It’s Not About Healthcare…

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Obamacare Will Be A Chronic Disease On Businesses

Unfortunately, the degree of adherence to baseless ideology by Obama is only exceeded in magnitude by his ignoble narcissism that passage of healthcare reform will cement a deified legacy. As a consequence and facilitated by other far-left, corrupt, like minded elitist individuals like Pelosi and Reid, America’s economy in addition to its healthcare will suffer irreparably. We will all pay the immense price in freedom, rights, choices and ability to advance from our individual efforts.

We need to fight to overturn or annul this legislation.

Let the second revolution by the American people begin …

Health Overhaul's Assault On Business
Investors Business Daily   03/19/2010

Taxes: If ObamaCare becomes permanent, no one will suffer more than U.S. businesses. They'll face higher taxes, more regulations and a higher cost of capital. But don't take our word for it. Go ask Caterpillar.

The heavy-equipment giant reckons its insurance costs will go up 20%, or $100 million, the first year after the health care system is overhauled, and may go even higher. Multiply that by literally tens of thousands of companies nationwide, large and small, and you can see how costs will soar.

"We can ill-afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus our global competitors," said Greg Folley, a Caterpillar vice president. "We are disappointed that efforts at reform have not addressed the cost concerns we've raised throughout the year."

If you don't care how this affects businesses, you should. Some 15 million people in this country don't have jobs — and another 12 million work part-time but want full-time positions.

If America's major employers are hit with huge, government-mandated cost increases during an economic downturn, do you really think they'll hire more when the economy starts growing on its own again? Of course not.

Despite this, the White House predicts its plan will "cut costs" for businesses. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even makes the bizarre prediction that passage of health reform will lead to 400,000 new jobs "immediately," and millions more down the road.

Such claims don't hold water because health reform includes $569.2 billion in new taxes, at last count 160 new bureaucracies and regulations, and 16,500 new IRS agents to collect all those taxes. Tax hits on businesses and industries include:

• $52 billion on companies that do not provide what the government deems "acceptable" or "affordable" insurance for workers.

• $60.1 billion on health insurers.

• $27 billion on drugmakers and importers.

• $20 billion on makers and importers of medical devices.

• $2.7 billion on the tanning industry.

And of course the companies themselves don't pay. You do — both as a consumer, through higher prices, and as an employee, through lower wages.

As the Tax Policy Center, a center-liberal think tank, noted recently, "Economists generally believe that the burden of payroll taxes is borne by workers in the form of lower wages, regardless of whether the tax is levied on the employer or employee."

But that's not the end of it.

A new Medicare tax on capital gains, dividends and other investment income has been raised from 2.9% to 3.8%. Supposedly, this is a tax on the "wealthy," those with $200,000 or more in income. It's really a tax on small business, entrepreneurs and investors.

This provision will push the top cap-gains rate from 15% to almost 24%, while the dividend rate will rise from 35% to 43.4%.

This amounts a big new tax on the very people who are most likely to own or start a new business and hire workers. Health reform will tax large numbers of job creators out of business — and no one in the White House seems to know, or even care.

But it will have an enormous impact. As a result of the Obama-Care taxes on successful individuals and companies, investment in new companies will slow, and old companies will face a higher cost of capital. New jobs will be created offshore in places such India and China.

Economist Steve Entin of the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation estimated the Medicare tax would reduce GDP by 1.3%, capital formation by 3.4% and after-tax incomes of those who don't pay the tax directly by 1.2%.

And those estimates came when the tax was "only" 2.9% — not the 3.8% it is in the current bill. So the economic losses would in fact be even larger than Entin estimated.

Because of these taxes and other faults in the plan, a group of 130 economists last Thursday sent President Obama a letter imploring him not to sign the bill, saying that it would be a job-killer.

"In our view," the economists wrote, "the health care bill contains a number of provisions that will eliminate jobs, reduce hours and wages, and limit future job creation."

Health reform's taxes and huge new costs will lead to semi-permanent stagnation in the U.S. economy, marked by higher unemployment and lower standards of living.

Is this how Americans see their future? Based on the Tea Party movement and growing anger at the government for seizing control of the economy's high ground, we doubt it.

The only real question is, are the White House and Congress listening?

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=527934

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The Congressional Budget Office’s Preliminary Score For Obamacare Is BOGUS!

The preliminary estimates publicized by the Congressional Budget Office have no basis in reality. Though we don't know exactly how they arrived at their artificially low number, it was unquestionably affected by the incomplete and deceptive information that they were provided with. Of course, this does not account for bald faced fraud perpetrated by the Democrats in attempting to reduce the ostensible costs with maneuvers such as removing the Medicare fix costs from the legislation.

Five Reasons The CBO Figures Are Phony
Ed Carson     3/18/2010

The Congressional Budget Office’s preliminary “score” says the health care overhaul will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years, saving $138 billion over that time. But the CBO must assess legislation as written, rather than whether it will actually be carried out. Or, as the Economist put it, “The CBO is required to pretend to believe many impossible things before breakfast.”

1. Medicare cuts
The Senate health care bill relied heavily on unprecedented cuts in Medicare spending increases. If implemented, this would have a huge impact on seniors’ care. But Congress has always balked at Medicare cuts. (See No. 3).

2. Delayed start
To make the budget math work, Democrats plan on delaying the start of subsidies and other costly provisions for several years. (The bill spends just $17 billion through 2013). The true 10-year cost is far higher.

3. The “doc fix” is excluded
The Sustainable Growth Rate imposes automatic cuts in Medicare payment rates to doctors.
For several years, fearing a revolt by doctors — and seniors — Congress has suspended those cuts. The original draft of the House health care bill included a permanent “doc fix.” But that ballooned deficits, so Democrats dropped it, even though everyone knows Congress isn’t going to slash doctors’ rates. The CBO has estimated a “doc fix” would cost $247 billion over 10 years.

4. Student loans are included
Doctors’ payments are excluded from the health bill, but major student loan program changes are included? Yep. The reconciliation bill will end student loan subsidies to lenders. The CBO says this will save $19.4 billion over the first decade, accounting for virtually all of the $19.8 billion in deficit reduction from the health care reconciliation bill. Reconciliation bills must cut the deficit by at least $1 billion. So, without the non-health care items, the health care reconciliation bill would not pass muster.

5. It’s a CLASS act
In the Senate health bill, a new, voluntary long-term care insurance program called CLASS accounted for some $72 billion of the deficit reduction.  The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program is supposed to be deficit-neutral long-term. But Democrats are counting the upfront premium surplus in the short term and ignoring the significant operating deficits after 2029. Update: Democrats also are counting on projected additional Social Security revenues from payroll taxes on higher wages in lieu of lower health benefits. Again, those benefits have to be paid out.

But wait, there’s more! Let’s assume that the cost savings materialize as planned. It still makes the long-term fiscal outlook worse. Why? Democrats are using up a lot of tax hikes, spending cuts and upfront payment just to get barely better than deficit-neutral. That leaves future lawmakers less scope to bring the nation’s finances into order.

On a related note, Democrats continue to maintain the health bill would extend Medicare’s solvency by several years. But they plan to use those as-yet-unrealized Medicare cost savings for a huge new entitlement and to reduce the overall deficit.

http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politicsinvesting/1524-five-reasons-the-cbo-figures-are-phony

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Medical Death Sentences Will Not Be Uncommon If Obamacare is Passed

With government control there will be rationing and restriction of care. No matter how bad and evil insurance companies are portrayed, the federal government is much worse and there are many examples to substantiate this point. Furthermore, with some persistence, many insurance companies will cave in. The federal government, on the other hand, will not and moves at glacial speed to arrive at that rejection. Just visualize the compassion, efficiency and organization of the post office – and then add more layers of bureaucracy to it and you get government run healthcare.

The following and not uncommon example from Canada is what we can expect here if Obamacare is passed.

Sick man faces bankruptcy — or death
Cancer patient must pay for drug needed to keep him alive
By MARK BONOKOSKI, QMI Agency  March 6, 2010

Kent Pankow and wife Deborah, fought the Alberta government to have his brain-cancer treatment paid by the province.

Kent Pankow lives in Edmonton, in a province and a country that is trying to either kill him or bankrupt him.

No sense mincing words.

Suffering from brain cancer, Kent Pankow was literally forced to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. for lifesaving surgery — at a cost to family and friends of $106,000 — after the health-care system in Alberta left him hanging in bureaucratic limbo for 16 crucial days, his tumour meanwhile migrating to an unreachable part of the brain, while it dithered over his case file, ultimately deciding he was not surgery worthy.

Now, with the Mayo Clinic having done what the Alberta Cancer Board wouldn’t authorize or even explain, but with the tumour unable to be totally removed, the province will now not fund the expensive drug, Avastin, that the Mayo prescribed to keep him alive and keep the remaining tumour from increasing in size — despite the costs of the drug being totally funded by the province for other forms of cancer.

Kent Pankow, as it turns out, has the right disease but he has it in the wrong place.

Had he lung cancer, breast cancer, or colon cancer, then the cost of the drug — $4,555 per treatment, two times a month — would be totally covered by Alberta’s version of OHIP.

But he doesn’t.

And so he is not only a victim of brain cancer, he is also a victim of arbitrary discrimination.

Full disclosure. Kent Pankow, a 40-year-old Red Seal sous chef, is a son of the man who married the spouse of my late brother. And it was while vacationing with them at their winter home in Los Cabos, Mexico, recently that this story began to unfold back in their home province of Alberta.

But do not think, even for a moment, that this could never happen in Toronto or other parts of Ontario.

Our supposedly universal federal health care system, the pride of most Canadians and the political struggle of America, is only as good as the length of the waiting line and whether you have the right disease at the right time.

After writing more than 150 letters to everyone from the prime minister to virtually all health authorities both federal and provincial, and being ignored in return, Kent Pankow’s wife, Deborah Hurford, decided to finally go public.

CTV Edmonton did a major feature on the family’s plight on the 6 o’clock news and, almost before the program ended, Alberta’s health and wellness minister, Gene Zwozdesky, was on the phone to their home — ensuring himself some positive press in the followup that aired later that night.

Then, when he heard the Pankows had filed a human rights complaint against the province, justifiably citing medicare-based discrimination, Zwozdesky suddenly went mute — stating he could no longer discuss the matter publicly.

Ten years ago, when first diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumour (GBM), Kent Pankow was given five years to live.

After beating it down once, however, with his first surgery having been performed in Alberta, he spent nearly seven years in remission until the cancer’s return in 2008.

And he is not prepared to give up.

“He’s a fighter,” says his wife, admitting, however, that the cost of the drug has been a significant drain on friends and family who have not only donated large sums of their own money, but have also organized fundraisers to keep hope alive, including school penny drives.

“When Kent goes for his Avastin IV injection, he sits next to patients who receive the same drug for free because they have another type of cancer — like colon cancer,” Hurford says.

“Brain tumour patients deserve the same rights as other cancer patients, including access to the same lifesaving treatments — and without additional costs.

“I can’t begin to tell you how frustrated, angry, disgusted and appalled I am with both the Alberta health system and the individuals within the system who continue to perpetuate such an archaic and inhumane approach to the treatment of patients.” she says. “It seems like they are doing everything in their power to ensure that Kent succumbs to an early and unnecessary death.”

“The Avastin is working. The size of the remaining tumour has remained static since October,” she says.

“But how can anyone afford almost $10,000 a month for a drug — even if it is saving a loved one’s life?”
When Alberta health minister Gene Zwozdesky called the Pankow home on the night CTV Edmonton aired its story, he purportedly blamed the feds, namely Health Canada, for deciding what drugs are covered, and for what.

Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, however, in a letter to Deborah Hurford, wrote that “while Health Canada is responsible for the market authorization of drug products, the province and territorial governments are responsible for managing the list of drugs for which public reimbursement from government drug plans is available.”

This, too, is passing the buck.

What Aglukkaq would not explain to Hurford — citing confidentiality — was why Avastin received a notice of compliance from Health Canada for other forms of cancer, but not yet for brain cancer as in the United States.

Nor would she offer any information regarding any application before her department for the use of Avastin in the treatment of brain tumours.

“Based on Kent’s MRI’s and radiology reports, and analysis by his surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, Avastin is playing a key role in stabilizing Kent’s tumour,” says Hurford.

“Without it, Kent’s tumour will grow and he will die.

“So why then,” asks Hurford, “is (everyone) choosing not to help Kent and other brain tumour patients who are forced to go public with their private health issues and fundraise for their lifesaving medical treatments?

“Where is the dignity in that?”

http://storage.canoe.ca/v1/dynamic_resize/?src=http://www.calgarysun.com/news/canada/2010/03/06/p1cancertoo07web.jpg&size=248x186

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/canada/2010/03/06/13138731.html

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Pithy, Humorous Insight Into Obamacare

The following pithy, insightful and humorous commentary on Obamacare has been appearing all over the internet:

Let me get this straight......

we're trying to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it,

passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it,

to be signed by a President that also hasn't read it and who smokes,

with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes,

all to be overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese,

and financed by a country that's broke.

What the hell could possibly go wrong?

Fight to the end against passage of Obamacare!

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A Vigorous Constitutional Challenge Must Be Mounted If Obamacare Legislation Passes

Obamacare is an inherently and hopelessly flawed, corrupt, complex bill that is constructed on lies and deceptions and threatens to bankrupt our country and usurp our inalienable rights. It is also vigorously opposed by Americans by nearly a 3:1 margin but Obama and the Democrats don’t care.

We must do everything in our power to make sure that it is not passed. If it is, Congressional leaders will have succeeded by using chicanery, ad hominem attacks, dishonesty and other tactics that would make Hugo Chavez proud.

Our next move then? Mount a formidable Constitutional challenge.

Can Forcing Purchase Of Insurance Survive Constitutional Challenge?
Thomas M. Boyd     03/10/2010

“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.”
Congressional Budget Office (1994)

During the recent summit on health care reform, Republican leader John Boehner told President Obama that he and his colleagues believe the central funding mechanism underlying the president's latest reform proposal — the individual mandate — is unconstitutional.

This language would require every American to purchase a product — health insurance. It also has appeared in every serious proposal since ClintonCare in 1993, including the proposals now pending before Congress. If it eventually becomes law, it's sure to be challenged before the ink on the president's signature is dry.

The president's response was that Rep. Boehner was resorting to "talking points" rather than substance. It would have been far more instructive if the president, a former lecturer at Chicago Law School who as a candidate opposed the mandate, had given Boehner and the Republicans — not to mention the American public watching on C-Span — his own analysis in support of his current belief that this unprecedented requirement is constitutionally permissible.

The underlying question is as simple as it is fundamental: Can federal law mandate that an individual must purchase a good or service, whether he or she wants it or not, in order to fund a massive social program perceived to be for the larger public good?

If the American people can be forced to purchase health insurance, then can the Congress also require Americans to purchase American cars to salvage the domestic automobile industry?

The most obvious legal basis for this requirement lies in the Constitution's commerce clause. One of the "enumerated" powers granted the Congress, this language allows the Congress broad freedom to "regulate Commerce ... among the several States."

From Chief Justice John Marshall's use of the commerce clause to validate federal regulation of river traffic in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) to the New Deal's application of federally imposed restraints on wheat grown for purely local consumption (Wickard v. Filburn, 1942), to the more recent affirmation of federal regulatory superiority over otherwise permissible local cultivation of marijuana for medicinal use (Gonzales v. Raich, 2005), the Supreme Court has consistently interpreted its language to expand the role of the federal government, at the expense of the states, in regulating the conduct of people engaged in otherwise intrastate economic transactions.

But every constitutional power has its limits, and it's likely the same policymakers who now endorse the legality of the individual mandate were equally convinced that the Campaign Reform Act's ban on political advertising by corporations or unions within 30 days of an election was sacrosanct.

But on Jan. 21, when the Court rendered its 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the nation discovered that the First Amendment trumped the exercise of congressional authority. Similarly, in this instance the freedom to exercise free will may trump the authority of the federal government to dictate choice.

If nothing else, whether the Congress has the power to require every American to purchase health insurance will be, as the CBO noted in 1994, a case of first impression for the court. And the result is certainly not preordained.

While it's always difficult to predict how justices might rule on a different set of facts, their prior opinions on the breadth of the commerce clause suggest that at least four of the majority in Citizens United v. FEC (Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas) may hesitate to embrace the kind of expansive view of the Commerce Clause that would be required to uphold the individual mandate.

That leaves Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in Citizens as the inevitable swing vote. And his views on the application of the commerce clause in a case like this are anything but clear.

Now that the president has announced his intention to proceed toward a vote on his version of health care reform, the issues are joined. And however the legality of the individual mandate is finally resolved, questions surrounding its constitutionality and the legitimate reach of the Constitution's commerce clause demand serious legal scrutiny and intense public debate in advance of any final congressional vote.

It's worth knowing, for example, where the money will come from if, when the court ultimately rules, the president and his political allies are proven wrong in their belief that the federal government has virtually limitless power to require its citizens to, in effect, go shopping.

Where will the money come from to fund a health care entitlement which, by that time, will have already become law? These questions deserve answers before, not after, Congress votes.

• Boyd, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of DLA Piper LLP, is a former assistant attorney general under President Reagan.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=526845

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Government Has A Litany of Failures … So Why Not Try Healthcare Next?

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Obama et al Are Willing To Go Down In Their Attempts To Destroy Our Healthcare System

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Rep. Steve King (R-IA) Is Encouraging Americans To Disrupt Congress To Thwart Passage of the Obamacare by Illegal Means

We are now seeing some more sensible politicians speaking out against the Federal government's illegal tactics of attempting to impose legislation on Americans and against their will. This is essentially a clarion call to action in order to prevent the government from abrogating our rights and freedoms.

We all must act. Call, write and e-mail your Representatives and Senators again, again and again...

Steve King Calls For Revolution In The Streets Of Washington To Stop Health Care Bill
Eric Kleefeld March 16, 2010

Rep. Steve King (R-IA)

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is calling for a new procedural solution to stop the health care bill: Have an angry mob of citizens storm Washington and prevent Congress from acting, in imitation of the Velvet Revolution that overthrew communist rule in Czechoslovakia!

The Huffington Post interviewed King after his speech at today's "Code Red" anti-health care bill rally, a speech in which he called upon the crowd to "Storm this city, fill up Washington D.C., jam this capital so they can't move."
Speaking to the Huffington Post shortly after his speech, King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 "would be fine with me."

"Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can't get in, they can't get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people," he said.

"So this is just like Prague under communist rule?" the Huffington Post asked.

"Oh yeah, it is very, very close," King replied. "It is the nationalization of our liberty and the federal government taking our liberty over. So there are a lot of similarities there."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/steve-king-calls-for-revolution-in-the-streets-of-washington-to-stop-health-care-bill.php

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We The People: A Resolute Message To Obama

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Obama Will Try To Ram His Healthcare Reform No Matter What It Takes

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Democratic Leadership Will Stop At Nothing In Order to Pass Healthcare Reform

The Democratic leadership has not ruled any tactics off limits in its quest to obtain enough votes necessary to pass their healthcare reform legislation. They have resorted to ad hominem attacks even on fellow Democrats, slander, threats, bribes, illegal or questionable parliamentary maneuvers and other corrupt deals.

All of this is being perpetrated despite a furious and rejecting American public who oppose Obamacare by nearly a 3:1 margin. The contemptuousness, elitism and arrogance of Obama, Pelosi, Reid and others is essentially unparalleled in American History.

These individuals must be stopped and Obamacare should never see the light of day. What these politicians are doing is facilitating a legislative theft of our rights, freedoms and wealth that may be permanent. It is a heinous scheme that is leading us closer to an ideological totalitarian regime under the guise of a “representative” government.

House Democrat Takes On Party Leaders
Lee Ross     March 13, 2010

In a surprising and fascinating look at the behind-the-scenes negotiations of proposed health care legislation on Capitol Hill, a prominent Democrat says the actions of his party's leaders in recent days represents a "pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party."

If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding out hope that Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) will replicate his "yes" vote on health care reform she can probably forget it. In a wide-ranging swipe at his party's leaders, Stupak told an interviewer that he is a definite "no" vote on a health care bill that is expected to reach the House floor next week.

A single vote could make the difference in the fate of the legislation but Stupak says other pro-life Democrats who had been part of his coalition fighting for specific language on abortion funding have given up the fight. "It's almost like some right-to-life members don't want to be bothered. They just want this over," Stupak told National Review's Robert Costa in an article [1]published on-line Friday. If that's the case, Democratic leaders may be able to prevail without Stupak's support.

The Michigan Democrat's vitriol for House leaders shines a bright light on the normally secret negotiations. "They're ignoring me," Stupak asserts while concluding that the final bill will not have the stronger abortion-related language that he's long supported and was able to force in the first bill the House passed late last year.

"[E]ven if they don't have the votes, it's been made clear to us that they won't insert our language on the abortion issue," Stupak says.   "I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance. Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered."

Stupak offers an interesting take on why party leaders don't want his effort to succeed.  "If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That's one of the arguments I've been hearing," Stupak says. "Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue - come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we're talking about."

Stupak believes that if a final health care bill passes without strong language on abortion funding, it will effectively freeze out pro-life Democrats in the future. He says he will remain a Democrat but predicts that any effort to change the abortion language would have to wait "until the Republicans take back the majority to fix this."  You read that right, a Democrat looking forward to a Republican take-over of Congress!

Stupak's prominence and apparent resolve on this issue has increased the political heat on the nine-term Democrat.   "This has really reached an unhealthy stage," Stupak says. "People are threatening ethics complaints on me. On the left, they're really stepping it up. Every day, from Rachel Maddow to the Daily Kos, it keeps coming. Does it bother me? Sure. Does it change my position? No."

A Friday posting on Daily Kos has this headline: "Women ROAR BACK against Stupak/Pitts!" It targets Stupak and Congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA) and is a fundraising appeal for Stupak's primary challenger. "If you were pissed when Joe Wilson shouted YOU LIE at President Obama I want you to channel that same sort of anger and aim it in support of Connie Saltonstall..."

Earlier this week, MSNBC's Maddow took direct aim at Stupak saying his efforts were designed to do nothing more than get him on television. "Abortion rights only for rich ladies. That's Bart Stupak's principled crusade," Maddow said.

Stupak does not name names in his attack on party leaders but in a radio interview Thursday, Stupak recounted a conversation he had with House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), a central figure in the health care debate. Stupak said Waxman told him that Democratic leaders "want to pay for abortions."  In a statement to Fox News, Waxman said “My position has been clear and consistent.  I do not believe health reform should be used to change current law, which prohibits federal funds from paying for abortion.”

http://congress.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/13/house-democrat-takes-on-party-leaders/

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Obama Refuses To Concede Defeat To The American People

Even with overwhelming public sentiment against his plan, Obama arrogantly refuses to budge or listen. He just keeps making demands and derogatory statements against the Republicans and the American people.

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States Are Fighting Back Against Obamacare

The individual states, particularly those run by Republican Governors, are fighting back against the Obama Administration and its unfettered legal push for rampant Federal intrusion into states’ rights including unfunded or underfunded mandates. Healthcare reform is the flash point right now.

Virginia is the first state in the nation to ban federally mandated health insurance as noted in the article below. The Governor of Arizona is seeking to have a unanimous No vote against Obamacare from all its Representatives and Senators as expressed in a letter written to Obama.

More states are fighting back and they should in order to protect our rights, freedom, money and the future of this country.

Letter From Arizona Governor to Obama Expressing Strong Opposition to His Healthcare Reform Legislation

Va OKs 1st bill banning mandated health coverage
By Bob Lewis (AP)

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia's General Assembly became the first in the nation Wednesday to approve legislation that bucks any attempt by President Barack Obama and Congress to implement a national health care overhaul in individual states.

The Republican-ruled House of Delegates, with wide Democratic support, voted 80-17 without debate for the largely symbolic step aimed at the Democratic-backed reforms pushed by Obama and stalled in Congress. The vote sends the measure to Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell who intends to sign it.

Thirty-four other state legislatures have either filed or proposed similar measures — statutes or constitutional amendments — rejecting health insurance mandates, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Obama carried Virginia in his historic ride to the presidency in 2008, the first Democrat to do so in a presidential race in 44 years. But since then, the tide has turned. Virginia's Republicans routed Democrats in last year's gubernatorial and legislative elections, partly because of public distrust of Democrats' proposed health care reforms.

GOP lawmakers expedited the bill and three others like it as a legislative statement reflecting broad voter discontent over the proposed reforms. Virginia's legislative session is, on average, the nation's briefest, and the bill passed four days ahead of Saturday's scheduled adjournment.

The legality of bills like Virginia's is questionable because courts generally rule that federal laws supersede those of the states.

The bill's sponsor, Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, and other supporters advocated the measure as a defiant statement to an overreaching federal government. They say it falls under the Constitution's 10th Amendment that deals with state sovereignty. Marshall said he expects the law to be challenged and ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"There are limited powers the federal government has. Simply because of the supremacy clause, it doesn't mean anything that the Congress does, in fact, must be enforced at all levels of government in the United States," Marshall said in an interview after his bill won passage.

"It gives the state of Virginia the right to intervene on behalf of individuals should they decide not to pay for insurance and they refuse to pay the fine or they refuse to pay the fee or the tax or whatever you call it," he said.

Separate bills passed by the U.S. House and Senate would impose a penalty on people who don't have health insurance except in cases of financial hardship. The intent of the mandate is to expand the pool of people who are insured and paying premiums and thus offset the increased costs of insuring those with preexisting conditions or other risks.

More distressing for Virginia Democrats was that 21 of their 39 delegates in the 100-member House sided with the GOP in defying the initiative that is their party's national priority.

There was no immediate response to a telephone message seeking comment from former Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, now chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

DNC spokesman Alec Gerlach said Virginia's legislation only burdens middle-income families struggling to pay insurance premiums and medical bills, adding "they'll have to answer to those folks on election day."
One opponent of the bill likened its passage to Virginia's failed efforts to defy federal orders to desegregate public schools in the 1950s.

"It's a rejection of the federal role in the provision of health care and an extension of the old idea of interposition," said Del. James M. Scott, D-Fairfax. He was referring to a discredited legal theory that the state had a right to interpose itself to shield residents from some federal directives.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j9OEnA3WRa_MXGFO83ta6RE9CQUgD9EC1HKG0

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Obama Akbar!

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Just A Few Reasons Why Obamacare Should Not The Light of Day

Over the last year, we have expressed our resolute opposition to Government controlled healthcare reform independent of the various iterations that have been promulgated. The present behemoth legislation, in excess of 2700 pages, will destroy the best healthcare system in the world and ultimately bankrupt this country with uncontrollable and unsustainable costs.

There are countless reasons to oppose this legislation, many of which have received little exposure in the press or by analysts (privacy issues). Regardless, this bill must be vehemently fought and opposed by all Americans if we want to preserve the world’s best healthcare as well as our rights and freedoms.

Below, is an abbreviated list assembled by Investors Business Daily of some of the reasons why Obamacare should not be implemented.

Why Health Bill Makes No Sense
Investors Business Daily   03/12/2010

Health Reform: So it's come down to this — desperate Democratic leaders strong-arming members on the worst bill ever before they go home to explain to constituents why they decided to commit political suicide.

We've said just about all we've had to say on this issue — actually dating back to 1993-94, when we wrote nearly 100 editorials in opposition to HillaryCare. Since January of last year, we've weighed in 150 more times against the latest version of socialized medicine.

But to review, here are just 15 reasons why a government takeover of the finest medical system in the world makes no sense at all:

1. The people don't want it! This, we would think, should have some bearing on decision-making. Yet the Democrats forge ahead without consent of the governed. In the latest Rasmussen poll, 53% opposed the Democrats' reform while 42% were in favor. More than four in 10 "strongly" opposed; just two in 10 "strongly" favored. This jibes with other surveys, including our own IBD/TIPP Poll, taken since last year.

2. Doctors don't want it! A survey we took last summer of 1,376 practicing physicians found that 45% would consider leaving their practices or taking early retirements if the Democrats' reform became law. In December, the results were validated by a Medicus poll in which 25% of doctors said they'd retire early if a public option is implemented and another 21% would stop practicing even though they were far from their retirement years. Even if the bill doesn't have a "public option," nearly 30% said they'd quit the profession under the plans being considered.

3. Half the Congress doesn't want it! Not a single Republican backed the health care bill that cleared the Senate on Christmas Eve 60-39. House passage was by a slim 220 to 215, and the lone Republican "aye" has since switched to "no."
Columnist Michael Barone says other changes would put the House vote today at 216-215 in favor, and he has doubts Democrats can even muster 216.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her job of securing yes votes even more difficult last week when she told a meeting of county officials that "we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it." Members of Congress aren't waiting: They've already exempted themselves from whatever they inflict on us.

4. People are happy with the health care they've got! Polls show that 84% of Americans have health insurance and that few are displeased with what they've got. Last month, the St. Petersburg Times looked at eight polls and reported that satisfaction rates averaged 87%.

5. It doesn't even cover the people they set out to cover! Supporters of government-run health care say there are as many as 47 million Americans — 9 million to 10 million of them illegal aliens — without medical insurance. The Democrats' plans, however, will put only 31 million of the uninsured under coverage.

6. Costs will go up, not down! Democrats say their plans will cost less than $1 trillion over the first decade. But analyst Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute puts the cost at $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years. Even if we go with the government's lower estimates, the cost is already on the rise. A new estimate by the Congressional Budget Office puts the cost of the Senate bill at $875 billion over 10 years, $4 billion more than its original projection. Imagine how fast costs would soar if one of the bills became public policy.

7. Real cost controls are nowhere to be found! The Democrats are offering no meaningful tort reform that will help push down the high malpractice insurance premiums that are a burden to doctors and their patients. Nor are they considering any other cost-saving provisions, such as allowing the sale of individual health plans across state lines or easing health insurance mandates.

8. Insurance premiums will rise, not fall! One goal of nationalizing health care is to lower costs, to bend the spending curve downward. Yet, as Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin acknowledged Wednesday, that won't be the case.

"Anyone who would stand before you and say, 'Well, if you pass health care reform, next year's health care premiums are going down,' I don't think is telling the truth," he said from the Senate floor. "I think it is likely they would go up."

An analysis completed by the CBO at the request of Sen. Evan Bayh confirms Durbin's suspicions. Insurance coverage in the individual market will "be about 10% to 13% higher in 2016 than the average premium for nongroup coverage in that same year under current law," it concluded.

9. Medicare is already bankrupting us! The Medicare trust fund, which has unfunded obligations of $37.8 trillion, will be insolvent in 2017. How can lawmakers justify another entitlement that will cost trillions when they can't pay for existing liabilities?

10. There aren't enough doctors now! Last month, 26% of physicians responding to a Web poll on Sermo.com, which calls itself "the largest online physician community," said they had been forced to close, or were considering closing, their solo practices. Providing coverage for an additional 31 million Americans when the number of doctors is shrinking won't improve our health care.

11. The doctor-patient relationship will be wrecked! The latest IBD/TIPP Poll, taken just last week, found that Americans, by a wide 48%-26% margin, believe the doctor-patient relationship will decline if the Democrats' plan is passed.

12. Medical care will also deteriorate! IBD/TIPP has also found that 51% of Americans believe care would get worse under government control. Only 10.5% said they felt it would improve. In our doctor poll, 72% disagreed with administration claims that the government could cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.

13. Rationing of care is inevitable! Health care is not an unlimited resource and must be rationed, either by the individual, providers or government. In Britain and Canada, where the government does the rationing, medical treatment waiting lists are sometimes deadly and quite often excessively long.

For instance, late cancer diagnoses in an overcrowded public health care system cause up to 10,000 needless deaths a year in Britain. The reasons cited for the late diagnoses include doctor delay, delay in primary care, system delay and delay in secondary care.

14. Private health insurers will be destroyed! Added mandates and price controls will force many insurers to simply get out of the health plan business because it will no longer be profitable.

15. It's probably unconstitutional! One way to help bring down the number of uninsured is to demand that those without coverage buy health plans. But the government has never passed a law requiring Americans to buy any good or service.
Constitutional scholars say any such mandate would likely draw a legal challenge.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=527217

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Obamacare Ultimately Leading to Bankruptcy of Our Country

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Obamacare Will Predictably Precipitate A Major Doctor Shortage And Rationing of Care

Obama and the Congressional Democrats are trying to seize control of and transform healthcare in America which parallels their Marxist doctrine. By doing so, they will ultimately dismantle the best healthcare system in the world, precipitate a mass exodus of physicians from the practice of medicine and drive our country to bankruptcy in shorter order.

There already is a physician shortage in this country partially based on rational personal decisions made by those who might have contemplated careers in medicine. With implementation of Obamacare, there will be many reasons for doctors to either work less or flee medical practice altogether. This combined with an inevitable precipitous increase in consumption of medical care by previously “uninsured” Americans and illegal aliens will result in a supply and demand imbalance, fostered by unwise government intervention.

The result: healthcare rationing, poor quality care and long waits to receive care.

The Doctor Shortage
Investors Business Daily     03/04/2010

Health Reform: Democrats promise their plan will improve care at lower cost while thinning the ranks of the uninsured. How will they do this with fewer doctors?

America's population is 305 million. If the Democrats are correct about the number of uninsured, roughly 260 million are covered by a health care plan. When the insured — and the uninsured who use the traditional method of paying out of pocket — are sick, they are treated by 800,000 physicians.

It would be foolish to believe that today's already stretched doctor-patient ratio will remain stable. In the near future we will have fewer doctors treating a growing population.

Physician search firm Merritt, Hawkins & Associates estimates that by 2020 we'll need 90,000 to 200,000 more doctors than we'll have then. As alarming as that estimate is, it could be low.

Last August, our IBD/TIPP Poll found that 45% of doctors would consider leaving their practices or taking early retirement if the Democrats' version of reform were to become law.

Last month, 26% of physicians responding to a Web poll on Sermo.com, which calls itself "the largest online physician community," said they had been forced to close, or were considering closing, their solo practices.

Reasons include "low and delayed reimbursements, problems with management companies, and a lack of business/practice management education," as well as high malpractice insurance costs.

Not every doctor who told these polls that he or she would consider leaving the field will do so. Some will go into group practices and others move on to positions at hospitals and in the military. Another group will change nothing.

Even if half followed through with their threats, our care will suffer. If the Democrats' plans become law, fewer than 700,000 physicians would be available to treat a patient population growing in size, aging in years, shunning medical education and receiving "free" health care or insurance coverage from the government in increasing numbers.

The result will be longer wait times to see a doctor and a decline in the high quality of care Americans are accustomed to as overworked physicians try to keep up.

To see how this works in reality, look at the Canadian and British government health systems that encourage unnecessary doctor visits with the illusion of free care. Both have long, and sometimes deadly, wait times. Neither provides treatment as high in quality as what's found in the U.S, where the system is supposedly broken.

With demand for doctors already outstripping supply, the last thing we need is to aggravate the situation with poorly thought-out public policy.

Washington has meddled in health care too much already.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522956

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Obama Will Do Whatever It Takes To Pass Healthcare Reform

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The Truth Behind Obama’s Healthcare Reform Rhetoric

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We Must Stop Obama and Democrats in Congress From Passage Of the Healthcare Reform Legislation!

As predictable as the sun rising in the east, Obama will pursue reconciliation in order to facilitate passage of his radical bill which will steal our freedom and rights, fiscally bankrupt our country and destroy the best healthcare system in the world.

We must stop Obama and his radical, elitist minions from this government take over of our healthcare system that a large majority of Americans oppose ... and which Obama and Congress will never have to be subject to.

We urge you to call and email your Senators and Representatives, voicing your vehement opposition to this legislation.

Unreconciled
Investors Business Daily  03/03/2010

Health Reform: As promised, the White House has unveiled the latest tweaks in its plan to take over the U.S. medical care system. Both parties in Congress should beware: You vote for it, you own it.

Survey after survey, including our own IBD/TIPP Poll, shows that Americans firmly oppose more government control over health care. Yet President Obama's new reform plan does just that.

He and other Democratic leaders seem willing to ignore both the voters and the well-founded doubts of opponents to ram a plan down our collective throats — making the grand bet that Republicans, even if they retake Congress in November, will have neither the political clout nor the guts to undo the damage.

Worse, they cynically manipulated us into this situation. Last week, at the much-ballyhooed health care "summit," the president pretended to take ideas from Republican foes to "improve" his wildly unpopular plan. But it was just window dressing.

On Wednesday, the president made clear he'll use the budget reconciliation process to get his radical plan through with as few votes as possible. In short, he'll pass a bill that takes control of 17% of the economy without any GOP support.
So much for bipartisanship.

Worse still, this requires the House to vote up or down on an already-passed Senate bill, with only a vow from the Senate and Obama that they'll go back later and "fix" all that's egregiously wrong with the measure.

So, neither House members nor the citizens they represent will really know what's in the bill until after it's passed. Is this what the White House and Democratic leaders meant last year when they repeatedly promised "transparency" in health reform deliberations?

Still more troubling, no one seems to know the plan's true cost. Obama puts it at $1 trillion over 10 years. But just this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed a "much smaller" bill, while Majority Leader Steny Hoyer insists there is no "scaled-back" version.

Who's right? We'll just say this: Because of accounting tricks that front-load costs but delay benefits, the real price of ObamaCare is more like $2.5 trillion over a decade. This will require massive tax hikes on the middle class, rationing of care by government bureaucrats and deep cuts in Medicare.

The president also said on Wednesday: "The proposal I've put forward gives Americans more control over their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable." Not true.

Americans will be forced to buy health insurance — something we believe is unconstitutional. By adding 31 million new buyers to the health care market and requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions, private insurance prices will inevitably soar. That will force businesses to drop coverage for millions of workers.

"I don't know how this plays politically, but I know it's right," Obama also said. But he knows darn well his scheme is highly unpopular, and that resorting to reconciliation is the only way he'll get the main item on his presidential agenda passed — even if it ends Democrats' control of Congress.

Surely moderate Democrats and Republicans won't be swayed by talk of joining in a "historic opportunity." Their constituents clearly see the flaws in this government takeover of the best health care system in the world, and a vote in favor of it will likely bring their political careers to a sudden end.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522847

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Data, Evidence and Experience Overwhelmingly Refute Benefits and Political Assertions of Government Controlled Healthcare

Obama and many Congressional Democrats aim to pass government run healthcare no matter what the cost, financially or politically. They are arrogantly and relentlessly pursuing this despite the vehement opposition of a large majority of Americans. In fact, both they and the fifth column news media have added the contemptuous tactics of calling Americans who oppose it dumb, ignorant, and too stupid to understand the complexities of the bill. Of course, they have made many other derogatory claims.

As we have mentioned numerous times, THIS IS NOT TRULY ABOUT HEALTHCARE. Obamacare is a crucial piece in the puzzle that will further co-opt the individual’s rights and transfer it to an all powerful and controlling central government. It is a confiscation by legislation of an additional 16% of our economy which would mean that nearly 50% of it is directly owned and controlled by the government.

Have you noticed how many czars and other officials selected by Obama ardently support communism? This is not by accident. It is part of the overall plan.

The rhetoric of Obama and select Democrats regarding healthcare reform are complete lies. There is no cost savings with this plan. In fact, their claimed costs probably underestimate the total 10 year costs by well in excess of three to four trillion dollars.  Look at estimates of other federal programs and check out how they turned out. Most were off by a factor of three to ten times.

Unbelievable!

The following expose by Thomas Sowell eloquently and cogently examines the relevant issues and information regarding government controlled healthcare, truths, facts and political motivations.

Other Nations' Health Systems Are Overlooked
By Thomas Sowell   03/03/2010

What is most like Alice in Wonderland in medical care reform is the fact that it is being discussed in the abstract, as if there are not already government-run medical care systems in this country and elsewhere.

Yet there seems to be remarkably little interest in examining how government-run medical care actually turns out — medically and financially — whether in Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration hospitals in this country, or in government-run medical systems in other countries.

We are repeatedly being told that we need to have a government-controlled medical care system because other countries have it — as if our policies on something as serious as medical care should be based on the principle of monkey see, monkey do.

By all means look at other countries, but not just to see what to imitate. See how it actually turns out. Yet there seems to be an amazing lack of interest in examining what government-controlled medical care produces.

While our so-called health care "summit" last week was going on, British newspapers were carrying exposes of terrible, and often deadly, conditions in British hospitals under that country's National Health Service. But this has not become part of our debate on what to expect from government-controlled medical care.

Such scandals are an old story under the National Health Service in Britain, one repeatedly producing fresh scandals that their newspapers carry but ours ignore.

In addition to a whole series of National Health Service scandals in Britain over the years, the government-run medical system in Britain has far less high-tech medical equipment than there is in the United States. Neither in Britain and Canada nor in other countries with government-run medical care systems can people get to see doctors, especially surgeons, in as short a time as in the United States.

It is not uncommon for patients in those countries to have to wait for months before getting operations that Americans get within weeks, or even days, after being diagnosed with a condition that requires surgery. You can always "bring down the cost of medical care" by having a lower level of quality or availability.

But again, you may never learn any of this by following most of the American mainstream media. It is not that they don't make comparisons between medical care in different countries. But they tend to feature news that will promote government-controlled care.

One of the statistics they spin endlessly is that life expectancy in some countries with government-controlled medical care is higher than in the United States. What they don't tell you is that, in some of these countries, all the infants that die are not included in infant mortality statistics, as they are in the United States.

More important, both political and media supporters of government-controlled medical care consistently confuse medical care with health care.

Much, if not most, of health care depends on what individuals do in the way they live their own lives — including eating habits, alcohol intake, exercise, narcotics and homicide. A study some years ago found that Mormons live a decade longer than other Americans. But nobody believes that Mormons' doctors are that much better than other doctors. When you don't do a lot of things that shorten your life, you live longer. That is not rocket science.

Americans tend to have higher rates of obesity, narcotics use and homicide than people in some other countries. And there is not much that doctors can do about that.

If those who make international comparisons were serious, instead of clever, they would compare the things that medical science can have a great effect on — cancer survival rates, for example. Americans have some of the highest cancer survival rates in the world, and for some particular cancers, the very highest.

When you can get to see a doctor faster, and get treatments under way without waiting for months while the cancer grows and spreads, you have a better chance of surviving. That, too, is not rocket science.

But it is also something that you are not likely to see featured in most of the media, where people are promoting their own pet notions and agendas, instead of giving you the facts on which you can make up your own mind.

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It Would Be In America’s and the Republicans’ Interests To Start From The Beginning For Healthcare Reform – Or It Will Be Disastrous For All.

Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster. There is nothing that Republicans can do to transform this abominable plan into a prudent and fiscally responsible one. If they attempt to do so, it will be calamitous for all!

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Democrats’ Duplicity and Irony on Reconciliation

The same Democratic leaders who were vehemently opposing the possible usage of reconciliation by Senate Republicans in 2005 are singing an antithetical tune now. Back then, they averred that such a maneuver amounted to a destruction of the institution of the Senate, loss of rights and freedoms and, in essence, an apocalyptic event. You would never know it now given their unrelenting support to this arcane rule now that they have power and are trying to pass healthcare reform legislation involving a government take over and abridgement of our freedom and rights stealing,.

Dems in ‘05 51 Vote ‘Nuclear Option’ Is ‘Arrogant’ Power Grab Against the Founders’ Intent

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