America-It Is TIME

[hodman]

Bring on the Koolaid Gobama!!

[puntnomads]

20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms

 

ObamaCare-health-insuranceWith ObamaCARE now passed, containing the Cornhusker Kickback, Gator-Aid, the Lousiana Purchase, and other shady deals, Investors Business Daily gives up 20 ways that ObamaCARE will take away our freedoms. IBD’s sections described below are taken from HR 3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill which takes out the Cornhusker Kickback and Gator-Aid as displayed by the Rules Committee.

 

1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)

 

2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

 

3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711).

 

4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).

 

5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).

 

6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

 

You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).

 

7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A))

 

8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 © (2) (A).

 

9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 101 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).

 

10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)).

 

11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))

 

12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A))

 

13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) ©).

 

14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)

 

15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).

 

16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).

 

The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).

 

17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).)

 

18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014).

 

19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015).

 

That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402).

 

20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).

[puntnomads]

Insurance Industry “suddenly” excited about health care law; launches program to “Enroll America”

March 25, 2010

 

America 20xy

 

3/25/10

 

By Andrew Steele

 

After supposedly opposing the president’s health care bill, which would force Americans to buy private insurance, and giving Americans over the past year the impression that the battle was that of a populist president vs. big business, the insurance industry is suddenly embracing the new law and wants to get as many Americans enrolled as possible!

 

According to a TIME Magazine article: America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry trade group, has agreed to sign on to a new, 50-state health care reform implementation effort, provisionally called Enroll America, which is being organized by Ron Pollack of the pro-reform group Families USA. “We are participating in it,” says AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach. “The goal is to get everyone covered.”"

 

The myth that insurance companies oppose legislation that would lay heavy fines on any citizen who doesn’t purchase their product was used by the mainstream media and the White House to make Americans believe that the victory of a few corporations somehow equated to victory for the people. While doing nothing to address the creation of new jobs so that the uninsured can sustainably afford the insurance they’re being forced to buy, the new law has assured the insurance industry an endless well of customers, backed by the US taxpayer if those customers are unable to pay.

 

Enroll America will focus on enticing the final 5% of Americans who will be eligible for health insurance under the new law but whom congressional budget scorers do not expect to enroll. On a state-by-state basis, the group will work to create an easy application process for benefits, including access to enrollment at doctors’ offices, pharmacies and government agencies that provide other benefits like food stamps.

 

Though the people behind Enroll America say they’re concerned that a small percentage of the population will defy the law, the IRS has been enlisted to help the government enforce the insurance mandate.

 

The Congressional Budget office estimates that 95% of Americans will get health insurance by 2016. That will add nearly 32 million previously uninsured people to the health-coverage rolls.

 

No doubt, for the insurance industry, the presidency of Barack Obama will be very good for business.

[puntnomads]

Economic Black Hole: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not Going To Recover

 

Even though the U.S. financial system nearly experienced a total meltdown in late 2008, the truth is that most Americans simply have no idea what is happening to the U.S. economy. Most people seem to think that the nasty little recession that we have just been through is almost over and that we will be experiencing another time of economic growth and prosperity very shortly. But this time around that is not the case. The reality is that we are being sucked into an economic black hole from which the U.S. economy will never fully recover.

 

The problem is debt. Collectively, the U.S. government, the state governments, corporate America and American consumers have accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world. Our massive debt binge has financed our tremendous growth and prosperity over the last couple of decades, but now the day of reckoning is here.

 

And it is going to be painful.

 

The following are 20 reasons why the U.S. economy is dying and is simply not going to recover....

 

1) Do you remember that massive wave of subprime mortgages that defaulted in 2007 and 2008 and caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression? Well, the "second wave" of mortgage defaults in on the way and there is simply no way that we are going to be able to avoid it. A huge mountain of mortgages is going to reset starting in 2010, and once those mortgage payments go up there are once again going to be millons of people who simply cannot pay their mortgages. The chart below reveals just how bad the second wave of adjustable rate mortgages is likely to be over the next several years....

 

2) The Federal Housing Administration has announced plans to increase the amount of up-front cash paid by new borrowers and to require higher down payments from those with the poorest credit. The Federal Housing Administration currently backs about 30 percent of all new home loans and about 20 percent of all new home refinancing loans. Tighter standards are going to mean that less people will qualify for loans. Less qualifiers means that there will be less buyers for homes. Less buyers means that home prices are going to drop even more.

 

3) It is getting really hard to find a job in the United States. A total of 6,130,000 U.S. workers had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more in December 2009. That was the most ever since the U.S. government started keeping track of this statistic in 1948. In fact, it is more than double the 2,612,000 U.S. workers who were unemployed for a similar length of time in December 2008. The reality is that once Americans lose their jobs they are increasingly finding it difficult to find new ones. Just check out the chart below....

 

4) In December, there were also 929,000 "discouraged" workers who are not counted as part of the labor force because they have "given up" looking for work. That is the most since the U.S. government first started keeping track of discouraged workers in 1949. Many Americans have simply given up and are now chronically unemployed.

 

5) Some areas of the U.S. are already virtually in a state of depression. The mayor of Detroit estimates that the real unemployment rate in his city is now somewhere around 50 percent.

 

6) For decades, our leaders in Washington pushed us towards "a global economy" and told us it would be so good for us. But there is a flip side. Now workers in the U.S. must compete with workers all over the world, and our greedy corporations are free to pursue the cheapest labor available anywhere on the globe. Millions of jobs have already been shipped out of the United States, and Princeton University economist Alan S. Blinder estimates that 22% to 29% of all current U.S. jobs will be offshorable within two decades. The days when blue collar workers could live the American Dream are gone and they are not going to come back.

 

7) During the 2001 recession, the U.S. economy lost 2% of its jobs and it took four years to get them back. This time around the U.S. economy has lost more than 5% of its jobs and there is no sign that the bleeding of jobs is going to stop any time soon.

 

8) All of this unemployment is putting severe stress on state unemployment funds. At this point, 25 state unemployment insurance funds have gone broke and the Department of Labor estimates that 15 more state unemployment funds will likely go broke within two years and will need massive loans from the federal government just to keep going.

 

9) 37 million Americans now receive food stamps, and the program is expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day. The United States of America is very quickly becoming a socialist welfare state.

 

10) The number of Americans who are going broke is staggering. 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 - a 32 percent increase over 2008.

 

11) For decades, the fact that the U.S. dollar was the reserve currency of the world gave the U.S. financial system an unusual degree of stability. But all of that is changing. Foreign countries are increasingly turning away from the dollar to other currencies. For example, Russia’s central bank announced on Wednesday that it had started buying Canadian dollars in a bid to diversify its foreign exchange reserves.

 

12) The recent economic downturn has left some localities totally bankrupt. For instance, Jefferson County, Alabama is on the brink of what would be the largest government bankruptcy in the history of the United States - surpassing the 1994 filing by Southern California's Orange County.

 

13) The U.S. is facing a pension crisis of unprecedented magnitude. Virtually all pension funds in the United States, both private and public, are massively underfunded. With millions of Baby Boomers getting ready to retire, there is simply no way on earth that all of these obligations can be met. Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Chicago and Joshua D. Rauh of Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management recently calculated the collective unfunded pension liability for all 50 U.S. states for Forbes magazine. So what was the total? 3.2 trillion dollars.

 

14) Social Security and Medicare expenses are wildly out of control. Once again, with millions of Baby Boomers now at retirement age there is simply going to be no way to pay all of these retirees what they are owed.

 

15) So will the U.S. government come to the rescue? The U.S. has allowed the total federal debt to balloon by 50% since 2006 to $12.3 trillion. The chart below is a bit outdated, but it does show the reckless expansion of U.S. government debt over the past several decades. To get an idea of where we are now, just add at least 3 trillion dollars on to the top of the chart....

 

16) So has the U.S. government learned anything from these mistakes? No. In fact, Senate Democrats on Wednesday proposed allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $2 trillion to pay its bills, a record increase that would allow the U.S. national debt to reach approximately $14.3 trillion.

 

17) It is going to become even harder for the U.S. government to pay the bills now that tax receipts are falling through the floor. U.S. corporate income tax receipts were down 55% in the year that ended on September 30th, 2009.

 

18) So where will the U.S. government get the money? From the Federal Reserve of course. The Federal Reserve bought approximately 80 percent of all U.S. Treasury securities issued in 2009. In other words, the U.S. government is now being financed by a massive Ponzi scheme.

 

19) The reckless expansion of the money supply by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve is going to end up destroying the U.S. dollar and the value of the remaining collective net worth of all Americans. The more dollars there are, the less each individual dollar is worth. In essence, inflation is like a hidden tax on each dollar that you own. When they flood the economy with money, the value of the money you have in your bank accounts goes down. The chart below shows the growth of the U.S. money supply. Pay particular attention to the very end of the chart which shows what has been happening lately. What do you think this is going to do to the value of the U.S. dollar?....

 

20) When a nation practices evil, there is no way that it is going to be blessed in the long run. The truth is that we have become a nation that is dripping with corruption and wickedness from the top to the bottom. Unless this fundamentally changes, not even the most perfect economic policies in the world are going to do us any good. In the end, you always reap what you sow. The day of reckoning for the U.S. economy is here and it is not going to be pleasant.

[puntnomads]

americans can celebrate a stimulus package for the healthcare industry all they like but the fact of the matter is is that their country and empire are dying. in 3-5 max the US will either be a dictatorship or in a civil war, instead of the oligarchy or corporate state that it is now. the next economic bomb is going to be a climate change bill based on Bad science. all i will say let the show continue.

[puntnomads]

OUTRAGE! – Healthcare Bill Exempts Congress And Staff

March 24th, 2010 Michael Suede

 

This is so outrageous I’m fairly speechless.

 

Politico reports:

 

The Congressional Research Service believes a court could rule that the legislation “would exclude professional committee staff, joint committee staff, some shared staff, as well as potentially those staff employed by leadership offices.”

 

However, when the combined Senate bill came to the floor, the definition of staff had been narrowed. Both senators filed a second amendment in December restating their original intent, but they say Democrats blocked it.

 

“The American people will be appalled to learn the health care bill exempts leadership and committee staff. This special deal for unelected staff underscores everything the public detests about the arrogance of power in Washington,” Coburn said. “I tried to fix this inequity along with senators Grassley, Burr and Vitter, but Majority Leader [Harry] Reid obstructed our effort.”

 

The fascist democrats obstructed an amendment that forced themselves and their crony staff from being put into the same lot with the rest of us.

 

Of course, why wouldn’t they?

 

They are a bunch of fascist looting criminal thieves intent on destroying this country at all costs. They have no morals. They have no respect for freedom or liberty. They have no respect for the constitution.

 

As with all tyrannical governments – laws are for the little people.

 

Of course, this is just one outrage among thousands. The history of government giving itself more rights than its citizens is nearly endless, even in our supposedly “free” country.

[puntnomads]

The K Street Hustlin’ of Obamacare

 

By Keith Johnson

 

Oooh snap! Looks like we’ve been right all along. All the big K Street money pumped into the House and Senate has been overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of Obama’s horrendous new healthcare legislation. Go figure. According to a study released over the weekend by “The Center for Public Integrity”, a non-partisan public interest think tank in Washington D.C., it is estimated that a record $120 million was spent lobbying for health reform. In addition to direct lobbying, some of the top firms also rewarded members of Congress with campaign contributions through political action committees and individual lobbyist donations. The largest of these firms, Patton Boggs LLP, contributed more than $55,000 almost exclusively to Democrats.

 

Patton Boggs represents Bristol-Myers Squibb, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the nation and the eighth largest corporation in the United States. On January 21, 2010, Patton Boggs was one of several big name health insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital lobbying organizations whose top executives got together to throw a fundraiser for Massachusetts Senatorial candidate Martha Coakley in hopes of landing her the Democratic seat and the crucial 60th vote needed to pass the healthcare takeover bill. The other top firms that participated (along with a list of the companies they represent) are as follows:

 

Capitol Hill Strategies:

 

Amgen—the nation’s largest biotechnology firm

BIO—a muli million dollar biotechnology firm

Merck—the largest pharmaceutical company in the world

Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America–

a trade group representing pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies

 

Grover Park Group:

 

Blue Cross—a federation of 39 health insurance organizations

Pfizer—a pharmaceutical company, ranking number one in sales in the world

 

 

Duberstein Group:

 

Novartis—a pharmaceutical company ranking number one in revenues and three in sales

Sanofi-Aventis—a pharmaceutical company that ranks number four in sales worldwide

 

Mehlman, Vogel, Castagnetti:

 

Humana—the fourth largest health insurance company in the United States

Abbott Laboratories—a multi billion dollar pharmaceuticals healthcare company

General Electric—multi billion dollar corporation dealing in many health related sectors

 

Elmendorf strategies:

 

UnitedHealth Group—the nations largest health insurance company

 

Heather Podesta & Partners:

 

Cigna—the nation’s fifth largest health insurance company

Eli Lilly—a multi billion dollar pharmaceutical company that ranks tenth in sales

 

Of the over 17,000 lobbyists in Washington D.C., The Center for Public Integrity ranks Patton Boggs as numero uno. In terms of healthcare reform, they are followed by Alston and Bird, who represent Aetna, the nation’s third largest health insurer. Coming in at number three is Foley Hoag, who also represent Pfizer as well as Eli Lilly, Amgen and Merck. Tied for fourth place are Podesta Group and Capitol partners. Dutko Worldwide rounds out the top five and they also lobbied for UnitedHealth, PhRMA, and medical device firm Medtronic Inc.

 

Of those lobbying firms’ big name clients, Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America alone spent $26.1 million lobbying for Obamacare in 2009, making it the single most expensive lobbying effort in history. During the week leading up to the vote on the legislation, PhRMA launched a multi million dollar ad blitz in 43 districts of potential swing Democrats to help secure passage. And in this election cycle, PhRMA has contributed $30,300 to Dem’s compared to $13,000 to Repub’s. Overall, PhRMA has spent well over $100 million on ad campaigns promoting health care reform legistlation. According to his wikipedia bio, PhRMA’s outgoing CEO Billy Tauzin ”was a key player in 2009 healthcare reform negotiations that produced pharmaceutical industry support for White House and Senate efforts. Reportedly, proposals for Medicare Part D cost reductions and permitting drug importation from Canada were dropped in favor of $80 billion in other savings.” That’s right, he helped write the stinking bill.

 

The largest health insurance providers in the nation are UnitedHealth Group, WellPoint, Aetna, Humana and Cigna. Ever since the healthcare debate began over a year ago, shares of Cigna, UnitedHealth Group and WellPoint have been up an average of 120%. Upon passage of the bill, health insurer’s stocks soared with Aetna hitting a 52 week high. The share price of Cigna surged 375% compared to 46% for the stock market overall (as measured by the S&P 500) since November 2008. It should be noted that Aetna has been a major supporter and campaign contributor to the campaigns of Max Baucus (D-MT) of the Senate Finance Committee who received $56,250 in donations and Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) who received $110,000. Todd M. Schoenberger, Managing Editor of “Taipan’s Tipping Point Alert” wrote recently that “One day following a vote in favor of healthcare reform legislation, stocks turned higher led by the healthcare sector. Despite the concern of many Wall Street analysts, any negative sentiment surrounding the healthcare sector about higher taxes and pressure on bottom lines quickly subsided as everything from managed care to medical device stocks traded higher with heavy volume.”

 

Hospital shares also surged. The day after the House passed the bill, shares of Health Management Associates, Tenet Healthcare and Community Health Systems all jumped 11%, 9%, and 6% respectively.

 

It should be clear by now that the major players in the healthcare industry overwhelmingly lobbied in support of Obamacare and have and will continue to reap vast rewards. So then you may ask who exactly is this great villain the Democrats have dubbed as the evil “health insurance industry”? The name that consistently comes up is America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). According to wikipedia, “America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is a national political advocacy and trade association with about 1,300 member companies that sell health insurance coverage to more than 200 million Americans and is thereby funded by the premiums they pay.”

 

But AHIP not only represents the top health insurance companies in the nation, it also represents the smaller companies that will no doubt be thrown under the bus or absorbed by larger concerns. So it makes sense why they were chosen to act as the controlled opposition. They were the ones often cited as the big bad insurance industry that Nancy Pelosi referred to in response to a heckler at a Democratic rally who yelled “You’ll burn in Hell for this!” AHIP President Karen M. Ignagni often plays the villain as she did on the Oprah Winfrey show opposite Sicko Director Michael Moore.

 

But this two-faced organization showed their true colors a long time ago. Miami Herald journalist John Dorschner reminds us in a March 23rd article that “In November 2008, just days after Obama’s landslide victory, America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, made a stunning announcement, saying it favored universal coverage and supported a law that would stop insurers from rejecting applicants because of preexisting conditions. “Universal coverage is within reach,” the group said in a historic press release. After being adamantly opposed to reform during the Clinton years, AHIP said it had changed its mind — based on one condition: Any reform plan had to require that all individuals have insurance or pay stiff penalties.”

 

And just recently, AHIP has come out in full support of Obamacare. According to a TIME Magazine article: America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry trade group, has agreed to sign on to a new, 50-state health care reform implementation effort, provisionally called Enroll America, which is being organized by Ron Pollack of the pro-reform group Families USA. “We are participating in it,” says AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach. “The goal is to get everyone covered.”

 

On the night the House passed the dreaded Obamacare legislation, Obama stated, “Tonight, we pushed back on the undue influence of special interests. … We proved that this government — a government of the people and by the people — still works for the people.” Sure—Here’s a guy who received more then three times the campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry than John McCain or $3.58 for every$1 received by his Republican competitor. And those stats come straight out of the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.

 

Yeah, Obama can come up with some eloquent words, but as we’ve pointed out, this is nothing but a windfall for the big insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and device manufacturers. It’s an outright raping of the American people by a government of the special interests and by the special interests.

[puntnomads]

What's Really in Obama's Health Care Reform Bill - A Plain English Translation

Thursday, July 30, 2009

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)

 

(NaturalNews) Mrs. Bouchard seemed upset.

"I can't afford health care as yet."

The new health reform bill

Made her sickly and ill

"But I'd rather have cancer than debt!"

 

What's really in Obama's health care reform bill? Almost no one knows, and here's why: It's 1,017 pages long and written in an alien form of bureaucratic English that can barely be decoded by earthlings.

 

And yet, astonishingly, a U.S. Army translator has been found who speaks "Washington Doublespeak" and he was kind enough to decode the bill and post his plain-language findings over at FreeRepublic.com (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f...).

 

Below, we reprint what he found in the health care reform bill. As you read this, keep in mind that some of these translations are a bit loose with the interpretations, but I've personally spot-checked these points, and they are indeed all contained in the bill in one form or another (shrouded in Doublespeak language, of course).

 

Editor's note: I don't personally agree with every interpretation listed here, and some of the bill's provisions are actually good ideas (like banning doctors from owning stock in health care companies). But overall, this interpretation points out many alarming provisions in the proposed health care reform bill...

 

From CMS at FreeRepublic.com:

 

• Page 16: States that if you have insurance at the time of the bill becoming law and change, you will be required to take a similar plan. If that is not available, you will be required to take the government option!

• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!

• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!

• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)

• Page 42: The "Health Choices Commissioner" will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.

• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.

• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.

• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.

• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (example: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)

• Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange.

• Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)

• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens

• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.

• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.

• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "judicial review" is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.

• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.

• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.

[puntnomads]

so all those who are celebrating heathcare reform tell me why?

[Abyan]

You are against the health care reform , and you reside in a country that is supplying free health care to people. Hypocrite.

[puntnomads]

no you have got it wrong. i support a public system. this reform isn't a public system. it just forces everybody to buy something. it lead to this.

[puntnomads]

Rep. Burgess: Government Can Force Us to Buy General Motors Products If Obamacare Mandate Upheld in Court

Monday, March 29, 2010

By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter

 

(CNSNews.com) – Representative Michael Burgess (R-Texas) told CNSNews.com that if the mandate in the health care law requiring individuals to purchase health insurance or be penalized is upheld by the courts, the federal government could mandate anything, such as requiring all Americans to purchase a General Motors car.

 

On Capitol Hill, CNSNews.com asked Representative Burgess, “The Congressional Budget Office has said that never before in the history of the United States has the federal government mandated that any one buy a specific good or service and, of course, the bill includes the individual mandate. Is there a part of the Constitution that you think gives Congress the authority to mandate individuals to purchase health insurance?”

 

Representative Burgess, himself a doctor, said, “No, I personally do not, and I think that is exactly right. Never before in the history of this country have we had the ability to coerce American citizens to purchase something and then invoke the Commerce clause after we coerce that purchase.”

 

 

 

“It just flies in the face of what a free society should be, so I’m perfectly comfortable with the attorneys general bringing suit against this bill,” said Burgess. “I think it’s the appropriate thing to do. Plus, you also have the equal-protection business of some states being more equal than others and, really, it should be equals among equals, not some states getting special deals to buy off a vote to get the bill passed.”

 

CNSNews.com also asked Burgess, “If the federal government mandates that you have to purchase health insurance, is there any legal commodity that the federal government cannot require individuals to purchase?”

 

“That’s the next step and what else?” said Burgess. “Could the federal government require all of us to purchase a General Motors product? And the answer is yes.”

 

“If this mandate is ruled, upheld by the courts, it opens the door for all kinds of mischief by the federal government,” he said. “We’ll be better off not opening this door or closing it very, very quickly.”

 

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told CNSNews.com that he “applauds” the states that are stepping up and taking legal action against the federal government. So far, 13 attorneys general have sued the federal government over the individual mandate in the health care law.

 

“I think the mandate is unconstitutional so I applaud the states [that] are going to step up and spend some resources and take this to the courts because I believe it’s unconstitutional,” said Chaffetz. “You have something like 37 states that are filing some sort of lawsuit or another, so, including Utah, and I applaud that.”

 

 

 

Chaffetz was also asked if he thinks there is a limit to what Congress can mandate individuals to do.

 

“Yeah, I think never before have we seen the federal government mandate that you have to actually purchase,” he said. “You know, I understand they need to tax, but to actually purchase something? I think that steps over the line and I hope the states are victorious in their suits.”

 

Chaffetz continued: “That’s the worry, that if they can get away with this, the federal government can get away with who knows what? And that’s where there’s got to be limits and balance on this, and clearly the Constitution, I don’t think, you know, allows this to happen. So I hope this country makes the right decision. I really do.”

 

On the other hand, Democratic Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) said it is “not likely” the individual mandate will be overturned.

 

“I’m not a lawyer,” he told CNSNews.com. “I’m told by some pretty smart lawyers that the chances of states overturning this are not likely. The federal law will be pre-eminent but that’s why they make courts. We’ll have an opportunity to find out.”

 

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the federal government has never before mandated that Americans buy any good or service. In 1994, when Congress was considering a universal health care plan formulated by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, the CBO studied the plan’s provision that would have forced individuals to buy health insurance and determined it was an unprecedented act.

 

The CBO stated: “A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

[puntnomads]

in that funny or what. what next force every to buy a condom or a house for their own good ofcourse. this nanny state approach whithout the benefits of a public system is truly where the Hypocricy lies.