Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts

BARACK OBAMA LIED: HE SUPPORTS HEALTH CARE FOR UNLAWFUL IMMIGRANTS


By Frosty Wooldridge

NewsWithViews.com

This past weekend, an estimated 200,000 Americans marched on Washington, DC to express their anger, frustration and outright rejection of President Barack Obama’s health care plan. It smacks of socialism from page one all the way to 1018.

Signs read, “No Acorn, No Czars, No cap and trade, No Obama”; “Obama lied, Freedom Died”; “Silence is consent, can you hear us now?”; “I don’t belong to the Party of No, I belong to the Party of Hell No!”; “Madam Speaker, Kiss Our Astroturf!”; “The only thing we have to fear is Obama himself!”; “Proud member of the angry mob and I vote!”; “Obama, liar, liar country on fire!”; “Your wallet, the only place democrats are willing to drill!”

President Lyndon Baines Johnson lied about the “Gulf of Tonkin” incident. The ensuing Vietnam War killed millions and cost billions of dollars. President George W. Bush lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction. His war continues at a cost of billions and countless lives. This week, President Barack Obama lied about his controversial health care plan. He said it would not be available to illegal aliens. If his bill passes, 20 million illegal aliens along with their children will tap into our health care system—causing untold costs and ultimate breakdown.

When you tell the truth, you never have to cover your behind. When you tell a lie, it will bite you in the rear-end at some point.

When Obama spoke the lie, he knew that any verification of ID had been deleted out of the bill. His fellow Democrats killed the amendment that would have required authentication of citizenship.

As Obama uttered the lie, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) could not stand it any longer. He shouted from the seats, “You lie!” He spoke for Americans that don’t appreciate the ‘lie’ Congress foists upon all citizen taxpayers. The truth: Congress made sure that no ID verification would allow any unlawful immigrant to utilize full, free healthcare without having paid a dime into it.

“Thank goodness Joe had the courage to call the President out on it!” said former congressman Tom Tancredo. “Illegal immigrants are definitely getting health insurance under the President's plan. There is no question about it! Joe and other Republicans tried to get the Democrats to agree to an amendment to the health care bill which would have specifically required the government to verify the legal status of anyone receiving benefits under the plan and Democrats voted "NO" and killed it!”

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote, "Once the Democratic health care proposal is fully implemented, the number of people who are uninsured would decline to about 36 million or 37 million...roughly a third of those receiving coverage would be unauthorized immigrants."

Additionally, within 26 years, on our current immigration path, an added 70 million immigrants will call the United States home. Once here, they may tap into our health care system without restrictions. At the same time, they lack education, language and skills to pay taxes to support the system. It can only break down for all Americans and immigrants alike.

“But the lies last night weren't limited to Obama’s statement that illegal aliens won't get coverage,” said Tancredo. “The President also claimed he will provide health insurance free of charge to those who can't afford it, the care will not be rationed, premiums won't go up, health risk factors won't be considered, no one will be excluded, taxes will not increase, and that none of this will cost the taxpayers a dime! Imagine: a huge federal entitlement for free!”

At some point, President Obama must contend with 20 million unlawful immigrants by enforcing laws against employers that allow illegals to remain within this country. He cannot hide from the facts; he cannot avoid the damage and costs at $346 billion annually; he cannot duck his responsibility to represent the legal citizens of this country; he cannot deny that 15 million Americans suffer unemployment and that 35 million U.S. citizens now subsist on food stamps.

Last Thursday night, Katie Couric announced that a whopping 13.4 percent of American families live in poverty. Last count, 35 million Americans subsist on food stamps. Over 15 million Americans cannot find work. In excess of 13 million American children live below the poverty level.

However, 20 million unlawful immigrants remain within America utilizing our health care, our housing, our schools, our hospitals and our prisons—at an astronomical cost to taxpayers of $346 billion annually. (Source: www.thesocialcontract.com , economist Edwin Rubenstein report, winter 2008.)

It’s time for Obama to cowboy-up. Send unlawful immigrants home by enforcing our laws. Simple, easy and smart! American health care for Americans! What a concept!

Listen to Frosty Wooldridge on Wednesdays as he interviews top national leaders on his radio show "Connecting the Dots" at www.themicroeffect.com at 6:00 PM Mountain Time. Adjust tuning in to your time zone.


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Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Mainstream Media
Posted on 12:21 PM by x and filed under , , , | 0 Comments »

The Health Care Deceit


By Paul Craig Roberts

The current health care "debate" shows how far gone representative government is in the United States. Members of Congress represent the powerful interest groups that fill their campaign coffers, not the people who vote for them.

The health care bill is not about health care. It is about protecting and increasing the profits of the insurance companies. The main feature of the health care bill is the "individual mandate," which requires everyone in America to buy health insurance. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont), a recipient of millions in contributions over his career from the insurance industry, proposes to impose up to a $3,800 fine on Americans who fail to purchase health insurance.

The determination of "our" elected representatives to serve the insurance industry is so compelling that Congress is incapable of recognizing the absurdity of these proposals.

The reason there is a health care crisis in the US is that the cumulative loss of jobs and benefits has swollen the uninsured to approximately 50 million Americans. They cannot afford health insurance any more than employers can afford to provide it.

It is absurd to mandate that people purchase what they cannot afford and to fine them for failing to do so. A person who cannot pay a health insurance premium cannot pay the fine.

These proposals are like solving the homeless problem by requiring the homeless to purchase a house.

In his speech Obama said "we'll provide tax credits" for "those individuals and small businesses who still can't afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange" and he said low-cost coverage will be offered to those with preexisting medical conditions. A tax credit is useless to those without income unless the credit is refundable, and subsidized coverage doesn't do much for those millions of Americans with no jobs.

Baucus masquerades as a defender of the health impaired with his proposal to require insurers to provide coverage to all comers as if the problem of health care can be reduced to preexisting conditions and cancelled policies. It was left to Rep. Dennis Kucinich to point out that the health care bill ponies up 30 million more customers for the private insurance companies.

The private sector is no longer the answer, because the income levels of the vast majority of Americans are insufficient to bear the cost of health insurance today. To provide some perspective, the monthly premium for a 60-year old female for a group policy (employer-provided) with Blue Cross Blue Shield in Florida is about $1,200. That comes to $14,400 per year. Only employees in high productivity jobs that can provide both a livable salary and health care can expect to have employer-provided coverage. If a 60-year old female has to buy a non-group policy as an individual, the premium would be even higher. How, for example, is a Wal-Mart shelf stocker or check out clerk going to be able to pay a private insurance premium?

Even the present public option--Medicare--is very expensive to those covered. Basic Medicare is insufficient coverage. Part B has been added, for which about $100 per month is deducted from the covered person's Social Security check. If the person is still earning or has other retirement income, an "income-related monthly adjustment" is also deducted as part of the Part B premium. And if the person is still working, his earnings are subject to the 2.9 percent Medicare tax.

Even with Part B, Medicare coverage is still insufficient except for the healthy. For many people, additional coverage from private supplementary policies, such as the ones sold by AARP, is necessary. These premiums can be as much as $277 per month. Deductibles remain and prescriptions are only 50% covered. If the drug prescription policy is chosen, the premium is higher.

This leaves a retired person on Medicare who has no other retirement income of significance paying as much as $4,500 per year in premiums in order to create coverage under Medicare that still leaves half of his prescription medicines out-of-pocket. Considering the cost of some prescription medicines, a Medicare-covered person with Part B and a supplementary policy can still face bankruptcy.

Therefore, everyone should take note that a "public option" can leave people with large out-of-pocket costs. I know a professional who has chosen to continue working beyond retirement age. His Medicare coverage with supplemental coverage, Medicare tax, and income-related monthly adjustment comes to $16,400 per year. Those people who want to deny Medicare to the rich will cost the system a lot of money.

What the US needs is a single-payer not-for-profit health system that pays doctors and nurses sufficiently that they will undertake the arduous training and accept the stress and risks of dealing with illness and diseases.

A private health care system worked in the days before expensive medical technology, malpractice suits, high costs of bureaucracy associated with third-party payers and heavy investment in combating fraud, and pressure on insurance companies from Wall Street to improve "shareholder returns."

Despite the rise in premiums, payments to health care providers, such as doctors, appear to be falling along with coverage to policy holders. The system is no longer functional and no longer makes sense. Health care has become an incidental rather than primary purpose of the health care system. Health care plays second fiddle to insurance company profits and salaries to bureaucrats engaged in fraud prevention and discovery. There is no point in denying coverage to one-sixth of the population in the name of saving a nonexistent private free market health care system.

The only way to reduce the cost of health care is to take the profit and paperwork out of health care.

Nothing humans design will be perfect. However, Congress is making it clear to the public that the wrong issues are front and center, such as the belief of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and others that illegal aliens and abortions will be covered if government pays the bill.

Debate focuses on subsidiary issues, because Congress no longer writes the bills it passes. As Theodore Lowi made clear in his book, The End of Liberalism, the New Deal transferred law-making from the legislative to the executive branch. Executive branch agencies and departments write bills that they want and hand them off to sponsors in the House and Senate. Powerful interest groups took up the same practice.

The interest groups that finance political campaigns expect their bills to be sponsored and passed.

Thus: a health care reform bill based on forcing people to purchase private health insurance and fining them if they do not.

When bills become mired in ideological conflict, as has happened to the health care bill, something usually passes nevertheless. The president, his PR team, and members of Congress want a health care bill on their resume and to be able to claim that they passed a health care bill, regardless of whether it provides any health care.

The cost of adding public expenditures for health care to a budget drowning in red ink from wars, bank bailouts, and stimulus packages means that the most likely outcome of a health care bill will benefit insurance companies and use mandated private coverage to save public money by curtailing Medicare and Medicaid.

The public's interest is not considered to be the important determinant. The politicians have to please the insurance companies and reduce health care expenditures in order to save money for another decade or two of war in the Middle East.

The telltale part of Obama's speech was the applause in response to his pledge that "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits." Yet, Obama and his fellow politicians have no hesitation to add trillions of dollars to the deficit in order to fund wars.

The profits of military/security companies are partly recycled into campaign contributions. To cut war spending in order to finance a public health care system would cost politicians campaign contributions from both the insurance industry and the military/security industry.

Politicians are not going to allow that to happen.

It was the war in Afghanistan, not health care, that President Obama declared to be a "necessity."

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. His new book, War of the Worlds: How the Economy Was Lost, will be published next month by AK Press/CounterPunch. He can be reached at:PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com


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US - Worst, Dumbest, Meanest Health Care System Of All

How Washington is screwing up health care reform – and why it may take a revolt to fix it


Watch Matt Taibbi break down his report on the sad state of health care reform in his blog, Taibblog.

Let's start with the obvious: America has not only the worst but the dumbest health care system in the developed world. It's become a black leprosy eating away at the American experiment — a bureaucracy so insipid and mean and illogical that even our darkest criminal minds wouldn't be equal to dreaming it up on purpose.

The system doesn't work for anyone. It cheats patients and leaves them to die, denies insurance to 47 million Americans, forces hospitals to spend billions haggling over claims, and systematically bleeds and harasses doctors with the specter of catastrophic litigation. Even as a mechanism for delivering bonuses to insurance-company fat cats, it's a miserable failure: Greedy insurance bosses who spent a generation denying preventive care to patients now see their profits sapped by millions of customers who enter the system only when they're sick with incurably expensive illnesses.

The cost of all of this to society, in illness and death and lost productivity and a soaring federal deficit and plain old anxiety and anger, is incalculable — and that's the good news. The bad news is our failed health care system won't get fixed, because it exists entirely within the confines of yet another failed system: the political entity known as the United States of America.

Just as we have a medical system that is not really designed to care for the sick, we have a government that is not equipped to fix actual crises. What our government is good at is something else entirely: effecting the appearance of action, while leaving the actual reform behind in a diabolical labyrinth of ingenious legislative maneuvers.

Over the course of this summer, those two failed systems have collided in a spectacular crossroads moment in American history. We have an urgent national emergency on the one hand, and on the other, a comfortable majority of ostensibly simpatico Democrats who were elected by an angry population, in large part, specifically to reform health care. When they all sat down in Washington to tackle the problem, it amounted to a referendum on whether or not we actually have a functioning government.

It's a situation that one would have thought would be sobering enough to snap Congress into real action for once. Instead, they did the exact opposite, doubling down on the same-old, same-old and laboring day and night in the halls of the Capitol to deliver us a tour de force of old thinking and legislative trickery, as if that's what we really wanted. Almost every single one of the main players — from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Blue Dog turncoat Max Baucus — found some unforeseeable, unique-to-them way to fuck this thing up. Even Ted Kennedy, for whom successful health care reform was to be the great vindicating achievement of his career, and Barack Obama, whose entire presidency will likely be judged by this bill, managed to come up small when the lights came on.

We might look back on this summer someday and think of it as the moment when our government lost us for good. It was that bad.

full article

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Barack Obama - Health Care Lies


AMERICANS DON’T LIKE A CON MAN — neither do they like being lied to. In just nine short months Barack Hussein Obama has revealed himself to be what he really is: a con man who lies to get what he wants.

Obama and his enablers (Soros-Brzezinksi-Wall Street Jews) are determined to turn Americans into vassals of an all-powerful federal government presided over by an all-powerful president, a corps of Jewish czars, and a Congress dominated by Zionist-bought political hacks.

Con men like Obama invariably resort to strong-arm tactics. An example is Obama’s Cap and Trade Bill - his first major attempt to impose his authoritarian will on Americans by strong-arming opponents through his Zionist Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

It narrowly passed the Zionist controlled House only after Emanuel applied the Zionist bludgeon to wavering Democrats whose “no” votes would cost them re-election in 2010.

Emanuel’s connections to Jewry’s media and money masters who smear offenders and finance those who play ball with them, is a large enough threat to put the ‘fear of the Jews’ into all of the political patsies on Capitol Hill.

full article


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Democrats Ensure Illegal Aliens Included in ObamaCare and Other Atrocities


By Sher Zieve Friday, July 24, 2009

The Heller Amendment—which would have removed from ObamaCare those who have entered and are living in the USA illegally—has been defeated 26-15 (along straight Party lines) by the Democrat controlled House Ways and Means Committee. So, along with all of their other “break-the-bank-and-everything-else” programs, our Usurper and Dictator in Chief Obama and his Democrat minions are demanding that we US citizens pay for illegals. Note: Another interesting datum included in the Socio-fascist ObamaCare package is that US citizens wanting to keep their current health insurance will be fined approximately $2,500/year. But, Obama’s illegals will NOT be penalized a penny.

Other atrocities associated with ObamaCare are rationing of medical services and a push towards “no-more-health-care-for-you” euthanasia (deceptively referred to as “Advance Care Planning”) for those Obama considers elderly. End of life counseling—every five years until they finally die due to lack of provided health services—for said elderly (ostensibly once one is in his or her 60s) will also be mandatory. Note: One wonders if said euthanasia will also soon extend to his growing political “enemies” list. And to ensure against discrimination, the beginnings of life are also covered under ObamaLifeSnuffOut. We will be forced to pay for abortions under ObamaCare.

full article

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Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Mainstream Media
Posted on 9:56 PM by x and filed under , , , | 1 Comments »

Page after Page of Reasons to Hate Obamacare



• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!

• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!

• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)

• Page 42: The “Health Choices Commissioner” will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.

• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.

• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.

• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.

• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (read: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)

• Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange.

• Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)

• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens

• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.

• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.

• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No “judicial review” is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.

• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.

• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.

• Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families.

• Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll

• Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll

• Page 167: Any individual who doesnt’ have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.

• Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them).

• Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.

• Page 203: “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Yes, it really says that.• Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected.”

• Page 241: Doctors: no matter what speciality you have, you’ll all be paid the same (thanks, AMA!)

• Page 253: Government sets value of doctors’ time, their professional judgment, etc.

• Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for private healthcare industries.

• Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.

• Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!

• Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions.

• Page 298: Doctors: if you treat a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalized by the government.

• Page 317: Doctors: you are now prohibited for owning and investing in healthcare companies!

• Page 318: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval.

• Page 321: Hospital expansion hinges on “community” input: in other words, yet another payoff for ACORN.

• Page 335: Government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures: i.e., rationing.

• Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc.

• Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of SPECIAL NEEDS individuals.

• Page 379: More bureaucracy: Telehealth Advisory Committee (healthcare by phone).

• Page 425: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia?

• Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time.

• Page 425: Goverment provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death.

• Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends.

• Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient’s health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT.

• Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.

• Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: more payoffs for ACORN.

• Page 472: Payments to Community-based organizations: more payoffs for ACORN.

• Page 489: Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage.

• Page 494: Government will cover mental health services: defining, creating and rationing those services.


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Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Mainstream Media
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Cardin Town Hall Meeting On Health Care Gets Angry

LARGO, Md. (WUSA) -- Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat who favors health care reform, faced an audience of more than 500 people (at its peak) Monday evening for what he called a town hall meeting on the topic that is the number one item on President Obama's domestic agenda.

With so many versions of the legislation in so many committees on Capitol Hill, the bill's final form is far from known.

"We're at the first stages of the discussion of health care reform," Cardin said.

Audience members could offer questions on cards that were passed out as they entered the Prince George's County Community College Student Center, or they could line up at microphones to offer them in person.

Perhaps the most controversial, came from Robert Broadus of Clinton, Maryland, an audience member who had lost his job and replaced it with one that paid him far less money.

"I decided not to get the health insurance. That's working out for me because I'm able to save that extra money and give it to my family members and use it on myself. Senator Cardin, I want to know are you going to tell me an individual...that I have to buy health care or else you're going to fine me $2,500 every year I don't get it? Our founding fathers assured us we have a Bill of Rights and I want to see you uphold that," Broadus said in an increasingly emotional voice and to scattered applause.

fulla rticle
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Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Mainstream Media
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Prescription For Disaster - Peter Schiff


By Peter Schiff
EuroPac.net
7-19-9
The health care bill unveiled this week by the House of Representatives (with the full support of the Obama administration) is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever drafted. If passed, it will reduce the quality and increase the cost of health care in America. But more importantly, it will severely undermine our already weak economy. To burden a country currently in the throes of a violent recession with such a bureaucratic albatross clearly illustrates the scarcity of economic intelligence in Washington.
In the first place, specifically taxing the rich to pay for health care for the uninsured is the wrong way to think about tax policy and is an unconstitutional redistribution of wealth. While the government has the constitutional power to tax to "promote the general welfare," it does not have the right to tax one group for the sole and specific benefit of another. If the government wishes to finance national health insurance, the burden of paying for it should fall on every American. If that were the case, perhaps Congress would think twice before passing such a monstrosity.
In the second place, the bill is just plain bad economics. For an administration that claims to want to create jobs, this bill is one of the biggest job-killers yet devised. By increasing the marginal income tax rate on high earners (an extra 5.4% on incomes above 1 million), it reduces the incentives for small business owners to expand their companies. When you combine this tax hike with the higher taxes that will kick in once the Bush tax-cuts expire, and add in the higher income taxes being imposed by several states, many business owners might simply choose not to put in the extra effort necessary to expand their businesses. Or, given the diminishing returns on their labor, they may choose to enjoy more leisure. More leisure for employers means fewer jobs for employees.
full article.......
http://www.europac.net

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Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Mainstream Media
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