Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts

Friday, April 11, 2014

If You Vote for Congressmen Who Support Obamacare, You’re Voting for Obamacare

Canceled Policies Senators3

By Jedidiah Noble – Independent Sentinal Originally posted November 13, 2013

Many people were angry with Justice Roberts when he declared Obamacare constitutional and I was one of them. He furthered angered the right with these quotes:

“We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders.”

“Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”

Now I have to say that he was right. If we want to change the law, we have to vote the Obamacare politicians out of office. We cannot rely on the Supreme Court of the United States, it is not their job.

We, the American people, voted for Obamacare, not once, but repeatedly by electing and re-electing politicians who support Obamacare. We did it here on Long Island when we re-elected congressmen Tim Bishop, Steve Israel, and Carolyn McCarthy, among others. Virginia did it when they recently elected Governor-elect McAuliffe. In fact, McAuliffe ran on Medicaid expansion and Obamacare. He took the election as a referendum for both.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said Democrats will be able to run on Obamacare in 2014.

Will they?

We should be most mindful of the 12 Senators who voted for Obamacare, any one of them could have stopped the law which passed with 60 votes.

We voted for them as Justice Roberts indicated.

Consider the words of Nancy Pelosi, “…but we have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of the controversy”:

Video: Nancy Pelosi Pass the Bill to find out what's in it

Despite this, we voted for Obamacare by electing these politicians who did not read the bill and did not know what was in the bill.

Will we do it again?

The following are the names of the Senators who cast decisive votes for Obamacare. If you vote for them again, you are voting for Obamacare. There is no other way to look at it. If you don’t want Obamacare, you cannot vote for these Senators:

Mark Begich, Alaska; Dick Durbin, Illinois; Al Franken, Minnesota; Kay Hagan, North Carolina; Mary Landrieu, Louisiana; Jeff Merkley, Oregon; Mark Pryor, Arkansas; Jack Reed, Rhode Island; Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire; Mark Udall, Colorado; Tom Udall, New Mexico; Mark Warner, Virginia.

These senators are now scrambling for cover and looking for ways to make it appear as if they didn’t support what they wholeheartedly supported – The Affordable Care Act. They were given multiple opportunities by the House to adjust the bill in the past three years and they refused.

Mary Landrieu is putting through a bill now that will supposedly allow people to keep their present coverage as President Obama promised. It is co-sponsored by Obamacare supporter, Dianne Feinstein, whose state now has 1 million people losing their insurance.

Mary Landrieu has been an ardent supporter of Obamacare from day one. She flew on Air Force One with Mr. Obama two weeks ago but made certain she was not photographed with him.

Are you going to fall for their ploys?

These people do not have our best interests at heart. They wanted to support Mr. Obama, not us. They do not deserve to be our representatives.

Make no mistake, a vote for them is a vote for Obamacare.

If you vote for them again, you will get what you deserve and Justice Roberts would agree.

Let’s not forget the representatives in the House who voted for Obamacare? Click here to find out if your congressmen was among them.

As an aside, healthcare.gov won’t be ready by December 1st as promised by Mr. Obama. Jay Carney said it will be ready for a lot of people. They plan to put peoples’ personal and financial information at risk on a site that is somewhat working.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

ObamaCare's Secret Mandate Exemption

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HHS quietly repeals the individual purchase rule for two more years.

It is all all about manipulating the 2014 and 2016 Elections…

WSJ: ObamaCare's implementers continue to roam the battlefield and shoot their own wounded, and the latest casualty is the core of the Affordable Care Act—the individual mandate. To wit, last week the Administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay a tax penalty.

This latest political reconstruction has received zero media notice, and the Health and Human Services Department didn't think the details were worth discussing in a conference call, press materials or fact sheet. Instead, the mandate suspension was buried in an unrelated rule that was meant to preserve some health plans that don't comply with ObamaCare benefit and redistribution mandates. Our sources only noticed the change this week.

That seven-page technical bulletin includes a paragraph and footnote that casually mention that a rule in a separate December 2013 bulletin would be extended for two more years, until 2016. Lo and behold, it turns out this second rule, which was supposed to last for only a year, allows Americans whose coverage was cancelled to opt out of the mandate altogether.

In 2013, HHS decided that ObamaCare's wave of policy terminations qualified as a "hardship" that entitled people to a special type of coverage designed for people under age 30 or a mandate exemption. HHS originally defined and reserved hardship exemptions for the truly down and out such as battered women, the evicted and bankrupts.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you "believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy" or "you consider other available policies unaffordable."

This lax standard—no formula or hard test beyond a person's belief—at least ostensibly requires proof such as an insurer termination notice. But people can also qualify for hardships for the unspecified nonreason that "you experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance," which only requires "documentation if possible." And yet another waiver is available to those who say they are merely unable to afford coverage, regardless of their prior insurance. In a word, these shifting legal benchmarks offer an exemption to everyone who conceivably wants one.

Keep in mind that the White House argued at the Supreme Court that the individual mandate to buy insurance was indispensable to the law's success, and President Obama continues to say he'd veto the bipartisan bills that would delay or repeal it. So why are ObamaCare liberals silently gutting their own creation now?

The answers are the implementation fiasco and politics. HHS revealed Tuesday that only 940,000 people signed up for an ObamaCare plan in February, bringing the total to about 4.2 million, well below the original 5.7 million projection. The predicted "surge" of young beneficiaries isn't materializing even as the end-of-March deadline approaches, and enrollment decelerated in February.

Meanwhile, a McKinsey & Company survey reports that a mere 27% of people joining the exchanges were previously uninsured through February. The survey also found that about half of people who shopped for a plan but did not enroll said premiums were too expensive, even though 80% of this group qualify for subsidies. Some substantial share of the people ObamaCare is supposed to help say it is a bad financial value. You might even call it a hardship.

HHS is also trying to pre-empt the inevitable political blowback from the nasty 2015 tax surprise of fining the uninsured for being uninsured, which could help reopen ObamaCare if voters elect a Republican Senate this November. Keeping its mandate waiver secret for now is an attempt get past November and in the meantime sign up as many people as possible for government-subsidized health care. Our sources in the insurance industry are worried the regulatory loophole sets a mandate non-enforcement precedent, and they're probably right. The longer it is not enforced, the less likely any President will enforce it.

The larger point is that there have been so many unilateral executive waivers and delays that ObamaCare must be unrecognizable to its drafters, to the extent they ever knew what the law contained.

Related: 

Obamacare Concession — Individuals Now Exempt

China to Purchase the Federal Reserve

Obamacare Concession — Individuals Now Exempt

Healthcare

Obamacare Concession — Individuals Now Exempt

Tea Party Ponders: “Why Did the Government Shutdown in October?”

TeaParty Patriots: WOODSTOCK, GA — Tea Party Patriots announced their bittersweet frustration with the administration over the recently discovered exemption to the individual mandate, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

“Why did President Obama and the Democrats in Congress fight us tooth and nail, and eventually shut down the government last October?” asked Jenny Beth Martin, Co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.  “Last fall, Tea Party Patriots fought tirelessly to Exempt America and to let Congress know that if the law wasn’t good enough for Big Business, Big Labor, and Big Congress, then it certainly wasn’t good enough for the American people.

“We knew the law would cost millions of Americans their health insurance, yet the president disagreed, and even guaranteed that Americans could keep their health care plan if they wanted.  As a result, Washington shut down, costing the American taxpayer billions of dollars, leaving Veterans unable to pay their respects to their fallen brothers, and tourists locked out of the monuments that celebrate America’s greatness.  And for what?  Political points?  The entire shutdown could have been completely avoided had the President considered any opposing viewpoints.

“Now, he’s exempted America via unconstitutional means and sought to usurp Congress’ power to write the laws,” continued Mrs. Martin.  “This two-year delay to the individual mandate only delays the inevitable—Obamacare is a mess and no amount of time will suffice to fix it.

“Tea Party Patriots stands for personal freedom where all Americans are treated equally, assuring our ability to pursue the American dream.  Obamacare stands as an impediment to this dream.”

Tea Party Patriots is a national grassroots coalition with more than 3,400 locally organized chapters and more than 15 million supporters nationwide.  Tea Party Patriots is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets.  Visit Tea Party Patriots online at www.TeaPartyPatriots.org.

For further information, please contact Mike Rudin with Shirley & Banister Public Affairs at (703) 739-5920 or (800) 536-5920.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Obamacare Will Hurt Dems in 2014 as Progressives Shift to New Battles

The unpopularity of Obamacare will make 2014 a tough year for Democrats, especially those in red states. The Washington Post's Greg Sargent doesn't deny some Dems are already taking cover where they can, but he says they also have a strategy for making this into a broader argument.

Dems aren’t simply looking to shift away from Obamacare, but to shift the terms of the debate over it, by putting it in the context of a larger debate over the safety net, an argument Dems are already engaging pretty aggressively...

red state Dems who did vote for the law — Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu, and Mark Pryor — are in a tougher spot, and are each striking their own balance by criticizing its problems while calling for keeping and fixing it. But Dems like Hagan are aggressively joining the fight over unemployment insurance, and the party committees will be hitting Republicans hard over it.

I think there's an underlying truth here which is that parties can win battles over particular programs but that does not often translate into bigger wins. While word has certainly gotten out that Obamacare is a troubled program, the damage is probably limited to that one issue. Ideological conservatives (and some progressives) may see the obvious connection between this particular instance of big government failure and other similar programs but Americans are notorious for wanting to have it both ways.

For instance, a Gallup poll released in December found that an astounding 72 percent of Americans say big government is the biggest threat to the nation. If Americans were ideologically consistent we should see a groundswell of support for cutting back on entitlement programs which make up most of government's spending and hence its need for ever more growth and taxation. But in fact we don't see that in polls.

Satisfaction with Medicare and Social Security was 12 points lower in 2008 than it was in 2013. In 2010, 75 percent said the behemoth programs will "create problems" but in 2011 61 percent still said the solution was minor changes or to "not try to control costs." That's how it often seems to go in America. You get 3/4 of people saying entitlements are a problem and yet 2/3 say we should do little or nothing about it.

That kind of compartmentalization means that even though Americans genuinely do not like Obamacare right now and are worried about government overreach in general, they will not automatically side with Republicans against the broader progressive agenda. Each policy is its own battleground and Democrats surely know that heading toward November.

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Saturday, December 7, 2013

Harry Reid: Obamacare 'Costs Me About $4,500 More'

Image: Harry Reid: Obamacare 'Costs Me About $4,500 More'

NewsMax: President Barack Obama may have famously promised his signature healthcare plan would cost consumers less money — but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is proof that it's often not true.

"Under Obamacare, my insurance costs me about $4,500 more than it did before," Reid told the Reno Gazette Journal. "Yes, because it is age-related and it wasn't like that before."
Reid, while noting that 150 million families get insurance through their employers, "so should all federal employees."

Reid's comments came while he denied a CNN story claiming he is the only top congressional leader to exempt some of his staff from having to buy coverage through the Obamacare exchanges.

"I followed the Affordable Care Act,” Reid said. “It is the law. The law says that if you have committee staff, leadership staff, they stay where they are. If you have other staff, which is most everyone, they go to the exchanges."

Reid is worth $2.8 to $6.2 million, according to an OpenSecrets.org report, so he would not qualify for subsidies that would lower his Obamacare insurance costs.

But his rate hike is an eye-opener after promises made by people like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who told Meet the Press last year that "everybody would have lower rates" under Obamacare.

And the healthcare rate increases under ObamaCare have been eye-openers for not only the rich, but for many in the middle class and after all is said and done there will be as many uninsured Americans as before only now the government controls one sixth of the U.S. budget through healthcare as well as everyone’s healthcare options.  Wake-up America, the outcome of the next two elections will be the only chance to change this.  Time to oust the Harry Reids, Nancy Pelosis and Barack Obama’s

Pelosi denied to The Weekly Standard in a later report that she'd made the statement, saying she doesn't "remember saying that everybody in the country would have a lower premium."
But a study earlier this year by two members of the American Academy of Actuaries found that tens of millions will see higher insurance costs, reports Forbes, with or without the subsidies — and just like Harry Reid.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

New Obamacare Bombshell - Rpt: No System Yet For Exchange Payment - The Kelly File

Video: New Obamacare Bombshell - Rpt: No System Yet For Exchange Payment - The Kelly File

My fellow citizens… Nobody is this incompetent of stupid!! This is all part of the plan.  The plan has always been to make this roll out and the actual process so horrendous that they can jump in at the last minute and fix it… creating a single-payer plan, which is socialized medicine, which they wanted in the first place so they can control every aspect of your life, including who lives and dies and when.

Don’t fall for this.  Clean house in the 2014 and 2016 Elections.  Do your homework.  Elect people who are not part of the Washington DC system and are willing to fight for you.  And replace everyone who voted for ObamaCare or was associated with the Obama Administration!!

The Dirty Secret Behind ObamaCare No One’s Talking About

Attention Main Stream Media. Regarding Obamacare… I Told You So!

Wake-Up… ObamaCare Eliminates Your Plan by Design

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Memo: Administration bungled Obamacare long before GOP had power to obstruct

Washington Examiner: An emerging theme from Democrats struggling to explain the Obamacare fiasco is that stubborn Republican opposition has hobbled the administration's efforts to implement President Obama's complex national health care scheme. If you want the particulars, just glance at "The Obamacare sabotage campaign" by Politico's Todd Purdum.

But a memo revealed in a new Washington Post examination of the rollout shows the administration was already on a disastrous path in May 2010, just two months after Obamacare was signed into law -- and six months before Republicans won control of the House and more Senate seats in the November 2010 elections. At the time the memo was written, Democrats still had the huge majorities in the House and Senate with which they had passed Obamacare on party-line votes.

In the memo, dated May 11, 2010 and sent to top administration economic official Larry Summers, Harvard professor and health care expert David Cutler, a supporter of the administration's efforts, wrote that "the early implementation efforts are far short of what it will take to implement reform successfully." Cutler continued: "For health reform to be successful, the relevant people need a vision about health system transformation and the managerial ability to carry out that vision. The President has sketched out such a vision. However, I do not believe the relevant members of the Administration understand the President's vision or have the capability to carry it out."

Cutler laid out a set of problems: 1) poor leadership at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a key organization in creating Obamacare; 2) clueless management at the Department of Health and Human Services on the subject of setting up exchanges; 3) an ineffective effort to work with insurers in implementing reform; and 4) general incompetence. "The overall head of implementation inside HHS, Jeanne Lambrew, is known for her knowledge of Congress, her commitment to the poor, and her mistrust of insurance companies," Cutler wrote. "She is not known for operational ability, knowledge of delivery systems, or facilitating widespread change."

All that was at a time when the administration had control of Congress. Although the election of Scott Brown had ended the Democrats' filibuster-proof control of the Senate, the fact is, Republicans had no control of anything. Later, after their landslide victory in the 2010 midterms, House Republicans could block funding increases the administration needed to pay for Obamacare's inevitable cost overruns. And Republican governors could make use of a feature Democrats wrote into the law that allowed states to decline to create their own exchanges, leaving the job to the federal government. But Cutler's memo shows the administration was well on the road to a disastrous debut of Obamacare long before Republicans could do anything to make the job harder.

See: Original MEMO Document (PDF) » 

What this memo does is again bring us back to the question:  Are they (Obama and cronies) really that inept?  Or was the plan really always that ObamaCare in its present state was meant to fail, leaving it to the government to swoop in and create a new single-payer (socialized medicine) planObama and Harry Reid have both said it was the second. 

So beware and watch the other hand.  The only real answer, either way, is to clean house in Washington D.C. in both Congress and the White House in the next two elections (2014 and 2016) and in the process repeal and replace this disaster  known as ObamaCare with a free market solution that really will help the average American and those without affordable healthcare insurance. ObamaCare does neither!!

**And if you understand that, it means no Hillary Clinton and no Chris Christie, who might as well be a Democat half the time, but rather real change… AM~ 

Yes, the Democrats' Plan Was to Create a Transition to Single Payer 

First Battle of 2014 and 2016 Elections: Next Tuesday and the Fate of ObamaCare

Obamacare Hype - ' The Land Of Oz ' Lies! - Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement 

Wake-Up… 1,492,000 HC Plan Cancellations and Counting… All Part of the Plan to Force All But the Elite Into a Single Payer Socialized Medicine…  It has always been: 

The Dirty Secret Behind ObamaCare No One’s Talking About

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Next Tuesday and the Fate of ObamaCare

American Thinker – Cross-Posted at AskMarion: No election -- state or national -- will be as important in sending a message about ObamaCare or massive lawbreaking by government than the one on Tuesday in the Virginia governor's race.

Republicans running in 2014 and 2016 are watching whether Ken Cuccinelli wins to determine if they should be bold, hard-charging Ted Cruzes, or whether they should roll over by making weak, token passes at ObamaCare that will do nothing but ensure its permanence.

The Washington establishment wants to paint this election as a referendum on principled conservatism -- tea partyism.  Ken Cuccinelli is more than just a conservative.  He is a constitutional conservative, and like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, (Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann), makes establishment Republicans nervous.

The collaboration of establishment Republicans with big government and their lack of effectiveness in controlling it are exposed when constitutional conservatives hold office.

Already the forces for bloated, lawbreaking government are giddy with the prospect that Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will go down in defeat.  The Washington Post headline reads, "Cuccinelli's hard-line conservatism seems headed for decisive rejection in Va."

Democrat Terry McAuliffe, an ObamaCare supporter who has stated his desire for a public option that would lead to a government-run healthcare system, has the lead and a huge money advantage in these final days.  The lead is shrinking, and may be overcome.

ObamaCare is not merely a massive expansion of the federal government.  It stands for the imposition of federal government lawbreaking in the most basic, private elements of our lives.

It will be run in the same fashion shown by the lawbreaking IRS, NSA and EPA, and as the incompetent rollout shows, even worse.  The more the imposition of government in our daily lives, the worse it acts.

Bureaucrats will bully ordinary Americans over basic medical decisions, some of life or death, some of religious importance, and many about our loved children and our elderly.  Those who fight the system will be targeted for heavier handedness.  The Bill of Rights will become even less relevant than they are now.

The left and the political establishment understand the stakes next Tuesday more than conservatives do.  New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has poured over $1 million into this race to squelch gun rights.  Bill and Hillary have been helping their friend McAuliffe, who rented the Lincoln Bedroom when he was their top fundraiser. 

Crony capitalists far and wide will see if one of their own will be rewarded in the face of his own highly questionable GreenTech business that is under investigation by the SEC, and has raised questions of whether it is a visa-for-cash scam.

Ken Cuccinelli was the first state attorney general to file suit against ObamaCare, appropriately saying that the case was about freedom instead of healthcare.  The election on November 5 is a signal to Republicans.  Will they get the right message?  More appropriately stated, will we send them the right message?

President Obama will campaign with Terry McAuliffe this Sunday.  With his presidency collapsing around him as his signature accomplishment shows itself to be a massive failure, he is eager to pass the torch for his agenda.  A win for McAuliffe would be resuscitation for ObamaCare and government lawbreaking.  A win for Cuccinelli would be the real beginning of the end of Obamacare.

Ken Cuccinelli for Governor of Virginia

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