Employers ordered to notify workers of cuts to birth-control coverage

Wake-Up people… once ObamaCare is really in effect, nobody is going to get half the services or free stuff they were promised!!!  There are no free rides in this world and all you have to do to verify that is ask anyone who has lived under socialized medicine, which is what ObamaCare is! 

This ‘order’ is just another ploy to make the Republicans look bad.

By Tom Howell Jr.  -  The Washington Times

The Obama administration ordered employers Thursday to notify their workers if they plan to cut birth-control coverage from their health plans in the wake of the Supreme Court’s “Hobby Lobby” decision.

Labor Department officials announced the policy just a day after Senate Republicans filibustered a bill that would have overturned the justices’ ruling, which said closely held corporations can refuse to insure contraceptives they object to on moral grounds.

Congressional Democrats cheered the administration’s move as an important step to give workers a chance to know what obstacles they may face in obtaining free contraception.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, introduced a bill to go even further and require for-profit companies to disclose their policies to job applicants, too.

“Workers should be informed if their employers are restricting the availability of coverage for contraception or any other health care service guaranteed under law,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois Democrat.

The Labor Department’s move marked a quiet change in course for Democrats who are trying to use the court-mandated change to Obamacare to their political advantage.

“For plans that reduce or eliminate coverage of contraceptive services after having provided such coverage, expedited disclosure requirements for material reductions in covered services or benefits apply,” the Labor Department said in its posting.

The contraception debate stems from an administrative rule that mandated for-profit companies to cover 20 forms of birth control as part of their company health plans. Dozens of employers objected on religious grounds, particularly to morning-after pills they equate with abortion, resulting in litigation.

Houses of worship are exempt from the mandate, and the administration extended a compromise to faith-based nonprofits that would allow them to waive responsibility for covering contraception. The accommodation has been rejected by some religious colleges and charities and is being contested in court.

Hobby Lobby’s employee health coverage includes 16 of the 20 birth-control methods mandated under Obamacare, including both female and male condoms, along with birth-control pills, diaphragms and spermicides.

Republicans welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision last month to let for-profit employers duck the contraception mandate tied to Obamacare, calling it a win for religious liberty.

But Democrats seized on the adverse ruling to raise campaign funds and whip up progressive fervor ahead of November’s congressional elections. Their efforts seemed to stall Wednesday, when a Senate bill that would require corporations to cover contraception failed to get the 60 votes need to overcome a procedural hurdle.

Sen. Mark Udall, Colorado Democrat, authored the bill to reverse the ruling and is using the issue in his race against his Republican challenger, Rep. Cory Gardner. Mr. Gardner has said contraceptives should be offered without a prescription, and Senate Republicans have proposed a bill to study over-the-counter birth control.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said Thursday it strongly supports Obamacare’s approach because it provides birth control without cost-sharing, while over-the-counter contraceptives may remain out of reach for many women.

“Cost is a major factor in a woman’s consistent use of contraception,” the group said, “and many women simply cannot afford the out of pocket costs of contraceptives without health insurance coverage.”

OpEd: Real Healthcare Reform Should Focus On Care, Not Just Coverage

O-Care’s one-size-fits-all failure

By: Nancy Pfotenhauer  -  The Hill  -  May 8, 2016

Many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree that universal health insurance is the central goal of a successful health care reform. The left sold the Affordable Care Act to the American people on this promise; the right hopes to do the same with an alternative plan set to be unveiled later this year.

Both sides are trying to fix the wrong problem. Universal health insurance is profoundly different from better health care—and so long as reformers focus on the former, the latter will continue to deteriorate.

Real healthcare reform must improve the quality of America’s healthcare system. At its most fundamental level, healthcare exists to improve individuals’ health outcomes and overall well-being. Beneficial reforms will thus improve those outcomes, increase healthcare’s quality and lower its costs, with the ancillary effect of expanding its availability.

This is a more worthy goal than putting a health insurance card in everyone’s hand, a la ObamaCare and its Republican replacements. Universal health insurance is merely the provision of a service regardless of that service’s quality. This cannot be achieved without the assistance of a massive bureaucratic apparatus in Washington that stifles innovation, limits consumer choice and increases its costs. Thus, reforms that seek universal health insurance decrease healthcare’s quality, and they don’t deliver on their promise to make coverage universal.

Better healthcare will not be realized without unleashing market-driven innovation. Reformers can’t pretend that this existed prior to Obama-Care’s passage. Then, as now, federal regulations hemmed in consumers and innovators on every side. ObamaCare’s mandates only expand this restrictive regulatory regime.

Innovators and consumers should be unshackled from the reams of red tape. This starts by putting patients—not bureaucrats or insurance companies—at the center of health care. Patients must be free to choose a health plan that is tailored to their needs, not one with benefit mandates created by special interests. Patients need access to real-time health care provider data that doesn’t hide costs or quality behind an impenetrable wall of bureaucratic regulations. Patients should be empowered to improve their own health using breakthrough technologies and personalized treatments.

Thus free to choose, consumers will seek out products and services that actually fit their needs. Innovators will concurrently strive to develop treatments and health care options that consumers want—and at a price they can afford.

No one-size-fits-all federal policy can accomplish this goal.

For instance, several state and federal laws prevent innovators and consumers from working together. So, multiple policy proposals targeting these barriers should be considered and challenged. 

National Center for Policy Analysis President John Goodman’s ideas about improving the poor’s access to care can be coupled with Cato Institute Director of Health Policy Studies Michael Cannon’s ideas about getting prices closer to consumers. Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) idea about equalizing the tax treatment of insurance policies can be one of a number of policies, along with Rep. Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) and Rep. Tom Price’s (R-Ga.) slightly different approaches. Economist John Cochrane has proposals to help those with pre-existing conditions; Bob Graboyes, a senior research fellow at George Mason University, details how we can unleash healthcare innovation. And ideas by the likes of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), and many others all have promise.

Every proposal should be judged by whether it leads to better healthcare for individuals and families, not whether it gives them a health insurance plan they don’t want or can’t afford. Until this shift happens, the country’s healthcare system will continue to serve Washington’s whims rather than Americans’ well-being. 

Pfotenhauer is the president of MediaSpeak Strategies and a senior adviser with Freedom Partners, a nonprofit advocate for free-market policy.

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Healthcare Reform,Health Insurance,Universal Healthcare,Wake-Up,Socialized Medicine,ObamaCare Surprises,Repeal and Replace ObamaCare

My Wife's Last Days -- And the Coming ObamaCare Death Panel

By Stuart Schwartz – American Thinker: We have been so absorbed by the cavalcade of government incompetence and individual hurt produced by the rollout of ObamaCare that it is easy to forget the tragedy-in-waiting should this federal healthcare takeover stay in place: the death panel, also known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). This is the group of political appointees designed to allow the federal government to use a combination of medical and social criteria to determine the healthcare an individual receives.

Or, to put it as bluntly as Sarah Palin did, to determine who lives and who dies. Why am I thinking about that now? Because my wife and soul-mate of 33 years, Sharon Harrah Schwartz, died at the age of 62 in January. Her passing put an end to a slow-motion death from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, ALS, popularly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. She would have occupied the bottom portion of an IPAB treatment list.

Her suffering and passing was and remains wrenching for her family and friends. It was especially difficult over the last year as her illness accelerated, destroying her muscles and, consequently, her ability to speak, to eat, and ultimately to breathe. A variety of drugs and equipment kept her reasonably comfortable, while medical technology helped clear the fluids collecting in her lungs. She enjoyed, as much as possible, the last months with her family. An advanced directive, worked out in concert with ALS healthcare professionals, proscribed the treatment limits. For almost two years, her healthcare relied on a myriad of individual decisions based on relationships with both the ones she loved and with healthcare providers. The most significant one: she and I -- lovers and best friends for more than three decades -- had decided together that, barring a miracle and/or last-minute medical research breakthrough, we would allow the disease to take its course, keep her as comfortable as possible, and let God do the rest.

This illustrates something that President Obama and his party, in its zeal to use healthcare as a driving force in transforming American society, accrue power, and expand centralized government, have ignored: that the foundation of what has become the uniquely American and consequently world-class healthcare system is individual decision-making and values, resting upon a multitude of relationships that work best when left to those with a stake in it -- healthcare professionals, patients and their families. The government has a role, yes; but its role should be limited, allowing the marketplace of providers and patients to work.

At its most basic level, healthcare is individual and personal, depending upon relationships and particular values. Our faith, our love for each other and belief in the sacred responsibility of marriage underlaysleepless nights, caring for her when she could no longer care for herself, servicing the machines that alleviated some of the symptoms, the decisions that allowed just a few more months to live and love with her family and friends.

Her… our struggles with this terminal disease -- she referred to it as the “beast” in her body -- illustrate the government-sponsored agony awaiting so many families just over the horizon. Love informed our decisions in consultation with those providing treatment. I valued her life as sacred and God-given, acknowledging the debt I owed to someone who had joyfully served as wife, mother, and friend.

But looming on the horizon is a whole other set of criteria. ObamaCare has established an agenda-driven political board that will shift the loci of healthcare decisions from individual and relationship to the application of social justice concepts. Even a cursory reading (something that few, if any, of the Democrats foisting this law upon us took the time to do) of the pages and footnotes of this intrusion and the writings of its designers -- many so-called medical policy experts from academia -- makes it clear that progressive social engineering by government-appointed experts will largely determine medical treatment.

Peruse the publications and reports of the thinking of the architects of ObamaCare. Their various scoring systems, their social priorities would have put my wife at the bottom of the list for treatment. Obamacare architects perceive healthcare, as they do income, as a zero-sum game -- every dollar spent on her treatment is a dollar taken away from someone else. Never mind that this notion, like so much of ObamaCare, is a deliberate lie with no foundation in fact; healthcare, like wealth, in the United States has expanded  as new medical technologies, techniques and research have brought ever more accessible and better care.

But centralized control needs to declare medical resources finite, which in turn demands rationing, and rationing needs, of course, a government board to decide who gets treatment and when, who gets to live… and die. My wife, under a fully implemented ObamaCare, would have been among the last in line for treatment. She was a retiree (too old!) with a terminal disease (too expensive with a limited future!), a woman who had chosen to spend most of her adult life raising children (that’s not really societally valued employment, the architects might sniff) and who lived simply and lovingly, taking pride in her family and her role as a homemaker (what --no greater ambitions?)

Sharon was loved by her family, her friends and, above all, by God. We devoted a considerable portion of our energy and resources to making sure she felt loved during her last year. We could do no less, as love is a basic tenet of our faith, a Christianity that says her worth depends solely on her standing as a creation of God -- not a federal bureaucracy.  Such was the sanctity of Sharon’s life, a human life. That is the opposite of Obamacare which, if fully implemented, would likely have robbed us of much of her past year. To a centralized and progressive federal bureaucracy, Sharon’s worth was the totality of the probabilities of her contribution to the good of a theoretical community, as defined by Washington politicians and technocrats.

But for us, it was much simpler: She was God’s gift, to whom we owed our love and resources and energy until she passed from life in this world.

It is time to repeal Obamacare.

Dr. Stuart Schwartz is on the faculty of Liberty University and has been a frequent contributor to American Thinker. His wife, Sharon, passed away on January 7 at their residence in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Technorati Tags: IPAB,ObmamaCare,Death Panels,Sarah Palin,Palin Was Right,Repeal and Replace ObamaCare,Wake-Up,ACA,Fundamental Transformation,the Plan,Socialized Medicine,Obamaland,God,ALS,Rationing Panel,Big Brother,Christianity,PPACA,Healthcare

Lou Pelletier, Father of Justina Pelletier on Glenn Beck Program and the Kelly File

This is what happens when the government makes decisions for you and your children’s healthcare… just wait until ObamaCare is in full force…

Glenn talks to the father of 15-year-old Justina Pelletier who has been held against her parents' will for over a year.

Video: Lou Pelletier, father of Justina Pelletier | Glenn Beck Program

Megyn Kelly interview Lou Pelletier, father of Justina pelletier. Lou Pelletier talks about losing custody of his daughter Justina Pelletier over medical issues. The Kelly File

Video: Lou Pelletier The Kelly File Interview On Losing Custody Of Daughter Justina Over Medical Issues

Video: Boston Children's Hospital Takes Sick Child From Parents (11.27.13)

Technorati Tags: Big Brother Tactics,#SavingJustina,Beck,Glenn Beck,1984,Socialized Medicine,Social Service,Big Government,Parental Rights,Boston Childrens Hospital,Tufts,Gag Order,Mitochondrial Disease,Alert

Moody's Downgrades Health Insurers, Cites ObamaCare Uncertainty

New American: In announcing credit rating firm Moody’s downgrade of all health insurers, Senior Vice President Stephen Zaharuk placed the blame firmly and directly on the Obamacare rollout and implementation:

The ongoing and unstable and evolving environment is a key factor for our outlook change. The past few months have seen new regulations and announcements that impose operational changes well after product and pricing decisions were finalized.

Translation: Health insurers could lose their shirts if the assumptions they made in their premium calculations prove false. So far, it doesn’t look good. Zaharuk cited some of those uncertainties, including the demographics of those enrolling for coverage. The insurers assumed that the Obama administration was right when it estimated that at least 2.7 million young and healthy individuals aged 18 to 34 would sign up by the end of March. Only 24 percent of the 2.2 million enrolled by the end of the year fall into that category. Put another way, so far just 528,000 of the 2.7 million needed to make the math, and the economics, work out are in that category.

That’s why, in its report, Moody’s cut its earnings estimate for all insurers by a full third, while expecting enrollments will fall short by two-thirds.

There are other uncertainties, including the decision by the administration to allow insurers to continue to offer “bare bones” (read: low profit margin) coverages in response to pressure from those previously insured who had their present insurance plans terminated. The administration delayed the premium payments deadline (delaying expected cash flows to the insurers), delayed the sign-up date, pushed back the second-year enrollment period until after the November elections, and extended the enrollment deadline for those with pre-existing conditions.

There’s also the industry’s new tax on medical devices that insurers somehow had to factor into their calculations. Said Zaharuk: “While some insurers built this tax into their premium calculations, the amounts [they receive] may still be insufficient to cover their share of the assessment.”

Also, many ObamaCare enrollees are actually pouring into the states’ Medicaid programs, and insurers have no direct way to offset those increased expenses and will have to eat any losses, perhaps for years. Zaharuk explained: “The Medicaid business is particularly vulnerable to this disconnect as insurers cannot pass on additional costs to consumers, and it remains to be seen whether states will permit insurers to factor in the assessment costs in determining Medicaid reimbursement rates.”

Health insurers are vulnerable on other fronts as well. Gallup just published its latest “Well-Being Index,” which shows the uninsured rate to be virtually the same as it was two years ago, despite the enormous marketing efforts by the administration touting the wonders of ObamaCare, and actually significantly higher than it was in January 2008, long before the federally mandated law was birthed in the hothouse of central planning. In addition the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that, even under the most favorable circumstances, by 2016, when Obamacare was assumed to be fully functioning, 31 million citizens will remain uninsured. This means insurers can’t count on that huge block of customers to enhance their revenue streams.

Moody’s was not optimistic:

In 2015, insurers will need to deal with the implications of the employer mandate and the second year of the individual mandate. Both require substantial lead time with respect to product development and pricing. Ad hoc changes to these provisions, as experienced at the end of 2013 … add additional risks and financial uncertainty.

When asked by Kate Rogers of Fox News what it would take for Moody’s to reverse its downgrade, Zaharuk said:

We would need [to see] some positive enrollment numbers, the back-end problems with the exchanges fixed, and the regulatory environment … stabilized.

Positive news would help the situation.

How likely is that? Responded Zaharuk:

The first test comes in March when we will see what enrollment looks like, if the back-end issues are fixed, if people are getting access to health care, and what the costs … are.

If these things don’t work, it may have a longer and more detrimental effect on the industry as they struggle under the new law. 

Whether intended or not, this disruption in the healthcare marketplace is having its consequences, nearly all of them negative. First experienced by the consumers, they are now spilling over, inevitably, to the insurers. 

A graduate of Cornell University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at badelmann@thenewamerican.com.

Here comes Obama’s solution to the disastrous Affordable Care Act: National Health Care a.k.a. the Single Payer System

Betsy McCaughey: Obamacare designed to vastly expand single payer Medicaid by eviscerating Medicare 

Bailing Out Health Insurers and Helping Obamacare

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Health Insurers,Moody's,Economics,Bailouts,Downgrades,Single-Payer,The Plan,Socialized Medicine,Watch the Other Hand,Wake-Up

ISSA Warns Sebelius That She Could Face Perjury Charges Over Obamacare Testimony - Rep Trey Gowdy

 

Video: ISSA Warns Sebelius That She Could Face Perjury Charges Over Obamacare Testimony - Rep Trey Gowdy

Washington Examiner: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius could face perjury charges over her congressional testimony on Obamacare, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., warned in a letter calling for Sebelius to correct the record.

“Witnesses who purposely give false or misleading testimony during a congressional hearing may be subject to criminal liability under Section 1001 of Title of 18 of the U.S. Code, which prohibits ‘knowingly and willfully’ making materially false statements to Congress,” Issa wrote in a Wednesday letter. “With that in mind, I write to request that you correct the record and to implore you to be truthful with the American public about matters related to Obamacare going forward."

Issa focused on Sebelius' testimony about launching the healthcare.gov federal exchange website despite the existence of technical problems that marred the Obamacare rollout.

“Providing false or misleading testimony to Congress is a serious matter,” Issa writes. “Documents and testimony obtained by the Committee, including information provided by Teresa Fryer, the Chief Information Security Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the MITRE Corporation, a contractor hired by HHS to conduct security assessments of healthcare.gov, show that your testimony was false and misleading.”

HHS promised to respond to the letter. "Regarding the issues raised in the partial transcript excerpts referenced in the letter—as we have said repeatedly, including when these issues were first reported several weeks ago—the HealthCare.gov components that are operational have been determined to be compliant with the Federal Information Security Management Act, based on standards promulgated by the National Institutes of Standards and Technology," Joanne Peters, the national press secretary for health care at HHS, told the Washington Examiner in an email.

Sebelius' claim that MITRE conducted "ongoing testing" of the Obamacare website was false, Issa said, citing Fryer's testimony to committee staff that the company only did testing by rounds, with the last pre-launch round taking place on Sep. 20. The next round did not begin until Dec. 10.

Issa also said that Sebelius' claim that MITRE recommended HHS proceed with the launch of the website was also false, because MITRE says it was never consulted.

The Republican investigator also disputes Sebelius' statement that “no one… suggested that the risks outweighed the importance of moving forward."

"[Fryer] was very concerned about the problems raised by MITRE during its security testing of the system," the letter states.

Issa also quotes from a Sep. 24 memo written by Fryer, who concluded that the health care website "does not reasonably meet the CMS security requirements," adding that "there is also no confidence that Personal Identifiable Information will be protected."

"There have been no successful security attacks on Healthcare.gov and no person or group has maliciously accessed personally identifiable information," Peters countered in her email. "An independent security control assessor tested each piece of the Healthcare.gov system that went live Oct. 1 prior to that date with no open high findings. All high, moderate and low security risk findings listed on the SCAs for the portions of the website that launched Oct. 1 were either fixed, or have strategies and plans in place to fix the findings that meet industry standards."

Related:

Is This the Alarming Reason Kathleen Sebelius Hasn’t Been Fired?

Vermont plots course for single-payer health care system

Here we go… down the road to single-payer… socialized medicine… the plan all along~

Nov. 26, 2013: A doctor speaks to patients at his office in Peoria, Ill.Reuters

Fox: WASHINGTON –  While all eyes are on the ObamaCare rollout, an ambitious health care experiment is going forward in Vermont that would create a government-run alternative know as a "single-payer" system -- and it's starting to attract more attention from liberals frustrated with the Affordable Care Act's implementation.

Democrats' faith in ObamaCare has been shaken by the technical failures of the federal and state insurance exchanges as well as, in some cases, premium increases. In Vermont, however, they see a potential first step toward the kind of national government-run health care system some have advocated for years. Filmmaker Michael Moore, in a column last week blasting ObamaCare, said Vermont's plan could "change everything."

But critics say the proposal goes too far and would kill thousands of jobs. "It’s not practical,” Vermont state Rep. Patti Komline, who voted against the plan, told FoxNews.com. “There are too many complications involved.” 

A single-payer plan would largely sideline the insurance industry, and instead set up a government-managed insurance system to collect all health care fees and pay out all health care costs.

Full implementation of Vermont’s single-payer plan could be held up for another three years, at least. In order for Green Mountain Care to fully launch in 2017, the health care exchange would have to get approval from the federal government to use federal money to fund the state program.

State law would also require Vermont to define the benefits of the single-payer program and provide a three-year budget that clocks in less than current health care costs.

University of Virginia public policy professor Raymond Scheppach said it will take another half decade to determine whether Vermont’s controversial plan even works and if there are any real benefits associated with it. He also says that regardless of outcome, Vermont’s political makeup differs from other states and therefore would not provide an accurate view of what’s to come.

The single-payer debate recently resurfaced in national headlines following the Dec. 31 op-ed piece in the New York Times by Moore. In it, Moore called ObamaCare “awful” and said liberals have avoided speaking in public about the problems with it because they didn’t want to provide the president’s critics with additional ammunition.

Moore went on to sing the merits of a single-payer system and said that the real problem with ObamaCare is that it is a “pro-insurance-industry plan implemented by a president who knew in his heart that a single-payer, Medicare-for-all model was the true way to go.”

Supporters say the single-payer system would cut down on the administrative waste and complications associated with having multiple billers and billing systems. Opponents say such a widespread overhaul would be bad for business.

Vermont became the first state in the country to lay the groundwork for single-payer health care. Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, signed the plan into law in May 2011.

The initiative, which was approved by the Democratic-controlled House and Senate, promises to extend coverage to all of Vermont’s 620,000 residents, of which around 47,000 residents are uninsured and 150,000 are underinsured.

"This law recognizes an economic and fiscal imperative," Shumlin said during a press conference when he signed the bill. "We must control the growth in health care costs that are putting families at economic risk and making it harder for small employers to do business.”

The exchange, Green Mountain Care, will set reimbursement rates for health care providers and streamline administration into a single, unified system.

Some experts say a revised system would save an estimated $580 million annually, and $1.9 billion by 2019. But the single-payer system’s creator, Harvard economist William Hsiao, says it could generate even greater profits for Vermont.

Hsiao predicts his plan would save the state 25.3 percent a year in total health care spending, lower household and employer health care spending, boost job growth and create a higher economic output for the state.

The savings, he said in a 2011 Health Affairs article, would come from tort reform for malpractice suits, better governance and lower administrative expenses. Vermont would rack up $4.6 billion in savings during the first five years of the program which he says would be used in part to cover the state’s uninsured as well as to expand benefits and services.

Vermont’s health care spending runs about $5 billion annually, with costs rising between 6.5 percent and 8.5 percent in recent years.

But not everyone is on board with the plan. It is still unknown how Vermont will pay for the plan and whether that money will come from additional taxes on its residents.

Komline says despite the plan's passage, she doesn’t see Vermont residents warming up to the idea of a single-payer system any time soon. She also said that Vermont, because of its small size and political makeup, is open to influence from special interest groups.

“It doesn’t take much money for special interest groups to come in and influence votes,” she said. “That’s why Vermont was among the first to legalize pot and same-sex marriages.”

Calls to the governor's office for comment were not returned. 

Here comes Obama’s solution to the disastrous Affordable Care Act: National Health Care a.k.a. the Single Payer System

HEALTHCARE REFORM'S FIRST BIG TEST

“The portion of this email which I have highlighted in red is what HMO's have been doing all along. I watched a 2020 televised  expose on Humana doing this 20 years ago (but this is the first time I've seen it in print). All the money they don't spend to treat us they get to divide  up among themselves. Does that sound like an incentive to give us the healthcare many older Americans will/may need?? Not in my book.” Deonia Copeland

PEORIA, Illinois (Reuters) - By all accounts, Sandy Wright of Mackinaw, Illinois, is a challenging patient. The spunky 69-year-old with a rare autoimmune disease has been in the hospital more than a dozen times since she was first diagnosed in 1997.

"You name it, I've had it," Wright says. "I'm a very hard case."

Now, patients like Wright are at the forefront of an experiment, under way in Peoria, Illinois, and hundreds of other U.S. cities, that could transform the way doctors, nurses and hospitals deliver care to patients. Amid the barrage of criticism over the rollout of Obamacare, groups known as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are quietly going about the business of testing the potential for healthcare reform.

The efforts, born of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, are part of the biggest experiment yet to fix the costly and error-plagued U.S. healthcare system. The new models of care, which encourage providers to form networks to coordinate care and cut costs, involve close monitoring of the sickest patients to address budding health problems before they cause a costly trip to the emergency room or an extended hospital stay. Providers that succeed in keeping patients healthy and cutting costs are rewarded with a portion of the savings.

In Peoria, a city of 116,000 that is often seen as the archetypal middle American community, two hospital systems - OSF Healthcare and UnityPoint Health - are taking on the challenge.

Progress so far is largely anecdotal, but early data showing declines in readmissions and emergency room visits offers a tantalizing glimpse into the potential for reform. Still, there are no guarantees that the savings will exceed the costs.

OSF is in its second year of participating in the federal Pioneer Accountable Care Organization, a pilot program involving 32 hospital systems across the country that aims to improve quality while cutting costs in the government's Medicare insurance program for the elderly.

The program rewards doctors and medical centers that show gains on 33 measures of quality, including routine cancer and depression screenings, while still managing to cut overall costs. In its first year, 13 hospitals reported savings. OSF was not one of them, but it came close.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has not allowed providers to disclose their full first-year results, but Tara Canty, chief operations officer of OSF's Accountable Care Organization, said the hospital system saw a 30 percent drop in emergency room admissions and a 20 percent drop in inpatient stays among Medicare participants.

Canty sees the first two years as a learning process but says she will be "upset personally" if OSF is not achieving savings by year three.

Dr. Keith Knepp, chief information officer at UnityPoint Health-Methodist, says reforms are needed, but he sometimes finds it hard to stay optimistic. "Will there be reimbursement to reward the improved quality, or will we spend more money to take in less?"

Success may depend on controlling costs among high-use patients like Wright. She is among the 5 percent of OSF patients who consumes more than 50 percent of the care delivered by the system.

FOCUS ON THE 5 PERCENT

Wright spends most of her days in her tidy home in Mackinaw, outside Peoria, tooling around in a motorized wheelchair. Her legs swell up, making her prone to blood clots. Two years ago in November, she had a major complication from her blood thinner drug, Coumadin.

"My brain started bleeding. They had to drill holes in my head," Wright recalls of the ordeal, which kept her in the hospital for nearly a month. "I nearly died twice."

Wright was among the first of OSF's Pioneer patients to be assigned a care manager, a nurse charged with keeping her healthy and out of the hospital.

"The theory here is if you focus on the people with chronic disease who are your highest utilizers of care … and make a better outcome for those patients, you are able to invest that savings into some of the care for the larger population of patients," said Michelle Conger, OSF's chief strategy officer.

Like most providers across the country, Peoria's hospitals have been hit by federal budget cuts and burdened by an outdated reimbursement system focused on how many services they perform rather that quality.

OSF, a system of eight acute-care hospitals with $6 billion in annual patient revenue, needs to cut $200 million over the next five years in response to reimbursement cuts from Medicare and other payers. It has adopted the ACO model to help it get there.

An actuarial firm is combing through claims data for the 34,000 Medicare patients in OSF's ACO to help identify patients like Wright, whose high-risk conditions are likely to require more emergency room visits or admissions. The system assigned 35 care managers to work with these patients and come up with ways to prevent more acute health crises.

Sometimes that means simply helping patients keep track of their medications or arranging transportation to a pharmacy, said Priscilla Romans, a nurse who works in OSF's call center.

It also means routine checks on high-risk patients. During a call last month, a heart failure patient complained of shortness of breath and a headache. Romans asked whether she could put her shoes on that day. She was only able to get one on, a sign of fluid buildup, and she couldn't wear her rings.

Romans had the woman take her blood pressure, which was too high, and reported the findings to her doctor. The physician doubled the patient's dose of Lasix to cut the swelling in her hands and feet, and started her on a blood pressure medication.

When Romans called the next day, a Friday, the woman felt much better. Romans believes the time she spent on the phone with this patient helped avert a much more costly ER visit.

Often, the issues driving health costs are social. In one case, OSF discovered that a patient who kept getting readmitted to the hospital for emphysema had not been taking her medication.

"She was squirreling away her money to fix her roof," said Dr. Stephen Hippler, OSF's senior vice president for clinical excellence. The Catholic hospital system tapped into a charity program and made the repairs.

'GREAT SIGNALS'

UnityPoint Health-Methodist, Peoria's second-biggest provider, has been taking part in Medicare's Shared Savings ACO, a transitional program in which hospitals assume less risk than in the Pioneer ACO but have fewer potential rewards.

The hospital has cared for about 10,000 Medicare ACO patients since July 2012.

In November, UnityPoint acquired the 220-bed Procter Hospital, Peoria's third-largest provider, giving it access to new addiction recovery services and skilled nursing care. The Procter deal follows Methodist's decision in 2011 to join Iowa-based UnityPoint Health, the 13th-largest non-profit health system in the United States with annual revenue of $2.7 billion.

The moves are part of a national consolidation trend among hospitals trying to fill out their menu of services and bring costs under centralized control.

"There is a need for size and scale in the new environment," said Terry Waters, vice president for strategy and development at UnityPoint Health. "You have to be able to diversify your financial risk over a larger patient population."

According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, an estimated 14 percent of the U.S. population is covered by some form of accountable care organization, including 4 million Medicare beneficiaries.

WILL IT WORK?

OSF could not say whether it has saved money on Wright's care in the two years since she has been in care management because the system does not release financial information about individual patients.

But Canty said the system "has seen significant and sustained declines in the cost of care for patients in care management."

As for Wright, she appreciates the quick access she now has to her doctors, but she still needs a lot of care.

In May, a hip implant had become infected and had to be replaced. While recovering, Wright developed a bothersome cough that turned out to be pulmonary fibrosis, a dangerous scarring of the lungs. "Between May 21 and July 19, I had been released and admitted five times. Five times! It was dreadful."

Romans, who has helped coordinate some of Wright's care, said her job is to try to keep patients out of the hospital, but that's not always possible. "Here we are trying to be financially prudent with our dollars, but the patient needed the care."

Now, the goal is to stretch out the period between visits.

Wright went from July to September with only one hospitalization. "It was quick. She went back home, and she hasn't been back to the hospital since," Romans said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Douglas Royalty)

Here comes Obama’s solution to the disastrous Affordable Care Act: National Health Care a.k.a. the Single Payer System

By: Nelson Abdullah -  Conscience of a Conservative  -  h/t to the NoisyRoom

Cancelled health insurance plans by the millions. Premiums rise 300%. Two million people enrolled in ObamaCare but most are low-income families covered under Medicaid, not the healthy, young, affulent Middle-Class families with incomes that were supposed to support the program. The so-called Affordable Care Act is already proving to be unaffordable with family deductibles averaging $10,000 or more. That means that even with the health insurance a family must pay out the first $10,000 in medical bills before the coverage starts. This plan is a disaster but it is so bad that it could not possibly be that way by accident. Even stupid people manage to do something right once in awhile. The Unaffordable Care Act was designed to fail from top to bottom.

Since the Democrats were the only ones who voted for ObamaCare they will be the only target of the expected backlash by millions of angry voters. The Democrat leaders who conceived and wrote the plan in secret, who told members of Congress they had to pass it before they could read it, are now facing the most frightening threat they have ever faced. But while conservatives are enjoying the prospect of voter revenge in the 2014 elections, only 11 months away, and the expected retaking of the Senate giving Republicans control of both houses of Congress, this may all be just a planned scenario scripted by the Marxist/Socialist leadership of the National Democratic Party. A perfect example of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. While we watch images of a squirming and obviously uncomfortable Obama admitting that he screwed up, we may well be the ones in for the big surprise. This is because the Affordable Care Act is not the health plan that the Democrats had in mind, it was only a stepping stone to launch their valiant and heroic rescue effort to save America. And the solution to everyone’s problem will be a “new” compromise health care plan, the Single Payer System. The Single Payer System, otherwise known as National Healthcare is pure, outright socialized medicine. The following is a glossy explanation from Wikipedia that does little to explain the pitfalls of National Healthcare. It fails to warn of the long waiting lists for medical treatment or the low wages paid to Doctors or the full implementation of the Death Panels that consist of panels of bureaucrats who will be granting approval for medical procedures or denying them to the elderly who make no contribution to society.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Health_Care_Act

The United States National Health Care Act, or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (H.R. 676), is a bill introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Representative John Conyers (D-MI). The bill had 88 cosponsors in 2009. The act would establish a universal single-payer health care system in the United States, the rough equivalent of Canada’s Medicare, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service…

Under a single-payer system, all medical care would be paid for by the Government of the United States, ending the need for private health insurance and premiums, and probably recasting private insurance companies as providing purely supplemental coverage, to be used when non-essential care is sought.

The national system would be paid for in part through taxes replacing insurance premiums, but also by savings realized through the provision of preventative universal healthcare and the elimination of insurance company overhead and hospital billing costs.

The leftist news media that has been covering up the problems with ObamaCare in order to protect the Democrats in the previous two national elections while the bill was being created and the 20,000 pages of new regulations were being written are now playing their part by reporting the disastrous effects to drum up support for some sort of needed relief. Even liberal web sites like Politico called Barack Hussein Obama’s promise that we could keep our insurance coverage, The Lie of the Year. They are all setting the stage for the White House to announce a viable solution to the millions of citizens suddenly finding themselves with no health care coverage and the millions more who have found they cannot afford the coverage they signed up for. Look for Barack Hussein Obama calling on Congress to voluntarily repeal ObamaCare and replacing it with a National Health Care Single Payer System. The law they wanted all along.

And there goes one third of the U.S. economy right down the tubes.

My name is Nelson Abdullah and I am Oldironsides

Obamacare and Review of 2013 Should Remind Us We Are Not 'Subjects'; We Are People

By Laura Hollis, CP Op-Ed Contributor to the Christian Post writes:

The unveiling of the dictatorial debacle that is Obamacare absolutely flabbergasts me. It is stunning on so many levels, but the most shocking aspect of it for me is watching millions of free Americans stand idly by while this man, his minions in Congress and his cheerleaders in the press systematically dismantle our Constitution, steal our money, and crush our freedoms.

The President, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (with no small help from Justice John Roberts) take away our health care, and we allow it. They take away our insurance, and we allow it. They take away our doctors, and we allow it.They charge us thousands of dollars more a year, and we allow it. They make legal products illegal, and we allow it. They cripple our businesses, and we allow it.They announce by fiat that we must ignore our most deeply held beliefs – and we allow it.

Where is your spine, America?

Yes, I know people are complaining. I read the news on the internet. I read blogs. I have a Twitter feed. So what? People in the Soviet Union complained. People in Cuba complain. People in China complain (quietly). Complaining isn't the same thing as doing anything about it. In fact, much of the complaining that we hear sounds like resignation: Wow. This sucks. Oh well, this is the way things are. Too bad.

Perhaps you need reminding of a few important facts. Here goes:

1. The President is not a king. Barack Obama does not behave like a President, an elected official, someone who realizes that he works for us. He behaves like a king, a dictator – someone who believes that his own pronouncements have the force of law, and who thinks he can dispense with the law's enforcement when he deigns to do so. And those of us who object? How dare we? Racists!

And while he moves steadily "forward" with his plans to "fundamentally transform" the greatest country in human history, he distracts people with cheap, meaningless trivialities, like "free birth control pills"! (In fact, let's face it: this administration's odd obsession with sex in general - Birth control! Abortion! Sterilization! Gay guys who play basketball! -- is just plain weird. Since when did the leader of the free world care so much about how people have sex, who they have it with, and what meds they use when they have it? Does he have nothing more important to concern himself with?)

2. It isn't just a failed software program; it is a failed philosophy. People are marveling that Healthcare.gov was such a spectacular failure. Well, if one is only interested in it as a product launch, I've explained some of the reasons for that here. But the larger point is that it isn't a software failure, or even a product failure; it is a philosophy failure.

I have said this before: Obama is not a centrist; he is a central planner. And this – all of it: the disastrous computer program, the hundreds of millions of dollars wasted, the lies, the manipulation of public opinion, the theft of the public's money and property, and freedom (read insurance, and premiums, and doctors) -- IS what central planning looks like.

The central premise of central planning is that a handful of wunderkinds with your best interests at heart (yeah, right) know better than you what's good for you. The failure of such a premise and the misery it causes have been clear from the dawn of humanity. Kings and congressmen, dictators and Dear Leaders, potentates, princes and presidents can all fall prey to the same imperial impulses: "we know what is good the 'the people.'

And they are always wrong.

There is a reason that the only times communism has really been tried have been after wars, revolutions, or coups d'état. You have to have complete chaos for people to be willing to accept the garbage that centralized planning produces. Take the Soviet Union, for example. After two wars, famine, and the collapse of the Romanov dynasty, why wouldn't people wait in line for hours to buy size 10 shoes? Or settle for the gray matter that passed for meat in the grocery stores?

But communism's watered-down cousin, socialism, isn't much better. Ask the Venezuelans who cannot get toilet paper. Toilet paper. ¡Viva la Revolución!

Contrary to what so many who believe in a "living Constitution" say, the Founding Fathers absolutely understood this. That is why the Constitution was set up to limit government power. (Memo to the President: the drafters of the Constitution deliberately didn't say "what government had to do on your behalf.") They understood that that was the path to folly, fear, and famine.)

3. Obama is deceitful. Just as the collapse of the computer program should not surprise anyone, neither should we be shocked that the President lied about his healthcare plan. Have any of you been paying attention over the past few years? Obama has made no secret of his motivations or his methods. The philosophies which inspire him espouse deceit and other vicious tactics. (Don't take my word for it: read Saul Alinsky.) Obama infamously told reporter Richard Wolffe, "You know, I actually believe my own bullshit." He has refused to be forthcoming about his past (where are his academic records?). His own pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, told author Ed Klein, that Obama said to him, "You know what your problem is? You have to tell the truth."

Did Obama lie when he said dozens of times, "If you like you plan, you can keep it"? Of course he did. That's what he does.

4. The media is responsible. And had the media been doing their jobs, we would have known a lot of this much, much earlier.

The press is charged with the sacred responsibility of protecting the people from the excesses of government. Our press has been complicit, incompetent, or corrupt. Had they vetted this man in 2008, as they would have a Republican candidate, we would have known far more about him than we do, even now. Had they pressed for more details about Obamacare, Congress' feet would have been held to the fire. Had they done their jobs about Eric Holder, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal, NSA spying - or any of the other myriad betrayals of the public trust that this administration has committed, Obama would likely have lost his 2012 reelection campaign. (A fact that even The Washington Post has tacitly acknowledged. Well done, fellas! Happy now?)

Instead, they turned a blind eye, even when they knew he was lying, abusing power, disregarding the limits of the Constitution. It was only when he began to spy on them, and when the lies were so blatant that the lowest of low-information voters could figure it out that they realized they had to report on it. (Even in the face of blatant, deliberate and repeated lies, The New York Times has the audacity to tell us that the President "misspoke.") They have betrayed us, abandoned us, and deceived us.

5. Ted Cruz was right. So was Sarah Palin. The computer program is a disaster. The insurance exchanges are a disaster. What's left? The healthcare system itself. And this, of necessity, will be a disaster, too.

Millions of people have lost their individual insurance plans. In 2015, millions more will lose their employer-provided coverage (a fact which the Obama administration also knew, and admitted elsewhere).

The exorbitant additional costs that Obamacare has foisted on unsuspecting Americans are all part of a plan of wealth confiscation and redistribution. That is bad enough. But it will not end there.

When the numbers of people into the system and the corresponding demand for care vastly exceed the cost projections (and they will, make no mistake), then the rationing will start. Not only choice at that point, but quality and care itself will go down the tubes. And then will come the decisions made by the Independent Payment Advisory Board about what care will be covered (read "paid for") and what will not.

That's just a death panel, put politely. In fact, progressives are already greasing the wheels for acceptance of that miserable reality as well. They're spreading the lie that it will be about the ability of the dying to refuse unwanted or unhelpful care. Don't fall for that one, either. It will be about the deaths that inevitably result from decisions made by people other than the patients, their families, and their physicians. (Perhaps it's helpful to think of their assurances this way: "If you like your end-of-life care, you can keep your end-of-life-care.")

6. We are not SUBJECTS. (or, Nice Try, the Tea Party Isn't Going Away). We have tolerated these incursions into our lives and livelihoods too long already. There is no end to the insatiable demand "progressives" have to remake us in their image. Today it is our insurance, our businesses, our doctors, our health care. Tomorrow some new crusade will be announced that enables them to take over other aspects of our formerly free lives.

I will say it again: WE ARE NOT SUBJECTS. Not only is the Tea Party right on the fiscal issues, but it appears that they are more relevant than ever. We fought a war once to prove we did not want to be the subjects of a king, and the Boston Tea Party was just a taste of the larger conflict to come. If some people missed that lesson in history class, we can give them a refresher.

The 2014 elections are a good place to start. Call your representative, your senator, your candidate and tell them: "We are not subjects. You work for us. And if the word "REPEAL" isn't front and center in your campaign, we won't vote for you. Period."

Marion Algier at Ask Marion Added:

Along with the ever worsening travesty and lies of ObamaCare, Americans are awakening to the nightmare of the Federal government’s ever-growing stranglehold that is destroying wealth-creation and promoting skyrocketing debt. The Fed’s central bank—no longer tied to a gold standard—channels low interest rates and trillions of dollars to Goldman Sachs et al., while the rest of America is jobless, under-employed, owing staggering college loans with more people than ever without healthcare is given a bag of broken glass.

Peggy Noonan recently summarized much of what is wrong this holiday season…. beginning with:  What's the political word of the year? For months journalists couldn't settle on how to describe the rollout of ObamaCare. "Failed," disastrous," "unsuccessful." In the past few weeks they've settled on "botched." References to the botched rollout have appeared in this paper, The Hill, NBC, Fox, NPR, the New Republic, the Washington Post and other media outlets. A botch, according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Sixth Edition, is a "bungled piece of work"—to botch is... Or, as JT McFarland recently mentioned on Redeye, is it really just going as they planned… creating total chaos and destroying what was the best healthcare system in the world so they can then install a single-payer socialized medicine system to pretty much cement their (Progressive) control of every every aspect of our lives?!?  I vote it is the latter.

The Christmas Classic, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ was completely reworked for our current national predicament by our friend Rock Peters Western Journalism. It is guaranteed to make you laugh and cry.

Video:  Twas the Night Before Christmas - 2013 Version

Lies of the Year… ‘If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance’ and ‘If your doctor, you can keep your doctor’ 

Whistle BLOWER- President Obama’s HALF sister comes FORTH!

Obamacare Should Remind Us We Are Not 'Subjects,' We Are People

Yes, States Have the Constitutional Right to Nullify Obamacare

Capitalism Institute: Every effort to navigate the proper channels to repeal Obamacare have been thus far blocked by Democrats (and even some big government Republicans), despite practically everyone hating the oppressive legislation.

Naturally, states are considering other means by which to stop this economic disaster before it gets even worse.

South Carolina and Georgia have already jumped on board with a state-level model developed by the Tenth Amendment Center to effectively nullify Obamacare in their states. The template is even being applied outlaw the NSA from operating within Arizona.

Using this model to combat Obamacare, South Carolina and Georgia are prepared to “nullify” Obamacare by withholding the state’s personnel and resources the law depends on. It would be illegal for the state’s resources to contribute towards the law’s implementation. This is essentially how it works:

Nullification begins with a decision made in your state legislature to resist a federal law deemed to be unconstitutional. It usually involves a bill, passed by both houses and signed by your governor. In some cases, it might be approved by the voters of your state directly, in a referendum. It may change your state’s statutory law or it might even amend your state constitution. It is a refusal on the part of your state government to cooperate with, or enforce any federal law it deems to be unconstitutional.

Most of the “naysayers” will tell you that these nullification efforts are “illegal” because of the supremacy clause:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

However, those at the Tenth Amendment Center disagree:

The major argument used by those that oppose Nullification is the Constitution’s supremacy clause. But in fact, the arguments for the supremacy clause ARE the arguments for nullification.

They continue:

The major architects of the Constitution, and those that led the fight for its adoption, laid down what the supremacy clause meant during the ratifying conventions. By doing so, they defended state sovereignty, and set the stage for the negation of unconstitutional actions.

Judge Andrew Napolitano, a senior judicial and political analyst, recently confirmed that these efforts are, in fact, legal — and effective: 

[I]t will gut Obamacare because the federal government does not have the resources or the wherewithal […] to go into each of the individual states.

It was Alexander Hamilton who said, “but the laws of Congress are restricted to a certain sphere, and when they depart from this sphere, they are no longer supreme or binding.”

The TAC cites several other historic quotes from the New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina ratifying conventions and the Federalist Papers demonstrating that the supremacy clause is — and was intended to be — a platform upon which we could hold an overbearing federal government “in check”:

[The Founders] established the means for the states to defend themselves and their citizens from a general government that exceeding its authority and that power is NULLIFICATION.

The nullification of overbearing, unconstitutional federal laws is essential to preserving our liberty. The Founders were certainly not ignorant of the consequences of letting a federal government run amok; thus, they crafted in our Constitution a fail-safe.

When Congress seems more interested in propelling us head-first into tyranny rather than protecting us from it, we have to take matters into our own hands.

The nullification efforts in South Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona are just the beginning.

You can help fight this country’s descent into despotism by sharing this article with your legislators, friends, family, and colleagues. Liberty is at risk with every passing generation. It is time to take action.

Obamacare: The New “Animal Farm”

GodFather Politics – Cross-Posted at AskMarion: Now that we’ve had just a few weeks of the mess that is ObamaCare, it brings home how grossly unfair it is for the political class to impose it on the rest of us and not have to abide by it (for as long as it lasts) — think Animal Farm (50th Anniversary Edition). It may yet collapse on its own weight.

I feel sorry for the younger generation (just out of college). They have less of a chance to get a good job with benefits. Many companies continue to downsize because of ObamaCare.

So these young people get less work. But they’ll have to pay more for healthcare, which they may never see. Assuming they can register for it, which we now know is a huge assumption.

Last week, one liberal blogger described how he had been all for ObamaCare. He was one of the few ones (relatively speaking) who managed to get through the computer system and register on-line. Lo and behold, his insurance costs were going to go through the roof, as was the deductible. So he said, forget it. He even said he won’t pay the fine either. Well, good luck with that.

ObamaCare seems simple to understand: You pay more, but you get less. Not to mention the loss of freedoms, the institution of a massive governmental bureaucracy, and the potential annihilation of healthcare as we know it.

At the very least, fairness would demand that all the politicians have to live under it. It’s grossly unfair to force the rest of us into a system that doesn’t seem to work, while the elite class has exempted itself from it.

All of this reminds me of the classic anti-Communist novel, Animal Farm , by the great British writer George Orwell (1903-1950). The short book is a parable of the Soviet Union.

And no, I’m not calling anyone a Communist. But Dr. Paul Kengor, Grove City College professor, documents in his book, The Communist (Kindle), Obama was mentored by Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Communist Party USA (#47544). This is part of the public record.

Here’s a spoiler alert. In Orwell’s novel, you will recall, the animals revolt against the tyrannical farmer (Mr. Jones, a human), who represents the czar. But then as the animals look forward to sharing everything equally, the pigs in charge ultimately live high off the hog, so to speak.

After killing the farmer, the animals declare, “Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.”

The animals post “Seven Commandments” — the final one stating, “All animals are equal.”

But as the plot develops, it becomes clear that the pigs (representing Josef Stalin, Leon Trotsky, and other Soviet leaders) have become an elite class.

At the end of the book, as the other animals — who do all the work and underfed — look into the farmhouse, they see the pigs enjoying a great meal. They can barely distinguish the pigs from the humans, whose regime they had rebelled against.

The Seven Commandments had been changed to just two: “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.”

Today, we seem to have an elitists’ class and the rest of us. As long as ObamaCare is implemented as the law of the land, then it ought to apply to the president, his family, his staff, the Senators, and members of the House of Representatives and their staff. The law (and tax) should be good enough for the Supreme Court and their staff as well.

I’ve heard some Congressmen complain that their staff members can’t afford it. Well, what about the rest of us?

Meanwhile, the Bible says differing standards are unfair and unjust: “Differing weights and differing measures — the Lord detests them both” (Prov. 20:10). Psalm 94:20 criticizes “those who frame injustice by statute.” Paul strongly criticizes Peter in Gal. 2:14 for forcing a standard on the Gentiles that he himself was not living by.

Our nation’s birth certificate declares that “all men are created equal.” Are we to assume that under ObamaCare, some are created more equal than others?

Animal Farm and 1984 (Kindle)

Cancelled – Stories Behind HC Policy Cancellations Because of ObamaCare

Independent Woman’s Voice:  I want you to meet Edie Sundby.  This photo of Edie is one of our most recent posts over at www.MyCancellation.com:

Cross-Posted at AskMarion: For almost seven years now, Edie has fought and beat back stage-four gallbladder cancer.  The five-year survival rate for that form of cancer is 2% after diagnosis.

Edie has survived cancer with the help of great doctors.  But now, thanks to ObamaCare, her insurance has been cancelled.  And, she can't keep the oncologist that has helped her overcome cancer for seven years running.

You can read Edie's full story here in the Wall Street Journal.

At www.MyCancellation.com, we're collecting the faces of Obama Care's health insurance cancellations.  If you've had your health insurance cancelled by ObamaCare, take a picture of yourself with your cancellation letter and send it to us at letters@mycancellation.com.  (We'll make sure you keep all of your private information private!)

Help us fight Obama Care so that people like Edie don't have to lose their insurance and their doctors because of this destructive law.

Sincerely,

Carrie Lukas
VP for Policy & Economics
Independent Women's Voice

**There is only one way to stop this disaster known as ObamaCare…  We must vote out every one in 2014 who voted for or supports ObamaCare and then we need to put a Constitutional and Fiscal Conservative in the White House in 2016 who will sort out this mess!

And in the meantime, stand together.  Inform yourself.  And if you are healthy… Do not sign up for ObamaCare

Megyn Kelly - Did Obama win election by lying abt Keeping your Healthcare; Still Lying 2 Cover up 

Wake-Up… ObamaCare Eliminates Your Plan by Design

The Dirty Secret Behind ObamaCare No One’s Talking About

In the Meantime Read: Beating Obamacare

Wake-Up… ObamaCare Eliminates Your Plan by Design

RUSH: The scope of this fraud is incalculable and almost unimaginable.  That's how big it is.

The failure that is going on right now is all part of the plan to force everyone into a single-payer system… that is socialized medicine completely run by the government… Wake-up and stop being played.  The only option is to clean house in the 2014 Election so that we can repeal and replace this socialistic monstrosity with a plan to really help all Americans and retain our freedoms and choices.

Video: RUSH: Americans Had To Lose Their Health Care Plans In Order For ObamaCare To Work

EIB – Cross-Posted at AskMarion: BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Steve in South Bend, Indiana.  Welcome, sir.  It's great to have you here.  Hi.

CALLER:  Yes, good afternoon, Rush.  Thank you for taking my phone call.  Long-time listener, first-time caller.  In fact you mentioned Hillarycare earlier, and it's around 1993 that I think I first started tuning in, when Hillarycare debacle was going down. One thing I might add is, if you recall, C. Everett Koop supported Hillarycare.  In fact, if you remember the red carpet ceremony with Hillary walking into the joint session of Congress, I think she was joined by C. Everett Koop, who lent his weight behind her plan. 

That's not why I called.  Okay, 2010 when Obamacare was passed, they went to the states and wanted the states to offer extended Medicaid.  The promise was that the federal government would pay for it for two years -- and the bait, of course, was that the states did not have to pay for it. It was free Medicaid for two years. But then, of course, once they get everybody hooked into their entitlement then the federal government pulls the rug out from under it.

But everybody's hooked so, you know, the states have to continue it.  What I can foresee, what I predict with Obamacare rollout 2.0 is they're just gonna jack up the subsidies. They're gonna get everybody hooked in who lost their health care by overly subsidizing them, get 'em hooked and -- you know, for a protracted, limited time, a year or two or whatever -- and once theory hooked, they're hooked.  And you just mentioned the taxpayer subsidy would probably be a possibility.  That's what I see happening.

RUSH:  Yeah, well, I think that's what Jay Carney means when he quotes the president as saying he doesn't like people put in a position where they can't afford a better plan.  So here comes subsidies.  That's the Democrat solution to everything, is buy them.  The fact that we don't have the money is irrelevant.  The fact that they're still being lied to is irrelevant.  We'll just buy them.  We'll just buy their love.  We'll just buy their support.  And we'll use the federal Treasury to do it. 

There's a guy who writes a piece in The Politico today named Jonathan Gruber, and he practically admits -- let me read a little excerpt here.  "The White House is 'just reacting to one broken promise by imposing a much larger and harmful one: our promise to insurers that if they priced fairly, we would deliver a broad pool of insured.  If you allow the healthy enrollees to stay out in their old policy, the insurers lose money and the program falls apart.'"

So, in other words, if insurers are allowed to keep their plan, Obamacare will fail.  If you get to keep your plan, if we try to dial back the clock and everybody gets to keep their plan, it won't work, because the insurers will lose money and the program falls apart because they won't stay in business that way, whereas the federal government can.  Jonathan Gruber was quoted.  He didn't write the piece, but he was one of the architects of Obamacare.  He practically admitted that if insurers are allowed to keep their plans, that Obamacare will fail.  Meaning, if you're allowed to keep your plan, Obamacare fails.  This has been my point all week.  You cannot keep your plan and have Obamacare at the same time.  Obamacare, by definition, gets rid of your plan and replaces it with health care run by the federal government. 

Now, the caller is right about Medicaid.  Remember, they tried to off that to the states, and a lot of states said, "Wait a minute, we don't have the money to pay for this."  But Obamacare wanted to off that expense to the states to reduce the overall cost as reported to the CBO. Keep it under a trillion dollars and get it approved and everybody thinks, "Oh, wow, it's a net wash, we're replacing the Iraq war with health care, no loss, no gain."  The whole thing was a lie.  The states said, "We can't afford Medicaid. We can't print money. We can't accept it." 

So now it's coming back, and Obama, the theory is, "Well, we'll just subsidize people," and like the caller said, "We'll get 'em hooked," and once people are hooked with the government paying for things for them, that's it.  But they're subsidizing it with money they don't have.  But that's the story of this whole administration.  There was a stimulus that we didn't have.  A green energy program for money that we didn't have.  We're subsidizing everything Obama is doing with money that we don't have.  But the beneficiaries don't care.  The people getting the money don't care that we don't have the money.  In fact, you tell 'em we don't have the money and they say, "Yes, we do, I just got it." 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  The Gruber quote, just to be clear, he's one of the architects of Obamacare, it's in a Politico piece.  Gruber is reminding people that we cannot go back and give people their old plans.  We will not have Obamacare if we do that.  We can't turn back the hands of time.  We cannot turn back the clock as a fix for all the people that are losing their policy, losing their doctor, we can't just now say, "Oh, okay.  Well, here it is back."  The reason is, the White House is just reacting to one broken promise by imposing a much larger and harmful one.  And the original promise to the insurers, not the insured, the original promise to the insurers, the insurance companies, was that if they priced their policies fairly, that the regime would deliver a broad pool of uninsured that were mandated to buy. 

This is how they hooked the insurance companies in.  These idiots thought that they were guaranteed 30 million new customers. (interruption) Well, they are.  What else explains this?  So they sit there, and of course it's the president, I guess you meet with the president and he tells you something, you automatically believe it.  That's what I don't get.  But anyway, they did, they bought it.  And they were salivating, 30 million new customers and all we've gotta do is price our policies fairly.  Well, now they can't offer what they were offering at the same price because of the new mandates and all that in Obamacare.

The bottom line is, it isn't easy to repair this broken promise, that millions of consumers would be able to keep their insurance coverage.  And, by the way, the Politico, in random act of journalism here, they've gone out and they found a bunch of industry experts to say so.  You can't repair this broken promise.  The reason I'm making a big deal out of this is Jay Carney was asked by AP today if Obama agrees with Clinton.  You know, Clinton said (Clinton impression), "I think he ought to honor his promise. He said that people can keep their plan, I think he should do that."  You can't!  It doesn't work.  The only way you could do that would be a total repeal of Obamacare.  There are just too many mandates and requirements on everybody.  That is why people got canceled in the first place. 

Your insurance company didn't cancel you 'cause they hate you.  They didn't cancel you 'cause they want you to get sick and die.  They didn't cancel you because they're Republicans, they don't care about people.  They canceled you because they couldn't offer what you had at the price you were paying and stay in business, which was the design.  Obamacare, to get where Obama and the Democrats want it to ultimately end, requires that the private sector health insurance industry cease to exist.  This is the first step, is practically requiring them to be unable to provide you with the policy you've always had, because there are other mandates and requirements they have to conform to that makes it impossible to over to you the coverage you had at the price you were paying. 

So the only way to get your plan back is not to fix a broken promise. Now, they may try a subsidy, but the only way is to repeal Obamacare, folks. This is what this architect is basically saying, as is The Politico. 

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RUSH:  Okay, here's the money quote from Jonathan Gruber: "If you allow the healthy enrollees to stay out in their old policy, the insurers lose money and the program falls apart."  The program is Obamacare.  You cannot have people stay in their old plans and have Obamacare.  It's exactly as I've been saying.
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RUSH:  I don't know, folks.  I still can't get over Clinton telling Obama to honor his commitments and not break his promise.  You know, I famously said, "I hope he fails."  Clinton is admitting Obama failed and demanding that he fix it.  The guy who lied to a grand jury telling the sitting president to be honest. 

Folks, this Politico piece that I just stumbled across here during the program, if I don't mind saying so, is a huge See, I Told You So.  I have been -- and I hate that phrase, by the way, "I've been saying."  You hate it, but I hate it when other people use it because it implies that nobody's listening, and I know you've heard me say this.  It's almost an habitual thing to remind people that they've been told of something. 

I've been trying to make the point now -- I really hammered it yesterday with a caller -- ever since people started bellyaching about losing their policies. I mean, I've practically been pounding my fist on the table here telling people that you have to lose your policy if there is going to be Obamacare.  I don't want to have to go through this again.  By the way, I need to really apologize to you all for being all over the ballpark today.  I'm just really fatigued.  I'm just worn out, tired -- and it's not assisted by being rudely awakened by my kitten. 

Well, you know, what I mean by that is I'm saying silly things, like, "Why do people not remember?" I know the answer to these questions I'm asking.  I just let my guard down.  I'm asking stupid questions to which I already know the answers.  I'm just basically saying, "Gee, why can't it be some way else?" and I know that that's silly.  You know, wishing for it to be otherwise is silly, 'cause it is what it is.  But this is big.  I'm telling you that's why this lie that he told is so fraudulent. 

You mean, it's impeachable what he's done here, because there's no way anybody was ever going to be able to keep their plan, and yet he made that the number one selling point.  Without that lie he might nota been reelected, and without that lie we might not be saddled with this albatross.  The American people have been deceived and defrauded.  You let Richard Nixon try this and see what happens.

Bernie Madoff is a piker compared to the fraud, including the money, compared to what Obama has done with that one lie, because it was never true.  There was never going to be a way that you or anybody could keep your plan -- and the simplest way to understand that is he's out there telling the entire nation, "If you like your plan, you can keep it," and for the most part, the vast majority of people liked that characteristic of Obamacare. 

That's why they supported it.

Do you think he would have been reelected if he would have told people that this is what was gonna happen?  If he were to campaign now, "You're gonna lose your plan, and the replacement's gonna cost you three times as much, but we have to do it to insure the uninsured," do you think he would have been reelected? Do you think we would have to deal with this?  As Joe Biden once said, "This is a big F---ing deal." 

You were never gonna be able to keep your plan, and the fact that he made it the number one selling point, and that they knew! The Federal Register admited that 93 million people were not gonna keep their plans.  They knew that, and they've known it since 2010, when this all started.  The fact that he made that the number one selling point for this, stop and think for a second. 

If everybody keeps their plan, then what the hell are we talking about? Why do we need Obamacare?  If you like your plan and get to keep it, what's wrong?  The only thing that anybody could say is wrong, well, the insured.  Now, I realize that especially may have not liked their plans because they believed there was something better, and that was the second lie that was told.  "Do you like your plan? You can keep it, but the alternative is gonna be even better for you." 

The scope of this fraud is incalculable and almost unimaginable.  That's how big it is.  So for this Obamacare architect -- a man by the name of Jonathan Gruber, in The Politico today -- to be admitting this is a huge See, I Told You So.  The See, I Told You So is specifically what I drilled home to a caller yesterday, that these canceled policies will never be brought back.  Now, you're gonna hear Democrats talk about reinstating your lost policy.

And you might hear some idiot Republicans talking about wanting to support that, and you might hear the media talk about it. But it's not possible.  Your policy cannot be restated, or restored unless Obamacare is repealed, and that isn't going to happen.  Obama will not do it. Saul Alinsky, that might put the fire out in Hell.  That would never happen. Repealing this thing, that'd be one of the biggest embarrassment ever.  I know that they might delay the individual mandate.

They might try to do a bunch of things here to limit the pain, or to move the pain to after the 2014 elections, but these plans cannot be brought back.  They were canceled precisely because Obamacare doesn't permit them, financially and with regulation.  That's why you've been canceled.  It's not because the insurance companies hate you.  It's not because they want you to get sick and die.  It's not 'cause they're a bunch of Republicans and they're trying to save money.  It's none of that. 

They can't stay in business with your old plan.  They're not gonna be in business anyway by the time this is all said and done.  Now, The Politico piece also has this.  "The Huffington Post reported that the [regime] is considering providing subsidies to those who lost coverage but wouldn't qualify for subsidies otherwise under the law."  So they're gonna buy you off.  You've lost your plan and you can't get it back.

So they're gonna cover the difference with a subsidy.  Now, if you're the Republicans, I don't know how you deal with that. If you oppose that, what can they say about you?  "Well, you want people to starve! Oh, you don't want people to have health care? Oh, you want people in pain?"  Once you get to the point where the federal Treasury becomes the number one weapon before for a political party to stay in power, I don't know how you battle that. I really don't. 

I don't know how you battle that, given how many low-information voters we have, given how many people are already on food stamps and dependent, how many people are already in poverty. I don't know how you re-instill a sense of self-reliance.  And particularly when it comes to health care, I just don't know how you do that.  And that is why I am sounding wistful here in wishing for fantasy, 'cause it is fantasy that people understand and remember how devastating liberalism is.  They just don't. 

They fall for it every time it's pitched to 'em. 

Well, maybe not.  They had to be lied to big time to fall for this. 

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