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Posts Tagged ‘Obamacare’

Is This Romney’s ‘Come to Jesus’ Moment?

by Deplorable Macker ( 53 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Elections 2012, Healthcare, Mitt Romney, Republican Party at May 12th, 2011 - 2:00 pm

I’ve stated on several occasions here that my big beef versus former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is that he signed into law the model for what is now Обамаcare:

Think about how powerful Romneycare has been. In 2008 — when Обама was running for president and Ted Kennedy was towering over the Senate — nearly 70 percent of Massachusetts voters supported the plan. A mere 22 percent of right-wing holdouts opposed it.
After all, this is Massachusetts, where “universal health care” is a political mantra, like “collective bargaining rights” or “indicted House member.”
But after five years of actually experiencing this new universe, even the Kennedy Democrats have had enough. A new Suffolk University poll showed that nearly half of Massachusetts voters say the law isn’t helping, while just 38 percent say it is. As Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute pointed out, Romneycare is almost as unpopular here as Обамаcare is across America.

So, has Romney finally realized that he made a mistake in signing this into law in the Bay State? In May 11’s edition of USA TODAY, he writes the following:

…Unfortunately, with the passage of ОбамаCare last year, the president and the Congress took a wrong turn. ОбамаCare will lead to more spending, greater federal involvement in health care and negative effects on U.S. economic activity. The president definitely forgot the admonition to “do no harm.”
My plan is to harness the power of markets to drive positive change in health insurance and health care. And we can do so with state flexibility (unlike ОбамаCare’s top-down federal approach), no new taxes (as opposed to hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes under ОбамаCare), and better consumer choice (as opposed to bureaucratic, government choice under ОбамаCare). This change of direction offers our best hope of preserving both innovation and value.
If I am elected president, I will issue on my first day in office an executive order paving the way for waivers from ОбамаCare for all 50 states. Subsequently, I will call on Congress to fully repeal ОбамаCare.

Better yet, a Congress totally in Republican hands can have said legislation waiting for his inaugural podium…and he could sign it during his address!
That said, Romney continues:

The reforms that I propose, which are based on the same philosophical tenets as the reforms I offered during my last presidential campaign in 2008, return power to the states, improve access by slowing health care cost increases, and make health insurance portable and flexible for today’s economy.

The big difference between his proposals three years ago and today is that Обамаcare is now the law of the land, and we have all seen what is in store for the USA…even before the full effect hits.
Even so, we must remain vigilant with Romney, since for the moment, he’s still the darling of the Mainstream Media.,,and we all know what that means.

Finding Out What’s In It! Part IX: A Look At Who’s Really Killing Grandma.

by Flyovercountry ( 112 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Healthcare, Progressives, Socialism at April 20th, 2011 - 4:30 pm

So, who’s really looking to kill grandma?  We will of course take some snippets from the article linked to, but I have some things I must say first.  I would suggest reading the whole Hotair post however.  One, it gets tiring to see on a daily basis, that those, (meaning myself of course,) awful, evil conservatives want to kill small children, put old people out into the street, and beat up puppies and kittens.  We actually love our parents, grandparents, and children as much as the liberals do.  What’s more, we believe that our core policy beliefs will be better for them than those proposed by the other side of the aisle.  I also love my pets.  I also seem to remember the absolute joy in deriding Governor Palin because she called attention to the, “Death Panels.”  The meaning got switched to the end of life counseling program, which created an easy straw man for the Socialists to defeat in a closed debate.  (I say closed, since the country stated very loudly and clearly that they wanted nothing to do with this sink hole of a law, and got inflicted with it anyhow.)  The term Death Panel referred to a bureaucratic process where a panel of bureaucrats made decisions on who got treatment and what treatment would be administered based on an excel spreadsheet rather than a doctor’s medical opinion.  President Obama went to the airwaves constantly to tell us, that even though this law may make that possible, it was not anything he would consider doing to us.  Well guess what.

Democrats and Republicans are joining to oppose one of the most important features of President Obama’s new deficit reduction plan, a powerful independent board that could make sweeping cuts in the growth of Medicare spending.

Mr. Obama wants to expand the power of the 15-member panel, which was created by the new health care law, to rein in Medicare costs.

But not only do Republicans and some Democrats oppose increasing the power of the board, they also want to eliminate it altogether. Opponents fear that the panel, known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board, would usurp Congressional spending power over one of the government’s most important and expensive social programs.

Under the law, spending cuts recommended by the presidentially appointed panel would take effect automatically unless Congress voted to block or change them. In general, federal courts could not review actions to carry out the board’s recommendations. The impact of the board’s decisions could be magnified because private insurers often use Medicare rates as a guide or a benchmark in paying doctors, hospitals and other providers.

What this is, for those who are not paying attention, is a system where costs are going to be controlled by bureaucrats who are charged with rationing of resources.  If the cost benefit analysis curve dictates that Grandma is too old to waste the funding allowed for hip replacement surgery, then it’s hard cheese for Grandma.  If a child with Downs Syndrome, such as Governor Palin’s, does not fit the criteria of a sound economic investment for removal of a busted appendix, Sorry Governor, perhaps you should say your goodbyes now.  The Death Panel has just been given its authority by President Barak Hussein Obama, and it has been done so under the provisions of the new Health Care Law. 

Most of the nation now owes Sarah Palin an apology.  With all of the Democrats and a good chunk of the Republicans laughing at her for pointing this out, she stuck to her guns.  As it turns out, she was 100% right on this one. 

Something else to note here.  This law has been struck down in its entirety by a Federal District Judge as unconstitutional.  This law, which is sucking down a ton of our fiscal resources, technically does not exist.  Obama, should not be appointing 15 person death panels.     The entire process in place right now, besides being evil on its surface, also manages to remove any semblance of the checks and balances system which is the cornerstone of our republic.  As of right now, medical decisions, thanks to a cynically vague law, and a suave lying President, allows 15 unelected, unaccountable, bureaucrats to take lordship over the lives of literally every American Citizen.  What if a future President decides to only appoint people to this panel who will agree to only approve medical care for those who support the President politically?  I realize that Obama would never do that, after all he promised, and we know from experience that his word is as good as gold.  Will that be true for every one who follows our current President though? 

Fellow conservatives, don’t sit out the next election.  We need to fire Barak Obama, and we need to fire his minions.

Crossposted at Musings of a Mad Conservative.

UPDATE:  Last week, President Obama went to the mat to whine about how us evil conservatives wanted to through babies with autism and downs syndrome out into the street in some sort of evil purging of the disabled.  So, read this little gem to see what the left truly thinks of the less fortunate of our society. I realize that this does not represent the belief system of every liberal in the country, but I can not resist pointing out that the liberals, every last one of them, accused Sarah Palin, the victim of this trash, of being a murderer for exercising her First Amendment rights by stating the conservative point of view.  (I am referring to the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting.)  Exit question:  How do you liberals out there square this disgusting display of your vision of the master race with your charge that conservatives are indeed cruel enough to wish special needs children dead? 

Update hat tip to Vagabond trader.

Senate repeals health law’s 1099 provision, sends bill to president

by Iron Fist ( 4 Comments › )
Filed under Headlines at April 6th, 2011 - 7:36 am

Good News! The Senate finally passed the law to repeal the assinine 1099 requirement that was in the massive “Pass it to find what’s in it” ObamaCare law. This makes it the first part of that law to be scrapped. Obama is expected to sign this, as everybody (but presumably the ass that put it in the Bill in the first palce) wants this abomination scrapped. Now, on to the next part of the Job Killing ObamaCare Law. If we can’t repeal the whole thing, maybe between legislation and the courts we can scrap it piecemeal.

Another Rosey Jobs Report, Another Lie.

by Flyovercountry ( 5 Comments › )
Filed under Economy, government, Headlines, Healthcare, Politics, Progressives, Special Report at April 4th, 2011 - 3:07 pm

Last week we were fed some very Rosy employment numbers. Where do you think most of those newly employed workers are being hired?  for those who would argue that it doesn’t really matter that our public sector is very quickly going to be larger in both number and volume than the private sector, take a look at Greece.  What do you believe is happening there.  Part of the problem, and it is huge to be sure, is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.  When the public sector becomes larger than the private sector, there is no way that the productive members of society will ever be able to produce enough to support those who suckle on the public teet. 

Don’t expect a reversal of this trend anytime soon. Surveys of college graduates are finding that more and more of our top minds want to work for the government. Why? Because in recent years only government agencies have been hiring, and because the offer of near lifetime security is highly valued in these times of economic turbulence. When 23-year-olds aren’t willing to take career risks, we have a real problem on our hands. Sadly, we could end up with a generation of Americans who want to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Looking at the above snippet, it appears as though America’s youth gets it.  It is far better to be one of the chosen elites of a society than one of the people tasked for doing the actual lifting.  Our nation was founded on the belief that human beings not only had an inalienable right to self determination and self reliance, but that they would be better off as a whole by being afforded the ability to participate in their own destinies.  A scant 223 years later, thanks to the liberal tripe that the Constitution is in fact a flexible living, breathing document, we are morphing into a nation divided into 3 distinct groups.  One group are the elites, who feel that we are all better off surrendering our liberties and decision making capabilities to their more enlightened bureaucratic control.  They wish to tell the rest of us what our standard of living is allowed to be, and which activities are in our best interests.  The next group is peopled with folks who would be content to allow themselves to be cared for by the first.  Their vision for themselves is to live off of the government, accepting whatever lifestyle the benevolent elites would allow.  The third group are the people who wish to see the government be limited in its scope and size.  They want the governments activities limited to those activities expressly stated in the Constitution, complete with the checks and balances system originally established.  They want to freedom to earn what ever standard of living they would be capable of earning for themselves. 

I often hear from people that I should hate the rich and that the progressives are looking out for the little guy.  I must protest this on two grounds.  One, despising the rich is nothing more than a destructive class warfare.  If we punish the rich, how does that help me at all.  If I am missing out on the lifestyle that I want to lead, what difference will it make in my life at all if others are not able to enjoy those things.  I’ll explain a little further.  I like going to the Ocean.  I do not get to go every year.  Other people can go every year.  Telling other people that they can not go to the Ocean every year will not help me at all.  I still would not have gone.  The answer for me is to work harder in my daily life to earn that ability.  My lifestyle is independent of the lives of others.  Getting me to hate rich people in order to push their political agenda is nothing more than encouraging my jealously, which anyone above the age of 5 should realize is a self destructive behavior. 

My next objection has to do with this.  Are the elites actually looking out for the little guy?  You would have to be a complete imbecile or just plain not paying attention to believe the answer to be yes.  This wonderful new health care entitlement created is massively expensive.  It is adding a crippling expense of $10,000 per employee for my company.  I am a little guy.  The big guys, with political connections like GE, (you don’t come much bigger than GE,) have all found exemptions from paying their fair, or any share for this debacle.  Now, we learn that they will actually be receiving funds from the Obama Administration that the rest of us are being forced to pay. 

The ruling class elites are only concerned with taking care of themselves, and making sure that they always remain in power to ensure that they will always be afforded the standard of living appropriate for those who rule.  I truly do not care what their living standard is, I just want the opportunity to determine what mine will be also.

Hat tip to Vagabond Trader.

Crossposted at Musings of a Mad Conservative.