10 Facts Every American Should Know About Speaker Pelosi's 1,990-Page Gov't Takeover of Health Care

Washington, Oct 29 -

Members of Congress and the American people are just beginning to look at Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) 1,990-page government takeover of health care, but it’s already becoming clear just how costly and unsustainable this proposal is. From higher taxes on middle-class families to job-killing mandates on small businesses to cuts in Medicare benefits for seniors, here are 10 facts every American should know about Speaker Pelosi’s 1,990-page government takeover of health care:

1. RAISES TAXES ON MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill imposes a range of tax increases on families with income below $250,000, breaking a promise made by President Obama. Tax increases on middle class families include: an individual mandate tax of up to 2.5 percent of income for taxpayers earning as little as $9,350; repeal of a tax break on medicine purchased with funds from an HSA (health savings account); limits to tax relief through FSAs (flexible spending accounts); taxes on medical devices that will inevitably be passed on to consumers; and a new tax on all insurance policies.

2. MASSIVE CUTS TO MEDICARE BENEFITS FOR SENIORS. Despite grave warnings from CBO, FactCheck.org, and the independent Lewin Group that cuts to Medicare of the magnitude included in Speaker Pelosi’s bill would have a negative impact on seniors’ benefits and choices, Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill stays the course and cuts Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars.

3. NO PROTECTIONS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill claims to exempt small businesses from the steep eight percent ‘pay or play’ employer mandate. The facts tell a different story. Using Census data compiled by the Small Business Administration, this so-called ‘exemption’ hammers small employers with only, on average, 17 or more employees to new taxes and mandates. The outfits affected employ 70 percent of all small business employees, or 42.3 million workers. Adding to the assault on small businesses, the bill does not index the small business “exemption” amounts, meaning more and more small businesses will be ensnared by this job-killing employer mandate each year.

4. INCREASES THE COST OF HEALTH INSURANCE. Imposing a new $2 billion tax on insurance policies will be passed on to patients in the form of higher premiums. Changes to the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit will, according to estimates by CBO, will raise Medicare Part B premiums by $25 billion and Part D premiums by 20 percent. And imposing an unfunded mandate on the states to pay for the bill’s Medicaid expansion will shift the burden of this expansion on state taxpayers who may experience tax increases to cover the cost.

5. USES GIMMICKS TO HIDE BUDGET-BUSTING COST, PILES UP DEBT ON FUTURE GENERATIONS. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill claims to be deficit neutral, but uses budget gimmickry to hide its massive total cost. Working families across America know they cannot simply decide that a bill they get in the mail doesn’t exist, but that’s exactly what congressional Democrats are doing. In order to meet the President’s ‘target’ spending total of $900 billion, Democrats have simply swept costly provisions under the rug, including the $245 billion ‘doc fix.’

6. IMPOSES JOB-KILLING EMPLOYER MANDATES. Additional taxes on employers and new government mandates that dictate acceptable insurance will place new and crushing burdens on employers. These are burdens that will ultimately fall squarely on the backs of workers in the form of reduced wages, fewer hours or lost employment. CBO agrees that "[e]mployees largely bear the cost of... play-or-pay fees in the form of lower wages." According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s largest small business association, an employer mandate of this magnitude will disproportionately impact small businesses, triggering up to 1.6 million lost jobs. Two-thirds of those jobs would be shed by small businesses.

7. TILTS THE PLAYING FIELD IN FAVOR OF THE GOVERNMENT-RUN INSURANCE COMPANY. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill promises not to give the government-run plan advantages over private insurers in the market, but the opposite is true. The bill provides billions in start-up funding for the government-run plan, and while it requires the plan to repay the money over time it does not require the plan to pay interest on this “loan.” This interest-free, taxpayer-subsidized loan is potentially worth millions of dollars and tilts the playing field in favor of the government-run plan.

8. THREATENS CASH-STRAPPED STATES WITH UNFUNDED MANDATES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill swells the number of Americans on the government rolls by expanding Medicaid eligibility. Medicaid is financed through a federal-state partnership, but the bill dumps nearly ten percent of the mandated expansion included in the bill onto the states. States, already struggling with fiscal constraints, would be left on the hook for billions of dollars due to this unfunded mandate.

9. CREATES A NEW MONSTROSITY IN THE TAX CODE. Starting in 2011, Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill imposes a 5.4 percent tax on adjusted gross income above $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for married couples. Yet, the dollar amounts for which the tax kicks in are not indexed for inflation. We’ve seen this horror film before: the Alternative Minimum Tax, another Frankenstein’s monster of the tax code, also wasn’t indexed for inflation and now affects millions of middle class families with incomes below the Democrat’s surtax.

10. MISSES AN OPPORTUNITY TO CURTAIL JUNK LAWSUITS. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill misses a critical opportunity to rein in junk lawsuits and costly defensive medicine. The bill includes only a voluntary grant program to deal with the medical liability crisis instead of including real reform, which would produce tens of billions of dollars in savings, improve efficiency in our health care system and reduce costs for patients and providers.

Republicans have offered better solutions to lower health care costs and expand access to quality, affordable coverage at a price our nation can afford. Learn more by visiting:
healthcare.gop.gov

FACT CHECK: Health insurer profits not so fat as obama wishes for you to believe!

In not so many words:
OBAMA IS A LIAR PLAIN AND SIMPLE!

Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo? Answer: They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry.

In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making "immoral" and "obscene" returns while "the bodies pile up."

Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. This partly explains why the credit ratings of some of the largest insurers were downgraded to negative from stable heading into this year, as investors were warned of a stagnant if not shrinking market for private plans.

Insurers are an expedient target for leaders who want a government-run plan in the marketplace. Such a public option would force private insurers to trim profits and restrain premiums to compete, the argument goes. This would "keep insurance companies honest," says President Barack Obama.

The debate is loaded with intimations that insurers are less than straight, when they are not flatly accused of malfeasance.

They may not have helped their case by commissioning a report that looked primarily at the elements of health care legislation that might drive consumer costs up while ignoring elements aimed at bringing costs down. Few in the debate seem interested in a true balance sheet.

But in pillorying insurers over profits, the critics are on shaky ground. A look at some claims, and the numbers:

THE CLAIMS

--"I'm very pleased that (Democratic leaders) will be talking, too, about the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry and how those profits have increased in the Bush years." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also welcomed the attention being drawn to insurers' "obscene profits."

--"Keeping the status quo may be what the insurance industry wants their premiums have more than doubled in the last decade and their profits have skyrocketed." Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, member of the Democratic leadership.

--"Health insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up as long as their profits are safe." A MoveOn.org ad.

THE NUMBERS:

Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th on the Fortune 500 list of top industries. As is typical, other health sectors did much better -- drugs and medical products and services were both in the top 10.

The railroads brought in a 12.6 percent profit margin. Leading the list: network and other communications equipment, at 20.4 percent.

HealthSpring, the best performer in the health insurance industry, posted 5.4 percent. That's a less profitable margin than was achieved by the makers of Tupperware, Clorox bleach and Molson and Coors beers.

The star among the health insurance companies did, however, nose out Jack in the Box restaurants, which only achieved a 4 percent margin.

UnitedHealth Group, reporting third quarter results last week, saw fortunes improve. It managed a 5 percent profit margin on an 8 percent growth in revenue.

Van Hollen is right that premiums have more than doubled in a decade, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study that found a 131 percent increase.

But were the Bush years golden ones for health insurers?

Not judging by profit margins, profit growth or returns to shareholders. The industry's overall profits grew only 8.8 percent from 2003 to 2008, and its margins year to year, from 2005 forward, never cracked 8 percent.

The latest annual profit margins of a selection of products, services and industries: Tupperware Brands, 7.5 percent; Yahoo, 5.9 percent; Hershey, 6.1 percent; Clorox, 8.7 percent; Molson Coors Brewing, 8.1 percent; construction and farm machinery, 5 percent; Yum Brands (think KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), 8.5 percent.

Thanks to CALVIN WOODWARD and Associated Press writer Tom Murphy in Indianapolis....

Michelle Obama is NOT going to SC because backwater hick hayseeds are ready to take their hostility to Barack out on her!

U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn held a roundtable discussion in his Columbia office Friday on a number of topics.


COLUMBIA — U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said Friday that a conversation with White House staff left him with the sense that a hostile environment in South Carolina is keeping the first lady from visiting.

The high-ranking South Carolina Democrat said he has received more than 100 invitations for Michelle Obama. But this summer when he brought one of those requests to her staff on behalf of his alma mater, South Carolina State University, Clyburn said her security was an issue.

The conversation came after former Richland County GOP activist Rusty DePass suggested on Facebook in June that an escaped zoo gorilla was not harmful because it was probably one of Mrs. Obama's ancestors. DePass' comment was coupled with a remark in July from U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, a Republican. DeMint said that beating the president's health care plan would be a 'Waterloo' moment for Obama.

Congressman Joe Wilson's 'You lie!' outburst during Obama's joint address on health care reform last month didn't help either, Clyburn said.

'A lot of it has to do with the fact that the climate in South Carolina just is not good, and that's a shame,' Clyburn said at a roundtable discussion at his Columbia office.

'I do believe it is keeping her away from this state,' he said.

The congressman said the first lady's family connections in South Carolina and her fond childhood memories from Georgetown County left many excited at the possibility that the Obamas would vacation on the coast here. Her security must be guaranteed before that could happen, Clyburn said.

DePass said Clyburn's comments were off base.

'The idea that people in South Carolina are hostile to the Obamas is poppycock,' he said. 'That's utterly ridiculous.'

DePass apologized before the South Carolina Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for his Facebook comment, and reiterated that apology

Friday. He also said that his history with the Republican Party included reaching out to minority voters and trying to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse dome.

Wilson's office also said Clyburn was wrong.

'Congressman Wilson respectfully disagrees with Congressman Clyburn's assumption,' Wilson spokesman Ryan Murphy said in a statement. 'He believes the people of South Carolina would welcome the president and the first lady should they decide to visit our great state.'

Neither the first lady's press office nor the Secret Service provided comment for this story. DeMint's office also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pat Caddell of Hanahan, an expert on public opinion polls and a Democratic strategist, said South Carolina surely has racists among its residents, but racism isn't the prevailing sentiment. 'The Democratic Party will blow itself up if it keeps assigning things as racist,' Caddell said.

So, lets see if I understand this correctly.....because we the people don`t agree with Obamas` policies the people of S.C. are supid racist rednecks, but michelles` own words of people of the south being uneducated should not bear any consequences???? How political is that???

Thanks to Yvonne Wenger

Health Care Snowe Job

The Senate Finance Committee has issued a set of "talking points" about why the so-called America's Health Future Act is good for you. Missing is any straight talk about how the bill drives up health care spending, rations care and will force people to wait longer for less time with fewer doctors. Call it the Senate Finance Committee's "Snowe Job."

Eight Things to Know about the America's Healthy Future Act (amended for honesty and accuracy):

1. Individuals and employers who are satisfied with their current health insurance coverage can keep it and would not be required to change health plans. (For five years. And then individuals and employers -- note, not employees -- would be forced to buy health plans through exchanges that cost up to three times as much as their previous coverage with benefits they may not want or use. Poor and working class people will have no choice but Medicaid, which will double in size even as physician pay is cut. Good luck trying to keep your own doctor in either case unless you pay cash.)

2. No American can be denied health insurance or charged more because of a pre-existing health condition. (But since Americans who are and stay healthy will subsidize those of us who get sick and enroll only when they are seriously ill, the costs of coverage will increase or care will be rationed. Probably both. And Americans with pre-existing conditions will be denied coverage of drugs or tests and be forced to wait to see specialists as health plans, under the threat of a public option trigger, will cut access to care that the Obama administration regards as unnecessary.)


3. Health insurance companies will not be able to discriminate on the basis of gender or health status -- so insurance companies can't charge more for women or Americans who are sick. (See above. This is pay for performance in reverse.)

4. Health insurance companies will no longer receive tax deductions if they give their executives excessive salaries and compensation. (And this improves health care access and quality how?)

5. Members of Congress will be required to buy their health insurance through the same exchanges that people in their own states will use, instead of having a separate Congressional health plan. (Yes, but Members of Congress will have their insurance deeply subsidized.)

6. Health insurance companies will no longer be able to limit how much coverage you can use over your lifetime or how many benefits you can use each year. (Sounds good. But remember the government will be making those decisions from here on in. What benefits you use and how much will be decided by a Quality Czar who will issue reimbursement and coverage decisions for health exchanges based on what bureaucrats believe is cost effective. That's rationing.)

7. The bill specifically says there will be no Medicare benefit cuts for individuals. In fact, it strengthens Medicare's finances so the program can continue to provide benefits for years to come. (Nice try. The bill specifically cuts Medicare Advantage, the fastest growing program for the most chronically ill seniors. Score a big one for AARP which, in exchange for shilling for Obamacare, will reap billions as seniors dumped from Advantage have to buy supplemental coverage for what the shuttered program used to pay for. It specifically reduces what doctors will get under Medicare. It specifically seeks to reduce how much doctors do based not on how sick people are -- see the similar contradiction in point 6 -- but on the lowest amount of care given per person regardless of burden of disease. And it micromanages the decision of whether to pay for new technologies to assure that fewer people get innovations more slowly. Maybe it's not a cut, but it is denial of care.

8. Low-and middle-income seniors will get 50 percent of their drug costs paid for when they reach the so-called doughnut hole in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, where no coverage is provided today. (And what drugs they get will be determined by a government panel that will increasingly delay access to new drugs based on price alone and without regard to individual differences.)

As health care costs and premiums go up, as they will, government bureaucrats will pull the public option "trigger." Price controls and bigger government run health plans -- the public option -- will follow.

Thanks to Robert M. Goldberg

Chris Matthews Fantasizes About Someone Shooting Limbaugh in the Head

Perfect look into the Liberal philosophy; If somebody doesn’t agree with your beliefs, they should be shot.
Look for more of this attitude from fellow liberals, and, even scarier, from the White House

WHY OBAMACARE SHOULD BE FLATLINED...

We told about the quarterback sneak pulled by the private health industry who finally realized that President Obama was lying like a big dog. As it turns out, more and more economically-based criticism of Obamacare is coming to light. For starters, the tacit ‘approval’ some thought they saw courtesy of the Congressional Budget Office, isn’t that at all. Not if you’re really looking, at least.
While the CBO has said they expect the collect a fair bit of money via the various taxes associated with the plan. But what if they aren’t there? The Congressional Budget Office projections (which are, in this case, the Joint Committee on Taxation's projections, as the CBO doesn't estimate tax revenues) actually suggest that the bulk of the tax's revenues will come from the response to the tax, not the payment of the tax. As the New York Times reports, the JCT believes that "about $142 billion of the 10-year total of $201 billion to be raised by the [excise tax] would come from increased income and payroll taxes." In other words, the vast majority of the revenues would come because employers would "structure their benefits to get around this tax." Workers would receive more of their compensation in wages and less in healthcare benefits, and because wages are taxable and health benefits aren't, tax revenues would go up. The trouble is that the CBO didn't adequately account for the response to the implicit marginal tax created by the sliding scale of subsidies. In other words, the CBO doesn’t fully incorporate the effects of these higher marginal tax rates in their cost estimates.
If taxpayers respond to these new incentives by, say, working less, GDP and tax revenue from income and payroll taxes will go down.
Want the bonus plan? Ask yourself if you’d feel the pinch of a 20 percentage point tax increase. I know I would.

To sen richard durbin

I see that your are not listening to us, we do not want you to continue on your present course to pass and sign this dog of a healthcare policy....healthcare reform is a joke, have you polititions even read the proposals??? I think not, or you just dont care about what we say!
You sir were elected to office to represent us sir, not the other way around....dont put your name on any of these power grabbing bills, cap and trade...healthcare, or any other bill that violates our freedom and liberty!!
STOP TAXING US TO DEATH!!!!
I have watched what you have been involving yourself in sir and I can tell you with 100% confidence that you do not have our wishes in mind....STOP signing your liberal, power grabbing bills and START doing our bidding...
Everything you and your colleagues are doing is a disgrace, what in the constitution gives you the authority to carry out what you are doing???? You polititions shouldn`t continue to be sent to washington, you all should be in jail sir, what you people are doing is nothing short of theft!!!! How dare you sirs.......
What you and the rest of washington are doing to our troops and the military is also disgraceful....WHILE YOU, OBAMA, AND THE REST OF THE SELF APPOINTED KINGS AND QUEENS OF CONGRESS ARE HAVING THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, ON THE TAXPAYERS DIME BY THE WAY, OUR BRAVE BOYS AND GIRLS ARE OVERSEAS FIGHTING AND DYING......HOW DARE YOU CALL YOURSELF AN AMERICAN SIR!
Shame on you and your colleagues!!!!!
This summer you treated the U.S. citizens has a joke, come election time we will return the favor, so mark my words!!!
I pray for my country, its citizens, and our troops.
If you continue on your present course of pursueing your liberal agenda, and the distruction of this great country then start packing your bags, because we are going to start looking for real representation and you WILL be fired sir!

Does Obama Violate the Hatch Act with Acceptance of Nobel?

The Hatch Act restricts the political activity of executive branch employees of the federal government, District of Columbia government and some state and local employees who work in connection with federally funded programs. In 1993, Congress passed legislation that significantly amended the Hatch Act as it applies to federal and D.C. employees (5 U.S.C. §§ 7321-7326). (These amendments did not change the provisions that apply to state and local employees. 5 U.S.C. §§ 1501- 1508.) Under the amendments most federal and D.C. employees are now permitted to take an active part in political management and political campaigns. A small group of federal employees are subject to greater restrictions and continue to be prohibited from engaging in partisan political management and partisan political campaigns.

Is the Nobel Foundation political?

Penalties for Violating the Hatch Act

An employee who violates the Hatch Act shall be removed from their position, and funds appropriated for the position from which removed thereafter may not be used to pay the employee or individual. However, if the Merit Systems Protection Board finds by unanimous vote that the violation does not warrant removal, a penalty of not less than 30 days’ suspension without pay shall be imposed by direction of the Board.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors.



Obama’s Nobel response:

This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At 6 a.m., we received word that I’d been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize — men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

That is why I’ve said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won’t all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it’s recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.

This award — and the call to action that comes with it — does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.

So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we’ve begun together. I’m grateful that you’ve stood with me thus far, and I’m honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

Sounds like there were political strings attached. Strings that Obama accepted.

Chicago March on the Media

The Chicago Tea Party Says…
Can You Hear Us Now?
We are silent NO more!

March on the Media
Friday
October 16th
4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
ABC Studios
180 N. State Street
(We will also visit CBS News Studios, 22 West Washington Blvd., one block away, during their broadcasts, too!

Silent NO More Tea Party
Saturday
October 17th
11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Millennium Park
Michigan Avenue and Washington Blvd.
Guest speaker: Kevin Jackson of the Black Sphere
www.TheBlackSphere.net
We have also invited Janeane Garofolo, who has resurrected her dying career by calling American patriots involved in tea parties, racists, to debate Kevin Jackson… Let’s see if she accepts!