“The government will now write a rule that says the best things in life are ‘free,’ including contraception…
The reality, as with all mandated benefits, is that these costs will be borne eventually via higher premiums…
Who was it again who claimed that if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan?”
“Liberals have a rendezvous with regret. Their largest achievement is today’s redistributionist government. But such government is inherently regressive: It tends to distribute power and money to the strong, including itself…
The welfare state’s primary purpose is to subsidize the last years of Americans’ lives, and the elderly are, after a lifetime of accumulation, better off than most Americans…
When taxes are levied not to efficiently fund government but to impose this or that notion of distributive justice, remember: Taxes are always coerced contributions to government, which is always the first, and often the principal, beneficiary of them.”
“the average American makes only $33,000 a year -- which, adjusted for inflation, has not changed since 1988”
“Setting the stage for a historic constitutional confrontation over federal power, the Supreme Court on Monday granted three separate cases on the constitutionality of the new federal health care law, and set aside 5 1/2 hours for oral argument, to be held in March.”
“Lured by easier money and shorter prison sentences, Mafia figures and other violent criminals are increasingly moving into fraud involving the government's Medicare health insurance program for the elderly…
A Medicare scammer could easily net at least $25,000 a day while risking a relatively modest 10 years in prison if convicted on a single count. A cocaine dealer could take weeks to make that amount while risking up to life in prison [or getting shot on the street].”
“The Obama administration will remove a brand-new Medicare policy that had reignited the ‘death panel’ debate from last year's healthcare fight.”
“A federal judge ruled Monday that President Obama's historic health care overhaul is unconstitutional.”
“The Physicians Foundation today released the results of a national survey of physicians that finds strong negative feelings towards the new health care reform law and fear that patient care will suffer in the months and years ahead…
The majority of physicians (60%) said health reform will compel them to close or significantly restrict their practices to certain categories of patients. Of these, 93% said they will be forced to close or significantly restrict their practices to Medicaid patients, while 87% said they would be forced to close or significantly restrict their practices to Medicare patients.”
“Seniors enrolling in private Medicare policies starting this week are finding fewer options, as health insurers close down certain types of plans due to legislative changes and looming cuts to federal funding.
Cigna Corp., Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, several Blue Cross Blue Shield plans and others aren't renewing hundreds of Medicare Advantage plans, which are Medicare policies administered by private insurers. The moves will displace some 700,000 beneficiaries who must find new policies, according to Humana Inc., a large seller of Advantage plans.”
“ObamaCare's once and future harms have been well chronicled, but the major effects so far are less obvious and arguably more important: A wave of consolidation is washing over the health markets, and the result is going to be higher costs.
The turn toward consolidation among insurance companies is not new, and neither is it among doctors, hospitals and other providers. Yet the health bill has accelerated these trends, as all sides race to anticipate and manage political risk and regulatory uncertainty. This dynamic is leading to much larger hospital systems and physician groups, and fewer insurers dominated by a handful of national conglomerates. ObamaCare was sold using the language of choice and competition, but it is actually reducing both.”
“The United Federation of Teachers, the New York City branch of the American Federation of Teachers, which pushed ardently for ObamaCare has now requested – and received – a waiver from its mandates….
It was announced Thursday that the UFT has requested and received an Obamacare-waiver after it discovered their members would end up losing their health insurance plans. …
If the union thought ObamaCare would benefit the country, then why seek a waiver? And can we now count the union as a partner in the effort to repeal it?”
“Virginia is asserting that certain portions (that is, the personal mandate) of ObamaCare are unconstitutional. If Virginia prevails, it leaves the question of what happens to the rest of the ObamaCare statute. This is where the concept of severance comes in. Normally, all comprehensive laws contain a boilerplate severance clause: it says that if any portion of the law is found to be unconstitutional, that portion is severed from the rest of the law -- that is, the rest of the law stands.
But ObamaCare contains no severance clause. Virginia is asserting that if it prevails on its substantive claims, the whole law is unconstitutional. (If Virginia does not prevail, any one of the twenty-plus legal challenges have the same severance argument available.)”
“The NHS [National Health Service] in England spent more than £300million on management consultants in the last year, new figures showed today.
The cost is almost the same as the amount spent on skin and lung cancer services combined and is the equivalent of the salary of 10,000 nurses”
“With all precincts reporting, 71% of voters supported Proposition C, establishing a state law that says Missouri cannot compel people to pay a penalty or fine if they fail to carry health coverage…
The state law runs counter to the federal health law President Barack Obama signed in March, which calls on most Americans to carry coverage or pay a fine.
Some state attorneys general have challenged the insurance mandate as unconstitutional.”
“Americans continue to be more likely to disapprove than approve of President Obama's sweeping health care reforms, a new CBS News poll shows. While approval of the law is slightly higher than it was when the reforms were signed into law in March, support for the measure has dropped seven points in the past two months.”
“Dr. Donald Berwick, nominated by President Barack Obama to run Medicare and Medicaid, praised the government-owned British National Health Service (NHS) for not letting their health care system ‘play out in the darkness of private enterprise.’ ”
“The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama's health care ‘reform’ law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius's staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.”
“I kept my promise to pass a health reform bill without adding a dime to the deficit”Click here for an alternate video clip of the quote.
“One week after the House of Representatives passed the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, 54% of the nation's likely voters still favor repealing the new law. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% oppose repeal.”
“As I have said over and over and over, the left has one trick that it will use again and again when its back is in the corner: shout ‘racist’ in a crowded country….
YouTube video shows that at least two of the men in the procession were carrying video cameras and holding them above the crowd. They have not come forth with evidence to show that even one person hurled the vile racist epithet…
It’s time for the allegedly pristine character of Rep. John Lewis to put up or shut up. Therefore, I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at him not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once…
Rep. Lewis, if you can’t do that, I’ll give him a backup plan: a lie detector test. If you provide verifiable video evidence showing that a single racist epithet was hurled as you walked among the tea partiers, or you pass a simple lie detector test, I will provide a $10K check to the United Negro College Fund.”
“Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses…
Democrats don't like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.
The consulting firm Towers Watson estimates that the total hit this year will reach nearly $14 billion, unless corporations cut retiree drug benefits when their labor contracts let them.
Meanwhile, John DiStaso of the New Hampshire Union Leader reported this week that ObamaCare could cost the Granite State's major ski resorts as much as $1 million in fines”
“Steamboat Ski Area officials said Tuesday that the federal health care overhaul could cost their business as much as $2 million a year beginning in 2014.”
“President Obama is splintering America. The passage of Obamacare was a historic victory for liberal governance. Yet, its true cost may be that it triggers the eventual breakup of the country…
The bitter debate over Obamacare has exposed the country's profound divisions. We are no longer one nation or one people. Rather, there are now two Americas: one conservative, the other liberal. Increasingly, we no longer just disagree but we despise each other.”
“The bond market is saying that it's safer to lend to Warren Buffett than Barack Obama…
The $US2.59 trillion of Treasury Department sales since the start of 2009 have… raised concerns whether the US deserves its AAA credit rating…
While Treasuries backed by the full faith and credit of the government typically yield less than corporate debt, the relationship has flipped…
America will use about 7 per cent of taxes for debt payments in 2010 and almost 11 per cent in 2013, moving ‘substantially’ closer to losing its AAA rating, Moody's said last week.”
“Walgreens… has given notice to the State of Washington that… effective April 16 they will not accept new Washington Medicaid patients.”
“46.3% of primary care physicians (family medicine and internal medicine) feel that the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.”
“These thirty Democratic Congressmen all voted for Obamacare the first time around. But Pelosi cannot count on their votes again as Obama tries to jam the bill through using reconciliation in the Senate. These members are all vulnerable and are frightened of the voter backlash their support for Obamacare has kindled… pick up the phone and call these swing Congressmen. Let them hear from you!”
“Are there enough votes in the House to pass the Senate's health-care bill? As of today, it's clear there aren't. House Democratic leaders have brushed aside White House calls to bring the bill forward by March 18, when President Barack Obama heads to Asia. Nevertheless, analysts close to the Democratic leadership tell me they're confident the leadership will find some way to squeeze out the 216 votes needed for a majority.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indeed shown mastery at amassing majorities. But it's hard to see how she'll do so on this one. The arithmetic as I see it doesn't add up.”
