My questions for Republican Leaders… What are the alternatives available in getting "real" health coverage to more Americans?  And how do lesser countries provide healthcare to more of their people, and the USA can not?   It is estimated that Ryan's Freedom Plan, passed by the house, would actually remove about 44 million people from Healthcare Ins. currently on Healthcare Ins., mostly through Medicaid.  When these uninsured people go to emergency rooms and don't pay their doctor bills, how does this improve the cost of medical care?   Won't doctors and hospital have to charge more, to make up for all the people, who don’t pay their bills?   How many people will die because they can not go to a doctor, or can not afford the medicine they need?  Are we really that "greedy" and "selfish" of a nation and of a people? read more »

After spending years working to push their new rules for how the rest of us can access and pay for health care in America, it shouldn't surprise that many on the left are now seeking and getting waivers from those very rules for themselves.

In other words, ObamaCare for thee, but not for me.

This tracts with what we've always known about big government liberals.  They want to control and dictate how everyone else can live their own lives because they know better.  They're smarter than you.  Which of course means that they're also smart enough to be trusted not to have to abide by the same rules as you.

The latest offenders?  SEIU:

Three local chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), whose political action committee spent $27 million supporting Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, have received temporary waivers from a provision in the Obamacare law.

The three SEIU chapters include the Local 25 in Obama’s hometown of Chicago. read more »

Despite the fact that they had to drop this idea from the original legislation...and despite the fact that promoters of health care "reform" promised that no such thing would ever happen, here it is, just months removed from ObamaCare being signed into law.

In case you missed it, the White House is planning to put forward regulations that will incentivize doctors to meet with patients and discuss their "end of life" options.

Via the NY Times:

Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.

The final version of the health care legislation, signed into law by President Obama in March, authorized Medicare coverage of yearly physical examinations, or wellness visits. The new rule says Medicare will cover “voluntary advance care planning,” to discuss end-of-life treatment, as part of the annual visit. read more »

Yes, you read that right and I am very sincere in my opinion. Obama should not be a one-term president. He should not be president at all. He should be removed BEFORE his first term has ended. First of all, we the people did NOT vote him into office. He was PLACED there by Communist Party USA. It was a gentle coup. I have been following the history of this which I will publish later. The Communist Party had been planning this for a long long time. It is that party which actually began stirring up racial strife in America, not only to make all races one (to erase individuality), but also to plant into all Americans, a sense of white guilt over slavery .

To groom a black man for the high office was well calculated for that very reason, to silence anyone who objects to their man maneuvering Marxist goals for America by accusing them of racism.. Notice how the words race hatred comes up everytime someone rightly criticizes "The One" for his 'decisions'  (actually the decisions of the Communist Party USA) that have shown a total lack of logic in every area. for a democracy.  read more »

During the debate over ObamaCare, Democrats countered opposition to the bill by saying that, once it became law, it would become more popular.  Echoing that theme, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated they "had to pass this bill, so you can see what's in it".

Well, now that it is law, some unpleasant surprises are cropping up.

Over the course of the last few days, major corporations have announced that they will be facing multi-million dollar losses as a result of the bill.  They have made these announcements as part of disclosures required by the Securities and Exchange Commission because they're publicly traded companies.  But, that hasn't made Democrats happy.  On Tuesday, Democrat Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, issued letters to those firms demanding they come to his committee and explain themselves.

Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, on Friday fired off letters to the heads of
Caterpillar, Verizon, AT&T and Deere after they and other firms
reported that the health care overhaul would dig deep into their bottom
lines. 

Caterpillar claimed it would raise costs by $100 million in the
first year and imperil coverage for its 150,000 employees and retirees.
Deere estimated it would raise expenses by $150 million.  read more »

by permission
©Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

Subway riders know the adage – The third rail is deadly –it carries the
current that can kill
you. Avoid the third rail.
We are about to get that “third rail” for government-controlled
healthcare. Then comes the
death blow to your medical privacy, your freedom to choose medical
treatment options, and
your ability to control the cost of any private health insurance you may
want to buy.
Democrats, working in the shadows away from public view and using
devious “divide and
conquer” strategies, have already laid two tracks for a complete
government control of your
healthcare. They only have one more rail to go.
The first two rails were craftily hidden in the Stimulus Bill of
February 2009. While the
public thinks healthcare bills are still “out there” and not yet passed,
the Democrats have
been celebrating the anniversary of the Stimulus Bill, knowing that
their “Stimulus” stealth
tactics already laid those first two healthcare tracks for government
control.
Populist rhetoric hides the lethal third rail. It is called “insurance
reform.”
It’s brilliantly deceptive and diabolical in its 3-step simplicity:
1. Control medical records and private health information of every
person in the
United States, and penalize health professionals who refuse to release
your
personal information. ALREADY PASSED into law February 2009. Come 2014, read more »

Remember "Jobs, jobs, jobs"?  That's what Obama and the Democrats told us they were going to focus on a few months ago after that big upset win by Scott Brown in Massachusetts, (after he campaigned almost exclusively against ObamaCare).

Well not only have they not changed their focus to jobs, we've spent another two months mired in debating their health care takeover scheme.  And now comes a study from Americans for Tax Reform and the Beacon Hill Institute that projects ObamaCare would cost the economy around 700,000 jobs by 2019.

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has urged
passage of the massive health reform plan moving through Congress as a
way to create up to 400,000 jobs.  Speaker Pelosi bases her claim on a
report by the Center for American Progress (CAP) in which the Center
estimates that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)
would create 250,000 to 400,000 jobs per year over 10 years.

This estimate by CAP amounts to a hurried effort to add academic
heft to the claim that national health care reform offers a collateral
benefit in the form of an economic “stimulus.” It turns out, however,
that its methodology, stripped of unsupportable claims about savings in
health care costs, shows just the opposite of what CAP intended. PPACA
is a job killer, not a job creator. read more »

Given how much time Obama and the Democrat leadership have spent villainizing insurance and drug companies, you wouldn't expect that some of those same companies would be bankrolling the efforts to pass ObamaCare, or that Democrats would be taking their money to do just that.  OK, maybe you would believe that last part, but still...

From the Washington Examiner:

As they whip for the health care bill, Democratic leaders pack a mean one-two punch of populist rhetoric and the hefty financial backing of the drug industry.

In the heated yearlong health fight, President Obama has often accused his opponents of willful misrepresentation, even as he and his allies have endlessly repeated the biggest whopper of all — that the bill would rein in the special interests.

The Obama team regularly dismisses opponents as industry lackeys.
The Democratic National Committee blasted out e-mails this week warning
that "for every member of Congress, there are eight anti-reform
lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill" and "Congress is under attack from
insurance lobbyists." read more »

In their effort to clear up any confusion whatsoever about where they stand on the Senate version of ObamaCare, the nation's Catholic Bishops put out a statement this past weekend that they asked to have read aloud and/or posted in their parishes which set the record straight.

They are OPPOSSED to the bill.

From the statement:

As long-time advocates of health care reform, the U.S.
Catholic bishops continue to make the moral case that genuine health
care reform must protect the life, dignity, consciences and health of
all, especially the poor and vulnerable. Health care reform should
provide access to affordable and quality health care for all, and not
advance a pro-abortion agenda in our country. Genuine health care
reform is being blocked by those who insist on reversing widely
supported policies against federal funding of abortion and plans which
include abortion, not by those working simply to preserve these
longstanding protections. read more »

The latest from the world of ObamaCare...

House Dems want to pass ObamaCare without actually voting on it

Yes, believe it or not, it's come to this.  House Democratic leaders are working on a strategy which would allow the House to "pass" the Senate version of ObamaCare but avoid the unpleasant prospect of having to vote in favor of it on the record.  The trick would involve them voting instead for a "reconciliation" package (changes to the Senate bill) which, under the new rule adopted for this purpose, would pre-suppose passage of the underlying Senate bill which they just voted to "reconcile".

Just in case you're not keeping track at home, this makes at least three "unusual" changes to the normal legislative process that Democrats have employed to ram this bill through.  The first being not having a conference committee to iron out the differences between the House and Senate bills, (because that could then be filibustered by the no longer filibuster proof Senate); the second being to propose using reconciliation in the Senate as a way to "fix" the bill so the House would vote for it, (again, so as to avoid need more than just 51 senators), and the third now being the House trying to pass a bill they don't actually vote for. read more »