February 09, 2010
To The GOP Don't play Obama's Game With His Socialized Medicine Invite!!!!
Rush Limbaugh warned Republican members of Congress that Obama’s invite to the White House for talks on health care is a trap. Rush is so right!!!
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Barack Obama is planning to host a televised meeting with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders on health care reform.
Obama Seeks GOP Input on Reform - from FOX News
The Feb. 25 meeting is an attempt to reach across the aisle but not a signal that the president plans to start over, as Republicans have demanded, a White House official said.
“I want to come back [after the Presidents Day congressional recess] and have a large meeting — Republicans and Democrats — to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward,” Obama said in an interview with Katie Couric during CBS’s Super Bowl pre-game show Sunday.
Obama said he wants to “look at the Republican ideas that are out there.”
“If we can go, step by step, through a series of these issues and arrive at some agreements, then, procedurally, there’s no reason why we can’t do it a lot faster the process took last year,” he said.
In a statement, the official said, “What the president will not do is let this moment slip away. He hopes to have Republican support in doing so — but he is going to move forward on health reform.”
Krauthammer: If Dems Didn't Hear the Rejection of ObamaCare from Mass. then 'They Need Hearing Aids'
House GOP Responds to Summit Invite
The GOP says they will agree to meet with Obama over the Health Care bill if he agrees to start over from scratch.
House GOP Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) and Whip Eric Cantor (R., Va.) sent White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel a letter regarding the upcoming health-care summit:
Mr. Emanuel:
We welcome President Obama’s announcement of forthcoming bipartisan health care talks. In fact, you may remember that last May, Republicans asked President Obama to hold bipartisan discussions on health care in an attempt to find common ground on health care, but he declined and instead chose to work with only Democrats. Since then, the President has given dozens of speeches on health care reform, operating under the premise that the more the American people learn about his plan, the more they will come to like it. Just the opposite has occurred: a majority of Americans oppose the House and Senate health care bills and want them scrapped so we can start over with a step-by-step approach focused on lowering costs for families and small businesses.
Just as important, scrapping the House and Senate health care bills would help end the uncertainty they are creating for workers and businesses and thus strengthen our shared commitment to focusing on creating jobs. Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward on health care in a bipartisan way, does that mean he will agree to start over so that we can develop a bill that is truly worthy of the support and confidence of the American people? Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today that the President is “absolutely not” resetting the legislative process for health care.
If the starting point for this meeting is the job-killing bills the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate.
Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan way, does that mean he has taken off the table the idea of relying solely on Democratic votes and jamming through health care reform by way of reconciliation? As the President has noted recently, Democrats continue to hold large majorities in the House and Senate, which means they can attempt to pass a health care bill at any time through the reconciliation process.
You can GO HERE ( The Corner ) to read the rest of the letter .
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Wild Thing's comment........
Not a negotiation, just a confab for Hussein to pretend like he gives a damn about working with Republicans.
The GOP had better not get sucked in by Hussein. The legislation IS SUPPOSED TO BE NEGOTIATED IN COMMITTEES.
SEPARATION OF POWERS MEANS THE LEGISLATURE LEGISLATES, NOT THE EXECUTIVE!
Hussein is trying the fascist trick of making the entire process about HIM approving or disapproving. Let's see some real nut-busting in legislative committees, not a coffee clatch where Hussein the prompter-reading idiot gets to stand over everyone.
GOP: DO NOT FALL FOR THIS STUFF!
“Obama said he wants to “look at the Republican ideas that are out there.”
He just went on air recently and bragged about all the Republican ideas incorporated in the bill. There’s no question in my mind hes never once listened since hes the ‘I Won” man.
The GOP response to this White House should be: “We will be glad to discuss this legislation and the ideas in the proper forum, the forum the Founding Fathers envisioned: the legislature. Thanks for your concerns, and we’ll note them when we meet in committee. Goodbye.”
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 01, 2010
White House: ‘One Vote Away’ in House From Making Health Reform a Reality!
Robert Gibbs still insists that Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts is a referendum on Barack Obama’s radical policies.
"The House and Senate have passed a bill. If the House were to take up the Senate bill, that bill would then go to the President's desk."
Wild Thing's comment.......
The “one vote” isn’t a person’s vote, it’s a “house vote”. If the house voted for the senate bill, it would be done.
And “who is that 'one vote”.....even if this is true!
Personally I they are a LONG way from passing this thing. The House has tons of problems with the Senate bill, and some of them can’t be corrected through reconciliation, like abortion.
If the Dems try this, they will be showing the voters in broad daylight getting closer and closer to an election that they are certifiably insane and determined to subvert the will of the American people at any cost.
I wouldn’t put it past them to try this, but I pray that there are enough sane Dems in Congress that want to keep their jobs to kill this health care disaster.
Pelosi is pathetic. She’s got a 50-seat majority, and is reduced to lying about how she’s “got the votes” for a democratic bill that defines their party.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:47 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop Speaks Out On Obamacare
From 60 Plus.org
60 Plus announced a new advertising campaign featuring former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. The ad which targets Congress asks people to call their Representatives and Senators and urge them to Start Over - Get Healthcare Right.
The ad highlights C. Everett Koop telling viewers he is 93 years old and Im here with 2 artificial joints, 2 pacemakers to keep my heart in rhythm, as well as a stent to keep my coronaries open. He goes on to say seniors might not get the care they need at advanced ages under the new plans, and asserts that the discussions over a final plan should NOT be held in secret.
Koop:
"I'm 93, and thank God for every year, I'm here with 2 artificial joints, 2 pacemakers to keep my heart in rhythm as well as a stent to keep my coronaries open, seniors in this country can get the same care I receive, but in some countries, like the United Kingdom we would be considered too old and the cost to the state too high, it is vital that seniors understand what congress is doing, but Democrats are working on a health care bill and keeping the discussion and specifics secret.
We seniors are concerned about proposals that would reduce Medicare spending, the Administration promised transparent deliberation which has not been forthcoming, America deserves better than this"
C. Evertt Coop served as thirteenth Surgeon General of the United States under President Ronald Reagan from 1982 to 1989
Wild Thing's comment........
That is amazing what he has been through. I am so glad he did this ad, excellent.
Also Pat Boone, National Spokesman, 60 Plus Association.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 31, 2010
Obama's Does Some Admission On His Socialized Medicine Bill
Barack Obama admitted yesterday that democrats “snuck” a provision into their nationalized health care bill that will force government bureaucrats between you and your doctor.
Obama's Stunning Admission
“The last thing I will say, though — let me say this about health care and the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the package that we’ve presented — and there’s some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating. For example, we said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your — if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you’re not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge.“
If we take this statement at face value, President Obama is admitting the the health care bills passed by either the House or Senate (or both) contained provisions which were "snuck in" - presumably by Democratic members and perhaps on behalf of certain lobbyists - that would have in fact prevented people from keeping their current insurance and/or choosing the doctor they want.
This was one of the core debates on health care throughout last year: Would President Obama and the Democrats' legislation allow government to come between citizens and their choice of doctors and insurers? Obama promised it wouldn't. Republicans said it would, and this was one of the aspects of the legislation that led them to characterize it as a government takeover of health care - the same characterization that Obama chastized the GOP for.
So it's a bit of shock to find out now - from the President himself, no less - that one or both of the bills that passed Congress late last year (the House passed its version in late November, the Senate on Christmas Eve Day) contained language that would have violated this pledge.
Wild Thing's comment.......
We’ve watched Obama for a year now, and we’ve watched Congress for a lifetime, and we know how they operate.
By ‘admitting’ that he’s trying to deflect from the reality that everything about this legislation would have encouraged employers to change or dump their coverages—and doctors to hang up their stethoscopes. ‘If you like your doctor, you get to keep him or her’ was a great big in-your-face whopper from the get-go.
I would never have labeled the article 'Obama's Stunning Admission'. I don't find it stunning at all.
What 'Stunning Admission'? I read the entire article and nowhere did he 'admit':
1.That he is a congenital LIAR. (he makes Bill Clinton look like Saint Thomas Aquinas)
2.There just 'may be' something amiss with his 'heritage'. (no I'm not a birther)
3.To him, Capitalism is evil.
4.That he is a confirmed Marxist.
5.All monies & properties must be taken confiscated from 'the rich'. (except for his)
6.His goal is to destroy the USA as a Republic.
7.He thinks all us 'little people' are STOO-PID™ and we can't tie our shoes without 'HIS' help.
8.The reason he hasn't picked a church in DC 'yet' is because he does NOT believe in God.
9.He HATES America, The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and ALL our Founding Fathers.
10.He thinks Communism hasn't worked 'yet' because he wasn't there to lead it.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:40 AM | Comments (5)
January 30, 2010
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) Says HealthCare Bill Is On Life Support
Landrieu: Health reform 'on life support'
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) said the comprehensive health-care bill is "on life support" and criticized President Obama for not laying out a clear path to pass it in his State of the Union address.
Asked for a status report on the bill, she said "I think it's on life support, unfortunately. But it still has a pulse. And I think the president's suggestion about a cooling off period, short cooling off period, might be good to give us a chance to sort of reorganize and reorder."
Landrieu said she remained committed to passing health care reform if it's "done the right way." But she says that would not include a fast track procedure called reconciliation which Republicans and some moderate Democrats oppose. "There's not an appetite to pass much at all--if anything--through reconciliation."
The Louisiana Democrat said her diagnosis on health care was based on her discussions with members of the House. Under the most likely strategy to pass the reform bill, the House would eventually have to pass the Senate's version.
"There just doesn't seem to be the votes in the House at this time, particularly among the 'Blue Dogs' and moderate Democrats who we're really talking to over there to figure out how to move this forward," she said.
Landrieu said the in his speech last night, the President should have given an explicit strategy for how he wanted Congress to pass the bill. Democratic leaders have struggled to find a solution since Republican Scott Brown was elected to the Senate in Massachusetts.
"I think the president should have been more clear about a way forward... and I'm hoping that in the next week or two he will be because that's what it's going to take if it's at all possible to get this done," she said. "Mailing in general suggestions, sending them over the transom is not necessarily going to work."
Wild Thing's comment.......
Health care bill 'on life support'
Maybe they should just give it a pain pill and let it die quietly like Obama suggests for the elderly.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (6)
Obama Just CANNOT Tell The Truth
Breitbart TV
“The truth of the matter is that, if you look at the health care process, just over the course of the year, overwhelmingly the majority of it actually was on C-SPAN because it was taking place in Congressional hearings in which you guys were participating. How many committees were that that helped to shape this bill? Countless hearings took place.”
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Sen. Inhofe says Obama lies even more then Bill Clinton. ~ Wild Thing
“I was thinking back to the first State of the Union Address with President Clinton and I thought this guy can say things that are untrue with greater conviction than anyone I’ve ever seen. I honestly think that Obama is better.”
Said by Senator Inhofe (R-OK) was on the Joe Kelley Show....KRMG Tulsa.
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Wild Thing's comment......
This was yesterday and of course he tells more lies.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (3)
January 29, 2010
Pelosi Vows To "pole vault" Obamacare Through
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HERE is the video below of what she said:
Speaker Pelosi vowed she’d ram Obamacare through Congress– even if she had to “pole vault” it through:
“We’ll go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, we’ll go over a fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in but we’re going to get health care reform passed for the American people.”
Wild Thing's comment.......
The American public will be waiting for you when your parachute lands... with pitchforks!
She also said she’d parachute it if need be. Who is up for packing her CHUTE? heh heh
My gut says there is something absolutely evil hidden in this Obamacare, something ever worse then the vile things we already know about it...........something that the dems have been ordered by the dark side to pass at all costs.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:55 AM | Comments (9)
January 28, 2010
Nancy Pelosi Saying She Has The Votes To Pass Healthcare
Nancy Pelosi announced today that Democrats have enough votes to pass health care.
Nancy Pelosi floats two-track health reform
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday floated the idea of a two-track plan for health care reform — with Congress pursuing easier-to-pass incremental changes now and comprehensive reform later.
“We believe that it’s possible to have comprehensive health care reform as we go forward, but at the same time, it can be on another track where some things can just be passed outside of that legislation, and we’ll be doing both,” Pelosi said in an interview with POLITICO.
Though the Democrats’ loss of Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat has complicated efforts to get the 60 votes they need for a sweeping health care bill, Pelosi insisted that comprehensive reform is still on the agenda.
“We have to get it done,” the speaker said. “What the process is doesn’t matter. The outcome is what is important, and what it means to working families in America.”
Asked whether piecemeal changes could come before comprehensive reform, Pelosi said:
“Some may. It just depends on how long it takes for the comprehensive to go. But it doesn’t mean that the comprehensive isn’t moving. It is essential. If everyone loved their health insurance in the country — and you know they don’t — we would still have to do this for financial reasons.”
The two prongs in Pelosi's strategy aren't mutually exclusive; party leaders have no plans to abandon their push for a sweeping health care bill, aides said Wednesday, but the speaker would like to move items that are popular with her members - and wouldn't qualify under fast-track rules that require a simple 51-vote majority in the Senate.
With health care at a standstill, House Democrats are already preparing to force a floor vote on one of the provisions most targeted to the insurance industry - a repeal of a 1945 antitrust exemption which critics contend has allowed the companies to collude in the marketplace. The provision is widely popular among House Democrats and even has support in the Senate.
The precise timing is not yet resolved, but the idea would be to essentially pull out that section of the House-passed health care bill and bring it to the floor as stand-alone legislation in the next two weeks, people familiar said.
Apart from the politics of forcing an anti-industry vote, the strategy also serves Pelosi’s purposes since the anti-trust language is not something that would survive in any case if Democrats were to ultimately use Senate “fast-track” reconciliation rules to break the impasse on comprehensive reform.
The speaker has offered this idea in closed-door caucus meetings in the wake of the Massachusetts special election, sources said.
In Wednesday’s interview, Pelosi reiterated that ramming the existing Senate bill through the House is not an option.
“There is no support in my caucus in the present form, at this time, for the Senate bill,” she said. “I don’t see that as an option. But I do think that we’re in range to make some improvements in it that will make it more affordable for the middle class, which is essential. Hold the insurance companies more accountable. Those two things are essential to us.”
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Wild Thing's comment........
These socialists are determined to cram this commie plan down our throats. It doesn’t matter what the majority of Americans want. They want everyone dependent on the all powerful government.
She is utterly and totally delusional. Apparently, depends upon the day and week, huh Pelosi?
After Scott Brown won, just last week and into early this week Pelosi was espousing she DID NOT have the votes!
No intelligent person wants any part of this crap.
If this EVER passes the country is permanently SCREWED.These programs become amended and change into a giant cancerous disease that kills freedom and liberty.
I think her statement is more to bolster confidence in her caucus than anything else. Reid already said it’s not a priority, so bye-bye.
From my email from conservative alerts:
“ALERT: I just read an email from the radical left-wing organization, MoveOn.org. They are writing to their minions, and this is what they’re saying:
“Congressional leaders will decide within days whether to finish reform-or not. So we’re launching a massive nationwide call-in effort today to send an overwhelming message to Capitol Hill: voters want their elected representatives to stand up and deliver, and the first step is passing real, comprehensive health care reform this year.”
A few days before that, I read an email from another far-left group, headed by former leaders of both MoveOn.org and Barack Obama’s campaign. They, too, wrote to their followers, saying, “Momentum is growing for Congress to pass the public health insurance option by using a Senate procedure that only needs 51 votes instead of 60. Can you add your name telling Democrats to be bolder — and pass a bill with the public option?”’
We can't let our guard down and we need to keep calling our congresspersons and U.S. Senators, and write letters to the editor.
If they do this with reconciliation and 51 votes...there will be lynch mobs. Don't these fools know 60-70% do NOT want this!
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (5)
January 26, 2010
Dick Morris: Pelosi and Reid Plot Secret Plan for Obamacare
Dick Morris: Pelosi and Reid Plot Secret Plan for Obamacare
Highly informed sources on Capitol Hill have revealed to me details of the Democratic plan to sneak Obamacare through Congress, despite collapsing public approval for healthcare "reform" and disintegrating congressional support in the wake of Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts.
President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all have agreed to the basic framework of the plan.
Their plan is clever but can be stopped if opponents of radical healthcare reform act quickly and focus on a core group of 23 Democratic Congressman. If just a few of these 23 Democrats are "flipped" and decide to oppose the bill, the whole Obama-Pelosi-Reid stratagem falls apart.
Here's what I learned top Democrats are planning to implement.
Senate Democrats will go to the House with a two-part deal.
First, the House will pass the Senate's Obamacare bill that passed the Senate in December. The House leadership will vote on the Senate bill, and Pelosi will allow no amendments or modifications to the Senate bill.
How will Pelosi's deal fly with rambunctious liberal members of her majority who don't like the Senate bill, especially its failure to include a public option, put heavy fines on those who don't get insurance, and offering no income tax surcharge on the "rich"?
That's where the second part of the Pelosi-deal comes in.
Behind closed doors, Reid and Pelosi have agreed in principle that changes to the Senate bill will be made to satisfy liberal House members — but only after the Senate bill is passed and signed into law by Obama.
This deal will be secured by a pledge from Reid and the Senate's Democratic caucus that they will make "fixes" to the Senate bill after it becomes law with Obama's John Hancock.
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Wild Thing's comment........
This sounds like a coup, organized by the House Speaker an Majority leader, to subvert and defeat our Republic.
Socialists have proven throughout history that the cause of socialism outweigh the cause of freedom and democracy. Reid and Pelosi play by this rule as well. Any dems that go along with this scheme are just as bad.
They are really itching for a public uprising if they go this route.
Obama told an audience in Elyria, Ohio that he would still try to convince the American public to accept Obamacare.
He told the audience that "We're going to keep working to get this done with Democrats." He behaves as if the election of Republican Senator-elect Scott Brown had never taken place.
It is about taking our freedoms away with massive government control over our lives.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:55 AM | Comments (7)
January 22, 2010
Pelosi Tells Reporters...Not Enough Votes To Pass (Socialized Medicine) Bill
Speaker Pelosi told reporters yesterday that democrats in the House lack the votes to pass the senate’s health care bill.
The Hill reported:
House Democrats lack enough votes to pass the Senate’s healthcare bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday.
Pelosi threw cold water on the idea that the House could muster enough support to pass the Senate’s health bill, which includes a number of provisions liberals in the House find distasteful.
“I don’t see the votes for it at this time,” Pelosi told reporters during her weekly press conference. “The members have been very clear.”
Democrats have been forced to confront how they could proceed with healthcare reform legislation after having lost Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts to Republicans, giving the GOP enough votes to filibuster a bill in the Senate. One option under discussion has been passing the Senate bill, which would send the bill directly to President Barack Obama for a signature.
“We have to get a bill passed. We know that,” Pelosi said, adding that “unease would be a gentle word” to describe House members’ attitude toward the Senate legislation at the moment.
Wild Thing's comment.........
God works in mysterious ways..... seems like we had almost no hope just months ago.
I also think she made this statement because she knows that if it passes in any form, she’s out of a job. And if there is one thing she loves above all else, it is her own power.
This whole push to pass this thing has been outrageous and arrogant beyond belief.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:48 AM | Comments (2)
"The Day ObamaCare Died"
From Rush Limbaugh show and written by Paul Shanklin, and is called "The Day ObamaCare Died." It is set to the tune of "American Pie,"
A little more celebrating about January 19, 2010 The day Massachussets elected a Republican Senator breaking the 60 vote Dominance in the senate.
THANK YOU voters in Massachussets, The home of the original TeaParty.
The country owes you their graditude.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:45 AM | Comments (2)
January 18, 2010
Know the TRUTH about the Government Health Care Bill H.R.3200
Know the TRUTH about the Government Health Care Bill H.R.3200 - Key Points
We are now at a stage where the House and the Senate must merge their ideas on their healthcare bills into one. If you would like the pdf. for these bills find them online.
The FACTS in this video on bill H.R. 3200 still hold true in comparison to the House and Senate bills which have been passed, unfortunately.
The House bill passed with a stipulation that will not fund abortion with our scarce and hard earned money.
The Senate bill is worse and does intend on killing babies with our scarce and hard earned money.
These two bills will be merged together and it is my common sense guess that they will go behind closed doors and merge these bills together with the forced option to fund abortion using YOUR money.
And know this, that no matter what way it passes, abortion funding or not, HEALTHCARE WILL NEVER BE FREE!!
We will be forced to purchase it and those who do not or cannot purchase it will be fined or jailed. What a caring government huh? Even in our sick economy (caused by this same government might I ad) we will be expected to purchase this. No matter what, you better believe that with everything else these Washington thugs do, they will go behind closed doors and do whatever they choose to do.
Healthcare is only a powerful stepping stone to their government takeover plan. Open your eyes America, they don’t care what “we the people” want or need, which is affordable and decent healthcare, they simply want control.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Excellent video. This is a good one to send to others as well.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:44 AM | Comments (4)
Pelosi and Pow Wow's With Obama About Socialized Medicine and Mass. Election
Pelosi’s remarks on the secret and stubborn healthcare pow-wow — especially her empty rhetoric of “common ground”– reveal the fact that there is a collective slow-down in the monomaniacal talks between the House and the Senate.
The cause of the slow-down is Massachusetts. Everyone at the White House is watching the polls from Boston and the early reports of Scott Brown leading in absentee ballots, and leading with 20% of the Democrats voting Brown.
The Brown surge gives plenty of room for those in the healthcare talks to refuse to cooperate.
“This race is do or die in our state,” U.S. Sen.John Kerry told voters in an e-mail. “We have to stand with Martha as she tries to win this seat.”
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Wild Thing's comment........
LOL Watch her head at the beginning of the video. I honestly think she is nuts, if not she is extremely nervous and jittery about the questions she is being asked. Ah Heck maybe both. haha
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:40 AM | Comments (4)
January 16, 2010
Desperate Obama and Democrats " Health Bill Can Pass Senate With 51 Votes", Van Hollen Says
Rep. John Carter, (R-Texas), on the continually changing deadlines for a decision on health-care reform.
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Health Bill Can Pass Senate With 51 Votes, Van Hollen Says
Democrats tonight announced that they will likely ram Obamacare through the US Senate using the reconciliation process. This would allow democrats to nationalize one-sixth of the US economy wiith only 51 Senate Democrats voting for the bill.
Even if Democrats lose the special election to pick a new Massachusetts senator Tuesday, Congress may still pass health-care overhaul through a process called reconciliation, a top House Democrat said.
That procedure requires 51 votes rather than the 60 needed to prevent Republicans from blocking votes on President Barack Obama’s top legislative priorities. That supermajority is at risk as the Massachusetts race has tightened.
“Even before Massachusetts and that race was on the radar screen, we prepared for the process of using reconciliation,” Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said.
“Getting health-care reform passed is important,” Van Hollen said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “Reconciliation is an option.”
Should Democrats take that route, the legislation would have to be scaled back because of Senate rules.
He also said he expects Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley to win in Massachusetts.
Van Hollen said Republican predictions that the political climate had changed so much that they can capture the 40 seats needed to regain control of the House was “pure hallucination.”
Wild Thing's comment.........
God help us all!
So it looks like by hook or by crook they’re GOING to pass this abomination. They keep fanning the embers and eventually a fire will erupt.
This announcement is also an attempt to cool the voter turn-out for Scott, they are seeing the polls about his race. I don't think what they are trying to do will work, particularly when Barney Frank has issued his clarion call yesterday that “healthcare is dead” if Scott is elected. They have threatened this before. But that which can be passed by 51 votes can be repealed by 51 votes.
Keep praying for strength because Cap & Trade is next in the chute!
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:49 AM | Comments (4)
Democrats Give Unions Special Break in Health Care Bill
When this gets to SCOTUS, they can either overturn this law, or get rid of the inscription in front of their building.
Democrats Give Unions Special Break in Health Care Bill
Non Union workers will be forced to pay the difference!
Two neighbors do the same kind of work. One is a member of a union and the other is not. Both work in fields which require a substantial health insurance plan. So why is it that the neighbor in the non-union job will now pay a 40% tax on a premium health insurance plan and the union neighbor will get a waiver on that tax until 2018? It's another smack in the face to fairness that has been all too common in the Democrat conduct of health care "reform."
First there was the Louisiana Purchase with $300 million going to Louisiana to buy the vote of Senator Mary Landrieu (D). Then, the $100 million Cornhusker compromise which bought the vote of Ben Nelson (D-NE). A slew of other secret backroom deals for other states.
Now, the labor unions, which pumped tens of millions in Obama's 2008 campaign are getting another payoff.
To make up for the lost revenue, Democrats will have to raise taxes on the rest of us.
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Tribune Capital's Danny Fontana argues exempting unions from a Cadillac Tax is unfair to non-union workers.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Equal justice under the law, but some people are more equal than others.
The health care bill is totally unconstitutional, these people doing this oh man I would LOVE for them to be thrown in JAIL!
How can we stand by while these misfits continue to stomp on our Constitution!!!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:48 AM | Comments (6)
And THEY Think They Can Run A Government-Run Health Care????
To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature,
It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:
The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.
Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars
AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM??
Wild Thing's comment.......
Good one!
LOL I love the guys shirt too. God bless this man!!!
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (3)
January 15, 2010
Obama Summons Dems to WH for Late-Night Health Reform Talks
Obama Summons Dems to White House for Late-Night Health Reform Talks
President Obama summoned House and Senate Democratic leaders to the White House late Thursday to discuss an apparent breakthrough in health care reform negotiations -- on the make-or-break issue of taxing high-value health plans and other issues.
After enduring months of criticism that he was too detached from negotiations -- criticism mostly expressed in Democratic cloakrooms on Capitol Hill -- Obama has jumped in with both feet. He has personalized a marathon push to land a health care deal this week or early next week, telling lawmakers and key stakeholders that he will not tolerate failure and that compromises, even hard ones, must be achieved on a tight schedule.
Obama began meeting with twelve top Democrats at 9 p.m., and the meeting has no scheduled end time. This comes after most of the same lawmakers spent more than eight hours at the White House on Wednesday trying to hammer out a deal.
The breakthrough announced Thursday was a biproduct of the previous days talks: a deal on so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans. The White House and top union leaders heralded the agreement, which shields all union workers for five years from significant taxes on health benefit packages that non-union workers will face starting in 2013.
On Tuesday, Obama told union leaders who came to the White House to express their opposition to the excise taxes that they would not deter him and they must accept the tax in some form. Under those conditions, union leaders sought various exemptions, even though some in their membership adamantly opposed any tax on health benefits.
Republican critics called the union deal another back-room favor handed out in secret talks that violated Obama's promise of transparency.
Wild Thing's comment..........
Some late night arm twisting and knee-capping, the Chicago way! Good grief, how many many end of week, late night, wear down sessions does it take to pass a deeply flawed, socialist agenda?!! And isn't it wonderful how Obama has eliminated partisanship by only talking to Democrats.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:50 AM | Comments (6)
Ben Nelson Gets BOO's and “Get him the hell out of here!” At Pizza Restaurant
Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson and his wife were leaving dinner at a new pizza joint near their home in Omaha one night last week when a patron began complaining about Nelson’s decisive vote in favor of the Senate’s health care bill.
Other customers started booing. A woman yelled, “Get him the hell out of here!” And the Nelsons and their dining companions beat a hasty retreat.
“It was definitely a scene in there,” said Tom Lewis, a 41-year-old dentist and registered Republican who witnessed the incident. A second witness confirmed the incident to POLITICO.
It’s a new experience for Nelson.
He used to be a popular figure back home, a Democrat who served eight years in the governor’s office and was elected twice to the Senate by a state that’s as red as the “N” on the University of Nebraska's football helmets.
But Nelson has seen his approval ratings tumble in the wake of his wavering over the historic health care bill, his deal-cutting with other Senate Democrats and, ultimately, his support to break a GOP filibuster and send the bill to a House-Senate conference committee.
Wild Thing's comment........
LOL I love that this happened, he deserved it.
Americans are really PO’d right now! That’s a good thing.
.....Thank you Richard.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (6)
January 13, 2010
Amish families exempt from insurance mandate
Amish families exempt from insurance mandate
HEALTH REFORM: People with religious objections can opt out
Federal health care reform will require most Northern New Yorkers — but not all, it turns out — to carry health insurance or risk a fine.
Hundreds of Amish families in the region are likely to be free from that requirement.
The Amish, as well as some other religious sects, are covered by a "religious conscience" exemption, which allows people with religious objections to insurance to opt out of the mandate. It is in both the House and Senate versions of the bill, making its appearance in the final version routine unless there are last-minute objections.
Although the Amish consist of several branches, some more conservative than others, they generally rely upon a community ethic that disdains government assistance. Families rely upon one another, and communities pitch in to help neighbors pay health care expenses.
The Amish population has been growing in the north country, as well as in New York generally. The state ranks sixth nationally in Amish population and posted the biggest net increase in Amish households — 307 — from 2002 to 2007, according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.
Lawmakers reportedly included the provision at the urging of Amish constituents, although the legislation does not specify that community and the provision could apply to other groups as well, including Old Order Mennonites and perhaps Christian Scientists.
A professor and lawyer at Yeshiva University in New York complained last summer that exempting groups for religious reasons could run afoul of the Constitution. Marci A. Hamilton, who teaches at the University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, wrote at Findlaw.com in August, "If the government can tolerate a religious exemption, then it must do so evenhandedly among religious believers with the same beliefs. This is sheer favoritism for a certain class of religions, or even for one religion."
In her column, Ms. Hamilton speculated that lobbyists for the Christian Science Church were responsible for the provision, given their public stance that health care reform bills around the country should include religious exemptions. In an e-mail message Friday, she said she was unaware of the Amish interest in the bill and that their objections to the mandate surprised her because the Amish do buy vehicle insurance, for instance.
Ms. Hamilton said the exemption could harm the health of children whose families avoid medical care for religious reasons, although the Amish objections relate more to insurance than to medical care itself.
Congressional aides said the exemption is based on a carve-out the Amish have had from Social Security and Medicare taxes since the 1960s. Whether Amish businesses, however, would fall under the bill's mandates is still an open question.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who was a key negotiator on the Senate bill, supports the religious exemption, said a spokesman, Maxwell Young, who called the provision a "no brainer."
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Wild Thing's comment........
I bet the amount of Amish will increase. heh heh
We have a lot of Amish here in Florida and where I live in the city of Sarasota. See below what Mark said and we have the same thing here in Sarasota. They also have several restaurants here and gift shops attached to them.
I looked it up to see what it is about if one is Amish. This is what I found at various sites:
This is long time 1st Amendment legal precedent for the Amish, who believe that subscribing to secular insurance policies is a denial of the provision of God. (Their customs strike some as odd but otherwise they are pretty much by-the-book Christians and they do not have disagreements with Christians who choose more modern life styles.) Instead, the Amish have private mutual agreements between themselves that play the role that insurance would otherwise play (e.g. in case of vehicle accident liability or expenses).
Just in case you want to have some fun. Here is an Amish name generator:
I did mine and this is what I got for my Amish name:
Annie Stoltzfus
And this is also from Mark ... thank you:
This is in reference to the Ahmish on Health Care. We live about 30 minutes from the Ahmish community that was attacked at their School house, the school house shooting, and basically live right in the middle of Ahmish Community all farms of course. To think that they got out of this Health Care debacle is stunning at best. When they go to a hospital they pay in cash, it is your basic collective type community.
All the local stores they have installed 'hitching post' for their buggies, its really a hoot to go to town and see all these horse and buggies. In Lewisberg, where the Mall is they come to Walmart in an ATV- Ahmish Transport Vehicle, their Yankee neighbor drives them in a huge van or ATV.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:48 AM | Comments (7)
January 08, 2010
Married Couples Pay More Than Unmarried Under Health Bill
Married Couples Pay More Than Unmarried Under Health Bill
Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together, under the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress.
The built-in "marriage penalty" in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say "I do."
The disparity comes about in part because subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the plan from congressional Democrats are pegged to federal poverty guidelines. That has the effect of limiting subsidies for married couples with a combined income, compared to if the individuals are single.
People who get their health insurance through an employer wouldn't be affected. Only people that buy subsidized insurance through new exchanges set up by the legislation stand to be impacted. About 17 million people would receive such subsidies in 2016 under the House plan, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.
The bills cap the annual amount people making less than 400% of the federal poverty level must pay for health insurance premiums, ranging from 1.5% of income for the poorest to 11% at the top end, under the House plan.
For an unmarried couple with income of $25,000 each, combined premiums would be capped at $3,076 per year, under the House bill. If the couple gets married, with a combined income of $50,000, their annual premium cap jumps to $5,160 -- a "penalty" of $2,084. Those figures were included in a memo prepared by House Republican staff.
The disparity is slightly smaller in the Senate version of health-care legislation, chiefly because premium subsidies in the House bill are more targeted towards low-wage earners.
Under the Senate bill, a couple with $50,000 combined income would pay $3,450 in annual premiums if unmarried, and $5,100 if married -- a difference of $1,650.
Republicans say the effect on married couples whose combined income makes them ineligible for subsidies is even greater -- up to $5,000 or more -- but that is more difficult to measure because it includes assumptions about the price of insurance policies.
Democratic staff who helped to write the bill confirmed the existence of the penalty, but said it cannot be remedied without creating other inequities.
For instance, they said making the subsidies neutral towards marriage would lead to a married couple with only one bread-winner getting a more generous subsidy than a single parent at the same income-level.
If the bill passes in its current form, it would be far from the first example of federal and social benefits creating incentives to remain single. Under current law, marriage can have a negative impact on a person's ability to claim the earned income tax credit and welfare benefits including food stamps.
But it has caught the attention of some conservative groups, who claim that the prospect of reduced subsidies will dissuade people from tying the knot.
"This seems to not only penalize the married, but also those who would have the most to gain from marriage -- the poor," said Jenny Tyree, an analyst at the Colorado-based Focus on the Family.
Boehner: New “Marriage Penalty” One Consequence of Democrats’ Shady Deals on Health Care
WASHINGTON, D.C.
House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement today based on news reports that the Democrats’ health care bill includes a new “marriage penalty” that will cost married couples more than $2,000 a year in higher health insurance costs:
“The more the American people learn about the Democrats’ health care bill - a government takeover that will raise taxes and cut Medicare - the less they like it, which is why Democratic Leaders are scrambling to cut shady backroom deals to get it passed as soon as possible. But jamming this sort of complex legislation through Congress in the dark of night means that we are just learning about some of its more damaging provisions, including a new ‘marriage penalty’ that will cost couples that wed thousands of dollars in higher health insurance costs. Since the American people’s number one concern when it comes to health care is lowering costs, this provision flies in the face of public opinion and common sense.
“How many more legislative landmines will be sown in the wrangling over the final bill? We won’t know until it’s too late, unless Democratic Leaders honor the President’s promise and put the negotiations on CSPAN for the American people to see. Rep. Vern Buchanan has offered a resolution requiring that they do just that. It should be supported by every Member of Congress – Republican and Democrat – who cares about the future of our nation. Massive changes to health care are too important to be slapped together in a fly-by-night manner in some Washington backroom.”
Wild Thing's comment.......
Amazing how they will have our tax dollars paying for abortion, and now this, trying to go against people that want to be married.
This is the same administration that vowed not to raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 - then $200,00 - then $150,000 a year .
Another broken promise. Another burden on taxpayers. Another roadblock for people who want to live traditional lives.
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....Thank you Richard for sending ths to me.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:47 AM | Comments (6)
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) and Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) Lauds C-SPAN Offer to Put Spotlight on Health Care
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) today told Greta Van Susteren that democratic leaders are stripping GOP amendments from their nationalized health care bill after they were voted on and approved in committee.
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Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) also urged House and Senate Leaders to accept C-SPAN’s offer to publicly broadcast the health care negotiations like President Obama promised the American public 8 times during his campaign.
House.gov reported:
U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan (FL-13), the author of the Sunshine Resolution, today called on House and Senate Leaders to accept C-SPAN’s offer to publicly broadcast final health care negotiations. Buchanan said Congress should not engage in secret, backroom deals when it comes to writing the most sweeping health reform bill in decades.
Buchanan’s resolution, H. Res. 847, has 151 cosponsors and requires that all final negotiations on the health care reform bill be conducted under the watchful eye of the American people. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not allowed a vote yet on the Buchanan plan.
Recent press reports have indicated Democrat leaders intend to draft the final bill behind closed doors.
“Health care reform is one of the largest public policy reforms taken up by Congress in generations,” said Buchanan. “If enacted, the final bill will impact the lives of all Americans. With so much at stake, any conference committee or meetings held to determine the content of sweeping national health care legislation should be held under the watchful eye of the American people, not behind closed doors.”
Pelosi: Congress Close to Healthcare Deal
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday congressional Democrats are close to agreement on merging their healthcare bills but still faced challenges in blending the two approaches.
For the second consecutive day, Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders met with President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss ways to reconcile the House's healthcare overhaul with a version passed by the Senate.
"We've had a very intense couple of days," Pelosi told reporters after the White House meeting. "I think we are very close to reconciliation, respectful of the challenges."
Democratic House-Senate negotiators must bridge differences on issues including the use of federal funds for abortion, new taxes to pay for the plans, a government-run insurance option and the level of subsidies and penalties for the uninsured.
The two bills must be melded into one and passed again by each chamber before Obama can sign it.
But Democrats must keep each member of their fragile 60-vote Senate caucus together to muscle the bill through over unified Republican opposition, meaning the final version must hew closely to the Senate bill on several crucial points.
Wild Thing's comment...........
Rep. Vern Buchanan is in our area and we have voted for him. He does something I really like along with the above information. He sends out emails all the time on everything he does and 99% of the time the email includes a link to click on to VOTE for what he will do.l never saw this done before, but I love it. He asked about Cap and Trade, Health Care bill, drill for oil. each step along the way. I wish more politicians would do this. ASK WE THE PEOPLE what we want.
Pelosi and Obama doing their dirty criminal deals behind locked doors. I can't believe this IS happening....but it is. I pray it can be stopped somehow.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:40 AM | Comments (2)
January 07, 2010
CNN's Cafferty Slams Democrats' Closed-Door Negotiations on Health Care
"President Obama hasn't even made a token effort to keep his campaign promises of openness and transparency in Government, it was all just another lie that was told in order to get elected"
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews and Jack Cafferty all three horrible. For Cafferty to say what he has said LOL, he must be bursting with being ticked off at Obama.
Hey Cafferty, too late for you to wake up for me to forgive you. Jack Cafferty slams Sarah Palin all the time and he totally hates Bush as well. Cafferty and anyone else needs to learn that Obama and his democrats don’t care about you! They want power over your life and your money!
What is good about this, is how it will not be liked by the left to hear Cafferty saying such things. hahaha
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:55 AM | Comments (14)
January 06, 2010
C-SPAN Challenges DEMOCRATS Congress To TV Coverage~ Pelosi Says NO!
Greta Van Susteren played a number of clips tonight from the 2008 campaign where Barack Obama told supporters that he was going to hold his health care talks on CSPAN. Obviously, that never happened. After playing the video Greta looked at Karl Rove and said, "It was a lie."
C-SPAN Challenges Congress to Open Health Care Talks to TV Coverage
The head of C-SPAN has implored Congress to open up the last leg of health care reform negotiations to the public, as top Democrats lay plans to hash out the final product among themselves.
C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate Dec. 30 urging them to open “all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings,” to televised coverage on his network.
“The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of the sessions LIVE and in their entirety,” he wrote.
Congressional leaders, however, reportedly are expected to bypass the traditional conference committee process, in which lawmakers from both parties and chambers meet to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions of a bill. Instead, The Associated Press reports that top Democrats at the House, Senate and White House will figure out the final product in three-way talks before sending it back to both chambers for a final vote.
This format would seem ideal for closed-door meetings, which congressional Democrats have used many times to figure out sensitive provisions in the health care bill — though President Obama pledged during the campaign to open up health care talks to C-SPAN’s cameras.
Lamb urged Congress in his letter to fling open the doors in the final stretch of the negotiations...
"President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation's editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation's health care system," he wrote. "Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American."
Phony Obama and his team sent out this email from one of their guys . David Plouffe sent out an e-mail to Obama supporters about how 2010 will be a year to "improve transparency in Washington to elevate the voices of the American people."
Lamb’s full letter to Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner after the jump.
December 30, 2009
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi The Honorable Harry Reid Speaker Majority Leader
United States House or Representatives United States Senate
The Honorable John Boehner The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Minority Leader Minority Leader
United States House of Representatives United States Senate
Dear Speaker Pelosi:
Representative Boehner:
Senator Reid:
Senator McConnell:
As your respective chambers work to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate health care bills, C-SPAN requests that you open all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings, to electronic media coverage.
The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of these sessions LIVE and in their entirety. We will also, as we willingly do each day, provide C-SPAN’s multi-camera coverage to any interested member of the Capitol Hill broadcast pool.
Since the initial introduction of the America’s Affordable Health Care Act of 2009 in the House and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the Senate
C-SPAN has televised literally hundreds of hours of committee hearings, mark ups and floor debate on these bills for the public to see. And importantly, we have archived all of this video for future generations to study in the C-SPAN Video Archives.
President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation’s editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation’s health care system.
Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American.
We hope you will give serious consideration to this request. We are most willing to employ the latest digital technology to make the cameras, lights and microphones as unobtrusive as possible.
Please contact me if I can answer any questions.
Sincerely,
Brian Lamb
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Bye Bye Bipartisonship - Democrats Slam The Health Care Door
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Pelosi tells C-SPAN: 'There has never been a more open process' (Sorry C-SPAN, no cameras)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defended Congress' work on a healthcare bill Tuesday saying the process has displayed historic transparency, just as C-SPAN mounts an effort to open the negotiations.
Pelosi said Congress has already been transparent throughout the process.
"There has never been a more open process for any legislation," Pelosi said at a press conference.
Pelosi also hinted that holding informal negotiations--likely without TV cameras--might be the most practical way to push the legislation through.
"We will do what is necessary to pass the bill," Pelosi said.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), assistant to the Speaker, said the healthcare bill had been "subjected to unprecedented level of public scrutiny."
Pressed on whether C-SPAN cameras would be allowed in negotiations, Van Hollen hedged.
"We don't even know if there's going to be a conference committee," he said, alluding to the likelihood that Democrats will reconcile the two bills behind closed doors.
Wild Thing's comment.......
"Most transparent government ".....sure we really believe that....NOT!
It’s imperative that the Dems freeze out the Republicans and do this all themselves.And then the SOB democratic proponents of the bill will be all over the airwaves with the complicity of the MSM, talking about how Republicans came to the table with nothing It is then imperative that the incompetent pubes get on message and campaign with this news to prove to the voters just how out of control the Dems are.
"There has never been a more open process for any legislation," Pelosi said at a press conference.
Her stupid boxtox has poisoned her brain cells.
Lying, incompetent hag, Pelosi’s purpose is evasion and epistemological corruption while she and Obama smuggle this country into a welfare state. She will never permit their real purpose to be identified. She silences, evades, suppresses any notion she and Obama are true Marxist’s.
Truth is Pelosi’s biggest fear. She is a fanatic with a mission. Socialism.
Pelosi would pluck your eye out and tell you that you looked better without it.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:49 AM | Comments (6)
January 05, 2010
Most Corrupt Administration Dems Intend to Bypass GOP, The Constitution And The Will of The People On Health Compromise
The Democrats intent to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical congress in history-Nancy Pelosi, November 7th, 2006
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Dems to Bypass GOP On Health Compromise
House and Senate Democrats intend to bypass traditional procedures when they negotiate a final compromise on health care legislation, officials said Monday, a move that will exclude Republican lawmakers and reduce their ability to delay or force politically troubling votes in both houses.
The unofficial timetable calls for final passage of the measure to remake the nation's health care system by the time President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address, probably in early February.
Democratic aides said the final compromise talks would essentially be a three-way negotiation involving top Democrats in the House and Senate and the White House, a structure that gives unusual latitude to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
These officials said there are no plans to appoint a formal House-Senate conference committee, the method Congress most often uses to reconcile differing bills. Under that customary format, a committee chairman is appointed to preside, and other senior lawmakers from both parties and houses participate in typically perfunctory public meetings while the meaningful negotiations occur behind closed doors.
In this case, the plan is to skip the formal meetings, reach an agreement, then have the two houses vote as quickly as possible. A 60-vote Senate majority would be required in advance of final passage.
"I look forward to working with members of the House, the Senate and President Obama to reconcile our bills and send the final legislation to the president's desk as soon as possible," Pelosi said late last year as the Senate approved its version of the legislation.
"We hope to get a bill done as soon as possible," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid.The issue is so partisan that only one Republican, Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao of Louisiana, has cast a vote in favor of the legislation.
GOP leaders have vowed to try and block a final bill from reaching Obama's desk.
"This fight isn't over. My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Republican leader, said shortly before the Senate cleared its version of the bill last month.
Wild Thing's commnet........
Not only do Democrats intend to bypass the GOP, but also they intend to bypass the U.S. Constitution and the will of the American public. Democrats want to destroy this country!
I would love to see the Republicans bypass traditional procedures and not attend the State of the Union Address.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:48 AM | Comments (7)
January 04, 2010
Betsy McCaughey on Mark Levin Show Discusses Page 148 of Health Care Bill
This is from Dan at Rielh World Blog
Page 148 Of Health Care Bill
I was in the car and heard this below discussed by patient advocate Betsy McCaughey of Defend Your Healthcare on Mark Levin's radio show tonight. So, I looked it up. From pages 148 - 149 of the Senate health care bill, here it is folks. A "qualified health plan" means any health insurance plan in the US, including private plans most now currently employ. Well, except for our elected officials in DC, of course. They will get to make their own health care decisions. But not you, or your doctor.
Beginning on January 1, 2015, a qualified health plan may contract with—
(B) a health care provider only if such provider implements such mechanisms to improve health care quality as the Secretary may by regulation require.
In plain English, any decision you, or your doctor, might make as regards your personal health care can and likely will ultimately have been pre-determined by Washington, DC. If a bureaucrat writes a regulation, and those will not be written or known until perhaps 18 months after this ridiculous bill has been passed, that will determine what is and what isn't an acceptable health care choice for you, or your doctor.
The Federal Government will sit squarely in between every doctor-patient relationship that is deemed qualified for insurance purposes. Public or private, it won't matter. And they can write whatever regulations they want. There is no way to predict what any future regulations might be. But you'll take it or leave it, or leave any soon to be alleged privately insured health care system, while being penalized for that, too.
There will be no such thing as private health insurance any more. The federal government will dictate it all by regulation.
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Wild Thing's comment.........
It just keeps getting worse if that is possible with this health care bill. What a total nightmare. Shoving it at us when most of America does not want it and they know it too,.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (4)
January 03, 2010
Mayo Clinic in Arizona to Stop Treating Some Medicare Patients
Mayo Clinic in Arizona to Stop Treating Some Medicare Patients
The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.
More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won’t affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota.
Obama in June cited the nonprofit Rochester, Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio for offering “the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm.” Mayo’s move to drop Medicare patients may be copied by family doctors, some of whom have stopped accepting new patients from the program, said Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, in a telephone interview yesterday.
“Many physicians have said, ‘I simply cannot afford to keep taking care of Medicare patients,’” said Heim, a family doctor who practices in Laurinburg, North Carolina. “If you truly know your business costs and you are losing money, it doesn’t make sense to do more of it.”
Medicare Loss
The Mayo organization had 3,700 staff physicians and scientists and treated 526,000 patients in 2008. It lost $840 million last year on Medicare, the government’s health program for the disabled and those 65 and older, Mayo spokeswoman Lynn Closway said.
Mayo’s hospital and four clinics in Arizona, including the Glendale facility, lost $120 million on Medicare patients last year, Yardley said. The program’s payments cover about 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients at the Glendale clinic, he said.
“We firmly believe that Medicare needs to be reformed,” Yardley said in a Dec. 23 e-mail. “It has been true for many years that Medicare payments no longer reflect the increasing cost of providing services for patients.”
Mayo will assess the financial effect of the decision in Glendale to drop Medicare patients “to see if it could have implications beyond Arizona,” he said.
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Wild Thing's comment........
“Mayo’s decision may herald similar moves by other Phoenix- area doctors who cite inadequate Medicare fees as a reason to curtail treatment of the elderly, said John Rivers, chief executive of the Phoenix-based Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association.”
Thats what it`s all about, isn`t it,,,ending treatment of the elderly. Maybe they won`t even get that pill Obama promised them. And the bar as to what constitutes elderly will be lowered and lowered.
How is Hope & Change working seniors that voted for Obama? Hussein the Muslim wants you dead so hurry it up.
The way I understand it, Retired GIs cannot even get into the Mayo Clinc without an extreme Jump thru the hoops. Obama and the elected lefties have made Tricare a “Secondary” provider by law..
So they will pawn the cost of caring for Retired and Permanantly Disabled Medically retired GIs off on private companies thruout the US.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:50 AM | Comments (4)
January 02, 2010
Where In Our Constitution Does Government Have Power To Mandate Health Care ~ It Does NOT!
WHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION DOES GOVERNMENT HAVE POWER TO MANDATE PURCHASE OF HEALTH CARE INSURANCE?
How depressing it is to hear the contorted logic, from our leaders in Congress, when asked to site the portion of the Constitution that gives the federal government authority to force a citizen to purchase a health insurance policy.
Even more discouraging are their pitiful answers (see below), considering that each has taken the oath, upon taking office, to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States". How can they fulfill this oath when they aren't even considering a bill's constitutionality when passing legislation? Their oath of office is becoming a national joke, and the joke is on us.
The proper answer is that there is no provision in the Constitution for anything even close to resembling the granting of power to force a citizen buy any product or service. It is a complete bastardization of the "General Welfare" clause, the Constitution as a whole, and everything this country was founded upon, to define that section as giving Congress a blank check to do anything they want. And believe me, if the government starts forcing you to buy things, there are no limits to what they can do.
The "General Welfare" clause is very clear in that "general" applies to the "whole" rather than to particular parts or special interests. Obviously, Congress has been abusing this for quite some time, but as my Dad used to say, "two wrongs don't make a right". The Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves at our country, intended as "one country, indivisible", into one controlled by special interest groups.
James Madison, who is considered the main author of the Constitution, should know what the words, "General Welfare", meant. He wrote them! He explained the intended meaning of the phrase,"General Welfare", as:
With respect to the words, “general welfare,” I have always regarded them as qualified by the details of power connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution…[that] was not contemplated by the creators.”
Yet, some, "legal experts", arrogantly and shamefully define the clause to match whatever happens to further their freedom killing political agenda. The powers in Article I, Section 8, are very specific and the Tenth Amendment clarifies that any contrived powers politicians invent, that are not granted in the Constitution, are reserved to the States or to the people.
The Constitution is very clear in that it's intention is to LIMIT GOVERNMENT! Liberals or "Progressives" interpretation results in UNLIMITED GOVERNMENT! Unlimited government eventually to complete loss of freedom. History has proven this over and over again. No one being genuine can make the case that the Founding Fathers fought and died for a government of unlimited powers over us.
ObamaCare is clearly unconstitutional. It's passage will result in a loss of individual rights and freedom, as well as mashing the gas pedal down further on the financial road to disaster.
Below are various responses regarding the constitutionality of ObamaCare's insurance mandate. Special thanks to CNS News, and Downsize DC, for asking the questions and compiling the lists. Even though the question of constitutionality is the "800 pound gorilla" in the room, very few in the media are doing their duty in reporting this crucial issue. CNS News is the exception and they're doing the job that the rest of the media should be doing. You can access the complete story in each case by clicking on the Congressman, Congresswoman, or Senator's name. Every single one of these constitution-violating clowns should be removed from office at the earliest possible opportunity:
Senator Mark Warner (D-VA):
"...no place in the Constitution that specifically says health care" or education, but "we have made those choices as a country over the years."
"The United States Congress passed laws regarding Medicare and Medicaid that became de facto mandatory programs. States all the time require people to have driver's licenses... "
Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI):
"I'm not aware of that, let me put it that way. But what we're trying to do is to provide for people who have needs and that's where the accessibility comes in, and one of the goals that we're trying to present here is to make it accessible."
"Not in particular with health insurance. It's not covered in that respect. But in ways to help citizens in our country to live a good life, let me say it that way, is what we're trying to do, and in this case, we're trying to help them with their health."
Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE):
"Well, you know, I don't know that I'm a constitutional scholar, so, I, I’m not going to be able to answer that question."
Senator Jack Reed (D-RI):
"I would have to check the specific sections, so I'll have to get back to you on the specific section. But it is not unusual that the Congress has required individuals to do things, like sign up for the draft and do many other things too, which I don’t think are explicitly contained [in the Constitution]. It gives Congress a right to raise an army, but it doesn’t say you can take people and draft them. But since that was something necessary for the functioning of the government over the past several years, the practice on the books, it's been recognized, the authority to do that."
Senator Roland Burris (D-IL):
"Well, that’s under certainly the laws of the -- protect the health, welfare of the country . . .That’s under the Constitution. We're not even dealing with any constitutionality here. Should we move in that direction? What does the Constitution say? To provide for the health, welfare and the defense of the country."
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD):
"Well, in promoting the general welfare the Constitution obviously gives broad authority to Congress to effect that end. The end that we're trying to effect is to make health care affordable, so I think clearly this is within our constitutional responsibility... We mandate other things as well, like paying taxes."
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT):
"We have plenty of authority. Are you saying there is no authority?... Why would you say there is no authority? I mean, there's no question there's authority. Nobody questions that."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA):
“Are you serious? Are you serious?”
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC):
"There's nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do... show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?"
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND):
“No, but I’ll refer you to the legal counsel for the Senate and they’re the ones that lead there as the full legal basis for the individual mandate -- and I assume it’s in the Commerce clause.”
Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA):
“Well, I would assume it would be in the Commerce clause of the Constitution. That’s how Congress legislates all kinds of various programs.”
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA):
“Well, we’re very lucky as members of the Senate to have constitutional lawyers on our staff, so I’ll let them answer that.”
Sen. Blanche Lincoln:
“Well, I just think the Constitution charges Congress with the health and well-being of the people,”
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR):
“The very first enumerated power gives the power to provide for the common defense and the general welfare. So it’s right on, right on the front end.”
Wild Thing's comment........
Where in the Constitution does it say that the US Congress and the President has the right to ration care and deny care to American citizens for the express purpose of shipping them off to hospice centers to die. They want to pick and choose who lives in this free country from cradle to grave. Sound sinister? Sound like a plot? Sound like Germany 1937?
We can direct our questions and outrage to Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Rahm and his brother, Mengele, or any member of the US Congress that voted for this Holocaust!
Nancy Pelosi said there are no limits to federal government power. These Communists actutally believe they have the power to pass any law and enforce them. This is why the founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment. They knew there would be such tyrants we would have to clean out.
.
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 01:45 AM | Comments (3)
January 01, 2010
13 Republican Attorneys General Threaten Lawsuit Over Health Care
13 Republican Attorneys General Threaten Lawsuit Over Health Care
Republican attorneys general in 13 states say congressional leaders must remove Nebraska's political deal from the federal health care reform bill or face legal action, according to a letter provided to The Associated Press.
"We believe this provision is constitutionally flawed," South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and the 12 other attorneys general wrote in the letter to be sent Wednesday night to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
"As chief legal officers of our states we are contemplating a legal challenge to this provision and we ask you to take action to render this challenge unnecessary by striking that provision," they wrote.
In a rare Christmas Eve vote, Senate Democrats pushed sweeping health care legislation to the brink of Senate passage, crushing a year-end Republican filibuster against President Barack Obama's call to remake the nation's health care system. The 60-39 vote marked the third time in as many days Democrats posted a supermajority needed to advance the legislation.
The letter was signed by top prosecutors in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington state. All are Republicans, and McMaster and the attorneys general of Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania are running for governor in their respective states.
Last week, McMaster said he was leading several other attorneys general in an inquiry into the constitutionality of the estimated $100 million deal he has dubbed the "Cornhusker Kickback."
Republican U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint of South Carolina raised questions about the legislation, which they said was amended to win Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson's support.
"Because this provision has serious implications for the country and the future of our nation's legislative process, we urge you to take appropriate steps to protect the Constitution and the rights of the citizens of our nation," the attorneys general wrote.
A conference committee begins meeting next year to work out a compromise between House and Senate versions of the bill. Experts expect those talks will likely last into February, and a spokeswoman for U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., did not immediately comment on the letter.
McMaster says if the bill goes through to final approval with the benefit to Nebraska, taxpayers in the other 49 states will have to pay for it.
Meanwhile, Nelson is taking his message on health care reform directly to his constituents. In a television ad beginning during Wednesday night's Nebraska-Arizona Holiday Bowl football game, the Democrat says he stuck by his principles throughout the debate and doesn't want Nebraskans to be confused on his position.
While it's not uncommon for states to challenge federal laws in court, one legal expert said political bluster was likely behind the letter.
"I do think that it is some combination of the losers just complaining about the officiating, or complaining about how the game was played, in combination with trying to make the bill look as seedy and inappropriate as possible, for political purposes," says Andy Siegel, a former University of South Carolina School of Law professor now teaching at Seattle University School of Law.
"It is smart politics to try to tarnish it and make it look less like an achievement and more like some sort of corrupted bargain," he said.
Wild Thing's comment..........
Siegel claimed it was a mere political move. He is chanting the scum mantra to defend obamacare. Regardless of motive, he’s the enemy.
.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:47 AM | Comments (5)
Health Care Vote Puts Nelson 30 Points Down in Reelection Bid
Health Care Vote Puts Nelson 30 Points Down in Reelection Bid
The good news for Senator Ben Nelson is that he doesn't have to face Nebraska voters until 2012.
If Governor Dave Heineman challenges Nelson for the Senate job, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows the Republican would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%. Nelson was reelected to a second Senate term in 2006 with 64% of the vote.
Nelson's health care vote is clearly dragging his numbers down. Just 17% of Nebraska voters approve of the deal their senator made on Medicaid in exchange for his vote in support of the plan. Overall, 64% oppose the health care legislation, including 53% who are Strongly Opposed. In Nebraska, opposition is even stronger than it is nationally.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters in the state believe that passage of the legislation will hurt the quality of care, and 62% say it will raise costs.
Nelson is also one of the key players in the discussion about how abortion should be handled in the health care plan. Sixty-five percent (65%) of Nebraska voters say that coverage of abortion should be prohibited in any plan that receives government subsidies. Only six percent (6%) want coverage mandated, while 22% want no requirements either way.
Obama earned 42% of the Nebraska vote in 2008, and 38% continue to approve of his job performance. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Nebraska voters disapprove of how the president is performing.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Way to go CORNHUSKERS!
I’ll bet he is truly surprised that the people of Nebraska aren’t thrilled that he sold his vote “for them”.
Given his betrayal of the good people of Nebraska and America it would be great if they could get a Sen. recalled. Not sure if that is possible or not. Considering his poll numbers after the health care destruction vote, it should be easy.
.
....Thank you Richard for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (7)
December 31, 2009
Candidates Face Ultimatum: Kill Obamacare, Or Else ...
Candidates face ultimatum: Kill Obamacare, or else ...
'Americans have to pull this weed out by its roots'
Tea-party leaders are delivering a bold ultimatum to all congressional candidates in 2010: Pledge to repeal the health-care reform bill in its entirety if it passes – or you will be booted from office.
FreedomWorks Press Secretary Adam Brandon told WND the message couldn't be any clearer. Asked whether he believes the tea party movement will seek to oust politicians who refuse to repeal the legislation, he emphatically declared, "Absolutely."
Max Pappas, vice president of FreedomWorks, echoed Brandon's statements in an interview with Gary Sargent, Washington blogger for the Plum Line, this week.
"This has an unusual ability to be repealed, and the public is on that side." he said. "The Republicans are going to have to prove that they are worthy of their votes."
Both Brandon and Pappas emphasized that Congress must try to repeal the whole bill if it passes.
Brandon said most people are opposed to the bill's requirement that citizens pay a fine if they don't maintain insurance for themselves and their families. Under the current bills, the government will also collect taxes for 10 years, but only pay out benefits for the last six years. As WND reported, majority Democrats in the U.S. Senate have inserted in the fine print a provision that it would take a supermajority of 67 votes in the Senate for future legislative bodies to even consider amendments to its provisions for "death panels."
Other serious concerns about the current legislation include possible health-care rationing, denial of treatment, substantial cost increases and stifling of medical innovation.
Also, the Senate bill provides that Medicare fees for doctors would be cut by 20 percent beginning in 2011, but the Heritage Foundation notes, "Nobody believes these cuts will be allowed to happen." If the cuts don't take place, it would result in an added $196 billion to the deficit in the first 10 years and $765 billion in the following one, according to Congressional Budget Office calculations.
FreedomWorks is partnering with the American Liberty Alliance and several other groups to launch a massive Tax Day tea party at the White House Ellipse on April 15, 2010.
"We're delivering this one right to the White House," Brandon said. "It could spill out over into the Washington Monument, so it'll be a hell of a visual."
Brandon said FreedomWorks has been told "legislative entrepreneurs" are already planning a Senate bill calling for repeal of the health-care legislation, should it pass.
"That means there will be something we can start to rally around in 2010," he said. "We're going to remind them every step of the way that this bill was a real stinker."
He said Democrats plan to tell the electorate this year: "We said we were going to do this, and we did it."
"They passed a terrible bill. Not only was it a terrible bill, but it was a disgusting process to watch," Brandon said. "It was almost like they were playing mafia with taxpayer dollars."
Wild Thing's comment............
The ENTIRE bill has to be put in the shredder. If any part is passed, even one sentence is passed, it will be be built upon in the future into another GIGANTIC entitlement program.
We’ve reached the point where our elected representatives vote however they damn please, whether it’s to satisfy the corrupt unions that told their members how to vote, criminal organizations like ACORN that stole enough votes for them to win, wealthy anti-American manipulators like George Soros who want to undermine and subvert this country, or simply to line their own pockets (and freezers) with ill-gotten cash. Supporting wrong-headed anti-business socialistic legislation like Obamacare is just one symptom of a much more serious disease. It is imperative that we reject those who care more about what their Party bosses or special interests think than the people who they are supposed to represent.
They must, once again, work for US!
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (3)
December 28, 2009
Obamacare’s Constitutional Problems Proliferating
Obamacare’s Constitutional Problems Proliferating
As we’ve detailed before, the very core of the Senate health plan includes an unprecedented expansion of the power of the federal government over the lives of every American. For the first time in history, every American would be forced to buy federally regulated and approved health insurance or face a $750 fine.
As the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) wrote in 1994: “A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”
The individual mandate and other questionable measures in the bill raise serious questions as to whether Obamacare could survive a Constitutional test:
Enumerated Powers: Article I allocates to Congress “[a]ll legislative powers herein granted,” which means that some legislative powers were intended to remain beyond Congress’s reach. The Supreme Court recognized and affirmed this fundamental principle from the earliest days of the republic, as Chief Justice Marshall famously observed:
“The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written.”
Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power to mandate that an individual enter into a contract with a private party or purchase a good or service. Democrats have pointed to both the general welfare taxing power and the commerce clause as possible justifications for the mandate, but as a recent Heritage Legal Memorandum details, neither justification withstands scrutiny.
5th Amendment: The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads in part:
“No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Sen. Ensign: “The Democrats’ health reform bill would require an American citizen to devote a portion of income – his or her private property – to health insurance coverage. … But, Mr. President, if a Nevadan does not want to spend his or her hard-earned income on health insurance coverage and would prefer to spend it on something else, such as rent or a car payment, this new requirement could be a “taking” of private property under the Fifth Amendment.”
Racial Discrimination: On December 10th, the United States Commission on Civil Rights sent a letter to the Senate regarding racially discriminatory provisions in Obama’s health plan. The letter reads:
“No matter how well-intentioned, utilizing racial preferences with hope of alleviating health care disparities is inadvisable both as a matter of policy and as a matter of law. … Ensuring that all Americans, regardless of race, have access to quality health care requires both creativity and hard-nosed attention to data. It also requires staying within the requirements of the Constitution. The current race-based provisions of the Senate Health Care bill display none of these qualities.”
Unequal State Treatment: Speaking to Fox News, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) described Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-NE) deal to support Obamacare in exchange for a bailout Nebraska’s Medicaid costs as “disappointing, sleazy, unconstitutional.”
Graham is not the only one examining Cornhusker Kickback. The Attorneys General of Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas and Washington state are jointly investigating the deal to see if special treatment for only one state in the nation at the expense of the other 49 violates the Constitution.
The leftist majority in the Senate is likely to vote down the DeMint/Ensign constitutional point of order, but the very objection itself will help build a record that courts will look at when determining whether or not Obamacare is unconstitutional. The Senate is not the final arbiter of whether or not the laws it passes are consistent with the United States Constitution.
That question was settled over 200 years ago in Marbury v. Madison. Although it is always difficult for the Supreme Court to thwart what is perceived to be the popular will, polling consistently shows that this legislation faces strong popular opposition. If that remains true after enactment, the majority of the Justices who are inclined to preserve the enumerated powers scheme and adhere to the original meaning of the text will have little inclination or incentive to stretch the Constitution to reach so decidedly unpopular and far-reaching a law as this one.
Wild Thing's comment........
This is a total disregard for the Constitution. It’s a discrace! And Congress and Obama are laughing at We the people. I sure hope this can be stopped somehow, maybe in the courts, but I don't have much confidence in that either.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:49 AM | Comments (4)
December 27, 2009
Senator Max Baucus Drunk / Intoxicated on Senate Floor ~ ROTFLMAO
Senator Max Baucus, Democrat from Montana Drunk on the US Senate Floor debating National health Care.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
This jerk is so drunk, this is hilarious! I wish they would play it for all those that voted for him. heh heh
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (15)
December 26, 2009
Primary-Care Doctors Who Refer Patients to Specialists Will Face Financial Penalties
Primary-Care Doctors Who Refer Patients to Specialists Will Face Financial Penalties Under Obamacare
A lot has been made about the "public option" in early versions of the healthcare plan. Many feared that all would eventually be driven into government control of healthcare if a public option existed. But for all practical purposes, total government control of healthcare will have arrived with the current healthcare bill.
Although the Obama team may have wanted it, the "public option" is not necessary for Obama to control the entire healthcare system. The healthcare bill is nothing but incentive after incentive to reduce many services and control the services that remain.
If the general public really understood what this bill was really about, they would be camped out in front of Congress, with pitchforks, just waiting to spot one of the "Representatives" of the people.
In today's WSJ, Dr. Scott Gottlieb points out some of the ways services will be cut and discouraged and the way the bill will attempt to freeze out the small medical practioner: Democrats are touting the American Medical Association's endorsement of President Obama's health plan. But there's an important reason why the American College of Surgeons and 18 other specialty groups are opposed.
The plan's most tangible efforts to restrain medical costs are through its controls on specialist physicians. Based on the government's premise that they often make wasteful treatment decisions, the health-care legislation in Congress will subject doctors to a mix of financial penalties and regulations to constrain their use of the most costly clinical options. The penalties and regulations are aimed first and foremost at surgeons and the medical devices that they use, largely because that's where the bulk of spending is.
It all starts with the sweeping power that the Senate bill gives to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The agency will be given the authority to unilaterally write new rules on when medical devices and drugs can be used, and how they should be priced. In particular, the Obama team wants to give the agency the power to decide when a cheaper medical option will suffice for a given problem and, in turn, when Medicare only has to pay for the least costly alternative....
...the Obama team will use murky provisions embedded in the Senate bill to subtly attain in law those powers they couldn't more artfully acquire in court. In fact, the bill lets Medicare seek almost any restrictive payment authority it wants from a Medicare Commission established for the purposes of cost control.
If Congress believes Medicare has overreached, it has to pass a separate law to explicitly block the agency's newly acquired powers. These provisions are deliberately designed to leverage Congress's inability to act in a timely fashion.
The Senate health-care bill also exempts Medicare's actions from judicial review, taking away the right of patients to sue the government. Unlike existing Medicare coverage laws, patients won't have the ability to appeal any of the decisions of this new Medicare Commission.
Ironically, private health insurers must comply with new patient appeals rights under the Senate bill. The government has exempted itself from the same sort of protections.
Thus Medicare will have the power to control which medical devices surgeons use. But clamping down on expensive procedures also means the agency will need to have authority over the specialists themselves. The organization of doctors into mostly small, disaggregated practices always made it hard for a central bureaucracy to control individual physicians. ObamaCare tries to fix this by putting doctors on the financial hook for their treatment decisions.
Primary-care doctors who refer patients to specialists will face financial penalties under the plan. Doctors will see 5% of their Medicare pay cut when their "aggregated" use of resources is "at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization," according to the chairman's mark of Section 3003 of the bill. Doctors will feel financial pressure to limit referrals to costly specialists like surgeons, since these penalties will put the referring physician on the hook for the cost of the referral and perhaps any resulting procedures.
Next, the plan creates financial incentives for doctors to consolidate their practices. The idea here is that Medicare can more easily apply its regulations to institutions that manage large groups of doctors than it can to individual physicians. So the Obama plan imposes new costs on doctors who remain solo, mostly by increasing their overhead requirements—such as requiring three years of medical records every time a doctor orders routine medical equipment like wheelchairs.
The plan also offers doctors financial carrots if they give up their small practices and consolidate into larger medical groups, or become salaried employees of large institutions such as hospitals or "staff model" medical plans like Kaiser Permanente. One provision, laid out in Section 3022, allows doctors to share with the government any savings to the government they achieve by delivering less care—but only if physicians are part of groups caring for more than 5,000 Medicare patients and "have in place a leadership and management structure, including with regard to clinical and administrative systems."
While these payment reforms are structured as pilot programs in the legislation, this distinction has little practical meaning. Medicare is being given broad authority, for the first time, to roll these demonstration programs out nationally without the need for a second authorization by Congress.
Regulation of medicine has always been a local endeavor, and it's mostly the province of medical journals and professional medical societies to set clinical standards. This is for good reason. Medical practice evolves more quickly than even the underlying technologies that doctors use. This is especially true in surgery, where advances flow from experimentation by good doctors to try different surgical approaches.
The regulation of medical devices and their pricing will also have consequences for patients by discouraging innovation. Most improvements in medical devices come incrementally, with each generation of a device having small but clinically relevant advance over prior versions. This owes to the underlying hardware, which turns on embedded software and microprocessors that themselves undergo constant upgrades.
But if Medicare starts pricing similar devices off one another—a form of the same "reference" pricing schemes used in Europe—manufacturers will start holding back the small changes. Instead, they will introduce new models every four or five years that are sufficiently unique to fall outside of Medicare's pricing scheme. Meanwhile, patients will have lost the benefit of regular improvements and annual upgrades that characterize medical devices today.
The impact of these provisions won't be confined to Medicare. Private insurance sold in the federally regulated "exchanges" will take cues from Medicare, since they're both managed from the same bureaucracy. Medicare will set the standard for medical care across the entire marketplace.
Mr. Obama promised that under his plan people wouldn't have to change their doctors. But it's clear that doctors will be forced to change how they make their medical decisions.
I repeat again, life expectancy in the US under this bill will begin to decline within two to three years. Unnecessary pain, agony and a lowered quality of life will be the order of the day for the chronically ill. This is very, very evil stuff.
Wild Thing's comment........
Someday, the idiots whose votes put Obama in the WH and made the Dems the majority in Congress are going to regret what they did.
The Democrats fantasy that they can campaign on this bill provisions demonstrates their fundamental insanity. Obama is not mentally fit to be in a position of authority.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (4)
December 25, 2009
10 Lumps Of Coal In The Health Care Bill by Betsy McCaughey
10 Lumps Of Coal In The Health Care Bill
By BETSY McCAUGHEY
12/23/2009
For most Americans, the health reform bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing to pass will be worse than coal in their stockings. Herewith, the Top 10 List of Things You Don't Want From Health Care Reform This Christmas - But Will Get Anyway From Congress.
1. Higher premiums: If you pay for your own insurance, your premiums will cost 10% to 13% more than if the bill didn't pass, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Insurance won't be more affordable. Sixty percent of the newly insured are being enrolled in Medicaid, the public program for the poor.
2. A cost you can't afford and can't avoid: Though moderate-income families will get subsidies, buying insurance is mandatory. A family earning $54,000 will be expected to pay $9,000 (17% of pre-tax income) for the premium, co-pays and deductibles, according to the CBO. If you don't enroll, the IRS will find you and penalize you (Senate bill, p. 345).
3. A one-size-fits-all health plan: Your benefit package will be prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Whether you choose basic, silver or gold, and whether you pay for it yourself or qualify for a subsidy, your benefits are the same.
Gold plans simply collect more up front and give you a lower co-pay or deductible. It's unclear how possible it will be to buy supplemental insurance. The goal is to discourage health consumption and differences based on ability to pay.
4. A sin tax on your generous plan at work: This is another equalizer to discourage some people from getting more than others. The Senate bill puts a 40% tax on Cadillac plans (p. 1,980). About one-fifth of employer-provided plans fall into that "luxury" category. The CBO predicts that employers will downgrade your coverage to avoid the tax or reduce your take home pay.
5. Government controls on your doctors' decisions: The Senate bill bars doctors from participating in the private insurance system unless they implement whatever regulations the secretary of health and human services chooses to impose to "improve health care quality" (p. 149). That broad phrase encompasses everything in medicine.
This would be the first time in history that the federal government is given power over how doctors treat privately insured patients
6.Hospitals closed to seniors: The House and Senate bills slash payments to hospitals and other institutions that care for seniors. The chief actuary for Medicare, Richard Foster, warns that cuts in the House bill are so severe that some institutions may face severe losses or end their participation in Medicare (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 11/13/09 report). Some seniors won't know where to go.
7.Bare-bones hospital care: Patients of all ages (and all incomes) will suffer when hospitals are in financial distress. Hospital budget cuts will mean shortages of nurses, equipment and cleaning staff. The president's chief health advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, argues that hospitals in the U.S. offer more privacy and comfort than hospitals in Europe, and this "abundance of amenities" drives up costs (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).
8. Future Medicare cuts: Look out baby boomers, the Senate bill establishes an Independent Medicare Advisory Commission to make automatic spending reductions in future years while insulating Congress from the political fallout. You won't get as much care as people in Medicare currently get.
9. A new social agenda: Money is allocated for adult preparation activities, including lessons on positive self-esteem and relationship dynamics, friendships, dating (and) romantic involvement (Senate bill, p.612). There are also giveaways to immigrants. The Senate bill hands low-income legal immigrants government subsidies as soon as they get here, instead of waiting the five years Medicaid requires (Senate bill, p. 274).
10.A tell-all relationship with every doctor you see:What happens in your doctor's office must be recorded in an electronic data base that can send the information to insurers and other medical offices (Senate bill, p. 62-66). Every doctor you see will have access to your medical history. See a psychiatrist? Your foot doctor will know about it.
These congressional tidings bring no comfort or joy. We must save ourselves from Congress' power now that it has gone astray.
Wild Thing's comment.........
This bill is so horrible, and we don't even know all the things that are even in the two different bills.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:48 AM | Comments (3)
Anti-American's Pelosi and Reid To Hold Private Meetings To Decide Final Socialized Medicine Bill for DICTATOR Obama
Politico
Yesterday morning, at 7:16 a.m., the Senate passed on a 60-39 party line vote a sweeping health care bill that will tighten insurance regulations, provide insurance for 31 million more Americans and nearly $1 trillion the next decade.
Clearly exhausted, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid mistakenly voted no before changing his vote to yes, which got a laugh in the chamber, especially from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
After the vote, Reid joked, "I spent a very restless night last night trying to figure out how I could show some bipartisanship and I think I was able to accomplish that for a few minutes."
Republican leader Mitch McConnell responded: “This fight isn’t over. My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law. That’s the clear will of the American people — and we’re going to continue to fight on their behalf.”
Video of Democrat Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid mistakenly voting "No" on his Senate Health Care Bill today before he and others in the chamber caught the mistake. He then changed his vote to "Yes."
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For Their Next Trick . . .
The latest example of violating principles of transparency and accountability in the single-minded pursuit of legislative victory.
By JOHN FUND
Look for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to try to circumvent the traditional conference committee process by which the different versions of health care reform passed by each house will be reconciled. If so, it will be the latest example of violating principles of transparency and accountability in the single-minded pursuit of legislative victory.
Conferences involving members from both houses are messy things. They are usually conducted in public and often televised, and can produce a compromise version of the bill that leaves rank-and-file members tempted to vote against the final version. That could be perilous in the case of health care since it's likely to pass without a vote to spare in the Senate and the House's version passed by only five votes.
North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad, chair of the Budget Committee, has already warned that if the final bill "isn't close to the Senate bill, there will be no way to get the 60 votes here" to shut off debate and pass the final product. But many House members, led by Michigan Rep. John Conyers, are insisting on major changes in the Senate's version.
Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi would love to come up with a way to bash heads in private and skip any public discussion that further reveals just how incoherent and unworkable both the bills are. Luckily, there is a subterfuge readily available that wouldn't require the House to swallow the Senate's bill unchanged but also ducks the traditional give-and-take of the conference committee.
When Democrats took over Congress in 2007, they increasingly did not send bills through the regular conference process. "We have to defer to the bigger picture," explained Rep. Henry Waxman of California. So the children's health insurance bill passed by the House that year was largely dumped in favor of the Senate's version. House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel and other Democrats complained the House had been "cut off at the knees" but ultimately supported the bill. Legislation on lobbying reform and the 2007 energy bill were handled the same way -- without appointing an actual conference.
Rather than appoint members to a public conference committee, those measures were "ping-ponged" -- i.e. changes to reconcile the two versions were transmitted by messenger between the two houses as the final product was crafted behind closed doors solely by the leadership. Many Democrats grumbled at the secrecy. "We need to get back to the point where we use conference committees . . . and have serious dialogue," said Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama at the time.
But serious dialogue isn't what Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are interested in right now. Look for the traditional conference committee to be replaced by a "ping-pong" game in which health care is finalized behind closed doors with little public scrutiny before the bill is rushed to the floor of each chamber for a final vote.
Wild Thing's comment.........
With every kick to the gut, the ache lingers longer and longer but gradually goes away. Not this time.
Not this time.
I will remember this day as the day the Democrats presided over the degradation of the American
Way of Life. They are wholly responsible for what will happen to the best health care system in the
world.
The day is coming you piece of crap when the American people will show all of you how much
we appreciated this.
WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:45 AM
Moron Sen. Feinstein Thinks Commerce Clause Gives Congress Unlimited Authority!
Sen. Feinstein 'Assumes' Commerce Clause Gives Congress Unlimited Authority to Mandate Health Insurance
By Fred Lucas
Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that Congress has the authority to mandate that people buy health insurance and that there is no constitutional limit on Congress’ power to enact such mandates, adding that this unlimited authority stemmed from the Commerce clause of the Constitution.
The health care bills in both the House and Senate require that every American purchase a health insurance policy. At the Capitol on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Sen. Feinstein: “Where in the Constitution does Congress get the authority for an individual health insurance mandate?”
Feinstein said: “Well, I would assume it would be in the Commerce clause of the Constitution. That’s how Congress legislates all kinds of various programs."
CNSNews.com followed up by asking Sen. Feinstein whether this broad power had any limits: “If there’s a health insurance mandate, is there a limit to that authority? Is there something that can’t be mandated?”
Feinstein responded: “My own view is that there is not, within health insurance.”
The Commerce clause is found in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. It states the numerous powers authorized to Congress, including the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among several States, and with the Indian tribes.”The Senate version of health reform imposes an historic mandate on all Americans, requiring them to have government-approved health insurance, either through an employer or individually. The mandate also can penalize people with a surtax ranging from $500 to nearly $1,500 per year if they do not have a health insurance policy. The bill, which is unpopular with the public, garnering the support of barely 40 percent of Americans, according to recent national polls. Those numbers led Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele to accuse Congress of “flipping the bird” to the American people.
“This is a bad bill, it is bad, certainly for individuals and enough is enough,” Steele said in a conference call on Monday. “I am tired of Congress thumbing its nose and flipping a bird to the American people. I’m tired of this Congress thinking it knows better than me and my family how to provide for our health care now and in the future. I’m tired of this Congress not listening to me and to the American people – to all of us.”In 1994, when the Clinton administration attempted to push a health care reform plan through a Democratic Congress that also mandated every American buy health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office determined that the government had never ordered Americans to buy anything.
“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States,” the CBO analysis said. “An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government."
Wild Thing's comment.........
BS loud and clear! She proves that any moron can go on to be a U.S. Senator
She is a clear and present danger. Unacceptable.
We need to hold Congress in contempt....especially Pelosi. Defy ‘em! They want a dictatorship.
Our Constitution does NOT allow for complete control of citizens in regards to requiring them
to purchase government hellcare.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (5)
December 24, 2009
Obama's HATE America Socialized Medicine Bill
Last evening Sarah Palin warned the big government democrat-socialists:( this was on Tweeter and sent to me)
Tomorrow’s Health care Takeover vote Will cause the sleeping giant to awaken and take action. “Average” Americans will take action as light shines on big government growth and corruption.
The democrats have bribed enough Senators and will vote this morning at 7:00 AM EST to take over health care.
Obama vents frustration at Senate delays
WASHINGTON
Barack Obama on Wednesday expressed frustration with the way the Senate does business, saying the use of delaying tactics there harms the nation's ability to "deal with big problems in a very competitive world."
"Other countries are going to start running circles around us," Obama said in a White House interview with PBS. "We're going to have to return to some sense that governance is more important than politics inside the Senate."
Obama's critique of his former Senate colleagues came just as his allies there were on the cusp of giving him what he wants: passage of a Senate health care bill.
The bare-minimum bloc of 60 senators—all 58 Democrats and two independents—voted to end a GOP filibuster and move toward final passage Thursday.
Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) are questioning the constitutionality of the Democrats’ Senate version of the healthcare bill. On behalf of the Republican Steering Committee, the official caucus of conservative senators, the two raised on the Senate floor yesterday a Constitutional point of order that will compel a vote by the full Senate today on the bill’s constitutionality.
The point of order will either be waived -- by Democrats who don’t care about the constitutionality or are willing to ignore the issue -- or it will stand and the healthcare bill will be dead until the unconstitutional parts are excised.
Likely part of the planned series of votes today around 2:00 pm, the Senate chair will not rule on the bill’s constitutionality, so the matter will be placed before the full Senate to ask if the point is “well taken.” It takes a simple majority to agree that the bill is unconstitutional.
The Congressional Budget Office once stated “A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”
The bill requires every American citizen to buy health insurance “whether or not they ever visit a doctor, get a prescription or have an operation.” If a citizen chooses not to buy health insurance coverage, they will face a fine that will quickly increase to $750 or 2% of their taxable income, whichever is greater.
The senators say the individual mandate likely also violates the “takings” clause of the 5th Amendment.
“I am incredibly concerned that the Democrats’ proposed individual mandate provision takes away too much freedom and choice from Americans across the country,” Ensign said. “As an American, I felt the obligation to stand up for the individual freedom of every citizen to make their own decision on this issue. I don’t believe Congress has the legal authority to force this mandate on its citizens.”
The Heritage Foundation legal study concluded: “An individual mandate to enter into a contract with or buy a particular product from a private party, with tax penalties to enforce it, is unprecedented -- not just in scope but in kind --and unconstitutional as a matter of first principles and under any reasonable reading of judicial precedents.”
“This is one way we can be true to what the American people want us to do,” DeMint continued in the exclusive interview. “They keep asking, ‘What about the Constitution?’ I see it everywhere I go. There’s nothing in the Constitution about the government running our health care system. It seems obvious from the content in several places in the Constitution that showing any kind of preferential treatment at the federal level for states or persons is not constitutional. When we see like what’s going on in Nebraska or Louisiana -- it’s a clear violation of the Constitution on that front.”
What does DeMint hope to accomplish with the vote?
“What I hope we can do by raising the point of order is to maybe turn our focus back to our oath of office and the whole foundation that we are supposed to be making laws from, which is completely un-tethered now,” DeMint said.
“There is no mention of constitutional framework now when we deal with legislation. As I said [Monday] on the floor, most of the people here in this Congress believe that there is not a pothole in America today that should not be filled with a federal earmark -- or a scratched knee or a hurt feeling. I mean there’s nothing that can be brought up on the floor of the Senate that people could say, ‘That’s not constitutional,’ and be taken seriously. In fact it’s gone the other way. If you have the audacity to suggest that the government shouldn’t do something -- you are accused of not wanting it to be done. We have to break that pattern. And part of it with this bill that’s now become very high profile, if we raise a Constitutional Point of Order, get people thinking about it, my hope is if the thing does go through, and I’m going to fight to the end to stop it, but if it does go through that there are constitutional challenges to this thing for years.”
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Wild Thing's comment........
They say people get the government they deserve, but I don't think Americans deserve Obama. Well just the ones that voted for this America hating terrorist loving Marxist.l But surely not the rest of us, we love our country and this is breaking our hearts and has us outraged.
Obama just getting creepier every day.
I applaud Senators DeMint and Ensign for standing firm in their support of our Constitution in the face of the current madness.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:50 AM | Comments (10)
December 23, 2009
Harry Reid Slips In A Bombshell for Obamacare Foes
Harry Reid slips in a bombshell for Obamacare foes!
U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) challenges ObamaCare Bill Is Violating the Constitution
U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) challenges the Parliamentarian of the U.S. Senate through the chair about changes to the Senate Rules hidden within the 2700 page Reid-Obama health care takeover bill.
by Rick Moran
What did we ever do to deserve Harry Reid?
When the "manager's amendment" was passed in the dead of night, I pointed out that the wonks had yet to give it a good going over to discern what other surprises might lurk in the convoluted language used to obscure so much in the bill.
I'm sure you'll be happy to know that the wonks have not disappointed us.
Buried in the amendment is a bombshell; there will be no way to amend parts of Obamacare. Apparently, Reid wants to make this bill something like a royal decree where no one can change what has already been wrought.
The Weekly Standard blog has the story:
Reid Bill Says Future Congresses Cannot Repeal Parts of Reid Bill
Harry Reid hid some language in the health care bill that make parts of the bill repeal proof.
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:
There’s one provision that I found particularly troubling and it’s under section c, titled “limitations on changes to this subsection.”
and I quote — “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.”
this is not legislation. it’s not law. this is a rule change. it’s a pretty big deal. we will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law.
I'm not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. i don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this in every bill. if you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates.
Get that? No repeal, no amendments, no nothing. That part of Obamacare is as set in stone as the idea that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It is unalterable - which, of course, means the entire bill is off limits.
The goal is to guard against the possibility that the GOP may win back the House and Senate some day and may wish to repeal or drastically alter Obamacare. In the dead of night, Harry Reid has turned the United States from a constitutional republic into a banana republic monarchy.
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Wild Thing's comment................
And in the video, seems like the parlimentarian is confused. Good grief!
DeMint continues to press him. The Dems don't care about the Constitution.
Independent Medical Advisory Board = Death Panel
Hmmmm....calling for the REVOLUTION, eh, Reid?
And this quote from Mark as well:
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." --Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1778
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:50 AM | Comments (10)
Sebelius Praises Abortion Accounting Trick in Senate Bill
Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, an acknowledged tax cheat and Catholic, admitted that the federal government will require all participants in the new nationalized insurance exchanges – men and women of all age groups – to contribute a separate “abortion premium” to cover the cost of elective abortion services.No one will be exempt.
This video of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explaining that the Senate Health Care Bill really does contain an "accounting measure" that takes funds from everyone to provide abortion coverage. Sebelius did everything she could not to use the word "abortion," but the interviewer was lost with Sebelius' convoluted explanation, so she finally used it at the end. Essentially, Sebelius was trying to assure pro-abortion activists that the bill actually covers abortions even though they tried to make it look like it does not.
Wild Thing's comment............
For those of us opposed to abortion this is a sickening prospect. And someone like Senator Nelson who has consistently positioned himself as a pro-life candidate in Nebraska should be ashamed of himself for brokering this compromise.
These people are sooooo despicable.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (3)
Day One: How ObamaCare Will Alienate Americans
DAY ONE: HOW OBAMACARE WILL ALIENATE AMERICANS
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Obama's health care bill, the poisoned Kool-Aid making its way through the Senate, will not confer any of its supposed benefits on Americans until 2013. But they will find themselves chafing at its restrictions and paying its taxes immediately after the law takes effect. Then, they will see no gain, but plenty of pain, for the next three years.
This odd juxtaposition of "suffer now, benefit later" is the byproduct of the Administration's sleight of hand in specifying ten years worth of cuts and taxes in the legislation, but deferring its benefits for the first four years. By comparing six years of spending with ten years of taxing, it managed to appear deficit neutral under the rules of the Congressional Budget Office. In fact, the annual revenues fall far short of covering any single year's worth of spending, adding to the deficit for each of the last six years over the next ten, but, viewing the decade as a whole, it appears deficit neutral.
Yet the political price is hardly neutral. Democrats who misguidedly vote for this monstrosity will face immediate political repercussions.
The harshest of these backlashes will come from the elderly who will suddenly visit their doctors and be told "no" when they ask for therapies or treatments. The rationing of medical care will start immediately on enactment and, one hopes, the outraged phone calls will start to descend on those whose votes enabled it.
The first "no" will hit the ten million elderly who now rely on Medicare Advantage to pay for the care Medicare itself does not cover. In a payoff to AARP, Obama gutted this program in his bill, ending over $100 billion in federal premium subsidies. These ten million voters will get the grim news that their premiums are going up and their benefits dropping early in 2010. The goal, of course, is to force them to drop Medicare Advantage and sign up, instead, for Medigap insurance -- offered, not coincidentally, by the AARP -- which provides less coverage at higher cost.
Young people without health insurance can expect to start writing $750 annual checks to Washington to pay the fines written into the bill. (And, after the Conference Committee finishes its work, the fines may be higher).
All Americans will soon find their insurance premiums rising as a result of the bill. The young, uninsured will not buy policies. Why should they? Why not just pay the $750 fines each year? Why pay between 2% and 10% of their household income before subsidies kick in? It makes no financial sense for anyone making more than $30,000 to pay for coverage. (And most of those under that threshold will be covered by Medicaid, not by private insurance).
There is no reason for the young to buy private insurance. The legislation requires that health insurers take all comers and not raise rates based on pre-existing conditions. So the young can get coverage when they need it, having only paid $750 per year beforehand.
The difference in cost will, of course, be borne by families throughout America who will see their health insurance premiums increase. President Obama and his Democratic rubber stamps may appreciate that they are not raising taxes on the middle class, just raising mandatory health insurance premiums, but the distinction is likely to be lost on swing voters.
From now on, any increase in health insurance premiums will become the political responsibility of the Obama Administration. As General Colin Powell once said of Iraq "You break it. You own it." Since these premiums have been rising by an average of 10% per year for more than the past decade, this is a legacy most politicians would sensibly avoid if they could.
Wild Thing's comment..........
The left politicians more then anyone else in politics don't care, they sure have shown us that. They have their own health care and their own retirement system. When they retire they’ll get a monthly paycheck equal to their ending salary for the rest of their lives. They will never want. And for decades they have been setting their own salary, and not getting any flak for it.
GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (5)
December 22, 2009
America Hating SOCIALIST Senator Sheldon Whitehouse Stupid Remarks
Sen. Whitehouse: foes of health care bill are birthers, right-wing militias, aryan groups
After explaining why absent GOP members who did not vote for the Department of Defense spending bill was tantamount to a “no” vote, he went on to say that Republicans and their supporters just want to “break” the momentum of President Obama.:
“Voting ‘no’ and hiding from the vote are the same result. Those of us on the floor see it. It was clear the three of them who did not cast their yes votes until all 60 Senate votes had been tallied and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion. And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.
They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”
Wild Thing's comment.........
So if all of us don't agree with him we are some kind of low life or criminals.
The advocates of Socialized medicine are lying Communist sympathizers or full blown communists like Maxine Waters etc.
Over 60% of this nation is against this bill and this fool wants to go around calling names.
We should bring back Dueling! Conservatives are better shots.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:49 AM | Comments (5)
Hollow Brain Harry ( Reid ) With NO Class Attempts To Play Class Card
Harry Reid Plays Class Card Following Partisan Obamacare Vote
Harry Reid played the class card following the Democrats historic vote to takeover one sixth of the nation’s economy.
Keep it up Communist Harry.
New ad that hammers Nevada Democrat Sen. Harry Reid as having "failed" the people of Nevada and America by labeling American soldiers in Iraq as having failed when he infamously declared that the war was "lost." The ad hits Reid for his leadership (or lack thereof) in the Senate, and says "our country deserves better," and proclaims, "We the voters are going hand you a pink slip and vote you out of office."
Reid is up for re-election to the Senate in Nevada in 2010.
Harry Reid : What legislation is all about is the art of compromise...We have wide ranges of different needs thoughout regions of this country...There's a 100 senators here and I don't know if there's a senator that doesn't have something in this bill that's important to them, and if they don't something in it important to them then it doesn't speak well to them, that's what this legislation is all about, it is the art of compromise.
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Wild Thing's comment......
These democrats deserve to ROT IN HELL for destroying our Country.
Every last damn one of them.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:48 AM | Comments (10)
Sen.Dodd Received a $100 Million In ObamaCare Bill To Help Dodd With His Re-Election
Leftie repoorter Ceci Connolly admitted to Greta Van Susteren tonight that the Senator Dodd received a $100 million sweetheart deal from the White House in the Obamacare bill to help him with his re-election.
Health Bill Money for Hospital Sought by Dodd
ABC News
A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who faces a difficult re-election campaign, his office said Sunday night.
The legislation leaves it up to the Health and Human Services Department to decide where the money should be spent, although spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said Dodd hopes to claim it for the University of Connecticut.
The provision is included in a 383-page series of changes to the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., outlined Saturday. Scattered throughout are numerous items sought by individual lawmakers, many of them directing money explicitly to programs or projects in their home states.
The one sought by Dodd provides $100 million for "a health care facility that provides research, inpatient tertiary care, or outpatient clinical services." It must be affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in the United States "that contains a State's sole public academic medical and dental school."
The money can cover a maximum of 40 percent of the facility's construction costs.
Based on the criteria set out on the bill, it appeared that state-affiliated hospitals in about a dozen states could compete for the funds.
Dodd has played a key role in development of the health care bill in the Senate. He wielded the gavel earlier in the year when the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee spent weeks drafting its version of the measure. The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was chairman at the time, but unable to preside.
Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is seeking a new term in 2010, but polls so far show him in a tight race.
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The empty hospital - Yes Minister - BBC comedy
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Wild Thing's comment...........
Dodd's trying to buy his way to reelection. In CT, that just might work. This is more of the payola in the evil bill.
What good will a new hospital be when there won’t be enough doctors to staff it?
We are witnessing the emergence of a new government dictatorship. History tell us that rampant corruption, fed by cronyism, is the nuts and bolts of dictatorships. Dictatorships are almost always governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability.
MOMENTS TO REMEMBER COURTESY OF DODD
* Dodd's sweet deals from Countrywide Morgtage;
* a castle in Ireland payoff for arranging a presidential pardon;
* Dodd in Iowa to raise million dollar contributions (bribes) from Wall Street suckups;
* lying about his role in the AIG bonuses;
* his wife making big bucks as board member for Pharma and Health Care Corporations;
* Dodd's (gag) leadership as Chairman of Senate Banking Committee as the economy did a Great Depression melt down.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (1)
What Is Public Option
A video to illustrate the public option! Show it to a brain dead lib!
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Wild Thing's comment..........
So easy even a liberal can understand. (Maybe.)
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (1)
December 21, 2009
Obama & Senate Christmas Present to We-the-People: Enslavement
McConnell on the Senate floor just before 12:45a.m.
McConnell: "My message tonight is this, the impact of this vote will long outlive this one frantic snowy weekend in Washington, mark my words, this legislation will reshape our nation, and Americans has already issued their verdict: they don't want it"
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The Extraordinary Measures Needed to Kill the Bill — Updated with Vote Numbers
The corruption of using the public treasury as a check book to buy the votes of Senator Nelson and Senator Sanders — in the face not only overwhelming public opposition, but also in the face of a public that now wants Congress to do nothing on health care — means that extraordinary measures are needed to kill ObamaCare.
This plan, if executed properly, will kill the bill and it will give opponents two more bites at the apple, after it passes the Senate.
There are some atmospheric conditions that will help this plan work. For example, both sides of the net roots should cease fire on posts against each other. There must be a truce until the bill is dead. The target is the bill, not each other.
So, for those on the left who have decided to kill this bill, they are welcome to join in this the kill-the-bill fun.
Rationale: There are many reasons in agreement between the right and the left and the American public about why this bill must be killed:
1. It will increase health care costs;
2. The individual mandate is massive government intrusion on individual freedom, and is a gift to the private insurers, and disproportionately impacts lower-income families;
3. The fantasies of CBO’s assumptions notwithstanding, this bill will accelerate our march to financial insolvency; and,
4. Passage of the bill merely reinforces the practice of buying votes with debt issued by the U.S. Treasury;
5. Among many other reasons, in the words of Howard Dean, the bill does more harm than good.
The Plan: First, conservatives will object to the appointment of the conferees. This is not a motion, so it is non-debatable. An objection cannot be overcome unless the Senator making the objection caves. Let’s hope Senator McConnell agrees with this approach — but regardless, the objection shall be made.
This forces two votes in the U.S. House, one vote to amend the Senate bill on the House floor, since the Senate bill likely cannot pass the House unamended, and will force another vote on final passage of the amended House bill.
So, first, conservatives force two votes in the House, by preventing the appointment of the conferees, and therefore, preventing a House-Senate Conference.
Second, the left will focus on three separate issues to kill the bill in the House. The object of these issues is not to support these policies per say, but to add items to the House bill that will be so objectionable that when the bill goes back over to the Senate, that the Dems lose one or more of their 60 votes.
The Public Option: The progressive’s net roots should hold accountable the Democratic House members who said they would not vote for the bill if there was no public option. Progressives need to produce enough votes to force the public option back into the bill. Forcing the public option back into the bill is in the progressive’s interest since it will show they have the political power to do it, and will set a precedent for a new health care reform baseline in the House for Democrats. It is in conservative’s interest for this to happen because if it does, Senator Lieberman’s vote reverts to a NO.
The Nelson Buy-Off: Both the left and the right net roots will focus on pulling the Nebraska and Vermont free pass on increased Medicaid spending, on the basis that it is a corrupt back room deal that may be unconstitutional on the basis that it violates the equal protection clause (the 14th amendment to the Constitution.)
Unions: Unions must pull the Senate tax on Cadillac health plans, and replace it with the House tax on individuals. (I know, I can’t believe I just wrote that either!) This will force Senators, when the bill goes back to the Senate, to oppose the bill which could force the Dems lower than 60 votes.
Hold the No Votes: Conservatives need to hold and add one or two more no votes to the 39 House votes against the bill, among those Democrats who have concerns about their own re-election or who have announced their retirement — since the leverage from the Speaker has substantially decreased. If every No vote on the original House bill holds, there only needs to be two additional no votes.
Pro-Life and Pro-Abortion Forces: In short, have at it. Given the Stupak amendment majority in the House, the pro-lifers must stick Stupak back on the bill, so that when it is sent back to the Senate, the pro-abortion majority can pull Stupak back off. When the bill goes back to the Senate, the pro-abortion forces can remove Stupak, just as they did a couple of weeks ago. Once Stupak is pulled again from the Senate it must go back to the House to be amended, or die there.
We do not need any more than 42 votes on the House floor, and last time there were 39 No votes.
Assuming we have a hard base of 25 no Dem votes, then the net roots need to produce eight House votes on either the abortion or public option question.
The Stupak folks ought to be able produce ten additional no votes.
This is not difficult math. And MoveOn.org is already telling its members to oppose the Senate bill.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Interesting article and a lot of things to consider.
It is inot often you watch the politicians of a nation willingly throw said nation’s prosperity down the toilet. It is heartbreaking..........At 1AM on the longest, darkest night of the year, the demons do their dirtiest work.
Until this thing is in the Rose Garden with a gloating Obama holding a pen, we still have a war to fight.
And even after that, we have to fight. Our liberty and our republic. This is not something we can concede. Ever.
We’re going to lose battles like we did tonight but we cannot EVER surrender.
The difference between the GOP and the Dems. The Dems KNOW how to play political hardball. They will do whatever it takes to win.
On the other hand, the GOP wants to "play nice" and be friends to everyone.
As PATRIOTS, it is our DUTY to fight this tooth and nail.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:55 AM | Comments (22)
The Left, the Right and the American Public Couldn’t Stop 60 Votes
Well known singer Ray Stevens who brought us "Ahab the Arab" years ago now brings us - "We The People"
"You voted for Obamacare, we're gonna vote you outta there! "
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The Left, the Right and the American Public Couldn’t Stop 60 Votes
by Dan Perrin
The question of whether we live in a country ruled by leaders who refuse to listen, but do what they believe is in their own interest, has been answered.
Conservatives hate this bill. Progressives and liberals hate it too. The public is solidly against it.
But it does not matter, apparently. The implications of a country in open revolt against this bill and the elite in the Democratic party giving the public the finger are profound.
The Daily Kos and FireDogLakes of the net could not produce a single Democratic Senator or Independent to vote no. Conservatives could not produce a single Democratic Senate vote against cloture. Neither could the general public. Perhaps the left can still get one of their own to kill this nightmare. Is there not a single Dem Senator who will stand with the public, or is this merely a quaint notion we used to have about our country — that the system responds to the public?
The Democrats must have 60 votes to amend this bill, then 60 votes to defeat the filibuster. They say they have them — we will see.
Senator Nelson, according to a senior Senate staffer, got a huge appropriation for Nebraska — and a state opt-out for abortion funding, as in states can opt-out. Another Democratic Senator bought off with money we are printing to pay our bills.
The world will understand America has changed. Our country is now run by elites who are printing money, debasing our currency to throw at massive new spending and deficit creating programs — and actually believe they are both moral and politically smart. Just 19% of the public believes this plan will not increase the deficit.
What comes next is very discomforting to think about. But we have now crossed that line from what our country was into something else, and that something else has nothing whatsoever with the country being a Republic. There will be a reckoning for this, and it will not be pleasant — not for anyone
Wild Thing's comment.........
Great article write up by Dan Perrin, the last paragraph speaks loud and clear.
And Ray Stevens song goes perfect with this as well.
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:50 AM | Comments (4)
December 20, 2009
Coburn: "People ought to pray that a senator can't make the vote tonight"
Coburn is making the point that the legislation should be looked and read before being voted on, and the Democrats have zero problem with voting on a 2000 page bill that no one has read.
Coburn: "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight. That’s what they ought to pray."
Durbin: "I have been trying to reach Sen. Coburn. … This statement troubles me, and I’m trying to reach him come back to the floor and explain exactly what he meant about a senator being unable to make the vote tonight. … I’m reaching out to Sen. Coburn. I’ll be on the floor for the next 45 minutes, and I hope that he will join me there."
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Wild Thing's comment.........
YES, In Jesus’ name, Amen!
Posted by Wild Thing at 11:55 PM | Comments (2)
LIVE on C-Span 2 Senate Health Care Debate 12/20/09 - 12/21/09
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C-SPAN2 Live Stream
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN2.aspx
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Posted by Wild Thing at 07:45 PM | Comments (3)
Republican Senators Asking Americans to stand up and help them "stop the Government Takeover of Health Care"
This is a video of Republican Senators asking Americans to stand up and help them "stop the Government Takeover of Health Care." A series of Senators from John McCain to Sam Brownback, from Kay Bailey Hutchison to Lindsey Graham appear on video telling Americans, "This could be our last chance" to stop the Democrats from imposing a "Government takeover of Health Care."
Democrats plan to invoke cloture in the middle of the night tonight so they can move to a Final Vote on the Senate
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Wild Thing's commnet........
What's happening in Washington is shear Tyranny & Treason! Why won't you clowns acknowledge it...??? Who will be the first on the floor to say it?! We have been ignored since August...are you all deaf????
We have done all we can other then fire a shot. Tea Parties, the 912 groups, Townhalls, emails, phone calls, Fax's. showing up at offices of our elected officials.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:30 PM | Comments (6)
While America Sleeps: 1:00 AM Monday Vote Set on Obamacare
The conservative commentator and founder and editor of The Weekly Standard blasted the Obamacare “suicide mission.”
While You Sleep: 1:00 AM Monday Vote Set on Obamacare
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has set the stage for a major vote Monday morning at 1:00 AM – one that would require the support of 60 Senators. That would, if all goes according to Senator Reid’s plan, set up a late-night Christmas Eve vote on final passage.
Senator Reid also used a rare procedure to block any further amendments from being offered, debated or voted upon.
When it comes time for Senators to cast their vote at 1:00AM Monday morning, shortly after Sunday Night Football ends and most Americans are in bed, they will have had less than 38 hours to understand a 383-page amendment that introduces several new concepts into the health care debate, including:
■A scheme that gives the Office of Personal Management immense power in administering what amounts to a multi-state public plan;
■How much a state “opt-out” of abortion coverage in the legislation erodes the long-standing Hyde-amendment;
■The budgetary impact of ELIMINATING the physician reimbursement fix; and,
■Multiple new taxes, federal regulations and sweet-heart deals aimed toward certain states like Nebraska.
It is important for Americans to understand the process being used by the Senate. Barring any procedural snags (of which there are many in the Senate’s complex rules and precedents), the debate is likely to play out as follows:
■Monday, 1:00 AM – Vote to invoke cloture (i.e. end debate) on the manager’s amendment. 60 votes are necessary.
■Tuesday, 7:00 AM – Vote to approve the manager’s amendment. A majority vote is necessary.
■Tuesday, 8:00 AM – Vote to invoke cloture on the original Reid substitute amendment (the 2,000-page bill). 60 votes are necessary.
■Wednesday, 2:00 PM – Vote to approve the Reid substitute amendment. A majority vote is necessary.
■Wednesday, 3:00 PM – Vote to invoke cloture on the underlying bill. 60 votes are necessary.
■Thursday, 9:00 PM – Vote to approve the underlying bill (i.e. the Senate’s version of Obamacare). A majority vote is necessary.
Last January, President Obama told his senior staff that “transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.” Now, an unconstitutional health care proposal that was drafted behind closed doors and poised to be approved while Americans are not looking will become the touchstone of his presidency. Surely this was not what the American people signed up for.
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Graham accused the Obama administration of giving bribes to Democratic Senators in exchange for their votes, calling it seedy Chicago politics.
You know, change you can believe in, after this health care bill debacle is now becoming an empty slogan. And its really been replaced by seedy Chicago politics, when you think about it, backroom deals that amount to bribes, said Graham.
The senator from South Carolina went on to criticize the Democrats method of paying for health care reform. No Congress is going to allow Medicare to be cut $470 billion. we will forgive those cuts to doctors and hospitals. Thats how you pay for the bill. Its Enron-accounting. Its a sham, Graham told CNNs John King Sunday.
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Wild Thing's comment........
This is nothing short of criminal! I hope all of the democRat criminals running for re-election next year can be defeated at the ballot box.
They have bribed and threatened and kicked and screamed. All the while the American Public says STOP.
This bill should haunt the Democrats for the next 20 years if we still have a Republic then and not a Communist state.
As they vote at 1;00 a.m., C Span will be home snuggled confortably in their beds by then ... with visions of more taxpayer money dancing in their heads.
I can see communist Russia ( Washington D.C.) from where I live. It’s about a 858 miles.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:55 PM | Comments (6)
"Give Ben ( Nelson) the Boot"
Nebraska Republicans set up the official “Give Ben the Boot” website
State Republican Party Wants To Give Ben The Boot
The chairman of Nebraska's Republican Party predicts that Sen. Ben Nelson's decision to back sweeping health care legislation will be his downfall.
"I think this is the end of his political career in the state of Nebraska,” says Mark Fahleson. On Saturday, the state party launched a Web site, givebentheboot.com, to collect funds to oust the Democrat in the 2010 election.
Nelson said earlier Saturday that he decided to support the measure after winning concessions to limit the availability of abortions in insurance sold in newly created exchanges, as well as tens of million in federal Medicaid funds for Nebraska.
Fahleson says Americans are outraged by the legislation and "they're going to punish politicians at the polls."
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Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Reacts to Dem Takeover of Heath Care After Nelson Was Bought Off
McConnell said the bill will lead to higher taxes, and that it includes "permissive language" on government-funded abortions. He said the bill will cut back on Medicare, Medicaid, and Hospice funding.
McConnell pointed out that the bill now contains a special deal for Medicaid funding for Nebraska and Vermont, an obvious reference to the deals made with Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont to make sure they vote for the bill.
McConnell said the Democrats are going to pass this bill "in the middle of night" because they don't want the American people to see it. He said this bill is "an absolute outrage being perpetrated on the American people."
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Wild Thing's comment...........
The stench of corrupt democrats (trading votes for whatever they can get) is permeating our nation. Next will be Cap and Trade and then they’ll give away our sovereignty. If ever these traitors to our democracy needed a strong message from Americans to cease and desist - it is soon.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:50 AM | Comments (12)
December 19, 2009
Sen. Ben Nelson to Announce Support For Health-Care Bill
Sen. Ben Nelson to announce support for health-care bill
Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, was prepared to announce to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Christmas.
"We're there," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), as he headed into a special meeting to announce the deal.
Democratic leaders spent days trying to hammer out a deal with Nelson, and worked late Friday night with Nelson on abortion coverage language that had proved the major stumbling block. But Nelson also secured other favors for his home state.
Asked if he was prepared to support the bill, Nelson said, "Yeah."
With Nelson seemingly on board, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid unveiled the final version of a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health insurance system that would expand coverage to an additional 31 million Americans, coming closer to attaining the Democrats' longsought goal of universal medical coverage.
The package closely tracks the $848 billion measure Reid (D-Nev.) drafted this month, before he entered into negotiations aimed at winning the 60 votes he needs to avert a GOP filibuster, aides said. Since then, Reid has made numerous concessions to moderate Democrats, scrapping an effort to create a government-run insurance plan and beefing up prohibitions on spending federal funds for abortion coverage, a change demanded by the final holdout, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
Instead of a public option, the final product would allow private firms for the first time to offer national insurance policies to all Americans, outside the jurisdiction of state regulations. Those plans would be negotiated through the Office of Personnel Management, the same agency that handles health coverage for federal workers and members of Congress.
Starting immediately, insurers would be prohibited from denying children coverage for pre-existing conditions. A complete ban on the practice would take effect in 2014, when the legislation seeks to create a network of state-based insurance exchanges, or marketplaces, where people who lack access to affordable coverage through an insurer can purchase policies.
Insurers competing in the exchanges would be required to justify rate increases, and those who jacked up prices unduly could be barred from the exchange. Reid's package also would give patients the right to appeal to an independent board if an insurer denies a medical claim. And all insurance companies would be required to spend at least 80 cents of every dollary they collect in premiums on delivering care to their customers.
Every American would be required to obtain coverage under the proposal, and employers would be required to pay a fine if they failed to offer affordable coverage and their workers sought federal subsidies to purchase insurance in the exchanges. Reid's package would offer additional assistance to the smallest businesses, however, increasing tax credits to purchase coverage by $12 billion over previous versions.
The overall cost of the package was not immediately available, but aides said it would be more than covered by cutting future Medicare spending and raising taxes in the health sector, including a 40 percent excise on the most expensive insurance policies. The package would reduce budget deficits by $130 billion by 2019, aides said, and by as much as $650 billion in the decade thereafter.
Reid officially filed the package early Saturday with plans to hold a first critical vote after midnight Sunday. Barring unexpected delays, Democrats were still hoping to push the package to final passage by Christmas Eve.
Schumer: We've Reached Agreement With Nelson
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) just told reporters that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid shook hands last night at 10:30 p.m. with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) on an agreement that he would vote for cloture on health care reform, on the basis of the abortion language in the manager's amendment.
They have 60 now.
text of the abortion amendment
''SEC. 1303. SPECIAL RULES.
(a) STATE OPT-OUT OF ABORTION COVERAGE.-- ''(1) IN GENERAL.--A State may elect to prohibit abortion coverage in qualified health plans offered through an Exchange in such State if such State enacts a law to provide for such prohibition. (2) TERMINATION OF OPT OUT.-- A State may repeal a law described in paragraph (1) and provide for the offering of such services through the Exchange.
(b) SPECIAL RULES RELATING TO COVERAGE OF ABORTION SERVICES.--(1) VOLUNTARY CHOICE OF COVERAGE OF ABORTION SERVICES.-- (A) IN GENERAL.--Notwithstanding any other provision of this title (or any amendment made by this title)-- (i) nothing in this title (or any amendment made by this title), shall be construed to require a qualified health plan to provide coverage of services described in subparagraph (B)(i) or (B)(ii) as part of its essential health benefits for any plan year; and ''(ii) subject to subsection (a), the issuer of a qualified health plan shall determine whether or not the plan provides coverage of services described in subparagraph (B)(i) or (B)(ii) as part of such benefits for the plan year.
'(B) ABORTION SERVICES.-- (i) ABORTIONS FOR WHICH PUBLIC FUNDING IS PROHIBITED.--The services described in this clause are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is not permitted, based on the law as in effect as of the date that is 6 months before the beginning of the plan year involved.
(ii) ABORTIONS FOR WHICH PUBLIC FUNDING IS ALLOWED.--The services described in this clause are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is permitted, based on the law as in effect as of the date that is 6 months before the beginning of the plan year involved.
(2) PROHIBITION ON THE USE OF FEDERAL FUNDS.-- ''(A) IN GENERAL.--If a qualified health plan provides coverage of services described in paragraph (1)(B)(i), the issuer of the plan shall not use any amount attributable to any of the following for purposes of paying for such services: (i) The credit under section 36B of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (and the amount (if any) of the advance payment of the credit under section 1412 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). (ii) Any cost-sharing reduction under section 1402 of thePatient Protection and Affordable Care Act (and the amount (if any) of the advance payment of the reduction under section 1412 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act).
(B) ESTABLISHMENT OF ALLOCATION ACCOUNTS.--In the case of a plan to which subparagraph (A) applies, the issuer of the plan shall-- (i) collect from each enrollee in the plan (without regard to the enrollee's age, sex, or family status) a separate payment for each of the following: (I) an amount equal to the portion of the premium to be paid directly by the enrollee for coverage under the plan of services other than services described in paragraph (1)(B)(i) (after reduction for credits and cost-sharing reductions described in subparagraph (A)); and (II) an amount equal to the actuarial value of the coverage of services described in paragraph (1)(B)(i), and (ii) shall deposit all such separate payments into separate allocation accounts as provided in subparagraph (C). In the case of an enrollee whose premium for coverage under the plan is paid through employee payroll deposit, the separate payments required under this subparagraph shall each be paid by a separate deposit.
(C) SEGREGATION OF FUNDS.-- (i) IN GENERAL.--The issuer of a plan to which subparagraph (A) applies shall establish allocation accounts described in clause (ii) for enrollees receiving amounts described in subparagraph (A). '(ii) ALLOCATION ACCOUNTS.--The issuer of a plan to which subparagraph (A) applies shall deposit-- (I) all payments described in subparagraph (B)(i)(I) into a separate account that consists solely of such payments and that is used exclusively to pay for services other than services described in paragraph (1)(B)(i); and (II) all payments described in subparagraph (B)(i)(II) into a separate account that consists solely of such payments and that is used exclusively to pay for services described in paragraph (1)(B)(i).
(D) ACTUARIALVALUE.-- (i) IN GENERAL.--The issuer of a qualified health plan shall estimate the basic per enrollee, per month cost, determined on an average actuarial basis, for including coverage under the qualified health plan of the services described in paragraph (1)(B)(i). (ii) CONSIDERATIONS.--In making such estimate, the issuer-- (I) may take into account the impact on overall costs of the inclusion of such coverage, but may not take into account any cost reduction estimated to result from such services, including prenatal care, delivery, or postnatal care; (II) shall estimate such costs as if such coverage were included for the entire population covered; and (III) may not estimate such a cost at less than $1 per enrollee, per month.
(E) ENSURING COMPLIANCE WITH SEGREGATION REQUIREMENTS.-- (i) IN GENERAL.--Subject to clause (ii), State health insurance commissioners shall ensure that health plans comply with the segregation requirements in this subsection through the segregation of plan funds in accordance with applicable provisions of generally accepted accounting requirements, circulars on funds management of the Office of Management and Budget, and guidance on accounting of the Government Accountability Office. (ii) CLARIFICATION.--Nothing in clause (i) shall prohibit the right of an individual or health plan to appeal such action in courts of competent jurisdiction.
'(3) RULES RELATING TO NOTICE.-- (A) NOTICE.--A qualified health plan that provides for coverage of the services described in paragraph (1)(B)(i) shall provide a notice to enrollees, only as part of the summary of benefits and coverage explanation, at the time of enrollment, of such coverage.
(B) RULES RELATING TO PAYMENTS.-- The notice described in subparagraph (A), any advertising used by the issuer with respect to the plan, any information provided by the Exchange, and any other information specified by the Secretary shall provide information only with respect to the total amount of the combined payments for services described in paragraph (1)(B)(i) and other services covered by the plan.
(4) NO DISCRIMINATION ON BASIS OF PROVISION OF ABORTION.--No qualified health plan offered through an Exchange may discriminate against any individual health care provider or health care facility because of its unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions
(c) APPLICATION OF STATE AND FEDERAL LAWS REGARDING ABORTION.-- (1) NO PREEMPTION OF STATE LAWS REGARDING ABORTION.--Nothing in this Act shall be construed to preempt or otherwise have any effect on State laws regarding the prohibition of (or requirement of) coverage, funding, or procedural requirements on abortions, including parental notification or consent for the performance of an abortion on a minor.
(2) NO EFFECT ON FEDERAL LAWS REGARDING ABORTION.--
(A) IN GENERAL.--Nothing in this Act shall be construed to have any effect on Federal laws regarding-- '(i) conscience protection; '(ii) willingness or refusal to provide abortion; and '(iii) discrimination on the basis of the willingness or refusal to provide, pay for, cover, or refer for abortion or to provide or participate in training to provide abortion.
(3) NO EFFECT ON FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS LAW.--Nothing in this subsection shall alter the rights and obligations of employees and employers under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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Ben Nelson's Medicaid deal
Sen. Mary Landrieu got the "Louisiana Purchase." Sen. Ben Nelson got the federal government to pick up most his state's future Medicaid tab -- forever. As part of the deal to win Nelson's support, the federal government will fund Nebraska's new Medicaid recipients. It's a provision worth about $45 million over the first decade.
Also from John McCormack...
Nelson Agrees to Abortion Funding in at Least 13 States?
Harry Reid has released the manager's amendment that Ben Nelson has reportedly agreed to vote for, meaning that the Senate bill has 60 votes. The abortion language includes the phony segregation of funding language that was rejected in the House. It would allow individual states to opt out of the abortion-funding program--in other words, the default position is to pay for abortions; states would have to pass legislation to not fund abortions. But states where public abortion-funding is mandated by state court rulings would be required to pay for abortions:
‘‘(1) NO PREEMPTION OF STATE LAWS REGARDING ABORTION.—Nothing in this Act shall be construed to preempt or otherwise have any effect on State laws regarding the prohibition of (or requirement of) coverage, funding, or procedural requirements on abortions, including parental notification or consent for the performance of an abortion on a minor.
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Wild Thing's comment.........
May God damn every Senator who votes for this. Every last one. They are ignoring the will of the people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And get this, they are going to VOTR ON THIS BILL AT 1;00 A.M. Monday morning. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.
“ Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action”…. General George Washington
....Thank you Lynn for sending this to me.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 10:33 AM | Comments (18)
Feds Take Charge Of Your Doctor, Deplete Your Hospital
"There has been too little attention to the most dangerous aspect of the Senate health bill. Please read this and share the information widely. We are battling to preserve medical excellence for you."- Betsy
Feds take charge of YOUR doctor, deplete your hospital
By BETSY MCCAUGHEY
December 18, 2009
Forget the public option, abortion and all the other divisive questions in the health-care debate: The most important issue for patients and their doctors is the transfer of decision-making power from bedside to the federal government.
The bill that Sen. Harry Reid aims to pass in the Senate would mandate that every American enroll in a "qualified" insurance plan. And page 149 states that "qualified" health plans can do business only with a doctor who "implements such mechanisms to improve health-care quality as the secretary [of Health and Human Services] may by regulation require."
But "mechanisms to improve health-care quality" covers everything in medicine.
Never before has the federal government intruded into medical decisions made by doctors for privately insured patients, except on such narrow issues as drug safety. Now, in the name of quality, the secretary of Health and Human Services would be empowered to regulate your MD's decisions on everything from cardiac and cancer care to childbirth.
The delegation of power is so broad, it's conceivable that Washington will be telling your cardiologist when it's appropriate to use stents or imaging tests -- and directing your gynecologist about the use of pelvic sonograms.
What makes this especially troubling is that government will be imposing its regulations with an eye on reducing the cost of your care, even if you're paying for it yourself: The explicit purpose of "reform" is to reduce what everyone consumes and to discourage some from getting more care than others.
That's one reason the Senate bill puts a 40 percent tax on "Cadillac" plans -- a category that will cover the top 20 percent of plans, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In its Nov. 30 report, the CBO predicts that many employers will downgrade what they provide their workforce to avoid the tax, while others will pass the cost along in the form of lower take-home pay. If you think this bill won't hurt you because your employer provides a generous health plan, think again.
Despite President Obama's promises, the Senate bill expressly reduces the care under Medicare. Baby boomers retiring soon will get less than seniors get now. Page 1189 gives the secretary of Health and Human Services "authority to modify or eliminate coverage of certain preventive services," based on what the US Preventive Services Task Force recommends. This is the same group that just called for cutting back on mammograms.
Whatever your age, and whether you're in a public program or the richest "Cadillac" plan, you'll also lose out if you need to be hospitalized -- you'll find fewer nurses on the floor, less diagnostic equipment, longer waits for tests and an overall environment of scarcity.
Why? Because the Reid bill forces hospitals into financial distress.
Hospitals now get their cash from insurance companies and from public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid -- the public programs are already freeloading. A hospital collects 93 cents for each dollar spent treating a Medicare patient and 86 cents for a Medicaid patient -- but manages to stay open by charging more for privately insured patients.
The Senate bill expands Medicaid enrollment (in fact, 60 percent of those newly insured by the bill are put in Medicaid) and slashes payment rates for Medicare patients.
Richard Foster, Chief Actuary for Medicare, documented the severe impact of these cuts on hospitals in a Nov. 13 report to Congress, predicting that hospitals will face losses. In the end, all patients will suffer when hospitals are dirtier, ill equipped and understaffed.
Wild Thing's comment.............
She is excelent and she has been working hard to get the truth out about the socialized medicine bill.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (5)
GOP Firm On Stopping Senate Health Bill
McConnell: 'They want us to vote on a bill that no one outside the Majority Leader’s conference room has even seen'...'The final bill we’ll vote on isn’t even the one we’ve had on the floor'
GOP Firm On Stopping Senate Health Bill
WASHINGTON
Republicans threatened to delay Senate business with a health care read-a-thon this weekend as Democrats searched for 60 votes to advance President Barack Obama's signature issue. A forecast of heavy snow added to the list of complications.
At a news conference Friday in the Capitol, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., accused Democrats of trying to ram the health care bill through with dozens of changes as yet unseen, and promised to do all they could to prevent it.
"I think we've made it rather clear we're not going to expedite consideration of the health care bill," McConnell said. Added McCain: "I don't think it would be outrageous to ask for a bill that we haven't seen to be read."
Democrats, after a week of bitter intraparty disagreements over the compromises Senate leaders made to keep the bill moving, were still trying to come up with the 60 votes needed to overcome unanimous Republican opposition. Leaders kept negotiating with the only known Democratic holdout, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, on tough abortion restrictions that he would accept.
After a meeting with Reid that lasted more than an hour Friday, Nelson indicated he still was not aboard but would keep talking. "Hopefully, we're making progress," Nelson said. He added that there was a lot of room between his views and Reid's and they were "trying to close the gap."
Reid scrambles as deadline looms
By: Carrie Budoff Brown and Meredith Shiner
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid led a marathon negotiating session Friday with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) in a hectic bid to persuade the last holdout to sign onto the health care reform bill ahead of a key deadline Saturday morning.
Nelson was huddling into the evening with Reid, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and a circle of top White House officials that included deputy chief of staff Jim Messina and senior adviser Pete Rouse. Nelson was seeking stronger language to prohibit federal financing of abortions and additional relief for his state from future Medicaid funding obligations.
At 8 p.m., Nelson left a meeting in Reid’s office, telling reporters, “There’s no deal.”
Three hours earlier Nelson had hinted at progress “if for no other reason than you understand each other’s position a little better.”
Despite the ticking clock for the Democratic leadership, Nelson said he wasn’t operating on a deadline.
“Harry has some time frames he is thinking about,” Nelson said. “But I don’t have a deadline. To me, you have to get it right.”
Wild Thing's comment.........
Fight to the end, PLEASE!!!
"Republicans threatened to delay Senate business with a health care read-a-thon this weekend as Democrats searched for 60 votes to advance President Barack Obama's signature issue."
This is good. Very good. Shows that our folks aren't backing down, and are fighting this thing. The Republicans have been fighting in the House and Senate...the fringe media hides it from us so many do not realize how hard Republicans have been fighting.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:40 AM | Comments (2)
December 18, 2009
"Code Red" Rally at the Capitol ~ Speaking Out Against Obama's Socialized Medicine
"Code Red" Rally at the Capitol
The rally in Upper Senate Park across from the Capitol kicked of the day’s activities as featured speakers including FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey, conservative talk show host Laura Ingram, and Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) addressed the crowd of literally thousands of concerned Americans who had once again made the trip to Capitol Hill to voice their concerns regarding the current Senate health care bill.
After the rally, FreedomWorks helped to organize lobbying teams by state to descend upon Senate offices, where activists are committing to politely, but resolutely, “sit in” until they are permitted to speak to their Senators face-to-face and relay their grave concerns over health care legislation that continues to inch closer to passage.
Code Red Rally "Kill the Health Care Bill
Michelle Bachmann said the bill actually contains a MARRIAGE PENALTY, among other despicable clauses!
Clad in red and armed with Grinch dolls, grim reaper scarecrows, posters and their loud voices, several thousand
tea party protesters rallied near the Capitol Tuesday to send a single message: "Kill the Bill."
The crowd's message and energy was only intensified by the encouragement of some of the nation’s best known conservatives, including Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) and radio personality Laura Ingraham.
"I've never seen so many attractive domestic terrorists in all my life!" Armey yelled at the adoring crowd. "It's so nice to be here again together, isn't it?...You mean you actually came to town on your own terms? To say what you wanted to say? And to be heard? Sounds pretty much like terrorists to me."
The crowd was most excited, however, by an unscheduled appearance by Bachmann, who organized the most recent major tea party protest, a "House Call" on Washington Nov. 6.
"You came before, you came again, I guess they must be deaf. They can't hear you!" Bachmann screamed over the cheers. "We're not leaving until you understand that no means no. What part of no don't you people understand?"
The congresswoman, who has emerged as a conservative icon, led the crowd in chants of "Kill the Bill," before suggesting President Barack Obama, Senate Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on their lack of knowledge of the U.S. Constitution.
"Maybe they need a course in remedial reading to find out what's in our Constitution," Bachmann said, suggesting the tea party movement could teach them.
As the rally broke, the protesters were encouraged to visit their senators’ offices, even though Senate Democrats were caucusing with the president at the White House. And, in short order, there were lines to get into several Senate office buildings.
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Wild Thing's comment...........
It was estimated around 2,000, possible 2,500 counting those milling around the edges. Buses from northern Maryland and North Carolina accounted for about 900 alone. Apparently a bus came up from Texas.
But there is this that I got in my email from a friend that lives in Maryland.
"I was over on the corner of the Russell bldg and talked with many groups that came by there as I greeted them. Yes, a number from Texas, but there were 23 buses from NJ, I’m not sure how many buses from PA but a number. I spoke with groups here from OH, WVA, GA, KY, VA ,PA and NC. I stayed over at the Russell during the Rally. During the Rally they were still arriving. Many of the Code Red were skipping the Rally to get into the Senate offices. Remember the crowds at WR on 9/11 of 800 and 11/7 at the Steve King press rally of 2-2.5 K. This crowd I have seen estimated greater than 6,000. My estimate is 10-12 K."
....Thank you Mark.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:55 AM | Comments (6)
What Makes Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson Nervous? A new poll!
Check out these numbers from a new poll in Nebraska, via Leavenworth Blog:
“If Senator Ben Nelson votes in favor of this plan, would that make you more likely or less likely to support Senator Nelson when he runs for re-election?”
More likely: 26%
Less Likely: 61%
Then there's this:
"In general, do you favor or oppose President Obama’s plan to expand health care coverage to most Americans even if this plan increases the role of the federal government in health care and increases the cost of the deficit?"
Favor: 26%
Oppose: 67%
Wild Thing's comment.........
Nelson is no fool. He saw Lieberman play hardball with Dingy and Reid caved. And I think the 20 Senators starting an investigation into the threat to put Offut on the BRAC list has given him the courage to hold his guns. I hope.
We CAN win this fight! We CAN beat back ObamaCare! God bless everyone who has kept the pressure on this congress. So far the more the Dems water this down to woo Lieberman, Nelson, Sanders etc, the more pissed off the House moonbats are getting.
Can you imagine the catfights when this bill goes into reconsiliation commitees ?
They will rip their eyes out to pass “something”.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:48 AM | Comments (5)
December 17, 2009
Fearmonger Obama Warns It Has To Be HIS Socialized Medicine Or U.S. Will Go Bankrupt
Obama warned yesterday that unless the democrats pass their nationalized health care this year the US will go bankrupt.
President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”
The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails.
“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “
Obama told Gibson that anybody who says they are concerned about the rising deficit or worried about tax increases in the future has to support this health care bill.
“Because if we don't do this, nobody argues with the fact that health care costs are going to consume the entire federal budget,” the president said.
Obama is facing an increasingly skeptical American public when it comes to his push for health care reform.
Wild Thing's comment.........
What a jerk. Every study has shown that this plan will actually INCREASE “health care” costs .
Hey Marxist Obama! LEAVE your filthy hands off of our health care !
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:50 AM | Comments (8)
Unions , Howard Dean and Others Not Ready To Jump On Board For Obama's HealthCare Bill
Howard Dean Explains Wanting To Kill Healthcare Bill
Union pulls back on supporting bill
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) backed out of an event with other organizations promoting the Senate healthcare reform bill Wednesday over concerns about changes made to the legislation to accommodate centrist Democrats.
The SEIU had planned to participate in a Capitol Hill press conference along with the AARP, the liberal advocacy group Families USA, Consumers Union and the American Cancer Society Action Network. As recently as Tuesday morning, the organizations distributed an advisory to the news media that included the SEIU.
But the move by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to excise provisions of the healthcare reform bill to create a government-run public option health insurance program and to allow people between 55 and 64 years old to buy into Medicare gave the labor union pause, spokeswoman Lori Lodes said.
"That decision has to be made by our leaders and our members," Lodes said. The event with the AARP and the other groups was scheduled before Reid made changes to the bill.
The SEIU executive board will hold what Lodes described as an "emergency" meeting Wednesday night to decide how to move forward. "Right now, they don't have the information they need to make this decision," said Lodes, who added that the SEIU informed the other organizations on Tuesday they would not be joining the press conference.
The board meeting likely will not produce a final determination by the union about whether to support advancing the Senate healthcare bill, which not only lacks a public option and the Medicare buy-in but also would levy an excise tax on so-called Cadillac health insurance plans that some union members have, Lodes said.
"We will not have an absolute decision coming," largely because Reid has not released the final language of the healthcare bill, she said.
Union Leaders Riled Over Obama Priorities, Actions
They are upset with President Obama’s decision to make healthcare his top domestic priority over jobs. They are peeved about a Senate proposal to tax expensive health insurance plans. And they are riled that proposals to ease union organizing rules have gone nowhere.
As for healthcare, labor leaders object to the Senate proposal to tax “Cadillac” health insurance plans, because some union members have them.
Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, told the Senate that the healthcare reform bill must have “no taxes on middle-class health plans” in it, Politico news service reported.
Congress has shown no urgency to act on the bill that would make it easier for unions to organize: the Employee Free Choice Act.
Even after Congress is done with healthcare, there’s no guarantee it will act on the union bill. That’s because moderate Democrats may oppose it, especially with the 2010 elections looming.
To be sure, labor has won some victories under Obama. The National Mediation Board, which oversees airline and railroad worker unions, has proposed a rule change making it much easier for workers in those industries to unionize.
But many on the left are displeased with Obama about issues ranging from gay rights to Afghanistan policy.
And liberal policy concerns might hurt the Democrats in elections next year.
“What will be missing in 2010 is the high energy from liberal activists who raised money, networked online and did the grunt work that got out the vote in 2008, particularly the votes of young voters, African-Americans and Latinos,” pollster John Zogby writes in Forbes.
GOP Sen. Collins: Health bill is 'too deeply flawed for me to support it'
"I don't see voting for the current bill that is on the floor, even with the improvements that have been made," Collins said. "I'm very leery of the impact of nearly $500 billion in Medicare cuts, particularly the cuts in home health care, which are completely counterproductive to the goal of lowering costs."
Collins explained that she is continuing to work on the bill not because she intends to vote for it but because, "I think something is going to pass, and I would like to make that bill as good as possible, even if ultimately it's not a bill that I can support."
Wild Thing's comment........
If they're waiting for the final language from Reid they're going to have a long wait. The union thugs are not happy.
I don’t believe Obama will let this proceed with the unions up in arms and it’s got to be all the unions, not just the AFL-CIO and SEIU. And the unions have to be irate, especially after having given Obama about $400 million to get him elected.
Democrats are in complete disarray. Whatever they try to pull off or pull off now is going to ignite this country in such a manner that they cannot even begin to imagine.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (3)
December 16, 2009
Obama Threatening To Close Offut Air Force Base If Neb. Sen. Ben Nelson Doesn't Fall in Line on Health Care
Obama Threatening To Close Offut Air Force Base if Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson Doesn't Fall in Line on Health Care
While the Democrats appease Senator Lieberman, they still have to worry about other recalcitrant Democrats including Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. Nelson's demand that taxpayer money not be used to fund abortion has still not been met. According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn't fall into line.
Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a "naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson's vote." They are "threatening to close a base vital to national security for what?" asked the Senate staffer.
Indeed, Offutt is the headquarters for US Strategic Command, the successor to Strategic Air Command, and not by accident. STRATCOM was located in the middle of the country for strategic reasons. Its closure would be a massive blow to the economy of the state of Nebraska, but it would also be another example of this administration playing politics with our national security.
From Obama this is certainly a thuggish and dangerous thing for Obama to play with National Security over this craptacular idea of socialized medicine. Quite a desperate move.
According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn’t fall into line. Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a “naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson’s vote.” They are “threatening to close a base vital to national security for what?” asked the Senate staffer.
Indeed, Offutt is the headquarters for US Strategic Command, the successor to Strategic Air Command, and not by accident. STRATCOM was located in the middle of the country for strategic reasons. Its closure would be a massive blow to the economy of the state of Nebraska, but it would also be another example of this administration playing politics with our national security.
So much for the idea of Obama trying to save jobs and improve the economy!
Without Nelson’s vote, since all Republicans are still in line to oppose this, Reid is still left with 59 votes. So, some arm twisting is taking place. Nelson doesn’t want this bill to fund abortions so he is now being threatened, and national security along with him.
Wild Thing's comment..........
The Obama administration has little left to use for leverage. Why not national security? After all, if we’re going to bring terrorists into Illinois, what does it matter if we put the US Strategic Command on wheels for a few years! SHEESH!
There is NOTHING Obama will not stoop to. Damn! Now that’s some serious political hardball. Toying around with the lives of military families and national security just to get a horrible bill passed.
Nelson better vote against these thugs or the thugs will own him forever along with everyone else. What are they so afraid of. BO has alot more to be afraid of if the congressmen he is trying to bribe stand up to him and tell the press what’s going on.
The bastard in the Whitehouse just gave the Republicans a Christmas present, they had better use it. I've had MORE than enough of this Obama.
Hannity was talking about it yesterday. And I heard Rush speak about their tactics the other day.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:55 AM | Comments (27)
December 15, 2009
Obama Summons Senate Dems to White House ~ Team Huddle?
Obama summons Senate Dems to WH
Barack Obama will meet with Senate Democrats at the White House Tuesday to press for action at a make-or-break moment for his health care overhaul.
All 60 members of the Democratic caucus have been invited, according to three Democratic officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement was not yet public.
The meeting comes as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid works to round up votes to get a sweeping health bill passed before Christmas. The outcome is uncertain with moderates in danger of defecting on issues including abortion and a proposed expansion of Medicare.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Looks like the king is summoning his servents to do his bidding....
You’d think even democrats would stop cow-towing to this guy.....he rules them like sheep.....
Sheep dipped senators about to lose seats for thier dear reader...what a bunch of loosers.....and they don’t care what the people they represent think at all...throw them out.
Can’t the long legged mack daddy walk over to them? I guess the awe of the oval office will lure them.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:50 AM | Comments (6)
Lieberman Resists Medicare Buy-in Plan
Lieberman resists Medicare buy-in plan
Risking the wrath of Democrats, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., threatened Sunday to join Republicans in opposing health care legislation if it permits uninsured individuals as young to 55 to purchase Medicare coverage.
Lieberman, whose vote is critical to the bill's prospects, expressed his opposition twice during the day: first in an interview with CBS, and more strongly later, according to Democratic officials, in a private meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Reid, who is hoping to pass the legislation by Christmas, needs 60 votes to overcome Republican objections, and has been counting on Lieberman to provide one.
But appearing on CBS, Lieberman said of the Medicare proposal, "Though I don't know exactly what's in it, from what I hear, I certainly would have a hard time voting for it because it has some of the same infirmities that the public option did.
"It will add taxpayer costs. It will add to the deficit. It's unnecessary," he added of a provision that Reid last week hailed as part of a breakthrough between liberals and moderates.
Democratic aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Lieberman later told Reid he would support a Republican-led filibuster against the bill if it contained the Medicare provision or permitted the government to sell insurance in competition with private companies.
The same aides added that Lieberman had responded differently last week when Reid asked him privately about the proposed Medicare provision. "He voiced support for the idea," said one official. Lieberman's public comments last week were also generally favorable. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they was not authorized to comment publicly.
In an interview that aired Sunday night—but was recorded last week—President Barack Obama voiced optimism about his call for sweeping legislation to expand coverage while cracking down on the insurance industry.
"I think it's going to pass out of the Senate before Christmas," he told CBS' "60 Minutes."
If Lieberman follows through on his plans, he leaves Democrats with few options as they try and pass legislation before Christmas. Most obviously, they could strip out the provisions he opposes, and hope liberals overcome their inevitable unhappiness and vote for the bill. For that approach to have any chance of success, Obama would have to lobby heavily in its favor.
The bill's supporters could turn to Republicans instead in search of support, but that is unlikely to produce a compromise in the next few days.
On CBS, Lieberman pleaded with Democrats to start subtracting expensive proposals from the overhaul, saying, "We don't need to keep adding onto the back of this horse or we're going to break the horse's back and get nothing done."
While Lieberman drew most of the attention for his comments, Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Ben Nelson of Nebraska also expressed concern about the legislation.
"I'm concerned that it's the forerunner of single-payer—the ultimate single-payer plan, maybe even more directly than the public option," Nelson said of the Medicare proposal. By single-payer, he meant national health insurance run by Washington. Unlike Lieberman, Nelson participated in negotiations last week between liberals and moderates that produced the general framework that included the Medicare provision.
Nelson also is seeking stricter abortion restrictions than are currently in the bill.
"The whole reason we're doing this bill is to bring down cost, first for the American people in health care, and secondly for the deficit," said Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. "So until we get the numbers back from the Congressional Budget Office, we're all on hold."
Asked if she would vote against the bill if it raised health care costs overall, she said, "Absolutely."
In the meantime, only a few moderates have come out against the Medicare plan. But in a legislative struggle that is a game of inches, Democrats need all 60 votes in their caucus, and they don't yet have them.
Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell gave no indication of backing down. "With the American people as overwhelmingly opposed to this bill as they are, for the Democrats to basically, arrogantly take the position that we're going to ignore public opinion and jam this through before Christmas, I think that's really a stretch," said McConnell, R-Ky.
Wild Thing's comment.........
How the Democrats must loathe Lieberman!
Nobody wins until this disaster is killed and these scumbags are voted out of office.
MengeleCare is the RAT’s final solution for the USA and the American people. No doubts whatsoever!
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:49 AM | Comments (10)
December 14, 2009
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann Urges Her Supporters To Fight Obama's Socialized Medicine
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann urged her supporters to fight health care reform by calling Congress "every day, when you wake up in the morning and comb your hair and take your vitamins."
Democrats are purposely pushing health care legislation at holiday time, Bachmann charged during a nationwide conference call Thursday. "It's intentional that they're doing this at Christmas time and Hannukah."
"We're going to kill socialism," Bachmann vowed during the call, which was hosted by the Republican National Committee. "They can't have our country. We're not going to let them win."
Bachmann warned that "senior citizens have the most to lose. ... Senior citizens are going to be told 'no' an awful lot more. There will be rationing of health care. ... We have to work hard and pray hard. It's a far easier task to hit these senators hard now [than to repeal health care reform later]."
Bachmann credited her rally on the U.S. Capitol steps last month with giving Republicans in the Senate confidence to resist health care reform. "I went on Sean Hannity's show and asked people to come," she recalled. "This was wildly successful. We had over 20,000 Americans [who came on their own]. I didn't organize a bus or a car. ... It was an electric moment."
After the rally, the "heroes" who attended went to their representatives' offices, she said, and "looked at members of Congress with the whites of their eyes. ... They were quaking in their boots. It sent a huge signal to the Republicans in the Senate."
"It's not inevitable that this is going through. I'm not just puffing smoke here," she said.
Also not inevitable: Republicans regaining the House in 2010. "I am Public Enemy Number One for [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi to defeat next year," Bachmann announced. "We have to win 40 seats back. ... I have to raise $4 million to come back here. It's a huge hill to climb, but it's very possible.
"Then two years later we have to win back the presidency," she said. That will require "a bold conservative who would campaign on repealing this health care bill. ... The road will be very, very difficult to turn it around. I am Pollyanna enough to think that anything's possible."
Turning the tide will require more than Republicans alone. "The lifeblood of this country is conservatism and that lifeblood is awake," said Bachmann. "[It's a coalition of] libertarians, Ron Paul people, Constitution Party. We may agree on 70 percent [of issues]" - and that's enough, she said.
Several times she stressed that the Republican Party was the appropriate vehicle for that movement: "We can do this through the Republican Party. We can agree to disagree. ... The way back is through the Republican Party."
"The number one thing is to fight right now the government takeover of our economy."
To illustrate the scope of that takeover, she cited "an economist from Arizona State University" who calculated that by January 2009, government had already taken ownership or control of 30 percent of our economy.
"Now if President Obama gets his way with health care, that's an additional 18 percent of the economy" - for a total of 48 percent. Cap and trade would add another 8 percent, for 56 percent total. Rep. Barney Frank's bill that the Financial Services Committee votes on tomorrow would raise that another 15 percent for a grand total of 69 percent, she calculated.
"It isn't within our lifetime that we've gone to socialism," Bachmann said. "It's within 18 months!"
"I'm not going to let our 5 biological children and our 23 foster children [live] as slaves going forward," Bachmann said, quickly adding that she didn't mean to belittle actual slavery. She warned: "We will be economic slaves to this federal government. ... President Obama has put us in a dangerous place economically. We will be dead flat broke in eight years."
"These people are not connected to reality," she said, claiming few in the Obama administration have private-sector experience. She quoted Obama as saying, "We've got to spend our way out of the recession," and questioned how someone making $20,000 a year could spend $30,000 a year. "We have a great story to sell - to tell people."
"President Obama is burying us in debt, literally," she said. "You can't drink yourself sober. If you're trying to lose weight, you can't eat yourself thin. ... Normal people have figured this out."
This is what Obama and his henchmen in the US Congress want to destroy. Death Panels is what this Administration and the Kapos in Congress want to institute while excluding themselves from their final solution.
A recent “Investor’s Business Daily” article provided very interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization.
Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S. 65%
England 46%
Canada 42%
Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S. 93%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
U.S. 90%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
U.S. 77%
England 40%
Canada 43%
Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:
U.S. 71
England 14
Canada 18
Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in “excellent health”:
U.S. 12%
England 2%
Canada 6%
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want “Universal Healthcare” comparable to England or Canada ..
Moreover, it was Sen. Harry Reid who said, “Elderly Americans must learn to accept the inconveniences of old age.”
Wild Thing's comment.........
Bachmann is great, I love her intensity and passion. We have several conservatives that have really been speaking out. Thank God for each one of them.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:44 AM | Comments (9)
December 11, 2009
61% of Americans Against Democrat’s Socialized Medicine Bill
CNN survey finds 61% are against upper chamber's plan, 36% support it.
Conducted Dec. 2-3, error margin 3 points.
Berkeley sends wire hangers to politicians
The city of Berkeley mailed coat hangers to 20 members of Congress on Wednesday in protest of the anti-abortion amendment in the House version of the federal health care bill.
The City Council approved the action 7-1 on Tuesday night. Councilman Gordon Wozniak dissented; Mayor Tom Bates was absent.
Metal coat hangers were mailed with a protest letter to members of the House of Representatives who voted in favor of the amendment but have a history of supporting abortion rights.
The amendment would ban coverage of abortion for those who would receive government-run health insurance. It would also forbid people from choosing a private plan that covers abortion if they receive federal subsidies to pay for the insurance.
Morning Bell: Obamacare is Seriously Unconstitutional
On October 23rd, a reporter asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Speaker Pelosi shook her head and before moving on to another question replied: “Are you serious? Are you serious??” Pressed for a more substantive response later, Pelosi’s press spokesman admonished the reporter: “You can put this on the record. That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) disagrees. In 1994, the CBO said of an individual mandate to buy health insurance:
A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.
As much as Speaker Pelosi may wish otherwise, the CBO is dead on: the Supreme Court has never validated a federal power as intrusive as forcing all Americans to purchase a service due to their very existence. Sure, the Supreme Court has said that Congress may regulate a farmer’s production of wheat even if he never plans to distribute it off of his farm, and the Supreme Court has said Congress may ban the possession of Marijuana even if it is for personal use, but never before has the Supreme Court said the power to regulate commerce enabled Congress to force an individual to do something just because he existed.
In fact, the Supreme Court has always been clear that the Commerce clause must have some limits. In United States v. Lopez (1995), the Court struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act, which attempted to reach the activity of possessing a gun within a thousand feet of a school. In United States v. Morrison, it invalidated part of the Violence Against Women Act, which regulated gender-motivated violence. In both cases, the Court found the regulated activity in each case to be noneconomic; it was outside the reach of Congress’s Commerce power, regardless of its effect on interstate commerce. The case for the constitutionality of the individual mandate is far weaker than either of these two cases. Congress was at least trying to regulate an individual’s activity in the cases above. But the mandate does not purport to regulate or prohibit activity of any kind, whether economic or noneconomic. To the contrary, it purports to “regulate” inactivity.
If the individual mandate is Constitutional, then Congress could do anything. They could: require us to buy a new Chevy Impala each year to support the government-supported auto industry; require us to buy war bonds to pay for the Iraq and Afghan wars; require us to grow wheat (10 bushels each), or pay someone else to grow your share; require us to buy whatever they want.
Many on the left immediately point to state mandates that drivers purchase car insurance as proof of a mandate that all Americans buy health insurance is not new. But car insurance mandates are distinguishable in at least four ways: 1) they are state requirements and states have broader constitutional authority than the federal government; 2) they apply to drivers only, not all Americans (e.g. passengers are not required to carry insurance); 3) drivers use public roads; 4) states only require drivers to insure against injury to other drivers, not to insure themselves against personal injury.
Yesterday The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies released a Legal Memorandum written in conjunction with Georgetown University Law Center Professor Randy Barnett and Nathaniel Stewart explaining: Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional. Introducing the paper, Sen. Orrin Hatch noted:
James Madison said that if men were angels, no government would be necessary and if angels governed men, no limits on government would be necessary. Because neither men nor the governments they create are angelic, government and limits on government are both necessary for ordered liberty. Politics may tell us what we want to do, but the Constitution tells us what we may do and we must keep those separate. The ends do not justify the means for one simple reason – liberty. Liberty requires limits on government power, it always has and it always will.
Someone needs to explain this concept to Speaker Pelosi. Seriously.
Wild Thing's comment.........
I hope the polls in the future show even more against socialized medicine.
So the logic here is that if the federal government doesn’t take my money to pay for murdering babies the city of Berkley will murder them with coat hangers? Either way the people in Berkley are sub human animals.
Constitutionality never stopped communists. Dictator Obama’s empire is made up of communists. What makes this worse is they are lying that they have it in the bag behind closed doors. They will pay off enough votes. They are desperate with their communist agenda at this stage.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:50 AM | Comments (7)
December 10, 2009
Awesome Krauthammer Compares Health Care Reform To An IED
They are trying to hurry because there's an election next year...
Krauthammer: "The process here is bizarre you know all of a sudden with a deadline looming they're throwing anything that will fit, anything that will get 60 votes regardless whether it is incoherent or contradicts other elements of the bill and you ask yourself why is the haste? Where is the deadline? Is not as if where we were a year ago with the banking issue, where there was a deadline if you didn't act on TARP you could have had a collapse of our economic system."
Here the deadline is entirely a political one is because Democrats know that with all this opposition in the public and the election year looming they have a very small window, it now as if the medical system will collapse on January the first, it is entirely artificial...
Kondracke: "Medicare Part D was the biggest addition to Medicare since Medicare was enacted."
Krauthammer: "That was a bullet, this is an IED"...
Wild Thing's comment.........
Foxnews Special Report with Brett Baier continues to get huge ratings for the 6:00p.m. timeslot. It is an excellent show! See chart below.
Baier is very good as host of the show and Krauthammer is the reason I never miss the last half hour.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (4)
December 09, 2009
Was Democrats’ Health Care Strategy Written In Federal Prison?
HCAN organizer explains how to block opposing views
A professional HCAN organizer instructs his followers to suppress dissent at Rep. Jan. Schakowsky's health care town hall meeting on August 31, 2009 in Skokie
Was Democrats’ Health Care Strategy Written In Federal Prison?
by Joel B. Pollak
On August 31, I headed to the health care town hall meeting of my congressional representative, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). I suspected that she planned to stack the meeting with paid organizers, after she vowed on Real Time with Bill Maher to bring “millions” of people into the streets to support the so-called “public option.” So I brought a video camera.
A friend and I took turns filming protesters on both sides of the issue. We caught an organizer from the group Health Care for America Now (HCAN) instructing followers to block dissenting views: “So if they stand up and start asking questions, and you’re in that area, simply stand up, and start chanting… ‘Health care now! Health care now!’”
My experience at Rep. Schakowsky’s town hall meeting that night convinced me to challenge her in the 2010 election. I had already stood up to Rep. Barney Frank at Harvard University, when I asked him about his role in the financial crisis. I could not simply watch thugs drown out the people of my own community back home, and do nothing.
The HCAN video became a YouTube sensation, the “smoking gun” in the controversy over which side of the debate was “Astroturfing”—i.e. creating a false image of grass roots support. I have since discovered that the video contains clues about how the entire nationwide health care campaign was planned and executed by congressional Democrats and the White House.
It turns out that the organizer in the video is John Gaudette, the Illinois director of HCAN. Gaudette also works for a left-wing group linked to ACORN called Citizen Action/Illinois. Rep. Schakowsky sits on the Policy Council of the group, which suggests that she may have known about or even coordinated the suppression of her own constituents’ views by HCAN.
The plot thickens.
Rep. Schakowsky’s husband, Robert Creamer, used to be the leader of Citizen Action/Illinois. He also founded its predecessor, Illinois Public Action, in which Ms. Schakowsky served as Program Director. He runs a political consulting firm, the Strategic Consulting Group, which lists ACORN and the SEIU among its clients and which made $541,000 working for disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.
Creamer resigned from Citizen Action/Illinois after the FBI began investigating him for bank fraud and tax evasion at Illinois Public Action. He was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to five months in federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, plus eleven months of house arrest.
While in prison—or “forced sabbatical,” he called it—Creamer wrote a lengthy political manual, Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win (Seven Locks Press, 2007).
The book was endorsed by leading Democrats and their allies, including SEIU boss Andy Stern—the most frequent visitor thus far to the Obama White House—and chief Obama strategist David Axelrod, who noted that Creamer’s tome “provides a blueprint for future victories.”
In the book, Creamer draws lessons from decades of experience on the radical left, including the teachings of arch-radical Saul Alinsky, and several episodes from Rep. Schakowsky’s political career. He also lays out a “Progressive Agenda for Structural Change,” which includes a ten-point plan for foisting universal health care on the American people in 2009:
•“We must create a national consensus that health care is a right, not a commodity; and that government must guarantee that right.”
•“We must create a national consensus that the health care system is in crisis.”
•“Our messaging program over the next two years should focus heavily on reducing the credibility of the health insurance industry and focusing on the failure of private health insurance.”
•“We need to systematically forge relationships with large sectors of the business/employer community.”
•“We need to convince political leaders that they owe their elections, at least in part, to the groundswell of support of [sic] universal health care, and that they face political peril if they fail to deliver on universal health care in 2009.”
•“We need not agree in advance on the components of a plan, but we must foster a process that can ultimately yield consensus.”
•“Over the next two years, we must design and organize a massive national field program.”
•“We must focus especially on the mobilization of the labor movement and the faith community.”
•“We must systematically leverage the connections and resources of a massive array of institutions and organizations of all types.”
•“To be successful, we must put in place commitments for hundreds of millions of dollars to be used to finance paid communications and mobilization once the battle is joined.”
Creamer adds: “To win we must not just generate understanding, but emotion—fear, revulsion, anger, disgust.”
Democrats have followed Creamer’s plan to the letter. They have claimed our health care system is in crisis despite polls showing the overwhelming majority of Americans are happy with the care they receive. They have—with the help of President Obama—circulated false horror stories about Americans dying for lack of health care and health insurance.
They have targeted the health insurance industry, with Rep. Schakowsky herself promising to “put the private insurance industry out of business,” though it is a top employer in Illinois.
Democrats have cut deals with the pharmaceutical industry and the American Medical Association, among others. They have brought in the President himself to tell wavering “Blue Dog” Democrats that their re-election chances depend on passing health care reform. They have bused in SEIU members to town hall meetings, and used rabbis and pastors to back health care reform from the pulpit.
They have used a complex, interconnected web of organizations—including HCAN and Organizing For America, the former Obama campaign arm—to whip up support and silence opposition. And they have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising to convince the public to support bills that their representatives have never read themselves.
Creamer wrote his plan in 2006, explicitly proposing that it be carried out in 2009, once a “progressive Democrat is elected President” and once Democrats could count on 60 votes in the Senate. It is curious that Creamer, sitting in prison, could have predicted the details and the timing of President Obama’s legislative agenda so precisely.
The likeliest explanation is that Creamer helped design the Democrats’ health care strategy. That would explain why President Obama made health care an obsession in 2009, when it was only one among many issues he raised on the campaign trail in 2008. It would explain the role of several overlapping left-wing groups, including Creamer’s own Citizen Action/Illinois.
It would explain why HCAN was particularly aggressive at Rep. Schakowsky’s own town hall meeting. And Creamer’s involvement would also explain his high profile after being released from prison. He worked for the Obama campaign, training volunteers at “Camp Obama.” He has continued his work at the Strategic Consulting Group, leading “many of the country’s most significant issue campaigns,” he claims. He was also at the White House state dinner last month—together with Stern, Axelrod, and other cronies—despite the fact that ex-convicts are usually barred from such events.
Creamer’s broader aim, as laid out in his book, is the “democratization of wealth” in America and “progressive control of governments around the world.” As he recently wrote on his blog at the Huffington Post: “If we succeed in winning health insurance reform we will have breached the gates of the status quo. We will demonstrate that fundamental change is possible. Into that breach will flow a wave of progressive change.”
It is a radical agenda, making use of Rep. Schakowsky’s public profile, a network of far-left organizations, and Creamer’s old friends in the White House. It began in federal prison, and has unfolded exactly as intended, over the protests of thousands of ordinary Americans across the nation. It will not end with health care. It will continue until Mr. Creamer’s Alinskyite dream of radical change is realized—or until voters stand up and put a stop to it in 2010.
Democrat consultant sentenced to prison
Chicago Tribune (IL) - Thursday, April 6, 2006
Author: Michael Higgins and Laurie Cohen, Tribune staff reporters.
Robert Creamer , a top Democratic consultant and the husband of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), was sentenced Wednesday to 5 months in prison for using bad checks to prop up his struggling consumer group and for a tax charge.
Creamer, founder and former head of Illinois Public Action, also must serve 11 months of home confinement. But he escaped the longer sentence of 30 to 37 months suggested by federal guidelines.
Creamer, 58, of Evanston, apologized in court for his conduct but maintained that he had merely been overzealous in his support of a good cause.
“I will never again allow my passion for that goal to overwhelm my good judgment or my respect for the law,” Creamer said in a short statement after the hearing.
Schakowsky said in her own statement: “More than anything, I am proud of who Bob is. ... He has been a constant crusader.”
Creamer pleaded guilty in August to bank fraud and a federal tax charge. But his attorneys argued that he should not serve prison time because he didn’t take the money for his personal use, covered the debts later and has led an “extraordinary” life devoted to social activism.
Prosecutors countered that Creamer’s arguments sounded more like self-promotion than true remorse. But U.S. District Judge James Moran agreed that Creamer was not like a typical bank-fraud defendant.
“There was no intention to cause a loss,” Moran said in court. “Neither the banks nor the government suffered any actual out-of-pocket loss.”
Moran said he also considered that the case against Creamer played out slowly after the check-kiting scheme was discovered in 1997, subjecting Creamer to an “emotionally draining experience.”
More than 200 people wrote letters of support on Creamer’s behalf, including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Cook County Clerk David Orr, state Sen. Carol Ronen (D-Chicago), Chicago Ald. Joe Moore (49th), former State Sen. Dawn Clark Netsch and former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol Browner.
Political consultant David Axelrod and Rev. Jesse Jackson also wrote letters on his behalf.
Creamer’s ties to the Democratic community are so deep that Moran considered recusing himself from the case. The judge, a former Democratic state representative from Evanston, said he had a potential conflict of interest because his son-in-law, political consultant Peter Giangreco, had worked with Creamer and Schakowsky and had sat on the board of one of Creamer’s organizations.
However, neither defense attorneys nor prosecutors voiced concerns about Moran’s connections to Creamer.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Joseph Ferguson said Wednesday that he was disappointed in the sentence and that prosecutors would consider whether to appeal.
But Ferguson expressed satisfaction that Creamer, despite “having the benefit of that powerful network of individuals, is going to jail.”
Creamer admitted in August that as the head of Illinois Public Action, he directed underlings to deposit insufficiently funded checks into various bank accounts, thus allowing the group to temporarily use money that it didn’t have.
Prosecutors said Creamer used the tactic in 1993, 1996 and 1997, when the scheme was detected with Creamer owing $1.4 million to Cole Taylor Bank.
The tax charge stemmed from Creamer’s failure to make withholding-tax payments. Prosecutors dismissed 28 counts in exchange for the guilty plea.
Wild Thing's comment........
Creamer was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to five months in federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, plus eleven months of house arrest.
....While in prison—or “forced sabbatical,” he called it—Creamer wrote a lengthy political manual, Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win (Seven Locks Press, 2007).
The book was endorsed by leading Democrats and their allies, including SEIU boss Andy Stern—the most frequent visitor thus far to the Obama White House—and chief Obama strategist David Axelrod, who noted that Creamer’s tome “provides a blueprint for future victories.”
Mein Kampf was written in prison, too.
Haven’t read the book; don’t plan to. The author is a convicted felon for writing bad checks and ripping off the non-profit organization he was running. I guess I’m not suprised that “Progressive” Democrats would look to some immoral low-life for their game plan.
http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2009/11/ex-con-robert-creamer-husband-of-rep.html
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Ex-con Robert Creamer, husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky, guest at tonight’s White House state dinner
Robert Creamer, the husband of my congresscritter, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), attended tonight’s White House state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Schakowsky was of course also there, but she is not a convicted felon. Hubby is.
Creamer pleaded guilty to two fraud charges involving his kiting of checks in the 1990s. A onetime goody-goody consumer advocate, Creamer later went on to work for Rod Blagojevich’s first gubernatorial campaign. Creamer’s guilty plea came in 2005; he served a five month prison sentence.
Two years later, Creamer was a trainer for Camp Obama.
A felon at a state dinner? Can you imagine the screeches from the establishment media if this had happened while George W. Bush was president?
.... Thank you Jim for sending this to me.
.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:48 AM | Comments (3)
Senate Rejects Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) Amendment On Abortion
Senate tables Nelson's abortion amendment 54-45
Democrats rejected legislation that would have banned federal support for abortions in their nationalized health care bill. That means the democratic health care legislation will result in the biggest expansion of taxpayer-funding of abortions since Roe v. Wade.
Senators voted Tuesday afternoon to set aside a healthcare amendment that would have curbed federal support for abortion coverage.
Senators voted to table a measure from Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Pa.) that would have banned the government from offering insurance plans in a national healthcare exchange that cover abortion.
The amendment, which needed 60 votes to pass and was not expected to be adopted, was tabled in a 54-45 vote.
The provision, which mirrored restrictions in the House’s healthcare bill authored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Neb.), had been offered in part to win over Nelson, who’d previously warned he’d join a filibuster of the healthcare bill if it didn’t contain sufficient protections against federal support for abortion.
Democrats lost seven of their own members on the measure — Sens. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Ted Kaufmann (Del.), Robert Casey (Pa.), and Mark Pryor (Ark.) — while two Maine’s two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, supported the tabling.
The tabling represents a victory for abortion-rights supporters who had worried that the amendment’s restrictions on abortion funding would go beyond what had previously been established by the Hyde amendment.
Grouped by Home State
Alabama: Sessions (R-AL), Nay Shelby (R-AL), Nay
Alaska: Begich (D-AK), Yea Murkowski (R-AK), Nay
Arizona: Kyl (R-AZ), Nay McCain (R-AZ), Nay
Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Nay
California: Boxer (D-CA), Yea Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Colorado: Bennet (D-CO), Yea Udall (D-CO), Yea
Connecticut: Dodd (D-CT), Yea Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea
Delaware: Carper (D-DE), Yea Kaufman (D-DE), Nay
Florida: LeMieux (R-FL), Nay Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Georgia: Chambliss (R-GA), Nay Isakson (R-GA), Nay
Hawaii: Akaka (D-HI), Yea Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Idaho: Crapo (R-ID), Nay Risch (R-ID), Nay
Illinois: Burris (D-IL), Yea Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Indiana: Bayh (D-IN), Nay Lugar (R-IN), Nay
Iowa: Grassley (R-IA), Nay Harkin (D-IA), Yea
Kansas: Brownback (R-KS), Nay Roberts (R-KS), Nay
Kentucky: Bunning (R-KY), Nay McConnell (R-KY), Nay
Louisiana: Landrieu (D-LA), Yea Vitter (R-LA), Nay
Maine: Collins (R-ME), Yea Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Maryland: Cardin (D-MD), Yea Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Massachusetts: Kerry (D-MA), Yea Kirk (D-MA), Yea
Michigan: Levin (D-MI), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Minnesota: Franken (D-MN), Yea Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Mississippi: Cochran (R-MS), Nay Wicker (R-MS), Nay
Missouri: Bond (R-MO), Nay McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
Montana: Baucus (D-MT), Yea Tester (D-MT), Yea
Nebraska: Johanns (R-NE), Nay Nelson (D-NE), Nay
Nevada: Ensign (R-NV), Nay Reid (D-NV), Yea
New Hampshire: Gregg (R-NH), Nay Shaheen (D-NH), Yea
New Jersey: Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
New Mexico: Bingaman (D-NM), Yea Udall (D-NM), Yea
New York: Gillibrand (D-NY), Yea Schumer (D-NY), Yea
North Carolina: Burr (R-NC), Nay Hagan (D-NC), Yea
North Dakota: Conrad (D-ND), Nay Dorgan (D-ND), Nay
Ohio: Brown (D-OH), Yea Voinovich (R-OH), Nay
Oklahoma: Coburn (R-OK), Nay Inhofe (R-OK), Nay
Oregon: Merkley (D-OR), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Yea
Pennsylvania: Casey (D-PA), Nay Specter (D-PA), Yea
Rhode Island: Reed (D-RI), Yea Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea
South Carolina: DeMint (R-SC), Nay Graham (R-SC), Nay
South Dakota: Johnson (D-SD), Yea Thune (R-SD), Nay
Tennessee: Alexander (R-TN), Nay Corker (R-TN), Nay
Texas: Cornyn (R-TX), Nay Hutchison (R-TX), Nay
Utah: Bennett (R-UT), Nay Hatch (R-UT), Nay
Vermont: Leahy (D-VT), Yea Sanders (I-VT), Yea
Virginia: Warner (D-VA), Yea Webb (D-VA), Yea
Washington: Cantwell (D-WA), Yea Murray (D-WA), Yea
West Virginia: Byrd (D-WV), Not Voting Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea
Wisconsin: Feingold (D-WI), Yea Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Wyoming: Barrasso (R-WY), Nay Enzi (R-WY), Nay
Wild Thing's comment......
Flush this bill down the toilet.
This atrocity is a done deal, and the Obama and the Democrats could not care less what we the people really want. It is not about healthcare; it is about unleashing unbridled power by the central government.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (5)
December 08, 2009
Supporters of Slavery Were DEMOCRATS! ~ But Reid LIES and Says Rep.'s That Do Not Support Health Care Bill Are As Bad As Slave Owners
Harry Reid Likens Passing Government-Run Health Care To Ending Slavery
"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said Monday. "When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough."
Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison response to Sen. Harry Reid's outrageous statement today in which he compared opponents to President Obama's Government Health Care Plan to those who supported slavery.
Hutchison said Reid's comments were "so over the top" it is unbelievable, and she said that kind of rhetoric has no place in the Senate. She believes it is a sign of desperation on the part of the Democrats.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who on the Senate floor read from this FoxNews.com article and asked that it be placed in the record, called on Reid to return to the floor and, if not apologize, at least explain what he meant.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., suggested Reid was starting to "crack" under the pressure of the health care reform debate.
"I think it's beneath the dignity of the majority leader," Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said. "I personally am insulted."
Wild Thing's comment...........
I will never understand how the left is able to lie, outright LIES like this one from Harry Reid about slavery and there is not a HUGE outcry of what a liar he is. Even if it only came from someone that knew history, that should insult anyone like that as well.
It was the Democrat Party party that clung to the institution of slavery. Reid needs to stop telling lies, er ah if that is possible.
When a liberal loses the debate, he pulls the race card in a desperate attempt to salvage his image. Epic fail.
It was the Democrats who clung to slavery as an institution...
It was Democrats who opposed women's suffrage...
It was Republicans who passed the 1964 Civil Rights act with larger numbers and percentages than Democrats. (The most vocal opponent was Albert Arnold Gore, Sr, by the way.)
So sad that our populace is so uninformed that the Left can get away with comments like these.
Posted by Wild Thing at 01:47 AM | Comments (8)
Obama AGAIN Violates No Abortion Funds Pledge by Backing Senate Bill
That's Not Only Offensive! That's Language That Should Never Be Used! 'One Whooping Lousy Bill'
- Senator Hatch
Obama Again Violates No Abortion Funds Pledge by Backing Senate Bill
Barack Obama told the American people in a national speech in September that “my” health care plan would not include taxpayer funding of abortion. Obama broke that pledge once by lobbying members of the House to support a pro-abortion funding bill and he did it again this weekend in the Senate.
Obama met with Senate Democrats in a closed door session on Sunday and told them to support the Harry Reid-sponsored bill that includes massive abortion funding and could force insurance companies to cover abortions with taxpayer’s premiums.
Although the media wasn’t allowed into the event, senators described the speech as one in which Obama asked them for their votes for the bill and said voting for the legislation was a historic opportunity.
Obama did not take questions during the event, but if he did, and if pro-life groups were present, they would have asked him why he is violating his pledge again that the health care reform bill he supports would not fund abortions.
Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, told LifeNews.com that Obama has repeatedly violated "his September 9 pledge to Congress that 'under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions,'" and said "Americans now know that his televised pledge was a political hoax."
"The Reid health bill, which Obama supports, explicitly authorizes a huge new federal government insurance program to pay for abortion on demand," Johnson confirmed.
Moreover, "The president and his appointees are actively working against the pro-life amendment, already adopted by the House, that would really prevent federal government subsidies for abortion," Johnson added.
During his health care reform speech in September, Obama attempted to refute claims that he would support a pro-abortion health care bill.
Obama said "One more misunderstanding I want to clear up -- under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."
His comments came after his top spokesman misled reporters twice by falsely claiming the Hyde amendment would stop abortion funding in the bills.
Wild Thing's comment........
Not only does Obama support abortion, he supports letting babies die after they survive the procedure.
There is no way he can be trusted to omit abortion from his obsession to make America live under socialized medicine.
Posted by Wild Thing at 01:45 AM | Comments (3)
December 03, 2009
Vets Shielded From Health Care Reform
Vets Shielded From Health Care Reform
Military Beneficiaries, Vets Shielded From Health Reform
The national health reform bill passed by the House last month and the Senate version to be debated in early December pose no threat to current health care benefits provided to military families, retirees or veterans, say advocates for these beneficiaries as well as congressional committee staffs.
The House-passed Affordable Health Care for America Act (HR 3962) states in Section 311 that "nothing" in the bill "shall be construed as affecting" authorities used by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to provide TRICARE programs or VA health care benefits.
The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), the Fleet Reserve Association of America, the American Legion and other veterans' service organizations have studied the legislative language of both bills. Their own reviews, and assurances they've received from relevant committees, give them confidence that the bills won't impact benefits or fees charged by TRICARE or VA, nor will these beneficiaries be exposed to any new tax liabilities.
"We have not talked to anybody – Republican, Democrat, anyone in the [Obama] administration or serving in Congress -- who is trying to do anything to affect military people" as part of national health reform legislation, said Steve Strobridge, MOAA's director of government relations. "They all are trying to hold military beneficiaries harmless."
Steve Robertson, legislative director for the American Legion, said he has assurances from the armed services committees, veterans' affairs committees and congressional leaders including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that health reform will not impact TRICARE programs or VA health care.
"My comfort level is pretty high," Robertson said.
Other military retirees and disabled veterans are worried by news reports that national health care reform will impose an excise tax on "Cadillac" health insurance programs. Will that include TRICARE or VA health care? It will not, say service groups and informed congressional staffs.
Strobridge noted that the Senate bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (HR 3590), doesn't contain the same specific language of the House bill does to shield TRICARE programs and VA health benefits.
However, the Senate bill's provision to allow an excise tax on "applicable employer-sponsored coverage" lists, among government plans, only the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan for possible inclusion. TRICARE and VA health care benefits are not named. Finance committee staffers have explained that this was intentional to shield these programs.
MOAA has urged senators to add three clarifying provisions to their bill. One would duplicate language of the House bill that nothing in the legislation alters health care program authorities for DoD and VA.
Other language is sought to explicitly exclude TRICARE, TRICARE for Life and VA health care programs from any health reform bill excise tax on certain employer-provided plans. Finally, MOAA wants language in the Senate bill calling for a study of national health reform's impact on veterans to include a study of the impact on TRICARE and TRICARE for Life.
Military people who seek assurance that the Senate health reform bill won't impact them negatively end up "looking for something that isn't there," Strobridge said. The Senate, like the House, should make it clear, he said.
"There are lots of people out there who would like to raise military fees" on health benefits, Strobridge said. "But they are not trying to do it in this legislation…As far as we can see, everybody in Congress is trying to bend over backwards to protect the military. And that's true of both parties."
The only real threat to military and veteran benefits posed by national health reform, he continued, is the likelihood that it will add to the annual federal budget deficit which was $1.4 trillion last year. That will increase political pressure, over time, to curb federal entitlements including military health care and retirement plans, said Strobridge. Pressure on defense budgets already is enormous.
"That's why Defense leaders have been saying for years ‘I don't what to pay this $10 billion for TRICARE for Life that we put in the defense bill every year.' I want to shift more costs to the beneficiary.' That is what the Bush administration said the last three years," Strobridge said.
"We haven't even started to talk about the effect of the baby boom generation on Medicare and Social Security" on future budgets, he added.
Given that pressure, MOAA has been pressing Congress to define in law that military members and retirees have earned through service certain unassailable rights to promised retirement and health care benefits.
"What we're concerned about is that budget pressure will drive arbitrary decisions. That is what has hurt us in the past," said Strobridge. Congress should take steps to spell out what military folks have earned.
"If you don't have any rules to rely on," he said, "when the budget tidal wave comes it will sweep you away."
Wild Thing's comment.........
They better not mess with our Veterans!
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (3)
December 01, 2009
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Would Become Giant Under Senate Plan
HHS would become federal giant under Senate plan
A quick search of the Senate health bill will bring up "secretary" 2,500 times.
That's because Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would be awarded unprecedented new powers under the proposal, including the authority to decide what medical care should be covered by insurers as well as the terms and conditions of coverage and who should receive it.
"The legislation lists 1,697 times where the secretary of health and humans services is given the authority to create, determine or define things in the bill," said Devon Herrick, a health care expert at the National Center for Policy Analysis.
For instance, on Page 122 of the 2,079-page bill, the secretary is given the power to establish "the basic per enrollee, per month cost, determined on average actuarial basis, for including coverage under a qualified health care plan."
The HHS secretary would also have the power to decide where abortion is allowed under a government-run plan, which has drawn opposition from Republicans and some moderate Democrats.
And the bill even empowers the department to establish a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation that would have the authority to make cost-saving cuts without having to get the approval of Congress first.
"It's a huge amount of power being shifted to HHS, and much of it is highly discretionary," said Edmund Haislmaier, an expert in health care policy and insurance markets at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Haislmaier said one the greatest powers HHS would gain from the bill is the authority to regulate insurance. States currently hold this power, and under the Senate bill, the federal government would usurp it from them. This could lead to the federal government putting restrictions and changes in place that destabilize the private insurance market by forcing companies to lower premiums and other charges, he said.
"Health and Human Services ... doesn't have any experience with this," Haislmaier said. "I'm looking at the potential for this whole thing to just blow up on people because they have no idea what they are doing. Who in the federal government regulates insurance today? Nobody."
The health care reform legislation would rely on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force for recommendations as to what kind of screening and preventive care should be covered. Last week, the group, which operates under HHS, drew sharp criticism for advising that mammograms should begin at age 50, a decade later than the current standard.
Critics of the bill said this was an example of how the new bill could empower HHS to alter health care delivery, but Democrats argue they would rather have the government making these decisions.
"There's an insurance company bureaucrat in between the patient and her doctor right now," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said on ABC's "This Week."
Wild Thing's comment............
Obama and HIS government want it all, they want every part of us, our lives, our earnings, our health, all of it. Next comes the yanking out of everyone’s insides, for fun.
As we all read what is in this bill, you will know that freedom in America will be totally lost. This bill gives the US government total control of your life. It also gives them the ability to get into your bank account. They will snoop to see what you buy and where. You will be punished accordingly.
Freedom will be totally lost. This makes me so sick. Truly frightening.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:47 AM | Comments (7)
November 25, 2009
ObamaCare's Winners and Losers
ObamaCare's winners and losers
By BETSY MCCAUGHEY
November 24, 2009
After the Senate voted Saturday night to proceed with debate on health reform, Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the public the winner. In truth, more Americans will be losers than winners.
Both Senate and House bills strip nearly half a trillion dollars from Medicare, robbing seniors to expand Medicaid. The Senate bill also spends billions on drug treatment, sex education, translators and romance and relationship lessons (p. 612) that could be used to treat heart disease, cancer and stroke -- the diseases that kill most of us.
Losers
The middle class: The bills require nearly everyone to enroll in a "qualified" plan, either by getting it at work or purchasing it. The government will decide what benefits are covered and how much you'll be legally required to pay. There will be no subsidies for a single person earning more than $44,000. A family of four earning $96,000 can expect to pay 19 percent of pretax income on premiums, copays and deductibles, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster, predicts that even though penalties can be as high as thousands of dollars per adult in the House bill, 18 million people will choose the penalty over paying the costlier premiums. In the Senate version, where penalties are lower ($750 per adult), even more families are likely to pay the penalty and end up with no insurance.
People with high-deductible plans: Unless you're under age 30, you'll be legally required to switch from your catastrophic plan to the government-designed comprehensive plan (Senate bill, p. 114).
People with "Cadillac" plans: Generous health plans get slapped with a 40 percent excise tax (Senate, p. 1,980), similar to the "sin taxes" government uses to discourage smoking and boozing. This is pushing equality to an extreme. Since when is good health care a sin?
And the "Cadillac" tax is designed to hit far less generous plans after a few years.
Women -- and men: Last week, the US Preventive Services Task Force recommended that women forego mammograms between the age of 40 and 50, settle for mammograms every two years thereafter and stop altogether after 74 -- a huge departure from current practice. The Task Force says its guideline will be 81 percent as effective in saving lives and should be good enough. This is the same task force empowered by the Senate bill to determine preventive care in your benefit package (p. 17). James Thrall, a Harvard Medical School professor, says, "I fear we are entering an era of deliberate decisions where we choose to trade people's lives for money."
Seniors and baby boomers: Both Senate and House bills slash funding for Medicare, mainly by reducing payments to hospitals and other institutions to care for patients.
Foster, the Medicare actuary, warns that institutions "for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries)." Where will they go when their local hospital, home-health agency or nursing home stops taking Medicare?
Despite many claims by the president that Medicare benefits won't be reduced, Sec. 4105 empowers the government to modify or eliminate preventive-care services for seniors based on what the stingy US Preventive Services Task Force recommends (p. 1,189).
Literally half a page later, the bill expands access to preventive care for adults in Medicaid, including diagnostic and screening tests. The agenda couldn't be clearer.
Winners
Those newly eligible for Medicaid: Both the Senate and House bills reduce the number of uninsured primarily by enrolling them in Medicaid. That's different from making private health insurance affordable.
The bills ease Medicaid income restrictions, make uninsured newborns automatically eligible and add groups previously ineligible, such as homeless adults without children (Senate, p. 396-455). The House bill adds 21 million people to Medicaid, about 60 percent of all those newly insured. The Senate bill adds 15 million and includes enrollment-simplification and outreach provisions (p.445-51).
Patients with pre-existing conditions: The bills require insurers to take all comers, regardless of their health. That makes it necessary to force everyone to buy insurance, because otherwise the healthy would refuse to share the cost of treating the sick. The wiser alternative is what the Senate bill does temporarily: create high-risk pools, with government funding, to make health insurance accessible and affordable for people with pre-existing conditions (p. 41-47).
Community groups seeking government money: Slipped into the Senate bill's 2,074 pages are programs that transfer taxpayer money to "community-based organizations."
For example, "community transformation grants" can fund infrastructure improvements as well as activities that promote wellness or "reduce racial and ethnic disparities, including social, economic and geographic determinants of health." Almost anything qualifies, and there's only one prohibition: "A grantee shall not use funds . . . to create video games or to carry out any other activities that may lead to higher rates of obesity or inactivity" (p. 1209).
Adding to the dishonesty, these programs aren't included in the current CBO estimates of the bill's cost (CBO letter to Sen. Harry Reid, Nov. 18, p. 13).
Low-income recent immigrants: The Senate bill appears to make legal immigrants who've not been in the United States long enough to qualify for Medicaid immediately eligible for subsidies for private plans (p. 246). How fair is it to make seniors, who have paid into the system all their lives, sacrifice so anyone can come to America and get a health plan on the taxpayers' tab?
Though bill proponents claim the legislation will make insurance affordable, in fact it shifts billions of dollars from caring for the elderly to funding a new social agenda.
Wild Thing's comment........
But....but Harry Reid said it was FREE Health Care! What a joke!
That has got to be some way to fight this thing.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (2)
November 24, 2009
Obama and Democrats Intend to Ram Socialized Medicine Through BUT Voters Say NO!
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Health Care Reform
Support for Health Care Plan Falls to New Low
Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan.
Half the survey was conducted before the Senate voted late Saturday to begin debate on its version of the legislation. Support for the plan was slightly lower in the half of the survey conducted after the Senate vote.
Prior to this, support for the plan had never fallen below 41%. Last week, support for the plan was at 47%. Two weeks ago, the effort was supported by 45% of voters.
Wild Thing's comment..........
How can the Nation survive with these insane liberals. This health plan will destroy America. It is that simple. Damn are they dumb not to see the cost to their own pockets and freedom. Guess they want a civil war.
Most people have no idea what the plan even is. They watch Entertainment Tonight not FOX or listen to talk radio or even make an attempt to read and learn.
....Thank you Richard for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:50 AM | Comments (6)
November 23, 2009
Socialist Democrat Sen Michael Bennet: 'I'll Risk My Job For Health Reform'
Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet on CNN saying that he will support the Health Care Bill even if it means that he will lose his re-election bid next year.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said Sunday that he will vote for landmark health care reform legislation even if it means he will be defeated at the polls next November.
"If you get to the final point and you are a critical vote for health care reform, and every piece of evidence tells you, if you support that bill, you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job? " CNN's John King asked Bennet on the "State of the Union" program.
"Yes," said Bennet, a former Denver public schools chief who was appointed to the Senate by Colorado's governor when President Barack Obama tapped Ken Salazar to be interior secretary.
King warned Bennet that the video of his vow would be sequestered in the event he is voted out next year.
"All right. That tape will be held -- I hate to tell you that, but that tape will be held right now," the CNN host said.
Wild Thing's comment............
A kamikaze Senator.
Bennett reminds me of an Al Qaeda or Taliban moron. Always ready to blow himself up “for the good of the cause.” He’s one sick puppy.
In other words: To hell with what my constituents want. This is our grand chance to turn the USA in to a Socialist country and I'm not going to let this chance slip me by!
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:40 AM | Comments (6)
November 22, 2009
U.S. Senate Voted 60-69 to Invoke Cloture On Socialized Medicine and Reid Says it Is FREE!
The U.S. Senate tonight voted 60-39 to invoke Cloture on the Senate Health Care Bill, meaning it now will move to the floor of the Senate for Debate.
It does NOT mean the bill has passed the Senate. It will now move to an amendment phase, and before moving to a vote on final passage, the bill would have to pass another 60 vote threshold cloture vote to close debate / amendments and move to a final vote.
The vote was was 60-39.
It was a straight party line vote. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins voted with the GOP.
Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.
The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.
The spectator galleries were full for the unusual Saturday night showdown, and applause broke out briefly when the vote was announced. In a measure of the significance of the moment, senators sat quietly in their seats, standing only when they were called upon to vote.
In the final minutes of a daylong session, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of trying to stifle a historic debate the nation needed.
“Imagine if, instead of debating whether to abolish slavery, instead of debating whether giving women and minorities the right to vote, those who disagreed had muted discussion and killed any vote,” he said.
The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said the vote was anything but procedural — casting it as a referendum on the bill itself, which he said would raise taxes, cut Medicare and create a “massive and unsustainable debt.”
Wild Thing's comment..........
Most Americans clearly do not want this bill. Nancy Pelosi and the House Dems don’t care. Harry Reid and the Senate Demos don’t care. They and Barack Hussein Obama have in 10 months sent America trillions into debt. Their “cap and tax” will kill even more jobs. They have seized control of banks and companies. And now they are pulling off a “healthcare coup” to take over the most intimate parts of our lives and add even more trillions in debt. This is a war on the American people.
What is it that they did in 1863? They shed their blood both on distant lands and in their own front yards. From the Wilderness of Chancellorsville to the Round Tops of Gettysburg to the aptly named River of Death in Chickamauga, they bled so they would be in bondage to no one but their Savior. Some blood poured through Blue wool, some through Butternut and Grey...ALL for the reason of ending bondage, whether it be their own or that of a fellow human being. I tell you now...both North and South, both East and West...we are ALL in bondage once more. Enslaved by a tyranny unseen but in dusty volumes recollecting centuries of old. It is ever apparent that out own volume of history is opened, eager to be filled with the tales of those brave enough to put God and country before self.
"Already the hour is late. Government has laid its hand on health, housing, farming, industry, commerce, education, and to an ever-increasing degree interferes with the people's right to know. ... We approach the point of no return when government becomes so huge and entrenched that we fear the consequences of upheaval and just go along with it." — Ronald Reagan
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:55 AM | Comments (17)
November 21, 2009
Religious leaders vow civil disobedience
Religious leaders vow civil disobedience
More than 150 leaders across a spectrum of conservative Christianity on Friday released a 4,700-word document vowing civil disobedience if they are forced to take part in "anti-life acts" or bless gay marriages.
Called the "Manhattan Declaration," the six-page, single-spaced document was drafted by Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson, an evangelical, and Princeton University professor Robert P. George, a Roman Catholic, and included a bevy of Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox bishops, archbishops and cardinals as signatories along with dozens of clergy and laity.
Archbishop of Washington Donald W. Wuerl is one of the signatories.
"Throughout the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required," says the document which cited civil rights icon Martin Luther King and his willingness to go to jail for his beliefs.
"Because we honor justice and the common good," it states, "we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide or euthanasia or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family."
When pressed to say what sorts of civil disobedience the writers were proposing, its originators were vague on the details at Friday's news conference during which the document was released.
Wild Thing's comment........
I have a question. Where have they been. It has been months of Townhalls, Tea Parties even the doctors and nurses joined in awhile back and just NOW these religilous leaders are getting in the act. I am glad but the thing is they sure waited long enough.
IMO and I am dead on serious about this. This health care bill should have every living being in our country ticked off and mad as hell IF THEY LOVE AMERICA.
Our grievances today against the Marxist government in Washington are at least as great as those of the American Colonists against the Tyranny of England.
I sure do love all of you here at Theodore's World. You all love America soooooo much. You are all so awesome!!!!!
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Inhofe calls Democrat Healthcare Maneuver "Beyond Deceptive" This is from yesterday but he is good.
Posted by Wild Thing at 07:25 PM | Comments (5)
Full List of Tax Hikes In Senate Democrat Health Bill
Senate Democrats will only deliberate 10 hourson today SATURDAY before they vote to nationalize one-sixth of the US economy.
The bill will nationalize the nation’s health care industry, increase costs, ration care, tax cosmetic surgery, cut Medicare, charge a monthly abortion fee, and take away your freedom.
Support for this disastrous bill is down to 40% with 52% opposing.
Please take time to call your US Senator even today it is not too late to call,
HERE is the PHONE list
http://www.theorator.com/senate.html
Check out the .......Full List of Tax Hikes In Senate Democrat Health Bill
Individual Mandate Tax (Page 324/Sec. 1501/$8 bil): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the following schedule (capped at 8 percent of income):
Check out this important piece, at ATR.org.
Individual Mandate Tax (Page 324/Sec. 1501/$8 bil)
Employer Mandate Tax (Page 348/Sec. 1513/$28 bil)
Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (Page 1979/Sec. 9001/$149.1 bil)
Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2 (Page 1996/Sec. 9002/Min$)
Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 1997/Sec. 9003/$5 bil)
HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike (Page 1998/Sec. 9004/$1.3 bil)
FSA Cap (Page 1999/Sec. 9005/$14.6 bil)
Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 1999/Sec. 9006/$17.1 bil)
Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (page 2001/Sec. 9007/Min$)
Tax on Innovator Drug Companies (Page 2010/Sec. 9008/ $22.2 bil)
Tax of Medical Device Manufacturers (Page 2020/Sec. 9009/$19.3 bil)
Tax on Health Insurers (Page 2026/Sec. 9010/$60.4 bil)
Eliminate tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D (Page 2034/Sec. 9012/$5.4 bil)
Raise “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI (Page 2034/Sec. 9013/$15.2 bil)
$500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives (Page 2035/Sec. 9014/$0.6 bil)
Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax (Page 2040/Sec. 9015/$53.8 bil)
Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike (Page 2044/Sec. 9016/$0.4 bil)
Tax on Cosmetic Medical Procedures (Page 2045/Sec. 9017/$5.8 bil)
Exemptions for religious objectors, undocumented immigrants, prisoners, those earning less than the poverty line, members of Indian tribes, and hardship cases
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Henry Waxman says to just get the bill in place...Which is exactly what Democrats plan to do
"I think we are going to get a bill passed. It may not be everything that I'd want, but if we get it in place we can build on it later and we could start down the road to making sure that we have a system that makes sense."
Listen to this, Waxman admits that Health Care should be done now because next year is an election year...
"We'll work out our differences, but what we need is the Senate to act. And I hope they will do that very soon because we must get this job done, as far as I'm concerned, by the end of the year. Certainly we could go into next year, but there are going to be so many other pressures next year, especially with the elections looming that this is our opportunity. With a new President who has put this issue high on the agenda there is only a limited time to act. When the Clinton Administration tried to do it they pushed it off into the second year and the closer it got to the election the special interests were able to bring it down."
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Wild Thing's comment........
Any idea what "religious objectors” means in the list of exemptions at the top of the document? It seems rather out of place. Unless they mean maybe people that are Christian Scientists????
We need more taxing like we need more islamofacists.
Heck couple this with the 460 billion in medicare cuts and it becomes quite clear what the Rats plans are....
Insidious as it sounds....
They plan on killing off all of the elederly so that there will be a huge transfer of wealth from the baby boomer generation to generation X on this wealth they will be able to collect death tax which in turn will increase revenue to the govt.
We are living in very strange and scary times indeed.
These power hungry bastards, especially ones like Snowe, Hatch, Collins and the rest have been playing both sides of the coin with their “good friends on the other side of the aisle” have now secured the imperial political class. Take a long look around you because these times will most likely be the last days of the American Middle class for a long, long time.
Obama isn’t stupid...he’s busy implementing his agenda. It’s an agenda that is so radical & horrendous that most don’t want to believe it could be the case. No American wants to believe that they are being “governed” by one who is singularly devoted to destroying the nation and spreading chaos throughout the earth.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:55 AM | Comments (11)
Senate Health Bill Debate Scheduled for TODAY; Vote on Cloture Expected at 8 PM ET
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It appears the fate of the Senate Health Care Bill is now in the hands of two Democrat senators - Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska has announced he will vote for cloture tomorrow, which would open the way for the bill to be taken up on the Senate Floor and receive an up or down vote. If Democrats can cobble together the 60 votes needed to invoke Cloture tomorrow, they will then only need 50 votes (plus VP Joe Biden) to gain final passage of the bill. Fifty votes would appear to be a sure thing with the huge majority the Democrats have.
That means the Cloture vote tomorrow is the key vote. Some Democrats - like Ben Nelson - will likely vote for Cloture tomorrow under the guise of wanting to have a "free and open debate / vote" on the bill, and then vote against final passage to cover themselves, knowing there will be at least 50 votes to pass it.
Above is a Radio Ad from the Eagle Forum that are seeking to get citizens to put pressure on Lincoln to vote against Cloture tomorrow.
NOTE: Independent Joe Lieberman has said he WILL vote for Cloture tomorrow to begin debate on final passage of the bill. He has said he will consider filibustering the final bill to prevent a vote on final passage if it has a Public Option. But the reality is, if the Democrats get 60 votes tomorrow for Cloture, it is over. They will have 50 votes to pass the bill later.
UPDATE 9:33 PM CT: Politico reported last night that Landrieu says she is "leaning towards" voting for Cloture tomorrow. Reid put $100 million in this bill for Louisiana, and it appears it has done what it was intended to do. That leaves Lincoln of Arkansas, and she has said she will consider carefully what Bill Clinton thinks. He urged passage of the bill. It looks like it is going to happen.
South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint notes that a vote by Democrats to proceed to debate is a vote on the substance of the health care bill itself.
Senator Kyle said IF they get this vote on Sat....it will mean the Healthcare bill has a 97% of passing.
Senate Democrat leader Harry Reid remained “confident” the 2,074-page, US $2.5 trillion health care overhaul will pass.
“The finish line is in sight,” Reid told reporters.
Reid’s Government-Run Health Plan Requires a Monthly Abortion Fee
The left's ultimate dream, forcing all Americans to participate in the slaughter of the unborn (even though a CNN poll found 61% oppose tax-payer funded abortions)
Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) massive, 2,074-page bill would levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run plan.
Beginning on line 7, p. 118, section 1303 under “Voluntary Choice of Coverage of Abortion Services” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run health plan. Leader Reid’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions (line 13, p. 120).
What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan. It’s right there beginning on line 11, page 122, section 1303, under “Actuarial Value of Optional Service Coverage.” The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.
Section 1303(a)(2)(C) describes the process in which the Health Benefits Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run health plan and for those who are given an affordability credit to purchase insurance coverage that includes abortion through the Exchange. The Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.
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We need to flood their offices with calls and emails to vote NO on Cloture!!
Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas -- have yet to commit to allowing debate to begin. Reid met privately with the three before releasing his bill Wednesday, and Nelson later issued a statement strongly suggesting he would support fellow Democrats on the procedural vote.
If they do get the 60 votes for cloture then it is all but a done deal as they will only then need 51 votes to pass the bill in the full senate something that is much easier considering the dems majority in the Senate!
Contact Senator Nelson’s office to voice your opposition to this bill.
CONTACT INFO:
US Capitol Switchboard Toll-free Numbers
1-866-220-0044
1-877-851-6437
1-800-833-6354
1-888-355-3588
1-866-808-0065
1-877-762-8762
1-800-862-5530
Mary Landrieu of Louisiana Democrat
Washington, DC Office
328 Hart Senate Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Voice: (202)224-5824
Fax:(202) 224-9735
http://landrieu.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
Olympia J. Snowe "Republican" Senator Maine
Washington D. C. Office
Mailing Address:
154 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.Email
Phone: (202) 224-5344
Toll Free: (800) 432-1599
Fax: (202) 224-1946
Senator Blanche L. Lincoln Arkansas Democrat
Washington D.C. Office
355 Dirksen Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510-0404
Phone: (202)224-4843
Fax: (202)228-1371
http://lincoln.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm
Senator Nelson (D) Nebraska Democrat
Omaha
7602 Pacific St.
Ste 205
Omaha, NE 68114
Tel: (402) 391-3411
Fax: (402) 391-4725
Washington, D.C.
720 Hart Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-6551
Fax: (202) 228-0012
Scottsbluff-308-631-7614
Lincoln-402-441-4600
Central-308-293-5818
Ben_Nelson@bennelson.senate.gov
You have to use the Senators web site email form at http://bennelson.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm
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Wild Thing's comment........
Under Senate rules, 60 votes are needed on a "cloture" motion to move a bill forward. Right now, Democrats have 60 votes and Republicans have 40 votes. Democrat Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) are key votes to defeating the cloture motion to proceed to consideration of the health care bill. Both are running for reelection in 2010 and both Senators need to know that a "Yes" vote on the cloture motion to proceed will mean the end of their political careers.
And the taxes start right away. As in as soon as it is passed into law. Hopefully they have 41 votes to stop this bill from passing.
.....Thank you Richard
for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:50 AM | Comments (6)
November 20, 2009
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.): 'I'm getting tired of saving Obama's can'
Far left Democrat John Conyers, husband of convicted felon Monica Conyers, told reporters today that, “I’m getting tired of saving Obama’s can.”
The Hill reported:
President Barack Obama is “bowing down” to Republicans and corporate interests on health reform, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said Thursday.
Conyers, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a longtime advocate of single-payer healthcare, blasted the president for a perceived weakness in leadership on health reform.
“I’m getting tired of saving Obama’s can in the White House,” Conyers said on the liberal Bill Press radio show. “He only won by five votes in the House, and this bill wasn’t even anything to write home about.”
“The only way he could have got it through was that progressives held their nose,” Conyers added.
The veteran Michigan Democrat had teamed with Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) to push single-payer options in the health reform bill, a battle which Conyers said was far from over.
But he castigated Obama for trying to reach out to conservatives and other adversaries on health reform, accusing the president of doing a "disservice" to what he'd once stood for.
"Holding hands out and beer on Friday nights in the White House and bowing down to every nutty, right-wing proposal about healthcare and saying on occasion the public option isn't all that important is doing a disservice to the Barack Obama that I first met, who was an ardent single-payer enthusiast himself," he said.
Wild Thing's comment..........
In other words, liberals hate the current health care bills in Congress because they don't nationalize health care fast enough for them.
LOL oh pleassssseee!
Obama doesn’t need anyone’s help being a hard left, socialist communist Marxist vile person.
"...and this bill wasn't even anything to write home about."
Gee whiz, John, to hear Nancy talk about it the House bill was the finest political document to have been penned since the Magna Carta. And oh by the way...heh heh ...Speaking of cans, Rep. Conyers, how’s your wife doing in the can?
Democrat Cognitive Dissonance alert.
"He only won by five votes in the House, and this bill wasn't even anything to write home about."
This is telling. This bill - if signed into law - would cause severe damage to this nation and still it is not good enough for these socialist bastards. They want everyone grovelling at their feet and working in the rice paddies.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:44 AM | Comments (1)
November 16, 2009
Obama Will Remove Abortion Funding Ban From Health Care Bill
Obama Will Remove Abortion Funding Ban From Health Care Bill, Advisor Says
by Steven Ertelt
Top Obama advisor David Axelrod on Sunday confirmed what pro-life advocates already suspected would happen. He said President Barack Obama will work with congressional Democrats to remove the abortion funding ban the House approved in its version of the government-run health care bill.
Axelrod says that, because the Stupak amendment allegedly goes beyond the status quo under the Hyde amendment (which bans abortion funding under Medicaid), Obama will make sure the amendment is yanked during the conference committee.
That’s the part of the legislative process that will occur if and when the Senate approves its own health care bill, which will likely start debate with abortion funding.
"The president has said repeatedly, and he said in his speech to Congress, that he doesn't believe that this bill should change the status quo as it relates to the issue of abortion," Axelrod said today on CNN's State of the Union program.
"This shouldn't be a debate about abortion. And he's going to work with Senate and the House to try and ensure that at the end of the day, the status quo is not changed," he added. "I believe that there are discussions ongoing to how to adjust it accordingly."
Axelrod said that an agreement with ruling Democrats in Congress to remove the ban on taxpayer funding of abortions "can and will be worked through before it reaches his desk."
Axelrod's comments come after Obama's own remarks which made it appear he would favor removing or weakening the Stupak amendment.
"I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill," Obama told ABC News last week. "And we're not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions."
Obama appeared to side with abortion advocates who claim the Stupak amendment in the health care bill somehow changes the current status quo on government abortion funding.
“There needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we're not changing the status quo” on abortion, Obama added. “And that’s the goal.”
Obama also sided with pro-abortion groups in saying he wanted to make sure “we're not restricting women’s insurance choices,” because he had promised that “if you're happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, it’s not going to change.”
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, chided Obama for his comments.
"The only thing that will prevent the health care bill from being 'an abortion bill' is precisely the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, as the House of Representatives recognized by a 46-vote margin," he said.
"The phoniness of Obama's claim that he has been trying to preserve the 'status quo' on abortion policy should be evident to any observer by now. In reality, the White House and top Democratic congressional leaders have been working hard to create a national federal government health plan that would fund abortion on demand, just as Obama promised Planned Parenthood," Johnson added.
Wild Thing's comment......
Barack Obama voted 4 times to support infanticide. That is one subject he did not vote "present" on.
A much easier decision for Obama then supporting our troops in Afghanistan, thus he made it quickly.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:40 AM | Comments (2)
November 14, 2009
U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam Delivers Health Care Bill to Library
Congressman Roskam delivering the almost 2,000 page health care bill to the Wheaton Public Library.
Roskam, R-6th District, of Wheaton, accompanied by his wife Elizabeth and staff, dropped it on the desk of the library's reference counter and told a library employee that he wanted the library to have a physical copy of the bill because it could crash computers when downloaded.
"Two thousand pages, it’s almost twice as long as the previous bill, HR 3200, that had been introduced in July and got a pretty bad reception from the public,” Roskam said in an interview immediately after he delivered the bill.
While the delivery of the bill was a planned event to which media was invited, Roskam said his interest was that the public has access to it.
“Who knows what's in this thing?” he said.
Sarah Meisels, library director, said the bill will be made available to anyone interested in looking at it.
“It’s at the reference desk. But who’s gonna read over 1,000 pages, and if they do, who’s gonna understand it?” Meisels said.
She said the bill is also available for people to photocopy.
Roskam said the bill, with a price tag of nearly $900 billion, cuts to Medicaid, potential to raise taxes on small businesses, and mandate that American citizens purchase a government-approved insurance policy, will have an impact on every one of his constituents.
Roskam said he has not yet read the bill and will require help from his staff to do so before the bill is voted on later this week.
“You don’t read legislation like a novel, though, you’ve got to break it down,” he said.
Shannon O'Brien, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-14th District, of Geneva — whose district borders the western edge of Wheaton — said Foster is nearly halfway through the bill.
“The congressman is actually reading the legislation right now,” O'Brien said. “... (Foster has) said the devil is in the details and he wanted to analyze it before he made a decision (on whether he supports the bill).”
Wild Thing's comment.......
This is a great idea. He at least is trying to make it so people can read the monster of a bill.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:44 AM | Comments (1)
November 12, 2009
Obama and Pelosi Think It's Fair For People To Go To Jail For Not Buying Into Socialized Medicine
Komo 4 News (ABC Seattle) Reporter Shomari Stone Asks House Speaker Nanci Pelosi about the following:
KOMO News reporter Shomari Stone: Do you think it’s fair to send people to jail who don’t buy health insurance?
Pelosi: …The legislation is very fair in this respect.
According to Committee On Ways & Means Republicans Ranking Member, Dave Camp, "the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain acceptable health insurance coverage and who choose not to pay the bills new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years."
Pelosi confronted on Health Care being a jobs killer and will drive us back into more recession
Camera is unsteady in this video.
Journalist Scott St. Clair - The Piper - asks Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi about the negative impact her health care bill will have on jobs and the economy. 10.2 percent unemployment, a $1.2 to 1.5 trillion cost, unfavorable polling numbers, and experts predicting it will kill jobs and may drive us back into a deep recession. Her answer? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah - a stump speech with something about it being "the fault of the previous administration."
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Interview with the President: Jail Time for Those without Health Care Insurance?
Political Punch
Jack Tapper
Obama said that penalties are appropriate for people who try to “free ride” the health care system but stopped short of endorsing the threat of jail time for those who refuse to pay a fine for not having insurance.
“What I think is appropriate is that in the same way that everybody has to get auto insurance and if you don't, you're subject to some penalty, that in this situation, if you have the ability to buy insurance, it's affordable and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you, you know, there's a thousand dollar hidden tax that families all across America are -- are burdened by because of the fact that people don't have health insurance, you know, there's nothing wrong with a penalty.”
Under the House bill those who can afford to buy insurance and don’t’ pay a fine. If the refuse to pay that fine there’s a threat – as with a lot of tax fines – of jail time. The Senate removed that provision in the Senate Finance Committee.
Mr. Obama said penalties have to be high enough for people to not game the system, but it’s also important to not be “so punitive” that people who are having a hard time find themselves suddenly worse off, thus why hardship exemptions have been built in the legislation.
“I think the general broad principle is simply that people who are paying for their health insurance aren't subsidizing folks who simply choose not to until they get sick and then suddenly they expect free health insurance. That's -- that's basic concept of responsibility that I think most Americans abide by,” Mr. Obama said, “penalties are appropriate for people who try to free ride the system and force others to pay for their health insurance.”
The President said that he didn’t think the question over the appropriateness of possible jail time is the “biggest question” the House and Senate are facing right now.
Wild Thing's comment........
Are you kidding me?!
This so-called smart man, a supposed “Constitutional scholar”, uses the simpleton’s analogy that the requirement for auto-insurance is the “same” as government requiring everyone to purchase health insurance. Last I checked, no human being was ever born with a motorized vehicle attached to his backside. Also, last I checked, Americans are born with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
How does making it a requirement to purchase something as a requisite to life, in order to be free from penalization (liberty), in any way, shape or form in-line with “truths” of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America?
Obama’s argument doesn’t wash.
The government (state of CA) mandates me to have auto insurance to protect OTHER drivers, vehicles and property due to accidents caused by ME. That’s why I’m required to carry liability insurance but collision (coverage for my vehicle damage caused by me) is optional.
If I don’t have health insurance, I’m not hurting anyone else if I get sick.
You only have to acquire car insurance if you are CHOOSING to buy a car. If I don't own a car the government doesn't make me buy auto insurance. Same thing for homeowners...How many homeless people does the government force to buy homeowners insurance??
LOL Oh my gosh look at this. .............. Nancy Pelosi wants to give us their socialized medicine as a Christmas present..................I guess we were really, really, bad this year! Hey Nancy, take me off your Christmas list. I don’t want your stinking health care plan. Nancy better stay away from our chimney.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:50 AM | Comments (13)
Desperate To Pass Socialized Medicine Obama Supporters Use the RINO Cao In New Ad
Congressman Joseph Cao is the subject of a new TV and internet commercial in the debate over health care reform.
"Congressman Joseph Cao knows it's time to reform health care," the spot says. "Thank Congressman Cao for knowing it's time to stand up to the insurance companies and fight for us."
The advertisement was produced by a group who supports President Obama's plan, following Cao's vote as the only Republican to vote in favor of the the measure in the House of Representatives.
The 220-215 vote cleared the way for the Senate to begin a long-delayed debate on the issue. Americans United for Change Acting Executive Director Tom McMahon released a statement that pointed out Cao's vote.
"Struggling Louisiana families are closer than ever to having access to the quality, affordable health care they deserve thanks in no small part to Congressman Joseph Cao.," McMahon wrote. "Congressman Cao stood up to the big insurance and stood alongside the AARP, the American Medical Association and the clear majority of the American people." McMahon says Cao was right to break party ranks.
Wild Thing's comment.........
He not only gave them his freaking vote, he opened the door to what the left wanted so much. A Republican vote so they can push this and say it is BOTH parties that wanted the socialized medicine. Too many people will not know he was the only one with an R with his name. They don't pay attention to what is happening.
GRRRRRR this makes me sick! Get rid of RINO"s !!!!!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (3)
The LEFT Reacts To Joe Lieberman's Promise To Join Filibuster About Health Care Bill
Hartford (WTNH) - Protesters who are miffed about Joe Lieberman's stance against the current health care reform package held demonstrations today at his offices in Washington, D.C. and Hartford.
30 people showed up to Lieberman's Hartford office this morning. An aide to Lieberman came out to listen to what they had to say.
Police arrested four of the protestors in Hartford and charged them with disorderly conduct.
The group claims that Sen. Lieberman has excepted over $2 million in contributions from the health care industry since 1989.
The event in Hartford was coordinated with another demonstration at Sen. Lieberman's Washington, D.C. office. Six protestors were arrested there for unlawful entry. Kevin Zeese, an organizer with Mobilization for Health Care for All , says the demonstrators urged Lieberman to stop accepting money from health insurance companies.
He says the protesters threw mock dollar bills printed with Lieberman's face from the seventh-floor balcony.
Sen. Lieberman has said that he will likely vote against a health care bill that includes a public option.
In a historical vote this past weekend, the U.S. House of Representatives passed health care legislation. Read a summary . The bill now goes to U.S. Senate where Lieberman will play a key role in whether or not it passes.
The event in Hartford was coordinated with another demonstration at Sen. Lieberman's Washington, D.C. office. Six protesters were arrested there for unlawful entry.
Kevin Zeese, an organizer with Mobilization for Health Care for All , says the demonstrators urged Lieberman to stop accepting money from health insurance companies. He says the protesters threw mock dollar bills printed with Lieberman's face from the seventh-floor balcony.
"Everybody has a right to express their point of view, I much prefer to have a dialog, of course. But, I think, some of these folks come in to get arrested, that's their right too," Lieberman said.
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4 arrested at Lieberman's office
Protesters who are miffed about Joe Lieberman's stance against the current health care reform package held demonstrations today at his offices in Washington, D.C. and Hartford.
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Wild Thing's comment........
BIG difference, the TEA protest in Hartford this summer. 5000+ people showed up. No arrests, no incidents, no disrutions, no disorderly conduct. And no littering.
The left want socialism so badly and even worse for America. Why or why do they live here if they hate what America has been all this time. Get the F out!
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (1)
November 09, 2009
Veterinarian Loans and Biofuels Part Of Healthcare Now
Veterinarian Loans and Biofuels Are Apparently Part Of Healthcare Now
That 2,000+ page piece of legislation that was approved yesterday by House democrats is not only a takeover of the health care industry. It’s also full of goodies like a $283 million gift to veterinarians.
Wild Thing's comment.......
Remember the Republican Contract with America? Well this is the DemocRATS Contract On America!
Declaration of Independance : “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:47 AM | Comments (2)
Dictator Obama's Lies About His Power Grab Health Care Bill
"This legislation is fully paid for and will bring down our long-term Federal deficit" - LIAR Obama
"The Affordable Health Care for America Act is a piece of legislation that will provide security and stability for Americans who have insurance, quality affordable options for those who don't, and bring down the cost of Health Care for families, businesses and our Government while strengthening the financial health of Medicare. It is legislation that is fully paid for and will bring down our long term Federal deficit. Given the heated and often misleading rhetoric that surrounded this legislation, I know this was a courageous vote for many members of Congress"
Total LIES are in BOLD.
FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL for This MONSTER Health Care bill
28 out of 52 congressional members of the "blue dog coalition" supported the Pelosi/Obama bill which will raise our taxes, destroy Capitalism, give the government more control of our lives, is in complete violation of the Constitution, will raise costs, and add trillions to the deficit. It will force us onto government run health care, will guarantee people something they have no right to, will instate death panels, will force jail time if you want freedom, and is the end of America as we know it.
Also, 14 of these "lap dogs" who voted for the Pelosi/Obama care freedom destruction bill of 2009, reside in Republican districts.
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Wild Thing's comment..........
So Obama is like a slave owner and we will be HIS slaves if this passes in the Senate. He and those that voted for this bill hate America and the Liberty and Freedom our country has stood for.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:45 AM | Comments (4)
November 08, 2009
ObamaCare Passes 220-215 in the House ~ Just 5 Votes
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ObamaCare Passes 220-215 in the US House of Reps. -- Dems Hold Victory Press Conference
Democrats hold celebratory press conference following their passage of the unpopular-with-the-American-public ObamaCare health care reform bill.
Virtually every major opinion poll currently out shows either a plurality or a majority of the public is opposed to the proposed legislation.
This reality explains why the vote was so close and also is a likely harbinger for Democratic electoral challenges in 2010 as members who voted for the bill are held to account by disgruntled constituents more concerned with jobs than health care.
Only 1 Republican voted for the bill, while 39 Democrats voted against it. The Republican was Anh Joseph Cao of Louisiana's 2nd district.
Speculation is already rampant that Cao will face electoral repercussions from conservatives for his vote.
U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, released the following statement regarding the passage of a 2,000-page health care bill in the House of Representatives:
“This 2,000-page bill goes in exactly the wrong direction: it means higher premiums, higher taxes, Medicare cuts, more debt & huge new health-care costs for state taxpayers. Instead we should start over and go step by step. Specifically, we could start with small business health care plans that would lower premiums, cover up to 1 million new small business employees, and reduce spending on Medicaid.”
Obama Acknowledged Today That He and Bill Owens Pulled a Health Care Fast One on the Voters in NY-23
Source
The New York Times is reporting that in his pep talk to the Democrats in Congress this morning, President Obama acknowledged that he and newly elected NY-23 Democratic Congressman Bill Owens have pulled a fast one on the voters in that district.
The Times reported the President's comments about Bill Owens today in the context of the overall pending Health Care bill vote:
The president also singled out Representative Bill Owens, the newly-elected Democrat from a historically Republican district in New York, who was sworn into office just on Friday. Mr. Obama noted that Mr. Owens would support the health care bill even though it might not be popular at home.
“Think about Bill Owens,” Mr. Obama said. “He could have dodged it. But he didn’t. And guess what? Bill is sitting right here."
From the start of his campaign on August 10 until an election eve debate on October 30, Owens adamantly opposed the type of public option that is contained in HR 3962, the Pelosi bill the House is voting on later today.
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GOP Rep. Kevin Brady showing a chart they created to visualize the Pelosi Health Care Bill about to be passed by the House of Representatives.
We developed this chart based on Nancy Pelosi’s new health care plan….The new chart shows more than 90 of these new mandates, commissions and agencies. The true number is well over 100, we simply ran out of space.
In terms of sheer bureaucracy, if the IRS and Medicare had a baby, it would look like this. And the question is how is that going to make our health care more affordable?
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Wild Thing's comment......
Ok let's look at what happened:
1. The bill passed 220 - 215, hardly a screaming mandate.
2. The Senate has to act on it, and they are not going to act until after the first of the year, if they act at all. The best thing for the Senate is to delay it, because once this garbage hits 2010, it is an election year, and NO ONE will want this hung around their neck.
3. This thing CANNOT get through the Senate if, in fact, Lieberman is going to join the Republican filibuster. No Republican, even Snowe and Collins will vote for cloture, so this thing dies in the filibuster in the senate (Probably comes up well short of cloture because Byrd has indicated he would filibuster as well if he can be present to vote). What this means is that there is only, at best, 58 votes for cloture, this thing never gets off the ground in the Senate. Look at history, look at cap and trade, this passed the house by an almost identical margin and has languished in the Senate, and will likely not get out.
4. Reid is in the fight of his life to keep his seat. He really does not want to see this SOB pass. Nancy Pelosi is safe, but Reid is not.
The House is the place where emotion can surge and all sorts of crazy stuff can happen, but the Senate is the "cooling plate" of the legislative process. I think that the Senate will not be able to bust through a bipartisan filibuster. Now the news media will paint this as a great victory, but this is far from over.
TWO big Obama states just threw democrats out on their butts and almost a 3rd with Hoffman almost a win too, everyone will remember that who has to vote for this freaking thing. Keep praying, turn your attention to the Senate and melt their phone lines.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:50 AM | Comments (9)
The One Republican Vote For Socialized Medicine Was Rep. Anh (Joseph) Cao of Louisiana
One Republican voted for Pelosicare: GOP Rep. Anh (Joseph) Cao of Louisiana. And from the time he was elected, Cao has backed the S-CHIP expansion, the $108 billion IMF bailout, and the omni-waste spending bill. And he voted to rebuke GOP Rep. Joe Wilson for calling out President Obama on his health care lies.
His remarks:
"Louisiana Congressman Anh “Joseph” Cao on Sunday morning released a statement after he voted as the only Republican in favor of the Democratic health care reform bill.
The health care reform bill, dubbed the “Affordable Health Care for America Act” (H.R. 3962), passed the U.S. House of Representatives in a 220 – 215 vote.
“Tonight, I voted to keep taxpayer dollars from funding abortion and to deliver access to affordable health care to the people of Louisiana,” Cao said in a statement released by his office. “I read the versions of the House [health reform] bill. I listened to the countless stories of Orleans and Jefferson Parish citizens whose health care costs are exploding – if they are able to obtain health care at all. Louisianans needs real options for primary care, for mental health care, and for expanded health care for seniors and children.”
Cao wrote he obtained commitment from President Obama that he would work together to address the health care issues of Louisiana, including the FMAP crisis and community disaster loan forgiveness, as well as issues related to Charity and Methodist Hospitals. “I call on all my constituents to support me as I work with him on these issues.”
A little more about him, from March 4th.
On Tuesday, in front of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Rep. Joseph Cao, the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress, admitted to being a closet case. A “closet Democrat” that is. His exact words were:
A He says “Don’t tell the Republicans, but I might be a closet Democrat,” said Cao to a round of laughter.”
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Wild Thing's comment.......
I don’t care if the entire district is liberal democrats. He has an (R) by his name and voted with the (D)s. We do not gain anything by having a republican voting with the democrats on this issue. He is still a traitor to this country as are the other 219 who voted for the bill.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:40 AM | Comments (10)
November 07, 2009
Military HATER Obama Visit Ft. Hood? NO Way! Instead He Pushs his Socialized Medicine with Pelosi
Republican Chairman Pete Sessions Speaks About The 5,000,000 Jobs Lost From This Bill
Obama for health care votes
Barack Obama is traveling to Capitol Hill on Saturday to try to close the sale on his signature health care overhaul, facing a make-or-break vote in the House certain to be seen as a test of his presidency.
Obama scheduled a late-morning visit with House Democrats convening a rare Saturday session on legislation to remake the U.S. health care system, extending coverage to tens of millions now uninsured and banning insurance company practices such as denial of coverage based on pre-existing medical problems.
Late Friday, House Democrats cleared an abortion-related impasse blocking a vote and officials expressed optimism they had finally lined up the support needed to pass Obama’s signature issue.
Under the arrangement, Democratic Reps. Bart Stupak of Michigan, Brad Ellsworth of Indiana and other abortion opponents were promised an opportunity to insert tougher restrictions into the legislation during debate on the House floor.
The leadership’s hope is that no matter how that vote turns out, Democrats on both sides of the abortion divide will then unite to give the health care bill a majority over unanimous Republican opposition.
“We wish to maintain current law, which says no public funding for abortion,” Stupak said. “We are not writing a new federal abortion policy.”
The GOP Health Care Plan: "I Object!" - Feat. Rep. Tom Price (R-GA)
As Democrats try to expand access to quality health care coverage, House Republicans routinely object.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
I have been watching between C-Pan and FOX news. The Republicans have been giving some great speechs why NOT to do this.
Obama pushes for this crap but can’t find time to visit the wounder at Ft Hood. Obama is not at Fort Hood today thanking our wounded - the wounded are not Muslims. He is in congress trying to get his civilian takeover law passed. And the Democrats are helping Muslim Obama destroy what is left of our civil rights.
Whopper Lie Obama today ..so far......Paraphrasing, he said that by passing the HealthCare reform bill would actually reduce the national deficit. One of the lessons we learned from Obama's speech is that it's perfectly acceptable to lie, but it's a great big no-no to call the liar a liar such as when Joe Wilson said YOU LIE.
I know I have posted this before but.... Please Let your REPRESENTATIVE know you opposition to this bill: HR 3962
(202)224-3121
or
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt
Posted by Wild Thing at 01:27 PM | Comments (8)
Obama and Pelsoi's DESTROY America Health Care Bill
Rep. Steve King (R-IA): Again Saturday Health Care Rally At The Capitol
I REALLY Like this guy King. ~ Wild Thing
House Democrats clear impasse on health bill
House Democrats acknowledged they don’t yet have the votes to pass a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system, and signaled they may push back the vote until Sunday or early next week.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters in a conference call Friday that the make-or-break vote on President Barack Obama’s top priority that had been set for Saturday could face delay.
The apparent problem: Democrats have yet to resolve intraparty disputes over abortion funding and illegal immigrants’ access to health care.
What the Pelosi Health-Care Bill Really Says
Taken from .....
http://www.defendyourhealthcare.us
The health bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is bringing to a vote (H.R. 3962) is 1,990 pages. Here are some of the details you need to know.
What the government will require you to do:
•Sec. 202 (p. 91-92) of the bill requires you to enroll in a "qualified plan." If you get your insurance at work, your employer will have a "grace period" to switch you to a "qualified plan," meaning a plan designed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. If you buy your own insurance, there's no grace period. You'll have to enroll in a qualified plan as soon as any term in your contract changes, such as the co-pay, deductible or benefit.
•Sec. 224 (p. 118) provides that 18 months after the bill becomes law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will decide what a "qualified plan" covers and how much you'll be legally required to pay for it. That's like a banker telling you to sign the loan agreement now, then filling in the interest rate and repayment terms 18 months later.
On Nov. 2, the Congressional Budget Office estimated what the plans will likely cost. An individual earning $44,000 before taxes who purchases his own insurance will have to pay a $5,300 premium and an estimated $2,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, for a total of $7,300 a year, which is 17% of his pre-tax income. A family earning $102,100 a year before taxes will have to pay a $15,000 premium plus an estimated $5,300 out-of-pocket, for a $20,300 total, or 20% of its pre-tax income. Individuals and families earning less than these amounts will be eligible for subsidies paid directly to their insurer.
• Sec. 303 (pp. 167-168) makes it clear that, although the "qualified plan" is not yet designed, it will be of the "one size fits all" variety. The bill claims to offer choice—basic, enhanced and premium levels—but the benefits are the same. Only the co-pays and deductibles differ. You will have to enroll in the same plan, whether the government is paying for it or you and your employer are footing the bill.
• Sec. 59b (pp. 297-299) says that when you file your taxes, you must include proof that you are in a qualified plan. If not, you will be fined thousands of dollars. Illegal immigrants are exempt from this requirement.
• Sec. 412 (p. 272) says that employers must provide a "qualified plan" for their employees and pay 72.5% of the cost, and a smaller share of family coverage, or incur an 8% payroll tax. Small businesses, with payrolls from $500,000 to $750,000, are fined less.
Eviscerating Medicare
In addition to reducing future Medicare funding by an estimated $500 billion, the bill fundamentally changes how Medicare pays doctors and hospitals, permitting the government to dictate treatment decisions.
• Sec. 1302 (pp. 672-692) moves Medicare from a fee-for-service payment system, in which patients choose which doctors to see and doctors are paid for each service they provide, toward what's called a "medical home."
The medical home is this decade's version of HMO-restrictions on care. A primary-care provider manages access to costly specialists and diagnostic tests for a flat monthly fee. The bill specifies that patients may have to settle for a nurse practitioner rather than a physician as the primary-care provider. Medical homes begin with demonstration projects, but the HHS secretary is authorized to "disseminate this approach rapidly on a national basis."
A December 2008 Congressional Budget Office report noted that "medical homes" were likely to resemble the unpopular gatekeepers of 20 years ago if cost control was a priority.
• Sec. 1114 (pp. 391-393) replaces physicians with physician assistants in overseeing care for hospice patients.
• Secs. 1158-1160 (pp. 499-520) initiates programs to reduce payments for patient care to what it costs in the lowest cost regions of the country. This will reduce payments for care (and by implication the standard of care) for hospital patients in higher cost areas such as New York and Florida.
• Sec. 1161 (pp. 520-545) cuts payments to Medicare Advantage plans (used by 20% of seniors). Advantage plans have warned this will result in reductions in optional benefits such as vision and dental care.
• Sec. 1402 (p. 756) says that the results of comparative effectiveness research conducted by the government will be delivered to doctors electronically to guide their use of "medical items and services."
Questionable Priorities:
While the bill will slash Medicare funding, it will also direct billions of dollars to numerous inner-city social work and diversity programs with vague standards of accountability.
• Sec. 399V (p. 1422) provides for grants to community "entities" with no required qualifications except having "documented community activity and experience with community healthcare workers" to "educate, guide, and provide experiential learning opportunities" aimed at drug abuse, poor nutrition, smoking and obesity. "Each community health worker program receiving funds under the grant will provide services in the cultural context most appropriate for the individual served by the program."
These programs will "enhance the capacity of individuals to utilize health services and health related social services under Federal, State and local programs by assisting individuals in establishing eligibility . . . and in receiving services and other benefits" including transportation and translation services.
• Sec. 222 (p. 617) provides reimbursement for culturally and linguistically appropriate services. This program will train health-care workers to inform Medicare beneficiaries of their "right" to have an interpreter at all times and with no co-pays for language services.
• Secs. 2521 and 2533 (pp. 1379 and 1437) establishes racial and ethnic preferences in awarding grants for training nurses and creating secondary-school health science programs. For example, grants for nursing schools should "give preference to programs that provide for improving the diversity of new nurse graduates to reflect changes in the demographics of the patient population." And secondary-school grants should go to schools "graduating students from disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities."
• Sec. 305 (p. 189) Provides for automatic Medicaid enrollment of newborns who do not otherwise have insurance.
• Secs. 1158-1160 (pp. 499-520) initiates programs to reduce payments for patient care to what it costs in the lowest cost regions of the country."
On Nov. 2, the Congressional Budget Office estimated what the plans will likely cost. An individual earning $44,000 before taxes who purchases his own insurance will have to pay a $5,300 premium and an estimated $2,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, for a total of $7,300 a year, which is 17% of his pre-tax income. A family earning $102,100 a year before taxes will have to pay a $15,000 premium plus an estimated $5,300 out-of-pocket, for a $20,300 total, or 20% of its pre-tax income. Individuals and families earning less than these amounts will be eligible for
• Sec. 303 (pp. 167-168) makes it clear that, although the “qualified plan” is not yet designed, it will be of the “one size fits all” variety. The bill claims to offer choice—basic, enhanced and premium levels—but the benefits are the same. Only the co-pays and deductibles differ. You will have to enroll in the same plan, whether the government is paying for it or you and your employer are footing the bill.
• Sec. 59b (pp. 297-299) says that when you file your taxes, you must include proof that you are in a qualified plan. If not, you will be fined thousands of dollars. Illegal immigrants are exempt from this requirement.
(ILLEGALS ARE EXCEMPT!)
• Sec. 412 (p. 272) says that employers must provide a “qualified plan” for their employees and pay 72.5% of the cost, and a smaller share of family coverage, or incur an 8% payroll tax. Small businesses, with payrolls from $500,000 to $750,000, are fined less.
• Sec. 1302 (pp. 672-692) moves Medicare from a fee-for-service payment system, in which patients choose which doctors to see and doctors are paid for each service they provide, toward what’s called a “medical home.”
A December 2008 Congressional Budget Office report noted that “medical homes” were likely to resemble the unpopular gatekeepers of 20 years ago if cost control was a priority.
• Sec. 1114 (pp. 391-393) replaces physicians with physician assistants in overseeing care for hospice patients.
• Secs. 1158-1160 (pp. 499-520) initiates programs to reduce payments for patient care to what it costs in the lowest cost regions of the country. This will reduce payments for care (and by implication the standard of care) for hospital patients in higher cost areas such as New York and Florida.
• Sec. 1161 (pp. 520-545) cuts payments to Medicare Advantage plans (used by 20% of seniors). Advantage plans have warned this will result in reductions in optional benefits such as vision and dental care.
• Sec. 1402 (p. 756) says that the results of comparative effectiveness research conducted by the government will be delivered to doctors electronically to guide their use of “medical items and services.”
• Sec. 399V (p. 1422) provides for grants to community “entities” with no required qualifications except having “documented community activity and experience with community healthcare workers” to “educate, guide, and provide experiential learning opportunities” aimed at drug abuse, poor nutrition, smoking and obesity. “Each community health worker program receiving funds under the grant will provide services in the cultural context most appropriate for the individual served by the program.”
• Sec. 222 (p. 617) provides reimbursement for culturally and linguistically appropriate services. This program will train health-care workers to inform Medicare beneficiaries of their “right” to have an interpreter at all times and with no co-pays for language services.
• Secs. 2521 and 2533 (pp. 1379 and 1437) establishes racial and ethnic preferences in awarding grants for training nurses and creating secondary-school health science programs. For example, grants for nursing schools should “give preference to programs that provide for improving the diversity of new nurse graduates to reflect changes in the demographics of the patient population.” And secondary-school grants should go to schools “graduating students from disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities.”
• Sec. 305 (p. 189) Provides for automatic Medicaid enrollment of newborns who do not otherwise have insurance.
For the text of the bill with page numbers, see www.defendyourhealthcare.us
Ms. McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former Lt. Governor of New York state.
AMA's Endorsement of House Health Care Bill Sparks Internal Uprising
Some AMA members are outraged that the group's trustees made the endorsement without the formal approval of the organization's House of Delegates.
The American Medical Association's much-touted endorsement of the House health care reform bill has triggered a revolt among some members who want the endorsement withdrawn.
Some members are outraged that the group's trustees made the endorsement without the formal approval of the organization's House of Delegates.
On Monday, delegates will vote on a resolution offered by some members that, if approved, will withdraw the AMA’s endorsement of the bill.
President Obama cited the endorsement of the influential AMA, along with AARP's, in a surprise appearance Thursday in the White House briefing room as he attempted to beat back criticism that the bill would gut Medicare.
"They're endorsing this bill because they know it will strengthen Medicare, not jeopardize it," he told reporters. "They know it will protect the benefits our seniors receive, not cut them."
"So I want everyone to remember that the next time you hear the same tired arguments to the contrary from insurance companies and their lobbyists and remember this endorsement the next time you see a bunch of misleading ads on television," he added.
Committee Confirms: Comply With Pelosi-Care Or Go To jail
Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.
n response to the JCT letter, Camp said: “This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail. It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately.”
Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:
“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]
“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]
“Criminal penalties
Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:
• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]
When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties. The Pelosi bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail.
“The Senate Finance Committee had the good sense to eliminate the extreme penalty of incarceration. Speaker Pelosi’s decision to leave in the jail time provision is a threat to every family who cannot afford the $15,000 premium her plan creates. Fortunately, Republicans have an alternative that will lower health insurance costs without raising taxes or cutting Medicare,” said Camp.
According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.
Wild Thing's comment.......... This Bill is soooo SICK! WTH???? PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail; Failure to Comply, 5 Years in Prison... They throw around the American peoples money like it’s monopoly money.I feel like I live in a COMMUNIST country. The idiots in the Congress have no conception of the firestorm they will unleash. Obama and the US Congress has declared war against the American people. I am absolutely furious over this and it hasn’t even passed yet. Just the fact that they are considering passing this crap is unbelievable. We’ve written, called, rallied and yelled from the top of our lungs that we don’t want this. The power-hungry crooks aren’t listening and don't even care. This is the government our forefathers warned us about. Doing this post, I sat here and cried, just for a little bit because I love America so much and to see this happening, that it might happen breaks my heart. Then I felt sick totally sick to my stomach. We can fight. Remember our forfathers were fighting the British Empire. The Democrats for this are hardly even close to a viable adversary. Americans love peace and family and the wonderful system and country GOD has given us. UPDATE:....This below MIGHT mean they still do not have the votes. Just got this writing in an e from Rep. Marsha Blackburn: As I write this, Members are being informed that the health care debate is likely to extend through the weekend. A final vote may not come until Tuesday. The Rules Committee, the body that decides what amendments will and not be considered on H.R. 3962 is meeting now. I am waiting my turn to offer a series of amendments that would make H.R. 3962 a better bill. Perhaps the most important amendment prevents unfunded mandates from being passed on to the states. This bill expands Medicaid to 150% of the Federal Poverty Level and then sticks Tennessee with part of the bill in the out years. That means that Tennessee would have to find another $1.4 billion by 2019. That's money we just don't have. I have listed my other amendments at the end of this note. This morning I was on C-Span's Washington Journal. The host asked me if I agreed with Leader Boehner's assessment that this health care bill is a threat to our freedom. As I answered on C-Span: "I think people are looking at what has transpired since the first of the year, the philosophical change where there is more government control of most sectors , whether it is investment banking, whether it is consumer credit, whether it is auto manufacturing, student loans, health care. They’re looking at what is happening with energy, when we talk about having cap and tax. They’re looking at what is happening with communication, with what I call 'fairness doctrine for the Internet' They call it net neutrality. It’s not very neutral. People are growing deeply concerned about the shifting of philosophy in this government.” Yesterday, dozens of Tennesseans were in Washington to express their outrage at this bill. I was inspired by their sacrifice. They know, as do I, that there is a better way, and there are far better bills to fix health care in this country. My Best, Mark
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:47 AM
| Comments (4)
20,000 to 40,000 people Against the Health Care Bill of Speaker Pelosi. November 5, 2009. View from atop the Dome
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Marsha
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
November 06, 2009
Yesterday's Rally of 20,000 Washington DC. Against the Health Care Bill of Speaker Pelosi
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Republicans Rally Resistance to Health Care Bill, as House Vote Nears
Republicans host a rally against Democrats' health care reform, calling on those who attend to track down their elected representatives in Congress and put pressure on them to think twice about voting for the more than $1 trillion health care overhaul.
As a crowd of protesters shouted "kill the bill," House Republicans on Thursday rallied opposition against the Democrats' health care legislation, decrying the bill on the steps of Congress in a last-ditch bid to derail or at least delay the legislation heading toward a possible vote Saturday.Thousands of protesters arrived by bus for the rally, which the GOP is calling an emergency "House Call." The event drew the conservative "tea party" activists but unlike past rallies was officially sanctioned by House Republicans.
Republicans want those who attend to track down their elected representatives in Congress and put pressure on them to think twice about voting for the more than $1 trillion health care overhaul pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"They're going to listen," said Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who originally called for the rally. "The biggest voice in the United States is your voice."
Voight: "His agenda is not for the poor it is for his political gain, the lies and propaganda are all very blatant as shown to us by those who exposed ACORN which is as corrupt as all the President's Czars, and Obama is to deny his connection to ACORN claiming no awareness of ACORN's support from all our tax dollars, this country is showing signs of his failed stimulus programs.
His only success in his one year term as President is taking America apart piece by piece. Could it be he has had 20 years of subconsious programming by Reverend Wright to damn America?
Mark Levin Speech At Health Care Tea Party Washington D.C.
"You see that building, you own that building...they are taking a wrecking ball to this magnificent society and that's just the first 9 months"
Wild Thing's comment.......
Fantastic! That was a great turnout, for something during the week and only planned for ONE week. wow!
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:49 AM | Comments (4)
November 05, 2009
Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) Admits Pelosi Health Care Bill Will RAISE Taxes
Yarmuth (D-KY) saying, “Yeah – everyone knows healthcare costs are going to go up. We never said they weren’t. We’re just trying to make them go up SLOWER.”
Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) admitted to Fox News today that Speaker Pelosi's government takeover of health care won't lower costs for families and small businesses, saying, "Nobody ever believes we can actually bring costs down..." Speaker Pelosi has claimed that her bill which radically increases government spending and imposes crippling tax hikes on families and small businesses is focused on "lowering health care costs for all of us."
Kentucky Congressman John Yarmuth (D) was just on Fox News. In an exchange with Trace Gallagher he admitted that the Democrats never intended for the healthcare legislation to cut cost. Here are the quotes:
Trace: "But I thought the idea was to lower cost."
Yarmuth: "Nobody ever said we were ever going to bring the cost down."
Later in the exchange:
Yarmuth: "Nobody ever believed we could actually bring cost down."
Wild Thing's comment......
LOL oh dear, Obama and Pelosi and the rest of the enemy within are not going to like this Democrat saying that about Taxes. hahahaha The enemy within has been saying no new taxes for this, but all of you know that isi not true. Your all awesome I love all your input on things, thank you so much.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:40 AM | Comments (5)
November 04, 2009
Rep. Michele Bachmann, Mark Levin Thursday at High Noon, East Steps of Capitol
Washington News Observer sat down with Rep. Michele Bachmann to discuss the latest twist and turns in the health care debate. Rep. Bachmann has taken the lead in calling for citizens concerned about a government take over of health care to rally at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, November 5th and make “house calls” on their members of Congress. Info on that event can be found .....HERE....Renew America!
Talk radio host and best selling author Mark Levin will join with Michelle Bachmann on the Capital Steps on Thursday at noon. Concerned Americans will join the top conservatives to protest the Pelosi nationalized health care disaster.
From the Representative Bachmann’s website:
Bachmann Calls on the American People to Bring the Town Hall To Washington “This is the deciding moment and the people need to make sure their representatives know where they stand.”
Washington, D.C.
WHAT: Health Care “House Call” on Washington Press Conference
WHO: Republican Members of Congress Americans concerned about our health care future Other Guests – TBA
WHEN: Thursday, November 5, 2009 from 12:00-1
WHERE: East Front Steps of the U.S. Capitol (House Side)
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann released the following statement as the House of Representatives approaches a vote on the Democrats’ health care reform proposal:
“The American people spoke loud and clear at town hall meetings all across the country throughout August. But, it would appear that Congress didn’t hear a word they had to say. The Democrats’ latest health care proposal unveiled late last week may be packaged a little differently, but it’s the same old bad bill as before.
“This bill is a trillion-dollar, budget-busting, government takeover of our health care system. It will put bureaucrats between people and their health care. It will lead to rationed care, hurting the most vulnerable amongst us first. It will break the bank, leaving our children to pay the bill with diminished freedoms and dwindling prosperity.
“The American people need to stand up again and make sure that Congress hears them this time. Speaker Pelosi is putting her bill on fast track to a vote – and it remains to be seen if the House will even get a chance to vote on the commonsense Republican alternatives. The people need to make a House Call on Washington this week and tell their Representatives to vote no to a government take-over of one-fifth of our economy. This is gangster government at its worst.
“I urge all Americans to come to Washington this Thursday. Come and meet up with your Representative and tell them that you want to control your health care.”
Bachmann believes this is one of the last chances to stop Pelosi’s push to bring Socialized Medicine to America:
“The American people need to stand up again and make sure that Congress hears them this time. Speaker Pelosi is putting her bill on fast track to a vote – and it remains to be seen if the House will even get a chance to vote on the commonsense Republican alternatives. The people need to make a House Call on Washington this week and tell their Representatives to vote no to a government take-over of one-fifth of our economy. This is gangster government at its worst.”
Wild Thing's comment..........
Actor Jon Voight will also be giving a speech at the rally. He is a Troop loving patriot and a strong Conservative. Great to see he's going to be there too.
.... Thank you Jim for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:47 AM | Comments (3)
November 03, 2009
The Price of Pelosi Bill is Now Up to $1.2 Trillion and Threatens U.S. Medical Education System
The Price of Pelosi Bill is Now Up to $1.2 Trillion
The health care bill headed for a vote in the House this week costs $1.2 trillion or more over a decade, according to numerous Democratic officials and figures contained in an analysis by congressional budget experts, far higher than the $900 billion cited by President Obama as a price tag for his reform plan.
While the Congressional Budget Office has put the cost of expanding coverage in the legislation at roughly $1 trillion, Democrats added billions more on higher spending for public health, a reinsurance program to hold down retiree health costs, payments for preventive services and more.
Many of the additions are designed to improve benefits or ease access to coverage in government programs. The officials who provided overall cost estimates did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has referred repeatedly to the bill's net cost of $894 billion over a decade for coverage.
Asked about the higher estimate, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said the measure not only insures 36 million more Americans, it provides critical health insurance reform in a way that is fiscally sound.
"It will not add one dime to the deficit. In fact, the CBO said last week that it will reduce the deficit both in the first 10 years and in the second 10 years," Daly said.
Republicans put the cost of the bill at nearly $1.3 trillion.
"Our goal is to make it as difficult as possible for" Democrats to pass it, House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a news conference. "We believe it is the wrong prescription."
One day after announcing Republicans would have an alternative measure, Boehner offered few details. He said it would omit one of the central provisions in Democratic bills — a ban on the insurance industry's practice of denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. Instead, he said the Republicans would encourage creation of insurance pools for high-risk individuals and take other steps to ease their access to coverage.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the third-ranking leader, said that Democrats looked at their bill as a way to advance universal coverage. In contrast, he said, Republicans "believe the real issue back home is cost" of insurance, and said their alternative would be designed to tackle it.
In House bill, tax hits rich
The typical family would be spared higher taxes from the House Democratic plan to overhaul health care, and their low-income neighbors could come out ahead.
Their wealthy counterparts, however, face big tax increases that could eventually hit future generations of taxpayers who are less wealthy.
The bill is funded largely from a 5.4% tax on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and couples making more than $1 million, starting in 2011. The tax increase would hit only 0.3% of tax filers, raising $460.5 billion over the next 10 years, according to congressional estimates.
But unlike other income tax rates, the new tax would not be indexed for inflation. As incomes rise over time because of inflation, more families — and more small business owners — would be hit by the tax.
"Twenty years from now, we're going to see more and more small businesses ensnared into paying higher taxes," said Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
The tax would hit only 1.2% of taxpayers who claim business income on their returns, according to the estimates by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. But that percentage would grow as business owners' nominal incomes rise with inflation.
In 2011, a family of four with an income of $800,000 a year would get a $24,000 tax increase, when the new tax is combined with an increase in the top two tax brackets proposed by President Obama and other scheduled tax changes, according to an analysis by Deloitte Tax. That's a 12.5% increase in federal income taxes.
A family of four making $5 million a year would see a $434,500 tax increase, about a 32% increase, according to the analysis.
"These are very big numbers and very high effective tax rates," said Clint Stretch, a tax policy expert at Deloitte Tax.
The new health care tax would come on top of other tax increases for the wealthy proposed by Obama. The top marginal income tax rate now is 35%, on income above $372,950. Obama wants to boost the top rate to 39.6% in 2011 by allowing some of the tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush to expire.
House Democrats said they are proud that they found a way to finance the health care package largely from a tax on the wealthy. There is, however, little appetite for a millionaire's tax in the Senate, where some hope to eventually use tax increases on the wealthy to help close the growing federal budget deficit. Also, some tax experts think it is a mistake to tap only rich people to pay for services used by all.
"If health care is a benefit that is worth having, then it's worth paying for," said William Gale, who was an adviser to President George H. W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and is now co-director of the Tax Policy Center. "This gives the impression that it's only worth having if someone else pays for it."
Obama promised during the presidential campaign that he would not increase taxes on couples making less than $250,000. However, the health care bill would impose new taxes on people who don't buy qualified health insurance, including those making less than $250,000 a year.
Under the bill, individuals are required to obtain health insurance coverage or pay penalties, which are described as taxes in the legislation. The penalty would be equal to the cost of an average insurance plan or a 2.5% tax on incomes above the standard threshold for filing a tax return, whichever is less. There would be waivers for financial hardships.
To help afford insurance, families with incomes up to four times the federal poverty level would qualify for subsidies. The poverty level for a family of four is $22,050 this year.
Republicans argue that the penalties violate Obama's tax pledge, and they liken the millionaire's tax to the Alternative Minimum Tax, which Congress enacted in 1969 to ensure that wealthy Americans cannot use loopholes to avoid paying any income taxes.
The AMT was never indexed for inflation, so Congress must enact a fix each year to spare about 25 million middle-income families from being hit with big tax increases.
"They're going down the same road by not indexing this tax," said the Republican lawmaker Camp.
Obamacare Threatens U.S. Medical Education System
The federal government will expand its role in training new doctors and nurses under the Democrats' healthcare reform proposals to the point that one prominent surgeon is warning of a federal "takeover" of medical education.
The HR 3962 reform bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled last week would provide billions in medical-education grants.
Some of those grants would help future doctors and nurses pay for their degrees in return for their participation in specific disciplines or programs.
Other grants would pay organizations to create educational and training programs under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Democrats say the programs are a necessary aspect of bringing another 36 million individuals into the U.S. healthcare system.
The Association of American Medical Programs projects a shortage of between 124,000 and 159,000 physicians by 2025. Reform will aggravate that shortfall by an additional 25 percent, the association states.
"There is mounting evidence that a physician workforce shortage exists in primary care as well as in a number of other specialties," according to the association's report.
Opponents of healthcare reform warn that universal coverage under these circumstances can only lead to one thing: rationing of healthcare.
Fox News contributor and Newsmax pundit Dick Morris, for example, writes: "Because there will not be enough doctors, nurses, and medical equipment for the massive influx of patients under the Obama plan, there will be rationing, more draconian year after year."
Spending federal dollars to bolster training and education, and directing it toward fields in short supply, would seem one way to address that problem. But some medical experts see a darker intent behind the extensive, medical-education provisions in the reform bills that are now under consideration in the House and Senate.
Dr. Russell Blaylock, a board-certified neurosurgeon and author who is editor of the Blaylock Wellness Report published by Newsmax Media Inc., warns that reform proposals portend a "takeover of the entire medical-education system."
Blaylock told Newsmax he foresees the day when medical schools "will have to get federal approval, that they will appoint professors and set curriculum for the schools and they will direct residence and intern-training programs and set curriculum for these training programs."
He added, "Now, that means. . . federalization of medical education in the United States, which is the open door for federal medical license."
Among provisions in the House bill that suggest a bulked-up federal role in medical education:
~snipet~
Increased federal involvement in medical education indicates that proponents of reform "are lying," and intend to socialize the healthcare sector, Blaylock told Newsmax. Healthcare accounts for approximately one-sixth of the nation's economy.
"If you look at the history of the socialization of medicine in every country in the world it all started the same way," he said. "It's piecemeal, where there's a group of people who are not covered, and all we are trying to do is cover them. Well, then there is another group that needs to be covered, so now we cover them. And then you say, 'Well, if those two groups are getting it, why should we do it for everybody else.'"
North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx speaking from the House Floor today, where she said her constituents tell her they "fear" what is happening in America today - fear the loss of freedom and what the future holds. Rep. Foxx said they should be afraid. In fact, Foxx said:
“I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country."
Saying the Democrats' Health Care Bill, which she said is a "tax increase bill masquerading as a Health Care Bill."
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Wild Thing's comment.........
And that’s in addition to all the costs they are pushing out to the States, Individuals, health care providers, and pharmaceuticals.
On the second article, I get the Blaylock Wellness Report that Dr. Baylock does and it is awesome. It always has tons of good infomration on supplements and vitamins and how to stay healthy and good thing to do to make ones heart healthy.
Can you imagine too not enough doctors and nurses etc. once this all goes into effect. Very scary.
Fox News contributor and Newsmax pundit Dick Morris, for example, writes: "Because there will not be enough doctors, nurses, and medical equipment for the massive influx of patients under the Obama plan, there will be rationing, more draconian year after year."
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (4)
November 02, 2009
'Personhood' Movement Explodes in 32 States
'Personhood' movement explodes in 32 states
Pro-lifers: Wildfire effort could be death blow to abortion in Obamacare
A pro-life movement seeking to guarantee basic human rights to unborn babies is exploding in 32 states – and leaders say it could be just the key to nullifying abortion provisions in President Obama's health-care "reform."
While abortion was not specifically mentioned in earlier bills under consideration, H.R.3962, unveiled by Nancy Pelosi this week, does in fact state abortion is to be covered. Concerns are mounting that whatever the final form of the legislation, the procedure will become more accessible, requiring health insurance companies to fund abortions.
Gualberto Garcia Jones is director of Personhood Colorado and a legal analyst for Personhood USA, a grassroots Christian organization that seeks to legally define every unborn baby as a "person" protected by God-given and constitutionally protected rights, including the right to life. His organization was set up to support personhood efforts across America through legislation and constitutional amendments.
"We're trying to end abortion right now," Garcia Jones told WND. "All of our laws that we're promoting are direct challenges to Roe v. Wade. If we can get a challenge up to the Supreme Court, then that's the ideal thing. That's what we're trying to do."
The personhood approach within the pro-life movement was sparked by a statement in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that opened the doors for legal abortion in the U.S.
Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in the majority opinion for Roe v. Wade, "The appellee and certain amici [pro-lifers] argue that the fetus is a 'person' within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment."
According to the movement, if every unborn baby is defined as a person, each baby will be legally guaranteed the same right to life as all Americans.
"We believe – and a lot of the justices on the Supreme Court agree with us – that there is no right to privacy that would allow abortion," Garcia Jones said. "Since it's not mentioned directly in the 14th Amendment, we could use the 10th Amendment and the states' rights to police themselves and to pass laws regulating morality and health and safety to regulate abortion so it's not permitted. Basically it would be treated the same way as a homicide, where a state can regulate how they punish it and how they try to prevent it, but they could never allow it."
He continued, "We believe respect for life is in the Constitution, so therefore a state could never say you can kill a person."
Garcia Jones said the personhood movement is a timely approach considering the widespread success of the tea party movement, the states' rights movement and voter frustration with what they consider overreaching policies by the federal government.
He said citizens in 32 states are now acting to find sponsors for personhood statutes or constitutional amendments to include them on 2010 ballots.
"It's taken off so much that we're having trouble keeping up with it," he said. "Colorado, Montana, Missouri, Mississippi and California are all in the process of getting signatures."
The Los Angeles Times reported Sept. 28 that while personhood measures failed in Montana and North Dakota legislatures earlier this year, "the close votes alarmed supporters of legal abortion."
According to WND columnist Jill Stanek, pro-life legislators in Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana and Texas have also signaled their intent to introduce personhood statutes.
A national pro-life group is warning members of Congress that a vote in favor of the 1,990-page House healthcare bill is a vote to establish a federal government program that will fund abortion-on-demand with taxpayer dollars.
Page 110 the Affordable Health Care for America Act, authorizes a new government health insurance program to pay for all elective abortions.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, says: "This is a federal agency, a federal program, [and] of course it's going to spend federal funds -- that's the only kind of funds it's got. So all of these assurances that some prominent Democrats, including President Obama, have given that there won't be federal funding for abortions, that's not what's in the bill."
Mr. Johnson maintains that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) wants to ram the bill through Congress without the House Members having the opportunity to vote on a single amendment.
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Wild Thing's comment........
This is so horrible, that they would force all of us to pay for abortions in this anti-life healh care of Obama's. I sure hope the group mentioned in the article can stop it. I bet a lot of people don't even know it is in the bill.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:49 AM | Comments (6)
November 01, 2009
Pelosi Health Care Bill Blow a Kiss At Trial Lawyers
Bachman also announced that if this bill passes the Obama Administration will have taken over 48% of the private economy this year.
Rep. Michelle Bachman is calling all Americans to join her on the steps of the Capital Building in Washington DC on Thursday November 5th to stop “the Crown Jewel of Socialism” – the democrat’s bill to take over the US health care industry.
Pelosi Health Care Bill Blow a Kiss At Trial Lawyers
The health care bill recently unveiled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi is over 1,900 pages for a reason. It is much easier to dispense goodies to favored interest groups if they are surrounded by a lot of legislative legalese. For example, check out this juicy morsel to the trial lawyers (page 1431-1433 of the bill):
Section 2531, entitled “Medical Liability Alternatives,” establishes an incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation. [But]…… a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys’ fees or imposes caps on damages.
So, you can’t try to seek alternatives to lawsuits if you’ve actually done something to implement alternatives to lawsuits. Brilliant! The trial lawyers must be very happy today!
While there is debate over the details, it is clear that medical malpractive lawsuits have some impact on driving health care costs higher. There are likely a number of procedures that are done simply as a defense against future possible litigation. Recall this from the Washington Post:
“Lawmakers could save as much as $54 billion over the next decade by imposing an array of new limits on medical malpractice lawsuits, congressional budget analysts said today — a substantial sum that could help cover the cost of President Obama’s overhaul of the nation’s health system. New research shows that legal reforms would not only lower malpractice insurance premiums for medical providers, but would also spur providers to save money by ordering fewer tests and procedures aimed primarily at defending their decisions in court, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, wrote in a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).”
Stay tuned. There are certainly many more terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad provisions in this massive bill.
Wild Thing's comment.......
What this article says and all the other things show us why Pelosi insisted on closed doors being required to write the provisions.
Nancy Pelosi, YOU LIE. You do NOT oversee the most ethical Congress in history. Resign NOW, lying crooked witch.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:50 AM | Comments (7)
October 31, 2009
Obama's Controlling Our Lives Government Care
Premiums to Skyrocket Under Obamacare
By: David A. Patten
Skyrocketing insurance premiums will slam millions of consumers next year because of "indirect taxes" contained in both the House and Senate versions of healthcare reform, according to various medical and insurance industry experts.
Healthcare reforms that were supposed to contain costs actually will cause a sharp hike in premiums, they add. In fact, several studies indicate consumers' premiums could more than double next year if healthcare reform takes effect.
"So even though this bill tries to hide these costs as indirect taxes," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, recently told a business symposium, "average Americans who purchase health plans, take prescription drugs, or use medical devices will end up footing the bill."
The rate hikes stem from the hundreds of billions in proposed fees and taxes levied on providers.
For example, the Finance Committee's proposal would assess $322 billion in taxes and fees on insurance premiums, prescription drugs, and medical devices, according to the Senate's Joint Committee on Taxation.
The committee and other experts say virtually all of those costs will be passed along to consumers in all tax brackets — despite President Barack Obama's pledge not to raise taxes "one dime" on those earning less than $250,000 per year.
Another likely frustration for consumers: The premium hikes will take effect right away, while the subsidies and benefits in healthcare reform won't kick in completely until 2014.
Scott Gottlieb, a physician and American Enterprise Institute resident fellow, stated Thursday in a New York Post op-ed that, by front-loading the costs and back-loading benefits, Congress is resorting to "a gimmick that imposes a stiff price on the public."
That "gimmick," Gottlieb claims: using 10 years of added fees and taxes on providers to offset about five years worth of benefits. Those costs "will immediately shift onto consumers, in the form of higher prices on medical products and rising premiums," he says.
Democrats have promised to insure an additional 35 million Americans, without raising taxes or increasing the tsunami of deficit red ink spilling out of Washington these days. ( LIES more LIES ~ Wild Thing )
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, appeared to concur with Gottlieb's assessment in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed.
"These costs will be passed on to consumers by either directly raising insurance premiums, or by fueling higher health-care costs that inevitably lead to higher premiums," he wrote.
The bottom line: Most voters will be paying higher premiums for years before they see any benefits. That could spell serious trouble for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.
The Senate bill proposes $2.3 billion in fees on brand-name drugs, $4 billion on medical devices, and $6.7 billion levied on insurance companies, plus more than $100 billion in Medicare reimbursements to medical providers — all costs that would be shifted back onto consumers.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's House bill appears even more expensive. It would impose $150 billion in Medicare cuts on the pharmaceutical industry, and a 2.5 percent tax on companies that manufacture medical devices.
"Most of astounding of all," Holtz-Eakin wrote, "is what this Congress is willing to do to struggling middle-class families. The bill would impose nearly $400 billion in new taxes and fees. Nearly 90 percent of that burden will be shouldered by those making $200,000 or less."
~ snipet ~
The spiraling costs contained in the Affordable Health Care for America Act that Pelosi unveiled Thursday drew heavy fire:
Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Gregory Conko called the bill "a recipe for exploding costs," adding: "The Affordable Health Care for America Act is anything but affordable. It will force millions of Americans to pay higher health insurance premiums, it taxes individuals who would like to purchase insurance options that don’t meet standards set by Washington bureaucrats, and it forces businesses and individuals to pay for insurance benefits they don’t want and don’t need."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, the National Association of Manufacturers, and seven other major associations sent a letter to Pelosi warning the legislation "falls short of the bipartisan goal of controlling costs."
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the chairman of the House Republican Conference, told CNN the Pelosi plan "looks like another freight train of big government with more taxes, more mandate and more spending – and that's not what the American people want in healthcare reform." He added that a search showed the nearly 2,000-page bill contains the directive "shall" 3,425 times.
Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., remarked: "The people of this country want reforms that provide them with more choices, more competition, more innovation, higher quality, and lower costs. Instead, Democrat leaders have worked in secret to write a bill that does exactly the opposite."
Karen Ignagni, the president of the America's Health Insurance Plans trade group that lobbies Congress on behalf of insurance companies, called the proposal "a missed opportunity." Ignagni predicted "families and employers will not be able to afford coverage and healthcare costs will rise at a rate much faster than the overall economy is able to sustain." In addition to the Wellpoint study, AHIP says three other reports, including one by PricewaterhouseCoopers, project that the legislative proposals will cause premiums to increase "far faster and higher" than they would under the present system.
ObamaCare Debate : Freedom vs. Oppression
On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation:
“That on the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. . . And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”
With these words President Lincoln ended slavery – a flagrant violation of the institutions of the United States of America, “a government of, by and for all the people.”
The institution of slavery denied essential freedoms to fellow Americans. Today, in 2009, another freedom is being denied to every man, woman and child — freedom of health care.
The Obama Health Care Plan is the instruction manual and play book for this mandate.
These “Masters” of Health Care are trying to deny individuals the freedom to choose what doctor you can see, what medicine you can take, what hospital you can go to, and how you spend your health care dollars. They even take it a step further in the Obama Health Care Plan, determining – IF – yes, IF you can be treated. These “Masters” of Health Care are driving us to unnecessary pain, suffering, and, in some cases, death.
If any American chooses NOT to have coverage, as millions currently do, then they will be fined. If they do NOT pay the fine then they will penalized $25,000 or ‘Go To Jail’…..Go directly to jail without passing Go.
But the penalties, taxes and punishments do not stop there. In fact, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid do NOT want you to consider the taxes really to be taxes. On page 203 of the health care bill (the one that is currently available to the public) it is stated, “The tax imposed under this section shall NOT be treated as a tax imposed.” I kid you not…..how dumb do they think we are?
While out of one side of his mouth President Obama claims there will not be an increase in “taxes,” it has also been reported that a provision to tax medical appliances has been proposed to partially fund the health care plan.
The Senate recently exempted medical items that cost under $100 — such as tampons and condoms. But the tax, expected to raise about $40 billion over the next decade, is still in the bill and includes items like:
•Pacemakers
•Hip joint replacements
•Gastrointestinal tubes
•Artificial hearts
•Hearing aids
•Porcelain teeth
•Heart defibrillators
•Prosthetic heart valve rotators
•Powered wheelchairs
•Ventilators
The Medical Device Manufacturer’s Association said that the tax would hurt them, as well as those who need medical devices.
The rationing of care in the Two Part Obama Health Care Plan is implemented through a Council, equivalent to the National Health Care Board in the British Health Care System. The name given to this panel is The Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research (“Federal Council”). (Section 9201 H.R. 1 Version of the Stimulus Bill.)
President Obama has already appointed the fifteen-member Federal Council. According to the Stimulus Bill, p. 152, all members of the Council must be “senior federal officers or employees.” Thus, medical treatment will be dispensed by a group of bureaucrats from their ivory towers, not by the hands-on practitioners in the presence of the patients. The council was funded with $1.1 BILLION from the stimulus bill.
It becomes evident that the Obama health Care plan as advanced by Pelosi, Reid and the Democrat majority in the House and Senate is NOT about bringing affordability and availability to the health care system. This insidious Plan is about wresting control of every American’s life and death through penalties, punishments, taxes and coercion.
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Wild Thing's comment..........
A lot of trees died for this POS bill and a lot of PEOPLE may die if this POS bill passes.
Obama and Congress and the central government are a danger to our health.
111TH CONGRESS, 1ST SESSION
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
A 1990 Page BILL
To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other bullshit purposes.
What the .. HECK is This doing in a "Health care" Bill???
SEC. 815. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING LAW ENFORCEMENT AND METHAMPHETAMINE ISSUES IN INDIAN COUNTRY.
It is the sense of Congress that Congress encourages State, local, and Indian tribal law enforcement agencies to enter into memoranda of agreement between and among those agencies for purposes of streamlining law enforcement activities and maximizing the use of limited resources—
(1) to improve law enforcement services provided to Indian tribal communities; and
(2) to increase the effectiveness of measures to address problems relating to methamphetamine use in Indian country (as defined in section 1151 of title 18, United States Code).
This has no business being here. No wonder its 1990 pages.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:50 AM | Comments (6)
Possibly Around 40 Dems Line Up Against Federal Abortion Funding in Healthcare Bill
Around 40 Dems line up against federal abortion funding in healthcare bill
Approximately 40 House Democrats are prepared to block healthcare reform legislation from coming to the floor should the bill include federal subsidies for abortions, said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) Friday.
Stupak, who is conservative on social issues, told CNS News that he has organized the voting bloc to support his amendment that would strip the abortion provisions from the legislation. House Rules Committee chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), according to Stupak, said that there is "no way" her panel would provide a vote for his amendment.
The group of 40 would join House Republicans in voting against procedural measure that would draft rules for debating the bill on the House floor. Passage of the measure is necessary for the House to hold a floor vote.
"There’s about 40 like-minded Democrats like myself -- we’ll try to take down the rule," Stupak said. “If all 40 of us vote in a bloc against the rule -- because we think the Republicans will join us -- we can defeat the rule. The magic number is 218. If we can have 218 votes against the rule, we win.”
With 177 Republicans in the House, Stupak would need at least 41 Democrats to cross the aisle and vote against the rule. Stupak's amendment was originally defeated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee during mark-up.
Under language in the Energy and Commerce proposal, one health plan in each health care "exchange" that sells public health insurance must provide coverage for abortion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is currently in the process of merging the House's three health bills.
“We’re just finishing our conferencing on this legislation,” Pelosi told CNS. “We haven’t even gone through the procedure as to what we’ll do on the floor, if there even are any amendments on the floor.”
Wild Thing's comment........
You’d think Obama might just drop this fairly minor aspect of his enormous health takeover. But just as killing babies was the bottom line for clinton, the one thing he would not give in on (witness the partial birth abortion vetoes), so I think it will be the bottom line for Obama. It’s the one thing he can’t give in on.
It seems as if killing babies is more important to the Democrat leadership than saving babies is to the Republican leadership. They understand what really drives their base.
I am amazed that there is a conservative dem on any issues but I am glad there is ONE that is taking a stand and has plans to try to fight this thing. Republicans surely will join in except probably.
Posted by Wild Thing at 12:48 AM | Comments (1)
October 30, 2009
Obama's Socialized Medicine Bill Contains Menu Requirements
House health care bill contains menu requirements
Tucked inside Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s 1,990-page health care reform bill that was unveiled Thursday is a requirement for chain restaurants to post caloric information on their menus.
Pages 1511-1519 of the bill outline the new laws for restaurants, mandating any restaurants operating in 20 or more locations post caloric information “prominently” on menus in a way that's “designed to enable the public to understand, in the context of a total daily diet, the significance of the caloric information that is provided on the menu.”
That means all the big-name chains, like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and McDonald’s will need to post calorie counts next to their offerings, even on their drive-thru menus.
The government will also ensure that vending machines show calorie counts, as well. The bill says that anyone who operates 20 or more vending machines “shall provide a sign in close proximity to each article of food or the selection button that includes a clear and conspicuous statement disclosing the number of calories contained in the article.”
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Wild Thing's comment.......
What is the profit margin of restaurants? Seems I heard it is very slim. What are they trying to do? Put them out of business? It is going to cost food establishments a lot of money to change and print all these menus and info sheets.
To compensate they will just increase menu prices...again.
What is next, government mandated menus, this is what you can eat and this is what you cant.
Its coming.. and that’s why I am so TICKED OFF at this push for govt health care.. its not about health.. its about total control of our lifestyles.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:50 AM | Comments (5)
Rush Limbaugh Reaction To Pelosi's LIES and Look At The TAXES In the Bill
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Rush Limbaugh reacted to Speaker Pelosi's outrageous announcement that her government run health care plan was 'deficit neutral." Rush says this liar should go to jail and that Bernie Madoff is small fry compared to the theft going on in Washington today.
Here’s the transcript:
RUSH:
As you have probably heard, ladies and gentlemen, Nancy Pelosi just once again claimed that the House health care reform bill will not add one penny to the federal deficit. Of course this is absurd. It will turn out to be absurdly untrue if this thing ever sees the light day of, and when it does, when it does, when it is exposed as a total fraud, when she and everybody else supporting this are exposed as total liars about all of this being deficit neutral, about all of this covering all these people, about everybody getting all this health care for what they think will be nothing, when all of that is exposed, shouldn’t people like Nancy Pelosi, who lie to get such things passed into legislation, have to face some kind of real consequences? This is nothing more than theft. Are they not thieves? They are stealing billions of dollars from US taxpayers, both taxpayers of today and tomorrow. You can’t even say that they’re enriched by their thievery ’cause they do it to buy votes and more power, and some of them do get enriched as a result of all this.
Why shouldn’t people who steal billions of dollars have to go to jail if the small fry like Bernie Madoff has to go to jail? Madoff is chump change compared to Nancy Pelosi, chump change compared to Barney Frank and Harry Reid. This is generational theft that is going on here. I mean let’s step back. Nancy Pelosi is the most radical Speaker of the House ever, from one of the most radical communities in the nation, San Francisco. She’s pushing this newest proposal now. She’s never cared about costs before, she doesn’t care about them now. She’s never cared about economic reality before because she’s insulated from it. She is wealthy. Her husband is wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. She is George McGovern on hormones, steroids and everything else, and she sees this as the best way for her and her ilk to remain in power for decades.
Folks, both the Senate bill, Dingy Harry’s little bill over there and Pelosi’s bill today are time bombs. They are ticking time bombs. They are designed to destroy private insurance companies and thus the economy. If you look at it from their standpoint these are brilliantly conceived bills and they’re guaranteed to work, they are going to do exactly what these Democrats intend. If they are passed, only massive Republican gains in 2010 and 2012 can diffuse this time bomb because the stuff doesn’t get implemented until after the 2012 election if it passes.
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TAXES IN OBAMACARE
The Bill is called the "Affordable Health Care for America Act." The irony comes from the fact that it is loaded with new taxes, there is nothing affordable about this legislation which increase the burden of both businesses and taxpayers. Below is a comprehensive list compiled by ATR which shows each new tax in the House bill:
Source...The Lid Blog
Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).
Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.
Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.