It’s A ‘Tax’ When It’s Convenient For Us But It’s A ‘Penalty’ When It’s Convenient For Us: Deceitful ObamaCare Attorney Mocked By Supreme Court Justices

In the penultimate scene in the movie Chinatown, Faye Dunaway’s character literally gets the truth beaten out of her.  Her interviewer repeatedly says, “I want the truth!”  And Evelyn says, “She’s my sister …” (slap).  “She’s my daughter …” (slap).  “My sister, my daughter …” (slap, slap).  And then finally the awful truth comes out: “She’s my sister AND my daughter!”

That kind of literally inbred thinking is what ObamaCare – and for that matter the psychotic “We-have-to-pass-the-bill-so-that-you-can-find-out-what-is-in-it” Democrat Party – is all about.

What is ObamaCare?  It’s whatever it has to be at any given moment to impose it on the American people:

March 26, 2012
Obama Lawyer Laughed at In Supreme Court

On the first day of health care reform arguments before the Supreme Court, two justices needled a top Obama lawyer for simultaneously calling the fine that will be paid under the law for not purchasing insurance a “penalty” and a “tax.”

The confusion arises because of the administration’s argument that the power to enforce the individual mandate is rooted in Congress’ taxing power — but that the mechanism itself is designed to be a penalty, not a revenue-generating policy.

The narrow but important distinction created a communication challenge for the lawyer representing the Obama administration.

U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli used the phrase “tax penalty” multiple times to describe the individual mandate’s backstop. He portrayed the fee as a penalty by design, but one that functions as a tax because it’s collected through the tax code.

“General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax. Tomorrow you are going to be back and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax,” said Justice Samuel Alito, in one of the few laugh lines throughout the 90 minutes of argument Monday.

The remark underscores the fine line the White House is walking in its argument. On one hand, it says the backstop is not a tax, because that could subject it to the Anti-Injunction Act — the focal point of Monday’s arguments — and delay a ruling to at least 2015. On the other, they claim that the power to impose a penalty derives from Congress’ broad taxing power. That’s in part because calling it a tax makes defending the mandate easier — Congress’ power to levy taxes is less in question than its power to require people to do things.

Justice Elena Kagan asked whether refusing to buy insurance would constitute breaking the law, to which Verrilli responded that if people “pay the tax, then they are in compliance with the law.” That caught the attention of Justice Stephen Breyer.

“Why do you keep saying tax?” Breyer interjected, to more laughs.

The justices, particularly the four Democratic-appointees, and Justice Antonin Scalia, appeared skeptical that the fine constitutes a tax.

The distinction is nuanced, but key to one of the administration’s arguments.

Alito to Verrilli: Is it a tax or isn’t it?

Contrast this discussion with the previous words of our Liar-in-Chief on ABC News:

STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it’s still a tax increase.

OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase.

This man is a liar whose lies reverse themselves and then twist back like a pretzel.  And the really amazing thing about it is that at no point in the process is he EVER telling the truth.

At least the Supreme Court officially has officially recognized that Barack Obama is a disingenuous lying weasel.  Although I hope that isn’t our consolation prize, that at least has to count for something.

ObamaCare is literally a bill of lies that promised a cost of $938 billion (through all kinds of gimmicks that have since fallen apart just as conservatives rightly and accurately predicted they would); it now costs $176 trillion – basically DOUBLE what Obama looked us in the eye and promised only a couple of years ago.

From a Yahoo News story:

President Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul is projected to cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, reports the Congressional Budget Office, a hefty sum more than the $940 billion estimated when the healthcare legislation was signed into law. To put it mildly, ObamaCare’s projected net worth is far off from its original estimate — in fact, about $820 billion off.

Backtracking to his September 2009 remarksto a joint session of Congress on healthcare, Obama asserted the following: “Now, add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years — less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.” 

When the final CBO report was released before the law’s passage, critics surmised that the actual 10-year cost would far exceed the advertised projections. In other words, the numbers were seemingly obscured through a political ploy devised to jam the legislation through Congress.

“Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation,” asserted Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner, “the most egregious of which was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014.” This accounting maneuver allowed analysts to cloak the true cost of ObamaCare, Klein alleged, making the law appear less expensive under the CBO’s budget window.

That is one expensive inbred socialist takeover.  And of course “controlling costs” was one of the lies that ObamaCare was sold under.

Here’s another lie ObamaCare was sold under: it would insure 40 million Americans:

[F]rom the CBO’s Tuesday report. Revised estimatesof ObamaCare’s coverage provisions indicate that 2 million fewer people will acquire coverage by 2016.

Moreover, the CBO estimates that 4 million Americans will lose their employer-sponsored health plans by 2016, a far cry from the 1-million-person figure forecasted last year. Further yet, 1 million to 2 million fewer people will be granted access to the federally-subsidized healthcare exchanges, while an additional 1 million are estimated to qualify for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Provision.

In a second blog post published on Tuesday, Mr. Klein summed up the debacle: “It’s also worth noting that we were told time and again during the health care debate that the law didn’t represent a government takeover of health care. But by 2022, according to the CBO, 3 million fewer people will have health insurance through their employer, while 17 million Americans will be added to Medicaid and 22 million will be getting coverage through government-run exchanges.”

Pay far more, get half as much.  All that matters is that the Marxist Democrat Party is allowed to usurp control over the health care system so you have to vote for them just to save your own wretched life.

Everything about this bill is dishonest and depraved.  Including how the Obama lawyers are trying to sell their load of lies to the Supreme Court.

Occupy Movement Costs America UNTOLD MILLIONS ($2.3 Milion In L.A. ALONE) Versus Tea Party Movement Which MADE Cities Money

Vote for the Democrats: vote for the collapse of America!  Vote for destroying the Great Satan!

The Tea Parties got screwed by dishonest government (of course; what ELSE is new?!?!); they followed the law and purchased permits for their demonstrations.  Governments didn’t impose such “social justice” on Occupy.  And when the Tea Party movement in Richmond, Virginia demanded that they be treated like the Occupy Movement, they got slapped with an obviously punitive audit.

By paying for their permits and for not melting down with violence, cities made money off the Tea Party.  The Tea Party was a good thing to have around.

The Occupy movement just, well, occupied.  Screw the law.  Screw anybody they disagree with.  Screw doing things the right way.  Screw justice.  Screw honor.  Screw personal hygiene.  For that matter, screw women against their wills.

But don’t forget the media condemned the Tea Party.  Because buying permits, peacefully demonstrating and then cleaning up your own trash afterward is simply not the American way according to Democrats.  Because they abhor personal responsibility; holding people accountable for their despicable conduct just isn’t compatible with their vision of “social justice” in which only people they don’t like should be held accountable if for nothing other than their hard work and resultant success.

Vote for Democrats!  Vote for an end to any incentive whatsoever to set your alarm and wake up early so you can go to work!  “Social justice” means parasitically leeching off of others while you spread rats and lice and filth and bed bugs and raw sewage and STDs and typhus and tuberculosis.  Oh, and “social justice” means free rapes, too.  Because, you know, who are YOU to impose your intolerant and narrow-minded Christian morality on me and tell me not to rape?

I mean, dang, that’s what “occupy” is ALL ABOUT.  Occupy women’s bodies!  And why should they have any more say in the matter than anywhere ELSE where we vile lefties occupy anyway?

Well, okay, maybe I’m being too harsh.  After all, they set up rape tents to prevent more raping in many camps.  And they requested the rapist leave after his raping:

A sex fiend barged into a woman’s tent and sexually assaulted her at around 6 a.m., said protesters, who chased him from the park.

“Pervert! Pervert! Get the f–k out!” said vigilante Occupiers, who never bothered to call the cops.

“They were shining flashlights in his face and yelling at him to leave,” said a woman who called herself Leslie, but refused to give her real name.

She said that weeks earlier another woman was raped.

“We don’t tell anyone,” she said. “We handle it internally. I said too much already.”

I mean, seriously, what more do you want?

Vote Democrat!  Vote for typhus, tuberculosis and the spread of disease!  Rats and lice have a right to “occupy” too!

And vote Democrat!  Vote for rape!  I mean, come on guys, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!!!  And the Occupiers have a way to let you do it and not even bother with the cops!!!

You’re a racist if you disapprove.  In fact, your disapproving is all the proof we need to know that you make more than a million dollars a year.  Because you’re a one-percenter, and we don’t have to listen to one-percenters.

The cost of “Occupy” on our society is incalculable.  Because the same mainstream media that endlessly demonized the Tea Party blessed the vileness of Occupy.

But also because it just flat-out cost cities that are already struggling to deal with the horror of the Obama economy untold millions of dollars:

Occupy Protests Across the Country Take Toll on City Budgets
By SUSANNA KIM (@skimm)
Nov. 18, 2011

It’s unclear what the Occupy protests have accomplished, but police have received a bonanza of overtime, making up a large part of at least $10.3 million in costs incurred by nine cities since the protesters began gathering near Wall Street two months ago.

Occupy Wall Street catalyzed dozens, if not hundreds, of protests across the world. New York City alone has spent about $6 million on costs related to Occupy Wall Street, not including the eviction on Tuesday, according to Howard Wolfson, the mayor’s deputy for government relations.

Philadelphia racked up $492,000 in unanticipated police overtime through last week, according to Rebecca Rhynhart, budget director. Rhynhart said the city is estimating that costs could reach $2.5 million if the protest lasts through the fiscal year, or June 30.

“It’s an unanticipated expense but we’re managing it,” Rhynhart said. The city has a budget of $3.5 billion. “In order to pay for it, there’s less money for other things. ”  [I must here interject that if the Tea Party costs Philadelphia fifty bucks the same budget director would have been decrying the evil fascist robbery of the poor people].

Oakland spent over $1 million to pay police overtime, according to the Washington Post.

Portland estimated $750,000 so far for police overtime and damage related to its parks has cost $50,000 to $100,000, according to Amy Ruiz, communications director for Mayor Sam Adams.

In Seattle, protests will cost $625,999 from the week that ended in Oct. 14 to the end of Nov. 25. The largest chunk goes to overtime for Seattle police: $580,468.

The extra costs to Seattle’s parks comprise $21,471 of the total and the department of finance and administrative services, which just gave protesters permission for a permit to use part of city hall’s plaza on Tuesday, made up the rest at $24,060.

The Boston police department estimated overtime costs in regards to the Occupy Boston movement to be about $575,000 so far, according to Elaine Driscoll director of communications of the department.

In Atlanta, protests cost $451,691 from Oct. 7 to 25, with almost three-quarters going to overtime to police, said Mayor Kasim Reed on Nov. 2.

Occupy Atlanta released a statement that week in response.

“Today we were all dismayed by Mayor Kasim Reed’s claim that our nonviolent demonstration against corporate greed and economic inequities cost the city over $400,000. This is, of course, a factual error,” according to the statement in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The group said the mayor “spent the people’s money on an extreme excessive police presence that rivals any big-budget Hollywood production to manage several hundred peaceful demonstrators that wanted nothing more than public space to assemble and air grievances.”

Occupy Denver led to overtime for various city departments during five days of protest in October at about $365,000, said the safety manager’s office, according to the Denver Post.

The protests are estimated to cost $200,000 a week for the rest of the year. This week, the police department asked for an increase of $6 million in its budget, “citing Occupy as a small but unspecified portion of the cost,” the Post reported.

Cincinnati has spent about $128,000 in police overtime, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer last week.

Those are old figures, and the mainstream media is hushing up about the total costs of a movement in which protestors were arrested by the thousands (against that “violent” Tea Party in which basically nobody was arrested).  And the only violence we saw was when a liberal animal bit off the finger of a man he believed to be guilty of the charge of having attended a Tea Party event (the man hadn’t, but it was “social justice” to bite his finger off anyway).

Here’s a more recent figure of what Occupy costs Los Angeles all by itself:

Occupy L.A. cost city $2.3 million; most of that will boost budget deficit
December 23, 2011 |  3:14pm

Occupy L.A.’s two-month encampment outside Los Angeles City Hall cost taxpayers at least $2.3 million, most of which will have to be added to the growing deficit in the city’s current year budget, according to a report issued Friday.

The Los Angeles Police Department, which raided the camp Nov. 30 and arrested nearly 300 people, spent $1.2 million on time-and-a-half overtime pay as a result of the extended protest, said City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, who wrote the report. Meanwhile, the General Services Department’s police force, which patrols city parks and buildings, racked up $335,000 in overtime during the encampment.

[…]

Carlos Marroquin, an Occupy L.A. representative, called the report’s figures “outrageous” and said the city should have been setting aside money for protests and other special events all along. Marroquin said such an intense police response was unnecessary and accused city leaders of trying to scapegoat the protesters.

You know, the same way the same people who are part of the deranged lice-ridden Occupy Movement screamers scapegoated the Tea Party protestors who did no wrong and no harm to anyone.

The Occupy Movement – as dishonorable as it is disease-ridden – retaliated against the police for doing their jobs as reported by the Washington Times:

Computer hackers are avenging the Occupy movement by exposing the personal information of police officers who evicted protesters and threatening family-values advocates who led a boycott of an American Muslim television show.

In three Internet postings last week, hackers from the loose online coalition called Anonymous published the email and physical addresses, phone numbers and, in some cases, salary details of thousands of law enforcement officers all over the country.

The hackers said they were retaliating for police violence during evictions of Occupy protest camps in cities around the country, but law enforcement advocates slammed the disclosures as dangerous.

“I hope the individuals behind these cyberattacks understand the consequences of what they are doing,” said John Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. “There are very dangerous criminals out there who might seek retribution” against any of these police officers.

Yeah, the cops and their families have been put in direct danger by the Occupy Movement, it is true.  But as anyone associated with the Occupy Movement (or the Democrat Party that – literally – blessed them), cops are pigs and their family members are pigs, too.

Vote for the Democrat Party that will teach those pigs and their pig families lessons they’ll never forget so we can achieve the complete societal collapse we’ve always yearned for!

The Occupy Movement has destroyed jobs wherever it has ventured, whether it be New York where it all started (and see here for more on New York) or Oakland or Eugene or anywhere else these vermin when to spread their filth.

Vote for Democrats!  Vote for job destruction!

Vote for the complete implosion of America!  Vote for the end to the Great Satan!  Vote Democrat!

And, yeah, that literally IS the way liberals look at America.  Kill all those damn American G.I. Joes!!!

It truly is amazing.  Barack Obama does so much damage to the U.S. economy that people live in camps to protest.  And, being liberal morons, they protest against everybody and everything BUT the Democrats who are running the country and the liberal policies that are ruining the country.

When Joe Wilson Shouted ‘You Lie!’ At Obama, IT WAS BECAUSE OBAMA WAS LYING

When it comes to Barack Obama, if you ALWAYS assume the man is lying, you will turn out to be right an astonishingly high percentage of the time.

I wrote about this immediately after the event in my article, “Joe Wilson’s ‘You Lie!’ Over Illegal Immigrants Most True Statement During Obama Speech.”

HHS: Obamacare-Funded Health Centers for ‘Migrants’ Won’t Check Immigration Status
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
By Matt Cover

(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Tuesday that it has awarded $28.8 million to 67 community health centers with funds from the Obamacare health reform law. 
 
Of that $28.8 million, “approximately $8.5 million will be used by 25 New Access Point awardees to target services to migrant and seasonal farm workers,” Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Spokeswoman Judy Andrews told CNSNews.com. HRSA is a part of HHS.
 
Andrews said that grant recipients will not check the immigration status of people seeking services.
 
“Health centers do not, as a matter of routine practice, ask about or collect data on citizenship or other matters not related to the treatment needs of the patients seeking health services at the center,” Andrews said.
 
Further, the grant recipients are required to serve “all residents” who walk through their doors.
 
“The Program’s authorizing statute does not affirmatively address immigration status,” said Andrews. “Rather, it simply states that health centers are required to provide primary health care to all residents of the health center’s service area without regard for ability to pay.”
 
These Obamacare disbursements seem to contradict a claim President Obama famously made in a nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9, 2009.
 
“The reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally,” Obama said then.
 
When Obama said these words, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted out from the House floor: “You lie!” After the speech, Wilson called the White House and apologized for his remark and issued a statement saying he was sorry for it and President Obama accepted his apology. However, five days later, led by then-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D.-Md.), the House voted 240-179 to rebuke Wilson for his outburst on the House floor

The grants announced by HHS yesterday aim to support community health centers that provide health care free-of-charge or at a reduced price to people making up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
 
Because the health care centers receiving $8.5 million in Obamacare money “to target services to migrant and seasonal farm workers” will not check the immigration status of the migrant workers who seek their services it is inevitable that they will serve illegal aliens.
 
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, illegal immigrants make up an estimated 25 percent of all migrant farm workers, with disproportionate amounts residing in California, Texas, Florida, and Georgia.
 
“As a result of the concentration of unauthorized immigrants working in certain occupations, there are some occupations where they also represent a high proportion of workers. For example, 25% of farm workers are undocumented immigrants,” Pew said in a 2009 report.
 
The $28.8 million in ObamaCare grants announced yesterday are part of the New Access Point grant program for community health centers. Migrant Health Centers are a special type of community health center that specifically targets migrant farm workers.
 
“These awards demonstrate a commitment to improving and expanding access to quality health care for local communities. We are removing barriers that stand in the way of affordable and accessible primary health services,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement on Tuesday announcing the grants.
 
“The Migrant Health Center program provides support to health centers to deliver comprehensive, high quality, culturally-competent preventive and primary health services to migrant and seasonal farm workers and their families,” the HRSA says on its Web site.

The Democrats censured Joe Wilson – because unlike a Democrat cheating on his taxes, questioning the messiah is TERRIBLE – in spite of (or because of) their own dishonesty.

And, of course, now history proves it: the night Obama gave his speech, there were only two honest words that night.  And they were Joe Wilson’s words, “You lie!”

I wrote an article in October 2009 titled, “Obama: PLEASE Stop Lying To Sell Your Health Care Plan.”  That was very unfair of me.  Because asking Obama to quit lying is rather like asking the sun to stop shining.  Shining is what the sun does by its very nature, and lying is what Obama does by his very nature.

I also wrote an article that same October, “How CBO Scored Baucus Health Care Plan As Deficit Neutral.”  In fact I’ve written several articles trying to explain how ObamaCare’s costs were a flat out LIE:

“ObamaCare Increases Health Cost By $311 Billion While Threatening Access To Care”

“Documented Fact: Obama, Democrats LIED About Reducing Health Care Costs”

“CBO Reveals That ObamaCare Will INCREASE Prescription Drug Prices”

“HHS Secretary Sebelius Affirms Obama Administration Double-Counting Same $500 Billion”

“Democrats ‘Fix’ ObamaCare Numbers By Leaving Out TRILLIONS In Additional Spending“

It’s kind of like what Nancy Pelosi said:

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Only the TRUTH would read:

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what lies are in it, after it’s passed and it’s too late to stop our takeover and destruction of the health care system.”

And so, once again, we find out for the factual record that DEMOCRATS LIED:

Report: Obamacare Hides $50 Billion in Annual Costs
Tuesday, 09 Aug 2011 01:18 PM
By Tom O’Connell

New research suggests that Obamacare comes with $50 billion in hidden annual costs, reports DailyCaller.com. The plan’s budget apparently does not take into account the insurance costs of workers’ spouses and children, meaning the Treasury could be tapped for hundreds of billions of dollars in the first decade the plan is instituted.

“The Congressional Budget Office has never done a cost estimate of this [because] they were expressly told to do their modeling on single [person] coverage,” Richard Burkhauser told the Caller.  Burkhauser, a Cornell University economist and professor, coauthored a report on the plan published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

These unaccounted costs “will almost certainly add to the deficit, contrary to what the Congressional Budget Office and others have estimated,” Paul Winfree of the Heritage Foundation told the Caller.

The plan’s estimate that 75 percent of workers would remain on employer-backed insurance plans is also much too high, according to Burkhauser, whose research suggests a figure around 35 percent.

“This study shows yet another way that Obamacare’s cost will be much, much higher than supporters led the American people to believe,” said Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute. “Anyone who’s serious about the federal debt should make Obamacare’s trillion-plus dollars of new entitlement spending the first item to put on the chopping block.”

Let me just echo with Joe Wilson in my words to Obama: “YOU LIE!!!

ObamaCare Is Killing Private Practice Physicians

First ObamaCare had death panels.  Then massive public outrage forced Democrats to abandon the death panels.  Then Obama brought back his death panels by sneaking them in via backdoor regulation in secrecy.  Then the public exploded in anger again.  And now the death panels are gone again.  At least until the next time these dishonest rodents go behind our backs to impose vile policies the people have already loudly rejected.

Then there’s the case of all the waivers.  As of now, 222 businesses have been given waivers from ObamaCare provisions because otherwise they would have to dump their employee health coverage altogether.  Including quite a few unions that pushed for ObamaCare, by the way.

Doctors are still getting shoved into nasty little death panels, however.  Because ObamaCare is murdering them:

12.21.10 | Sandy C. Pipes | MedCitizen
Private practice doctors: Another Obamacare casualty?

While making the case for his health reform package, President Obama argued that his proposal would make life easier for small-business owners.

Unfortunately, Obamacare threatens to undermine a group of small-business owners that is perhaps more important than any other to his reform effort — doctors in private practice.

The number of privately owned medical practices has declined sharply in the past five years. In 2005, at least two-thirds of practices were in private hands. That figure has dropped to less than half today — and is expected to sink below 40 percent by next year.

Many doctors, specifically those who have just completed a resident specialty, are now choosing not to enter private practice in the first place. Instead, they’re heading to salaried positions at large hospitals. Last year, 49 percent of first-year specialists chose hospital employment.

Obamacare will only exacerbate these trends. Some of the law’s dictates will make it more expensive to operate small practices — even though the rules are supposed to reduce medical costs.

Take the new law’s health IT initiative, which pushes doctors to set up extensive electronic health records in hopes of better coordinating care among providers. More information, the law’s boosters argue, means less waste and lower costs.

But many private practices can’t afford to drop five or six figures on expensive health IT systems that may not even save them money.

Boosters of health IT acknowledge that large organizations are more likely to enjoy its benefits. But shoving patients into ever-larger medical groups may not actually bring down costs.

The reason, as representatives of the American Medical Association recently warned, is that big hospital networks have greater market power. They can use that power to keep prices high, and there’s little that insurers — and even less that consumers — can do about it.

Paying more for treatment doesn’t necessarily guarantee better access or quality. Without an ownership stake in their practices, salaried doctors have an incentive to work the hours for which they’re paid — and no more. Fewer hours for doctors means fewer appointments for patients.

History demonstrates that these incentives matter. In the 1990s, several large hospitals bought up practices and put doctors on flat salaries. As Dr. Bill Jessee, CEO of the Medical Group Management Association, observed, doctors suddenly “weren’t working as hard as they were before their practice was acquired.”

Proponents of Obamacare have conveniently ignored these lessons. President Obama’s top health care aide Nancy-Ann DeParle, for instance, wrote in the August issue of the Journal of Internal Medicine that the new law is “likely to lead to the vertical organization of providers and accelerate physician employment by hospitals.” These organizations are called Accountable Care Organizations, or ACOs.

Such vertical integration may prove costly. Already, hospitals lose money on a substantial chunk of the people they see. In New York, for example, hospitals take a loss on more than 70 percent of patients.

That’s mostly because of the stingy reimbursement rates paid by government health programs like Medicare and Medicaid. In 2008, the average Medicare reimbursement in New York represented a 4.7 percent underpayment. Medicaid’s reimbursements were even worse — as little as 64 percent of a hospital’s actual treatment cost. Those with private insurance are forced to pay more for care to make up the difference.

Hospitals’ Medicaid losses are compounded by the fact that the program’s beneficiaries use far more medical services than other patients. On average, the privately insured visit the doctor three and a half times a year. Medicaid patients make an average of seven visits.

Yet Obamacare will add 18 million new individuals to the program’s rolls by the end of the decade — and thus stretch our healthcare infrastructure even thinner.

Primary care physicians are already in short supply. The Center for Workforce Studies predicts that by 2020 there will be a shortage of 45,000 family doctors and 46,000 surgeons. Unfortunately, Obamacare provides no funding to significantly increase their numbers.

Emergency rooms will have to pick up the slack. The new law could result in as many as 41 million additional trips to the emergency room each year.

The health reform law was sold as a way to fill in the cracks in America’s fractured healthcare system. Instead, it has only made them wider.

This is just another example of how Marxist Democrats imposed their utter contempt for the free market system.  Doctors who don’t have their own practices have far less incentive to work hard when they receive the same salary whether they work hard or not.  And at the same time, the Medicaid patients go to the hospital twice as often as people who have insurance because it doesn’t COST them anything to do so.  Contempt like that is only possible for freeloaders who don’t have a stake in anything and don’t have to worry about their premiums going up like the people who pay into the system to keep the whole thing running.

This is why I keep saying that Democrats are either genuinely evil or totally stupid.  And either way they are moral idiots.

This is hardly the only article, and hardly the only issues that explain why ObamaCare is so vile.  I’ve got plenty of articles which detail plenty of reasons why ObamaCare is murder for the doctors whom our entire medical system depends upon:

Medical Pros Needed To Staff ObamaCare Getting Canned Because Of ObamaCare

Medical Doctor Points Out That Doctors Will Be Fined Or Jailed If They Put Patients First Under ObamaCare

ObamaCare Driving Essential Primary Care Physicans Out Of Medicine

Doctor Cassell: ‘If You Voted For Obama, Seek Urologic Care Elsewhere’

ObamaCare Factoid: Access To Health Care Doesn’t Mean Squat When Hospitals, Doctors And Pharmacists Bail

38 States Now Working To Preempt ObamaCare Disaster

Mayo Clinic Realizes ObamaCare A Total Disaster, Stops Accepting Medicare

Harvard Medical School Dean Flunks Democrat Health Bill

Why Won’t Obama Invite The Doctors Who Will Resign If His Health Agenda Passes?

Wall St. Journal Bursts The Obama Bubble: ObamaCare Is All About Rationing

And yes, that IS just for starters.

ObamaCare pledges to push something like 30 million more people into the health care system even as it forces the doctors who ARE the health care system to leave medicine.

How does that NOT sound like a total disaster in the making?

ObamaCare Increases Health Cost By $311 Billion While Threatening Access To Care

Just in case you didn’t catch it, it’s official: ObamaCare was packaged and sold entirely based on lies.

CMS Study Shows Health Care Law Increases Costs–$311 Billion in 10 Years
By Tom White, on April 23rd, 2010, at 11:43 am

US Senate Morning Briefing

Last night, the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released his long-awaited report on the Democrats’ health care spending bill. The report states, “[W]e estimate that overall national health expenditures under the health reform act would increase by a total of $311 billion during calendar years 2010-2019. . . .” This was an assessment that was requested by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell prior to the final votes on health care in the House, but CMS told Republicans that they couldn’t complete an analysis in time for the vote. Given the report’s findings, it’s easy to see why Democrats decided to rush ahead with a vote before the report could be completed.Reporting on the CMS analysis last night, the AP wrote, “President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law will increase the nation’s health care tab instead of bringing costs down, government economic forecasters concluded Thursday in a sobering assessment of the sweeping legislation. A report by economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department said the health care remake will achieve Obama’s aim of expanding health insurance — adding 34 million Americans to the coverage rolls. But the analysis also found that the law falls short of the president’s twin goal of controlling runaway costs. It also warned that Medicare cuts may be unrealistic and unsustainable, driving about 15 percent of hospitals into the red and ‘possibly jeopardizing access’ to care for seniors.”

But in the run-up to the vote, indeed throughout the year-long debate on health care, Democrats and President Obama repeatedly insisted that their unpopular legislation would control costs and save the government money. In December, President Obama announced, “We agree on reforms that will finally reduce the costs of health care. Families will save on their premiums. Businesses that will see their costs rise if we do nothing will save money now and in the future.” Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) insisted at the beginning of debate in the Senate, “The Republican Leader just a few moments ago says that this bill raises costs. With all due respect to my good friend from Kentucky, that statement is false.” And Democrats repeatedly cited a CBO report saying that if all the Medicare cuts are implemented, the bill could save $130 billion over the next decade. This was pointed to by everyone from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to rank-and-file House Democrats like Ohio Rep. John Boccieri.

But as the AP story explains, “The [CMS] report acknowledged that some of the cost-control measures in the bill — Medicare cuts, a tax on high-cost insurance and a commission to seek ongoing Medicare savings — could help reduce the rate of cost increases beyond 2020. But it held out little hope for progress in the first decade. ‘During 2010-2019, however, these effects would be outweighed by the increased costs associated with the expansions of health insurance coverage,’ wrote Richard S. Foster, Medicare’s chief actuary. ‘Also, the longer-term viability of the Medicare … reductions is doubtful.’”

As Sen. McConnell said when President Obama signed the health care bill, “Most Americans out there aren’t celebrating today. . . . People oppose this bill not because they don’t know what’s in it, but because they know exactly what’s in it. . . . They know you don’t have to slash Medicare by half a trillion dollars to get lower premiums. . . . People know you won’t save money on health care by spending another $2.6 trillion on health care. . . . They know you don’t reduce the deficit by creating a massive new government program that even Democrats have described as a Ponzi scheme. They know you can go a long ways towards doing all these things without creating a brand new entitlement at a time when we can’t even cover the cost of the entitlements we have.”

Once again, studies by neutral observers have shown that Democrats’ claims about their health care bill just do not match reality. This was a flawed bill rushed through because Democrats wanted to “make history.” But Americans know better. At a time of record deficits and debt, this irresponsible health spending bill should be repealed and replaced with legislation that actually addresses health care costs.

All one has to do is look at Obama’s plunging polls in the aftermath of the passage of ObamaCare to verify that the American people did not want and do not want this “boondogglization” of the American health care system.  Polls across the board show Obama’s approval plunging dramatically since health care “reform” was shoved down the nation’s throat: Quinnipiac has Obama’s approval at a lowest-ever-measured 44% – with a majority disapproving of him; top-pollster Rasmussen has Obama at only 47% – with a whopping 52% disapproving of him; and the RCP average has Obama WELL below a 50% approval.  Barack Obama is no longer in any way speaking for or representing the American people.

It turns out this is the same guy who is on tape at least eight times saying all the health care negotiations would all be on C-SPAN – and then he went to closed-door meeting after closed door meeting that resulted in a health care bill that NOBODY knows anything about.  It turns out that this is the same guy who promised he would unite the country in a bipartisan manner – and instead broke that promise and became the most polarizing and divisive president in history.   This is the same guy who said he would NEVER allow health care to pass by the awful partisan reconciliation tactic – and then he did exactly what he promised he wouldn’t do.  This is the guy who repeatedly promised that he wouldn’t tax anyone making less than $250,000 a year – and now everyone knows he’ll break that central, fundamental promise.  This is the same guy who demonized Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for doing what his own chief of staff had just done only the day before.

I can go on.  For example, I can talk about how his administration promised up and down that the $787 billion (subsequently massively upwardly revised to $862 billion) stimulus – which will actually cost $3.27 TRILLION – would keep unemployment under 8%.  Obama sold a massive lie to sell a massive porkulus.  And now we’re paying for a fat pile of lies.

Now we find out that this fundamental liar told yet another massive, fundamental lie.

Now we find out that Barack Obama personally and repeatedly lied to the American people about the cost of his precious boondoggle ObamaCare:

“I pledged that I will not sign health insurance reform — as badly as I think it’s necessary, I won’t sign it if that reform adds even one dime to our deficit over the next decade — and I mean what I say.”

You loathsome, vile LIAR.

You said whatever you thought you needed to say to get the American people to jump into bed with you.  Then you raped them.  And then moved on to the next lie and rape.  And the next lie and rape after that.

Now, you think this is terrible news about the terrible ObamaCare power-grab?  You aint seen NOTHING yet.  Have a gander at this:

Not one of its major programs has gotten started, and already the wheels are starting to come off of Obamacare. The administration’s own actuary reported on Thursday that millions of people could lose their health insurance, that health-care costs will rise faster than they would have if the law hadn’t passed, and that the overhaul will mean that people will have a harder and harder time finding physicians to see them.

The White House is trying to spin the new report from Medicare’s chief actuary Richard Foster as only half bad because it concludes that, while costs will increase, only 23 million people will remain uninsured (instead of 24 million previously estimated).

But looking at the details of Foster’s report shows the many, many danger signs for Obamacare and how many of its promises will be broken:

1. People losing coverage: About 14 million people will lose their employer coverage by 2019, as smaller employers terminate their plans and workers who currently have employer coverage enroll in Medicaid. Half of all seniors on Medicare Advantage could lose their coverage and the extra benefits the plans offer.

2. Huge fines for companies: Businesses will pay $87 billion in penalties in the first five years after the fines trigger in 2014, partly because they can’t afford to offer expensive, government-mandated coverage and partly because some of their employees will apply for taxpayer-subsidized insurance.

3. Higher costs for consumers: Tens of billions of dollars in new fees and excise taxes will be “passed through to health consumers in the form of higher drug and devices prices and higher premiums,” according to Foster. A separate report shows small businesses will be hit hardest.

4. A program created to fail: The new “CLASS Act” long-term-care insurance program will face “a significant risk of failure,” according to Foster. Indeed, he finds, “there is a very serious risk that the problem of adverse selection will make the CLASS program unsustainable.”

5. Spending increases: Under the new law, national health spending will increase by $311 billion over the coming decade. And instead of bending the federal spending curve down, it will move it upward “by a net total of $251 billion” over the next decade.

6. “Free-riders”: An estimated 23 million people will remain uninsured in 2019, roughly 5 million of whom would be undocumented aliens; the remainder would be the 18 million who decline to get coverage and who will pay the penalty.

7. Spending reductions are fiction: Estimated reductions in the growth rate of health spending “may not be fully achievable” because “Medicare productivity adjustments could become unsustainable even within the next ten years, and over time the reductions in the scope of employer-sponsored health insurance could also become an issue.”

8. You can’t keep your doctor: Fifteen percent of all hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers treating Medicare patients could be operating at a loss by 2019, which will “possibly jeopardize access to care for beneficiaries.” Doctors are threatening to drop out of Medicare because cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates mean they can’t even cover their costs.

9. Coverage but no care: A significant portion of those newly eligible for Medicaid will have trouble finding physicians who will see them, and the increased demand for Medicaid services could be difficult to meet.

This is an objective report by administration actuaries that shows this sweeping legislation has serious, serious problems.

And there’s more: Joint Economic Committee Republicans explain in a new report the impact of a rarely mentioned $14.3 billion per year tax on health insurance, effective in 2014. They find this tax will be mostly passed through to consumers in the form of higher premiums for private coverage. It will cost the typical family of four with job-based coverage an additional $1,000 a year in higher premiums and will fall largely, and inequitably, on small businesses and their employees.

States are fighting back. The Florida legislature voted Thursday to place a state constitutional amendment on the ballot that would ban any laws that compel someone to “participate in any health care system.” It requires a 60 percent vote to succeed. The legislation is modeled after the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, which has been introduced or announced in 42 states.

It just makes you want to cry.  Fifteen percent of hospitals are going to close, tens of thousands of doctors will leave medicine, and yet millions of people are going to start swamping the healthcare rolls.  If I wanted to destroy our healthcare system, that’s how I’d do it.

On top of that – something that will crash the system even sooner – is the fact that more and more healthier people will increasingly pay the fines and opt out of ObamaCare, will more and more sick people enter the system.  The result will be a social catastrophe.  Our very worst enemy couldn’t have engineered our downfall better.

Business after business have been and will continue to be writing down billions and billions of dollars in profits to cover the huge costs of ObamaCare.  These are businesses that would have hired workers, only now the skyrocketing costs of paying for ObamaCare for their employees will keep that hiring to an absolute minimum.

Barack Obama proudly and arrogantly said, “You Can Measure America’s Bottom Line By Looking At Caterpillar’s’” – and then he torpedoed Caterpillar’s bottom line.

Unemployment is going to be soaringly high for years – as even the Obama White House acknowledges.  Now you know why.

What’s the result of the Democrats’ idiotic policies?  Ask Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who just told us that sky-high “unemployment is likely to remain unacceptably high for a long time.”

The unemployment rate “is still terribly high and is going to stay unacceptably high for a very long time,” Geithner said.

Of course, if unemployment is going to stay “unacceptably high” for “a very long time,” you’re pretty much accepting it, aren’t you?

Meanwhile, there will be trillions of dollars in additional spending that Obama and the Democrats refused to allow the CBO to count: such as the SIX TRILLION DOLLARS it will cost Americans to buy ObamaCare policies or face fines.

The Titanic wasn’t as big of a disaster as ObamaCare.  If we can’t repeal and replace it, it will bankrupt the country.

38 States Now Working To Preempt ObamaCare Disaster

Rasmussen as of March 15 found that:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 43% favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, while 53% oppose it. Those findings include 23% who Strongly Favor the plan and 46% who Strongly Oppose it.

The numbers are virtually unchanged from last week and are consistent with findings in regularly tracking going back to just after Thanksgiving.

Democrats continue to overwhelmingly support the plan, while Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party strongly oppose it.

Opposition continues to stem in part from unchanging views that the plan will drive up the cost and worsen the quality of health care in America. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters also believe the health care reform plan now working its way through Congress will hurt the U.S. economy.

But Barack Obama and the Democrats are tyrants, not leaders.  They want to rule, not govern.  They want to impose a system that will result in a European socialist-style government until our country implodes from massive and unsustainable deficits and debts.

Thirty-eight states (that’s 76% of the states in this country) are already at work on legislation that will preempt ObamaCare from destroying their economy and their way of life.

If this Jason Voorhees monstrosity passes, it will be the beginning.  The Republicans and the states will fight this for YEARS to come.  Nothing else will get done, and this country will drift, as we fight an evil that should never have been imposed on a people who overwhelmingly do not want it.

From the Washington Post:

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho is leading the charge in a states-rights push to defeat a proposal in Congress that would require people to buy health insurance, a key piece of reforms being pushed by President Barack Obama.

Republican Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter used a ceremony Wednesday afternoon to become the first governor to sign into law a measure requiring the state attorney general to sue the federal government over any such insurance mandates.

There’s similar legislation pending in 37 other states, a point Otter stressed when asked if the bill he signed can succeed, given constitutional law experts are already saying federal laws would supersede those of states in a U.S. District Court fight.

“The ivory tower folks will tell you, ‘No, they’re not going anywhere,'” he told reporters. “But I’ll tell you what, you get 36 states, that’s a critical mass. That’s a constitutional mass.”

The state measures working their ways through statehouses from Missouri to South Carolina reflect a growing frustration with President Obama’s health care overhaul, especially in Republican-dominated regions.

It most certainly is not just “Republican-dominated regions.”  Here’s a list of the states that have filed measures to protect their citizens:

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, formal resolutions or bills have been filed in opposition to the individual mandate in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

And here’s the Obama/Democrat steamroller that the states are trying to protect their residents and their economy:

At least 36 state legislatures are considering legislation that would allow citizens to opt out of a key component of President Obama’s health-care “reform” – an “individual mandate” requiring that all Americans have health insurance.

Both the House and Senate health-care bills require Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. The House bill establishes a fine based on percentage of a person’s income, while the Senate version creates a penalty as a flat fee or percentage of income, whichever is higher. Those refusing to get insurance could be found guilty of a misdemeanor crime, punishable by another fine or even jail time.

The reason for the different numbers of states (36, 37, 38) is that they keep growing.

The Fuhrer wants to confiscate your property to pay for his boondoggle.  And if you don’t pay you’ll end up in jail.

For every one family receiving a subsidy to pay for ObamaCare, three families earning less than $200,000 a year will be forced to pay more for their health care. And at least a quarter of Americans will see their taxes RISE as a result of ObamaCare.

We are looking at a disaster of such colossal proportions it is simply stunning.  One staggering fact should put that disaster into perspective.  In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Medicus discovered this grim reality:

What if nearly HALF of all physicians in America suddenly stopped practicing medicine? Such a drastic decrease in the physician workforce could become a reality, depending upon how the healthcare reform legislation is implemented, and which version of health reform passes into law.

In a physician survey conducted December 2009 by The Medicus Firm, a national physician search firm, 24.7% of physicians stated that they would “retire early” if a public option is implemented, and an additional 21.0% of respondents stated that they would quit practicing medicine, even though they are nowhere near retirement.   This brings the amount of physicians who would leave medicine to a total of 45.7%.

And of course, even as Obama talks about how “deficit neutral” his plan will be, the reality is anything but.  It’s going to massively increases taxes, and it will slash half a trillion dollars out of Medicare – a system already on the verge of collapse as it is.  And it will push all kinds of costs onto the states in the form of higher Medicaid costs that will increase by billions – and become progressively worse as the federal government increasingly decreases its reimbursement share to the states.

Democrats cite the CBO number – “only” $940 billion over 10 years (which is achieved primarily by taxing for ten years, but only paying out benefits for six years) – but consider that the CBO has something dramatically less than stunning accuracy in making such projections. As one example, they’ve been off by as much as 113% in estimating the costs of Medicare programs.

Going back to our most significant and most directly applicable program to ObamaCare – Medicare – the government underestimated the costs by a whopping factor of 10.

We are looking at fiscal implosion as it is.  Just imagine if all the hundreds of assumptions fall apart and the costs of ObamaCare begins to soar as many believe it inevitably will.

From the Cato Instutue:

When we correct for both gimmicks, counting both on- and off-budget costs over the first 10 years of implementation, the total cost of ObamaCare reaches — I’m so sorry about this — $6.25 trillion.  That’s not a precise estimate.  It’s just far closer to the truth than President Obama and congressional Democrats want the debate to be.

Are you willing to bet your life, your families’ lives, and the life of your nation on ObamaCare?

At least 38 states aren’t.

38 divided by 50 = .76.

It appears that the Spirit of ’76 has finally been resurrected as a response to tyranny.

Looks Like Obama Needs His Own ‘Mike’s Nature Trick’ To ‘Hide The Decline” In Approval

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” — Phil Jones, junk scientist.

Looks like Barack Obama needs his own equivalent of Phil Jones and Mike’s Nature trick to hide the decline of his dwindling support.

December 11th, 2009
Can’t Hide the Decline: Obama Hits New Polling Lows
Posted by Tom Bevan

Excluding the Rasmussen and Gallup overnight tracking polls, there have been seven major national surveys released this week. President Obama has recorded an all-time low job approval rating in six of the seven:

Quinnipiac 46%
Marist 46%
CNN/Opinion Research 48%
Ipsos/McClatchy 49%
CBS News/NY Times 50%
Bloomberg* 54%

Only one poll – FOX News/Opinion Dynamics – showed in increase in President Obama’s job approval rating over the last month. In the current survey, FOX has Obama at 50% approval, up from his all-time low of 46% recorded in last month’s poll.

The net result, of course, is that Obama has also reached an all-time low approval rating in the RCP National Average at 48.9%. Obama initially dropped under the 50% for the first time over Thanksgiving – he spent three days at 49.9% between November 25 and November 28.  After ticking up back over 50% right after the holiday break, Obama went under 50% again on December 4th and has remained there for seven straight days:

I don’t know why Real Clear Politics would exclude Rasmussen and Gallup.  They both say the same thing.  Rasmussen has Obama’s approval at 47% as of December 11.  As does Gallup.

When a president sinks below 50% in the polls, he is no longer speaking for the people.  He loses influence, loses relevance, and loses the ability to lead.  Not that Barry Hussein ever actually had the ability to lead to begin with.

As Dennis Miller put it, Obama has “smaller coattails than a naked midget.”

Obama – the Messiah of the whole wide world – is officially the lowest rated first-year president in American history, according that latest poll by Gallup.

Obama is probably so popular amongst the socialist-redistributionists of the world because they think that Obama will break his nation’s back by agreeing to pay “America’s share” of the $10 trillion wealth redistribution handout to the countries that hate us most in the name of “climate change.”

We already know that the man who said, “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” is yearning to impose an additional $200 billion per year tax on the American economy, and an additional $1,761 a year tax on American families.

More and more Americans are waking up and realizing that Obama’s hoax and chains actually means freezing in the dark.

They are realizing that the president of “God damn America” wasn’t just speaking in exalted metaphors when he said, “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”  He truly wants to undermine our lifestyle while he “fundamentally transforms” America.

Meanwhile, ObamaCare just keeps getting worse and worse.  The health care “reform” that was supposed to lower the cost of health care and save the system is going to cost $234 billion more (even in the first ten years, when we tax for ten years, and pay benefits in only six) and will literally cause 1 in 5 hospitals to go broke.

Everywhere you look, Obama and the Democrats are failing.  They are making things worse.  And I mean “Depression” worse.

I’m reminded of something I wrote just before the 2008 election:

Right or wrong, this is how I feel: I actually hope that if Obama wins, Republicans lose HUGE.  You know how, when you realize that your professional sports team won’t make it to the playoffs, you come to start hoping they lose so many games that they’ll receive a high draft pick?  I’m kind of there in my politics, given an Obama win.  The fewer Republicans there are to blame for the disaster that is going to overtake this country, the better.  The whole charade that has led to such anti-Republicanism has been due to the demonization by Democrats and by the overwhelmingly biased liberal media.  Let Republicans be so utterly rejected that liberals have no one – and I mean absolutely no one – to blame but themselves so that their ideas and their candidates can be vilified for the next fifty years or so.

And the American people are regretting their choice.  Last year, George Bush was reviled as the worst president in history.  But now, only 50% would rather have Obama as president than Bush, and 44% would prefer Bush to Obama.

Which is to say that George Bush is looking better and better (at least compared to Obama), and Barack Obama is looking worse and worse (even when compared to Bush).

Maybe Obama can get global warming scientists to say that the president’s approval is a matter of settled science, and the debate is over.

Ten Things You Should Know About The Government Healthcare Takeover

Whether you support it or not, whether you know anything about it or not, the Democrats’ plan will have dramatic and sweeping impact over our lives.

The thing that frightens me the most is the word “shall.”  It occurs 3,425 times in the Democrats’ H.R. 3692.  That means there are three thousand, four hundred and twenty-five times that the government forces you to do something whether you want to do it or not.

That said, here’s a list of ten facts you should know:

1. RAISES TAXES ON MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill imposes a range of tax increases on families with income below $250,000, breaking a promise made by President Obama.  Tax increases on middle class families include: an individual mandate tax of up to 2.5 percent of income for taxpayers earning as little as $9,350; repeal of a tax break on medicine purchased with funds from an HSA (health savings account); limits to tax relief through FSAs (flexible spending accounts); taxes on medical devices that will inevitably be passed on to consumers; and a new tax on all insurance policies.
2. MASSIVE CUTS TO MEDICARE BENEFITS FOR SENIORS. Despite grave warnings from CBO, FactCheck.org, and the independent Lewin Group that cuts to Medicare of the magnitude included in Speaker Pelosi’s bill would have a negative impact on seniors’ benefits and choices, Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill stays the course and cuts Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars.
3. NO PROTECTIONS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill claims to exempt small businesses from the steep eight percent ‘pay or play’ employer mandate.  The facts tell a different story.  Using Census data compiled by the Small Business Administration, this so-called ‘exemption’ hammers small employers with only, on average, 17 or more employees to new taxes and mandates.  The outfits affected employ 70 percent of all small business employees, or 42.3 million workers.  Adding to the assault on small businesses, the bill does not index the small business “exemption” amounts, meaning more and more small businesses will be ensnared by this job-killing employer mandate each year.
4. INCREASES THE COST OF HEALTH INSURANCE. Imposing a new $2 billion tax on insurance policies will be passed on to patients in the form of higher premiums.  Changes to the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit will, according to estimates by CBO, will raise Medicare Part B premiums by $25 billion and Part D premiums by 20 percent.  And imposing an unfunded mandate on the states to pay for the bill’s Medicaid expansion will shift the burden of this expansion on state taxpayers who may experience tax increases to cover the cost.
5. USES GIMMICKS TO HIDE BUDGET-BUSTING COST, PILES UP DEBT ON FUTURE GENERATIONS. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill claims to be deficit neutral, but uses budget gimmickry to hide its massive total cost.  Working families across America know they cannot simply decide that a bill they get in the mail doesn’t exist, but that’s exactly what congressional Democrats are doing.  In order to meet the President’s ‘target’ spending total of $900 billion, Democrats have simply swept costly provisions under the rug, including the $245 billion ‘doc fix.’
6. IMPOSES JOB-KILLING EMPLOYER MANDATES. Additional taxes on employers and new government mandates that dictate acceptable insurance will place new and crushing burdens on employers.  These are burdens that will ultimately fall squarely on the backs of workers in the form of reduced wages, fewer hours or lost employment. CBO agrees that “[e]mployees largely bear the cost of… play-or-pay fees in the form of lower wages.”  According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s largest small business association, an employer mandate of this magnitude will disproportionately impact small businesses, triggering up to 1.6 million lost jobs.  Two-thirds of those jobs would be shed by small businesses.
7. TILTS THE PLAYING FIELD IN FAVOR OF THE GOVERNMENT-RUN INSURANCE COMPANY. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill promises not to give the government-run plan advantages over private insurers in the market, but the opposite is true.  The bill provides billions in start-up funding for the government-run plan, and while it requires the plan to repay the money over time it does not require the plan to pay interest on this “loan.”  This interest-free, taxpayer-subsidized loan is potentially worth millions of dollars and tilts the playing field in favor of the government-run plan.
8. THREATENS CASH-STRAPPED STATES WITH UNFUNDED MANDATES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill swells the number of Americans on the government rolls by expanding Medicaid eligibility.  Medicaid is financed through a federal-state partnership, but the bill dumps nearly ten percent of the mandated expansion included in the bill onto the states.  States, already struggling with fiscal constraints, would be left on the hook for billions of dollars due to this unfunded mandate.
9. CREATES A NEW MONSTROSITY IN THE TAX CODE. Starting in 2011, Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill imposes a 5.4 percent tax on adjusted gross income above $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for married couples.  Yet, the dollar amounts for which the tax kicks in are not indexed for inflation.  We’ve seen this horror film before: the Alternative Minimum Tax, another Frankenstein’s monster of the tax code, also wasn’t indexed for inflation and now affects millions of middle class families with incomes below the Democrat’s surtax.
10. MISSES AN OPPORTUNITY TO CURTAIL JUNK LAWSUITS. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill misses a critical opportunity to rein in junk lawsuits and costly defensive medicine.  The bill includes only a voluntary grant program to deal with the medical liability crisis instead of including real reform, which would produce tens of billions of dollars in savings, improve efficiency in our health care system and reduce costs for patients and providers.

BONUS: Republicans have offered better solutions to lower health care costs and expand access to quality, affordable coverage at a price our nation can afford.  Learn more by visiting healthcare.gop.gov.

Courtesy House Republican Leader John Boehner

Even New York Times Pointing Out Democrats Lying Over Cost Of Obamacare

When the Gray Lady says that Democrats are lying, you can rest assured that they are not only lying, but lying their weaselly little heads off.

From the New York Times:

In a news release shortly before House Democrats held a rally to unveil the bill, Ms. Pelosi’s office wrote: “The legislation’s coverage cost will be $894 billion over 10 years, fully paid for.” And in her speech at the event, Ms. Pelosi said: “It reduces the deficits, meets President Obama’s call to keep the cost under $900 billion over 10 years, and it insures 36 million more Americans.”

But…

… a closer look at the budget office report suggests that the number everyone should have reported was $1.055 trillion, which is the gross cost of the insurance coverage provisions in the bill before taking account of certain new revenues, including penalties by individuals and employers who fail to meet new insurance requirements in the bill.

According to the budget office, the overall cost of the bill is more than offset by revenues from new taxes or cuts in spending by the government, resulting in a reduction in future budget deficits of $104 billion.

All of these figures cover a 10-year period from 2010 to 2019.

And how do Nancy Pelosi’s aid justify themselves?  By pointing out that, since Democrats in the Senate lied, House Democrats have a right to lie, too:

Aides to Ms. Pelosi defended their decision to focus on the $894 billion net figure. They also pointed out that in an “apples to apples” comparison — $1.055 trillion for the House bill vs. $829 billion for the Senate Finance measure — the House bill is projected to insure 7 million more people.

The cost of the health care legislation is incredibly significant these days.  It turns out that even Democrats are beginning to understand that -gasp – soaring deficits actually matter.

The fact of the matter is, the CBO – even when they’re trying to be honest – aren’t very good at counting the costs (which Jesus said was kind of important as a fundamental undertaking before starting something major).  The fact of the matter is that the government has historically underestimated the costs of their projects by an average factor of seven.  And some of their worst miscalculations of all have been in the category of health care.

The Wall Street Journal provided this handy-dandy little illustration of that sad history:

It’s certainly not the CBO’s fault, mind you.  Not when Democrats have been routinely and blatantly playing numbers shenanigans to hide the real costs of their massive government takeover from the American people.

Harry Reid actually made a staggering admission while trying to prevent the Democrat-special-interest-anathema tort reform.  He said:

HARRY REID: “He talked about CBO saying that there would be $54 billion saved each year if we put caps on medical malpractice and put some restrictions — tort reform — $54 billion. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn’t it, Mr. President? The answer is yes. But remember, were talking about $2 trillion, $54 billion compared to $2 trillion. You can do the math. We can all do the math. Its a very small percent.”

[Youtube]

And I would love to bet any Democrat that the ultimate cost of this monstrosity will be far greater than $2 trillion.

The cost of the Democrats’ health care “change” will become yet another giant anchor stopping the forward momentum of our economy.  And as it leads to economic collapse, it will increasingly lead to medical rationing and the deaths of senior citizens by government-mandated medical neglect.

Update, November 2: Oops.  Did I say $1.055 trillion?  I’m sorry.  It’s now $1.2 trillion.

The health care bill headed for a vote in the House this week costs $1.2 trillion or more over a decade, according to numerous Democratic officials and figures contained in an analysis by congressional budget experts, far higher than the $900 billion cited by President Barack Obama as a price tag for his reform plan

The actual deficit figure is dramatically higher.  For instance, we’re STILL waiting for the cuts in Medicare that Bill Clinton and the Democrats promised in 1993.  In fact, we’re STILL waiting for ANY cuts in Medicare.  So you can safely add a minimum of $500 billion to the actual deficit that Obamacare will create; because there is no way that Democrats will do what they are claiming they will do and slash the Medicare budget.

Why Won’t Obama Invite The Doctors Who Will Resign If His Health Agenda Passes?

Michelle Malkin had the best title for the propaganda event that saw white-coated doctors milling around on the White House lawn: “Spin Doctors for Obamacare.”  She said:

Creators Syndicate – Lights, camera, agitprop! The curtains opened on yet another artfully staged performance of Obamacare Theater this week. One hundred and fifty doctors took their places on the plush lawn outside the West Wing — many acting like “Twilight” groupies with cameras instead of credible medical professionals. The president approved the scenery: “I am thrilled to have all of you here today, and you look very spiffy in your coats.”

White House wardrobe assistants guaranteed the “spiffy.” As the New York Post’s Charles Hurt reported, the physicians “were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.”  President Obama’s aides hastily handed out costumes to those who came in suits or dresses before the doc-and-pony show began.

But while Halloween came early to the Potomac, these partisan single-payer activists in White House-supplied clothing aren’t fooling anyone.

Obama’s spin doctors belong to a group called Doctors for America (DFA), which reportedly supplied the white lab coats.  The White House event was organized in conjunction with DFA and Organizing for America, Obama’s campaign outfit.

OFA and DFA are behind a massive new Obamacare ad campaign, letter-writing campaign and doctor-recruitment campaign. The supposedly “grassroots” nonprofit DFA is a spin-off of Doctors for Obama, a 2008 campaign arm that aggressively pushed the Democrats’ government health care takeover. DFA claims to have thousands of members with a “variety of backgrounds.” But there’s little diversity in their views on socialized medicine (98 percent want a taxpayer-funded public insurance option) — or in their political contributions.

And she went on to document what a bunch of political hacks the “Doctors for Obama” and various “spin doctor” groups mentioned above had been for Obama and the Democrats.

Gateway Pundit revealed the typical Obama White House hypocrisy of this event:

What the media won’t tell you is that the doctors were former members of the “Doctors for Obama” organization.

150 doctors including supporters from Doctors for America, the former Doctors for Obama organization, assembled on the White House lawn today for a Astroturfed show with the president.

The operational word is “Astroturf.”  As angry as the Democrats have been about “Astroturfing,” they sure have done a lot of it.  We’ve had the children of high level Obama supporters planted to ask planted questions at Astroturf health care town halls to go with the busloads of union thugs being sent even across state lines to attend town halls.  We’ve had Astroturf former Obama delegates fraudulently pretending to be doctors at town hall events.  And now we have real, but still Astroturf doctors being brought in for Astroturf photo-ops – complete with Astroturf white coats.

The truly dishonest thing was when Barack Obama deceitfully misrepresented these doctors to claim that they somehow represented the medical mainstream.  Obama said:

“When you cut through all the noise and all the distractions that are out there, I think what’s most telling is that some of the people who are most supportive of reform are the very medical professionals who know the health-care system best,” the president said.

But when you actually realize what is happening, you find that this scripted – and even costumed – White House event is an all too typical example of the “noise” and “distractions” coming from the very guy who is complaining about the “noise and distractions.”

My question to Obama is, “WHAT ABOUT THESE FOLKS?”

45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul

By TERRY JONES, INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 09/15/2009
Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.

The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors’ own lobby — the powerful American Medical Association — both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.

It also calls into question whether an overhaul is even doable; 72% of the doctors polled disagree with the administration’s claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.

The IBD/TIPP Poll was conducted by mail the past two weeks, with 1,376 practicing physicians chosen randomly throughout the country taking part. Responses are still coming in, and doctors’ positions on related topics — including the impact of an overhaul on senior care, medical school applications and drug development — will be covered later in this series.

Major findings included:

• Two-thirds, or 65%, of doctors say they oppose the proposed government expansion plan. This contradicts the administration’s claims that doctors are part of an “unprecedented coalition” supporting a medical overhaul.

It also differs with findings of a poll released Monday by National Public Radio that suggests a “majority of physicians want public and private insurance options,” and clashes with media reports such as Tuesday’s front-page story in the Los Angeles Times with the headline “Doctors Go For Obama’s Reform.”

Nowhere in the Times story does it say doctors as a whole back the overhaul. It says only that the AMA — the “association representing the nation’s physicians” and what “many still regard as the country’s premier lobbying force” — is “lobbying and advertising to win public support for President Obama’s sweeping plan.”

The AMA, in fact, represents approximately 18% of physicians and has been hit with a number of defections by members opposed to the AMA’s support of Democrats’ proposed health care overhaul.

• Four of nine doctors, or 45%, said they “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” if Congress passes the plan the Democratic majority and White House have in mind.

More than 800,000 doctors were practicing in 2006, the government says. Projecting the poll’s finding onto that population, 360,000 doctors would consider quitting.

• More than seven in 10 doctors, or 71% — the most lopsided response in the poll — answered “no” when asked if they believed “the government can cover 47 million more people and that it will cost less money and the quality of care will be better.”

This response is consistent with critics who complain that the administration and congressional Democrats have yet to explain how, even with the current number of physicians and nurses, they can cover more people and lower the cost at the same time.

The only way, the critics contend, is by rationing care — giving it to some and denying it to others. That cuts against another claim by plan supporters — that care would be better.

IBD/TIPP’s finding that many doctors could leave the business suggests that such rationing could be more severe than even critics believe.  Rationing is one of the drawbacks associated with government plans in countries such as Canada and the U.K. Stories about growing waiting lists for badly needed care, horror stories of care gone wrong, babies born on sidewalks, and even people dying as a result of care delayed or denied are rife.

In this country, the number of doctors is already lagging population growth.

From 2003 to 2006, the number of active physicians in the U.S. grew by just 0.8% a year, adding a total of 25,700 doctors.

Recent population growth has been 1% a year. Patients, in short, are already being added faster than physicians, creating a medical bottleneck.

The great concern is that, with increased mandates, lower pay and less freedom to practice, doctors could abandon medicine in droves, as the IBD/TIPP Poll suggests. Under the proposed medical overhaul, an additional 47 million people would have to be cared for — an 18% increase in patient loads, without an equivalent increase in doctors. The actual effect could be somewhat less because a significant share of the uninsured already get care.

Even so, the government vows to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from health care spending to pay for reform, which would encourage a flight from the profession.

The U.S. today has just 2.4 physicians per 1,000 population — below the median of 3.1 for members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the official club of wealthy nations.

Adding millions of patients to physicians’ caseloads would threaten to overwhelm the system. Medical gatekeepers would have to deny care to large numbers of people. That means care would have to be rationed.

“It’s like giving everyone free bus passes, but there are only two buses,” Dr. Ted Epperly, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, told the Associated Press. [Link added].

Hope for a surge in new doctors may be misplaced. A recent study from the Association of American Medical Colleges found steadily declining enrollment in medical schools since 1980.

The study found that, just with current patient demand, the U.S. will have 159,000 fewer doctors than it needs by 2025. Unless corrected, that would make some sort of medical rationing or long waiting lists almost mandatory.

[Snip]

Other states with government-run or mandated health insurance systems, including Maine, Tennessee and Hawaii, have been forced to cut back services and coverage.

This experience has been repeated in other countries where a form of nationalized care is common. In particular, many nationalized health systems seem to have trouble finding enough doctors to meet demand.

In Britain, a lack of practicing physicians means the country has had to import thousands of foreign doctors to care for patients in the National Health Service.

“A third of (British) primary care trusts are flying in (general practitioners) from as far away as Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Switzerland” because of a doctor shortage, a recent story in the British Daily Mail noted.

British doctors, demoralized by long hours and burdensome rules, simply refuse to see patients at nights and weekends.

Likewise, Canadian physicians who have to deal with the stringent rules and income limits imposed by that country’s national health plan have emigrated in droves to other countries, including the U.S.

ObamaCare is all about rationing.

Doctors will begin retiring in droves because government-funded healthcare already has them operating at a loss.  On average, Medicare only pays 93% of the COST of providing care.  Doctors and hospitals subsidize Medicare patients at a loss by counting on private insurance-covered patients to allow them to operate at an overall profit.  If you expand government-covered patients, and reduce the role of private insurance, medical practice will simply become unprofitable.  Hence the mass retirements as physicians stop swimming against the tide of government red-tape and low-balling and just quit.

Why doesn’t Obama invite these doctors to the White House.  They can even give them white coats when they get there, to look more “doctorly” like they did with the pro-ObamaCare doctors.

If Obama had the best interests for the nation in his heart, he would want to hear from these doctors.  Instead, he’s doing everything in his power to shut such professionals out of the debate while he tries to ram his ideological and partisan agenda through.

ObamaCare will cost this country hundreds of billions – and over time trillions – of dollars at a time when we can least afford it, even as its imposition results in thousands of doctors choosing to retire at a time when we can least afford it.