right?

Pg. 1516 regulates vending machines: In the case of an article of food sold from a vending machine that ‘‘(I) does not permit a prospective purchaser to examine the Nutrition Facts Panel before purchasing the article or does not otherwise provide visible nutrition information at the point of purchase; and ‘‘(II) is operated by a person who is engaged in the business of owning or operating 20 or more vending machines, the vending machine operator shall provide a sign in close proximity to each article of food or the selection button that includes a clear and conspicuous statement disclosing the number of calories contained in the article.

Pg. 31, under a section titled, "Sunshine on price gouging of health insurance issuers": The Secretary of Health and Human Services, in conjunction with States, shall establish a process for the annual review of increases in premiums for health insurance coverage. Such process shall require health insurance issuers to submit a justification for any premium increases prior to implementation of the increase.

The "doc fix"— coming in at about $200 billion—is yet to come, and will be handled in a separate piece of legislation, just as the Senate tried.

The bill adds a new section to the federal tax code: "'PART VIII:HEALTH CARE RELATED TAXES.' Among the new taxes are penalties for individuals who don't purchase insurance and employers who don't provide insurance, income tax surcharges of up to 5.6% to those earning more than $1 million, and a 2.5% excise tax on medical devices."

Pg. 132: The bill creates the Office of the Ultimate Bureaucrat Health Choices Administration headed by the Health Choices Commissioner. Among the commissioner's duties (he will be appointed by the president and approved by the Senate): "establishment of qualified health benefits plan standards," "administration of individual affordability credits under subtitle C of title III, including determination of eligibility for such credits," auditing insurance exchange participants to provide "accountability" for meeting his established standards and billing those insurance companies for the audits, collecting unspecified "data," penalizing, suspending payments to, and terminating insurance plans that don't meet exchange standards, establishing " effective and efficient administration of the Health Insurance Exchange," and "development of standards for the definitions of terms used in health insurance coverage, including insurance-related terms."

And:

The bill defines which businesses are subject to the health care tax based upon the dollar amount of employee payroll. There even is a sliding scale right in the bill (section 501, at page 276) which tops out at 8% for businesses with $750,000 of annual payroll. Annual payroll is defined as the "aggregate wages" paid by the employer.

This provision creates incentives for businesses to keep down payroll. One way would be not to hire anyone whose compensation would fall under the definition of payroll under the bill.

In other words, outsource whatever you can. Hire a software engineer in India, or ship manufacturing to China, or structure your business in such a way that you send 1099s not W-2s to the people who work for you (and hire an accountant and tax lawyer to navigate IRS rules on independent contractors).

The message of the bill is that whatever you do, if you want to grow your business without paying the health care tax, do not add employees.

Obama does not understand these provisions. Obama gave a speech this morning in which he stated that these provisions are directed at small businesses operating on thin margins. But these provisions have nothing to do with profit margins. This is a wage-based tax.

And:

-- Page 183: The Commissioner (i.e. the health insurance czar) can contract with “appropriate entities” to engage in “outreach to specific vulnerable populations” about the new programs in the bill. The bill includes no prohibition on ACORN receiving this funding, meaning that the Administration could consider ACORN an “appropriate entity,” allowing them to receive taxpayer funding for “outreach…”

-- Page 1432: States can get funding for liability demonstration projects only if they do not cap damages or attorneys’ fees.

-- Page 1925: There is funding for sexual predators through the Indian Health Service in the bill.

-- Page 122: The federal government and the new insurance czar will be giving us lessons on how to speak in “plain language."

-- Page 1255: The health care bill makes veterinary students eligible for federal grant funding, including scholarships and loan forgiveness.  All told, there is $283 million in spending authorized under these sections – meaning we could be spending hundreds of millions to pay for veterinarians while we have a deficit of over $1 trillion.

 --  Page 1213: There is language in the bill regulating vending machines, to ensure everyone will see nutrition labels on items before purchasing their food.

Some more fun facts:

--  Did you know? The bill also omits language in the discussion draft of H.R. 3200, saying that the bureaucracy established to create minimum benefit standards should “ensure that essential benefits coverage does not lead to rationing of health care.”  In other words, there’s no clear prohibition on the federal government rationing health care.

-- Did you know? The bill reauthorization was stuck on to the back of the health care bill.  This matters to folks who are pro-life because the Democrats have not been able to move this bill for the past three years. This is because there were votes in the Energy and Commerce Committee to add an amendment preventing the Indian Health Service from funding abortions. In other words, it’s another end-run around a vote to ensure federal funds won’t pay for abortion, just as President Obama promised.

 -- Did you know? During the press conference, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer claimed it was an open and transparent process to develop the health care bill. This begs the question, why did they prevent the American people from attending their publicity rally?

-- Did you know? In addition to the major bill, there is a 13-page bill to repeal the sustainable growth rate caps on Medicare spending. This bill will cost more than $200 billion, and is not paid for, which breaks President Obama's promise to Congress.

-- Did you know? The Democrats' health care bill is 1,990 pages long and contatins the word "shall" 3,425 times.

--  Did you know? An organizer that participated in the 9/12 march writes: "When we planned the 9/12 March, we were specifically told that this is the people's property and that we could not legally prohibit anyone from walking where they wanted on the grounds.  We could ask them but if they insisted we had to allow them."

-- Did you know? There were multiple reports from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's press conference on health care this morning of the public being turned away from the event.

In short, this bill will put the entire American health care system under government control, hammering the middle and upper classes with new taxes and cutting Medicare to pay for it.

There's my two cents.

Related Reading: 

1,990-Page Health Care Bill Pays for Abortions, Cuts Medicare, Raises Taxes, Fees, and the Deficit

The Final ObamaKennedyDeathCare House Bill: What To Look For

Heritage offers some suggestions on what to look for in this new House bill:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just unveiled a hulking 1,990 page House health care bill (H.R. 3962). The latest product, which dwarfs the 1,342 page Clinton Health Plan of 1993, is the latest evolution of the House process, which started with H.R. 3200. The House Speaker made a number of general comments, saying that the legislation would lower costs for American families, enhance the solvency of the Medicare program, and add 36 million Americans to the health insurance rolls.

The House Speaker and the rest of the Congressional leadership want to fast track the legislation, and get it up on the floor for a vote as early as next week, if possible. Meanwhile, health policy analysts, economists, Congress watchers and ordinary citizens, will have limited time to examine the bill and make their own judgments. Taxpayers need to do their part. Here are some suggestions:

1. Check the Details for Yourself. The bill is now posted. You can find it at fixhealthcarepolicy.com. Congressional leaders were literally working on this bill late into the night before unveiling it this morning. At 1,990 pages, reading this will be an arduous task. But it will affect 300 million Americans and overhaul one sixth of the American economy. It is hard to imagine any piece of legislation having a bigger impact on one’s personal life, let alone the national life, of the country. Vigiliance, as Thomas Jefferson warned us, is the price of liberty.

2. Keep an Eye Out for Budget Gimmicks. Rest assured that there is already evidence that the Congressional leadership is going to resort to shell games and budget gimmicks to make the bill look like it doesn’t add to the deficit. This will be evident in how the bill is structured; it appears that they have decided to front load the revenues in the first five years, and run surpluses in the first five years, and put off the costs until the second five years, and then start running the deficits. So, while this might meet the temporary requirements of the first ten year Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score, it does not mean that the bill would really start to bend the spending curve downward, or that it will not contribute to the already devastating deficits Congress and the Administration have already incurred.

3. Pay no Attention to Words, Check the Actions. Congressional Leaders say a lot of things. But taxpayers need to pay close attention to what they do. It is evident that they are already breaking their promises to the representatives of the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies. Recall that they promised the doctors a permanent fix to Medicare payment. But, according to the October 29th Politico Pulse, now they have taken it out of the bill, and are going to offer it in separate legislation. This is exactly what the Senate leadership tried and failed to do last week, in order to reduce the apparent cost of their health care agenda, and run up the spending on a separate bill to keep the Senate health care bill “deficit neutral.” Since the House leaders have decided the take Medicare payment fix out of the House bill, they will attempt to run the same play, and add the huge cost (approximately $250 billion over ten years) to the deficit on a separate track. This may work in the House, where the Congressional leadership commands huge majorities; it will not work in the Senate. The doctors will be played as pawns, once again, in the congressional liberals’ budget shell game. In any case, if they take health items out of the bills and add them to the deficit, the taxpayers continue to lose big time.

4. Don’t Trust New Promises. Also according to Politico Pulse, the House leadership has decided to cut drug payments in Medicare between $125 to $150 billion, as opposed to the $80 billion cuts they agreed to with the pharmaceutical industry. That broken promise is combined with a decision to impose price controls on Medicare drugs, and do away with private sector negotiation. This was, of course, the inevitable result of the creation of a universal drug entitlement. Seniors can expect drug rationing if such a provision is signed into law; not right away, but inevitably. Perhaps other K Street lobbyists will learn from this experience.

5. Don’t Depend on Old Promises. The President and Congressional leaders have made a litany of high profile promises: no middle class tax increases; you can keep your health plan if you like it; there will be no interference with your doctor-patient relationship; no funding for abortion or illegal immigration; the health care costs will fall on a future downward curve; we are going to cut Medicare Advantage plans but not Medicare benefits. These are all empty promises, and undermined by House and Senate legislation.

6. Forget Competition. House leaders praise the “ Public Plan” as a force for competition. It won’t, of course; and that is precisely why prominent “single payer” advocates in the House and Senate, champions of a government monopoly, are its strongest supporters. The new bill would force the new public plan to negotiate private rates with doctors and hospitals, and not be pegged to Medicare rates. If that’s true, congressional liberals are then right to ask : “what is the point of the public plan?” In fact, of course, the bill would not really sell out the Lefties. It will be a legally advantaged stalking horse for a single payer system. Even though they claim there is a level playing field for the public plan and the private health plans, that was clearly not true in the earlier versions of the House bill, where the taxpayers assumed the risk.

This is the next phase of the big debate. Both the House and Senate bills largely retain the same character: more control to Washington, less personal freedom.

And that is the key right there.  Government control, and less choice for you.  Congressman Mike Pence aptly called it a 'freight train' of big government:

We're all going to get run over by this freight train if we don't stop it!

Regardless, this bill is going to dramatically alter the American way of life.  You owe it to yourself and your children to get involved on this one.

There's my two cents.

The Final House ObamaKennedyDeathCare Bill: Costs And Taxes

The House has now put out its final version of the government takeover of the American health care system.  No word on the Senate's version yet, but we can rest assured that they're diligently working on it (behind closed doors).  While things will still change a bit before the final overall bill that gets voted on, you can bet that much of the House bill will end up in the final bill.


For now, let's look at this thing.  The analysis is now starting to come out, there are a ton of details to look at.  First and foremost: yes, there is a 'public option', and it was unveiled in an incredibly unpublic way.

This particular post will focus on the monetary costs and tax hikes associated with it; other information will be covered in future posts.

The target was to keep the price tag below $900 billion.  They failed:

The Congressional Budget Office is out with its analysis of the House Democrats' health care bill. The headline number -- likely to be widely cited in media accounts -- is that the bill costs $894 billion over 10 years. But in reality, the CBO says that the gross cost of the bill will be $1.055 trillion. The $894 billion number reflects the taxes being paid by individuals who don't have insurance and employers who don't provide insurance.

In addition, the bill relies on some of the same budgetary gimmicks as the Senate Finance Committee's bill. Once again, we see that the Democrats backload the spending provisions into the final six years of the CBO's 10 year budget window to make it appear cheaper. Specifically, the CBO says the bill's gross spending will be $60 billion in the first four years, and $995 billion in the next six years (or 94 percent of the total).

Also, while the CBO says that the bill will reduce deficits by $104 billion over 10 years and keep reducing the deficit (albiet slightly) beyond that, it cautions that these estimates assume that proposed budget cuts will actually get enacted by future members of Congress. "These longer-term projections assume that the provisions of H.R. 3962 are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is  often not the case for major legislation," the CBO director Douglas Elmendorf wrote. "The long-term budgetary impact of H.R. 3962 could be quite different if those provisions generating savings were ultimately changed or not fully implemented."

The CBO estimate doesn't include the more than $200 billion it will cost to prevent scheduled cuts to doctors' payments under Medicare, which Democrats intend to pass through separate legislation.

The bill would also add 15 million people to the Medicaid rolls, costing states an additional $34 billion over 10 years. 

And just how are the Democrats planning to pay for this massive trillion dollar takeover of American health care?  Taxes, taxes, taxes!  Thirteen of them, actually:

Just in time for Halloween, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Democrats gave birth to a giant, 1,990-page spawn of health care reform, lovingly titled the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Lurking within, though, are 13 new tax hikes (yes, 13) that will strike at the heart of the American people.

Americans for Tax Reform laid them out in detail; The Foundry includes them below:

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped).

Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)

Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services.

Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.

Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.

Delay in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act

Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.

Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.

Application of “More Likely Than Not” Rule (Page 357): Publicly-traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been sufficient to cover final tax liability.

More details can be found here.


One might expect that, for that new tax burden, the American public can at least expect to see some additional health care options, right?  Nope:

The President promised that health care “reform” would expand coverage and choices for American families. Unfortunately, after a preliminary review of the “affordability credits” in the newly unveiled House bill (HR 3962), the opposite will occur. These credits limit access, limit choice and are administratively bound to fail.

Limits Access. The House bill would limit who is eligible for the “affordability credit.” First, all people below 400% FPL are technically eligible for the credit, but the bill also expands Medicaid eligibility to 150% FPL and appears to deny access to the credit to those who are “eligible” for Medicaid. This simply gives the false impression that poor people will get a choice of better care under this bill. The reality is all they get is a chance to join the substandard government-run Medicaid plan. Second, while there are some minor exceptions for those whose employer coverage exceeds 12 percent of income (an increase from the earlier bill), individuals with an offer of employer-based coverage would not be eligible. As more and more employers dump coverage (“not offering”), the price tag of the credit will skyrocket as more workers would qualify for the credit.

Fewer Choices. The House bill would only allow individuals to use these “affordability credits” to purchase coverage through the Health Insurance Exchange, including the new public plan option. Moreover, individuals could only enroll in the cheapest (“basic”) plans for the first two years. This results in the government manipulating behavior and further distorting the marketplace.

Administrative Nightmare. The credit itself is complex and filled with unintended consequences. The credit is designed to limit the annual premium, but also cost sharing and annual out of pocket costs. The administrative bureaucracy needed to implement and such a credit is mind numbing. Determining and calculating premiums, cost sharing and total out of pocket will undoubtedly lead to inefficiencies and costly mistakes.

And, of course, when the government controls things, there will be no shortage of mandates that are anything but optional:

The Individual Mandate. Like the earlier version, this bill requires the uninsured to pay an extra income tax — 2.5% of adjusted gross income above the filing threshold, capped at the national average premium. Paying that tax wouldn’t “buy” anything; those paying this tax would remain uninsured. However, in a bid to decrease the government’s costs, this bill contains higher premiums that low- and moderate-income individuals and families would have to pay for health coverage to avoid the tax. Those premiums would increase rapidly with income, amounting to an additional tax on those with incomes below 4 times the federal poverty level (equivalent to about $88,000 per year for a family of four) ranging from 1.5% to 12%. This tax on low and moderate income Americans would be in addition to a “surtax” on higher incomes ranging up to 5.4%.

The Employer Mandate. The bill imposes a new 8% payroll tax on employers who don’t cover specified percentages of their employees’ health insurance. Employers would have to get the money to pay the tax from someplace, and much of it would come from cutting wages or other benefits. This tax would also not go to pay for any coverage; the bill specifically says that the tax paid by the employer “shall not be applied against the premium of the employee.” Furthermore, since this tax would be lower than the cost of providing health care, especially for low-income workers, this would reduce the incomes of those most likely to be uninsured, or cause them to lose their coverage.

Furthermore, health plans would have to meet new requirements to be specified later by the new “Health Choices Commissioner.” If your employer’s health plan doesn’t meet those requirements, you couldn’t keep it – employers would have five years to bring their plans into compliance. The Commissioner could require coverage of services people don’t want (increasing premiums), and then in the name of “cost containment” prohibit plans from covering services people want but that the Commissioner doesn’t want.

The bottom line is: Almost everybody will pay more, and a new appointed bureaucrat will make your health care choices for you.

This thing is going to cost you dearly, both in your pocketbook and in your health care.



There's my two cents.

Rendezvous With Destiny

Now that we're really getting down to crunch time on some of the most crucial issues that this country has ever faced, I wanted to post (again) this outstanding speech given by Ronald Reagan.  The words were spoken decades ago, but they are just as true today as they were then.

The common theme running through all of these major legislative battles is that of who we really are as Americans.  This is a time of self-definition.  This country has always been a center-right country, placing emphasis on individual liberty and responsibility, and on the idea of American exceptionalism.

The current American government has the opposite view, believing that the State knows best and should control as much as possible, and that America is actually the cause of most of the evil in the world.  One of these ideologies will win this battle...the question is: which one?

And that's where this video comes in.  Please take a moment to watch the whole thing:

It's crunch time.  Which side are you on?

There's my two cents.

Uncle Jay Explains: Political Ads

Too good:

Ah, good comedy is something to truly appreciate!

There's my two cents.

Bringing It Home: What Will ObamaKennedyDeathCare Really Cost You?

I love it when smart people bring complex abstract political issues into the real world, with actual numbers.  This is an outstanding explanation of what ObamaKennedyDeathCare is going to do to your insurance premiums (emphasis mine):

Washington is captivated by the Senate melodrama over the so-called public option, salivating at the ring of Harry Reid's political bell (see below). But the most important health-care questions continue to be about the policy substance—particularly those that Democrats don't want asked.

Foremost among them is: How will ObamaCare affect insurance premiums in the private health-care markets? Despite indignant Democratic denials, the near-certainty is that their plan will cause costs to rise across the board. The latest data on this score come from a series of state-level studies from the insurance company WellPoint Inc.

At the request of Congressional delegations worried about their constituents—call it a public service—WellPoint mined its own actuarial data to model ObamaCare in the 14 states where it runs Blue Cross plans. The study therefore takes into account market and demographic differences that other industry studies have not, such as the one from the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans, which looked at aggregate national trends.

In all of the 14 states WellPoint scrutinized, ObamaCare would drive up premiums for the small businesses and individuals who are most of WellPoint's customers. (Other big insurers, like Aetna, focus on the market among large businesses.) Young and healthy consumers will see the largest increases—their premiums would more than triple in some states—though average middle-class buyers will pay more too.

Not even two hours after Wellpoint had presented its materials on the Hill, Democrats were already trashing it—which, considering that it runs to some 238 pages and took weeks to prepare, must have required remarkable powers of digestion and analysis.

"This is yet another insurance-industry report that twists the facts to produce a skewed result," averred Linda Douglass, the White House communications director on health care. Said a spokesman for the Senate Finance Committee, "This is akin to the tobacco companies commissioning another study claiming nicotine isn't addictive and cigarettes don't cause cancer." So in its Saul Alinsky fashion, the White House again attacks the messenger so it can avoid rebutting the message.

In fact, what distinguishes the Wellpoint study is its detailed rigor. Take Ohio, where a young, healthy 25-year-old living in Columbus can purchase insurance from WellPoint today for about $52 per month in the individual market. WellPoint's actuaries calculate the bill will rise to $79 because Democrats are going to require it to issue policies to anyone who applies, even if they've waited until they're sick to buy insurance. Then they'll also require the company to charge everyone nearly the same rate, bringing the premium to $134. Add in an extra $17, since Democrats will require higher benefit levels, and a share of the new health industry taxes ($6), and monthly premiums have risen to $157, a 199% boost.

Meanwhile, a 40-year-old husband and wife with two kids would see their premiums jump by 122%—to $737 from $332—while a small business with eight employees in Franklin County would see premiums climb by 86%. It's true that the family or the individual might qualify for subsidies if their incomes are low enough, but the business wouldn't qualify under the Senate Finance bill WellPoint examined. And even if there are subsidies, the new costs the bill creates don't vaporize. They're merely transferred to taxpayers nationwide—or financed with deficits, which will be financed eventually with higher taxes.

The story is largely the same from state to state, though the increases are smaller in the few states that have already adopted the same mandates and regulations that Democrats want to impose on all states. For the average small employer in high-cost New York, for instance, premiums would only rise by 6%. But they'd shoot up by 94% for the same employer in Indianapolis, 91% in St. Louis and 53% in Milwaukee.

A family of four with average health in those same cities would all face cost increases of 122% buying insurance on the individual market. And it's important to understand that these are merely the new costs created by ObamaCare—not including the natural increases in medical costs over time from new therapies and the like.

Democrats have been selling health care as one huge free lunch in which everyone gets better insurance while paying less. But the policy facts simply don't add up, and Democrats are attacking WellPoint because they don't want anyone to understand what their health-care schemes will mean in practice. Democrats know that if the public is given the facts and the time to consider them, Americans might demand that Democrats stop pushing the country off this cliff and start all over.

And this is all temporary - under every version of ObamaKennedyDeathCare currently floating around, private insurance will eventually go away altogether, and with analysis like this it's not hard to see why.

Remember, the government doesn't have to be profitable (thus the $1.4 trillion deficit), so they can easily and indefinitely undercut the price of every private company out there.  When that happens, and people and businesses see their costs skyrocket like the Wellpoint analysis shows they will, you're going to see a mass exodus to the government plan simply because those people and businesses won't be able to afford anything else.

What you have here is the government 'competing' against the private market while making (and enforcing) the rules on that private market.  Private insurance will go away...the only real question involved is how long it will take.  So, your choice is to either allow the government to dictate your health care decisions, or pay through the nose until your private insurance goes away, and then allow the government to dictate your health care decisions.

Some choice, huh?

That's why this must be stopped.  Once it goes into effect, it really can't be rolled back.

Get informed, get involved, and spread the word.  This is a game-changer that will dramatically affect every American life, Republican or Democrat, young or old, healthy or sick.

There's my two cents.