Hatch amendment

Senator Hatch from Utah proposed to amend the health legislation making its way through the finance committee to protect Americans access to health care plans they enjoy. Remember, President Obama has repeatedly stated that if you like your current health care you have nothing to worry about. The text of the amendment: "The purpose of this amendment is simple. If the secretary of Health and Human Services certifies that more than 1 million Americans would lose the current coverage of their choice because of this bill, then this bill would not go into effect.
It seems like a very, very simple but perfect amendment for those of us who have integrity. This amendment is simply trying to safeguard President Obama's pledge to the American people, you'll get -- that you will get to keep what you have.".

Democrats defeated the amendment. It seems clear that the democrats know that this legislation is going to cause millions of Americans to lose their private insurance and be forced on the government plan. The Democrats who voted to strip you of your health care coverage and subject you to rationed care are: Rockefeller (WV), Conrad (ND), Bingaman (NM), Kerry (MA), Lincoln (AR), Wyden (OR), Schumer (NY), Stabenow (MI), Cantwell (WA), Nelson (FL), Menendez (NJ), and Carper (DE). The democrats are looking out for their interests of ever bigger government, not yours. If you end up waiting months to see a doctor as they do in Canada and Britain that doesn't trouble them in the least. They have already voted to ensure that they will never be subject to the government plan.

Mandate = Tax increase

President Obama should actually read the legislation before he goes on his next t.v. blitz to promote it. The legislation is very explicit that the individual is mandated to purchase health insurance or they will pay an excise tax to the federal government. From Politico:
"In the most contentious exchange of President Barack Obama’s marathon of five Sunday shows, he said it is “not true” that a requirement for individuals to get health insurance under a key reform plan now being debated amounts to a tax increase.
But he could look it up — in the bill.
Page 29, sentence one of the bill introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) says: “The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax.”
And the rest of the bill is clear that the Finance Committee does, in fact, consider it a tax: “The excise tax would be assessed through the tax code and applied as an additional amount of Federal tax owed.”
The bill requires every American, with few exceptions, to carry health insurance. To enforce this individual mandate, the Senate Finance Committee created the excise tax as a penalty for people who don’t have insurance – and it can run as much as $3,800 a year per family.". Seems like a very large tax increase on average Americans to me.

The president should level with the people about the costs of nationalizing health care. Including that when this legislation costs much more than advertised, the first things to go will be the subsidies. President Obama will tell you not to worry about the individual mandate because the government is going to pay for your healthcare. The truth is that when the dust clears, many Americans will be staring at the prospect of being forced to buy health insurance they can't afford or paying a fine, up to $3,800, to the government and still not have medical coverage.

Either the president is clueless about what is in the bill or he is lying through his teeth. Neither prospect inspires confidence in his leadership.

A new state fee

From the Herald "State Republicans are howling mad over yet another tax hike being slipped through the Legislature that would slap an annual $3 state surcharge on municipal licensing fees canine owners pay for their pet pooches."

Newburyport charges $10 for a dog license, so this surcharge represents a 30% increase . Our legislators just hit us with a 25% increase in the sales tax and now this. Maybe they should try to cut the budget instead of hitting the taxpayers with ever higher taxes.

One legislator was caught buying his booze in tax free NH. Many may follow his lead and simply stop getting their dogs' licensed. Three dollars isn't a lot of money, but with government taking an ever larger bite out of our paychecks, some people may say enough is enough. I know I don't have a money tree in the backyard and I'm sure none of my friends do either.

The shameless seven

The U.S. Senate voted 83-7 in a rare demonstration of bi-partisan resolve to keep ACORN from receiving federal funds through HUD. The nation owes a debt of gratitude to James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles for their gutsy reporting. ACORN has a lot of friends in high places. Heck, seven Senators still voted to give them funding after the revelations of criminality. They are: Gillibrand (D-NY), Casey (D-PA), Durbin (D-IL), Burris (D-IL), Sanders (I-VT), Leahy (D-VT) and Whitehouse (D-RI). The voters of Vermont and Illinios should be especially proud that both their senators stood up for an organization that was caught on four and counting occasions giving advice on setting up a brothel for underage girls from Central America.

Those that follow ACORN know that they don't limit themselves to giving tax and housing advice to prostitutes and their pimps. They also dabble in vote fraud. The organization is being investigated in a dozen states for their voter registration practices. Even with these investigations the U.S. Census bureau was going to let them help with next years census. I guess they figure if they can create democrat voters out of thin air, they will be an asset in inflating the number of Americans. Two twentysomethings with an outlandish story and a hidden camera put a stop to that however.

While ABC news anchor Charlie Gibson believes this story is best left to cable television and the NY Times doesn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. At least according to this internal email from last fall: "The Times reporter who wrote that story, Stephanie Strom wanted to pursue the story further, but she was discouraged by her superiors at the Times and gave up after blistering phone conversation with then-candidate Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Strom revealed in an email: “I’m calling a halt to my efforts. I just had two unpleasant calls with the Obama campaign, wherein the spokesman was screaming and yelling and cursing me, calling me a rightwing nut and a conspiracy theorist and everything else.” Explaining why she wanted to pursue the story further in another email Strom wrote:
The real story to all this is how these myriad entities allow them to shuffle money around so much that no one really knows what’s getting spent on what — and for the charities like the housing orgs, that’s a problem. Charitable money cannot be spent on political activities. It’s a big no-no that can cost charitable organizations their exemptions." You can't get friends much higher than President of the United States.

This is an organization that has received at least 53 million dollars from the federal government since 1993 and is set to receive many times that from the stimulus bill. Barney Frank is a huge supporter of ACORN and it will be interesting to see if the House strips ACORN of taxpayer funds. If and when the vote happens, I'll post an update with the names of those who want your money to support criminals.

Update: The House voted 345-75 to strip ACORN of all federal funds. Names of the 75, all democrats below:

Baldwin, Becerra,Brady (PA),Brown, Corrine, Butterfield, Capuano, Carson (IN), Castor (FL)Cleaver, Clyburn, Crowley, Cummings, Davis (IL), DeGette, Delahunt, Doyle, Edwards (MD)Ellison, Engel, Fattah, Filner, Fudge, Green (Al), Grijalva, Hinchey, Hirono, Holt, Honda, Jackson (IL),Jackson-Lee (TX),Johnson, E. B., Kilpatrick (MI)Kucinich, Larsen (WA), Lee (CA), Lewis (GA), Lynch, Markey (MA)McCollum, McDermott, McGovern, Meeks (NY), Mollohan, Moore (WI), Moran (VA), Nadler (NY), Neal (MA), Olver, Pallone, Pascrell, Payne, Polis (CO), Price (NC), Rahall, Rangel, Roybal-Allard, Rush, Sánchez, Linda, T.Schakowsky, Scott (GA), Scott (VA), Serrano, Sherman, Sires, Slaughter, Stark, Thompson (MS), Towns, Tsongas, Velázquez, Waters, Watson,Waxman, Wexler,Woolsey

Sadly, most of the Massachusetts delegation chose to continue funding ACORN. They are: Capuano, Delahunt, Lynch, Markey, McGovern, Neal, Olver, Tsongas. If enabling child prostitution isn't enough for these Reps to pull the plug on ACORN what is?

9/12 rallies

I'm not sure if this picture was taken at the rally in D.C. or one of the hundreds held around the country on Saturday. Wherever it was we need more of them. Who says Republicans can't be the party of NO?

Here's what this administration and its allies in Congress are trying to do:

Nationalize health care

Impose a massive tax on energy

Eliminate the secret ballot in union elections

Amnesty for illegal immigrants

If Republicans can't stand up and say NO to this massive grab for power what good are we? We need to convince the public that what President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are attempting to do will lead to disaster. Only then will they listen to Republican ideas to move the country forward.

Hoisted on his on petard

The President at his health care rally in Minnesota yesterday said "If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.". Well, Mr. President I'm calling you out. This from a White House press release: “Undocumented immigrants would be able to buy insurance in the non-exchange private market, just as they do today. That market will shrink as the exchange takes hold, but it will still exist and will be subject to reforms such as the bans on pre-existing conditions and caps.” So the White House has admitted that Rep. Wilson was correct that without a mechanism to verify immigration status that illegal immigrants would be covered under the HR 3200. Point to Rep. Wilson. Which means that the President was not telling the truth to the American people during his address.

In answering the question about illegals the Obama administration opened up another can of worms. Remeber the President's claims that if you were happy with your insurance you could keep it? Not true. "That market will shrink as the exchange takes hold, but it will still exist and will be subject to reforms such as the bans on pre-existing conditions and caps.”. That business about the market shrinking means that health care plans that Americans have and are happy with will be forced out of business by the government. Which means that some Americans will lose the health plans they currently enjoy due to a dictat from the government. How many Americans lose their plans depends on the whims of HHS Secretary Sebelius, it could be millions. Rember it's in the democrats political interest to get as many people on the government option as possible. The more people dependent on the government the better their chances of permanent rule.

The White House also neglects to mention their promises to the immigration pressure groups. The White House has promised a vote on Amnesty after health care, cap and trade and card check are passed. So that promise to keep illegals from getting government provided health care is just posturing. It is their postion that by the time national health care goes into effect they will no longer be illegal and therefore elligible for the "public option".

President Obama is aiming for nothing short of an intrusive and omnipotent Federal government on the European model. Once our freedoms are lost they will be impossible to regain. The American dream will die in a hell of confiscatory taxes, an octopus of regulations and dependency.

"We're broke"

President Obama used those words not that long ago. The reason he dropped all the hopey changiness.

“Is the U.S. Government Bankrupt?” which was asked by Pete Morin in his article published today in American Thinker.
Here are some exerpts:
Before we continue to debate the merits of any Obama health care plan, we need to consider a few important facts.
“By any rational means, we must consider the present condition of our Government’s financial situation. An honest look at those finances would have a prudent person conclude that our government is tacitly bankrupt. Our unfunded liabilities far exceed our assets. Adding up all unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Government sponsored pension funds gives us a figure slightly in excess of $100 TRILLION dollars. That’s TRILLION with a ‘T’. The Federal budget deficit for fiscal 2009 will be approximately $1.84 TRILLION. That’s TRILLION with a ‘T’. Over the next ten years the projected deficit will be $9 TRILLION +. That’s TRILLION with a ‘T’. Of course, this projected deficit comes from the Congressional Budget Office and has to be considered a conservative estimate. In 1966 the feds estimated that the cost of the Medicare program by 1990 would be approximately $9 billion dollars/year; the actual cost was $67 billion dollars/year.

Yup. The U.S. government already has 100 trillion dollars worth of bills that it has no ability to pay. I'm sure the president must be thinking that another trillion to nationalize health care is a drop in the bucket. And the benefit to the democratic party of making people dependent on the government is well worth the measley 1% increase in our unfunded liabilities.

The problem for the American taxpayer is that our government's current solution to our deficit problem of printing money to buy our own debt is not sustainable. The dollar is already dropping in value in relation to other currencies. There are only two solutions: to rescind our promises to social security, medicare etc. or the largest tax increase the world has ever seen. While I'm not a gambler, I'd put all my money on the tax increase. Either way I lose.

Rude but right

Rep. Wilson of South Carolina is being pilloried for his lack of decorum during a presidential address to Congress. His sin? He called the president of the United States a liar. What's being lost in all the hoopla is that he was absolutely correct to do so. I hope he goes on as many national news programs and says as much. President Obama was lying to the American people when he told them that it is false that illegal aliens will be covered under Obamacare. How do I know? Because democrats killed a provision that would have made it possible to screen illegal aliens out of the program. They say in the legislation that illegals won't be covered, but they refuse to enact safeguards to enforce that provision. It's akin to having the drinking age be 21 but making it illegal to check id's. You can bet that under that regime many under age drinkers would be strolling into packies and bars all across the nation without fear of being denied service.

What Rep. Wilson did is to say "the emperor has no clothes". In my estimation the president is delusional at best if he believes what he said last night. At worst, he is a demogogue, that will say whatever is necessary to get his bill passed. The American people deserve more from their president.

Our future under Obamacare

There has been much hand-ringing and tut-tutting about Sarah Palin's use of the term "death panels". Here is a story from Britain, which is a model that democrats' think worth emulating.

From the Daily Mail:
Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.
Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early.
They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.
Miss Capewell, 23, said doctors refused to even see her son Jayden, who lived for almost two hours without any medical support.
She said he was breathing unaided, had a strong heartbeat and was even moving his arms and legs, but medics refused to admit him to a special care baby unit.
Miss Capewell is now fighting for a review of the medical guidelines.
Medics allegedly told her that they would have tried to save the baby if he had been born two days later, at 22 weeks.
In fact, the medical guidelines for Health Service hospitals state that babies should not be given intensive care if they are born at less than 23 weeks.
The guidance, drawn up by the Nuffield Council, is not compulsory but advises doctors that medical intervention for very premature children is not in the best interests of the baby, and is not 'standard practice'.
James Paget Hospital in Norfolk refused to comment on the case but said it was not responsible for setting the guidelines relating to premature births.
A trust spokesman said: 'Like other acute hospitals, we follow national guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine regarding premature births.'
Miss Capewell, who has had five miscarriages, said the guidelines had robbed her son of a chance of life.

Being born two days earlier than the bureaucrats deemed worthy of treatment cost that child a chance at life. It is inevitable that health care rationing will lead to the same results when it is instituted here.

It really pays to be a bureaucrat

I always thought that government workers received such great benefits like health care, vacation time and pensions because the pay was lousy. Whoever sold that fable to the public deserves a promotion. The truth is they make much more than the taxpayers of this country that pay their salaries and they never have to be worried about being laid off. If this isn't a big enough kick in the teeth, President Obama plans on adding 600,000+ in the coming years to the federal government. With the national unemployment rate up to 9.7%, a 26 year high, it seems the only "company" hiring is the government. An economy that depends on an ever expanding government for growth is unsustainable. Vice President Biden remarked the other day that the stimulus is working better than expected. Do you believe him? Someday soon the debt being run up by this administration will come due. The only way to pay the bills will be to institute a value added tax.

Senator?

Representative Tierney couldn't find the time to meet with his constituents during the 40 days Congress was in recess. Now he is thinking about asking them for a promotion to the Senate. His audacity astounds. Who knew he had grander ambitions than being a back bench reliable liberal vote for Speaker Pelosi? I hope he realizes that you can't run a campaign for Senate via conference call. We need to send him home to Salem, not the U.S. Senate.

The sad thing is that with his support of single-payer health care, cap and trade and card check he appeals to the far left base of democrats needed to win the primary.

Is it too much to ask that our next senator look out for the taxpayers of this state and not the special interests?

Following the Piper

Winston Churchill quipped along the lines that if at 18 you're not a socialist you have no heart, if not a conservative at 30 you have no brains. Somehow I managed to get through college without extolling the virtues of "Das Kapital" and saying stupid things along the lines of "true communism hasn't been tried yet". Which brings me to a vigil thrown by the folks of moveon.org and the political musings of one paticipant. From the Newburyport Daily News "Bliss Parsons will leave on Sunday for Mount Holyoke College but felt it was important to be out helping to shape what will affect her generation in the coming years.

"I follow Obama," Parsons said as she stood with her mother, Christine Booth of Newbury. "I think health care is a necessity for all, and it's a right. It's really going to affect my generation, and I want to be out here making sure no one has to pay for it.""

A tutorial for Ms. Parsons, there is no such thing as free health care. It will be paid for by massive tax increases and draconian rationing. Well, maybe, Rep. Yarmuth admitted he has no idea how it will be paid for.

Here's hoping old Winston was on to something. Otherwise I fear for the future of this country.

The question I didn't get to ask

Even though I believe that Rep. Tierney should meet with his constituents in an open forum I signed up to participate in his tele-town hall. So, at 6pm I waited by the phone, but it didn't ring. Finally at 6:07 a call from the (202) area code but when I picked it up my ear was met with the shrill tone of a buisy signal. To their credit, they called back 20 minutes later and this time I heard a dial tone. This morning the woman I spoke to in Tierney's Peabody office seemed to be under the impression that my experience was an abberation. She took my information down and promised to get back to me with an answer. The question I really want answered by the good congressman follows:

The MA Medical Society released a study in Nov. 2008 that finds 83% of doctors in MA practice defensive medicine. They broke it down by procedure: 22% X-rays, 28% CT scans, 27% MRI's, 24% ultrasounds, 28% specialist referrals, 18% laboratory tests and 13% of hopsital admissions. That is a lot of medical care being performed not because the doctor thinks its medically necessary, but because they are afraid of lawsuits. Nationwide doctors spend 26 billion dollars a year on medical liability premiums. Which is an increase of 2,000% from 1975 and continues to increase at a 12% clip. The study finds that over 100 billion a year or 12% of total medical costs are spent on defensive medicine. That's over 1 trillion dollars wasted over a 10 year time frame. How is it that in a bill that purports to rein in costs, tort reform is not addressed?