Note: You might want to start at the
Obama Index Page, especially
if you arrived here by using a search engine.
The United States already has a multi-billion-dollar system of socialized medicine, called
Medicare and Medicaid. Federal, state and local governments spent a total of $783.8 billion on
health care in 2006.*
Any deadbeat who doesn't have private insurance (which one ordinarily acquires by purchasing it with
part of his or her income) can take advantage of Medicaid.
Other taxpayer-funded "safety nets" include SCHIP and a relatively new prescription drug
entitlement. In reality, Obamacare extends beyond medical care. It is a system of
unmitigated socialism which promises to improve service and low costs for everyone. Only
those who attended public schools could possibly believe that the government can make anything
more efficient and more convenient while lowering costs. The government is
parasitic. Everything the government undertakes is paid for by taxes and debt.
When this idea was proposed in 1993, it was derisively called "HillaryCare" because president Clinton
put his wife in charge of its development. The idea was even more unpopular that she was,
so it was tabled until the return of the Democratic Party in 2008.
Obamacare is being developed by leftist politicians who are determined to take over the
medical care industry regardless of public opinion. Liberals simply do not care if
they're out of step with mainstream America. This is about control, not medicine.
Subsections on this page:
Obamacare is wildly unpopular and is sure to result in voter backlash
Pelosi and Reid forge ahead, ignoring public outcries
Democrats have been obsessed with socialized medicine for decades
Can Obamacare be stopped?
Totalitarianism = Unstoppable one-party rule
Who is to blame for all this? Who are the enablers?
Obamacare will affect families and small businesses
The Obamacare bill is over 2,000 pages long. Who knows what's hidden inside?
Does Obamacare include blanket amnesty for illegal aliens?
Obamacare is Hillarycare in a new wrapper
Other objections to Obamacare
Similar subtopics on other nearby pages:
Liberals are using lies and deception to sell this idea.
Liberals resort to lies and emotional outbursts to silence their opposition.
Examples of dishonesty and prevarication related to Obamacare.
What's the rush?
Secrecy, closed-door meetings, and midnight votes.
Liberals are not telling you that Obamacare will bankrupt the United States.
Obama's Big Health Care Summit.
Obamacare is obviously infeasible.
Obamacare won't work as advertised. The promised benefits will never come to pass.
Doctors won't work under these conditions!
Obamacare solves problems that don't exist and doesn't address problems we already have.
Obamacare will result in the loss of your freedom...
Obamacare is socialism -- or worse!
Obamacare opens the door to tyranny.
The Senate bill includes an unprecedented trap: It can't be repealed!
...or perhaps your life.
Rationing and "End of Life" issues.
Taxpayer-funded abortions.
Obamacare will cost far more than the Democrats are letting on.
Obamacare will be horribly expensive.
Obamacare is an affront to the rule of law.
Obamacare will be mandatory -- and therefore unconstitutional.
Despite what you may have heard, health care is not a right.
Reid, Pelosi and Obama shamelessly buy votes
Obamacare carries an odor of corruption.
Related topics on older pages:
Look at the British experience with socialized medicine.
Other countries' experiences, especially Canada's.
Tea parties, town hall meetings and other organized rejecion of Obama's plans.
Medicare, Medicaid, and Prescription Drug Benefits
SCHIP: (State Children's Health Insurance Program)
HillaryCare -- the earlier, simpler version of Obamacare.
The Invasion of the Food Police
Liberals out out of step with mainstream America
Obamacare is wildly unpopular and is sure to result in voter backlash
Barack
Obama Vs. Majority Public Opinion. Take ObamaCare, for example. Ramming it through Congress,
overriding regular legislative procedure and the opposition of the American public, he deluded himself into
believing that once it became the law of the land, the people would dutifully support it. But they
didn't. Even after passage, the Rasmussen survey reports this month that 66% favor repeal of the
Health Control Law, and 50% say repeal will benefit the economy.
Above The Law. We first witnessed
the unabashed arrogance of the Obama administration when it pushed through the health care bill, using any
parliamentary trick it could think of to accomplish its mission despite overwhelming, deeply-felt
opposition throughout the country.
America flooding Congress with telephone calls. "Calls to the
House numbered close to 100,000 an hour, creating a bottleneck in a phone system only meant to handle 50,000 calls
an hour. The chamber has been similarly overloaded for four consecutive days, beginning on Tuesday [3/16/2010]
when radio host Rush Limbaugh told viewers to call the Capitol switchboard phone number," Roll Call said.
What Americans Don't Understand
about Obamacare: How will our health care system improve by giving a $300-million payoff to Democratic
Senator Mary Landrieu in Louisiana in exchange for her vote? ... Why are labor unions singled out from all other
Americans and given an eight-year pass on paying taxes, while non-union workers have to pick up the tab? ... Why
should taxpayers be forced to pay for elective abortions?
Is It Popular Yet?
The Democrats are convinced that ObamaCare will be their ticket to political survival, the only way of
avoiding a 2010 wipeout. So far, it doesn't look that way.
But
Enough About Jobs, Have You Heard About My Health Plan? Half (49%) of Americans say the
economy is the country's top issue, with health care a distant third at 11%, according to January's IBD/TIPP
poll. Among independents, 54% say the economy should be the No. 1 priority vs. just 8% for health
care.
Is Obama Steering the
Ship of State Toward the Rocks? Obama's Medi-Grab is the biggest wedge the Democrats can drive
into the body politic, intended to turn the U.S. forever into a socialist, Left-controlled zombie state, just
like Europe. Medi-Grab couldn't pass the Senate when the Democrats were playing by the rules. But
now Harry Reid, the electorally doomed Majority Leader, is said to be signaling his willingness to commit
hara-kiri for Obama.
Obama
Doesn't Even Fake Bipartisanship Well. How long will it take for every last American to realize
President Barack Obama is not about bipartisanship, reconciliation (other than as a process to cram his health
care bill through Congress) and uniting Americans? As his latest gyrations on health care demonstrate,
he will not be deterred in his quest to saddle Americans with socialized medicine, even if it greatly increases
the likelihood he won't be re-elected.
ObamaCare at
Ramming Speed. A mere three days before President Obama's supposedly bipartisan health-care
summit, the White House yesterday released a new blueprint that Democrats say they will ram through Congress
with or without Republican support. So after election defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and even
Massachusetts, and amid overwhelming public opposition, Democrats have decided to give the voters what
they don't want anyway.
Did someone mention Obama's
Health Care Summit?
Dems
not worried about post-vote backlash at home. Democrats today have repeatedly expressed a
confidence that they won't face a backlash for their votes when they return home for the holidays, which
would stand in marked contrast to the August recess.
The Tyranny of
the Majority Party. The most striking example is health-care reform. It is intensely
unpopular but was approved by the House in November and the Senate on Christmas Eve. Asked in a
Rasmussen poll in mid-December if they'd prefer no bill to ObamaCare, 57% said they would. Only 34%
said they'd rather ObamaCare be enacted. Yet Democrats are forging ahead as if the public actually
approves of their health-care reform. Why, when Republicans are preparing to hammer them on the issue
in next year's elections, would they do that?
The Beginning of the End.
Democrats declare themselves unconcerned about a "backlash" in 2010. The public will come to appreciate
their health-care handiwork, they suppose. ... All the talk-show appearances and all the speeches haven't
sold the public on a big government takeover of health care. Quite the opposite.
Rasmussen:
Obamacare Disapproval at New High. Rasmussen's health-care polling results since Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid orchestrated the Christmas Eve vote are full of undeniably bad news for Democrats. ... There
are far more likely voters who "strongly" oppose Obamacare (46 percent) than there are likely voters who
support it even "somewhat" (39 percent).
Ten
New Reasons Why Obamacare Can Still Be Killed. The American people oppose Obamacare by almost
two to one in the latest CNN poll. Other polls show lopsided opposition to passing either the Senate or
House health care bill. Public opinion is against the bill because of its obscene costs in higher taxes,
burdensome debt, anti-freedom mandates, rationing and reduced care for seniors. The American people have
awakened to the fact that Obamacare is transformational legislation that will drag us against popular will
into European-style socialism.
Unhealthy
Arrogance. The only thing healthy about Congress' health insurance legislation is the healthy
skepticism about it by most of the public, as revealed by polls. What is most unhealthy about this
legislation is the raw arrogance in the way it was conceived and passed.
The Origins of
Obamism. Such a strange scenario we have found ourselves in -- a clear majority of
Americans is opposed to almost everything Obama has to offer; congressional representatives know
they are acting against the will of the people, but know too that they are offered all sorts of
borrowed money for their districts to compensate for their unpopular actions.
The
American People Don't Want Obamacare. In the last two weeks, eight national polls have been
released showing what the American people think of Obamacare. The results of those eight
polls — Pew, ABC/WaPo, PPP, CNN, CBS, Quinnipiac, Fox, and Rasmussen — show that by
an average margin of 8.5 percent (49.0 percent to 40.5 percent), more people oppose Obamacare
than support it. That's greater than the margin by which John McCain lost last November.
Trying to Sell ObamaCare.
Maybe the liberals didn't see this setback coming because they still believe in the proudest creation of the
New Deal, Social Security. But many Americans — particularly younger ones — don't.
In fact, poll after poll has shown widespread doubt that Social Security will be there for today's
workers when they retire, even though Uncle Sam regularly sweeps large amounts out of their paychecks
to fund it. If you don't believe in Social Security — and if you believe that Medicare,
another great coup of the entitlement mindset, is another intergenerational Ponzi scheme — then
you're unlikely to think that a government that's straining to sustain two massive obligations
should be adding a third.
Emperor
Obama's Health Bill Has No Clothes. Due to pressure from enraged Americans, the most pernicious
features of Obama's health care legislation have, for now at least, been stripped from his bill. This is
no time for complacency, however, since the liberals are trying to push back and get the provisions back in.
As the bill now stands, it doesn't have any teeth.
Growing
public backlash over Obamacare. Two-dozen Democrats from Republican-leaning districts, who
voted for the House version of President Obama's increasingly unpopular health care reform, are beginning
to feel a growing public backlash. ReversetheVote.org has already raised $123,105 that will be
dedicated exclusively to defeating all 24, including Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., in 2010 if they don't
reject the final conference committee version of the bill.
ObamaCare Keeps
Falling in the Polls. The Senate's compromise bill on health care was announced on Wednesday [12/9/2009]
to much fanfare. But there's not much there for moderate Democrats to write home about. It waters
down a provision creating a "public option," but it also expands (to include people over 55) Medicare, a
program already expected to go bankrupt in 2017.
Vulnerable
Democratic freshman abandon the health care bill. Some of the most vulnerable Democrats in the
House are starting to flake off the health care bill. There are a dozen first-term Democrats representing
districts that Republican presidential nominee John McCain won last year. So far, six have announced
that they will vote against their party's health care bill.
Support For
ObamaCare Reaches New Low. A new poll by Rasmussen Reports finds that President Barack Obama's
plan to take America's health-care system in an even more statist direction has less support now than ever
before.
Charlie Rangel says Obamacare Doesn't Spend Enough Money.
[President] Obama has announced his determination not to sign a bill that adds "one dime" to the deficit and he's also
said that "his" bill will feature a low, low $900 billion price tag. Both of these Obama points seem to be
vexing Rep. Rangel because, well, it's just not enough.
Likely Voters Overwhelmingly Disapprove
of ObamaCare. A Zogby International/O'Leary Report poll of 4,200 likely voters has some startling results
concerning attitudes toward health-care reform. ... The numbers are dramatically worse for ObamaCare in this poll than
in other polls. Part of the explanation lies in the sample — likely voters seem to hate ObamaCare a
lot more than do Americans generally (who may not even be registered to vote).
54 Percent Say the More They Learn About ObamaCare, the Less They Like It.
Washington Post Ignores its Own Poll Finding. A
Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted in the three days following President Barack Obama's speech to Congress about
his health care plan discovered that 54% say the more the hear about the plan the less they like it. This
particular poll result was not mentioned anywhere in the story about the poll that was posted by the Washington
Post on its Web site on Monday [9/14/2009]. The result did appear in the data sheet from the poll that was
linked to the story.
Americans
Aren't Buying What Obama Has To Sell. The president claims he has "no interest in putting insurance
companies out of business," but that is exactly what will happen if the government forces them to expand the services
they cover while simultaneously preventing them from charging higher fees, especially if the expanded pool of
beneficiaries includes many of the least healthy individuals.
Obama's Tone-Deaf
Health Campaign. It didn't take chaotic town-hall meetings, raging demonstrators and consequent
brooding in various sectors of the media to bring home the truth that the campaign for a health-care bill is,
to put it mildly, not going awfully well. It's not hard now to envision the state of this crusade with
just a month or two more of diligent management by the Obama team — think train wreck.
Health
care debate confirms this is not the Barack Obama we elected. Americans, more of them every day, are growing
disenchanted with the expansion of government and the massive pile of debt. Yet the President, certain he can change
their minds if only he talks to them again, keeps trying to sell bigger as better. The public's not buying it. ... He's
the rock star-turned-salesman, and everything in his administration depends on his stage act.
Matey, I Know a Dead Parrot. As
in the Monty Python sketch, in which a pet-shop owner repeatedly denies that a certain dead parrot is dead, the purveyors
of Obama's health-care turkey claim it is merely stunned. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the public
has "misconceptions" and that our President soon will set them straight. Misconceptions? Clearly, people are
revolted by the plan, a fact that hasn't been lost on many lawmakers up for re-election next year.
On
Health Care, 51% Fear Government More Than Insurance Companies. When it comes to health care
decisions, 51% of the nation's voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies. The
latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 41% hold the opposite view and fear the insurance
companies more. Seven percent (7%) are not sure who they fear the most.
The left can't
understand why people don't like Obamacare. America's liberals have gone from swooning over
Barack Obama's ascension to the White House and gloating over their Bush-induced domination of Congress to
near-hysteria because ordinary middle-class Americans are rising in anger against the Democrats' planned
hijacking of the nation's health care system. MSNBC's Chris Matthews worked himself into his
characteristic spittle-laced frenzy while sputtering about the legions of protestors showing up to make
meetings designed to sell Obamacare into "Town Hell" occasions.
Obamacare: It's Even
Worse Than You Think. President Obama's strategy to pass sweeping health care legislation rested on stealth
and speed. The idea was to fill the conversation for months on end with vague talk about expanding coverage, "bending
the cost-curve," improving quality, and rooting out waste, without showing the public how the plan would actually work or
what it would cost. ... But things have not gone as the Democrats intended. As details have emerged, an extraordinary
wave of public concern has washed over the debate and left the plan's champions reeling.
ObamaCare is a sick
joke. By 52 percent to 40 percent, voters are opposed to the healthcare bill
introduced on July 14 to the House of Representatives. Independents now oppose ObamaCare by a ratio
of almost 2:1. The World Health Organization ranked the United States No. 1 out of 191 countries
for being responsive to patients' needs, including providing timely treatments and a choice of doctors.
Among those currently insured, 84% are satisfied with their healthcare.
50%
Oppose Government Health Insurance Company. Just 35% of U.S. voters now support the creation of
a government health insurance company to compete with private health insurers. A new Rasmussen Reports
national telephone survey shows that 50% of voters oppose setting up a government health insurance company as
President Obama and congressional Democrats are now proposing in their health care reform plan. Fifteen
percent (15%) are undecided.
Congress set to create Frankenstein
monster, not health care reform. Most Americans say they're happy with the health care they have. But
that doesn't stop the Democratic leadership in Congress from trying "fix" the system to their own liking, starting this
week. What they like, and what most Americans like are nothing alike.
Obama
facing some doubts among Americans. He remains personally popular, but President Barack Obama is starting to
see signs that some of his economic policies are causing doubts among many Americans. Two polls published on
Thursday [6/18/2009] illustrate the political risk Obama faces as he turns his attention toward an overhaul of the
U.S. healthcare system, an issue so contentious that previous attempts have failed to address high cost and availability
issues.
Three
Reasons Why Obama and The Dems Are in Big, Big Trouble: [Reason #1] Health care reform
is not popular. An ABC News/Washington Post poll published on January 19 has 51 percent against
current congressional plans and just 44 percent in favor, numbers that haven't moved in a month.
Other polls show even greater percentages oppose the plan, with all the trend lines over the past year
working heavily against the Democrats.
After
ObamaCare: The White House made a decision months ago to drive ObamaCare through Congress
on sheer power politics, but the balance of power has suddenly shifted. ... The real problem is that
ObamaCare is a deeply unpopular bill — even in Massachusetts.
The
Constitution: Another Victim of Obamacare. Reports have come out today [3/12/2010] that
the Parliamentarian has not ruled that the President must sign a law before it is considered a law for
reconciliation purposes. First, they came up with a strategy to get Obamacare passed in the House
without the House ever voting on the bill, now they have come up with a strategy and a ruling to get the
Obamacare bill to qualify as law without the President signing the law.
Dark
Prospects For Spendthrift Democrats. It is old news that many congressional Democrats are on the
road to political oblivion — 33 House members and nine senators are already on the endangered
list. Now, however, even incumbents in "safe" seats are looking toward the future with fear and trembling.
Who's ObamaCare's
Daddy? Now even liberals are denying paternity. "I know this is a tough vote," President
Obama told House Democrats at a March pep rally merely hours before they passed national health care.
But he added that he was "actually confident" that "it will end up being the smart thing to do politically
because I believe that good policy is good politics." Apparently not, as even some liberal lobbies are
now being forced to concede.
Pelosi and Reid forge ahead, ignoring public outcries
Obamacare is being developed by leftist politicians who are determined to take over the
medical care industry regardless of public opinion. Liberals simply do not care if
they're out of step with mainstream America. This is about control, not medicine.
There are a few power-crazed people in Washington who have lots of power and want to
make it permanent. The American people are overwhelmingly against the implementation of socialized
medicine, yet the socialist Democratic Party is determined to take over the medical profession,
even if it means resorting to subterfuge and treachery.
Wake up, America: Democrats aren't
Democrats Anymore, They're Communists. [Scroll down] Scott Brown, a Republican, was
elected to Edward Kennedy's old Senate seat, and just like that the Democrats no longer had the votes needed
to pass their freedom-killing legislation. That should have been the end of the story, but Democrat
politicians, like the communists of old, aren't so concerned about the rules. As long as the state grows
stronger and the individual grows weaker, they don't much care how it gets done.
Pelosi's Kamikazes? Pelosi is
ordering her fearful members to vote for the Obama-cum-Pelosi healthcare "reform" bill that has voters up in
arms all over the country. House Blue Dog "moderates" are already caught in a crossfire between their
constituents and their leadership. The Tea Partyers have been heard, and they are watching carefully.
The Worst Bill
Ever. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she's prepared to lose
seats in 2010 if that's what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she
unwrapped last Thursday [10/29/2009], which President Obama hailed as a "critical milestone," may well be the worst
piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced. In a rational political world, this 1,990-page
runaway train would have been derailed months ago.
Congress and Obama Show Contempt for Americans.
Congress is showing contempt for the American people by excluding them from the crafting of Obamacare. The president
promised in his campaign he'd deliver transparency, saying, "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table" with
everybody involved. Those that can't make it would be able to see "the negotiations televised on C-SPAN." Too
bad this isn't happening: yet another broken Obama promise.
Obama At Odds With Majority but Undeterred.
While I couldn't bring myself to watch President Barack Obama's 1,000th-1,004th health care propaganda spiels on the
Sunday shows, I did read some transcripts and watch a few video highlights. What is it about this guy's personality
that compels him to keep beating his head against the wall? Why does he keep doing the same thing over and
over expecting a different result?
Maybe it's because
he's incompetent.
Committing HarryCare.
The Obama Administration and the Congressional Democrat leadership are desperately trying to create the false
impression that the government takeover of health care now pending in Congress is rolling towards inevitable
victory. But the truth is that the legislation is now hanging by a thread, and can be routed by the
growing tide of public opposition.
Did Reid Kill ObamaCare?
[Scroll down] In a sense, Reid clarified what many suspected was going on. The Democrats had
ceased trying to craft a workable bill and had decided to pass something, anything, and fix it later.
By choosing an approach so obviously hare-brained, however, Reid deprived his party of the pretense that
they were engaged in serious lawmaking.
Tottering.
The Reid bill is really tottering now. "If this thing falls apart, you can look back to today [12/11/2009]
as the tipping point," says a Republican aide in the Senate... First, there was last night's CNN poll
showing 61 percent opposition.
Senate Can Pass Health With
51 Votes, Van Hollen Says. Even if Democrats lose the special election to pick a new Massachusetts
senator Tuesday [1/19/2010], Congress may still pass health-care overhaul through a process called reconciliation,
a top House Democrat said. That procedure requires 51 votes rather than the 60 needed to prevent Republicans
from blocking votes on President Barack Obama's top legislative priorities.
The
First Year: A Near Total Disaster. President Obama has led the charge to have the federal
government assume control of one-sixth of our economy through a nonsensical 2,000+ page bill whose ramifications
NOBODY knows. What we do know, however, is that there will be higher taxes and over a hundred new boards
and commissions to control our lives.
Best.
Week. Ever. A supremely aloof and arrogant president whose chief policy idea was to ignore what
Americans wanted on nearly every front was humbled if not humiliated. Nancy Pelosi herself admitted that
the Senate health care bill she darkly promised to ram through Congress "one way or another" was, as of a
couple days later, resolutely non-rammable.
Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi work to save health
care reform. Struggling to salvage health reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi have begun considering a list of changes to the Senate bill in hopes of making it acceptable
to liberal House members, according to sources familiar with the situation. ... But the move comes with political
risk, because it would open Democrats up to charges that they pressed ahead with roughly the same health care
bill that voters appeared to reject in the Massachusetts Senate race Tuesday.
Health-care bill: Sinister prescription
based on misdiagnosis. Under the guise of assisting Americans in obtaining much-needed health
care, Congress is expediting foolhardy legislation fueled by tax increases and draconian Medicare cuts, using
every trick in the book to ramrod it through.
White
House Panic Week Yields No Change in Direction. Unfortunately, Obama remains completely tone deaf to
the will of the people. In fact, the only thing that has changed in his White House as a result of these
repeated electoral setbacks is the way he is pursuing his socialist agenda. ... Obama has been meeting regularly
with Congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in a no-holds-barred effort to ram his socialized medicine
proposal through Congress despite its collapsing public support and weakened legislative position.
The Democrats'
Political Death Wish: Harry Reid may well have given up serious hope of being re-elected in Nevada
and is thus willing to go over the cliff with President Obama. The defeat of Nancy Pelosi is less likely
than any of the Supreme Soviet losing one of their contests during the '70s. ... But even the modest assessments
of the undertow threatening Democrats puts the loss of seats in the House nearing takeover land of 40, and as
many as nine Senate seats now in play.
Remembering the Dream of
America. Most people on the Left are True Believers. This is critical to understand.
They are willing to lose Congress; Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are prepared to lose both houses to get this
through. Why? Because losing an election cycle means nothing compared to taking over more of the
American economy.
Ego, Obama's Achilles' Heel.
[Scroll down] At town hall meetings across America, "we the people" passionately said "no" to government-run health
care. As an exclamation point to our national "no," hundreds of thousands of protesters showed up in Washington,
D.C. Unbelievably, the Reid/Pelosi tag-team are still conniving and scheming to force Obamacare down our throats.
Remarkably arrogant.
Truth and Reconciliation.
Those unversed in the arcana of Congressional procedure should familiarize themselves with "reconciliation." It's
just another word for nothing left to lose — that is, it's the tactic Democrats seem increasingly likely to
use to bypass the ordinary legislative rules and railroad Obama Care into law with a bare partisan majority
of 50 Senators, plus Vice President Joe Biden.
Congress drags health-care
reform into the mire. [Scroll down] As the year went on, health-care reform grew more
unpopular. If you average the last 10 polls, 38 percent of voters support the reform plans and
53 percent oppose. Obama's reform is more unpopular than Bill Clinton's was as it died. As
the political costs rose, members of Congress squealed louder. Congress is not a bastion of courage in
the best of circumstances. When it is asked to actually pay for its expenditures, it verges on hysteria.
A Historic and
Dangerous Senate Mistake. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that while Democrats
have a number of options to complete health-care legislation, he may use the budget reconciliation process
to do so. This would be an unprecedented, dangerous and historic mistake.
Sanders:
Senate has the votes to pass public option via reconciliation. The Senate has the 50 votes
necessary to pass a public health insurance option using the budget reconciliation process, Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) said Thursday [2/25/2010]. Sanders, a self-described "democratic socialist" who
supports the government-run plan, urged President Barack Obama to push for the public option even though
the possibility of passing it appeared to die this week.
The Charge of the
Democratic Health-Care Brigade. I don't think there's ever been a situation like this
in American political history. Every way you look at it, Democrats are boxed in, forced to choose
between extraordinarily unattractive options. What makes it especially noteworthy is that this
was a calamity they summoned entirely upon themselves.
Obama and Democrats' Unprecedented
Attack against American People and the Obama Summit: During Thursday's Health Care
Summit, I viewed the patently totalitarian Marxist-Democrat Party telling We-the-People that we no
longer matter to them. Our voices are — once and for all per the Democrats — of
no further importance. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and
Dictator-in-Chief Obama made it crystal clear that the American people WILL accept whatever draconian
plans they force upon them — and like it — or else.
Obama
wants an up-or-down vote 'in the next few weeks'. In touting his health care plan today [3/3/2010],
Obama did not use the word "reconciliation," the legislative process congressional Democrats may try to use to
avoid a Senate Republican filibuster. But he did demand an up-or-down vote, and recited a list of programs
that have passed as part of reconciliation bills, including ones devoted to children's health care, unemployment
insurance, welfare reform, and the George W. Bush tax cuts — "all of which had to pass Congress
with nothing more than a simple majority."
The Big Problem with
Health Care Is Cost, Not Access. The year the administration and Congress have spent on health
care reform — with all the backroom deals and bribes, the lack of transparency, and the 2,000-plus-page
bills drafted by lobbyists and unread by House and Senate members — have attached an unsavory smell to
the process that has soured it for many former supporters of the reform effort. Now the decision to try a
"jam it through" final push using the budget reconciliation process seems to demonstrate to the public a heightened
arrogance by those in power, who seem to be ignoring the public's wish for a smaller, less partisan reform effort
at this point. Since 85% of the population is insured, the primary concern for most of the currently insured
is cost control, not expansion of access.
Pelosi's Suicide
Squad: Over the weekend, Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally acknowledged that, for many of the House
members whose votes she needs, casting a vote for Obama's health-care bill would effectively doom them in
November. But, for those faced with that difficult choice, Pelosi thinks the right call is to defy
their constituents and vote for a bill their districts deeply dislike, even if it guarantees defeat this
fall. "We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress. ... We're here to do the job for
the American people." So far, nine House Democrats are hearing the call ... for political suicide.
[Ellipses in original.]
Abuse of Power.
A string of electoral defeats and the great unpopularity of ObamaCare can't stop Democrats from their
self-appointed rendezvous with liberal destiny — ramming a bill through Congress on a narrow partisan
vote. What we are about to witness is an extraordinary abuse of traditional Senate rules to pass
a bill merely because they think it's good for the rest of us, and because they fear their chance to
build a European welfare state may never come again.
Holy Grail:
Why Democrats Believe They Must Pass Health Reform. President Obama confirmed the worst kept secret
in Washington this week: Democrats will move health legislation forward in Congress without any Republican support,
despite a bevy of polls saying slow down or start over.
Obama
calls Dems to Pickett's Charge. They started out in perfect alignment, 12,500 men stretching more
than a mile, battle flags waving, bayonets fixed, and gazes focused on the enemy across the valley, tensely
waiting for them on Cemetery Ridge. Less than an hour later, it was over, with more than half of them
dead or wounded, their cause having reached its high-water mark and failed. It was Pickett's Charge of
the Confederates at Gettysburg in 1863, a horrendous, bloody carnage that could have been avoided, had not
their commander, Gen. Robert E. Lee, been so determined to do it his way — a massed frontal
assault against a nearly impregnable position.
Obama Goes Nuclear.
[Scroll down] Any chance Obama had of living up to his well-honed image as a post-partisan leader was
tossed aside on Wednesday [3/3/2010], as the president urged Democrats in Congress to disregard public opinion
and ram through his health care bill using a parliamentary maneuver that doesn't require bipartisan support. ... Obama,
whose entire candidacy was built around the idea that change must begin from the bottom up, is now pursuing a
top down strategy.
The Great Healthcare Robbery.
"No one has talked about reconciliation," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared during last week's health
care summit. It was a lie shocking in its boldness. ... [A] week before, Reid himself had said publicly
that reconciliation was an option for passing the plan, Politico.com reported. Of the Senate's
59 Democrats, 23 had already signed a letter urging the president to pass the plan via
reconciliation by the time Reid said "no one" was even talking about it.
Dems
turn risky health vote into manhood contest. There's no way around it. Things in the
House of Representatives are about to get very, very rough. With their backs to the wall, Democratic
leaders are preparing a complicated plan to pass their national health care bill. Standing in the
way are Democrats who oppose the bill, whether on principle or out of fear that voting for a wildly
unpopular measure will spell defeat for them in November.
Not
One Major Poll Favors Obama's Health Proposal. Folks, this is nothing more than a
power grab. It's an effort to take one of the most essential elements of every person's
life — their health — and put it under the control of government. ... I now
believe there are many in Washington who not only consider themselves a cut above the rest of us, but
who believe they must manage every aspect of our lives because we are just the common folks who need
to be tended to like cattle on a ranch. This thing is an act of madness. What the White
House and Democrats are hoping is that, after the legislation passes, people will forget about the
costs and the hassles in the several years that the whole thing takes to implement. They
are wrong.
The Undemocratic
Democrats. [Scroll down slowly] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid have no qualms about moving forward even when the voters are opposed. Pelosi has told
Democrats that they should sacrifice their own re-election if necessary: "We're here to do the work
of the American people," she told ABC last week in an interview that aired Sunday. The statements
reek of elitist self-importance.
Myths
about Reconciliation. How could you tell when the Democrats had finally settled on the
reconciliation route? It was at some point between the time Harry Reid told Republicans at the
health-care summit that "nobody has talked about reconciliation" and the time the White House stopped
uttering the word altogether. But though their diction has changed, the Left continues to perpetuate
a number of myths about reconciliation that should be dispelled before Democrats in Washington use the
procedure to force-feed the American people this $2.3 trillion behemoth.
The
president intends to overthrow American capitalism. Mr. Obama is engaged in an abuse of
power. He is thwarting the will of the majority of the American people who do not want socialized
medicine. ... Mr. Obama is willing to sacrifice his party's political fortunes in November — and
even his own re-election in 2012 — because he understands one fundamental fact: Nationalized
health care is the heart of cradle-to-grave statism. No country that has ever embraced socialized
medicine — Canada, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy — has ever been
able to regain economic freedom.
Religious
Left Rallies for Obamacare's Final Stand. The Religious and Evangelical Left, plus the
Islamic Society of North America and a few others, are making a final Custer-like stand on behalf of
much cherished Obamacare. ... The old Religious Left, joined increasingly by Evangelical Left wannabes,
leaves almost no civic space for the private sphere. In their almost totalitarian perspective, the
state is an endless cornucopia of goods and services providing for every human need. Families,
churches, businesses and charities become almost inconsequential, or are, at best, mere compliant hand
maidens to an all powerful government.
Democrats
aren't so democratic. The president, House speaker and Senate majority leader appear ready to defy the
American public and ram a disastrous and unpopular overturn of health care down our throats, regardless of the
consequences to the country or their own political futures. There is something deeply disturbing about this
turn of events — and undemocratic. There was considerable evidence that Barack Obama had these tendencies
even before he became president.
The 'Blazing
Saddles' of reconciliation. The Democratic leaders' "Blazing Saddles" hocus-pocus comes via their
proposal to use the rare parliamentary maneuver of "reconciliation" to force their health care takeover into
law. As currently described, the reconciliation plans are a charade.
Unreconciled. As
promised, the White House has unveiled the latest tweaks in its plan to take over the U.S. medical care
system. Both parties in Congress should beware: You vote for it, you own it.
Cornyn:
We will campaign on repealing ObamaCare, if it passes. Republicans will run on a platform of
repealing President Obama's health care reform bill, the Republicans' Senate campaign chairman said today.
NRSC Chairman John Cornyn, R-Tex., said that he prefers both to run against President Obama's health reform
bill and to stop it in Congress, but that in the event that it passes Republicans will guarantee it remains
the main issue of the 2010 election by promising to repeal it.
Stopping the Imperial Senate:
If the Senate Democrats force passage of ObamaCare through "reconciliation," what will individual Democrat Senators
have done? First, they will have ignored the clear and consistent message of the American people in poll after
poll. In some states those who oppose the bill outnumber those in favor by 20 points or more.
Second, they will have taken the unprecedented step of passing major social legislation without bipartisan
support — in fact without a single opposition party vote. Third, they will have violated
Senate rules which allow only a limited and technical role for reconciliation, not a use that to all intents
and purposes abolishes the Senate's 60 vote rule for substantive policy issues.
Consider
the Possibility that Congress Isn't Very Smart. It's an awfully black-and-white and almost
cartoonish picture that [Matt] Bai paints. Members of Congress should, if they weren't such moral
monsters to the last, "simply do what's right and face the consequences." Instead, they are like a
deli cashier who would pass you slices of E. coli-laden ham if it means being able to clock out
earlier. "Most of us would sooner leave our jobs than follow orders to defraud clients or falsify
records." Yes, humans behave this way. Not so the sinister bunch on the Hill.
Emperor Obama and the
Kamikaze House Democrats. Under the command of Emperor Obama, and in an attempt to avoid a rout,
Democrats are being coercively recruited to take part in assault death units. What's the mission?
Prevail in the president's policy war — even if it costs political lives.
Obama
Plays High Stakes Poker On Health Care. In high stakes poker, if you're in, you're in all the way.
It appears that the president and Democrats are willing risk lasting damage to their careers, their party and
their country.
Why
Obama, Pelosi, and Reid Won't Quit Pushing Health Care Reform: Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are
decidedly pale reds, or as was said in an earlier generation, "pinkos." But all three have grand
ambitions, make no mistake, to achieve through imposition the social — or should it be said,
socialist — democracy that lies with deadening weight across the width and breadth of Western
Europe. These three Democratic leaders are working within our system of government to fundamentally
alter government's relationship to the people. If these three succeed, the American experiment in
liberty will effectively end.
Defeat vs. Repeal.
The big question for Americans is whether they are better off defeating the monstrosity of Obamacare now or
whether it is best to let the Democrats pass it and then work to repeal it, whether it takes a day or a
decade. The short answer is: Defeat it.
It won't
be over. Even Nancy Pelosi's harshest GOP critics don't doubt her ability to wrangle votes.
She has a chance to pass ObamaCare again through the House in a bout of arm-twisting so intense it might violate
the Geneva Conventions. If Pelosi somehow succeeds, Democrats will tell themselves they've finally attained
a goal that has eluded them since Truman. But it won't be over.
Democracy
by Slaughter. The sense around here for the last week or so has been that "only the House vote
matters" in deciding the fate of Obamacare. But what if the Democrats can pass the bill with no House
vote at all? Astoundingly, House Democrats appear to be preparing to do just that.
Didn't I Warn About Alinsky?
In the column I wrote the very day after the 2008 elections, I warned about how if the Obamites couldn't win
under the current rules, they would just change the rules or otherwise break them. The latest idea, the
"Slaughter Solution," is just one such example.
Slaughter House. The
chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., has found a new way to ram big government
health care down an unwilling America's throat: pass it without a vote. ... If you thought using budget
reconciliation rules to shove through health reform was dastardly, wait until you get a load of "the Slaughter
Solution."
If
Pelosi Has the Votes, Then Why Does the House Need the Slaughter Solution? There is no chance
Pelosi has the votes to pass ObamaCare and she knows it. ... Clearly, this Congress is so desperate to pass
ObamaCare, despite the American people's utter hatred of the bill and everything it represents —
including the path to socialism and government control of the people. However, if this Congress
continues down this path of violating the Constitution, the "people" will have a viable case, class-action or
otherwise, in the US courts because it is going to be extremely difficult for a judge to ignore that the 111th
Democrat-Progressive led Congress violated Article I, Section 7 to the most obscene extent.
The
Democrats' Pickett's Charge: The final fight over health care boils down to a simple
formulation: The People vs. Pelosi. In district after district, the next 10 days will
feature an aroused citizenry demanding a no vote while an ideologically motivated speaker demands assent.
The echo of this push/pull will take place in the minds of the Democratic House members. Each will ask
himself whether he is really prepared to throw away his career for this vote. Is this it? Is this
legislation worth the end of line?
Ruling Kills an Option for Moving Health Bill.
The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress' original health care
reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said
Thursday [3/11/2010].
Have You Ever Seen A President Act
This Way Before? I'm talking about the full-court press on the part of The Community Organizer
and the Democrats to demonize the health insurance industry. This is Obama's current tactic on trying to
get his health-care poison pill passed. The feeling is that if you gin up enough hatred of the health
insurance industry in the dumb masses, the people will crawl to Washington on their bloody hands and knees
begging their Savior, Barack Obama, to do something to save them.
They Won't Make That Mistake Again.
[Howard] Dean had a sobering message for Democrats on this healthcare vote. He says, "The plan, as it
comes from the Senate, hangs out every Democrat who's running for office to dry — including the
president, in 2012, because it makes him defend a plan that isn't in effect essentially yet." I guess
Dean just hasn't been listening to Nancy Pelosi. We were, though, when Pelosi told Democrats that they
should be willing to sacrifice their jobs by voting for ObamaCare. Yup, set the government takeover of
healthcare into motion, even if they know it will cost them re-election.
House aide confirms Slaughter Solution never used before.
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have never before been asked to pass legislation by "deeming" it
approved under a House rule instead of following the process required by the U.S. Constitution in which they
actually vote on the proposal itself, according to a senior aide to House Republicans.
Pelosi:
House Will Attach Student Loan Reform To Health Care Bill. House Democrats plan to attach reform of
the federal student loan system to the health care overhaul legislation, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said
today. Folding student loan legislation into the reconciliation bill for health care reform "fixes" could
allow the Obama administration to pass two of their top domestic priorities with a simple Senate majority vote.
Obama's Student-Loan Takeover.
Obama's healthcare "reform" legislation included a federal takeover of the college student-loan business.
Obama touted this aspect of "reform" as a way to save $68 billion over the next 11 years. The
savings would go to pay for expanded Pell Grants for low-income students and to help low-income graduates pay
back their student loans. But more is going on here than the standard Obama redistributionist impulse.
Student loans have become a weapon to attack and control private colleges.
How
Republicans Can Stop The Health Care Bill in 3 Steps. The stakes in the health care debate
continue to climb. For the Democrats, they truly are in between a self-imposed Barack and a hard place.
If they produce a health care bill that Obama signs over the objections of the American people, they risk
losing 55 or more House seats and 8-10 Senate seats. If they don't push through a bill, they will
have angered yet another part of their base.
O'Donnell:
Reconciliation 'Never, Never, Never' Been Used Like This Before. So much for the MSM refrain
about Republicans having previously used reconciliation just as Dems are proposing to do now on ObamaCare.
Larry O'Donnell has emphatically proclaimed that the way Dems intend to use reconciliation is "unprecedented" and
has "never, never, never" been so used before. O'Donnell's many off-his-meds rants notwithstanding, he
actually does understand the legislative process, having served as Dem Chief of Staff of the Senate Committee
on Finance back in the HillaryCare day.
Washington, Not The Individual,
Gets Control In President's Plan. On Wednesday [3/10/2010] in Missouri, President Obama delivered
his 37th speech promoting his health reform proposal, despite sustained opposition from inside and outside his
own party. Previous arguments didn't sell. In early 2009, he couldn't convince fiscal conservatives
with his pitch that "health reform is deficit reduction." In late 2009, middle America wasn't persuaded
that 2,000 pages of statutes were necessary to cover pre-existing conditions. Early in 2010, the
president tried the "it's time to get it over with" line — and Scott Brown was elected
senator from Massachusetts.
Speaker Pelosi's
Treasure Hunt for votes isn't going well. It's official. The Senate parliamentarian has
ruled that if the House of Representatives passes the health care bill approved by the Senate last December,
President Obama will have to sign it into law before any amendments can be made. That puts House Democrats
in a real bind.
Obama's sick obsession.
As the ability of government to take over the health care system draws tantalizingly near, the president
and leaders of the majority party have become infected with a kind of mania. President Obama and
Democratic congressional leaders seem determined to ram through a severely flawed piece of legislation
by any means necessary, heedless of the desires of the American people or the negative impact on the
system they mistakenly say needs to be saved.
The
Slaughter Strategy: This week will be the last stand for Obamacare, and the trickery that
Speaker Pelosi is concocting to get the 2,700-page Senate bill through the House almost defies belief.
It's aptly called the "Slaughter Strategy," after Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), who chairs the House
Rules Committee. Under this scheme, House members would vote on a bill of amendments to the despised
Senate bill, and the Senate bill would be "deemed" to have passed if this companion bill is approved.
This is supposed to inoculate House members, who could say they never actually voted for the Senate bill.
Unconstitutional
Procedure Being Used to Pass Unconstitutional ObamaCare. House leaders are preparing to ram
through ObamaCare this week without a vote. Not only is the legislation unconstitutional, but the
process being used to pass it is unconstitutional. ... This procedure is going to be debated extensively
this week and may be the key issue as to whether President Obama signs legislation to provide a de facto
government-run health care system.
Scrap ObamaCare Today. In terms
of both policy and process, this health care bill has been fundamentally flawed since the start. Now,
desperate to ram through a health care bill at any cost, President Obama and his allies are preparing to use
reconciliation, which would prove once and for all their inability and unwillingness to fix Washington and
responsibly manage the people's business. Going down this road will also make clear that the poetry and
promises of 2008's campaign have completely evaporated and given way to the dark side of Washington's
politics as usual.
This Is the Final Push!
If Senator Reid, Speaker Pelosi, and President Obama get their way, soon our country will be changed forever.
Using every partisan parliamentary trick in the book (including some they invented just last week), Washington's
Left intends to ram through their takeover of our health care system regardless of the consequences.
No Taxation with
Misrepresentation? If Congress passes a takeover of health care via dubious means, flouting
the consent of the governed, the consequences may be far more profound than dreamed by Reid, Pelosi, and
Obama. In addition to violating the spirit and perhaps the letter of the Constitution by changing the
House rules to deem that the Senate Health Care Bill has passed, Speaker Pelosi is now thinking about folding
the federal government's takeover of students loans into the process.
Democrats
aren't suicidal. They're self-executing. Republicans are on solid ground when they say
Democrats are considering an unprecedented maneuver to pass their health care bill. And for what purpose?
Do Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer believe voters won't figure out who voted for Obamacare
and who didn't? That Republicans will ease their opposition because the final vote was for a rule, and not
the specific bill itself? Do they think that anyone won't get the message?
Slaughter
says her solution is 'constitutional'. Emerging from a meeting with Democratic leaders in House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) office today [3/16/2010], House Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter (D-NY)
discussed the constitutionality of the "self-executing rule" she has condoned. This particular procedure
could be used to "deem" the Senate version of the health care legislation passed in the lower chamber without
members voting on the actual health care bill.
The
Slaughter Rule: Yet Another Reason Obamacare Would Be Unconstitutional. As written, the
current health care bill before Congress already is guaranteed to face serious constitutional challenges on
enumerated powers, 5th Amendment, racial discrimination, and unequal state treatment. Now the White House
seems determined to add a whole new reason courts will throw out Obamacare on sight. Director of the
Stanford Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and former-federal judge Michael McConnell explains...
Would
Supreme Court rule unconstitutional law passed with Slaughter Solution? Democrats in Congress
might want to re-read the 1998 Supreme Court decision Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417
before moving forward with the Slaughter Solution to pass President Obama's health care reform bill. ... The
reason, according to Amy Ridenour at the National Center Blog, is that the Justice John Paul Stevens
articulated in the majority opinion the precise rationale for a similar ruling against legislation
passed using the Slaughter Solution.
Slaughter House
Rules. We're not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught
that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this
week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely "deem" that the House has passed the Senate
health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway.
Slaughter Rule Unconstitutional.
Stanford Professor Michael McConnell, writing in the Wall Street Journal, argues that the Slaughter Rule end
run is unconstitutional.
What Democrats Think of
the American People: Democratic leaders in the House are apparently moving towards the "Slaughter
Solution" of avoiding a direct vote on the health care legislation and instead passing the Senate health care
bill by voting to "deem" it passed. As they do so, they keep reassuring the media — and each
other — that the American people don't care.
Health
Care Deception Gets Uglier & Uglier. The finale of the health-care debate couldn't be more
fitting. House Democrats are considering passing an exotic parliamentary rule relieving them of the
burden of voting for the underlying bill, which will be "deemed" passed. So a bill sold under blatantly
false pretenses and passed in the Senate on the strength of indefensible deals would become law in a final
flourish of deceptive high-handedness.
Jack
Cafferty: Pelosi 'Beyond Sleazy' For Endorsing Slaughter Solution. On Tuesday's [3/16/2010]
Situation Room, CNN's Jack Cafferty returned to targeting Nancy Pelosi, this time for endorsing the controversial
"Slaughter Solution" to passing ObamaCare through the House of Representatives without a vote. Cafferty
labeled the proposal "beyond sleazy," and later flatly remarked, "This reeks!"
Our sturdy system
of governance. [Scroll down] Now an intriguing variation on the broken-government question
has come up: Is our government broken if it permits to pass a historically significant bill against the
overwhelming opposition of an aroused public? Consider that this week — expected to be the
climactic House vote-casting week for health care — President Obama and the Democratic congressional
leadership are fighting furiously to pass, with no Republican votes, the ever-less-popular bill.
The
suicide mission for the Democrats. Nancy Pelosi, the dominatrix of the Democrats, boasts that
she has the votes to prevail, but if she does, it's a puzzle why she and the president keep putting off the
vote. If she has the votes, why did the president postpone leaving for Guam, Indonesia and Australia
to stay here to deal with a few congressional arms that won't stay twisted?
The health
care bill can be defeated. House passage of the Democrats' health care bill is not a foregone
conclusion despite their 75-seat majority in the chamber. ... The all-out effort to ram through the
legislation before Easter recess is telling. If members of Congress merely risked being confronted by
Potemkin crowds that don't represent the majority of voters, there would be nothing to fear.
The
White House's phony case for its health plan. No matter what the White House says, the public
has taken a look at the health care proposal as a whole. They don't like it. It's as simple as
that.
Health
Care Is Obama's Gateway Drug. With Barack Obama, his rhetoric isn't the reality. The
reality of his current message on health care is actually this: bail out my presidency because I'm too
big to fail. In rhetoric, there is what is said and what is meant. Obama publicly says his health
care reforms must pass to save money and save those at risk. But what he privately admits to
Democrats — whose arms he is twisting to vote for reforms the public hates — is that his
bill must pass by any means necessary to save his presidency.
Democrats Fly True Colors In
Health War. As of this writing, a president who seems willing to interrupt prime-time
programming on the slightest pretext has not scheduled a speech from the Oval Office to make his final
health reform appeal. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is working her parliamentarians overtime to achieve
the congressional equivalent of the Immaculate Conception — a law without a vote.
Obama
Wags the Dog with the Obama Intifada. President Obama's health care plan is swirling the drain.
Americans don't like it — the latest Rasmussen poll has just 43 percent of Americans in favor,
with 53 percent opposed — and that dislike has the Obama administration suggesting that polls
don't actually mirror the will of the American people. "They're waiting for us to act," Obama told a
crowd in Ohio on Monday. "They don't want us reading polls. They want us to look and see what is
the best thing for America." This is paternalism of the highest order — he knows what's
better for us than we do ourselves.
House
Speaker Pelosi is teetering on the edge of a cliff and it's a long way down. House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi is prepared to sacrifice her members like lambs to the slaughter. Literally. Pelosi
(D-Calif.) is so desperate to get health care passed this week before members take a break that she will
likely employ the "Slaughter Strategy" — a very appropriately named, arrogant abuse of House rules
that would allow members of Pelosi's caucus to simply vote on changes to the Senate bill and "deem" the bill
passed without a member ever having to choose "aye" or "nay."
A musical
health care interlude, 'All I Have to Do Is Deem'. To the tune of "All I Have to Do Is Dream,"
by the Everly Brothers.
I want a bill in the worst way.
I've tried the beg-and-coerce way.
Whatever I want now, all I have to do is
Deem, deem, deem, deem.
Critics
Challenge Legitimacy of Plan to Avoid Direct Vote on Health Care. As the House of Representatives
moves toward approving one of the most sweeping pieces of domestic legislation in U.S. history, critics are
fuming that Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to usher through a health care bill ... without a vote.
Not Even A Vote?!
Just when you thought Washington couldn't get more corrupt, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week seems intent
on trampling representative government itself. Unable to get the votes to pass their U.S. health care
revolution, she and her fellow Democratic leaders have figured out a way to pass it without a vote.
Obamacare: Dead Man Walking.
Don't you think, if the Democrats had the votes for Obamacare, it would be the law of the land right now? ... I
know the common wisdom among the Democrat denizens of Washington, D.C. is that once Obamacare becomes law the
great heaving mass of ignorant and unwashed citizens will quickly forget about the whole thing. They
are wrong.
Republicans Will Force Vote on Slaughter Rule.
Republicans cannot force a vote on the actual resolution but they can force a vote on having a vote. Given
the toxic political climate on Capitol Hill right now — and people nationwide paying more attention
than ever to parliamentary process through the internet, cable news and talk radio — the vote on
whether or not to vote on the resolution could have political consequences for Democrats.
Political Poison.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Pres. Barack Obama seem absolutely determined to get House Democrats to pass the
Senate health-care bill. Arms aren't all they're twisting: They are also bending the rules of
Congress. The latest gambit is to have the House "deem" the Senate bill to have passed without actually
voting on it. Like so much about the Democrats' health-care initiative, this tactic is both outrageous
and senseless.
Bachmann
Rips Media for Not Covering Deem and Pass; Suggests Pelosi Impeachment Warranted. [Scroll down]
"Well yeah and the other thing is treason media," Bachmann said. "Where is the mainstream media in all
of this not telling this story? This is a compelling story — that the Speaker of the House
would even consider having us pass a bill that no one votes on?" According to Bachmann, this is such an
egregious maneuver by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, to force through health care reform using the
Slaughter Rule, as known as deem and pass, that it warrants her impeachment from the post.
'Deem
and Pass' Shows Democrats' Healthcare Arrogance Problem. So Speaker Pelosi will "deem" the
$875 billion Senate healthcare reform bill to have already passed the House, a process the Post's editorial
page says "threatens to turn into something unseemly." Threatens? It turned unseemly a long time
ago — let's recall the Cornhusker Compromise — which is why the speaker can't get enough
votes to pass it.
'They don't
embarrass easy,' &c.. I am not a liberal Democrat, and you may not be, either. But if we
were: Don't you think we'd be embarrassed at the way Pelosi et al are going about getting
"Obamacare" through? The parliamentary maneuvering, the skullduggery?
Pelosi Tactic for Health-Care Vote
Would Raise Legal Questions. Pelosi said this week she might use a parliamentary technique that
would "deem" House members to have passed the Senate's health-care plan by voting for a more politically
palatable package of changes. Some legal scholars question whether that approach can be squared with
the Constitution and the Supreme Court's 1998 declaration that the two houses of Congress must approve "precisely
the same text" before a bill can become a law.
End
run by Dems is a travesty. Any vote in support of an abomination like this "self-executing rule"
should be viewed for what it is: an abdication of responsibility regarding the most significant
social legislation in 70 years. It will not provide the cover Pelosi thinks. We will see the
fingerprints.
Republicans Will Get Only 30 Minutes on House Floor to
Debate Slaughter Rule. Under the standard procedures of the House of Representatives, Republicans
will get only 30 minutes on the House floor to debate the special "rule" being prepared by House Rules
Chairman Louise Slaughter (D.-N.Y.) that would deem the Senate health care bill passed in the House without
an actual vote on the bill as required by Article I, Section VII of the Constitution.
Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation to File Immediate
Constitutional Challenge If... Landmark Legal Foundation President Mark Levin, who served as
chief of staff in the Reagan Justice Department, said he plans to file an immediate lawsuit if House
Democratic leaders try to use an unconstitutional manuever to pass the Senate health care bill without
actually having to vote on it.
Obama Might Sign Other Bills Without Yea-or-Nay Votes.
The White House declined on Thursday to rule out that President Barack Obama might sign future legislation,
such as an immigration reform measure, that has not been put to a recorded yea-or-nay vote in both houses
of Congress.
Why the Democrats are on a suicide mission.
As a FOX commentator reminded viewers last night [3/16/2010], the current Obama Care strategy is the use of
"inevitability" to persuade undecideds to climb on the "bandwagon" while "demoralizing" opponents into
believing they don't stand a chance. In other words, it is no more than a "bluff." At this point,
it's looking likely this approach may turn out to be a "suicide pill" for the current Democratic party as a
whole.
Democrats in the
Deathmobile. Does anyone else remember what happened Jan. 19? ... Scott Brown won by
pledging to be the Senate's "41st vote" against Obamacare, but Nancy Pelosi and her fellow House Democrats
seem intent on pretending that Brown's historic victory in Massachusetts never happened as they prepare to
enact the president's health care plan By Any Means Necessary.
Into
the twilight zone. Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a vote for Sunday, maybe to vote by not voting.
The president has canceled his trip to Asia and the atmosphere in Washington grows surreal and surrealer. The
speaker yearns to be a suicide bomber, blowing up her party's November prospects, or at least the leader of the
Democratic squadron of kamikaze pilots. No one can quite remember when a party in power has been so
determined to self-destruct, with the speaker as provocateur, egging everyone on.
'Unseemly'
and 'Dodgy' Maneuvers Would Invite Legal Challenges. The convoluted and questionable method
under discussion by both Houses of Congress for final passage of the long-debated health care legislation
raises serious constitutional concerns, which, at best, will lead to protracted and wholly avoidable litigation
and continued doubt about the bill's validity.
Deem Obama
Impeached? If the President is not going to insist that the Constitution must be
followed — including that pesky little clause that bills must be approved by a vote in both
houses of Congress — then he is not fulfilling his oath to "support and defend the Constitution
against all enemies foreign and domestic." ... The "deem and pass" approach violates Article 1
Section 7: "in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and
Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal
of each House respectively."
Republican attorneys general threaten
health care suits. Numerous Republican state attorneys general announced Friday that they
are prepping to file a federal lawsuit protesting the so-called "deem and pass" procedural maneuver and
coverage mandates in the health care bill.
A Little Social Engineering is Death.
The reconciliation process was created in 1974 as part of a budget resolution primarily to deal with budget-related
bills. It was intended to deal with only budgetary issues and when used by the GOP in the past that was all it
was used for. Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, one of the primary sponsors of the reconciliation called what
his own party planned to do with his rule "misguided".
Rules Committee meeting descends into chaos. At the
House Rules Committee meeting, Democrats desperate to pass their national health care plan are running into
the barrier of basic civics. ... I just talked with a Republican rules expert, and it appears that there is
nothing in the rules of the House that will prevent Democrats from scheduling the vote for the amendments
package before the vote on the Senate bill itself — that is, voting to amend the law before
it becomes law.
The Demon Pass
and Its Self-Executing Slaughter Solution. [Scroll down slowly] The political carnage
in November will surely be breathtaking to behold, but recognize clearly that the body count has already
begun with the resignations and announced retirements of several congressmen justifiably fearful of the
harsh judgment of their constituents. Senator Mendez from New Jersey is facing a recall petition.
Several other states have recall statutes at their disposal. Watch for similar actions to be
initiated as the conflict intensifies in the coming months.
Democrats at the
Edge of the Cliff. There was always something eerie about the way the Democrats said their
health-care legislation was what the American people had waited "70 years" for. Invoking the ghosts
of 1939 was kind of creepy. Then when the moment in history finally arrived, history got no votes from
the other party. Whatever the politics, there was something ominous about all this. One felt something
else was going on. A Pew Research Center report just out, the one that says trust in government
is at an "historic low" of only 22%, looks like the something else.
Will Obama
listen to anybody? Large and growing majorities opposed Obamacare in public opinion survey
after survey, yet Obama and his congressional allies wrote the bill behind closed doors, made multiple
corrupt bargains to gain votes, and passed it anyway. When General Motors bondholders opposed Obama's
takeover, he flouted age-old bankruptcy law while effectively nationalizing the automaker and handing it over
to the United Auto Workers union.
Democrats have been obsessed with socialized medicine for decades
ObamaCare and the
Liberal Obsession. If President Obama's health-care initiative fails, there is no longer a
rationale for being a liberal in the United States. Everything else on liberalism's to-do list is
footnotes. Passing national health insurance has obsessed every Democratic president since Franklin
Roosevelt.
Why Dems Are Obsessed
by Health Reform. Many in the trenches are uneasy about the sprawling, complex bill they privately
acknowledge has no bipartisan support, doesn't seriously tackle soaring costs and will increase insurance premiums.
That may explain Majority Leader Harry Reid's haste — he has ordered a rare Sunday session this weekend to hurry up
the debate. Public support for the bill averages only 39.2% backing in all polls compiled by Pollster.com.
From Awful to
Worse. The Obama administration and congressional Democrats long ago gave up any pretense of
working to rationally reform American health care. The exercise now underway in the Senate is a mad
dash to get to 60 votes, and nothing more. That's why some Democratic senators who had no idea
exactly what is in the "breakthrough deal" announced by majority leader Harry Reid last week immediately
hailed it as a milestone.
Obama's Strategic
Mistake. Why so much focus on health care and so little focus on the economy? Perhaps it's because
Obama — like many Democratic Presidents before him — wants to be the next Franklin Roosevelt. For
whatever reason, they seem to dream of getting themselves into the pantheon of leaders who expand the federal
government's role in the provision of social welfare. And health care is the white whale of the Democratic
Party's social welfare agenda.
Can Obamacare be stopped?
Bolling Urges Warner and Webb to Not Support Health
Care Reform. Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling sent a strongly worded letter to Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner
Monday expressing outrage over special concessions given to certain states to obtain support for federal health
care legislation from their Senators and asking them to oppose this legislation, which Bolling called "misguided."
Obamacare
totters on the precipice. Obamacrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are peddling
the notion that passage of Obamacare is a stone-cold inevitability. Don't believe it for a second,
if for no other reason than the fact that nothing the Senate has done on its version of Obamacare in
recent weeks actually amounts to a legislative hill of beans.
Fight. The Founding Fathers
created a Republic, but 60 Senators are poised to take it away. With the pending disaster of the
passage in the Senate of a bill nationalizing one sixth of the U.S. economy and our entire healthcare
system at a cost of over $2.5 trillion, we are faced with a crucial question: are the
Republican senators using every means at their disposal to stop this looming, tyrannical abuse of
power? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be "no."
How is Obamacare to be stopped?
The longer this bill is on the floor being debated on the merits (or lack of them) the fewer people support
it, and the more Democrats have to answer for how bad it is.
Four Tactical Steps That Will Defeat Obamacare.
[#1.] Denounce this bill for the lying fraud scheme it is: Just as an example: The Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) "scored" the Pelosi bill to cost $1.055 trillion — far above Barack Obama's $900 billion
ceiling. Pelosi immediately held a press conference and announced her bill would cost $894 billion —
a figure that did not appear in the CBO report and which could be reached only by subtracting projected IRS-administered
penalties from the actual cost.
Dick Morris and the
Crusade against ObamaCare. But Dick Morris is doing his best work now in his crusade against
ObamaCare. He seems charged with high purpose, principle, and energy. If he continues to receive
support, he might help save America from a health care catastrophe. Catastrophe, of course, is
also the title of Morris' recent co-authored bestseller outlining the countless ways that the most radical
president in American history is leading the country towards a rendezvous with decline and doom.
Dr.
No threatening to have bill read on Senate floor. Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who
developed a close friendship with President Obama when they served together in the Senate, is threatening to
have the entire health care bill read on the Senate floor. Senior Senate Democratic aides had heard
Coburn was considering having potentially thousands of pages read aloud in effort to stall passage.
Health
bill could get 34-hour reading in Senate. The 2,074-page Senate health care bill would take
34 hours to read cover to cover — and that's just what Sen. Tom Coburn wants done on the Senate
floor. The Oklahoma Republican has threatened to invoke parliamentary rules to force the Senate
clerk (or more likely, a team of clerks) to read the massive bill before the full Senate begins formal
debate on the legislation.
Can States Protect Themselves
Against Massive Health Care Intrusion? Alabama State Rep. Mac Gipson, R-Prattville, will
introduce in the 2010 session of the Legislature the Alabama Care Freedom Act constitutional amendment
that will protect the rights of patients to make their own health care choices. Further, his measure
prohibits penalties levied on patients for declining participation in any big government passed Pelosi/Obama
health care plan. To date, 22 states have introduced similar initiatives.
The Bill to
Nowhere. "This is our moment," President Obama proclaimed this weekend, shortly after the
House passed H.R. 3962, a sprawling, 1,990-page version of the health care reform that has become the
president's chief policy goal. The moment, though, proved fleeting. The House bill, which imposes
punishing new taxes even as it dramatically expands the federal government's reach into health care, is now
set to limp into the Senate with little realistic chance of passage.
Stop
Reid's ObamaCare 'by any legislative means necessary'. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.,
has delivered his ultimatum to Republicans in the Senate. And it is nothing short of a coup of representative
government. Either Republicans bow to the demands of the Senate's Democratic leaders and pass a "bipartisan"
bill, or Reid will invoke reconciliation, a process that requires only 51 votes to pass the bill.
DeMint escalates attacks on Obama plan.
In unusually pointed terms, DeMint turned the tables on Obama, accusing him of blocking health care reforms while
Obama was a U.S. senator. "I've probably introduced more legislation to reform health care since I've been
in the Senate than probably any other senator. "The fact is, Barack didn't introduce any major reform
legislation, and he voted against every reform measure," DeMint said.
Obama's
Health Care Plan Can Be Defeated. The Democrats' most recent answer to the question of how they will pay
for their trillion-dollar health-care reform was just announced by Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel. He
wants to impose a surtax on incomes over $280,000, which would be a staggering blow to small businesses that
create most jobs.
ObamaCare Isn't Inevitable.
[Scroll down] By a 58%-to-37% margin, American prefer reforming health care "without raising taxes or
increasing the deficit" to government investing "new resources to make sure it is done right." This is
why Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus blanched when committee staffers priced his —
which is also the Obama administration's — draft legislation at a cool $1.6 trillion over the
next decade.
The GOP Can Stop ObamaCare.
It's extremely unlikely that Republicans will be able to pass their own health-care plan in this Congress.
But in politics you can't beat something with nothing, so it is critical that the GOP offers an alternative to
President Barack Obama's government-run monstrosity. Americans will listen more closely to Republicans
if they make empirical and specific arguments against Mr. Obama's attempted government takeover of the nation's
health system. But they must also offer proposals that families, small-businesspeople and health-care
providers will applaud.
How to Stop Socialized Health
Care: It was a sobering breakfast with one of the smartest Republicans on Capitol Hill. We can fix a
lot of bad stuff President Barack Obama might do, he told me. But if Mr. Obama signs into law a "public option,"
government-run insurance program as part of health-care reform we won't be able to undo the damage. I'd go the
Republican member of Congress one further: If Democrats enact a public-option health-insurance program, America
is on the way to becoming a European-style welfare state. To prevent this from happening, there are five
arguments Republicans must make.
Stopping Obama's
Health Care Takeover Must be Our Top Priority. "President Obama says that the nation is in a
very deep recession and it will take considerable time to recover." Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a
bad recession precisely because of President Obama's policies. His policies have deepened the recession,
and they are responsible for lengthening it, and his announced "solutions" today to speed up more government
spending with more hiring of "shovel-ready jobs" and so forth is only going to compound the problem and make
it even worse ... The question remains: At what point will people who voted for Obama begin to
see it this way?
An
Alternative to Obamacare. While President Obama may believe the stars are aligned for major
health reform this year it is far from certain whether Congress will pass a bill that works. The
groups that are most likely to unravel this effort are not the president's opponents, but his allies.
Defeat Obamacare.
Obama's liberal [health care] reforms would probably be irreversible. Most ominous is creation of a government health
insurance program open to everyone. The respected Lewin Group estimates such a program would soon cover 130 million
Americans, most of them refugees from private insurance. It would only be a short step to a Canadian-style, single
payer system run by bureaucrats in Washington.
Stop
ObamaCare. The Obama plan, whatever its tactical cleverness, will suffer from the
key drawbacks of all government-financed and managed health insurance. It would make the government the
gatekeeper — the controller of prices and the provider of coverage. Health care decisions
would increasingly be made in Washington and subject to political pressures that take into account neither
patient needs nor economic realities.
Stopping
the Destruction of American Health Care. President Obama served notice on Tuesday night that he intends a
massive rewrite of the laws governing health care in the United States. Unlike the stimulus bill, such legislation
will do far more damage than just the waste of hundreds of billions of dollars. Obamacare will of course be
extraordinarily expensive, but far worse, it will radically alter the health care delivery system in the U.S.
If the Congress and the Administration get it wrong, the best health care system in history will quickly tailspin
into mediocrity or worse.
Irreconcilable
Reconciliation. For Democrats, the medicine cabinet is mostly empty, save for "a poisonous pill called
reconciliation," says Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, to National
Review Online. That's the Senate budget procedure enabling a bill to pass with 51 votes. As
Democrats plot to keep Obamacare alive, they seem ready to pop that pill and "swallow the consequences,"
says Gregg.
Obamacare
in Cloud Cuckoo Land. When the majority of voters in the bluest of blue states elects a
candidate opposed to Obamacare to fill the Senate seat previously held by the man who was that proposal's
most prominent supporter, there is a clear message: You lost because of what you've been doing for
the past year, so stop doing it.
Dem health care talks collapsing.
Health care reform teetered on the brink of collapse Thursday [1/21/2010] as House and Senate leaders
struggled to coalesce around a strategy to rescue the plan, in the face of growing pessimism among
lawmakers that the president's top priority can survive.
Democrats
drop health plan in face of voter anger. Congressional Democrats are abandoning their
massive health care package in the face of strong public resistance manifested in the election of
Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts to the Senate. Brown's victory Tuesday [1/19/2010] halted
the intense backroom negotiations aimed at merging competing House and Senate versions of President
Obama's health plan.
How Democrats could pass health bill with
51 votes (it isn't pretty). The procedure, known as "budget reconciliation," likely would
limit the scope of the legislation. However, it also would permit a bill to pass with a simple
majority of 51 votes.
The Editor says...
Yes, but first you have to find 51 senators who don't want to be re-elected.
Totalitarianism = Unstoppable one-party rule

Dems intend to bypass GOP on health compromise.
House and Senate Democrats intend to bypass traditional procedures when they negotiate a final compromise on health
care legislation, officials said Monday [01/04/2010], a move that will exclude Republican lawmakers and reduce their
ability to delay or force politically troubling votes in both houses.
National Health Care With 51 Votes.
Late last week President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to use "budget reconciliation"
if necessary to jam a massive health-care bill through Congress. Most Americans probably greeted this
news with the glazed eyes and yawns that should rightfully accompany any discussion of "the federal budget
process" longer than 30 seconds. But this decision is a deeply troublesome attempt to circumvent
the normal and customary workings of American democracy.
Irreconcilable Differences.
This week, there was a major development that could give one political party carte blanche to remake the country's health
care system. ... A procedural vote ... increased the likelihood of a federal government takeover of health care. Both
houses of Congress passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution. Included in the conference report was reconciliation
language that would allow health care legislation to be rammed through the expedited budgetary process with no amendments,
no filibusters, and minimal debate.
Reconciliation Is Not Negotiation.
The President's plan is drafted in a way that envisions the use of a highly partisan parliamentary tactic,
reconciliation, to pass the bill. Reconciliation could allow liberals in Congress to ignore the concerns
of Republicans, moderate Democrats and the American people during the legislative process.
Their words come back to haunt them:
Obama, Biden, Clinton, Dodd & More Believe
Reconciliation is Unconstitutional. The Obama White House has recently announced that they
will go forward with a reconciliation process — sometimes called the "nuclear option" —
to try and pass their government run healthcare plan in the Senate. This process circumvents a
Republican filibuster and only requires a simple majority vote of 51 rather than 60. What did top
Democrats think of this process previously?
As Despotic as They
Need to Be. Critics of the Senate's 60-vote cloture threshold have come out in full force since
the Democrats lost their 60th Senate seat (and some before). ... The argument made is that a majority vote
carries the day. But the very structure of our Constitutional Republic sets limits on majority power.
From the amendment process to the state-strengthening 10th Amendment to the Senate itself, the American system
has built-in defenses against what Thomas Jefferson called "mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people
may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."
ObamaCare is Tyranny,
Not Legislation. What we're seeing in Washington, D.C. is not "politics as usual" with the arm
twisting and "horse trading" that is typical in getting a bill passed; instead, it is ideological warfare.
What Obama, Reid and Pelosi are doing is not legislating; it is an act of tyranny — overturning all
the rules and principles of government in a representative democracy. ... Apparently Obama, Reid and Pelosi aren't
worried about losing control of Congress in 2010 or even the presidency in 2012, because their higher goal is
to irrevocably institutionalize their ideology.
Who is to blame for Obamacare? Who are the enablers?
Who's to Blame for Obamacare? Two Republicans.
The real culprits are two Republicans who ran the show the previous eight years: George W. Bush and
his "master political strategist" Karl Rove. If it weren't for these two in the White House, the Democrats
wouldn't have sixty senators, including a professional comedian from Minnesota, to close off debate and ram
down our throats a bill worse than Hillary Care.
Behind the
Curtain: Why AARP Supports ObamaCare. When the AARP began its full-throated support for
the President's Health Care Scheme many wondered why this venerable organization would support a plan which
would cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, mostly by putting strict price controls on the very
popular Medicare Advantage program.
Thousands Quit AARP Over
Health Reform. CBS News has learned that up to 60,000 people have cancelled their AARP memberships
since July 1, angered over the group's position on health care. Elaine Guardiani has been with AARP
for 14 years, and said, "I'm extremely disappointed in AARP." Retired nurse Dale Anderson has
12 years with AARP and said, "I don't wanna be connected with AARP."
AARP loses members
over health care stance. About 60,000 senior citizens have quit AARP since July 1 due to the
group's support for a health care overhaul, a spokesman for the organization said Monday [8/18/2009].
GOP Report Charges AARP Getting
"Kickbacks" In Dem Health Care Bills. One of the subplots to the health care debate I've been
following is the cozy relationship between AARP and the Obama administration, as the group has thrown its
full-throated support behind the Democrats' health care push even though their membership comes from the
age group most opposed to Democratic health care proposals. Today, House Republicans have issued a
report providing evidence that AARP is in a position to recieve tens of millions of dollars in "kickbacks"
if Democratic health care legislation becomes law.
Quittin' time. My only
regret about not being a "joiner" is that I don't have many opportunities to quit organizations. I am a
member of AARP, though, and this is looking like the perfect time to quit.
Insurer Gagged, AARP Rewarded.
[Scroll down] To further keep the American people in the dark, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS),
which administer benefits under Medicare, issued what can only be called a gag order after Humana warned its Medicare
Advantage customers in a letter that the president's plan might cause them to lose some benefits.
Don't Trust the
AMA. "I was surprised, shocked, and saddened." That's how Donald J. Palmisano, former
president of the American Medical Association, described his reaction upon learning that the organization had
endorsed the House Democrats' health-care-reform plan. "I am a loyal member of the AMA, a lifetime
member, but I believe the AMA made a serious mistake in endorsing this bill." He's not the only one.
What's Up, Docs? The AMA is
essentially saying that if doctors get paid more, all else is negotiable. Other industry lobbies such as
the insurers and drug makers have made the same calculation, putting their short-term self-interest —
usually ensuring that government programs remain generous (enough) — ahead of the long-run threats.
It can't last.
AMA Doesn't Speak for Most Doctors. The
American Medical Association officially endorsed the Democrats' health reform bill. An eager Barack Obama, of
course, used this endorsement to claim that "doctors" support his healthcare takeover. This misleading statement
plays on the common misperception that the AMA represents some huge block of American physicians. Not true.
In fact, excepting membership given to students and residents in training, the AMA represents only 17-19% of
physicians actually in practice.
Who's
Funding the Obamacare Campaign? If you believe the White House, there are 30 million
Americans who support a government health care takeover. But if you look at the funding behind the
Obamacare campaign, it's the same few leftist billionaires, union bosses and partisan community organizers
pushing the socialized medicine agenda. Let's connect the dots.
Are We Ready for Soros Care? Most of Barack
Obama's stated plans for America are indistinguishable from those of George Soros. As the left forces nationalized
health care on us, we may want to consider the George Soros funded Project on Death in America.
Why the AMA Wants
to Muzzle Your Doctor. The American Medical Association (AMA) is putting the doctors of America
on notice. A major cheerleader for ObamaCare, the organization is now trying to silence doctors who
oppose it. It is time the American people understood what the AMA is really all about. ... The AMA was
not only a major supporter of ObamaCare but also an accomplice in its passage. Without the support of
the AMA it is quite possible that the health-care reform initiative would have failed.
Obamacare will affect families and small businesses
The Ministry of Wellness.
As a restaurateur, I've been following the heath care debate especially attentively. I have already
determined that the health care bill, if passed, will cause a significant reduction in our net
profits — depending on how many employees we can shed. After reading the fifty or so pages of
the Senate "Affordable Health Choices Act" devoted to "Employers' Responsibilities," I still have no idea
whether my businesses are "small" or "large" — but I am pretty sure that it will cost me $100-$150 a
month in bookkeeping, accounting, and payroll service fees just to find out.
The Three-Step Plan to Stop Nationalized Health Care.
Congressional Democrats, after all their faux wrangling, open bribery and bully tactics, are poised to reach
agreement on a massive makeover of the American health system. This makeover will bankrupt the insurance
companies, raise premiums, and eventually lead to the full nationalization of health care. That's what it
is intended to do.
Merry Christmas: Obamacare Slaps $15,000 Annual
Fee on Middle Class Families. The Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the final Senate
health care bill indicates it would slap a mandatory annual fee of about $15,000 on middle-class families
that earn an annual income greater than 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($88,200 for a family
of four) and are not provided with health insurance by their employer.
Repeal Obamacare: Small-Business Killer.
The average small-business owner spends about 12 hours filing his taxes each year. Thanks to one of
Obamacare's oft-overlooked provisions, that figure will soon increase exponentially. The new law requires
all businesses to submit 1099 tax forms to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for each vendor from which they
purchase more than $600 in goods in a year. Business owners will now have to keep receipts and file forms
for every trip to the coffee shop, the local lunch spot, and the office supply store. After all, those
$3 lattes each day add up.
The Obamacare bill is over 2,000 pages long. Who knows what's hidden inside?
Obamacare's
Avalanche of Paperwork. Pres. Barack Obama promised Americans "health-care reform." So far,
"health-care form" is more like it. Obamacare is devolving into the Paper Industry Salvation Act of 2010.
This new law spans 2,562 tree-killing pages. Far worse, it will force Americans to spend countless irritating
hours completing, transmitting, and filing endless reams of federal paperwork.
I'm from the Government,
and I'm Here for Your BMI. While the Stimulus Bill requires that the government have access to
your Electronic Health Record (EHR) by 2014, it only vaguely defines what the government will do with this
information. Herein lies the danger. Vaguely defined power in new laws always leads to broad
interpretation of power by the government.
Read The Fine Print.
[Scroll down] Greg Scandlen, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, says due to a little-known legal
concept the entire law would unravel if a single part was found to be outside the Constitution. "Apparently
there was no 'severability' clause written into this law, which shows how amateurish the process was," he wrote.
"Virtually every bill I've ever read includes a provision that if any part of the law is ruled unconstitutional
the rest of the law will remain intact. Not this one. That will likely mean that the entire law will
be thrown out if a part of it is found to violate the Constitution." No argument from us. The bill
writers and lawmakers who voted for it without reading it were unprofessional.
Health Reform Doesn't Have To Be
So Hard. The fundamental problem with the 2,074-page Senate health care bill (as with its
2,014-page House counterpart) is that it wildly compounds the complexity by adding hundreds of new
provisions, regulations, mandates, committees and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions. Worse,
they're packed into a monstrous package without any regard to each other. The only thing linking these
changes — such as the 118 new boards, commissions and programs — is political
expediency. Each must be able to garner just enough votes to pass. There isn't even a
pretense of a unifying vision or conceptual harmony.
Constitution in decline.
It's time to reform our administrative state. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was right when she said Congress
would have to "pass the health care bill so you can find out what's in it." That's because the
health care bill, like most major laws passed by Congress over the past hundred years, isn't really a law.
Rather, Obamacare is a series of assignments to bureaucrats in the Department of Health and Human Services.
It is emblematic of what scholars call the administrative state, where legislative, executive and judicial powers
are delegated to unaccountable experts sequestered in a fourth branch of government.
Health care
law's massive, hidden tax change. An all-but-overlooked provision of the health reform law is
threatening to swamp U.S. businesses with a flood of new tax paperwork. Section 9006 of the health care
bill — just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document — mandates that beginning in
2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract workers but to any individual or
corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year.
CLASS(less). Those of us who are
taking Nancy Pelosi's advice to "find out" what's in the healthcare bill are coming to realize that the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act is badly misnamed. As I leaf through the pages of this law, I can see the
dollars flying off nearly every page. One of its many potential fiscal nightmares is contained in Title VIII
of the law, the CLASS Act.
Pelosi
was right about one thing. Several weeks ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the health care bill had
to be passed so "you can know what's in it." Conservatives pounced on the opportunity to hammer
her, and the clip soon became a laughingstock. Well, it turns out Pelosi was right — we did
have to pass the bill to find out what was in it.
House health bill clocks in at 1,990
pages. It runs more pages than War and Peace, has nearly five times as many words as the
Torah, and its tables of contents alone run far longer than this story. The House health care bill
unveiled Thursday [10/29/2009] clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. With an estimated
10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word.
Masterfleece
Theater. The King James version of the Bible runs more than 600 pages and is crammed with
celestial regulations. Isaac Newton's "Principia Mathematica" distills many of the rules of physics in
a mere 974 pages. Neither of them has anything on Nancy Pelosi's new fiendishly entertaining
health care opus, which tops 1,900 pages.
House
Republicans Find 111 New 'Bureaucracies' in Health Care Bill. House Republicans claimed Monday
[11/02/2009] that the health care reform bill pushed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi would create a whopping 111 new
"federal bureaucracies." In its latest attempt to portray the Democrats' reform package as an unwieldy
expansion of federal government in the health care sector, the House Republican Conference circulated what it
called a list of "new boards, bureaucracies, commissions and programs" created in the House health care bill.
Connect the Dots on
ObamaCare. Critics of those who have exposed ObamCare's contradictions and incoherencies are
either unwilling to connect the dots or too stubborn (dare I say stupid) to acknowledge what the dots really
mean. Connecting the dots in this case doesn't require unusual skills, much less a background in symbolic
logic, merely perseverance in reading the text of HR 3200. Let's start with Sec 123, the formation
of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee, and Sec 124, the creation of the Health Choices Administration
and Health Choices Commissioner.
Health Care Reform
Vaporizes Obama Presidency. In the fledgling days of the personal computer industry, software
vendors frequently announced products that were not yet ready for release. The term "vaporware" was coined
to describe such software. Most of these products never reached the marketplace; some that were sold to
the public should not have been.
The
Dog That Was Not Allowed To Bark. On November 7th, 2009, Speaker Pelosi marched to the podium
and paraded her lap dogs to the microphone to proclaim "Victory" for herself, her Democratic House colleagues,
and President Obama. What about every other American? The "Victory" was the passage of the second
part of ObamaCare, "The Health Care Bill." That's right, the second part of ObamaCare is the 1,990 page
bill that created 118 new boards, commissions, offices and bureaus.
159 Big Spending, Big Government Features
of Obamacare: When Obama says that his Obamacare healthcare plan isn't a big government
take over of healthcare he really is simply lying outright to the nation. ... Here is [part of] a list of
159 new programs, administrative boards, and bureaucracies that the Democrat Party's healthcare bill creates:
[#50] Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women's Health (Section 3509(a), p. 1098)
[#51] Centers for Disease Control Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(b), p. 1102)
[#52] Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(e), p. 1105)
[#53] Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(f), p. 1106)
[#54] Food and Drug Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(g), p. 1109)
[#55] National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council (Section 4001, p. 1114)
[#56] Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public
Health (Section 4001(f), p. 1117)
[#57] Prevention and Public Health Fund (Section 4002, p. 1121)
[#58] Community Preventive Services Task Force (Section 4003(b), p. 1126)
That Other
Government Takeover. Everyone knows Democrats are planning to use the budget reconciliation
process to get ObamaCare through the Senate. Less well known is that Democrats are plotting add-ons to
that bill to get other liberal priorities enacted — programs that could never attract 60 votes.
One of these controversial measures rewrites the Higher Education Act to ban private companies from offering
federally guaranteed student loans as of this July.
Searching for Core
Beliefs. For those who have not heard, beginning July 1, student loans will no longer be
administered by banks. Instead, they will be issued directly by the federal government via the U.S.
Department of Education. Tellingly, Obama used the same line of argument when pushing for health care
reform. There, too, he argued that government takeover will save money. Such assertions are
obviously absurd. To see why, we need only to ask this question: When has any government-run
program saved money?
Obama's Costly Student Loan Takeover.
Obama and his statist allies in Congress attached this bill to the healthcare legislation. Now, with the
stroke of his pen, Mr. Obama has taken the 15 million college students who chose from 2,000 lenders for
their loans, and dumped them into the Department of Education, which will process future loans by means of four
call centers. This will be about as friendly and personal as standing in line to get a driver's license.
We don't need to
pass health care reform to find out what's in it. As you can see, the Senate's Christmas Eve Bill
originated in the House satisfying the Constitutional imperative that tax bills originate there and it gets them
around the ex post facto provision of the Constitution; you and I will be retroactively responsible for
paying the taxes on Obamacare from the January 1 of 2010. (Perhaps, as far back as 1/1/2009.)
Obamacare's
subsidy for the sexually depraved. Senate Democrats voted almost unanimously Wednesday night to
ensure the right of rapists and child molesters to have guaranteed access to government-subsidized Viagra
under the president's health care plan. Only Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana broke ranks with his Democratic
colleagues.
Dems Subsidize Prescription-Strength Sex-Enhancement Medication For
Child Rapists. Last night [3/24/2010], Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voted in favor of
allowing the federal government to subsidize Viagra for child molesters. So did fifty-six of Reid's
Democratic colleagues, including Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Arlen Specter (Penn.) Blanche Lincoln (Ark.).
and others facing tough re-election challenges this November.
Obamacare Dystopia.
[Scroll down] In one of a bazillion little clauses in a 2,000-page bill your legislators didn't bother
reading (because, as Representative Conyers explained, he wouldn't understand it even if he did), Congress
voted to subject the 28 percent tax benefit to the regular, good, ol', American-as-apple-pie corporate tax
rate of 35 percent. For the purposes of comparison, Sweden's corporate tax rate is 26.3 percent,
and Ireland's is 12.5 percent. But just because America already has the second-highest corporate tax
in the OECD is no reason why we can't keep going until it's double Sweden's and quadruple Ireland's.
Little-Known
Health Care Law Provision Is a Budget Buster, Critics Say. While Congress spent the last year
debating how to provide health insurance for the uninsured, a little-known provision slipped into the heath
care law that could cost some Americans upwards of $2,000 a year.
The Beginning of USA Disarmament.
Page 1312 of the now signed-into-law Senate version of ObamaCare provides for funding of Obama's private
militia referred to as "Establishing a Ready Reserve Corps" Sec. 5210. This "Corps" is given
broad powers to control the US citizenry. [In addition,] All Student College Loans are taken from the
private sector and placed in the hands of the ObamaGov. The better to fully indoctrinate young minds into
totalitarianism — only. No dissenting opinions will be allowed and this time it's mandated by
Obama & Co. Did you know that this is also included in ObamaCare?
Dems likely didn't read the bill before passing and signing it.
As the president has yet to admit, the health care reform bill does not prevent insurance companies from
excluding children with pre-existing conditions. HotAir's Ed Morrissey points out a release from the
Senate Republican Conference that showing a number of other omissions as well. Is it possible that
the president hasn't read his own bill?
Alexander:
Obama's 'Soviet-Style' Takeover of Student Loans. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), the U.S.
secretary of education from 1991 to 1993, tells National Review Online that President Obama's revamping of
the federal student-loan program is "truly brazen" and the "most underreported big-Washington takeover in
history." "As Americans find out what it really does, they'll be really unhappy," Alexander predicts.
"The first really unhappy people will be the 19 million students who, after July 1, will have no
choice but to go to federal call centers to get their student loans.
Robbing
Peter to pay Paul's health care. Obamacare is a socialist law designed to take money from some
Americans and use it to benefit others. The health care bill signed into law by President Obama is full
of hidden time bombs. One costly provision buried in the lengthy reconciliation bill at the last minute
has taxpayers covering long-term at-home care for the elderly. Through the so-called Community Living
Assistance Services and Support Act (CLASS Act), Americans will find between $150 and $250 taken out of their
paychecks each month to cover this program nobody knew about.
We Still Don't Know What's
In It. Nancy Pelosi promised, after all, that if we passed [Obamacare], we'd find out what
was in it. Well, this is what comes of racing through a largely secretive legislative process.
[Bill] McGurn explains "one of the murkiest bits of this legislation"...
What The "Affordable Health Care For America Act"
Actually Says: In many ways the bill is a convoluted, uncoordinated list of compromises between
thousand of legislators, legislative aides, and lobbyists. Yet the bill has two main thrusts, with one
central meaning. The first thrust is a massive increase in government power. The second is the
total rejection of the free market. The central meaning of both is the repudiation of individual
rights. No longer will Americans have the liberty to preserve their own lives in the way they judge
best[. F]rom now on, they will have to conform to government controls on the most intimate details
of their lives.
Pelosi passed it, and we just keep finding out what's in it.
Jon Ward at The Daily Caller unearths a great story from the voluminous health care reform bill that Congress just
passed. ["]Tucked away on page 466 of President Obama's 2,704-page health-care bill is a provision that
changes the definition of 'medical assistance,' the term describing what states are required to provide to Medicaid
recipients.["] The bottom line is that lawsuits against states will proliferate and probably force them to
hike Medicaid reimbursements to levels they cannot afford.
Note
to Doctors: Now I'm "Entitled" To Your Services. [Scroll down] But thinking about
this situation more broadly, one has to ask "what is fair?" ... Is it "fair" that Barack Obama and Joe Biden
and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and every elected member of Congress and their respective staff members and
members of the United Auto Worker's union are all exempt from the heavy handed mandates of Obamacare, while
the mandates are imposed on the millions of the rest of us? Is this the "change" we were "hoping" for?
Five
things we learned about Obamacare after it passed. [#1] Despite all of Obama's promises
and talking points, Obamacare as passed by Congress does not require insurers to cover children with expensive
pre-existing medical conditions. Immediately, the White House got an assurance from the insurers.
After demonizing them for months as callous profiteers on others' misery (in fact, the entire industry is
barely profitable), Obama now tells Americans that they can trust health insurance companies to do the right
thing out of the goodness of their hearts.
Obama's private army? [Scroll
down slowly] It's hard to see how such a civilian security force under the direct control of the President
might be justified, in view of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This law prohibits the federal government
from using federal troops for law enforcement purposes within the United States. ... Language in Obamacare
seems to remove this prohibition.
ObamaCare
Whets Lawyers' Appetites. It turns out the Democrats tucked away a little gift for one of
their biggest constituencies, the trial lawyers, in Section 2304 of the new health care law. It
alters the section of the U.S. code that defines what "medical assistance" means for state government
health care programs, including Medicaid. That leaves states open to far more liability.
ObamaCare's Key to the
Kingdom: The enacting legislation of ObamaCare creates a Disney World for micro-managers and
other assorted scolds. But in Title V of the bill, we find the key to the Magic Kingdom, or at least
the kingdom's treasury. Under the heading of "Health Care Workforce," this section lays out the infrastructure
for a single-payer system, while plowing fertile ground for a perpetual left-wing voting majority.
ObamaCare High School:
Reading, Writing, and Suicide Assistance? Some years ago, I was speaking to a Nebraska state senator
after testifying on a pending bill. I had explained that I wasn't saying that the bill would be
interpreted in a certain way, only that it could be. Then he said something I've never forgotten.
"Be assured that if a law can be interpreted in a certain way, it will be — by
someone. And it will all be perfectly legal."
Oops,
we did that? More health care surprises. The partisans on the left who preach with
certainty about the effects of the new health care law — it will reduce the federal deficit; it
will allow you to keep your current coverage; it will lower premiums — speak from ignorance.
No one really knows what the bill will do, including the members of Congress who voted for it.
Stealth IRS changes mean
millions of new tax forms. The massive expansion of requirements for businesses to file 1099
tax forms that was hidden in the 2,409-page health reform bill took many by surprise when it came to light
last month. But it's just one piece of a years-long legislative stealth campaign to create ways for
the federal government to track down unreported income.
Obamacare at Three Months. On
the 100 day anniversary that Obamacare became law, which was Wednesday [7/7/2010], Senators Coburn and Barrasso passed
around a memo reminding folks that the law isn't actually good for America: Fact [#1]: Sixteen
million Americans are forced into Medicaid — a program that denies care, has higher rates of infant
mortality, and yields poorer health outcomes for patients. Fact [#2]: Citizens will be forced to
purchase costlier health insurance or pay a tax, but illegal immigrants will continue to get free care and
those costs will be shifted onto citizens.
The
Bitter Fruit of Obamacare. Get ready for your life to change. The so-called benefits of
ObamaCare don't start until 2014, but the tax increases, misallocated resources and federal regulations start
now. Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said the night of ObamCare's passage, "We have to pass the bill so
that you can find out what is in it." The emerging picture is frightening.

ObamaCare:
A Tangled Knot Around America's Throat. Those who wondered what was in the health care overhaul
bill now have a chance to look inside. What they see is a snarl of lines, arrows and geometric shapes
that will do nothing to improve medical care.
Obamacare
Only Looks Worse Upon Further Review. One of the more illuminating remarks during the health-care
debate in Congress came when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told an audience that Democrats would "pass the bill
so you can find out what's in it, away from the fog of controversy." That remark captured the truth that,
while many Americans have a vague sense that something bad is happening to their health care, few if any
understand exactly what the law does.
Dismantling
America: Part II. "We the people" are the central concern of the Constitution, as well as
its opening words, since it is a Constitution for a self-governing nation. But "we the people" are
treated as an obstacle to circumvent by the current administration in Washington. One way of
circumventing the people is to rush legislation through Congress so fast that no one knows what is buried
in it. Did you know that the so-called health care reform bill contained a provision creating
a tax on people who buy and sell gold coins?
The coming investigation
into Obamacare. The hallmark of the administration's political bribery and graft is, of course,
the so-called Obamacare legislation — legislation that contains 2,841 pages, includes some 2,200
references to the new role of the Health and Human Services (HHS) czar, and creates 600 new authorities
that CANNOT be challenged, 150 new bureaucracies and boards interposing between doctors and patients, and
17 new mandates governing insurance companies. Also slapped onto Obamacare, as you will recall, is
the unilateral takeover of the entire private student loan industry.
Obamacare's Bureaucracy
Nightmare. Even before a single-payer system could evolve, ObamaCare has the potential to
topple from bureaucratic overload. Uncountable unelected and untested bureaucrats will be making
life-affecting decisions. At this stage, not even experts who have pored over the 2,000-plus-word law
know how many bureaucracies are hidden away in the ObamaCare statute.
Does Obamacare include blanket amnesty for illegal aliens?
Obama Won't Give Federal Insurance Benefits to Illegal Aliens,
He'll Make Them Legal First. It is true that both the House and Senate health care bills as they are now
drafted would make illegal aliens ineligible for federally funded health care. But President Obama has stated as
recently as last month at a press conference in Mexico that he will seek "comprehensive immigration reform" legislation
that will put illegal aliens on a "pathway to citizenship."
The
"Myth" that Health Care Reform Won't Cover Illegal Aliens, Is Itself a Myth. Nowhere does
H.R. 3200 say that illegal aliens are ineligible to enroll in the proposed "public option." To the
contrary, Section 202 provides that "all individuals" are eligible for benefits offered through the
government exchange unless they are enrolled in another health insurance plan.
Obamacare
for Illegal Aliens. Big Nanny Democrats want to ration health care for everyone in
America — except those who break our immigration laws. Last week, the House Ways and Means
Committee defeated an amendment that would have prevented illegal aliens from using the so-called "public
health insurance option." Every Democrat on the panel voted against the measure.
Illegal immigrants already
put a strain on America's health care system..
Healthcare
Crusaders Out To Plunder System. Since Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, proponents of
socialized medicine have bombarded us with nonstop demagoguery about the 40 million-plus uninsured to
create a crisis mentality sufficient to catalyze sweeping "reforms." Their efforts didn't stand much of
a chance until the advent of the pseudo-crisis-exploiting administration of President Barack Obama, which
never met a "crisis" it couldn't leverage.
Government Medical Care Always Becomes Political Medical Care.
Americans did not invent democracy. What America rightly did, for the first time in history, was institutionalize the
concept of limited government — based not on majority rule, but on individual rights. Sadly, this
foundation is not properly recognized and is rapidly giving way to an ever-expanding government.
Those who say that
government should seize control of all of our medical care are ultimately advocating the elimination of all restraint on
government.
Truth Is A Casualty Of The Final
Push. [Quoting President Obama] "By the time the vote has taken place ... you'll know what's in it
because it's going to be posted and everybody's going to be able to evaluate it on the merits." The
final bill wouldn't available to the public until Saturday morning [3/20/2010], the day before the vote,
congressional sources told us Friday. So in fact, nobody would have time to digest the 2,500-page
leviathan.
Obamacare is Hillarycare in a new wrapper
Reading the Bill...
The White House has pointedly refused to say whether President Obama will read the 1,000+ page health care
bill — HR 3200 — now pending before the House of Representatives. ... The language
may seem innocuous, but Sec 1866D actually describes the plan for American health care that was
first proposed as HR 3600 in 1993 and known as HillaryCare.
Never Seen The Left So Out-Of-Control
Desperate. Try looking at this health care debate from the Democrat perspective. It has been
a Democrat dream for decades to control the nation's health care delivery system. They thought they had it
made in 1993 after Clinton's defeat of George H.W. Bush. Hillary got to work and created a monstrosity
of a plan for government control of our health care, and it died a well-deserved and rather painful death.
Within a year the Republicans had control of the House and the Senate.
Obama
to America: Bend Over and Cough. [Scroll down] Eighty-five percent of Americans have
health insurance, and 89 percent of them are satisfied with it. This poses a problem for "reform."
MSNBC's Chris Matthews once wrote that because HillaryCare failed to calm the satisfied, it collapsed.
"People," said Matthews, "saw their hard-won benefits and options being siphoned off to fund the health needs
of all comers. Instead of securing the health care of the 'working family,' Hillary Clinton was offering
'universal coverage' for those who didn't work, financed by those who did. It was an offer people were
eager and quick to refuse."
Did
someone mention Hillarycare?
Other objections to Obamacare
The Strange Case of the
Obama Meltdown. Who made the following decisions? [1] to propose a 1,000 page bill that no one had read,
much less could explain?; [2] to ram down the greatest change in the US economy in fifty years by the August
recess?; [3] to talk loosely of the "uninsured" without knowing why they were not insured, how much it would
cost to insure them, or whether they currently in fact find some sort of care?; [4] to reference Rahm Emanuel's
doctor brother as a source of wisdom? [5] to demonize the health-care industry as greedy?
On being ruled by fanatics:
The looming ObamaCare fiasco is a classic example of a public policy plan that has never been weighed against the
alternatives. Even liberal economists are saying it. Any consistent reader of the Wall Street
Journal knows more about healthcare options than the Obama administration's "experts" do.
Obama's Health
Care Mess. Health care is stalled and insidiously undermining the presidency of Obama precisely
because the public senses he has not leveled with the American people. Of the uninsured, how many millions
are young people who feel no need right now to buy insurance, how many million are illegal aliens, how many
millions chose to use their optional income for things other than a low-cost catastrophic health plan, how
many millions still find care outside the insurance system? Nor do most Americans feel their system
is broken.
ObamaCare as a Moral Clunker. Though
a relevant consideration, cost is among the least of ObamaCare's problems. Leading the argument against ObamaCare
with cost considerations sells the American people short and betrays a moral insecurity that, if not addressed, will cause
some future form of ObamaCare to sneak in — if not now, in the not very distant future.
Obama's Health Expert Gets Political.
President Barack Obama's health-care plan is in jeopardy because of serious concerns that costs will spin out of
control. As much as anyone, it's White House budget director Peter Orszag's job to save it. Mr. Orszag
is the administration's point man for controlling health-care spending. So when the director of the Congressional
Budget Office, which Mr. Orszag used to run, testified eight days ago that none of the health plans pending on Capitol
Hill would control long-term spending, Mr. Orszag knew that meant trouble.
Politicans, Heal Thyselves!
If Democrats in Washington think their health care reform with a public option is a good thing, why have they exempted
themselves from it? Why isn't what's good for their constituents good for them?
A Cancer In The Capitol Is Killing Us.
Hillary Clinton fractured her elbow on Wednesday and was scheduled for surgery in less than 48 hours.
As a primary sponsor and advocate of nationalized, government run healthcare, shouldn't Clinton have had to
wait a year before surgery — just as she wants the rest of us to do? Apparently, the
conditions of nationalized healthcare shouldn't apply to the royal members of Congress, government employees,
or their gay partners. Those programs apply only to the commoners who pay their salaries.
The
Marriage Penalty in Health Care. Hidden in Obama's health care bill is a huge marriage penalty.
Both the Senate and House bills would set up yet another federal program to provide financial incentives to
subsidize marriage avoidance and illegitimate offspring.
Political plunder —
again. If President Obama and Congress have their way with the so-called health reform bill, the
American people will have had their pocketbooks and liberties plundered once again. The basic purpose of
government is to protect individuals and their property and to ensure their liberties. However, Congress
and most other legislative bodies spend the bulk of their time doing just the opposite.
These are the good old days, Part Two.
A friend and occasional Power Line contributor writes: "If [Obamacare] passes, the Dems will own every
doctor complaint out there. Moreover, the complaints will multiply, and not just because care will
deteriorate as demand increases and supply decreases."
Obamacare's Biggest Losers:
A recent study by the Urban Institute, a prominent liberal think tank, lists "the biggest losers" should congressional
health care legislation fail to become law. Interestingly enough, this is oddly similar to an earlier
Heritage Foundation assessment of the "biggest losers" — if the liberal bills do become law.
16,500
more IRS agents needed to enforce Obamacare. New tax mandates and penalties included in
Obamacare will cause the greatest expansion of the Internal Revenue Service since World War II, according
to a release from Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.
Obamacare's Hit Man.
Last week the Congressional Budget Office reported that it expects that the Internal Revenue Service and the
Department of Health and Human Services will spend up to an additional $200 billion over the next decade
on administering Obamacare. That's in addition to the estimated $1 trillion that will be spent in
2014-2019 under the new healthcare law. Much of the money will go to hiring hundreds of thousands
of bureaucrats to administer Obamacare over the next decade.
A Bigger,
Badder IRS: Brought to You by Obamacare. [Scroll down] And why is this tax
reporting stuff even in a health-care bill? To help fund it, that's why. To help Pelosi and
Reid and Obama get the faux deficit score they needed, the measure is expected to raise $13.7 billion
over ten years — though that's before administrative and discretionary costs, which will add
another $115 billion or so to the bill's official price tag. Pass the bill to find out what's
in it.
Democrats Have
Painted Themselves into a Corner. The president has staked his entire administration on
getting his Health Care Reform Bill passed. If it fails, he fails. The United States will
then be shown to have a hollow leader, and the whole world — Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, and every dictator and drug lord from here to Marrakech — will know it. By
postponing his trip to Asia, first for three days, then for three months, in order to twist arms
and get HCR chiseled in stone, President Obama put his entire presidency on the line. He
has no plan "B."
Will America break
up? President Obama is splintering America. The passage of Obamacare was a historic
victory for liberal governance. Yet, its true cost may be that it triggers the eventual breakup of
the country.
Healthcare Sends America Down The Path of
Tyranny. The beginning of Spring 2010 marks an historic moment in American history:
A nation organized as a republic is being transformed into a tyranny. The healthcare bill that has
been bruited over for weeks will be law of the land giving Washington, D.C., control of one-seventh of the
national economy. More significantly, this act violates the Constitution in several critical ways.
Repeal, Replace, Rinse,
Repeat. It is a sad fact that repeal of ObamaCare will be a long, laborious process that is
going to take at least two and perhaps three election cycles to achieve. The Republicans must win the
kinds of majorities enjoyed today by the Democrats at the ballot box, while electing a president willing to
sign a repeal measure in 2012. That's a tall order.
The Unbreakable Theory That Shall Doom ObamaCare in Short Order.
Today's Democrats rail against the evil insurance companies and their profits, and once again pretend to
champion the little guy. This time it's medical care, not gasoline, that will be in short supply.
The new bill will have a significant impact on seniors, since cuts to Medicare and Medicare Advantage are a
large part of the plan's advertised savings, and that means more doctors will be opting out as the cost of
everything medical skyrockets.
ObamaCare,
Castro, and the Future of our Health Care. As the Obama administration and its supporters
cheer the passage of ObamaCare — the disastrous health care bill pushed through both houses
of Congress by stealth, sleazy deals and perhaps unconstitutional measures — President Obama
has received congratulations on the accomplishment from a most unlikely source who should know what
America's health care system is likely to look like in the near future — Fidel Castro.
A Declaration of
War. It wasn't just that the House of Representatives had ignored the will of the majority
of citizens in voting for the so called "health care overhaul." It was the implications behind the
act; that "they know better than we do" and that we have to take our bad tasting medicine because we will
like what it does for us in the end. ... Imagine America re-instituting slavery, but this time it is more
than 99 percent of the population that is to be enslaved for the pleasure and power of a tiny minority
of self-appointed elites.
Deere (And Others) In The
Headlights. As major businesses lay out the impact of ObamaCare in dollars and jobs, two
things are clear: the costs will be enormous, and the president's vow to focus on "jobs, jobs, jobs"
can no longer be believed.
The courts
can stop Obamacare. Even if Republicans take over Congress in November, they'll probably
lack the numbers required to repeal Obamacare over the veto of its namesake. In the short run, then,
the only way to fight this massive expansion of federal government is through the courts. If the
Supreme Court dares to rule the legislation unconstitutional, there will be cries from the liberals of
judicial activism and political bias. Nothing, however, would be further from the truth.
Democratic
Senator: Health Care Law to Address 'Mal-Distribution of Income'. After the Senate passed
a "fix-it" bill Thursday [3/25/2010] to make changes to the new health care law, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman
of the influential Finance Committee, said the overhaul was an "income shift" to help the poor.
Democrats Try to Smother the Bad
News. As I've noted during the week, the ObamaCare steamroller is already flattening the bottom
lines of a number of large employers. Not content to see billions of losses pile up, the Democrats have now
begun to berate employers for accurately accounting for the anticipated losses.
ATT, Verizon, Deere, Caterpillar Suffer Bloody Billion Dollar
Bill. For those who played by the rules, worked hard, did the right thing —
you're screwed, the man has you and your wallet and your kids' wallet by the throat. Welcome to the era
of the degenerate — they will be sucking your blood and your children's blood and your children's
children's blood for decades to come, or however long America lasts.
Why
now? If more than 80 percent of Americans are satisfied with their current health care coverage, and
if they don't want to lose that coverage, why pass this bill now? If the top issue on Americans' minds is the
economy, and if the economy shows signs of a possible double-dip recession, why pass this bill now? If
President Obama said just two months ago that "...jobs must be our number one focus in 2010," why pass this
bill now?
House Republicans press Sebelius on 'numerous' missed deadlines under
Obama health-care law. Key Republican lawmakers are pressing President Obama's top health-care
official for answers on why the administration has missed "numerous" early deadlines in implementing Obamacare.
The missed deadlines "are some of the most basic provisions of this law," the June 16 letter says, the
administration's "failure to meet these deadlines does not bode well for the [law's] more complicated provisions."
The Coming Obamanomics
Disaster. Barack Obama's tax plan is going to further impoverish Americans. ... Reaganomics left
more money in taxpayers' hands and American businesses thrived. Obamanomics isn't good for American business,
and it isn't good for American taxpayers. So who is it good for?
The
SEIU's Friendly Inquisitor. Carole Jean Badertscher was a California nurse who just wanted
to go to work and take care of her patients — but the SEIU was determined not to let that
happen. The union's contract with Badertscher's employer, the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center,
had expired, and the union had called a strike in response. Badertscher and other nurses, unwilling to
abandon their patients for the sake of a stronger SEIU hand in contract negotiations, resigned from the
union and went to work.
The Editor says...
When Obamacare gets rolling, expect to see more unionized nurses and more labor union attitude
at your neighborhood hospital.
Paying for
hope with your change. In the modern era, all presidents have to some degree used their office
to promote themselves and their policies. The Obama administration, however, has taken the practice to
new heights. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last month unveiled a slick, $700,000
television commercial featuring crusty old actor Andy Griffith announcing that "more good things" are coming
to seniors — thanks to Obamacare. Just add the O Force campaign logo, and the
advertisement will be ready for use in the 2012 presidential race.
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