World Aids Day is on Saturday, December 1, 2012

Today, people around the globe will come together to recognize World AIDS Day.

14 HIV/AIDS beliefs: Which ones are true?

As if waging war against an incurable virus that plagues 33 million people globally weren't enough, researchers, doctors, and public health officials continue to battle yet another elusive problem as World Aids Day approaches Saturday: misinformation.

"It really does obstruct the fight," says Rowena Johnston, vice president and director of research at amfAR, a nonprofit that funds HIV/AIDS research. Broaching topics like sex and drug use­­ -- the major vehicles for transmission -- is "taboo" for many, she says, "so a challenge certainly is getting people to talk openly and honestly about what HIV is and isn't." And part of a candid conversation should be devoted to debunking the myths many have come to believe, including the following:

1. If I had HIV, I would know

Not the case, says Kimberley Hagen, assistant director for the Center for AIDS Research at Emory University in Atlanta. About 1.1 million people in the United States are HIV-positive, and as many as 1 in 5 don't know it, estimates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of them feel perfectly healthy. And those who have symptoms may confuse them with run-of-the-mill flu. Denial also plays a role, say experts. "There is a universal tendency with HIV," says Hagen, to try to say, " 'This is something that will affect someone else and not me.' And so you say that you can't get it doing the things that you do -- you can only get it doing the things that other people do. That may be the biggest myth."

2. HIV and AIDS are the same

False: HIV is the virus that leads to AIDS. You could have HIV for years without having AIDS.

3. I don't have to worry because I'm not in a high-risk group

While prostitutes, men who have sex with men, and needle sharers are considered at high risk by the CDC, the virus is an equal-opportunity bug. "Many people don't perceive themselves to be at risk and so don't understand why testing is important," says Joel Gallant, associate director of the AIDS Service at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. One example: Heterosexuals account for a third of new HIV transmissions each year, the CDC reports, and a woman might not know her male partner has slept with men in the past or has shared needles with an infected user. Monogamous relationships don't guarantee absolute safety unless you've both been tested and are HIV-negative. In rare instances, women who have sex with women can pass on the virus. And the number of people 50 and older living with HIV/AIDS is on the rise, partly due to newly diagnosed infections, says Paul Weidle, an epidemiologist with the CDC. There are no hallmark characteristics to watch out for, no physical attribute that will "set off an alarm in your head saying 'this person has HIV,' " says Hagen.

4. We're both HIV-positive

We don't need to practice safe sex. Wrong, says Weidle. Superinfection -- where someone gets infected with a different strain of the virus -- is possible. This new strain could be drug-resistant and even stimulate the transition to full-blown AIDS. Not to mention that shunning condoms leaves the body open to other sexually transmitted diseases that an already weakened immune system can't fight off. Birth control also doesn't protect against HIV.

5. HIV transmission by someone on antiretroviral drugs is impossible

While the drugs can lower the amount of virus -- the "viral load" -- in the blood to an undetectable level, it could still register in semen or vaginal fluid and be passed on, says Gallant. Doctors usually test viral load every three to six months, and while chances are "pretty slim" that an undetectable level would suddenly rise, says Gallant, it is possible.

6. I'm sure my doctor has tested me and would have told me if the results were positive

Healthcare professionals will not test you without first talking about it, says Hagen. The CDC recommends at least one test for everyone between the ages of 13 and 64, and those considered high risk should be tested multiple times. Ask your primary-care physician or find a testing center by Zip code here.

7. I won't get HIV through oral sex

Transmission is less common than through anal or vaginal sex, but it is still possible whether performing or receiving oral sex, says Weidle.

. I can get HIV through casual contact or kissing

This belief has persisted from the dawn of the epidemic in the early 1980s. HIV is transmitted through blood, semen, vaginal fluid, and breast milk. You cannot get HIV by shaking hands or hugging, nor can you get it from a toilet seat, drinking fountain, or drinking glasses, says Weidle. HIV does not travel through air or food and cannot live long outside the body. Closed-mouth kissing is also safe, but Weidle notes there have been "extremely rare cases of HIV being transmitted via deep French kissing." In these cases, bleeding gums or sores in the mouth were the conduits.

9. I'm HIV-positive but feel fine

I don't need antiretroviral drugs. "That's very old-fashioned thinking," says Gallant. "Nowadays there's really pretty good evidence that everybody with HIV, or just about everybody, would benefit from treatment in some way." And the point of treatment is to prevent an infected person from getting sick.

10. HIV-positive mothers pass the virus on to their babies

While the CDC estimates that mothers who aren't on antiretroviral treatment have a 25 percent chance of passing the infection on to a newborn, faithful drug therapy during the pregnancy can drop that to 2 percent or less. Women with HIV and AIDS can still have children.

11. I can't get HIV through tattoos or body piercing

If a tattoo parlor or piercing place doesn't sterilize its equipment properly, the virus could inadvertently be transmitted. Tools that cut the skin should be used only once and then either thrown away or sterilized, the CDC recommends, and a new needle should be used on each client. Before getting a tattoo or piercing, ask what steps the shop takes to prevent HIV and other infections, such as hepatitis B or C.

12. I'm too young to get HIV

Au contraire, young adults ages 13 to 24 account for more than a quarter of all new HIV infections, according to a CDC report published this month. About 60 percent of those infected either don't know it or aren't being treated, which means they may be transmitting the virus to others.

13. HIV isn't that serious anymore

Many people think that since it doesn't flash across the front pages as much it's no longer a big deal, says Hagen. "It absolutely is. It's still here, it's still serious, and we don't have a cure for it."

14. Eliminating AIDS is a futile mission

Yes, the outlook sometimes appears grim. But a recent report from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) shows a promising development: New HIV infections have dropped 50 percent across 25 countries, and worldwide, AIDS-related deaths fell by more than 25 percent between 2005 and 2011.

Technorati Tags: HIV/AIDS,AIDS,HIV,World Aids Day

Will Sick Babies Be Starved to Death Under Obamacare?

Doctor describes “horror” of Britain’s socialist healthcare system

Paul Joseph Watson  -  Infowars.com  -  November 30, 2012

A physician has told the British Medical Journal about the “unique horror” of watching a newborn baby shrivel up and die under a cost-cutting system of socialized healthcare that withdraws feeding tubes from sick and disabled babies, a method that could be replicated in the United States under Obamacare.

After speaking with doctors who have blown the whistle on how babies are being starved and dehydrated to death in British hospitals, an investigation by the Daily Mail has revealed that the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway end of life regime is being used to kill disabled newborns and young children. It was previously thought that the method was only being used on elderly and terminally ill adult patients.

The method has been criticized as a form of euthanasia because its primary purpose is to kill off patients quicker so as to free up more hospital beds and resources.

One physician spoke of how parents who gave permission for their babies to be put on the ‘pathway to death’ were making the decision without properly considering the abhorrent reality of what dehydration and starvation does to the human body.

“I know, as they cannot, the unique horror of witnessing a child become smaller and shrunken, as the only route out of a life that has become excruciating to the patient or to the parents who love their baby,” the doctor writes. “I reflect on how sanitised this experience seems within the literature about making this decision.”

The doctor also dismissed the myth that the baby does not suffer during the process.

“Survival is often much longer than most physicians think…..Parents and care teams are unprepared for the sometimes severe changes that they will witness in the child’s physical appearance as severe dehydration ensues,” he wrote.

“Some say withdrawing medically provided hydration and nutrition is akin to withdrawing any other form of life support. Maybe, but that is not how it feels,” he wrote, describing the mixture of “compassion, revulsion, and pain” the care team had to experience in watching the baby slowly die.

Bernadette Lloyd, a hospice paediatric nurse, also revealed how parents are being coerced into agreeing to put their children on the LCP, and that she “Witnessed a 14 year-old boy with cancer die with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth when doctors refused to give him liquids by tube. His death was agonising for him, and for us nurses to watch. This is euthanasia by the backdoor.”

“I have also seen children die in terrible thirst because fluids are withdrawn from them until they die,” added Lloyd.

Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), now under independent investigation by order of government ministers, is a process whereby a doctor identifies a patient who is likely to die and that patient is then heavily sedated while treatment is withdrawn, “including the provision of water and nourishment by tube.”

The investigation into LCP will “look at whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions” to put patients on the ‘pathway to death’.

In a recent exposé, Patrick Pullicino, a consultant neurologist for East Kent Hospitals and professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of Kent, revealed that of the 450,000 patients who die annually under the care of the NHS, 130,000 of them were on the Liverpool Care Pathway.

“If we accept the Liverpool Care Pathway we accept that euthanasia is part of the standard way of dying as it is now associated with 29 per cent of NHS deaths,” Pullicino said.

The Telegraph’s Gerald Warner notes that LCP represents “euthanasia by the back door.” Other doctors such as Dr. Peter Hargreaves have highlighted the fact that patients taken off LCP have gone on to live for “significant amounts of time.”

Because death occurs on average within 33 hours of a patient being put on LCP, the cost difference between two days of morphine and treatment of a condition for months or even years means the NHS is literally euthanising people to save money.

“In fact, Hargreaves noted, some patients may exhibit signs of dying when their bodies are merely reacting to sedation combined with dehydration and then “be wrongly put on the pathway.” Once a patient is sedated under the LCP, University of London geriatrics professor P.H. Millard told the Telegraph, “it is much harder to see that a patient is getting better.”

“Pullicino echoed many of these sentiments, saying that “patients are frequently put on the pathway without a proper analysis of their condition,” that “predicting death” at a specific time “is not possible scientifically,” and that, as a result, “very likely many patients who could live substantially longer are being killed by the LCP.”

Could a similar system of euthanasia become commonplace in America under Obamacare?

President Obama has repeatedly expressed his support for the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a group of doctors that would make decisions on cost cutting measures under Obamacare. Opponents of government-run healthcare have dubbed this a system of “death panels” that would have the power to refuse treatment to the elderly or severely ill patients, a de-facto form of mandatory euthanasia.

Last month, Obama adviser Steven Rattner acknowledged that rationed healthcare would be part of Obamacare, brazenly stating, “We need death panels.”

The idea that “death panels” would be introduced through Obamacare as a means of rationing healthcare was also discussed during an Aspen Institute conference in 2010 when Obama supporter Bill Gates argued that money should not be spent on treating the elderly.

During a question and answer session, Gates implied that elderly patients undergoing expensive health care treatments should be killed and the money spent elsewhere.

Gates said there was a “lack of willingness” to consider the question of choosing between “spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient” or laying off ten teachers.

“But that’s called the death panel and you’re not supposed to have that discussion,” added Gates.

This eugenicist mindset was also evident in a paper published earlier this year in the Journal of Medical Ethics by Alberto Giubilini of Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne which argued that abortion should be extended to make the killing of newborn babies permissible, even if the baby is perfectly healthy.

Allowing patients to die via the horrifically slow and painful method of dehydration and starvation is not just restricted to the elderly and sick or disabled babies.

In a series of best-selling books, author and bioethics expert Wesley J. Smith has exposed how adults in the United States who regain consciousness after being comatose and are able to exhibit physical and emotional responses are also being starved and dehydrated to death.

If America mimics Britain’s notoriously bad socialized healthcare system, thousands upon thousands of sick babies will likely be left to die excruciatingly painful deaths in the name of cost-cutting measures that amount to nothing less than a cruel and inhumane death sentence.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

1. Related:
2. Elderly To Be Euthanized Under Obamacare?
3. Top UK doctor’s chilling claim: The NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year
4. Elderly Woman Left to Die Under Britain’s Death Care System
5. Why My Doctor Hates Obamacare
6. Death on wheels: Dutch to send mobile clinics to euthanize people
7. Sick babies denied treatment due to corp. patent on gene
8. GlaxoSmithKline Fined Over Illegal Vaccine Experiments Killing 14 Babies
9. Sentenced to death on the NHS
10. Brit doctors admit practicing ‘slow euthanasia’ on terminally-ill patients
11. Using ultrasounds to determine gestational age could result in baby’s death
12. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Obamacare
13. Doctors Agree: Their Jobs Suck, and the Government is Largely To Blame
14. Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule
15. On the Road to Death Panels
16. ObamaCare for Seniors: Sorry, You're Just Not Worth It
17. “Death Panel” Three Years Later
18. Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee
19. Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president
20. “Death Panel” Three Years Later
21. The Bilderberg Group’s Connection To Everything In The World – Updated
22. People of Faith
23. Obama Regulation Czar, Cass Sunstein, Advocated Removing People’s Organs Without Explicit Consent
24. Obama’s "Science Czar" Advocates De-Developing the US to World of Zero Growth
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27. Holdren: Seize Babies Born to Unwed Women
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29. Science Czar John P. Holdren – Updated 9.2.09
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37. Great Grandmother Mary Allen Hardison: 101-Year-Old Woman Breaks Guinness World Record... Oldest Female to Paraglide Tandem
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42. Checkout: ObamaCare Survival Guide

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,death panels,Sarah Palin was right,watch the other hand,Big Brother,repeal and replace ObamaCare,Socialized Medicine,Britain,babies,sick babies,seniors,elderly,special needs

Today… A Car That Takes Your Pulse, Tomorrow A Card or Implant That Controls Your Life

WSJ – Cross-Posted at AskMarion: What the car of the near future will sense about your biology. Auto makers are researching technology that could feed your heart rate, blood pressure and other biometric responses into the car's computers, the better to determine when you're drowsy or overwhelmed with distracting media. MIT researcher Bryan Reimer and WSJ's Joe White has details on Lunch Break. See Video

A Car That Takes Your Pulse

Designing Vehicles To Monitor Brain Waves, Sleepiness

Could a car that knows when you are stressed or ill save you from having an accident? Auto makers are stepping up efforts to find out.

A number of big car manufacturers are accelerating research into equipping vehicles with so-called biometric sensors that would keep tabs on a driver's vital health signs, including pulse, breathing and "skin conductance," aka sweaty palms. When that information is fed into the computers that manage a car's safety systems, it could enable a vehicle to better react to whatever challenges the road and traffic dish out.

The move comes amid major advances in mobile medical-monitoring technology, as well as growing concerns about meeting the needs of an aging and increasingly distracted population of motorists.

It also reflects another step in the industry's broader move toward self-driving cars, a brave new world in which computers could all but eliminate the potential for driver error—whether it's due to a distracting phone call or a sudden drop in blood sugar.

Already, some Lexus models use in-cabin cameras and some Mercedes-Benz vehicles have steering sensors to detect drowsy-driving behavior. The cars sound a warning beep or flash a coffee-cup icon to suggest that it's time for a break. Luxury brands are promoting these accident-avoidance technologies as examples of what sets their expensive vehicles apart from cheaper, mainstream models. The Mercedes system, called Attention Assist, comes as standard equipment in a wide range of its vehicles, from the smaller C-class sedans to the more opulent, and high-tech, S-class models.

View Interactive

Separately, car makers and federal safety regulators are working on in-vehicle systems that could reliably detect when someone is too drunk to drive.

The new body monitors could, if a driving hazard appeared imminent, trigger the car's safety systems to tap the brakes, turn off a radio, block a cellphone from ringing or take other actions. Some of these advances may be in cars in three to five years. Others depend upon whether researchers can crack the challenge of designing health-related sensors that can work flawlessly in a vehicle for up to a decade.

Sports car maker Ferrari SpA, for one, has filed a patent application that indicates the company is evaluating technology that would embed wireless electrodes in a car seat's headrest to monitor drivers' brain waves for stress as they pilot machines capable of roaring up to 200 miles per hour. Depending on what the sensors detect, the car might try to mitigate the driver's risk by cutting power to the motor or automatically stabilizing the vehicle. As Ferrari researchers put it in the patent filing: "drivers tend to miscalculate—in particular, overestimate—their driving skill and, more important, their psychophysical condition."

At Ford Motor Co., F +1.26%researchers are looking at connecting information from medical monitors, like seat-belt-based respiration sensors and steering-wheel heart-rate trackers, to its cars' in-dash multimedia systems.

Ford's prototype system aims to lessen distraction by taking readouts from biometric sensors and combining the data with information from the car, including speed, steering-wheel angle, and data from radar sensors or cameras used in blind-spot obstacle detection or cruise control. All the data are run through software that can gauge the driver's overall stress level. If it is high, the system could automatically engage a "Do Not Disturb" function for the driver's phone.

Jeff Greenberg, a senior technical leader involved with the Ford research, says the broad goal is to minimize driver distraction and stress. This may involve keeping people engaged and alert on a boring drive to work or helping them stay focused in more difficult driving moments. If a truck looms out of the blind spot during a high-speed freeway merge, for example, a driver would be better off if his phone's ringer was disabled at that moment, he says.

Mr. Greenberg says phone-disabling technology could come to showrooms "relatively quickly." Adding the biometric sensors, he says, "is further out." Ford classifies those technologies as research projects that typically are at least three to five years from being offered to consumers.

One reason: The technology is evolving faster than issues such as medical privacy and regulatory oversight can be resolved. Ford, like other auto makers, is loath to add the Food and Drug Administration to an already heavy regulatory load.

Car makers hope that vehicles with medical monitors will appeal to an aging population that wants to keep driving.

"If we want to keep people in their vehicles, it's key we integrate systems to support them," says Bryan Reimer, a researcher with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab, which focuses on innovations for an aging population. AgeLab has worked with Toyota Motor Corp., 7203.TO -1.56%Ford and other companies to test how biometric sensors could be used both to guide the design of vehicles to make them easier to operate and as onboard systems to help people drive more safely.

Getty Images/Onoky

A number of big car manufacturers are accelerating research into equipping vehicles with so-called biometric sensors that would keep tabs on a driver's vital health signs.

Dick Myrick, a 63-year-old retired electrical engineer from Arlington, Mass., participated in AgeLab experiments in biometrically monitored driving. His says he would be interested in a car that kept tabs on his condition as part of its safety technology, but only if he was in control of the system. "I need to know that the function is on, and have it not on when I want," he says.

Others see the new technology as yet another thing to keep track of behind the wheel. It's "a further distraction" for drivers, says Gabrielle Lucci, 60, a Farmington Hills, Mich., retiree.

Devices that collect data about an individual's physical condition are getting cheaper and smaller. Many are designed to connect to smartphones using the same Bluetooth technology that connects smartphones to cars. This provides a gateway for wirelessly connecting devices like glucose or heart monitors into a car's multimedia displays.

"The same sensor you are wearing for your weekend warrior stuff…is the sensor you could slap on your mother" to monitor her heart, says Leslie Saxon, a cardiologist who leads the University of Southern California's Center for Body Computing. Dr. Saxon's project recently formed a research alliance with German luxury car maker BMW BMW.XE +0.72% AG.

Daniel Grein, a BMW designer, says the USC research could help determine how to connect a Bluetooth-equipped blood-sugar monitor to future BMW models. In Munich, he says, BMW engineers are also investigating how to design a car that could automatically stop if the driver suffered a heart attack.

Dr. Saxon says he sees a time when biometric monitors in a car could feed data, not just to onboard safety systems, but also to doctors and patients looking to better manage health care. "My car calls me when it needs something," Dr. Saxon says, referring to vehicle-service alerts generated by the car. "I want patients' cars to call them when they need blood-pressure medicine."

Sound interesting? Might increase safety? But as Founding Father Benjamin Franklin said, “He who trades security (or safety) for freedom" usually gets (nor deserves) either!!” Wake-up America, Europe, Christians, Patriots, lovers of freedom… this is Big Brother 1984 style all the way! Today it is a smart car… tomorrow it will be a smart card. Be sure to watch the video below and then you be the judge!

Video: Smart card (made 2005)

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Buying and Selling in an RFID Chip for the First Time – VeriChip Changes Its Name

Technorati Tags: Smart Card,Smart Car,Big Brother,watch the other hand,RFID,Implants,Big Brother is watching you,1984,RFID chip part of healthcare bill,NWO,safety,smoke and mirrors,BMW,smartphones,wake- up,wake-up America,biometric monitors,Benjamin Franklin,safety vs freedom

Liberty Counsel Victory: High Court Breathes New Life Into ObamaCare Lawsuit

This ruling breathes new life into the challenge to ObamaCare

Liberty Counsel: At issue is the constitutionality of the employer mandate and also whether ObamaCare's forced funding of abortion is unconstitutional under the First Amendment Free Exercise of Religion Clause and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

US Supreme Court

Washington, DC (Liberty Counsel) On Monday, November 26, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Liberty Counsel's Petition for Rehearing in the ObamaCare case of Liberty University v. Geithner. Liberty Counsel filed the petition for rehearing on behalf of Liberty University and two private individuals.

The ruling breathes new life into the challenge to ObamaCare. The Court directed that the case be reheard at the federal court of appeals in Richmond. This may pave the way for the case to return to the High Court in 2013.

At issue is the constitutionality of the employer mandate and also whether ObamaCare's forced funding of abortion is unconstitutional under the First Amendment Free Exercise of Religion Clause and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

In 2010, Liberty Counsel filed the first private lawsuit against ObamaCare on the day it was signed by President Obama. In 2011, an appeals court in Richmond, VA, ruled that the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) barred the court from addressing the merits in the Liberty University case, which challenged the individual mandate (Section 1501) and the employer insurance mandate (Section 1513) of ObamaCare.

In addition to the constitutional arguments that Congress lacked authority to pass the law, the suit also raised the Free Exercise of Religion and the RFRA claims because of the forced abortion funding.
The first day of oral argument was dedicated to the AIA, the issue that Liberty University's case placed before the High Court.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the AIA does not apply to ObamaCare. Therefore, Liberty Counsel asked the Court to grant its petition (because Liberty University prevailed on the AIA claim), vacate the ruling of the court of appeals, and remand (send back) the case to the court of appeals to consider the Free Exercise claim and the employer mandate, neither of which were decided by the High Court.

"I am very pleased with the High Court's ruling. This ruling breathes new life into our challenge to ObamaCare. Our fight against ObamaCare is far from over," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law.

"Congress exceeded its power by forcing every employer to provide federally mandated insurance. But even more shocking is the abortion mandate, which collides with religious freedom and the rights of conscience," Staver said.

Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.

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Liberty Counsel is a nonprofit litigation, education and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family. Established in 1989, Liberty Counsel is a nationwide organization with offices in Florida, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., and hundreds of affiliate attorneys across the Nation.

Technorati Tags: Obamacare,Affordable care Act,rehearing,religious freedom,Supreme Court,stand-up,RFRA,First Amendment,Freedom of Religion,Bill of Rights,wake-up America,religion,Repeal and Replace Obamacare,Repeal and Replace part of ObamaCare

How January 1, 2013 Obamacare tax hikes will affect you

Helium:  by Terrence Aym  -  Created on: October 03, 2012 Last Updated: October 04, 2012

For Americans struggling with their budgets, people reeling from the cost of gasoline, those worried about employment or making the next mortgage payment, January 2013 will not be a good month. In fact the whole of 2013 could turn out to be a very, very bad year.

When The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was signed into law no one knew what was in the bill. That fact alone is an indictment of the Congress and an indication of how broken the mechanism of government has become.

For those wishing to wade through what some have labeled a "monstrosity," the entire PPACA is available for study and analysis here.. To learn when various provisions of The Affordable Care Act becomes law, time line is provided here.

During the months following the signing of PPACA into law by President Obama facts began to be uncovered by the press, financial experts, tax experts, economists, and various politically-oriented groups.

Some of the provisions were disturbing, others shocking, and some just downright frightening. Once PPACA takes full effect during 2014 Americans who are opposed to it and refuse to pay the taxes will be fined. Those who refuse to pay the fine are subject to federal imprisonment. It seems the federal government is hellbent on making sure Americans have access to healthcare even if judges must strip citizens of their liberty and provide that healthcare behind bars.

But before all the provisions of PPACA kick new in taxes are scheduled to be assessed starting January 1, 2013. About 20 new taxes will be unleashed on Americans and many people who are not aware of them will be broadsided as they see their family budgets disintegrating before their astonished eyes.

According to Americans for Tax Reform(ATR), the worst tax hikes of the 20 set to take effect are:

A medical device tax, a tax to provide for children with "special needs," a surtax on investment income that will impact many investors, a rise in the threshold for itemized deductions of medical expenses, and a Medicare payroll tax increase that has a direct, deleterious effect on small businesses making profits and earnings over $200,000 annually. The latter comes during the worst economy since the end of World War Two.

ATR explains that the $20 billion introduction of a tax on medical devices impacts an industry that employs more than 400,000 Americans. The PPACA "imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales—even if the company does not earn a profit…" Because of the tax small business jobs will be lost and the end result will impact "research and development budgets…increase the cost of health care" and make "everything from pacemakers to prosthetics more expensive."

Next, the "special needs" tax will impose new restrictions on the 30 to 35 "million Americans who use a Flexible Spending Account at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs. [They] will face a new government cap of $2,500 (currently the accounts are unlimited). The group most likely to suffer the worst under the new tax are, ironically, the parents of special needs children.

The investment surtax impacts both dividends and capital gains raising the capital gains rate from 15 to 20 percent, and the tax on dividends from 15 to 39.6 percent. Both these taxes will have a chilling effect on the stock markets and negatively impact all Americans who own stocks which include pensioners, union membership funds, state investment funds, mutual fund owners and those that have 401k's invested in the stock market.

The change in medical itemized deductions, ATR notes, impacts "Americans facing high medical expenses." Currently Americans "are allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). This tax increase imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. By limiting this deduction, Obamacare widens the net of taxable income for the sickest Americans. This tax provision will most harm near retirees and those with modest incomes but high medical bills."

And finally, "The Medicare payroll tax," states ATR, "is currently 2.9 percent on all wages and self-employment profits. Under this tax hike, wages and profits exceeding $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of married couples) will face a 3.8 percent rate instead. This is a direct marginal income tax hike on small business owners, who are liable for self-employment tax in most cases."

Yet another surprise for many is that property owners may have a new tax to deal with. The complicated tax affecting millions of Americans is analyzed in the Wall Street Journal article, "Property Owners Face a New Surtax."

For more on ATR's analysis of the impact of the new Obamacare taxes coming January 1, 2013 and their impact on many in the middle-class, go here.

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Technorati Tags: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,Affordable Care Act,taxes,ObamaCare,ObamaTax,PPACA,ObamaCare costs,Socialized Medicine

Stem Cell Enhancers for Dogs, Cats, Horses

Just One More Pet:

Stem cells can be thought of as master cells and are most abundantly found in the bone marrow of people and also in your pets. With age, the number of stem cells circulating in the body gradually decreases leaving it more susceptible to injury and other age related health challenges.

StemPets®  and StemEquine®, by StemTech Health Sciences, Inc., help support the release of stem cells from the bone marrow of dogs, cats and horses into the blood stream. Through a natural process those stem cells then travel to the areas of the body where they are most needed.

Simply supporting the natural process of stem cell release from the bone marrow can help your pets (dogs, cats, horses) achieve optimal health. StemPets® and StemEquine®, are specially formulated for your pets.

Purchase Stem Enhance, StemFlo^®, STEMpets, StemSport^®, from our online shopping cart at a retail price.

Products are available at wholesale prices for distributors. Becoming a distributor is easy and economical. Distributors have the opportunity for the StemTech product line to be the core of their own home based business.

For More Information Contact:

MCE Group, Independent Business Owners

Stem Tech Health Sciences

Visit Our Website or Email Marion and Tim through the site or at JustOneMorePet@gmail.com or call them Direct at 512-810-78888

In addition to StemPets® , Stemtech’s animal product line includes StemEquine® for horses. Stemtech’s line of stem cell nutrition products for humans includes SE2™, StemFlo^®, StemSport^®, and ST-5 with MigraStem™. These products are designed to work together as a system to provide you with the optimal health.

Our own AskMarion (and her husband Tim) of Just One More Pet and Marion’s Pet Sitting and Dog Walkers give StemPets and StemEquine to their own pets and recommend them to for the pet clients, as well as taking them themselves and recommending to them to their clients pet parents.

• View All
• StemEquine Advanced Formula
• StemEquine Single USA
• StemPets Advanced Formula
• StemPets: For Dogs Single

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Some Residents Worry about Chloramine’s Usage and Safety

Story at-a-glance

• More than one in five Americans are drinking tap water that’s been treated with a derivative of chlorine known as chloramine. This disinfectant is formed by mixing chlorine with ammonia; chloramine is often used alongside chlorine as a “secondary” disinfectant designed to remain in your water longer as it travels through the water system
• Water treated with monochloramine (the most common form of chloramine used to disinfect drinking water) may contain higher concentrations of unregulated disinfection byproducts (DBPs) – the risks of which are unknown
• When chlorine is replaced with chloramines in drinking water, it raises the amount of lead that leaches into water from lead pipes
• No scientific studies on chloramine’s effects on your skin or respiratory tract via inhalation (such as exposure during a shower or bath) have been conducted
• Chloramine is toxic to frogs and other amphibians, reptiles, fish and other aquatic and marine life
• A whole-house filtration system is therefore your best choice to remove chlorine, chloramine, ammonia, DBPs and other contaminants from all of your water sources (bath, shower and tap)

Some Residents Worry about Chloramine’s Usage and Safety

By Dr. Mercola

More than one in five Americans are drinking tap water that’s been treated with a derivative of chlorine known as chloramine. This disinfectant is formed by mixing chlorine with ammonia.

Chloramine is a less effective disinfectant than chlorine, but it is longer lasting and stays in the water system as it moves through the pipes that transport it to your home (a process that can take three or four days).

For this reason, chloramine is often used alongside chlorine as a “secondary” disinfectant designed to remain in your water longer – but is it safe?

Chloramines May Raise Your Water’s Level of Toxic Unregulated Disinfection Byproducts

If you receive municipal water that is treated with chlorine or chloramines, toxic disinfection byproducts (DBPs) form when these disinfectants react with natural organic matter like decaying vegetation in the source water.

DBPs are over 10,000 times more toxic than chlorine, and out of all the other toxins and contaminants present in your water, such as fluoride and miscellaneous pharmaceutical drugs, DBPs are likely the absolute worst of the bunch.

Already, it’s known that trihalomethanes (THMs), one of the most common DBPs, are Cancer Group B carcinogens, meaning they’ve been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. They’ve also been linked to reproductive problems in both animals and humans, such as spontaneous abortion, stillbirths, and congenital malformations, even at lower levels. These types of DBPs can also:

• Weaken your immune system
• Disrupt your central nervous system
• Damage your cardiovascular system
• Disrupt your renal system
• Cause respiratory problems

One of the benefits often touted about chloramines is that they produce lower levels of regulated DBPs, such as THMs, compared to chlorine. They still produce them, just at lower levels.

In 1998, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its Stage 1 Disinfection Byproducts Rule, which required water treatment systems to reduce the formation of DBPs. This has led to an increasing number of treatment plants switching from chlorine to chloramine¹ …

Many believe this makes chloramine the superior choice in terms of safety, but what is less publicized is that compared to chlorine, water treated with monochloramine (the most common form of chloramine used to disinfect drinking water) may contain higher concentrations of unregulated disinfection byproducts – the risks of which are unknown.²

Considering that many water utilities treat their water with both chlorine and chloramine, you may be getting the most of both regulated and unregulated DBPs in your drinking water, shower and bath (the DBPs that enter your body through your skin during showering or bathing also go directly into your bloodstream). There are, in fact, as many as 600 different toxic DBPs that have been identified, and to which you may be exposed through treated water.³

Higher Lead Levels in Water Linked to Chloramines

There are other issues with chloramine in your water that you should be aware of, like its potential to extract lead from old water pipes. For example, when you combine chloramines with the fluoride (hydrofluorosilicic acid) added to most of the U.S. water supply, they become very effective at extracting lead from old plumbing systems—essentially, together, they promote the accumulation of lead in the water supply!

"In fact the two of them have been combined, and I believe patented to be put together so that they could extract lead," said fluoride activist Jeff Green.

Lead, a known toxin to your brain and nervous system, is so toxic that it has been banned in gasoline and children’s toys, and lead paint hasn’t been in use since 1978. But even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges that when chlorine is replaced with chloramines in drinking water, it raises not only the amount of lead that leaches into water, but the blood lead levels of children who consume it!

“When the free chlorine was replaced with chloramines, the transformed highly insoluble lead scale minerals were no longer stable and dissolved. Therefore, a substantial level of lead was released from the lead service lines into drinking water at the tap.

CDC reviewed the relationship between BLLs [blood lead levels] in children, the presence of a lead service line, and water disinfection practices in DC during 1998–2006. The study reported that the presence of a lead service line was associated with higher BLLs in children. This relationship was most pronounced during 2001 through June 2004, when chloramines were used to disinfect the drinking water without adequate corrosion control.

An observational study in which the BLLs of children were matched to population-based data of water lead levels during periods when water disinfection practices changed in DC concluded that the increase in water lead levels was associated with an increase in the BLLs of children.”⁴

An analysis in Environmental Health Perspectives also found that introducing chloramines may increase the lead in drinking water, and pointed out that although anti-corrosive agents added during the treatment process are supposed to mitigate this risk, they aren’t always effective:⁵

“Several recent studies provided evidence that the introduction of chloramines to water systems with lead-containing pipes, fixtures, or solder may increase the amount of dissolved lead in water because of changes in water chemistry; interactions with additives such as coagulants or fluoridation agents may remove lead dioxide scales originally formed during decades of chlorine-based disinfection.

This leaching might be managed to some extent by the addition of anticorrosivity agents during the water treatment process; however, the details of all the related environmental chemistry are not fully understood and are highly dependent on the particular chemical interactions found in each water treatment and distribution system.”

Many Residents Voice Concerns Over Chloramines, Safety Studies Seriously Lacking

Residents across the United States from California and Oklahoma to Vermont have voiced concerns over chloramine safety, wondering whether it’s truly as safe as water utilities would like you to believe. At the very least, the chemical has been linked to skin irritations and rashes, noted Robert Howd of the California EPA:⁶

“ …chloramines, like chlorine, can irritate sensitive mucus membranes, and could potentially cause skin irritation. When some utilities have switched to chloramine, there have been user reports of bad-tasting water, a bad feel of the water on the skin, skin irritation, and other symptoms.”

Furthermore, according to the EPA, no scientific studies on chloramine’s effects on your skin or respiratory tract via inhalation have been conducted. And while some cancer studies have been, they are so limited that they are not able to conclusively determine if chloramine might, in fact, cause cancer.⁷

This is concerning, since exposure to chloramine in your indoor air while bathing and showering may represent your greatest route of exposure, even more so than drinking it.

Also the cancer studies on chloramine itself are so limited that they cannot be used to determine if chloramine is a carcinogen, and its environmental effects are worrisome. Chloramine is toxic to frogs and other amphibians, reptiles, fish and other aquatic and marine life, to the extent that you cannot use chloramine-treated water to fill up a fish tank or backyard fish pond. As the water runs into streams, rivers and other marine areas, it could be disastrous for the marine life.

So while water utilities stand to save money by cutting chlorine costs with chloramine, the benefits to the public are far less clear. Other potential concerns include:⁸

• Because of chloramine’s corrosive nature, it has been linked to pinhole pitting in copper water pipes, which can lead to small water leaks and mold growth in your home
• Chloramine also corrodes rubber toilet flappers and gaskets, rubber hoses, and rubber fittings in dishwashers and water heaters, leading to costly home repairs
• Chloramine de-elasticizes PVC pipes, making them brittle and accelerating the leaching of possible carcinogens from the plastic into drinking water

Chloramine is Difficult to Remove From Your Water, But it Can be Done

Chloramine cannot be removed by quick boiling your water or letting it sit out in an open container (as is sometimes recommended for chlorine). A carbon filter can remove the chemical from your drinking water, but that leaves your shower and bath – a significant route of exposure -- without protection. It would be helpful to take as cold a shower as possible as heat will convert more of the chemicals to a toxic gas. Additionally shorter showers will also obviously further limit your exposure.

Because of the high flow rate and large volume of water passing through your shower, there is no showerhead filter on the market that will effectively remove all chloramine. A whole-house filtration system is therefore your best choice to remove chlorine, chloramine, ammonia, DBPs and other contaminants from all of your water sources (bath, shower and tap).

If you don’t have the resources for a whole-house filtration system at this time, there are a couple of other tricks you can try. At FindaSpring.com you can identify local springs where you can get pure, chloramine-free drinking water for a minimal cost. You can also try:⁹

• Adding fruit, such as slices of peeled orange, to a 1-gallon water pitcher, which will help neutralize chloramine in about 30 minutes
• Dissolving a 1,000-mg vitamin C tablet into your bath water, which will neutralize the chloramine in an average-size bathtub

If you’re not sure whether your city uses chloramine as a water disinfectant, contact your local water utility. And if you have concerns, voice them to your municipality. There are other disinfection techniques available, such as ultraviolet light and micro-filtration, which appear to be much safer, and may be an option in your area if enough people get involved to prompt change. This recently occurred in Albemarle County in Central Virginia, which dropped the consideration of chloramines after negative public feedback -- and is now looking at the use of granular-activated carbon as a secondary water disinfectant.¹⁰

Technorati Tags: Chloramine,drinking water,water,Dr. Mercola,toxins,disinfectants,chlorine

Real Danger of “Obamacare”: Insurance Company Takeover of Health Care

Militant Libertarian - by Nomi Prins:

Election rhetoric shuns the big picture in favor of the bigger platitude. Now that The Show is over, we are left with the equivalent of a Sunday morning hangover following a binge of promises and lies. We leave the theatre of political spectacle on steroids for the real world of unstable economy, a globally and publicly subsidized financial sector, and increased costs of living on everything from food to education to health-care; outpacing declining median incomes. The average cost for health insurance for a family is $15,745 per year vs. a median income of $50,502, or about half post-tax take-home pay.

“Obamacare” is the name commonly used for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010. The very moniker is indicative of how name-and-image-centric our world has become; Medicare was never called “Johnsoncare” when President Johnson signed it into law in 1965 and Johnson was not exactly a man of small-personality. At any rate, Obamacare or the PPACA ranks as one of the most misrepresented issues from the campaign, by both sides of the ever-slimming aisle.

The Tea-Party Conservative types get it embarrassingly wrong when they call it a “government takeover of health care.” Likewise, Progressive Obama-supporters are deluded in accepting it as the most sweeping healthcare reform since Medicare. (Side note: I wish the word ‘sweeping’ could be retired from politics until it actually means -sweeping.)

Here’s why. The PPACA does nothing to restructure the health insurance industry, anymore than the Dodd-Frank Act restructures the banking industry. This means everything else it attempts to do, positive or negative, will be vastly overshadowed by an industry accelerating to morph itself into a acquisition machine in order to circumvent anything that even smells like a restriction, including laws that exist and ones to come.

How? By doing the same thing energy and telecom companies did after they were deregulated in 1996, and that banks did after they were summarily deregulated (after moving that way for decades) in 1999. They are merging, consolidating, eliminating competitors, and controlling their domain. They are manufacturing power.

Investment bankers are roaming the world to exploit this hot new opportunity. That’s one reason insurance companies don’t even call themselves that anymore. Now, they are ‘managed health care’ companies. Call yourself a managed health care company, and you can buy everything from other insurance companies to hospitals to clinics to doctors. The more consolidation, the more fees bankers rake in, and the more premiums and medical reimbursements and health care procedures, each company can control.

The result of 1996 energy deregulation was a glut of crime-spawned bankruptcies like Enron. Likewise WorldCom led a pack of telecom degenerates in the production of tens of billions of dollars worth of accounting fraud. The final repeal of Glass-Steagall ignited a merge-fest of investment and commercial banks, their linkages ensuring that taxpayers, whose deposits have been protected since the New Deal, provide a safety-net upon which they can mint toxic assets loosely based on over-leveraged home mortgages, and engage in risky, speculative activity; big banks don’t go bankrupt when they fabricate values or lose big on stupid bets, they get federally subsidized in all sorts of ways.

You know who else is similarly too big to fail? The insurance industry. UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer covers 50% of the insurable population in over 30 states. Blue Cross-Blue Shield, covers 100 million people through a constellation of 38 sub-companies. They, and other insurance companies are growing in breadth. When companies consolidate, the result is less transparency, less competition, and more possibility for fraud and shady behavior. Every. Single. Time.

Obamacare and Accounting Fraud

By January 2014, the PPACA will require insurance companies to list their prices on competitive exchanges. In Obama-theory, this is supposed to reduce premiums via competition. But what if, say, only three companies control nearly all of the premiums? Consider the fact that it costs the same $3 to extract your money from a Chase, Bank of America or Citigroup ATM (if you don’t get it directly from the firm you bank at.) They constitute a monopoly that defies anti-trust inspection (thank you, Department of Justice.) What incentive would any of them have to charge less? None. That’s why they don’t.

Managed Health Care companies don’t just administer private, but government health insurance policies as well. The http://www.healthcare.gov website says that under the PPACA, the life of the Medicare Trust Fund will be extended to 2024 as a result of reducing waste, fraud, abuse, and slowing cost growth. President Obama promised to reduce Medicare fraud 50% by 2012 according to the site – but if he did, he forgot to mention it during the campaign period.

To supposedly combat price hikes, the PPACA calls for a new Rate Review program, wherein insurance companies must justify premium hikes of more than 10% to a state or federal review program. Given that banks aren’t supposed to hold more than 10% of the nation’s deposits in any one institution, and three do, this isn’t a comforting constraint.

While it is positive that the PPACA requires coverage of people with pre-existing conditions and prohibits lifetime caps, it can’t control what people pay for insurance, because it doesn’t limit actual premiums, which have risen 13% on average since the Act was passed.

The medical cost ratio limitation the PPACA instills; that 80% of premiums must be used for medical care in the case of individuals and small groups, and 85% in the case of large groups) to supposedly ensure companies operate on a more efficient premium in vs. premium out basis, is a joke. Its punch line is accounting manipulation. Call everything a medical cost; even buying another company, and the ratio is meaningless.

WellPoint got the Joke

WellPoint got that joke immediately. The largest for-profit “managed health care” company in the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, it began trading publicly on December 1, 2004. Depending on the state, it operates under Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross or Anthem.

After the PPACA was passed, in March 2010, WellPoint allegedly reclassified certain administrative costs as medical care costs in order to meet the law’s new medical loss ratio requirements (which requires insurers spend at least 80% or 85% of premiums on health care services, depending on the type of plan, individual or group respectively.)

A month earlier, WellPoint announced its Anthem Blue Cross unit would raise insurance rates for some individual policies in California up to 39%. Federal and California regulators are still investigating this, but the premium hikes remained.

WellPoint is also one of Wall Street’s favorite “managed health care” companies; cause it keeps getting bigger through acquisitions that pay hefty fees to the bankers involved. On October 23rd, WellPoint got approval from Amerigroup’s shareholders to acquire Amerigroup, a Medicaid-focused health insurer, in a $4.9 billion cash deal. The deal makes WellPoint the nation’s largest Medicaid insurer, and provides it greater access to Medicaid patients who also qualify for Medicare.

It was the largest cash deal ever, and the largest premium paid for a company in the managed health care realm. As a result, Goldman Sachs (who advised Amerigroup) and Credit Suisse (who advised WellPoint) retained their top positions in the global healthcare deal advisory league table.

The value of Amerigroup, as a company, dropped 34% within two weeks of that agreement, in stark shades of what happened when Bank of America took over Merrill Lynch in the fall of 2008.

This summer, Amerigroup and Goldman Sachs faced a shareholder lawsuit filed by the city of Monroe Employees Retirement System and Louisiana Municipal Police Employees Retirement System. It alleged that Goldman advised Amerigroup to accept WellPoint’s offer quickly, rather than seek other bids, because the bank had structured a complex, and fee-heavy derivatives transaction on the back of the deal. The insurers resolved the suit by tweaking the deal parameters. All parties denied ‘any wrongdoing.’ But where there’s smoke in complex derivatives land, there is fire.

Other Mergers

After the Supreme Court upheld the PPACA, a spate of mergers rippled through the managed health care realm, to ostensibly cope with smaller profit margins and ‘compliance costs.’ But really, it’s because each firm wants to corner as much as possible of the market, in as many states as it can, to garner more premiums and control more disbursements and prices at the upcoming insurance ‘exchanges.’

In late August, the third largest insurance company in the US, Aetna announced it was buying Coventry Health Care for $5.7 billion. Coventry provides Medicare and Medicaid services, thus the takeover expands Aetna’s Medicare and Medicaid business. Being part of Aetna enables Coventry to grab more consumers on more state-run health insurance exchanges, reducing competition in the process. The Department of Justice is examining anti-trust issues surrounding the deal, but it’s still expected to close in mid-2013.

On October 17th, UnitedHealth Group issued $2.5 billion of bonds as part of its $4.9 billion acquisition of Brazil’s Amil Participacoes. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wells Fargo Securities were lead underwriters on the deal.

They are not buying international companies in order to increase accounting transparency. Like other multinationals, they are doing so to move profits around and circumvent restrictions and tax laws. They are using cash, or raising extra debt, to do so, rather than to reduce premiums or increase disbursements to medical professionals.

And if you’re keeping score – billion of dollars are flowing from insurance companies – NOT to reduce premiums to patients and NOT to reimburse doctors and NOT to enhance the quality of care, but to simply expand nationally and globally. Meanwhile, their CEOs are doing quite well from all that non-health care related movement.

Total compensation for the bulk of health care company CEOs rose by 14.7% in 2011 by 14.7%, or $11.1 million, to $87 million. Cigna’s CEO David Cordani made $19.1 million. UnitedHealth Group’s CEO, Stephen J. Hemsley bagged $49 million in salary, stock options, and other compensation last year. The highest-paid CEO made 94 times the average compensation level of primary care physicians. And none of them had to pick up a single scalpel in the process.

Doctors as profit centers

Not just patients, but physicians have been bled steadily from the current state of insurance company controlled health care through diminishing insurance reimbursements, electronic medical records mandates whereby they spend as much time complying with Kafkaesque controls over their decisions on performing surgeries and providing care, and debt. New doctors are graduating with an average of $250,000 in debt, which, combined with diminishing disbursement and soaring costs, will keep many, underwater. Forever.

According to Dr. Michael H. Heggeness, President of the North American Spine Society, a group of 6500 global spinal and orthopedic surgeons (at which I delivered a speech last month), “The last people, that most of the population feels sorry for are doctors, yet they are in an economic crisis of their own. In 2002, 80% were in private practice, now 70% are in hospitals because they can’t afford to make a private practice work.”

Meanwhile the more hospitals are viewed as profit centers, the more their Chairmen will cut costs to maximize returns, and not care quality. They will seeks ways to sell underperforming assets, programs or services and reduce the number of nonessential employees, burdening those that remain. No doubt the private equity community will be getting more into this game, as insurance companies buy more hospitals, doctors, clinics, and perhaps drug companies, or vice versa, and ‘restructuring’ accelerates.

And if insurance companies can manage doctors directly, they can control not just costs, but treatment – our treatment. It’s not an imaginary government takeover anyone should fear; but a very real, here-and-now insurance company takeover, to which no one in Washington is paying attention.

Related:

Obamacare: Just give us a bill to hype; we don’t care what it is

Nearly every major drug company convicted of criminal behavior in three-year, $11 billion sweep

TV Networks Will Be Asked to Boost ObamaCare In Plots of Their Top Shows

Republican governors decide against setting up ObamaCare insurance markets

Conservatives Launch Papa John's Appreciation Day

Denny's to charge 5% 'Obamacare surcharge' and cut employee hours to deal with cost of legislation

Full List of Obamacare Tax Hikes

Surprise! Audit uncovers rampant fraud in fed program

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,ObamaTax,Health Insurance,Health Insurance exchanges,Health Insurance companies,watch the other hand,wake-up America,Obamaland,taxes.