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Posts Tagged ‘Obamacare’

Finding Out What’s In It! Part VIII

by Flyovercountry ( 53 Comments › )
Filed under Health Care, Healthcare, Politics, Progressives at April 2nd, 2011 - 5:00 pm

Well color me shocked to learn that AARP is actively engaged in the practice of screwing its membership for profit.  I have suspected for years that the self proclaimed largest senior advocacy group was nothing more than an organization designed to remove the limited funds available of people on a fixed income from those very people they profess to care about.  According to a Congressional Investigation, (of course performed after the adults who are actually interested in their Constitutional responsibilities gained control of the House,) AARP will be making a $1 Billion profit off of the Obamacare Law.  Well, don’t act so surprised.  After all, $1 Trillion being stolen from the taxpayers of this country had to go somewhere, and why not to AARP.  For those of you who don’t know, AARP is nothing more than a collection of retired union thugs preying upon senior citizens for the express purpose of continuing their nefarious preretirement thuggery.  After all, why should they give up the extortion, racketeering, and political bribery just because they are enjoying their golden years.  The Obamacare debate prompted 60,000 former AARP members to cancel their memberships, (upon realizing what AARP was really all about,) but what is 60,000 people leaving your ranks next to $1 Billion.

AARP is in fact turning a nice profit on many of its endorsement deals. It is doing so well in fact that its tax exempt status is in question.  AARP uses its perception as a senior advocacy group to hawk insurance products to its membership.  Insurance companies pay a fee to be the product selected by AARP to be recommended to its membership.  They recommend a variety of Medigap, Long Term Care, Health and Life policies.  In 2009, AARP reported $657 Million in endorsement revenue.  This alone should qualify AARP as a for profit insurance agency.

Here are some excerpts from the article linked to above:

President Obama told a town meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., “We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors.” Now a new report released by GOP members on the House Ways and Means Committee, “Behind the Veil: The AARP America Doesn’t Know,” says the AARP may have been on board simply because it was a good deal for it.
The report by House Ways and Means Committee members Wally Herger, R-Calif., and Dave Reichert, R-Wash., compiles the results of a yearlong investigation. It notes that as a result of the health care law, the Obama administration estimates more than 7 million seniors will lose their current Medicare Advantage plan and that AARP stands to benefit handsomely from that fact and the law it lobbied for through the sale of its competing, endorsed Medicare insurance products.

Royalties from licensing the use of AARP’s name earned $657 million for the organization in 2009, some 46% of its total revenue vs. just 17% from membership dues. Since 2002, income derived from AARP’s business relationships, primarily with insurance companies, has nearly tripled, increasing by $417 million.

The millions forced by ObamaCare to lose the Medicare Advantage coverage will result, the report says “in a massive migration of seniors to Medigap plans. AARP is the nation’s leading provider of Medigap plans and has a contract in which AARP financially gains for every additional Medigap enrollee. “

My favorite part of this whole thing is that AARP is the nations leading provider of Medigap plans.  The Obamacare law will effectively establish AARP as a government approved monopoly for those plans, with AARP’s executives receiving about $1 Billion for their troubles.  Not a bad deal for a senior advocacy group, is it?

Crossposted at Musings of a Mad Conservative.

UPDATE:  Steven Crowder is plugging a website to ask for your very own waiver to the new Obamacare Law. Absolutely hilarious, be the first non union member on your block to be excused from this sink hole of a law.  Don’t be the last one holding the bag.

Finding Out What’s In It! Part VII

by Flyovercountry ( 129 Comments › )
Filed under Elections 2012, Health Care, Progressives, Socialism at March 24th, 2011 - 11:30 am

Let me start by saying a Happy Birthday to the Obamacare Legislation. This was the single most cynical piece of governance ever to come out of Washington’s hallowed halls. There was arm twisting going on, kickbacks, bribes, thuggish tactics employed against anyone who spoke out in protest including a Tea Party member getting his finger bitten off in St. Louis, and left just a general sour taste in the mouths of many Americans. The law in question is in fact so bad, that even a good number of my liberal friends are against it.

One year later, where do we stand. Those large, evil corporations that the Socialists are protecting us from, have to a large extent been granted waivers from the expense of Obamacare. We small independent business owners, not so. We have to pay the increased expense of $10,000 per employee. For a fledgling business just starting out, this is often the difference between thriving and not even surviving. A company fighting for its survival, will probably not be taking the gamble to expand and hire. Meet Scott Womack, who through the Heritage Foundation, will give a better explanation for the whole mess.

The waivers are well over a thousand now, and have been granted exclusively to those organizations who were mostly on the sidelines acting as shills and cheerleaders for this sink hole of a law. Rationing of care has already begun. Several drugs are no longer available, and certain treatments are being denied based on a cost benefit ratio analysis.

The center of a right-to-life debate, 13-month-old Joseph Maraachli rests at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center in St. Louis with his dad,...

Much ado was made about Sarah Palin’s use of the phrase, “death panels.”   I watched in amusement as everybody missed the point of what Governor Palin was talking about.  The assumption was that Sarah was speaking to the end of life counseling being offered under the plan.  What Governor Palin was speaking to was the concept of bureaucratic panels making decisions on medical care based on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles rather than Medical Professionals making those decisions on what would be best for the patient.  If you don’t believe our law would bring that about, meet Joseph Maraachli.  His parents brought him to a hospital in Missouri after just such a panel ordered that he would not receive a relatively simple medical procedure to save his life in Ontario.  The judge who ordered his death gave the parents a whole week to say their goodbyes to their baby.  The decision was made solely based on economics, with not one medical fact being considered.  I realize that Ontario is not our country, but we have been told for years how our medical system should look like Canada’s.  Now that we have modeled our own system to theirs, and are moving in that direction, would it make sense to actually see what medical care in Canada is really like.

Read more about this at Investor’s Business Daily.

11 new taxes are going into effect over the next 4 years, and this boondoggle is already hundreds of Billions of dollars more expensive than we were told it was going to be.  The CBO estimate was based entirely of fictional numbers, which are still being touted by a sycophantic media as though it were gospel.  For those who haven’t been told yet, the CBO qualified their statement, by basically saying here is our report on the financial impact of this bill, which has almost no accuracy since there was no accuracy in the assumptions made to score the bill in the first place. 

The first benefits of this law will not be received until well after the next Presidential election.  With that being the case, why was it necessary to pass this bill so fast that no one was given ample time to actually read it?  Beyond the fiscal mess it is creating, this bill removes huge swaths of our basic liberties and hands control of much of our daily living over to the executive branch.  Even if you think President Obama and Secretary Sebilius are just aces, what about the President and Secretary elected 24 years from now.  Personally, I want to be able to buy my kids a Happy Meal, which this new law has enabled the city of San Francisco to ban.  Since everything we do in our daily lives has the possible impact of affecting our health, and costing the government money, kiss your personal liberties good bye. 

Obama care is 1 year old now.  By the time it turns two, I hope we will have the ability to take it off of life support, so that the rest of us have a chance.

Crossposted at Musings of a Mad Conservative.

UPDATE:  This one was just too funny to not include in my continuing Obamacare rant.  Apparently, Jon Tester believes that the best way to hold on to his Senate seat in November of 2012 is to claim that he was in fact not the 60th vote in favor of the Law, but only the less important 52nd vote.  I’ll give some background for this update, as only about a quarter of the country will recognize what is happening.  There are 23 Democrat Senators up for reelection in 2012.  The NRSC is now running ads in each state calling the appropriate Senator the 60th and deciding vote for the Sink Hole of a Law.  Since the Law in question needed each of the 60 votes to force cloture, then each vote was the deciding vote.  Even though we have seen those loopy polls from PPP and Gallup showing that America is evenly divided on the issue, the internal polling of the Congress Critters in question is a far different story.  The Senate Democrats are scurrying away from this thing like cockroaches exposed to light.  Tester realizes that defending his vote would be certain death, so he instead is trying to downplay his vote’s importance.  Good luck with that Jon.  The NRSC has to be salivating over this debate scenario.

GOP to defund Obamacare

by Phantom Ace ( 216 Comments › )
Filed under Democratic Party, Economy, Elections 2010, Progressives, Republican Party at February 10th, 2011 - 8:30 am

The House GOP has announced a plan to enact 74 billion in cuts. This is a small amount but its a start. This follows Rand Paul’s 500 Billion dollar in cuts proposals. These proposals are moving in the right direction, but they have a bigger target. Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has announced that the GOP will target Obamacare for defunding. Since they can’t repeal the bill due to The Democrats control of the Senate and Obama’s veto pen, they just will not appropriate money for it.

If House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) gets his way, Obamacare may die due to lack of funding.

The House has already voted to repeal the measure and a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, Democrats are determined to see it fully implemented.

Senate Republicans failed to repeal the law when Minority Leader Mitch McConnell added it to an aviation bill as an amendment.

But the Virginia Republican told CNS News Tuesday that “one way or the other” there would be no funding for Obamacare in the upcoming continuing resolution that will keep the government funded through fiscal year 2011.

Read the rest:  Republicans will defund Obamacare ‘one way or the other’

Good on the part of the Republicans. Clearly they have heeded the message of the American people. We don’t want this Eugenics based Obamacare nonsense. With their proposals to cut off federal funding of abortion, no bailouts for pensions, the 74 Billion in cuts and defunding Obamacare, they are showing real spine.

I hope they take on Tax and regulatory reform next. Budget cuts are good, but we need incentives for investments which lead to job creation. This is the first time since the Reagan years and briefly in 1995 that GOP is addressing economic concerns. They seem to be going back towards their roots.

Judge declares Obamacare Unconstitutional

by Phantom Ace ( 92 Comments › )
Filed under Breaking News, Health Care, Open thread at January 31st, 2011 - 8:30 pm

A judge dealt a huge blow to the schemes of Barack Hussein Obama and the Progressive movement. District Judge Roger Vinson has ruled today in Tallahassee that Obamacare is unconstitutional. This is a huge win for the 26 state lawsuit. Now it will go the next level and eventually reach the Supreme Court.

(Reuters) – A federal judge in Florida struck down President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul as unconstitutional on Monday in the biggest legal challenge yet to federal authority to enact the law.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled that the reform law’s so-called individual mandate went too far in requiring that Americans start buying health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty.

“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void,” he wrote, “This has been a difficult decision to reach and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications.”

Read the rest: Judge strikes down healthcare reform law

This is on its way to the Supreme Court!