Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Refusing Treatment to Infants under 22 Weeks
Infant left to die by socialized medicine
I Would Assume Jayden Capewell Would Have Had A Differing Opinion
The Bad News About ObamaCare Keeps Piling Up
It's now obvious that many millions will lose the coverage they have.
* JUNE 17, 2010 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL/OPINION JOURNAL
In his brilliant exposition of why sweeping policy changes often have unintended consequences, the late sociologist Robert K. Merton wrote that leaders get things wrong when their "paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes the consideration of further or other consequences" of their proposals. This leads policy makers to assert things that are false, wishing them to be true.
Which brings us to President Obama's many claims about his health-care reform. Take his oft-expressed statement that if you like the coverage you have, you can keep it. That sounds good—but perverse incentives in his new law will cause most Americans to lose their existing insurance.
This was brought home to me when I asked the CEO of a major restaurant chain about health reform's effect on his company, which now spends $25 million a year on employee health insurance. That will jump to at least $90 million a year once the new law is phased in. It will be cheaper, he told me, for the company to dump its coverage and pay a fine—$2,000 for each full-time worker—and make sure that no part-time employee accidentally worked 31 hours and thereby incurred the fine.
This reality is settling in at businesses across America. A Midwestern contractor told me he pays $588,000 for health insurance for 70 employees, contributing up to $8,400 a year for a family's coverage. If he stops providing health insurance, he'll pay $2,000 per employee in fines, and the first 40 employees are exempt from fines altogether.
It's also dawning on employees that they will lose their coverage. Some will blame management; many more will blame those who wrote this terrible legislation.
Employees who lose coverage get to select a policy from a government-sponsored insurance marketplace called the "exchange." This will be subsidized by taxpayers. Depending on his income, a worker will have to pay between 8% and 9.8% of the cost.
But there are a few hitches. Employers now pay for employee health plans with pre-tax dollars, but workers who buy into one on the exchange pay with after-tax dollars. Families making less than $30,000 and individuals making less than $15,000 a year will be dumped into Medicaid, widely viewed as second-class health care.
Either Mr. Obama was stunningly blind to these perverse effects when he promised people could keep their coverage, or he felt that admitting his plan would collapse employer-provided health coverage could keep it from passing. Either way—self-deception or deliberate deceit—health reform is going to turn out far differently than was promised. And because more workers will be dumped into subsidized coverage, taxpayers are likely to pay much more than the $1 trillion-plus price tag claimed by ObamaCare advocates for its first 10 years.
About Karl Rove
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process.
Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.
Karl writes a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is the author of the book "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions).
Email the author atKarl@Rove.comor visit him on the web atRove.com. Or, you can send a Tweet to @karlrove.
It doesn't end there. Another way the new health reform will have consequences that are the opposite of what was promised can be found in new draft regulations (its Interim Final Rule) from the Department of Health and Human Services. The proposed rules could cause as many as half of all workers to lose their existing coverage.
Health-care plans that existed before the new law are "grandfathered" with regard to some of its provisions. The rules released Monday spell out how little these plans can change without losing their protected status.
Health plans would no longer be grandfathered if a business changes insurance companies (a common practice when employers shop for lower prices), raises deductibles more than 5%, drops any existing benefits, or even increases co-pays by as little as $5.
* JUNE 17, 2010 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL/OPINION JOURNAL
In his brilliant exposition of why sweeping policy changes often have unintended consequences, the late sociologist Robert K. Merton wrote that leaders get things wrong when their "paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes the consideration of further or other consequences" of their proposals. This leads policy makers to assert things that are false, wishing them to be true.
Which brings us to President Obama's many claims about his health-care reform. Take his oft-expressed statement that if you like the coverage you have, you can keep it. That sounds good—but perverse incentives in his new law will cause most Americans to lose their existing insurance.
This was brought home to me when I asked the CEO of a major restaurant chain about health reform's effect on his company, which now spends $25 million a year on employee health insurance. That will jump to at least $90 million a year once the new law is phased in. It will be cheaper, he told me, for the company to dump its coverage and pay a fine—$2,000 for each full-time worker—and make sure that no part-time employee accidentally worked 31 hours and thereby incurred the fine.
This reality is settling in at businesses across America. A Midwestern contractor told me he pays $588,000 for health insurance for 70 employees, contributing up to $8,400 a year for a family's coverage. If he stops providing health insurance, he'll pay $2,000 per employee in fines, and the first 40 employees are exempt from fines altogether.
It's also dawning on employees that they will lose their coverage. Some will blame management; many more will blame those who wrote this terrible legislation.
Employees who lose coverage get to select a policy from a government-sponsored insurance marketplace called the "exchange." This will be subsidized by taxpayers. Depending on his income, a worker will have to pay between 8% and 9.8% of the cost.
But there are a few hitches. Employers now pay for employee health plans with pre-tax dollars, but workers who buy into one on the exchange pay with after-tax dollars. Families making less than $30,000 and individuals making less than $15,000 a year will be dumped into Medicaid, widely viewed as second-class health care.
Either Mr. Obama was stunningly blind to these perverse effects when he promised people could keep their coverage, or he felt that admitting his plan would collapse employer-provided health coverage could keep it from passing. Either way—self-deception or deliberate deceit—health reform is going to turn out far differently than was promised. And because more workers will be dumped into subsidized coverage, taxpayers are likely to pay much more than the $1 trillion-plus price tag claimed by ObamaCare advocates for its first 10 years.
About Karl Rove
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process.
Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.
Karl writes a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is the author of the book "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions).
Email the author atKarl@Rove.comor visit him on the web atRove.com. Or, you can send a Tweet to @karlrove.
It doesn't end there. Another way the new health reform will have consequences that are the opposite of what was promised can be found in new draft regulations (its Interim Final Rule) from the Department of Health and Human Services. The proposed rules could cause as many as half of all workers to lose their existing coverage.
Health-care plans that existed before the new law are "grandfathered" with regard to some of its provisions. The rules released Monday spell out how little these plans can change without losing their protected status.
Health plans would no longer be grandfathered if a business changes insurance companies (a common practice when employers shop for lower prices), raises deductibles more than 5%, drops any existing benefits, or even increases co-pays by as little as $5.
Monday, July 26, 2010
How America Health Care Stacks Up
What's Really Going On In This Country?
http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss324/Civilradiant/PDFSS.jpg
http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss324/Civilradiant/PDFSS.jpg
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Health Care Reform: 13 Tax Changes on the Way
Business Tax
It's just the beginning!!!
Aren't those people that thought this would be "FREE" going to be surprised?
You really need to read this. It starts next year. This is part of the new Health Care Bill.
I contacted my Congressman about House Bill HR3590 the health care bill that just passed. I asked for a summary of changes. The aid directed me to go to http://www.thomas.gov/> , enter HR3590 in the search box and look for CRS Summaries. Then scroll down to:
TITLE IX REVENUE PROVISIONS- SUBTITLE A: REVENUE OFFSET PROVISIONS-(Sec.9001, (as modified by sec.10901) Sec.9002. Starting in 2011 (next year folks) your W2 tax form sent by your employer will be increased to show the value of whatever health insurance you are given by the company. It does not matter if that's a private company or government body of some sort. If you're retired….So what, your gross will go up by the amount of insurance you get.
The dollar value (cost of what the company pays for your insurance) will be considered income and added to your gross pay. You will be taxed on the total.
You will be required to pay taxes on a larger sum of money that you have never seen.
Take your tax form you just finished and see what $15,000 or $20,000 of additional gross income does to your tax debt. That's what you'll pay next year. For many it also puts you into a higher tax bracket so it's even worse.
This is how the government is going to buy insurance for 15% of the populace that doesn't have insurance and it's only part of the tax increases.
Not believing this, I researched the summaries and here's what I'm reading:
On page 25 of 29 :
TITLE IX REVENUE PROVISIONS- SUBTITLE A: REVENUE OFFSET PROVISIONS-(Sec.9001, (as modified by sec.10901) Sec.9002. "requires employers to include in the W2 form of each employee the aggregate cost of applicable employer sponsored group health coverage that is excusable from the employees gross income."
Joan Pryde is the senior tax editor for the Kiplinger letters. Go to Kiplingers and read about 13 tax changes that could affect you. Number 3 is what I just told you about.
Why am I sending you this? I hope you forward this to every single person in your address book. People have the right to know the truth because an election is coming in November.
Kiplinger letters: http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/health-care-reform-tax-hikes-on-the-way.html
THOMAS (library of congress) In the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, legislative information from the Library of Congress http://www.thomas.gov/
Bill Summary & Status- 111th Congress (2009 - 2010)
H.R.3590
CRS Summary http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d111:1:./temp/~bdi6AE:@@@D&summ2=m&|/home/LegislativeData.php|
It's just the beginning!!!
Aren't those people that thought this would be "FREE" going to be surprised?
You really need to read this. It starts next year. This is part of the new Health Care Bill.
I contacted my Congressman about House Bill HR3590 the health care bill that just passed. I asked for a summary of changes. The aid directed me to go to http://www.thomas.gov/> , enter HR3590 in the search box and look for CRS Summaries. Then scroll down to:
TITLE IX REVENUE PROVISIONS- SUBTITLE A: REVENUE OFFSET PROVISIONS-(Sec.9001, (as modified by sec.10901) Sec.9002. Starting in 2011 (next year folks) your W2 tax form sent by your employer will be increased to show the value of whatever health insurance you are given by the company. It does not matter if that's a private company or government body of some sort. If you're retired….So what, your gross will go up by the amount of insurance you get.
The dollar value (cost of what the company pays for your insurance) will be considered income and added to your gross pay. You will be taxed on the total.
You will be required to pay taxes on a larger sum of money that you have never seen.
Take your tax form you just finished and see what $15,000 or $20,000 of additional gross income does to your tax debt. That's what you'll pay next year. For many it also puts you into a higher tax bracket so it's even worse.
This is how the government is going to buy insurance for 15% of the populace that doesn't have insurance and it's only part of the tax increases.
Not believing this, I researched the summaries and here's what I'm reading:
On page 25 of 29 :
TITLE IX REVENUE PROVISIONS- SUBTITLE A: REVENUE OFFSET PROVISIONS-(Sec.9001, (as modified by sec.10901) Sec.9002. "requires employers to include in the W2 form of each employee the aggregate cost of applicable employer sponsored group health coverage that is excusable from the employees gross income."
Joan Pryde is the senior tax editor for the Kiplinger letters. Go to Kiplingers and read about 13 tax changes that could affect you. Number 3 is what I just told you about.
Why am I sending you this? I hope you forward this to every single person in your address book. People have the right to know the truth because an election is coming in November.
Kiplinger letters: http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/health-care-reform-tax-hikes-on-the-way.html
THOMAS (library of congress) In the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, legislative information from the Library of Congress http://www.thomas.gov/
Bill Summary & Status- 111th Congress (2009 - 2010)
H.R.3590
CRS Summary http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d111:1:./temp/~bdi6AE:@@@D&summ2=m&|/home/LegislativeData.php|
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
EDITORIAL: Robbing Peter to pay Paul's health care
Sen. Kent Conrad
Obamacare is a socialist law designed to take money from some Americans and use it to benefit others. The health care bill signed into law by President Obama is full of hidden time bombs. One costly provision buried in the lengthy reconciliation bill at the last minute has taxpayers covering long-term at-home care for the elderly. Through the so-called Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act (CLASS Act), Americans will find between $150 and $250 taken out of their paychecks each month to cover this program nobody knew about.
Democrats claim this isn't a controversial program, but if they really believed that, they wouldn't have had to sneak the provision into the reconciliation bill. But it was snuck in the reconciliation bill only two days before the House vote.
Even some Democrats warned about the financial impact of the home-care program. Before the idea was dropped last year because of stiff opposition, Sen. Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, called the program a Ponzi scheme that would produce massive deficits in the future. A letter released at that time by Mr. Conrad and Democratic Sens. Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Warner of Virginia warned: "While the goals of the CLASS Act are laudable - finding a way to provide long-term care insurance to individuals - the effects of including this legislation in the merged Senate bill would not be fiscally responsible for several reasons."
The senators were particularly concerned that the Congressional Budget Office numbers missed the real costs of the program. The CBO is instructed only to consider the fiscal impact over the next 10 years, but the way the scheme is set up, people must pay the additional taxes for at least five years to become eligible. So for the first five years we only see revenue. After that, the taxpayers are eligible only gradually. They must then become old enough to require home health care, so expenditures will occur in the distant future. In other words, we see taxes with no expenditures upfront, but huge expenditures picking up after the CBO's 10-year evaluation window passes.
The budget concerns of a handful of Democratic senators kept the program out of the earlier version of the health care bill, which passed the Senate before Christmas. If the provision hadn't been removed, Democrats wouldn't have obtained the 60 votes needed to break the filibuster. Only by jamming it into the Senate reconciliation bill in March were they able to get it passed with the bare minimum 51 votes.
Ironically, the reconciliation procedure, requiring only a simple majority, was originally designed to help reduce the deficit. It certainly was not meant for circumventing normal procedures and throwing in last-minute budgetary land mines.
Democrats might not consider $109 billion in taxes over the program's first 10 years to be controversial. But taking $150 to $250 out of each monthly paycheck will cause problems for millions of Americans. This is yet another example of Mr. Obama breaking his promise not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 per year. It's not what we consider a very classy act.
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