The Obama Resistance Grows
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I can’t see the mountains.
1 month ago
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Common Sense Approach To Healthcare Reform
Most Americans feel that the healthcare system in our country needs to be reformed in some manner. At the same time, most Americans LIKE their own current coverage. My question to those who want to revamp the entire healthcare system into a government run nightmare is, "Why throw out the baby with the bathwater?"
There are many opportunities to streamline cost and increase quality of care in a way which is comfortable and acceptable to most Americans. Below is a list of smart reform ideas from Physicians for Reform which would significantly effect American healthcare in a positive way. Is there a reason why our elected leaders won't address these very plain and simple measures? Does it have something to do with the fact that 84% of trial lawyers' campaign contributions in 2008 went to the Democratic party?
Brief Overview
Insurance Reform:
Health Savings Accounts combined with higher deductable policies reduce healthcare spending by placing patients in control of their own healthcare dollars. This strategy can decrease healthcare sending by 13% without compromising access to care. If America reduces even one fourth of its healthcare spending by even 10%, this will save $50 billion every year.
Tax Reform:
Physicians for Reform advocates making health insurance and Health Savings Accounts tax deductable for Americans with higher incomes. We also advocate funding individual policies and Health Savings Account with tax credits for Americans with lower incomes. This plan not only makes healthcare affordable for every American, it keeps patients in control of their own healthcare dollars. This program would cost approximately $80 billion every year.
Tort Reform:
Physicians spend approximately $124 billion every year in defensive medicine. Much of this is driven by the unpredictable results of our medical legal system. Federal level tort reform would decrease healthcare spending by an estimated $70 billion yearly.
Combined, Insurance Reform and Tort Reform would save Americans approximately $120 billion every year. Tax credits for Americans without healthcare would cost $80 billion. The net result? Not only does every American have access to healthcare, we save approximately $40 billion every year.
In this time of economic crisis, this plan not only reduces federal spending, it lowers the cost of healthcare of both small and large businesses. This in turn will create jobs as businesses have more money to hire people.
There are many opportunities to streamline cost and increase quality of care in a way which is comfortable and acceptable to most Americans. Below is a list of smart reform ideas from Physicians for Reform which would significantly effect American healthcare in a positive way. Is there a reason why our elected leaders won't address these very plain and simple measures? Does it have something to do with the fact that 84% of trial lawyers' campaign contributions in 2008 went to the Democratic party?
Brief Overview
Insurance Reform:
Health Savings Accounts combined with higher deductable policies reduce healthcare spending by placing patients in control of their own healthcare dollars. This strategy can decrease healthcare sending by 13% without compromising access to care. If America reduces even one fourth of its healthcare spending by even 10%, this will save $50 billion every year.
Tax Reform:
Physicians for Reform advocates making health insurance and Health Savings Accounts tax deductable for Americans with higher incomes. We also advocate funding individual policies and Health Savings Account with tax credits for Americans with lower incomes. This plan not only makes healthcare affordable for every American, it keeps patients in control of their own healthcare dollars. This program would cost approximately $80 billion every year.
Tort Reform:
Physicians spend approximately $124 billion every year in defensive medicine. Much of this is driven by the unpredictable results of our medical legal system. Federal level tort reform would decrease healthcare spending by an estimated $70 billion yearly.
Combined, Insurance Reform and Tort Reform would save Americans approximately $120 billion every year. Tax credits for Americans without healthcare would cost $80 billion. The net result? Not only does every American have access to healthcare, we save approximately $40 billion every year.
In this time of economic crisis, this plan not only reduces federal spending, it lowers the cost of healthcare of both small and large businesses. This in turn will create jobs as businesses have more money to hire people.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
An Interesting Strategy
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Carroll woman's answer to highly visible Obama: Selling her televisions
By DOUGLAS BURNS
Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A 78-year-old Carroll woman says she's so tired of seeing President Barack Obama on the airwaves that she's selling her television sets - two of them.
Deloris Nissen, a retired nurses' aide and former Kmart employee who was raised on a farm near Audubon, placed a classified advertisement with The Daily Times Herald for Friday's paper.
In the $5.50 ad, Nissen tells readers she has two television sets for sale.
The reason: "Obama on every channel and station."
In an interview Nissen said she is serious about selling two TVs - and genuine about her disgust with what she believes to be an overexposed president.
"I just got tired of watching him on every channel," Nissen said. "I thought, my gosh, does he ever stay at the White House?"
Nissen, who voted for U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the 2008 presidential election, said she could live with seeing Obama come on television to make serious announcements. But he seems to be on all the time, Nissen said.
When the president does appear on a channel she happens to be watching, Nissen said, she quickly turns.
"I have the remote real handy," Nissen said. "I have the batteries. I'm ready for him."
Nissen's annoyance with the president as a frequent presence on her television doesn't mean she'll abandon the medium altogether.
She's keeping a bigger flat-screen television and selling an older 20-inch Sony and possibly a 13-inch set.
"It's too heavy," Nissen said of the 20-inch TV. "I can't handle it anymore."
That said, she doesn't plan on selling it for less than $100 - even if Obama was just on Tuesday pitching his health-care-reform plans.
Obama's own advisers and political observers across the ideological spectrum have for months debated whether the now popular president is overexposed.
For her part, Nissen said she expects to take some flack for the advertisement in her local paper. After all, Obama did win Iowa and Carroll County in the 2008 election.
But she's not worried about any criticism.
"I'm an old lady, and I don't care," Nissen said.
Carroll woman's answer to highly visible Obama: Selling her televisions
By DOUGLAS BURNS
Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A 78-year-old Carroll woman says she's so tired of seeing President Barack Obama on the airwaves that she's selling her television sets - two of them.
Deloris Nissen, a retired nurses' aide and former Kmart employee who was raised on a farm near Audubon, placed a classified advertisement with The Daily Times Herald for Friday's paper.
In the $5.50 ad, Nissen tells readers she has two television sets for sale.
The reason: "Obama on every channel and station."
In an interview Nissen said she is serious about selling two TVs - and genuine about her disgust with what she believes to be an overexposed president.
"I just got tired of watching him on every channel," Nissen said. "I thought, my gosh, does he ever stay at the White House?"
Nissen, who voted for U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the 2008 presidential election, said she could live with seeing Obama come on television to make serious announcements. But he seems to be on all the time, Nissen said.
When the president does appear on a channel she happens to be watching, Nissen said, she quickly turns.
"I have the remote real handy," Nissen said. "I have the batteries. I'm ready for him."
Nissen's annoyance with the president as a frequent presence on her television doesn't mean she'll abandon the medium altogether.
She's keeping a bigger flat-screen television and selling an older 20-inch Sony and possibly a 13-inch set.
"It's too heavy," Nissen said of the 20-inch TV. "I can't handle it anymore."
That said, she doesn't plan on selling it for less than $100 - even if Obama was just on Tuesday pitching his health-care-reform plans.
Obama's own advisers and political observers across the ideological spectrum have for months debated whether the now popular president is overexposed.
For her part, Nissen said she expects to take some flack for the advertisement in her local paper. After all, Obama did win Iowa and Carroll County in the 2008 election.
But she's not worried about any criticism.
"I'm an old lady, and I don't care," Nissen said.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Show Us the Budget NOW!!!!
White House Refuses to Release Budget
Washington (AP): The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today's bleak landscape.
The administration's annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama's budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.
The release of the update—usually scheduled for mid-July—has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town Aug. 7 on its summer recess.
The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.
The White House budget director, Peter Orszag, said on Sunday that the administration believes the "chances are high" of getting a health care bill by then. But new analyses showing runaway costs are jeopardizing Senate passage.
"Instead of a dream, this routine report could be a nightmare," Tony Fratto, a former Treasury Department official and White House spokesman under President George W. Bush, said of the delayed budget update. "There are some things that can't be escaped."
The administration earlier this year predicted that unemployment would peak at about 9 percent without a big stimulus package and 8 percent with one. Congress did pass a $787 billion two-year stimulus measure, yet unemployment soared to 9.5 percent in June and appears headed for double digits.
Obama's current forecast anticipates 3.2 percent growth next year, then 4 percent or higher growth from 2011 to 2013. Private forecasts are less optimistic, especially for next year.
Any downward revision in growth or revenue projections would mean that budget deficits would be far higher than the administration is now suggesting.
Setting the stage for bleaker projections, Vice President Joe Biden recently conceded, "We misread how bad the economy was" in January. Obama modified that by suggesting the White House had "incomplete" information.
The new budget update comes as the public and members of Congress are becoming increasingly anxious over Obama's economic policies.
A Washington Post-ABC News survey released Monday shows approval of Obama's handling of health-care reform slipping below 50 percent for the first time. The poll also found support eroding on how Obama is dealing with other issues that are important to Americans right now—the economy, unemployment and the swelling budget deficit.
The Democratic-controlled Congress is reeling from last week's testimony by the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, that the main health care proposals Congress is considering would not reduce costs—as Obama has insisted—but "significantly expand" the federal financial responsibility for health care.
That gave ammunition to Republican critics of the bill.
Citing the CBO testimony, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Monday accused Democrats of "burying this budget update until after Congress leaves town next month." He called the budget-update postponment "an attempt to hide a record-breaking deficit as Democratic leaders break arms to rush through a government takeover of health care."
White House budget office spokesman Tom Gavin disagreed, noting the delay was "really not something out of the norm" and is typical for a president's first year. Gavin noted that President George W. Bush's budget office did not release the mid-session review in his first year until August 22; in President Bill Clinton's first year, it did not come out until Sept. 1.
Obama also didn't release his full budget until early May—instead of the first week in February, when he put out just an outline
Late last week, Obama vowed anew that "health insurance reform cannot add to our deficit over the next decade and I mean it."
The nation's debt—the total of accumulated annual budget deficits—now stands at $11.6 trillion. In the scheme of things, that's more important than talking about the "deficit," which only looks at a one-year slice of bookkeeping and totally ignores previous indebtedness that is still outstanding.
Even so, the administration has projected that the annual deficit for the current budget year will hit $1.84 trillion, four times the size of last year's deficit of $455 billion. Private forecasters suggest that shortfall may actually top $2 trillion.
Budget updates in previous administrations have given rise to charges that the White House was manipulating its figures to offer too rosy an outlook. Critics will be watching closely when the White House's Office of Management and Budget releases the new numbers.
Still, the update mainly involves plugging in changes in economic indicators, not revising program-by-program details. And indicators such as unemployment and gross domestic product changes have been public knowledge for some time.
Standard & Poor's chief economist David Wyss said part of the problem with the administration's earlier numbers is that "they were just stale," essentially put together by budget number-crunchers at the end of last year, before the sharp drop in the economy.
Wyss, like many other economists, says he expects the recession to last at least until September or October. "We're looking for basically a zero second half (of 2009). And then sluggish recovery," he said.
Even as it prepares to put larger deficit and smaller growth figures into its official forecast, the administration is looking for signs of improvement.
"If we were at the brink of catastrophe at the beginning of the year, we have walked some substantial distance back from the abyss," said Lawrence Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser.
Washington (AP): The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today's bleak landscape.
The administration's annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama's budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.
The release of the update—usually scheduled for mid-July—has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town Aug. 7 on its summer recess.
The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.
The White House budget director, Peter Orszag, said on Sunday that the administration believes the "chances are high" of getting a health care bill by then. But new analyses showing runaway costs are jeopardizing Senate passage.
"Instead of a dream, this routine report could be a nightmare," Tony Fratto, a former Treasury Department official and White House spokesman under President George W. Bush, said of the delayed budget update. "There are some things that can't be escaped."
The administration earlier this year predicted that unemployment would peak at about 9 percent without a big stimulus package and 8 percent with one. Congress did pass a $787 billion two-year stimulus measure, yet unemployment soared to 9.5 percent in June and appears headed for double digits.
Obama's current forecast anticipates 3.2 percent growth next year, then 4 percent or higher growth from 2011 to 2013. Private forecasts are less optimistic, especially for next year.
Any downward revision in growth or revenue projections would mean that budget deficits would be far higher than the administration is now suggesting.
Setting the stage for bleaker projections, Vice President Joe Biden recently conceded, "We misread how bad the economy was" in January. Obama modified that by suggesting the White House had "incomplete" information.
The new budget update comes as the public and members of Congress are becoming increasingly anxious over Obama's economic policies.
A Washington Post-ABC News survey released Monday shows approval of Obama's handling of health-care reform slipping below 50 percent for the first time. The poll also found support eroding on how Obama is dealing with other issues that are important to Americans right now—the economy, unemployment and the swelling budget deficit.
The Democratic-controlled Congress is reeling from last week's testimony by the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, that the main health care proposals Congress is considering would not reduce costs—as Obama has insisted—but "significantly expand" the federal financial responsibility for health care.
That gave ammunition to Republican critics of the bill.
Citing the CBO testimony, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Monday accused Democrats of "burying this budget update until after Congress leaves town next month." He called the budget-update postponment "an attempt to hide a record-breaking deficit as Democratic leaders break arms to rush through a government takeover of health care."
White House budget office spokesman Tom Gavin disagreed, noting the delay was "really not something out of the norm" and is typical for a president's first year. Gavin noted that President George W. Bush's budget office did not release the mid-session review in his first year until August 22; in President Bill Clinton's first year, it did not come out until Sept. 1.
Obama also didn't release his full budget until early May—instead of the first week in February, when he put out just an outline
Late last week, Obama vowed anew that "health insurance reform cannot add to our deficit over the next decade and I mean it."
The nation's debt—the total of accumulated annual budget deficits—now stands at $11.6 trillion. In the scheme of things, that's more important than talking about the "deficit," which only looks at a one-year slice of bookkeeping and totally ignores previous indebtedness that is still outstanding.
Even so, the administration has projected that the annual deficit for the current budget year will hit $1.84 trillion, four times the size of last year's deficit of $455 billion. Private forecasters suggest that shortfall may actually top $2 trillion.
Budget updates in previous administrations have given rise to charges that the White House was manipulating its figures to offer too rosy an outlook. Critics will be watching closely when the White House's Office of Management and Budget releases the new numbers.
Still, the update mainly involves plugging in changes in economic indicators, not revising program-by-program details. And indicators such as unemployment and gross domestic product changes have been public knowledge for some time.
Standard & Poor's chief economist David Wyss said part of the problem with the administration's earlier numbers is that "they were just stale," essentially put together by budget number-crunchers at the end of last year, before the sharp drop in the economy.
Wyss, like many other economists, says he expects the recession to last at least until September or October. "We're looking for basically a zero second half (of 2009). And then sluggish recovery," he said.
Even as it prepares to put larger deficit and smaller growth figures into its official forecast, the administration is looking for signs of improvement.
"If we were at the brink of catastrophe at the beginning of the year, we have walked some substantial distance back from the abyss," said Lawrence Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Your Current Plan Is NOT An Option
It's Not An Option
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Congress: It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage.
The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."
What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.
The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.
With HSAs out of the way, a key obstacle to the left's expansion of the welfare state will be removed.
The public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.
Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn't be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans' lives.
It took just 16 pages of reading to find this naked attempt by the political powers to increase their reach. It's scary to think how many more breaches of liberty we'll come across in the final 1,002.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Congress: It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage.
The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."
What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.
The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.
With HSAs out of the way, a key obstacle to the left's expansion of the welfare state will be removed.
The public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.
Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn't be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans' lives.
It took just 16 pages of reading to find this naked attempt by the political powers to increase their reach. It's scary to think how many more breaches of liberty we'll come across in the final 1,002.
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