It won't be long now until your Obamanation middle class tax increases kick in with a vengence

......when the largest tax increase in history becomes effective 1/1/11..

Which of the listed categories of tax increase will be the most obnoxious? Which will be most effective in killing the economy? Which will cost the most jobs? which one will receive the loudest cheers from the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives"/Useful Idiots?

Remember......this stuff is all in addition to the impact of Cap 'n Trade, Financial "Reform", and the Value Added Tax will cost you.

Playing the health care reform game in Massachusetts

Individuals are gaming the the Massachusetts prototype of Obamacare's health care "reform."

Noteworthy:

"Some Massachusetts consumers seem to be buying the health insurance they are required to carry when – and only when – they have health problems.

...The Massachusetts Division of Insurance decided to commission a study of the individual health market in the summer of 2009, when health carriers told the division they were seeing spikes in utilization among newly enrolled individual plan members.

'The health carriers indicated that more individuals were terminating coverage after having expensive medical procedures,' Welch and Giesa say.

...The percentage of individuals terminating coverage within their first year increased to 24% in 2008, from 14% in 2006.

One-year lapse rates increased dramatically both for low-cost individuals and high-cost individuals, with the number growing 223% between 2006 and 2008, to about 2,141, for high-cost individual subscribes, and more than 400%, to 24,000, for the low-cost subscribers."

Imagine that!

No, there's no gaping holes in the abomination known as Obamacare/Health Care "Reform", is there?

We have yet to see the extent of the horrors from the coming disaster they've inflicted upon us.

Hurry! Get yours now, before they run out!

From Americans for Tax Reform.

Hat tip: Doug Ross

So you thought Health Care "Reform" was full of smoke and mirrors?

Welcome to Financial "Reform".

Key point:

"Sleep tight tonight, America, your Congress is in control. "

Health care "Reform": The Ends DO NOT Justify The Means

"The House can't approve the senate legislation by which it approves changes in the Senate bill."

Noteworthy:

"The Supreme Court might well hold that Field governs only questions of historical fact, while Munoz-Flores governs questions of constitutional interpretation. In Field, the question was what text passed the two houses of Congress; there was no doubt that only what the two houses passed could be treated as law. Here, by contrast, there will be no dispute about what occurred in the House; the question will be whether using a self-executing rule in this way is consistent with Article I, Section 7.

It is one thing for the Supreme Court to defer to Congress on questions of what Congress did, and quite another to defer to Congress on the meaning of the Constitution. Indeed, in United States v. Ballin, decided the same year as Field, the Court ruled, 'The Constitution empowers each House to determine its own rules of proceedings. It may not by its rules ignore constitutional restraints . . '

One thing is sure: To proceed in this way creates an unnecessary risk that the legislation will be invalidated for violation of Article I, Section 7. Will wavering House members want to use this procedure when there is a nontrivial probability that the courts will render their political sacrifice wasted effort? To hazard that risk, the House leadership must have a powerful motive to avoid a straightforward vote."

#

"Why Isn't He Better at Being President?"

Jennifer Rubin asks the question that most folks want answered.

"Obama was the subject of many a pundit’s admiration. So smart! So worldly! Harvard Law Review. And so eloquent. That his speeches upon further reflection were practically unintelligible or self-parodies (are we the ones we have been waiting for? are the oceans really going to recede?) didn’t much matter. He was so smart.

So why isn’t his presidency going better than it is? Seriously, if he’s so smart and well-educated, shouldn’t he have come up with something better than the stimulus boondoggle? Shouldn’t he have gotten sanctions passed on Iran or figured out how not to offend both sides in the Middle East non-peace process? As Bret Stephens points out, we have gotten “bloated government, deficits and health-care bills; paralysis over Afghanistan and Iran; the convulsions over Gitmo and the CIA torture memos.” And then the mind-numbingly idiotic decision to put KSM in a Manhattan courtroom to preach the wonders of jihad and go after his captors. None of this seems very smart."

But for those of us who have been paying attention all along, these results WERE predictable.

#

Watch for Democrat voter fraud in NJ governor's race

There's a good chance the Dems, with their shady tactics, and their ACORN thug allies are ready to steal the election away from Chris Christie:

"The state has received a flood of 180,000 absentee ballot requests. On some 3,000 forms the signature doesn't match the one on file with county clerks. Yet citing concerns that voters would be disenfranchised, Democratic Party lawyer Paul Josephson wrote New Jersey's secretary of state asking her 'to instruct County Clerks not to deny applications on the basis of signature comparison alone.'

Mr. Josephson maintained that county clerks 'may be overworked and are likely not trained in handwriting analysis' and insisted that voters with suspect applications should be allowed to cast provisional ballots. Those ballots, of course, would then provide a pool of votes that would be subject to litigation in any recount, with the occupant of New Jersey's highest office determined by Florida 2000-style scrutiny of ballot applications."

The standard Democrat script calls for this type of thuggery every time they lose an important election by a small margin. It was successful in putting Franken the Clown into the Senate seat in MN.

#

Michelle Bachmann on ObamaPelosiCare

It's worse than you think.

MUCH worse.

Scene from today's Pelosi Public Option pep rally

Upset senior citizens were definitely not welcome.

This is a preview of what's to come in the next days and weeks.

Hat tip: John Goodman.

#

"Public Option" reality

Steve Chapman:

"If Medicare were a bank, federal regulators would be closing its doors, selling its operations and sacking its managers. Thanks to soaring costs, the program is fast running out of money -- even though it pays such low fees that many doctors refuse to take Medicare patients. Meanwhile, Medicare fraud costs taxpayers some $60 billion a year, according to a report by CBS's '60 Minutes,' making it among the most profitable fields for felons.

That's our experience with government-run health insurance for the elderly. So what do congressional Democrats propose to do? Offer government-run health insurance to everyone else."

Read the rest of the piece.

Speaking of reading things, I can almost guarantee that regardless of what they spring on us today, they will NOT let us read the whole thing.

The insanity of this is beyond rational comprehension.

UPDATE:

My, oh my! I was wrong.

Here's the disaster, all 1990 pdf pages of it.

This leads me to think some of the alternate theories about this were right. The Dems really don't expect this to be enacted, so the whole thing becomes a bone thrown the Looney Tooner Left's way.

By this evening, we should have all the horrid parts pretty well ready to expose for the bad stuff they represent. The response will be furious and overwhelming.

When the monstrosity ultimately dies it's deserved death, the Dems can then tell their fringe freaks "See? We tried! But those knuckle dragging conservatives and those eeeeeeeeevil insurance companies did us in!"

#

The Public Option? It's a mirage

.....says Robert Samuelson:

"In reality, the public plan, also known as the public option, is mostly an exercise in political avoidance: It pretends to control costs and improve access to quality care when it doesn't. "

Obama's foreign policy failures laid bare

Charles Krauthammer discusses one of the failures: Russia.

"Henry Kissinger once said that the main job of Anatoly Dobrynin, the perennial Soviet ambassador to Washington, was to tell the Kremlin leadership that whenever they received a proposal from the United States that appeared disadvantageous to the United States, not to assume it was a trick.

No need for a Dobrynin today. The Russian leadership, hardly believing its luck, needs no interpreter to understand that when the Obama team clownishly rushes in bearing gifts and 'reset' buttons, there is nothing ulterior, diabolical, clever or even serious behind it. It is amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity. In short, the very stuff of Nobels."

It's also pretty obvious that Obama can't even understand the lessons history teaches about the United States in world affairs, let alone domestic matters:

"These mistakes are important because they point to a serious underlying problem: no historical memory. This president does not have a clue about recent history let alone ancient history. He has no grounding on what works and what does not. His only guide is his philosophy or the ideology of his 'advisors.'

When a president has a philosophy, he must know that there will be a price for implementing it. Ronald Reagan knew that winning the Cold War meant budget deficits and all the problems that they bring. He also knew that implementing Reaganomics would bring long-term gains but also some very strong short-term pain. By knowing history he could craft effective long-term policy and gird his administration against the slings and arrows from his opponents for the downside that those policies bring.

This president has no idea what will work in either the domestic or international sphere. He does not realize that the country can ill afford expensive new social programs while we run a budget deficit that amounts to 10% of GDP. Obama does not understand that if you commit yourself to win a war in Afghanistan, you have to make a reasonable effort to do so and not be hemmed in by left-wing captives of ideology.

Furthermore, the lesson of Herbert Hoover is that a president does not raise taxes when the economy is in the tank. It is not smart economics. Full stop."

What has this increasingly failed President done right to this point in his presidency?

Someone?

ANYONE?

#

"Most tranparent Administration ever"?

Yeah, right.

Noteworthy:

"White House Counsel Greg Craig has indicated that he will refuse to allow any of the 18 new 'czar' positions created by President Obama to testify before Congress, according to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Collins revealed during a committee hearing Thursday that she had spoken with Craig, who had earlier sent a letter on behalf of the president, and that Craig told her personally that Congress would not get a chance to ask fundamental questions of the czars about their roles and responsibilities.

'Indeed, yesterday when I was talking to Greg Craig, the president’s legal counsel, he made it very clear that the White House would prohibit any of these officials with significant policy responsibility from coming to testify before us if they are located within the Executive Office of the President,' Collins said in her written opening statement."

I can hear the Usual Suspect babble on this issue now: "B-b-b-b-b-b-but what about Tom Ridge?", in a feeble attempt to equate the MANY "czars" of Obamanation to the ONE Homeland Security post Ridge held before it was elevated to Cabinet level.

Your new prescription is ready

.....if the Public Option Dems succeed in getting their way.



H/T Neal Boortz, via Fred Gregory.

Why health care reform will not work

The Dem majority will not make their trial lawyer affinity group benefactors mad by insisting that meaningful tort reform be part of any package.

Noteworthy:

"But this is the one reform Washington will not seriously consider. That's because the trial lawyers, among the largest contributors to the Democratic Party, thrive on the unreliable justice system we have now.

Almost all the other groups with a stake in health reform—including patient safety experts, physicians, the AARP, the Chamber of Commerce, schools of public health—support pilot projects such as special health courts that would move beyond today's hyper-adversarial malpractice lawsuit system to a court that would quickly and reliably distinguish between good and bad care. The support for some kind of reform reflects a growing awareness among these groups that managing health care sensibly, including containing costs, is almost impossible when doctors go through the day thinking about how to protect themselves from lawsuits."

Harvard economist says the impact of Obama's stimulus "will not be significantly different from zero"

But we knew that already, didn't we?

Noteworthy:

"Incoming data will reveal more in coming months, but the data available so far tell us that the government transfers and rebates have not stimulated consumption at all, and that the resilience of the private sector following the fall 2008 panic--not the fiscal stimulus program--deserves the lion's share of the credit for the impressive growth improvement from the first to the second quarter. As the economic recovery takes hold, it is important to continue assessing the role played by the stimulus package and other factors. These assessments can be a valuable guide to future policy makers in designing effective policy responses to economic downturns."

Not that any of this will phase our resident local "smart guy" and his fellow economic rocket scientists, who have consistently and arrogantly broadcast their complete ignorance and incompetence in their purported "analysis" of the current financial crisis.

#

"The Biggest Liar of Them All"

Robert Romano:

"Barack Obama is lying. And there is no need to apologize for telling it like it is, as Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) did after he shouted 'You lie!' as Obama spoke to the joint session of Congress on Wednesday. He’s a liar.

As you know, in the speech to Congress, Obama took one last bite at the apple to try and sell his government takeover of the health care sector. Therein, he attempted to dispel what he termed to be 'bogus claims.' Let us review a few of his 'clarifications.'

On Wednesday, Obama claimed illegal aliens would not be eligible for the government-run plan. But they are: the only eligibility requirement is income. As ALG News recently reported in 'The Hidden Cost of ObamaCare,' under the House version of the so-called public “option,” individuals up to 400 percent of the poverty level, or making approximately $43,320 or less annually, will be eligible for some level of health coverage under the plan whether through the public 'option,' Medicaid, or otherwise.

Or, 91.5 million people as of 2006 aged 25-65 who fell into that income bracket, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Throw in the 35 million who were 65 and older at that time, and the total figure comes to over 125.8 million eligible for ObamaCare, compared with 80.5 million who now receive their health care from the government.

As a result, approximately 45 million more people—the exact figure the Census Bureau reports as being uninsured—will be receiving their health care from Uncle Sam. And it includes illegal immigrants! Why?

As House Republican Leader John Boehner has pointed out, there is no prohibition enforcement in the bill against non-citizens receiving coverage under the so-called public 'option.' Wrote Boehner on his website, 'Republicans offered two amendments in the Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce Committees that were rejected by Democrats. The first would have prevented illegal immigrants from being automatically enrolled into Medicaid and the second would have required better screening for applicants for federally-subsidized health care to ensure they are actually citizens or legal immigrants.'

Without a citizenship verification requirement, a person would only need to prove they make less than $43,320, and they’re in. Those are the facts.

The lies do not stop there. Obama challenged opponents who believe government-run care would result in rationing. He said, 'The best example is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens.'

To be fair, this is more than a slight misrepresentation on Obama’s part, but it is true that under the plan, there will be bureaucrats rationing treatment—and that in essence will result in seniors being denied care. And, yes, that very likely means they would die sooner than if they had received the life-saving treatment, surgery, or drugs now covered under Medicare. How do we know that?

A means of cutting 'costs' that has been repeatedly touted by the Obama Administration, as reported by Politico, is 'a White House proposal to empower an outside body, like the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, to make binding recommendations for cost cuts in government-run health care programs.' That includes Medicare, which House Democrats have already said they plan on cutting by $500 billion over ten years.

On July 22nd, Obama elaborated on his plans to cut Medicare to pay for his overall plan by allowing an 'independent group of doctors and medical experts' to determine how to cut the program tens of millions of seniors now depend on for medical care.

And he said it again in his speech, '[W]e will also create an independent commission of doctors and medical experts charged with identifying more waste in the years ahead.' That’s it. That’s the rationing board—and Obama specifically defined what their role would be, when he defined what he viewed as 'waste' in the system.

Obama was answering the question of a woman whose mother had a pacemaker installed at the age of 100 after being told she was too old. She’s now 105.

Here’s what Obama said in full response, 'We’re not going to solve every difficult problem in terms of end-of-life care, a lot of that is going to have to be we as a culture and as a society starting to make better decisions within our own families and for ourselves. But, what we can do is make sure that some of the waste that exists in the system that is not making anybody’s mom better, that is loading upon additional tests or additional drugs, that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know, and your mom know, that, you know what, this isn’t going to help, maybe you’re better off not having the surgery but taking the pain killer.'

So, the rationing board will let doctors and individuals know what is and is not covered.

Just how would they let the doctors know? By not paying for those 'unnecessary' tests and drugs. And how would those aging mothers find out? When those life-extending treatments are denied. The message, in short, will be: take two aspirins and call the undertaker.

And Barack Obama knows it. Most importantly, seniors know it.

According to James Carville’s Democracy Corps polls, a full 54 percent of seniors oppose the Obama nationalized health care plan. According to the poll conducted in June, 41 percent of seniors strongly oppose the Obama plan and only 14 percent strongly favor it.

'What every single member of Congress needs to do is go home to their districts and tell those 65 years old and older, and those who soon will be, that the plan is take their health care away to pay for somebody else’s,' said ALG President Bill Wilson when the rationing board was announced.

Finally, Obama said that 'The plan will not add to our deficit.' That is just an out-and-out lie.

The Congressional Budget Office Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Elmendorf, the non-partisan budget analyst single-handedly delivered a critical blow to the ObamaCare plan, stating that 'the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care.' And that 'The [cost] curve is being raised.' By how much?

Even assuming the best case scenario, that the program operates as intended to insure an additional 45 million people, at a cost of $4,700 for an average insurance premium, the total cost would rise to $211.5 billion extra annually for government health care responsibilities. That’s $2.115 trillion over ten years. And that’s assuming that the number always stays at 45 million eligible. Which it won’t.

Obama said himself that 'If you lose your job or you change your job, you'll be able to get coverage.' Right now, that includes about 50.4 million people, according to the current U-6 unemployment rate at 16.8 percent as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Should economic conditions worsen, the simple eligibility based on income noted above and employment status would still apply, and the government health care rolls would soar.

It goes on and on. So, instead of apologizing for calling out these blatant lies told by Obama to the American people, it is time to dispel them once and for all. Barack Obama is a liar. Only now, he can no longer get away with it."

More on the true costs of Obamacare and the other underfunded entitlements

"Pulling the trigger on Obamacare"

The "trigger" is just another Trojan Horse for government run health care, and is just the latest smoke and mirrors routine "regressives" have used all along to deceive Americans about their true objectives for "health care reform".

"Health care reform" as currently constituted needs to die NOW. It's time to start all over on a brand new proposal with no smoke and mirrors, with no open-ended mandates, with complete transparency throughout the entire process.

From Robert Romano, at Get Liberty Dot Org:

As bipartisan negotiations in the Senate have failed to trick Republicans into supporting a vigorous government-run takeover of the entire health care system, Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are making a last ditch effort to sway at least one Republican member: Olympia Snowe of Maine.

Reports CNN Politics, “For the past months, Snowe has been pushing the idea of a safety net plan, or ‘trigger,’ for a public health care option as part of a key compromise. A source familiar with her negotiations with Obama said that's one of the things they're talking about…The idea would give insurance companies a defined period to make changes in order to help cover more people and drive down long-term costs. But if those changes failed to occur within the defined period, a trigger would provide for creating a public option to force change on the insurance companies.”

Concern over a government-run medical system has galvanized citizens nationwide in opposition to let their voices be heard in town halls. And they’ve left the members of Congress ducking for cover. The political damage has been so extensive that Barack Obama is preparing an address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday to in yet another attempt to sell his latest scheme for ObamaCare.

According to FOX News, White House aides have said that Obama “will deliver the message that Democrats are willing to go it alone if it cannot get Republicans behind it.” The joke is that he does not actually need a single Republican vote to pass what he wants if his own party would just rally behind him.

The true trouble that ObamaCare faces is that Democrats believe that they are on a political Titanic—and vulnerable members in both chambers are stampeding to get to the lifeboats.

The reason Democrats want Snowe—or somebody like her—is so they can parade her around as the token Republican brokering a grand compromise, thus providing what they believe is political cover. And so, now they are ready to give Snowe what she has been asking for: a delayed implementation of the government takeover of the health care system in exchange for selling out her own party.

And if Olympia falls for the Snowe-job, she will do so knowing full well that her sell-out is a charade. After all, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already played the socialist hand.

“If they want no public option, but a trigger, you can be sure that the trigger will bring on a very robust public option,” said Pelosi, knowing full well that she gets to define and control the mechanism, tied to the escalating costs of providing life-saving treatments.

And of course, government controls that, too. It currently mandates minimal levels of coverage to be provided at the state level. It prohibits insurance to be purchased across state lines. It thus allows regional, corporatist monopolies to operate with impunity that in turn pay handsomely via political protection money to elected officials keep the status quo.

In the legislation now before Congress, even if the so-called public “option” were put on a trigger tied to costs, the bill would still force employers to provide coverage and individuals to buy coverage or else pay a tax. It would establish a whole new body of regulations that would force insurance companies that would eventually, inevitably bankrupt private insurance.

As reported by the Heritage Foundation, the legislation establishes “a single minimum coverage standard that will eventually apply to nearly all health plans and establishes a new ‘Health Benefits Advisory Committee’ within HHS to make detailed recommendations, which the secretary of HHS would then impose through regulation.”

Thus, by simply upping what must be minimally covered under private health plans, costs would skyrocket, and the deadly trigger on ObamaCare would be pulled.

They can call it whatever they want. A delayed public “option.” A compromise. A trigger. But, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are determined to get what they want. And whether now, sooner, or later, they are determined to force through a bill that inevitably results in socialized medicine.

Olympia Snowe can go along with it, too, if she wants. But she must realize that, really, she’ll only be pulling the trigger on the American people. On freedom of choice. And on quality health care that provides for the young and protects the old.

#

"Sorting Fact From Fiction on Health Care"

Current Congressional proposals would significantly change your relationship with your doctor.

Excerpts:

"There are domains of medicine where a patient has no control and depends on the physician and the hospital to provide best practices. Strict protocols have been developed to prevent infections during procedures and to reduce the risk of surgical mishaps. There are also emergency situations like a patient arriving in the midst of a heart attack where standardized advanced treatments save many lives.

But once we leave safety measures and emergency therapies where patients have scant say, what is 'the right thing'? Data from clinical studies provide averages from populations and may not apply to individual patients. Clinical studies routinely exclude patients with more than one medical condition and often the elderly or people on multiple medications. Conclusions about what works and what doesn't work change much too quickly for policy makers to dictate clinical practice."

....and:

"The devil is in the regulations. Federal legislation is written with general principles and imperatives. The current House bill H.R. 3200 in title IV, part D has very broad language about identifying and implementing best practices in the delivery of health care. It rightly sets initial priorities around measures to protect patient safety. But the bill does not set limits on what 'best practices' federal officials can implement. If it becomes law, bureaucrats could well write regulations mandating treatment measures that violate patient autonomy."