Obamacare: Mandatory Socialized Medicine

Obamacare
Mandatory Socialized Medicine

Note: You might want to start at the Obamacare Index Page, especially if you arrived here by using a search engine.

Obamacare is a giant step in the direction of socialism. Dealing with doctors and insurance companies can be a pain in the neck, but even if the government could run the system better and cheaper than private companies, which it can't, such a solution is not worth forfeiting our freedom.

Subsections:

Obamacare is socialism -- or worse!

Obamacare opens the door to tyranny.

The Senate bill includes an unprecedented trap: It can't be repealed!

Obamacare is socialism -- or worse!

The individual mandate is the key to Obamacare. The individual mandate was a carefully negotiated and surprisingly incisive bit of the sausage-making. The government knew that insurance companies, if required to cover everyone regardless of their state of health or lifestyle, would be forced out of business. ... The government's intentions were clear: the law is entirely reliant on the requirement that Americans spend their discretionary dollars on an insurance product, whether they want one or not. Without the mandate, the law would be gutted.

Government without limit is a hallmark of Obamacare. The commerce clause originally was intended to eliminate the interstate trade barriers that existed under the Articles of Confederation. Yet since the New Deal — at least up until the time of Chief Justice William Rehnquist — it has been expanded upon so that it has given license to almost anything a congressional majority has wanted. A congressional majority even was permitted by the Supreme Court to prohibit a farmer from growing on his own farm wheat for his own consumption. Now along comes Judge Vinson arguing that the commerce clause applies only to "clear and inarguable activity," not clear and inarguable inactivity.

Obamacare is a government takeover. Calling Obamacare a government takeover of health care is the "lie of the year," according to the self-proclaimed oracle of all things true and untrue in the political debate. That outrageous proclamation from PolitiFact shows that its editors need a Truth-O-Meter of their own. Obamacare is a uniquely American government takeover of health care. Its 2,801 pages of legislation and insidious regulatory structure give the Secretary of Health and Human Services almost unlimited authority to rule over every corner of our health sector.

Obama Prepares to Impose Price Controls. Thin-skinned, vain, prone to seeing conspiracies — Barack Obama now broadens his Richard Nixon impersonation with the imposition of price controls. Obamacare is the gift that keeps on giving — giving us higher real taxes, a bigger deficit, a bloated federal state, and now, if past is prologue, significantly lower quality and less innovation in the field of health care. As some of the smarter critics predicted, Obamacare, [ugly] as it was in legislative form, is turning into a real beast in the hands of the executive-branch geniuses charged with implementing it and dreaming up the new regulations to make that possible.

Stealth Socialism. Under the scheme envisioned by ObamaCare, in which insurers would be obliged to cover all comers, a medical policy would no longer be insurance — that is, a contract to indemnify the policyholder against risk. It would instead be, as [Justice Department lawyer Ian] Gershengorn describes it, a "financing mechanism" for medical services. As Suderman points out, because participation would be mandatory, the "premium," and not just the penalty for failure to pay it, would effectively be a tax.

Barack Obama: Welfare King. ObamaCare is supposed to help about 32 million uninsured Americans get health coverage. Half of those will get it through Medicaid, a means-tested entitlement program. Folks, Medicaid is welfare. Democrats want to put 16 million more Americans on the welfare rolls through Medicaid — and they think that's a good thing!

On liberty and legal plunder: It's not socialism. It's just an "income shift" from the rich to the poor. At least, that's what Montana's Sen. Max Baucus called it on the Senate floor — adding that the health-care bill passed by Congress "will have the effect of addressing [the] mal-distribution of income in America."

Origin and Rise of Compulsory Medicine. It is a fact, and a very remarkable one, that the great demagogues of our age appear to be greatly worried about the health of their subjects. No one was more so than Adolf Hitler. ... As a committee report on health insurance of the Canadian House of Commons put it (March 16, 1943): "During the early years of Hitler's regime, the government's medical program was looked upon by many observers as one of the greatest props of the totalitarian state."

ObamaCare's redistribution of health. New projections from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid paint a stark picture of the impact of the ObamaCare law: We're in for a massive redistribution of health resources.

ObamaCare: An Unmitigated Disaster. Americans are learning that ObamaCare will pile on insurmountable debt and cause government to encroach on every area of our lives. ObamaCare is, as Yuval Levin said, an "unmitigated disaster — for our health care system, for our fiscal future, and for any notion of limited government." And the more we learn about the specific provisions, the more we discover that the bill does not reflect our values — faith, family and freedom — nor does it strengthen those principles that are the foundation of a great nation.

NYT/CBS Poll: 52% Say Obama Moving America Towards Socialism. A New York Times/CBS News poll found that a majority of Americans, 52 percent, think the policies of President Barack Obama are moving the United States toward socialism. Published April 14, the poll surveyed the political, racial, and social opinions of both the general pubic and self-described members of the tea party movement.

States Need to Protect Us from ObamaCare. [Scroll down] It should be painfully obvious that the current reforms are not intended to provide additional access; "ObamaCare quality" will become an oxymoron. The financial demise of hospitals and insurance companies is likely [to] take less than three years, making them eligible for "bailouts." Surely we have learned by now that any move to control a system, while termed "bailout," is in actuality a "takeover." This mechanism was used in the General Motors and Chrysler bailouts: The federal government and the unions now control those corporations. In health care, insurance companies, like the automobile bondholders, will be dumped, and the hospitals will by necessity be globally budgeted by government. None of this is accidental.

ObamaCare: Just Another Way to "Spread the Wealth Around". If the health care overhaul proves anything, it's that the President's zeal for "spreading the wealth around" continues unabated. Sure, the President sought to sell the program based on its purported health care merits and deficit-reducing properties (both laughable propositions). But in the days after the legislation was passed by Democrats over the expressed wishes of the American people, several Democrat politicians have indulged in frank admissions of the bill's real effect: Income redistribution.

Congress Becomes Madison's "Overbearing Majority". Congress has always had its flaws. All too often, the road to the enactment of legislation has been fraught with corruption, stupidity, threats, bribes, and other sordid practices. But as bad as that is, what transpired during the passage of health care reform was different and even worse. The process by which this bill was passed didn't just feature corruption and violate traditional ethics. It revealed a president and a congressional leadership that in concert have shown more callous contempt than any in history for the will of the American people, the safeguards against the tyranny of the majority built into the Constitution, and the parliamentary rules by which Congress operates.

Obamacare was mainly aimed at redistributing wealth. It hasn't attracted much notice, but recently some prominent advocates of Obamacare have spoken more frankly than ever before about why they supported a national health care makeover. It wasn't just about making insurance more affordable. It wasn't just about bending the cost curve. It wasn't just about cutting the federal deficit. It was about redistributing wealth.

Obama's Desperate Push for Socialized Health Care. I have written this post to explain why President Obama is so desperate to pass health care legislation, seemingly regardless of the cost to the Democratic Party. The reality is that President Obama owes his success and his hold on power more to three Marxist groups than he does to the Democrats. The three organizations, Communist Party USA, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and Democratic Socialists of America, all worked with Barack Obama for years and helped get him elected. Now they want payback.

Stop kicking in our doors, Madame Speaker. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used an unexpected analogy Monday [3/15/2010] during a conference call with liberal bloggers to discuss Obamacare, saying "once we kick through this door, there'll be more legislation to follow." At least four things need to be said about Pelosi's braggadocio.

Their Real Agenda: Today's Democrats aren't interested in constitutional or traditional limitations on government. They want to remake American life based on their notions of what's ideal, and they are more than willing to force leftward change on an ostensibly free people. While this has been clear for some time, it still rocks us a bit when they acknowledge such plans out loud. The loudest came Monday when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a group of bloggers that turning the Democratic Party leaders' health care overhaul into law would embolden them to drive America away from its roots of liberty and independence. "Kick open that door, and there will be other legislation to follow," she said. "We'll take the country in a new direction."

President Obama Proves Glenn Beck's 'Fundamental Transformation' Argument. The president proved Glenn Beck's argument that the fundamental transformation of America has begun. "We're not transforming one-sixth of the economy all in one fell swoop," Obama told Baier. This implies that what is being bandied about is only the beginning, not the end.

Applying Alinsky: Why Obamacare Makes No Sense. If Obamacare passes, the healthcare system that Americans value will be destroyed and turned into one resembling the failed systems in neighboring Canada and in Great Britain where horror stories of delayed and denied care are routine. Barack Obama is the apotheosis of Saul Alinsky's gameplan to destroy the republic and replace the Constitution with an all-powerful socialist central government.

Accelerating the Speed of Lies: Even Republicans know that Medicare is in need of some changes to improve the program. Tort reform and the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines are but two improvements that make perfectly good sense to most people. However, the reform being proffered by the White House is nothing more than a socialist expansion of a government that is already too large and too unwieldy to serve the interests of Americans. It would, as is often pointed out, destroy the best health system in the world and put one sixth of the nation's economy under the control of government.

The Communists Behind Obama's Health Care Goals. Barack Obama did not conceive of socialized medicine on his own. His acceptance of such a system was cultivated and nurtured by the same types of Marxist revolutionaries with whom he has surrounded himself throughout his entire adult life — and who are now shaping the major policy agendas of his administration.

It's Not Socialism, It's Communism. [Scroll down] President Obama's drive for a single payer system is the direct result of the influence of Dr. Quentin Young, a retired physician with a long history of commitment to Communism. In 1995, Dr. Quentin was among those who met in the Hyde Park home of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn to launch Obama's political career. ... Healthcare "reform" is not about uninsured Americans. It is not "socialism." It is Communism, effectively putting the entire nation's healthcare system under state control.

Socialism by any other name... Time is ticking for Democrats to claim some kind of victory on health care legislation, as polls show a public increasingly disillusioned with what is being passed off as "reform." So now Democrats are trying to rename the public option in the hope no one will notice.

Obamacare a pallbearer for American freedom? The majority in Congress knows exactly what this bill means for them and medical care in this country. For them, it opens up the potential for total control of the citizenry. For health care it means continued deterioration in our health care system, but in a way that is "fairer" than before. It provides for broader insurance coverage at the expense of the quality of medical care.

Socialism in Stages. Every bureaucratic intervention in the market reduces long-term wealth creation, even if it provides a temporary boost to the economy. In time, this reduction of wealth is blamed on the inefficiencies of the remaining "unfettered" market, which provokes calls for greater intervention, ad infinitum. Health care is a perfect example of the incremental socialization process.

It's Time to Opt Out of Senator Reid's Government Health Care Utopia. In the very near future, Senator Reid is going follow Speaker Pelosi's lead and try to pass his Senate version of the liberal utopian health care plan — a full, unabashed socialist-style takeover of our nation's health care system.

The ObamaCare Leviathan. As the Democrats inexorably slog toward the finish line, lugging and wrenching their malformed health care bill, the most passionate debate has been on contentious issues like abortion, the public option, and Medicare cuts. Yet the overriding danger of the Senate bill and its House counterpart is the massive government bureaucracies that will emerge as the legislation takes effect.

They Call It Fiscal Responsibility; We Call It Socialism. As others have noted, Obama and company have employed multiple gimmicks to conceal and misrepresent the true costs of Obamacare. Like other groups wanting to destroy America from the outside, liberals are patient. By backloading their spending, they hope to deceive Americans into thinking their plan is budget-neutral.

Marxists on way to Controlling all of us. With Saturday night's [11/7/2009] passage of the US House of Representatives' ObamaCare package (220-215), America was moved closer to the US Marxist (formerly Democrat) Party's totalitarian control over the American people and 1/6 of their economy. It has also been suggested that if this behemoth and Orwellian bill is passed, by both houses of Congress, government may soon be in control of 4 out of every 5 dollars Americans are still allowed to "earn."

Dr. Dean's Admitted Socialism. On Sunday's "Face The Nation" on CBS, Howard Dean, doctor, former Vermont Governor, former head of the DNC, stated that the Veterans Administration's health care system is, in fact, a socialist system. Yes, he said that.

U.S.S.A. Not all revolutions begin in the streets with tanks and guns. Some advance slowly, almost imperceptibly, until a nation is transformed and the public realizes too late that their freedoms are gone. Such is the revolution now taking place in America. The '60s crowd has emerged from the ideological grave and is about to impose on this country a declaration of dependence in the form of government-run health insurance and treatment.

After a Takeover of Health Care, Can a One-Child Policy Be Far Behind? Make no mistake about it: the health care bill that moved forward to debate in the Senate on Saturday is simply a power play by the government to gain more control over how we live our lives. It could easily lead to government control over the continuation of our families.

The public's best option: Less government, more choice. A government-run health insurer would radically tilt the health-insurance playing field. It would amount to a new entitlement program, able to undercut the price of private insurance by squeezing hospitals and doctors, reimbursing them at below-market rates.

Stealth Socialism. Congress' planned health care revolution will be bad enough without a government-run option. With it, Euro-style socialism becomes inevitable. ... It's time for new ideas, like the expanded private coverage options of the Patients' Choice Act, backed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Richard Burr, R-N.C. As Ryan warns, the federal government would run health care "with the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of the Post Office and the incompetence of Katrina."

Gardasil Shows Why Government Health Care is Dangerous. Gardasil has to be the perfect drug for the brave new world of ObamaCare, in a 1984 kind of way. Made by Merck & Co., it was approved in 2006 for use against venereal disease in young girls. Here's why it's so culturally suited for hope and change — and such a perfect example of why you don't want the government in your medicine chest.

Did someone mention Gardasil?

You Will Get Health Insurance at DMV — Literally (It's in the Bill). The most revelatory passage in the so-called "plain English" version of the health care bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved on Tuesday (without ever drafting the actual legislative language) says that in the future Americans will be offered the convenience of getting their health insurance at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The Obama Fiasco. The whole Obama era to date has been wasted in a historic, amateurish botch of the health-care issue. This began as a crusade for social justice -- to cover the uninsured, whose numbers were suitably exaggerated, as most of them are people changing jobs from one health-insuring employer to another, or foreigners resident in this country, legally or otherwise, or the indigent, who are eligible for Medicaid.

Obama a tough guy, at least with Fox News. For the greatest orator of our time, ... Barack Obama seems to have pretty much given up on the explaining side. He tried it with health care with speech after speech after exclusive interview for months on end, and the more he explained the more unpopular the whole racket got. So he declared that the time for explaining is over, and it's time to sign on or else.

Nothing for Everyone. [There are only] two small groups who might have something they like in ObamaCare: Congress, who would get the same great coverage they get today, at taxpayer expense; and people who are so in love with single-payer, government run health care that they are willing to let the whole system falter and ultimately collapse so that their dream might come true in perhaps 20 years or more. The Communist Party falls under the latter category. So I guess ObamaCare does offer something beneficial for two small groups of people: Congress and communists.

Health 'Reform' Is Income Redistribution. While many Americans are upset by ObamaCare's $1 trillion price tag, Congress is contemplating other changes with little analysis or debate. These changes would create a massively unfair form of income redistribution and create incentives for many not to buy health insurance at all.

The Elephant in the Room: Promises have been broken. While most Americans are open to fixing health care, they're also happy with their private insurance. One would think Obama would oppose any provision that appears to force Americans into a government plan. Think again.

10 More "You Lie" Moments On Health Care. [Scroll down] There's only one question you need to ask yourself to decide whether you should support health care reform: Do you trust Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama and the army of bureaucrats in DC enough to allow them to make life altering medical decisions for you and your children? If not, then it's time to stand up, speak out, and take action before this bill is passed and irrevocably changes our country.

Obama: Legalize illegals to get them health care. President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage. He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered — a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

President Changes Number from 46-47 Million to 'Over 30 Million'. "Up until tonight, it was always 47 million," [Fox News commentator Frank] Luntz said. "But what they realized was that they were defending health care coverage — government money, your taxpayer dollars — going to illegal immigrants that they realized they had to take them out of the pool." The total number of uninsured, 45.7 million according to the U.S. Census, also includes roughly 10 million people who are not citizens. The Census Bureau is scheduled to update that number this month.

More about Obama's speech on September 9, 2009.

Full Text of Rep. Charles Boustany's Republican Response. [Scroll down] I read the bill Democrats passed through committee in July. It creates 53 new government bureaucracies, adds hundreds of billions to our national debt, and raises taxes on job-creators by $600 billion. And, it cuts Medicare by $500 billion, while doing virtually nothing to make the program better for our seniors.

Thank You, Barack Obama. No one who has ever been to the Department of Motor Vehicles, no one who has ever been audited, no one who has ever tried to get a Social Security problem corrected believes your fibs that your health care plan will not come between patients and doctors. When your bullying partners in Congress get your bill passed and Americans start to see what havoc you have wrought in the doctors' offices and the hospitals, the party of Ronald Reagan is going to look awfully good.

My Mother The Car. Most criticisms of ObamaCare have focused on its cost in terms of money and lives, but it's worth noting that in exchange for spending trillions of dollars in taxpayer money to set up a system that will inevitably ration care, President Obama proposes a fundamental curtailment of your individual freedom.

Three Reasons Why Government Can't Run Health Care: There's been a lot of overheated rhetoric about health care reform, but this saying is one that all Americans should return to when considering plans for a government-dominated health system. In other words, we should judge government, not by its words, but by its deeds.

Health Care Reform Is About Control, Not Health. Liberals have always been fixated on controlling people. In America, they accomplish this through taxation, regulation, and unrelenting appeals to our leftist-dominated court system. And when these avenues prove unsuccessful, liberals don't give up, they simply look for a covert means to reach their original goal. ObamaCare is just such a covert means.

Who Owns Your Body? Under Obamacare, not you. Does the government, in the last analysis, own your body, or do you? If your answer is the former, be aware that you have opted for veterinary medicine, for you are now accepting the moral status of a domestic animal. If your answer is the latter, you must accept responsibility to make mortal decisions for yourself, and pay for the care that you want with money that you have reason to see as your own.

Will America's bucking bronco finally be broken? You don't break a young bronco just by beating it. You break it by making it feel helpless — confining it in a small corral, isolating it from the herd, running it around and around on a short rope... That's the real motivation behind "Universal Healthcare" Obama is trying to sell us Euro-socialism, which means bribing and intimidating people with their own tax money and corralling everyone with an endless sea of laws and regulations, until they know they can never fight City Hall.

Government thuggishness: Government coercion is becoming standard operating procedure in the nation's capital. The White House threatened financial institutions with ruin by selectively enforcing regulations unless they agreed to take government bailout money. Similar threats were used to force financial institutions to let the government own part of their stock. Those same institutions were forced to take losses on the bonds they held in General Motors and Chrysler. It was only a matter of time until similar intimidating behavior was employed in the health care debate.

O's Insurance Scam. President Obama and con gressional Democrats are now fixing their gun sights on health insurers, but their broader, underlying goals remain unchanged: socializing costs and extending Washington's control of the health-care sector. This takes what Obama told Joe the Plumber about "spreading the wealth" a step further. Because not only do the reforms redistribute wealth by shifting costs; they also put government in charge of spending even more of the nation's money.

Health Care Struggle is About Freedom. President Obama took his case for what he now calls "health insurance reform" to the faith community. He made his pitch in a phone call, also broadcast over the Internet, to clergy who called in and logged on from around the nation. In his remarks, the President ticked off points of contention that dissenters have with his proposals — "government takeover of healthcare … government funding of abortion … death panels" — and dismissed these concerns as "fabrications." In one swipe, Mr. Obama reduced his opposition to liars.

Watching A Bad Idea Implode. As the White House apparently retreats on its "public option," the unconvincing reality at the heart of its plans becomes clear: Spend and regulate.

Dirty Secret No. 2 in Obamacare: If you want to know the future of America's universal health care, then you must understand the health care principles and plans of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. I find it far more than a coincidence how much Emanuel's book parallels Obamacare's philosophy, strategy and proposed legislation. First, Emanuel rejects any attempts at incremental change or reform to our health care system (Page 185). What's needed, he concludes in his book (Page 171), is an immediate and totally comprehensive reconstruction of health care as we know it. That, of course, describes the vision of Obamacare to a T.

IRS to be ObamaCare enforcer. How is the government going to check up on us? How many government employees are going to be added to a new agency to audit 350 million Americans to see if we have adequate health insurance? How is the government going to verify that we have acceptable coverage? Are all health insurance companies going to be required to issue some form of notarized birth certificate type document, renewable annually, that we will have to present to a government agent twice a year? Are insurance companies going to be required to contact the government if we cancel our policies?

Obamacare expands IRS authority, may cause greater tax non-compliance. Not only does the Democratic health care bill include tax hikes, as reported by Americans for Tax Reform, it also would expand the role of the Internal Revenue Service.

HR3200, Obama and Pelosi's Communist Manifesto. HR3200 is a beautifully woven web of governmental Orwellian doubletalk. ... I can see why the Democrat leadership is hell bent on its passage. HR3200 would allow them access into the public, business and private lives of everyone living within the confines of the United States. Don't bother mentioning the gross violation of the 10th Amendment, they don't care.

The Fannie Mae Health System: President Obama is a determined man. And he is determined to have single-payer, nationalized health care by hook or by crook. The "public option" was by hook. The "co-op" plan is by crook. There's only one question left: Will Americans recognize this new swindle for what it is?

Obama's Post Office health care disaster. With a few hours' reflection, it's become clear that Barack Obama's reference to the U.S. Postal Service at yesterday's [8/11/2009] health care town hall was the most revealing, and damaging, thing the president has said in the entire health care debate. ... In one brief phrase, Obama planted the image in the minds of millions of people: Government health care = Post Office.

Obamacare: The "Post Office" of Health Care Plans. At his orchestrated townhall event today, President Obama defended the notion that his government-run public health care plan wouldn't crowd out private insurers by referencing the symbiotic relationship between UPS, Fedex and the Post Office. Bad timing Mr. President. On Friday, the New York Times Business Section actually called for the privatization of the post office amid staggering losses, and even said it was in "General Motors territory."

Finally, Change We Can Believe In. On Sunday [8/16/2009], administration officials started backing away from their demand for a public insurance requirement. That's nice. But it is very possible that something much bigger is afoot. As the woman said at the town hall, "I don't believe this is just health care." Bailouts to banks, huge stimulus payoffs to special interests, nationalization of auto companies, trillions in new debt, the ideological taxing of our great carbon energy supplies, unconscionable deficits stealing from our grandchildren, Washington talk of health rationing, forced abortions, compulsory sterilization, eugenics. Are you all Eurosocialists now?

Manufactured Healthcare Crisis. The increasing costs of medical care resulting from Medicare, Medicaid and the dramatic growth of malpractice lawsuits have provided activists with the rationale they need to agitate for socialized medicine. This has been their strategy all along. Medicare and Medicaid were designed to undermine private healthcare, making it ever more expensive and unmanageable, until enough interest could be generated for systemic change. Similarly, changes in tort law aimed at turning our courts into vehicles for income redistribution have overburdened our legal system with massive caseloads and the highest liability costs in the world. While doubtless many thought they were doing good, the ultimate goal, as elucidated by the Left, has everywhere and always been Socialism.

Video proof: Obama wants a single-payer system. One video is worth a thousand words (or, as in this column, about 730). The video in question, put together by a group called Verum Serum, shows public statements by three advocates of single-payer (government monopoly) health insurance explaining that a health care bill with a "government option" would move America toward a single-payer government health care system.

Are We In America Or Amerika? Their increasing anxiety and fear of failure are typified in the words of the leader of their party, who wants Republicans to keep their mouths shut while he "fixes" health care. "I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking," the president said Thursday [8/6/2009] at a political rally in Virginia. "I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess." So much for the promises of bipartisan lawmaking. So much for open discussion. So much for understanding who really caused the "mess" in the first place.

The Great Socialist Takeover. Despite the talking points we are now hearing to the contrary, the bottom line is that the Obama/Democrat health overhaul legislation would result in thorough and detailed government control over health care, government rationing that will deny you health care, severe loss of freedom of choice and control over health care, disabling, record high taxes that will leave America uncompetitive in the world economy, higher, not lower, overall health costs, and higher not lower federal spending and deficits.

Freedoms You Will Lose With Obamacare: Two recent articles do a wonderful job addressing some of the freedoms that each of us will lose if President Obama's nationalized healthcare takeover occurs. One by John Fund of the all Street Journal and a second in Fortune by editor at large Shawn Tully really drive home how healthcare "reform" is a barely disguised grab for power by Democrats in Congress and the White House.

Healthcare Mess Deepens. The markup resumed yesterday [7/30/2009] on the healthcare bill, H.R. 3200, in the House Energy & Commerce Committee. ... The markup was the usual scene: Democrats running roughshod over anything sensible, like requiring proof of citizenship to sign up for government run healthcare on the taxpayer dime.

Organizational Chart of the House Democrats' Health Plan.

Steele Calls Obama Health Plan "Socialism". The chairman of the Republican Party on Monday called President Barack Obama's plan to overhaul health care "socialism," accusing the president of conducting a risky experiment that will hurt the economy and force millions to drop their current coverage. Michael Steele, in remarks at the National Press Club, also said the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and key congressional committee chairmen are part of a "cabal" that wants to implement government-run health care.

A Reckless Congress. Say this about the 1,018-page health-care bill that House Democrats unveiled this week and that President Obama heartily endorsed: It finally reveals at least some of the price of the reckless ambitions of our current government. With huge majorities and a President in a rush to outrun the declining popularity of his agenda, Democrats are bidding to impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks.

We Don't Need Big Bang Health Care Reform. Why do we need President Obama's big-bang health-care reform at all? What's the real agenda here? If it's really to cover the truly uninsured, a much cheaper, targeted, small-ball approach would do the trick. But on the other hand, maybe the real goal is a larger, ultra-liberal plan aimed at a government takeover of the U.S. health system.

Health Care Huckster. President Obama advocates a system in which individuals are offered government subsidies to purchase insurance on a government-run insurance exchange, allowing them to choose between a government-run plan and "private" plans that are designed by the government. And yet we're supposed to believe that this won't lead to a government takeover of medicine.

Misdirecting Health Care. For Obama, passing socialized medicine would be the crowning achievement of his liberal presidency, marking him a success in the collective mind of the left no matter what else happens under his watch. For Americans, it will mean government control over another one-sixth of the economy, and the cold hand of government directing our most critical and private medical decisions.

62 Million Voiceless Americans. Under the guise of universal health care, our government is preparing to take over approximately 17% of our economy by nationalizing health care. Not to worry, they are consulting with the policymakers in Canada responsible for the sterling healthcare in that country. The very same government health care that forces Canadians to come to the US to get their medical needs taken care of.

ObamaCare — Or Else! Is there something disquieting about a president who only wants to spread love and compassion to all Americans — or else? Or else he'll hate us forever? Or else he'll put us in jail? Or else he'll stamp his feet and cry? That's the feeling I'm getting. He is so intent on doing us all a big favor. ObamaCare is Just and Right and Compassionate — and it has nothing to do with empowering the Left for the next generation and turning everybody else into Russian serfs. Nothing at all. There's no self-interest in this man and his benevolent friends from Chicago.

'Tis better to kill the health care corpse now. The debate over health care reform has been messy and often chaotic, but here we are a year later and Barack Obama and his radical agenda might yet win. If it does, he will have put in place the structure for taking over everything else.

Obamacare opens the door to tyranny

Why are Obamacare supporters attacking job creators?. On a Monday morning in March, small business owner Mike Ruffer told a group at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C, how his eight Five Guys Burgers and Fries franchise restaurants in North Carolina were faring under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Five hours later, the backlash was so intense he had to wonder if that 15-minute speech might kill his company. In fact, Mr. Ruffer is the most recent victim in a troubling pattern of seemingly orchestrated campaigns to silence small business owners who speak out about President Obama's agenda.

Total Non Cooperation with IPAB! The Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board needs to be stopped in the cause of preserving American freedom. As passed under Obamacare, it is a super bureaucracy with quasi-legislative authority that even trumps a presidential veto and is immue from judicial and administrative review.

Obamacare's Pathway to Creeping Control by the State. One of the gravest problems with Obamacare has nothing specifically to do with health care. Sure, Obamacare will destroy this country's health care system. It may one day kill me or you. But it will also have a profound effect on the relationship you and I have with our government.

Obama's Tyranny: Petty or Something More Sinister?. If you recall, the Affordable Care Act was never seen before it was voted upon. It was passed in the dead of night on Christmas Eve and passed only because of the greatest political bribery and blackmail campaign ever seen in a city that has seen it all. Tyranny, anyone?

Obamacare will eventually invade every private transaction, and the nanny state will have its way.
Food co-op ObamaCare fight. Members of Brooklyn's Greene Hill Food Co-op want to ban Eden Foods' soy milk because its CEO is suing the Obama administration over a mandate forcing companies to cover employee-birth control.

CVS asks workers to submit medical information or pay extra health care fine. CVS is coming under fire for a controversial new policy that requires all employees who use its health plan to submit vital information or pay extra for health insurance. The pharmacy chain has told all of its nearly 200,000 workers on its health care plan that they have until May 1 to get a health screening and report back to the company their weight, height, blood pressure and other levels if they don't want their rates to go up.

Insurance as Punishment. If you can't force people to do what you want, force them to buy insurance: That seems to be the strategy of the liberal left in the Obama era. We refer not only to the ObamaCare health-insurance mandate but to the latest bright idea under consideration in mostly Democrat-dominated state capitals.

Sebelius: ObamaCare is the law of the land, so you might as well help us implement it. Or, in other words: Just give in already to the power of the all-knowing and all-powerful bureaucracy. Trust us.

The Canary in the Culture. It may seem that asking Catholics and others who believe that abortion-inducing chemicals are tools of murder and as such something they cannot directly pay for is not that big of a deal. That's precisely why the HHS mandate is the canary. It's true that the HHS mandate is not on the same level as China's forced abortion policy. But the core philosophical assumption that powers the HHS mandate, even in its latest revision, would allow the government to institute a forced abortion policy or reinstitute slavery.

You must not stand on your own two feet — even for one day.
IRS: Parents Must Pay Federal Fine for Uninsured Kids. In new, final regulations issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said that parents must pay a federal fine under Obamacare if their children or dependent spouses are uninsured for any part of the year.

IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family. In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year. Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.

What We (Supposedly) Don't Know about Guns. One of the president's new executive orders will allow the Centers for Disease Control to conduct gun research again. The CDC is a horrible choice for this project, both because gun violence is has nothing to do with "disease control" and because the agency has a track record of poor research in this area. Also, the holes in our knowledge are much smaller than some on the left would like to think — and many of the questions that have not been answered cannot be answered, simply because the tools of social science are not up to the task.

Rand Paul takes on Obama. Capitol Hill sources familiar with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told Human Events that the senator will immediately introduce legislation to declare null and void any Executive Order issued by President Barack Obama that infringes on the powers and duties of Congress and the Second Amendment. One troubling Executive Order announced Jan. 16 by the president was No. 16 on the list, described in a White House press release to "clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes."

Congressman: Obamacare, WH Gun Control 'Intertwining'. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) expressed concerns about the "intertwining" of President Barack Obama's gun control push and his 2009 healthcare overhaul legislation Obamacare in a Wednesday evening statement. Huelskamp worries that the administration will coordinate controversial parts of Obamacare that may invade patient privacy with the president's new strident gun control efforts.

Whole Foods CEO says Obama healthcare law is 'more like fascism'. The CEO of Whole Foods Market said President Obama's healthcare law is more like "fascism" than "socialism," a parallel he drew in 2009, to some backlash. John Mackey made the remark in an interview Wednesday with NPR. "Technically speaking, it's more like fascism," Mackey said of the Affordable Care Act. "Socialism is where the government owns the means of production. In fascism, the government doesn't own the means of production, but they do control it, and that's what's happening with our healthcare programs and these reforms."

Whole Foods threatened with boycott by liberal customers after CEO compares Obamacare to 'fascism'. Organic supermarket chain Whole Foods is facing a backlash from many of it's more liberal customers after founder and CEO John Mackey compared Obamacare to 'fascism' in a radio interview on Wednesday [1/16/2013]. In an interview to promote his new book, Mackey was quizzed about an article he had written in The Wall Street Journal in 2009 that liken Obamacare to socialism.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey: Comparing Obamacare to Fascism Was a 'Poor Choice of Words'. Last night [1/17/2013], Whole Foods CEO John Mackey went "On the Record" to discuss Obamacare, which he recently referred to as "more like fascism" than socialism. He received an angry backlash from many Whole Foods customers after the comment and is now apologizing for his "poor choice of words."

The Editor says...
Come on, Mr. Mackey. If you're going to call out fascism, don't retreat when the wailing begins.

Whole Foods' CEO Mackey Is Right — ObamaCare Is Like Fascism. In 2009, when Whole Foods CEO John Mackey in a Wall Street Journal op-ed compared the health care "public option" then under consideration by Congress to socialism — a nationalized economic system wherein the government owns the means of production — hardly anyone batted an eyelash. [...] But it was hardly the response Whole Foods got when on Jan. 16 in an NPR interview, Mackey was asked a follow-up question on what he thought about the current law.

Obamacare and My Daughter. Elections have consequences. The president signed a law which forces citizens to purchase a product simply on the virtue that they are alive. Our Supreme Court upheld the law, giving the government the power to tax inactivity. When the law is fully implemented, we may see a shift from our role as citizens to subjects.

Why Sebelius Campaigns So Hard for Her Boss — and Why He Won't Fire Her. In fact, if the president makes no appointments, or the Senate rejects the president's appointees, then all of IPAB's considerable powers fall to one person: the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The HHS secretary would effectively become an economic dictator, with more power over the health care sector than any chamber of Congress. If Obama wins in November, he would have zero incentive to appoint any IPAB members.

Obama HHS to Force Bible Publisher to Kneel to Contraceptive Mandate. We now have the US government dictating who is and who is not sufficiently religious to escape the ObamaCare abortifacient mandate.

The Obamacare rules say whatever the government decides they say.
HHS: Bible publisher not a 'religious employer'. The Obama administration is claiming that a dedicated Christian publisher of Bibles and ministry material is insufficiently religious to qualify for an exemption to the contraception mandate in the president's health-care overhaul. According to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday [10/2/2012] in the District of Columbia by Tyndale House Publishers, the company has been refused a "religious employer" exemption because the Health and Human Services Department categorically maintains that any for-profit publisher is not a "religious employer."

Euthanasia for Obama-care. [Scroll down] For example, Obama-care is making it illegal for anyone in America (with the narrow exception of houses of worship) to freely sell or buy an insurance plan that fails to offer free birth control and sterilization. But this ban is nowhere to be found in the 2,700 pages of the law itself. Rather, it came as a decree from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, exercising her newfound power. If Obama-care isn't repealed, examples of such rule by fiat will proliferate.

The Separation of Medicine and State. The federal government in general, and the Food and Drug Administration in particular, increasingly inject themselves into direct control of every medical practice. The FDA is aggressively moving past its lock on the approval of every medication and all medical equipment. It now seeks control of every procedure and treatment that your physician recommends.

LePage says IRS is the 'new Gestapo' in radio address. Gov. Paul LePage used his weekly radio address to blast President Obama's health care law and described the Internal Revenue Service as the "new Gestapo." The IRS description was a reference to a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires most Americans to buy health insurance or pay an annual penalty when filing their tax returns. The provision, known more broadly as the individual mandate, was the subject of a multi-state lawsuit, but was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Army Of IRS Enforcers Can't Make ObamaCare Legitimate. After foisting its 2,700-page health law on the public, the White House now plans to enforce its detested mandate by siccing the IRS on unwilling citizens. All that stands in the way is "the consent of the governed."

The Only Question About Obamacare That Matters. Does anyone — on either side — really think that the Patient Deflection and Unaffordable Care Act is about health care? ... Or is it really about the exercise of raw governmental power, to teach the citizenry an object lesson about the coming brave new world, one that surely will get even worse once Obama is safely past the shoals of his last election?

Santorum and the Silence of the Shams. [Rick] Santorum has not merely explained why Obamacare must be repealed but has repeatedly declared it the most important issue of the campaign. In fact, he did so during the most recent GOP debate in Arizona, where he called it "the biggest issue in this race" and later went on to explain why: "The real fundamental issue here is government coercion."

Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee. Offended by President Obama's decision to force health insurers to pay for contraception and surgical sterilization? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis — and largely insulated from public view. This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more.

Misconception. The problem with the contraceptive mandate is not the contraceptive part -- it's the mandate. The new health-care law requires every employer with 50 or more employees to provide their workers with health insurance. It also requires every American who doesn't receive health insurance through work or a government program to buy insurance themselves or face a fine. But simply providing or buying insurance is not enough to fulfill the mandate. The insurance must satisfy the government's definition of what qualifies as proper insurance, including a long list of benefits that the government thinks you should have.

ObamaCare Violates Far More Than Just Catholic Rights. The president's phony contraception compromise might be enough to convince Catholics their rights aren't being trampled. But what about the rest of us, who face more rights violations in the name of ObamaCare?

Obamacare encouraging government by edict, not law. "A government of laws, not men" is among the most famous maxims produced by the American Revolution and the authors of the Constitution which was its ultimate fruit. Everything good in our government depends upon that maxim remaining an accurate description of the American Republic's most sacred principle. But now it is under challenge as never before. The ever-expanding welfare state in America has expanded the reach of unaccountable bureaucrats into every nook and cranny of the nation's economic life. The federal government has substituted administrative edict for laws written by elected representatives.

Health plans ordered to cover birth control without co-pays. Most healthcare plans will be required to cover birth control without charging co-pays or deductibles starting Aug. 1, the Obama administration announced Friday. The final regulation retains the approach federal health officials proposed last summer, despite the deluge of complaints from religious groups and congressional Republicans that has poured in since then.

The Editor says...
Now that the government has seized control of the health care industry, new restrictions and/or mandates will appear from time to time, and the incremental changes will always go in the same directions: higher costs to the taxpayer and less freedom for the consumer.

Paul: Obama health care more fascism than socialism. It's doubtful whether anyone opposes President Obama's health care law more than Ron Paul, but the Texas congressman said Wednesday that the sweeping legislation is not socialized medicine — contrary to claims made by his fellow presidential contenders Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain. Instead, Mr. Paul called the Affordable Care Act "corporate medicine leading toward fascism," insisting that his definition was much worse.

Companies now required to publicly justify rates under Obamacare. Insurance companies that don't acquiesce to the president's healthcare demands are soon in for a rude awakening: The Obama administration announced Friday that companies seeking to raise health premium rates by more than 10 percent will be exploited on a government website.

Opposing Obamacare health records database. Last month, in an op-ed published by the Examiner, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., raised alarms over a provision in President Obama's national health care law that could give the government access to Americans' private medical records. ... Now, Huelskamp is leading the charge against the measure.

If Obamacare prevails, then what's to prevent Obamajobs?. Liberals assure us that we need not fear the Obamacare individual mandate. It's simply a way to ensure that individuals behave responsibly, they say. Fine, if it's such a great idea, then let's mandate that every individual be responsible and get a job. Unemployment problem solved.

With ObamaCare, the Government Would Rather Spy than Try. Recently, our government made advances toward promoting our eventual serfdom by initiating a plan through the Department of Health and Human Services to spy on doctors. This sounds very much like the plan by the White House and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to report people who spoke out against the President's health care plan in 2009.

New Obamacare Violations of Personal Liberty. Who can forget that rare moment of honesty during the campaign to pass Obamacare when Nancy Pelosi said "We have to pass the bill in order for you to find out what's in it"? Now we have it and almost daily there are new revelations about the staggering extent to which our private lives and individual freedoms have been stomped on. We learn now that free birth control in the form of contraceptives, morning after pills, and sterilization is part of the grand Obamacare socialist dream-come-true.

The 3 scariest things about Obama. A clause hidden in the Obamacare bill, which is now law, gives Obama the right to form a private army. Why isn't anyone freaking out?

The Soft Dictatorship. Imagine a hypothetical country where small groups of unelected individuals can make law by simply sitting around a conference table deciding they want a new law, even if that law violates the constitution. Those unelected representatives could only be dismissed by the executive power and could essentially do whatever they wanted. Furthermore, imagine if the citizens of that country were not allowed to contest these decisions in court because they didn't have "standing" to do so. Furthermore, imagine at least one of these agencies would be empowered to go seize the property and businesses of the citizenry without any possibility of outside judicial review. ... The country I am speaking of country isn't Cuba, Russia, or China. Startlingly, the country I am speaking of is the United States of America, bit by bit, and the resulting soft dictatorship is getting worse.

ObamaCare, ObamaCars, and Government-Mandated Broccoli. Ready for the government to regulate the interstate commerce in your stomach?

If ObamaCare Is Not Struck Down, There Will Be No Boundaries. People come to this country to live out their dreams?start businesses, own homes and live freely and without burdensome restrictions on what they can buy, where they must live, or what they can sell. Anything is possible here, and this notion has been critical for American prosperity. But sometimes, even the government will test the independent spirit of its own people. That's exactly what happened when Congress passed, and the president signed into law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) aka ObamaCare. The gauntlet thrown; the challenge accepted. And now, Americans are fighting back.

Center for American Progress Finally Comes Out in Favor of Tyranny. Buried deep within the Obamacare bill is the Democrats' plan for lowering Medicare costs -- something called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). ... The Center for American Progress is more or less in favor handing off the whole of America's budget issues to a likely unconstitutional panel of democratically unaccountable bureaucrats with no meaningful oversight. Or to put it more bluntly, this is basically a recipe for tyranny.

Obama solicitor general: If you don't like mandate, earn less money. President Obama's solicitor general, defending the national health care law on Wednesday [6/1/2011], told a federal appeals court that Americans who didn't like the individual mandate could always avoid it by choosing to earn less money.

Obamacare's unlimited power. The White House defense of Obamacare hinges on the claim that Congress essentially has unlimited power to force Americans to spend their personal money on a cause of the government's choosing. Oral arguments before the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday made this all the more clear. Administration lawyers argued that uninsured individuals can be compelled to buy health care coverage under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. If that's so, what else could Congress compel people to do? As Judge James L. Graham asked acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, "Where ultimately is the limit on congressional power?" The question sounds rhetorical but is not.

Obamacare Means Less Liberty. In shopping for the best value in a health care plan, what sort of plan would you choose? What benefits would you choose to have it cover? Well, under Obamacare, that wouldn't really be your decision to make. It wouldn't even really be Congress's decision. Rather, it would be the decision of the Obama administration (and of subsequent administrations), as Kathleen Sebelius and company (and their successors) would save you the trouble of having to make these decisions for yourself.

Obamacare dictates against freedom, innovation. Virginia and many other states have pending lawsuits against the federal government's takeover of health care. These cases represent important battles in the fight to restore the constitutional balance of power between the states and the federal government that is necessary to maintain individual liberty. For many years, the creeping overreach and centralization of power in Washington has eroded our foundational constitutional framework.

Every Awful Thing You Need to Know About Obamacare. Obamacare is a government takeover of health care in the nation. It creates more than 150 new bureaucracies, agencies, boards, commissions, and programs that will authorize bureaucrats to tell doctors and hospitals what is quality care and what is not. It mandates exactly what health insurance workers and employers must buy, what benefits they will get, and imposes a fine on anyway if they do not comply. It is the antithesis of freedom.

The Destruction of the Health Insurance Industry: What passes for "reform" in Congress would eliminate health insurance firms. Why? Because, we are told, it is immoral for anyone to make a profit providing health insurance. Virtue, in this view, is restricted to those who impose government insurance on everyone through the force of law.

Obamacare's secret surveillance: Blog sites have been buzzing about the National Medical Device Registry, a new office in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that was created in the Obamacare reconciliation package. Concern centers on the registry's authority to conduct "postmarket device surveillance activities on implantable medical devices," including those that feature radio-frequency identification. The word "surveillance" conjures ominous images of government tracking and reporting. Some have suggested the law lays the groundwork for compulsory microchip implantation so the state can keep tabs on everyone — for their own good, naturally.

Obamacare Not For President or Congressional Leaders. [Scroll down] "The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people," [Rep. John] Dingell said. Control the people. That's a stunning admission. It's what opponents of this government takeover have warned all along: This was never about health and it most certainly isn't about care. It's about cradle-to-grave government control over "the people."

Obama's Medical Monopoly. If there's anything worse than a private-sector monopoly, it's a government-run monopoly. The difference is that in the private sector, everyone is free to compete and remove the monopolist's monopoly status, while a government monopoly forbids competition and compels the citizenry to patronize the its operation. It is still illegal, for example, to start a business competing with the United States Postal Service, as 19th-century American individualist and entrepreneur Lysander Spooner learned.

Legislating Discrimination. What's the worst bill ever seriously considered for passage by the U.S. Congress? Certainly both the House health-reform bill and Sen. Harry Reid's health bill are leading contenders. Both proposals are obscenely expensive. Both limit our freedom to choose our families' health care. And both would legislate racial and other forms of discrimination — making them not only unconstitutional, but immoral, counterproductive, and dangerous.

Pelosi's Health Care Bill Would Regulate Snack Machines. The House health-care reform plan unveiled last week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would do more than regulate insurance companies — it would even regulate vending machines. ... The regulation could wind up costing vendors millions of dollars to make the changes, according to industry estimates.

The Editor says...
This is only one of the surprises buried in the 1,990 pages of Pelosi's bill. Obamacare not about insuring the uninsured or reducing the cost of medical treatment. It's about politicians making decisions for you because they assume that you're too dumb to make your own choices. It's about taxations and control of every aspect of American life.

Democrats' Healthcare Scheme Is Pure Insanity. Purely mad social engineers — Obama, Pelosi, & Reid — are on a determined march toward nationalizing one sixth of the entire American economy. Their scheme will have far-reaching effects on one hundred percent of the men, women and children in this country. The whole idea is patently ridiculous, especially in light of the host of other impending disasters.

Health Care Bill Mandates Nutrition Information on Restaurant Menus. Restaurant chains with 20 or more stores would be required to display nutrition information, including calorie counts and "suggested daily caloric intake" on their menus, under a mandate contained in the health-care reform bill drafted by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Who's Afraid of a Health Care Debate? The union packed town halls, the boycotts organized against Glenn Beck and Whole Foods, and the entire smear campaign against critics of ObamaCare demonstrates all too clearly that it is the Obama administration and its allies that are afraid of a real debate on health care. After all people who aren't afraid of a real debate don't need to try and force critics off the air or boycott an entire chain because its CEO ran an op-ed pointing out what's wrong with ObamaCare.

Health bill proposal for 'home visitation' sparks Big Brother fears. A proposal for a government program that would send nurses into the homes of low-income women to counsel them about their pregnancies and parenting skills failed to gain support in Congress this year, but has been revived in the health care legislation. The language, buried deep in the 1,000-plus-page House health care reform bill, has bipartisan support, though it never had enough backing to pass the House or Senate on its own.

Which 'Community-Based Organizations' Will Monitor Your Diet? The health care reform bill approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) would provide federal grants to state and local governments and a "national network of community-based organizations" to "promote healthy living and reduce disparities" and to monitor people's weight, eating, exercise habits and other individual behaviors that affect health at the community level. The language instituting the program, entitled "Community Transformation Grants," is on pages 382-387 of the bill as posted on the committee's Web site.

Turning Uncle Sam into Peeping Tom. Buried in the 1,017 pages of the House Democrats' health-care bill is a little-noticed provision that for the first time could give the government access to the checking or credit-card information of every American. Under section 163, which is entitled "Administrative Simplification," the bill sets new "standards" for electronic transactions between individuals and their health-care providers.

President of Some of the People. Americans who normally minded their own business, lived their lives, went to work, raised their kids, and planned for retirement are dismayed at the details that are coming out of the enormously complex health care bills that are working their way through Congress. They're learning that HR 3200 stipulates that, after the first year that the new health care laws are enacted, their private health insurance companies won't be allowed to enroll any new customers, yet they won't be able to change any terms of its conditions for their current customers. The obvious effect of such a law is that it would put insurance companies out of business very quickly.

The Nationalization of Your Body. Health care is a game-changer. The permanent game-changer. The pendulum will swing, and one day, despite their best efforts, the Republicans will return to power, and, in the right circumstances, the bailouts and cap-and-trade and Government Motors and much of the rest can be reversed. But the government annexation of health care will prove impossible to roll back.

Obama in 2007 Said He Wanted to Eliminate Private Health Insurance. As President Obama repeatedly tells America that his plan for healthcare reform will not lead to the elimination of private health insurance, statements he made in 2007 and 2003 tell a different story altogether. In shocking video uncovered by our good friends at Naked Emperor News, Obama, speaking at SEIU's New Leadership Health Care Forum on March 24, 2007, said, "My commitment is to make sure that we have universal healthcare for all Americans by the end of my first term as President."

Why public health care is philosophically wrong. Forget all the scare stories about waiting lines and denied services. ... If you focus on scare stories of public health care systems gone wrong (and they all go wrong), you will fall into the leftists' trap of arguing over the most effective way to publicly manage health. No. You should manage your health. You should have the power to choose whichever option serves you best. The power over your health — your very self — should be in your hands.

A Liberty Issue. The president needs to get something passed. Anything. The details don't matter. Once it's in place, health-care "reform" can be re-reformed endlessly. Indeed, you'll be surprised how little else we talk about. So, for example, public funding for abortions can be discarded now, and written in — as it surely will be by some judge — down the road. What matters is to ram it through, get it done, pass it now — in whatever form. ... Government health care would be wrong even if it "controlled costs." It's a liberty issue. I'd rather be free to choose, even if I make the wrong choices.

Universal Health Care Isn't Worth Our Freedom. [Scroll down] The concept of reimbursable health-care service rests on the premise that the medical problem in need of servicing is the result of involuntary, unwanted happenings, not the result of voluntary, goal-directed behavior. Leukemia, lupus, prostate cancer, and many infectious diseases are unwanted happenings. Are we going to count obesity, smoking, depression and schizophrenia as the same kinds of diseases?

Health Care Bill Will Fund State Vaccine Teams to Conduct 'Interventions' in Private Homes. There is a knock at the front door. Peeking through the window, a mother sees a man and a woman, both in uniform. They are agents of health-care reform. "Excuse me, ma'am," says the man. "Our records show that your eleven-year-old daughter has not been immunized for genital warts." "And your four-year-old still needs the chicken-pox vaccine," says the woman.

IRS to control your health care. Congress is creeping closer to passing a government health care bill without telling taxpayers how they are going to pay for the crippling bureaucratic expansion. The reason Democrats are so secretive is that they are ramping up the power of the Internal Revenue Service to make Americans' health care decisions for them.

The Editor says...
Why do you suppose President Obama is bent on implementing his plans for socialized medicine, no matter what the political cost to himself or his party? Why is it so important to him? The article immediately below may hold the answer.

Hidden Healthcare Reform Objective: Feds Want to Know Your Number. Imagine, if you will, that you are living in a changed America, or in President Obama's words, an America that begged "re-making." In this now-changed America, hope is in big government and her closest ally, big science. Now imagine that you and your spouse give birth to a child in this brave, new America, in a hospital linked by law to the federal citizens database. Immediately upon your child's birth, a hospital clerk assigns your newborn with a "Unique Health Identifier" (UHI), a specially coded number, which is then put into a national electronic database, along with your newborn's fingerprints and any other identifiers the bureaucrats in D.C. have demanded. ... Imagine that it is even required that your newborn, before leaving the hospital, be fitted with a surgically implanted microchip, the way babies are now, in many states, required to be vaccinated and blood-typed.

The Editor says...
When people are implanted with RFID chips, where will the chips be placed? I predict they will be in the hand or in the forehead. Not everyone has hands, but everyone has a forehead. The insertion of the RFID chip in the forehead or in the hand will leave a visible mark, without which you will not be able to buy or sell anything. Years of over-reliance on debit cards and ATMs will lead to a cashless society, and the next step after that is to have all your digital money reside on your implanted RFID chip. My advice is this: DO NOT ACCEPT THE MARK ON YOUR HAND OR FOREHEAD. Life will be tough without it, but eventually you will be better off for refusing it.

ObamaCare and the Forces of History. On the surface, a discussion of the historical significance of national health care seems innocuous. When something that has never happened before happens, it can certainly be described as "historic." However, the word "historic" means something quite different in the Marxist lexicon. It signifies the beginning of the socialist revolution.

One Nation Under Arrest. Before President Barack Obama took over the White House, no United States citizen had ever been forced by the federal government to buy a product against their will. But now, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, Americans, by dint of their mere existence, are now required to purchase Obama administration approved health insurance or face a penalty assessed through the Internal Revenue Code. This is simply unprecedented. The income tax doesn't kick in until an American earns income.

'Commerce Clause' Totalitarians. Make no mistake: Congress is telling Americans that we are required to engage in commerce, whether we like or not — simply because we exist. And the fundamental question Americans should be pondering as a result, is this: if Congress can force you to engage in a particular activity against your will, if they can literally eliminate the freedom to choose not to engage in commerce, what is it they can't regulate? Answer: absolutely nothing — and that is the essence of tyranny.

New Regulations Outline Specifications for Every Americans' Electronic Health Records. New regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Tuesday outline federal standards for the electronic health records that every American must have by 2014 The regulations, developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and issued by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, are the first concrete step for the government as it pursues the goal — first outlined in the 2009 economic stimulus law — of making all health care providers use the electronic record systems by 2014.

Can Congress Make You Buy Broccoli? Can Congress force you to eat certain foods? To buy health insurance? So much for the 1970s mantra of "My body, my choice."

The Senate bill includes an unprecedented trap: It can't be repealed!

Reid Bill Says Future Congresses Cannot Repeal Parts of Reid Bill. Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) pointed out some rather astounding language in the Senate health care bill during floor remarks tonight. First, he noted that there are a number of changes to Senate rules in the bill — and it's supposed to take a 2/3 vote to change the rules. And then he pointed out that the Reid bill declares on page 1020 that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board cannot be repealed by future Congresses. ... The Democrats aren't playing by the rules; they may be violating the Constitution.

The impudent tyranny of Harry Reid. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is proving once again the maxim that darkness hates the light. Buried in his massive amendment to the Senate version of Obamacare is Reid's anti-democratic poison pill designed to prevent any future Congress from repealing the central feature of this monstrous legislation.

Forever Gone. Any law can be repealed, but the Democrats' radical health bill contains unprecedented language that could wreck the U.S. health system permanently. It's one of the dirtiest tricks yet. "Page 1,020" — it may soon be a mantra for one of the most disturbing abuses of legislative power in history.

Liberal Concedes Health Care Bill Will Create New Entitlement "Impossible to Rescind". Like most liberals, the John Cassidy supports the passage of health care legislation. But, unlike most liberals, he's honest about the costs and consequences of passing it. ... "The future cost savings that the Administration and its congressional allies are promising to deliver are based on wishful thinking and sleight of hand."

Could We Get Rid of It? [A reader] asks me whether ObamaCare can be repealed if signed into law. The short answer is yes. First off, if they utilize the "deem and pass" Slaughter Rule, there will be court challenges. And those states that pass prohibitions on the requirement for citizens to buy insurance will challenge the law as well. There will also be other legal challenges. But really, all it would take is a new law. But what about those "you can't repeal this" provisions and "supermajority requirements" snuck into the nooks and crannies of ObamaCare? They really are meaningless.

The Editor says...
No, they are not entirely meaningless. They mean this much: The Democrats are willing to use any means at their disposal — no matter how illegal, insane, unprecedented, or un-American — to seize power and retain it permanently. They may or may not succeed this year, but we must never forget how they tried.

Obamacare Must Be Repealed. Conservatives are demanding the repeal of Obamacare. Simply, it's an intolerable act by government that's inconsistent with freedom and liberty. ... The left so wanted to head off this repeal effort that Section 3405, Subsection C of ObamaCare flat out states: "it shall not be in order in the Senate, or the House of Representatives to consider any bill resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."

2010 Was the Year of Government Without Bounds. A majority of Americans rejected the underlying premise of the [Obamacare] legislation — that more government intervention will make our health care system better. But even many sympathetic to government-run health care knew something was wrong with the process used to advance the legislation. The dense, two thousand page bill was unread by Members of Congress. Americans saw Senators' support openly bought with favors, learned terms like "deem and pass" and "reconciliation," and watched a determined Congress circumvent the normal legislative process. Constituents' concerns were dismissed, and the public told they'd learn what's in the legislation after it was passed.

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