Health Care Control for All

For those who think that the health care plans being debated by Congress will not affect you if ObamaCare goes through, you are mistaken.

After all, we have all heard President Obama tell us that if like our health care plan, we can keep it. While this is true on a semantic level, on a paperwork level, the government will tell your health insurance company what all plans can and must include.

From the latest version of the health care bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 3926):

Sec. 201: On or after the first day of Y1, a health benefits plan shall not be a qualified health benefits plan under this division unless the plan meets the applicable requirements of the following subtitles for the type of plan and plan year involved:
4 (1) Subtitle B (relating to affordable coverage).

Sec. 221 A qualified health benefits plan shall provide coverage that at least meets the benefit standards adopted under section 224 for the essential benefits package described in section 222 for the plan year involved.

This means that a health care plan will not be considered qualified unless it meets requirements that will be decided upon later. While we have no idea what will actually be covered by health insurance plans, we do know that your plan will be "average."

Sec. 222. In this division, the term ‘‘essential benefits package’’ means health benefits coverage, consistent with standards adopted under section 224, to ensure the provision of quality health care and financial security, that—

(5) is equivalent in its scope of benefits, as certified by Office of the Actuary of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, to the average prevailing employer-sponsored coverage in Y1.

In order to carry out paragraph (5), the Secretary of Labor shall conduct a survey of employer-sponsored coverage to determine the benefits typically covered by employers, including multiemployer plans, and provide a report on such survey to the Health Benefits Advisory Committee and to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

After all, average is fair. We can't have people buying "cadillac" plans when others can only afford to buy, or their employers can only support, Kia plans. You won't mind sacrificing on medical care coverage for your family, will you?

Sec. 224 Not later than 18 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary (of Health and Human Service) shall, through the rulemaking process consistent with subsection (a), adopt an initial set of benefit standards.

But, Obama told us we can keep our plan! Where does it say that it will change?

Right here:

Sec. 241 The Health Commissioner shall...promote accountability of Qualified Health Plan Benefits offering entities in meeting Federal health insurance requirements, regardless of whether such accountability is with respect to qualified health benefits plans offered through the Health Insurance Exchange or outside of such Exchange.

But, that just talks about "qualified" health plans. Can't my insurer come up with a scaled-down plan, like a catastrophic plan, that will cover my basic needs but not necessarily meet the "initial set of benefit standards"?

Well, they could, but:

Sec 241. In the case that the Commissioner determines that a QHBP offering entity violates a requirement of this title, the Commissioner may... (work) with State insurance regulators to terminate plans for repeated failure by the offering entity to meet the requirements of this title.

So you see folks, the federal government, through a agency of unelected, unaccountable people, including at least one practicing physician (Sec. 223), will be deciding what your health insurance plan can and will offer and what kind of medical care your doctor can provide to you -- and your children and your family -- whether you sign up for the plan "offered through the Health Insurance Exchange or outside of such Exchange."

And there ain't no other way to get a health insurance plan.

AP's Palin Investigation 52 Times Higher Than Health Care Bills. No Media Bias Here!

A brilliant piece published in the Best of the Web Today column from the Wall Street Journal online highlights -- yet again! -- just how Liberally-biased the mainstream media are. This time, the Associated Press, whose stories run in papers across the country, gives the white-gloves treatment to the biography of Sarah Palin while giving passing glances at the U.S. House and Senate health care bills:

An Associated Press dispatch, written by Erica Werner and Richard Alonso-Zaldivar, compares the House and Senate ObamaCare bills. We'd like to compare this dispatch to the AP's dispatch earlier this week "fact checking" Sarah Palin's new book. Here goes:

Number of AP reporters assigned to story:
• ObamaCare bills: 2
• Palin book: 11

Number of pages in document being covered:
• ObamaCare bills: 4,064
• Palin book: 432

Number of pages per AP reporter:
• ObamaCare bill: 2,032
• Palin book: 39.3

On a per-page basis, that is, the AP devoted 52 times as much manpower to the memoir of a former Republican officeholder as to a piece of legislation that will cost trillions of dollars and an untold number of lives. That's what they call accountability journalism.

That's what I call Liberal bias.

The Obama Mammogram Scan Scam

When the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force announced on Monday that women under 50 should not get mammograms, I was a puzzled and troubled as anyone else. Why would this government panel, under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human Services, exhume 7 years old study data and reverse 20 years of thinking and medical care, and end a practice that has saved countless lives.

The right-wing blogosphere and talk radio were rife with suggestions that this represents the kind of rationing that we will see under ObamaCare.


However, after pondering this puzzling finding for awhile, I figured out the scheme behind this announcement. And, from the words of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, I may have my proof.

Someone parsed the old data (likely an HHS hack with no real work to do that day) and came up with this notion. The Obama Administration demanded these new recommendations be released, thinking that the mainstream media would not pick up on a story that would cast the administration in a bad light (I mean, why start now).

Sooner than later, they hoped, insurance companies across the U.S. would take these findings as justification to change their policies towards mammograms. Gotcha!

Obama would then come out and lambaste the insurance companies for restricting care to women in need. If we had passed my health care reforms, he would assure, this would never have happened. I would never allow mammograms to women under 50 to be curtailed in any way. This just shows that the evil health insurance companies are only out for profit! EVIL!

But the story caught fire, not just in the right-wing realm, but in mainstream media outlets too. This forced Obama to distance himself from this ludicrous policy sooner than he wanted to.

Sebelius said the task force's conclusions have "caused a great deal of confusion and worry among women and their families across this country" and noted that "they do not set federal policy and they don't determine what services are covered by the federal government.

Sebelius' statement is aimed at "making it clear these recommendations are not ours," a White House source said.

Um, the Agency falls under your jurisdiction, Ms. Sebelius (who was directly appointed by Obama) therefore the recommendations are yours.

"Indeed," said Sebelius, "I would be very surprised if any private insurance company changed its mammography coverage decisions as a result of this action."

Sure you are, Madame Secretary. You are now that you got caught putting the cookies into the cookie jar that you hoped someone would take.

Obama Admits His Deficit Spending May Backfire

In an interview with FoxNews' Major Garrett, President Obama announced that deficit spending "could actually lead to a double-dip recession."

"It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession," he said.

And yet, keep spending he does.

One analysis from the Heritage Foundation projects:

President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016... Overall, President Obama’s budget would add twice as much debt as President Bush over the same number of years.

Here's a thought, Obama. Stop spending money you don't have. Stop spending money you don't have on programs we don't want, like "stimulus" that doesn't stimulate, health care "reform" that doesn't reform, and Cap and Trade that trades reasonable energy costs for "skyrocketing" energy costs to consumers to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Stop spending this country into oblivion. Please.

Can Anyone Help Make Sense of the Era of Obama?

Can somebody please help me make sense of all this.

In the 10 months that Barack Obama has been president, we have been treated to some of the most outrageous policy moves and politics in the history of this country.

In his very first act as president -- on his way home from the inauguration -- Obama swore that he would close Guantanamo Bay; even though he had no plans for what to do with the terrorists there.

He told us that we could not use the word "terror" any more. No more terrorism. No more War on Terror. Instead, we have "man caused disasters" and "overseas contingency operations.

We had an $800 billion dollar "stimulus" package that stimulated nothing but some pet Liberal projects. We pledged to borrow nearly a trillion dollars to fund programs that are 90% Liberal special interest projects. Where are the "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects? He told us that under this plan, unemployment would not go higher than 8%; if we did nothing it would climb to 9%. Well, unemployment is at least 10.2% and rising. Where are the jobs he promised?

In March, we got a comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan, which was shown to be not working a few months later. It is now November, and we still have no new plan. Americans are being killed in Afghanistan and Obama has met with the general there once.

Then, we had the "Cash for Clunkers" program -- which was poorly run. This program took cars off the streets that had nothing wrong with them and "gave" people money to buy new cars they likely would have bought anyway. Cars that are no better for the environment than what folks had before. The minor economic blip from the program was more than offset by a huge drop-off in car sales in September. And just wait until you see what happens to used car prices when the supply is reduced because of this debacle.

We have thousands of people turning out for free handouts from the government, described by one in the crowd as "Obama Money," whose source no one knew nor seemed to care about.

We have working people being asked to return hundreds of dollars in "stimulus" funds that were given to them in error, all because of an IRS error. Forcing them to pay back the bailout while the major corporations getting billions in bail outs do not.

We have politicians in Washington killing themselves to pass a health care takeover that poll after poll indicate the American people do not want and know we cannot afford. Thousand of pages of proposals with no details of what the plan would do. Other than raise taxes and put people in jail if they don't buy health insurance.

We had an avowed Muslim extremist shoot up an Army base killing 13 or 14 people and wounding dozens of others; all the while he screamed the Muslim praise "Allah Akbar." But, our president assures us, it had nothing to do with Muslim extremism or terrorism.

We now have the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks being brought to New York City, blocks from the World Trade Center for a civilian trial. Despite the fact that almost everyone knows that American covert secrets will be revealed or requested to be revealed. We will see demands for our intelligence, how we got that intelligence, and who got it.

We have an administration that pledged to prosecute CIA agents for "torturing" known terrorists, even though they were just following orders. Obama wants to persecute the very people who pledged their lives to protect ours.

And today, the agency that sets guidelines and recommendations for our medical professionals tell women that they need not bother with breast self-exams for cancer, and that they should wait 10 more years before being checked, despite the fact that we know countless women are diagnosed with breast cancer in their 40s, 30s, and 20s.

We have self-avowed Communists and fans of Chinese Communist revolutionary Mao Tse Tung in the White House, direct advisers to the president. We have health care advisers who openly advocate for limiting or restricting medical care for the young and elderly, saving "scarce resources" for those 15 to 40. The same adviser believes that the death of a three-year-old is not nearly as bad as the death of a twenty-something because society has not invested in the child.

We have a president who has taken every opportunity to speak ill of the United States and insult her people while in other countries. He has openly mocked and demeaned any voices of opposition, calling tax protesters by a homo-phobic slur and dismissing the #1 cable TV news network as tabloid.

This country is spinning out of control and we are all so busy with our daily lives, trying to earn enough money to get by, trying to get the kids to soccer practice or worrying about who is being voted off Dancing with the Stars to notice.

Does any one of these items make sense? How about all of them in totality. And, I know I didn't get them all.

We have got to wake up, people, and pay attention. We need to face the reality that the President of the United States is not doing what is in the best interests of the country. He is trying to dismantle our way of life, change the way this country is run, and ceding authority over this country to world governing bodies.

This is real and it is happening. Wake up before Obama's "transformation" of this country has gone too far. If you don't want to wake up for yourself, do it for your children. Make sure there is something left of this country to pass onto them.

If not, you might open your eyes one day soon and have no idea where you are anymore.

Obama Does Not Care About 2010 and 2012

It struck me yesterday, as I heard the reports that Obama was not watching the election results Tuesday night that Obama truly doesn't care.

Obama is a true idealogue who only wants to push as much of his spreawling, big-government, Liberal, socialistic agenda on the U.S. If he can get that done in the first year, he doesn't care about what comes next.

This is why he wanted the "stimulus" bill done in a matter of days; this is why he wanted the health care "reform" done in a few weeks; this is why he started to push Cap and Trade before the healthcare debate was settled.

Obama is committed to expanding the reach of government into as many venues as possible while he has the congressional majorities and before the American people wake up to what he is doing.

If all he could accomplish is socializing America, he would not care. If he is a one-term president, he would not care as long as he grew governement control as much as possible. If he goes down in history as a lousy president, he doesn't care.

For, even if Obama is declared by Americans as the worst president ever, his friends and associates at the Harvard dinner galas will laud his "transformation" of America. World organizations like the European Union and the United Nations will applaud his work to lower the standard of living in the U.S. to match the rest of the world. He will be cheered back in Chicago by his academic buddies for having taken the wheels off the capitalism train.

For that's all that matters to him. The rest of us are people to be looked down upon, to be lorded over. We aren't as smart as he; we aren't as sophisticated as he. We are just "mostly decent," "typical white" people who "cling to our bibles and our guns." He has no regard for us or our opinions.

This man must be stopped and the time is now.

Dear President Obama: It's the economy, stupid!

An open letter to President Obama:

Dear President Obama:

Back in 1992, then candidate Bill Clinton ran to the White House by telling us "It's the economy, stupid."

Well, Mr. Obama, he was right then and his sentiment is correct now. It's the economy you should be fixing.

In your nine-months in office, you have yet to do Thing One to help the failing economy that you claim to have inherited. You, sir, did not "inherit" these problems; you asked for them. You knew full well the state of the economy last fall and assured us that you were the person who could fix these problems. So far, you have not.

We now see consumer confidence at dangerously low-levels, with an increasing number of people believing the economy is in bad shape and shockingly low numbers of people thinking otherwise:

"Consumers' assessment of current conditions worsened in October. Those claiming business conditions are "bad" increased to 47.1 percent from 46.3 percent, while those claiming conditions are "good" decreased to 7.7 percent from 8.6 percent."

Business confidence is likewise flailing. The Wall Street Journal brings us an article today that codifies the dangerous state of business in our country under your "leadership:"

"But a health-care overhaul grinding through Congress could bring unknown new obligations to insure employees. Bush-era tax cuts are set to end next year, and their fate is unclear. Legislation aimed at tackling climate change might raise businesses' energy costs. Meanwhile, a bill aimed at increasing transportation spending is stalled.

Many companies say they have responded by freezing hiring, cutting benefits and delaying expansion plans."

Your "stimulus" plan that has all but petered out; your Liberal colleague's talk of additional "stimulus" that will likewise fail; your plans to stifle industry and the economy through the "cap and trade" plans to address a problem that doesn't exist; your designs to re-engineer a health care industry that few are complaining about; the massive spending that will inevitable lead to tax increases; your refusal to extend the "Bush tax cuts" that actually worked to stimulate the economy. All these pit-falls are freezing business, preventing them from hiring workers and keeping them shy towards spending the money that will help other companies hire.

It is time to scrap your grandiose visions and nirvana dreams of recasting this country, Mr. Obama, and time to find a way to reduce the rising unemployment rate, to create an environment where business will expand, to find a way to repair consumer confidence in this economy (and in your presidency).

However, the Consumer Reports Index, which tracks consumer financial and employment numbers to obtain an overall sense of consumer health, indicates that U.S. consumers are continuing to feel less secure about their financial situation. Recent government data supports this finding, as consumer credit and borrowing rates have been dropping sharply, spending and earning rates have been remaining almost flat while saving plummets, and the official unemployment rate (which only counts a fraction of the actual number of people out of work) has been creeping toward double digits.

You told us in August that giving people cash incentive to buy cars will help the economy as a whole. The oddly-titled Cash for Clunkers program resulted in a small positive blip that predictably leveled-out and even fell off as soon as the program ended.

I have a sense, through my limited economic understanding, my common-sense, and through historical perspective, that providing "cash incentive" through real tax cuts and a signigicant reduction in spending will be a far better panacea for the econony than record budget-deficits and increasing national debt.

Says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center:

Consumers' assessment of present-day conditions has grown less favorable, with labor market conditions playing a major role in this grimmer assessment. In fact, the Present Situation Index is now at its lowest reading in 26 years (Index 17.5, Feb. 1983). The short-term outlook has also grown more negative, as a greater proportion of consumers anticipate business and labor market conditions will worsen in the months ahead. Consumers also remain quite pessimistic about their future earnings, a sentiment that will likely constrain spending during the holidays.

With all due respect, Mr. Obama, it is time for you and your party to stop acting "stupidly," and make some serious and significant moves towards actually helping the economy before engaging in utopian plans of health-care access and climate change cessation.

Mr. President, it is the economy that needs fixing. It is far past time for you to get to work on it.

Lawrence Summers: "We Created 30,000 New Jobs with Stimulus" Whoopie!

National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers told CNBC Television that Barack Obama's $787 billion "stimulus" package has created 30,000 jobs so far.

President Barack Obama signed a US$787 billion stimulus package into law earlier this year, and Mr Summers said the first US$16 billion spent created more than 30,000 jobs.

Sixteen billion dollars spent results in ONLY 30,000 jobs, and the administration is bragging about it! This spending works out to more than a half-a-million dollars per job created! And it took more than six months to do it!

At that rate, the full $787 billion will gin up a whopping 1.5 million jobs! Who says that massive government spending won't pull a country out of recession.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed
persons has increased by 7.6 million to 15.1 million, and the unemployment
rate has doubled to 9.8 percent.

Well, thank goodness Obama spent that $16 billion we don't have. Otherwise, we would have had 15.1 million and 30,000 people unemployed.

How is Hope and Change working for you?

Is Chairman Mao in the White House

On last night's program, Fox News' Glenn Beck aired a stunning video of interim White House Communications Director Anita Dunn seeming to praise Mao Tse Tung (Zedong), the first Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

Dunn called Chairman Mao one of her two favorite political philosophers (along with Mother Theresa, oddly enough). During a speech to a group of high school kids in June 2009, she offered advice based on the teachings of Mao:

...(this) tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers - Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa, ... the two people that I turn to most...

...In 1947, when Mao Tse Tung was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai-Shek and the nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army. They had the air force. They had everything on their side, and people said how can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this? Against all the odds against you, and Mao Tse Tung said, you know, you fight your war, and I’ll fight mine, and think about that for a second.”

According to a well-sourced quote from Wikipedia, Mao's policies and political purges from 1949-1975 are widely believed to have caused the deaths of tens of millions of people. Mao also extensively used forced starvation and re-education camps to control and punish his people.

Think about that for a second, Ms. Dunn.

Do we really want someone this close to the President of the United States to worship a murderous, Communist dictator? I know I don't.

As peace activist John Lennon sang:

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow...

Amen, Mr. Lennon.

Did Obama's Speech Blow the Chicago 2016 Olympic Bid?

The International Olympic Committee just voted the city of Chicago out of the running to host the 2016 Olympics.

President Obama, depsite his words to the contrary just two weeks ago, flew over to Copenhagen to make a final pitch for his city.

Could it be that Obama's speech was the spoiler? Or, was Chi-town never really in the running?

In his speech, which ran over 1,100 words, Obama said "I" more than 20 times. However, when it came to convinving the IOC that Chicago could handle the massive impact of the games, he could only muster two sentences that are short on convincing rhetoric:

It's a city that works -- from its first World's Fair more than a century ago to the World Cup we hosted in the nineties, we know how to put on big events. And scores of visitors and spectators will tell you that we do it well.

Obama's evidence that the Chicago area can create an appropriate environment for the Olympics is how well the city ran the World's Fair in 1893 and the World's Cup in 1994?

Not one word on the city's ability to build the infrastructure needed for the games. Not one word on the abiltiy to pay for the games. Not one word that would convince anybody in his right mind that Chicago could hold the 2016 Olympics.

Instead, Obama spun stories of his childhood and sang about the diversity of his hometown.

Chicago is a place where we strive to celebrate what makes us different just as we celebrate what we have in common. It's a place where our unity is on colorful display at so many festivals and parades, and especially sporting events, where perfect strangers become fast friends just because they're wearing the same jersey.

What?

So I've come here today to urge you to choose Chicago for the same reason I chose Chicago nearly 25 years ago -- the reason I fell in love with the city I still call home...

You see, growing up, my family moved around a lot. I was born in Hawaii. I lived in Indonesia for a time. I never really had roots in any one place or culture or ethnic group. And then I came to Chicago.

Ahhh. That is a nice story, but no reason to site an event that hosts thousands of athletes and hundreds of thousands of spectators from around the world.

Chicago is a city where the practical and the inspirational exist in harmony; where visionaries who made no small plans rebuilt after a great fire and taught the world to reach new heights.

That Great Chicago Fire was in 1871. Why would this convince the IOC that the city can make "no small plans" nearly 150 years after?

But, this is Barack Obama; as such, he couldn't get by without a reference to inherited problems.

...the United States of America has a responsibility...to forge new partnerships with the nations and the peoples of the world.

And we all know who broke down those partnerships, don't we?

In the end, it was just another Obama speech; full of flowers and flourish, but completely absent any substance. And in the end, Obama loses again.

Thank goodness.