Should Grandma Get Divorced? ObamaCare Says So
It’s interesting, isn’t it, how the truth is coming out about ObamaCare now that the House has passed it and the president has signed it?
On Tuesday, Michigan Congressman John Dingell told WJR’s Paul W. Smith, in response to a question about why much of the legislation doesn’t kick in until 2014, that:
… when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.
Many of us already knew that this has been the agenda all along; but now it’s out there, and they can’t take it back.
David Leonhardt, the propagandist who pretends to be a business reporter for the New York Times, let the redistributionist cat out of the bag in Wednesday ‘s paper in a piece entitled “In Health Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality.” Note: not merely “income” inequality, but “wealth” inequality. More on that in a bit.
Then on Thursday morning, as the Democrat-controlled Senate wrestled with Republican members over stripping certain language from the bill, the Associated Press’s Alan Fram confirmed the wire service’s status as the official propaganda arm of the Democratic Party when he sobbed that these maneuvers might prolong “what has been a politically painful ordeal for the party.” Zheesh.
Much has been written about the legislation’s onerous taxes, including items large and small. One of the biggies is a new 3.8% hit on capital gains, dividends, investment income, and rental income. One relatively small but especially annoying item that betrays the control-freak nature of the bill alongside Congress’s breathtaking economic ignorance is its 10% excise tax on indoor tanning services. One tanning salon owner predicts that 1,000 salons will close within 12 months after the tax goes into effect on July 1. Didn’t somebody say in his January State of the Union address that “jobs must be our number-one focus in 2010″?
Beyond the paramount moral issues relating to the quality and availability of medical care, anyone who believes that ObamaCare will only affect high-income earners and a few isolated industries is in for a rude shock if the legislation is not successfully repealed in time. How rude? ObamaCare’s worst financial provisions have nothing to do with taxes, but instead relate to its subsidies. When they take full effect, their impact will dramatically advance each of three goals described above: income and wealth redistribution, control, and the long-term political power of the far left.
Why do you have to write so emotionally? It seems that just presenting the facts would be more effective.
And if you focused on the facts, the article would be easier to read.
#1 –
And if you focused on the facts, the article would be easier to read.
You cannot be serious.
The article was great. These things are emotional, what is being done to Americans. The MSM and Democrats keep saying that all Americans are going to benefit, when that is not the case. The facts are there to prove it. We are all going to be paying one way or another, and most of us not getting a sinle benefit from it. It will be rationing, and seniors will be getting the brunt of that. Democrats are turning this into a class issue too. When really every day hard working Americans who are trying to live within their means are the ones paying the price. Most can’t budget for this. And down the road we lead again. Enough already, we deserve better.
The ramifications of this legislation are shocking and frightening so far, and I agree with you Tom that we need “to utterly repudiate and totally repeal this monstrosity.” It is an abomination, pun intended.
The left of course is grinding out propaganda to the contrary saying that no matter what the current anger in reaction to this bill, we will grow weary of the fight and come to accept and love it. To wit, Fred Barbash at Politico yesterday wrote:
“At first blush, the spasms of anger over the health care law signed into law by President Barack Obama this week seem strong enough to fuel a years-long argument over government power.
Or not.
History suggests there is a better chance the passions over the country’s new health care regime will cool with an alacrity that seems unthinkable amid the clenched fists and snarling insults of the recent debate.
This has been a familiar pattern since New Deal days: Government programs from Social Security to Medicare that were launched amid incendiary arguments within a short time became sacrosanct — protected by a bipartisan consensus that was nowhere to be found at passage.
In fact, historians of social programs see no correlation between the intensity of controversy at the birth of a program and its ultimate popularity.”
I think it’s important to watch this propaganda and counter it with re-energizing and encouraging ourselves as much as possible. The most important thing that’s changed since the New Deal days is the Internet which allows our opposition to be better informed on a daily basis and better organized. We must not let our outrage at this bill fade to apathy. We simply can’t. If anything, we need to let it fade to secession if need be, but not
blind acceptance. And we must keep our wits about us. It won’t be easy, especially during a long hot summer, the KSM trail in NYC, Congress taking up Cap and Trade and heaven knows what else is rammed down our throats. God help us all and this once wonderful country.We must press on no matter what the cost.
(except perhaps under the table).
Gary, this post is one recitation of a fact after another. WTF are you talking about?
Do you think a shit sandwich shouldn’t be called a shit sandwich?
Do you think incentives don’t work? Do you think disincentives don’t work? Do you think their effect should not be described?
Do you understand the world is such that the laws of economics always operate whether you believe in them or not? That that is why the Soviet Union collapsed and why Sweden is moving away from socialism, that that is why Canada is re-evolving a parallel private health care system–so Canadians can get a broken leg set conveniently even on a Sunday night?
That is why more and more Doctors here are refusing government insurance plans or even insurance altogether? Because taking cash only at half their previous rates is still a better deal for them?
(except perhaps under the table).we already tried this with the bootleggers, but the big O plans on hiring more revenuers, so this underground economy will be chased through the hills like bootleggers. imagine going to jail for trying to feed your family outside the prescribed governmental feed lot. i think Americans will survive, we have the collective experience. Team America!
Well written, well said.
I enjoyed the last two paragraphs the most.
Gary#1, if you aren’t emotionally moved by those consequences discussed by the author, I must respectfully wonder if you have blood running through your veins.
Re: 1. Gary Granai:
You can tell an “expert” by the slope of their round shoulders, sweet ears, broad rear ends and soft spoken advice freely and forever given to everyone else.
Never having had to deal with anything more serious than a bad beer headache or picking out body lotion that will get the office bimbo to take better notice, “People need to be less emotional, calm and objective” until:
The storm kisses them personally with a mild taste of what could happen. Then by God listen to the roaring of their tongues about what a cruel and unfair world others have made for them to live in.
Lack of emotion and lack of passion is what got the turds that are running the show now into office in the first place.
Lack of emotion is what those same turds are counting on to dissipate the passion; resistance before the elections in November.
Not to worry Dude. Others will save your sorry butt this time just like someone else has carried your load for you all of your life.
More than likely that person will be someone grandmother that silently carries a staffed, ceremonial size American flag in memory of her lost son or husband at Tea Party gatherings so that the non-emotional creeps on the left still have the freedom to call her an extreme right-wing terrorist.
Hey, I was informed by alot of articles and people here that obamacare was a government takeover of health care and I just got a letter from my insurance company telling me that is not true and that my insurance company would continue to provide my insurance for my healthcare. What is up with that? Are you sure your facts are true in this article? Why is it that so much of the argument against the health care reform turning out to be false? The government never took health care over….
I do not understand….please explain…
What’s good for socialism is good for America… it’s about “social justice,” after all (and mandating redistribution of other people’s money makes Democrats feel good about themselves for once in their lives).
Bil Clinton promised to “end welfare as we know it”, by repealing the elements in the system’s regulations that discouraged work, marriage, and not having children the recipients couldn’t support. This elicited howls from his own party that he was “gutting” welfare, but it did get him re-elected in 1996- even though he never actually did much to change the system.
Now, fourteen years later, we see the same “disincentives” to actual adult behavior being imposed on the American people as a whole by the new “health care reform” act. There are two possible reasons for this;
A. “Progressives” are utterly incapable of learning from experience; or
B. “Progressives” liked what the original form of welfare did to poor people, and want to do it to everyone (except themselves).
(B) is the most likely explanation. Progressives believe in “leveling”, i.e. bringing everyone (other than themselves) down to the same low level. A level at which if you step out of line, you’re done for.
Their “ideal state” is one ruled, not by the open terror of the gun (although that is always in the hands of their minions as a final threat), but by the subtle terror of a Byzantine system purposely designed to be both Draconian toward people they don’t like (think; self-reliant people with actual assets) and incomprehensible even to those working in it. The principle being that the only thing better than laws which punish individual initiative are laws which cannot be understood, or are deliberately contradictory. In either case, everyone will live in constant fear of inadvertently violating those laws, and suffering the wrath of a government acting like a schoolyard bully with a sneer on his face.
Of course, like the bully who always gets away with saying “he did it!” while pointing at his victim, the “enlightened elite’” will never be subject to the same penalties if they break the rules. Because those rules will carefully be written to exclude them. (The “health care reform” act of course exempts Congress from its provisions.) As always, there will be one set of rules for the majority, and a different and much more lenient set for the ruling class. This is the way “truly enlightened” states are run, according to the progressives. States like the old Soviet Union, for example.
If you want to know what the fate of a typical American family in the upper-middle-class income brackets with no one working for the Federal government or a “politically correct” NGO will be under this “enlightened” legislation, I’d suggest Googling the terms “kulak” and “Stalin” together.
clear ether
eon
#1 We are going bankrupt. If it wasn’t for the problems in Greece the dollar would be at the same value as the Mexican peso.
It is going to be pretty hard to vote them out when the vote is suspended when obama declares martial law at the first rebellion against his tyranny.
My only question is how long will the occupation by U.N. troops last?
“Why do you have to write so emotionally?”
Yeah, dude.
Why get upset just because the Democrats are tyrants and thieves (not to mention terrorist loving traitors)? It’s not like this is anything new. We should be used to it by now.
” . . incentives against job creation, personal success — and marriage . . ”
None of this is occurring by accident. It’s an intentional plan to bring down the U.S. and make it into a third-world, socialist country. Obama and his minions believe (excluding themselves, of course) that the U.S. consumes too much of the world’s energy, is too oppressive and doesn’t “get it” that European nations are the “enlightened” ones and that we just need to fall in line with them. Thankfully, most Americans are honest, hard-working, decent people who won’t put up with his nonsense. Doug Schoen, a Democrat pollster, says the elections in November will yield “unambiguous” results. The Obama administration is well aware of this and that’s why they are trying to pass as much of their “progressive, enlightened” agenda as possible before then. Eon is spot on in saying there will be two sets of rules: one for the Leona Helmsleys (“only little people pay taxes”) and AlGores (do what I say, not what I do) of the world, and another for the rest of us peons. It will only get worse until a truly conservative & backboned Congress and President are elected and make the hard choices to get our country back on track, the political fallout notwithstanding. Although they made a mistake in Nov. 2008, the American people, in the end, will make the right choice(s).
Pelosi’s job approval: 11%. Dingy Harry Reid’s job approval: 8%.
Mmm . . . that’s gotta sting.
In most jobs, those numbers would get you immediately fired.
This response is for whoever reads to Poor Citizen: The reasons Obamacare is a government takeover are several. First, it completely dissembles the nature of insurance. Companies are not allowed to issue policies based on actuarial risk, but on pre-determined principles of fairness. It isn’t “fair” that some people’s health care expenses cost more, so we won’t charge higher premiums. This may work in the comic book world you inhabit, Poor Citizen, but not in a real economy.
Second, the 600 pound gorilla here is the federal government. Private insurance companies tie their “reimbursements” to doctors based on what Medicare and Medicaid pay. As those entities lowball payments, doctors get squeezed. Contrary to what you might think, we all don’t drive BMWs and belong to country clubs. Primary care doctors in rural areas make the lowest amounts in medicine already. Obama allegedly wants numbers of primary care doctors to increase, but it’s hard to see how that will happen if they can’t afford to remain in business.
The “Public Option” is going to appear on the horizon again after smaller companies go out of business and there are longer waits for care. At that point the doors of the Trojan horse will open.
PC, they have laid the table for it. Social Security was sold as a program that paid benefits when a man reached age 65 when the average life expectancy of a man was, tah dah, age 65. It is now officially bankrupt.
Two easy things to imagine. First, insurance companies will have to play by federal rules (covering pre-existing conditions with no hope of income recovery; imagine the car insurance analog, capping their rates, etc..) that are highly likely to either bankrupt them or drive them out of business. Then the feds conveniently step in to provide single payer.
Second, the feds will have to “approve” insurance plans. Do you think that they will qualify a doctor going off the grid as “qualified”? Yeah, neither do I.
Thirdly, economics ultimately are about supply and demand. Do you think that more or less people will want to continue or pursue a career in the medical field post this legislation? Yeah, I don’t think so either. So we will go from having a first class medical delivery system to one that looks more like how Housing and Urban Devlopment operates; excited about that?
So if you think that our beloved president who has never managed a budget larger than that of a community activist’s office thinks he has any clue about how real world economics work, you may want to start rethinking that supposition.
To Poor Citizen #10,
Since nobody else has tried answering your point, I’ll try to make it clear to you. Everything that’s been explained to you about a “government takeover” of health care is absolutely true. But the takeover is to be phased in over several years. So OF COURSE your insurance company will still be providing your coverage, but the federal government will be increasingly controlling your insurance company through regulations and mandates. That means the feds will be telling your insurance company what MUST be covered, as well as those treatments which will no longer be paid for. Government bureaucrats on a comparative effectiveness panel will determine the “cost-effectiveness” of every available treatment, and THEY will dictate what your insurance company is allowed to cover. But this is only one phase of the takeover. Once our doctors are informed that some procedures will be covered and some will not, those procedures that are not covered will no longer be available to you because your doctor will not be compensated for it. The government will also be determining whether your insurance company can cover a certain procedure based on your age and relative health. This follows Ezekiel Emanuel’s “Complete Lives” approach. So as you get older, your chances of getting a particular treatment approved will diminish because your life expectancy at age 60 is less than if you are age 20. Or if you are chronically ill, treating you with expensive procedures may be determined too costly based on your chances of recovery. This is the next phase of the takeover. All insurance companies will be required to insure anyone who comes to them, regardless of pre-existing conditions, and the government will not allow them to charge more for that coverage. So what you will see in this next phase of the takeover is smaller insurance companies merging with larger companies, OR, going out of business completely. And of course by that time the government will have created their “insurance exchanges” where those people who’s insurance companies have been forced out of business (or who’s employers no longer offer coverage) will have to go to purchase their government mandated insurance coverage. A crippled insurance industry will be the next phase of the takeover. When there are few to no insurance companies available to purchase insurance from, the government will be “forced” to step in and offer a medicaid/medicare style “single payer” insurance option for everyone who is still mandated to purchase insurance. At this point, the takeover will be complete. All technological advancement in medical care will cease, determined to be “too expensive” to pursue, and even those treatments which are still available will be meted out only to those the government has determined to be worthy of the expense.
So no, the takeover didn’t suddenly come to us at the signing ceremony of this atrocious bill. But you can be certain that every step toward absolute government control of health care IS laid out within the pages of that monstrous law.
We must REPEAL AND REPLACE, or we will surely die trying.
Since poor citizen chose to repeat his post from yesterday’s thread I will repeat mine with a little extra.
Poor Citizen is clearly of limited intelligence. I will explain it to you.
Your insurance company will soon be an agent of the government and only provide services that government allows. It will not be able to offer you either a cheaper policy that covers less or a premium policy that covers more.
This is how Fascism operates. It doesn’t nationalize industry, it nationalizes the people, i.e,. you and me. Like 1933-45 Germany and 1921-1943 Italy there will be the surviving insurance companies with private names but they will all be controlled by the government.
I agree with many conservatives that at heart Obama is a Communist but with the fall of the Soviet Union nobody except a few academics remain operationally faithful to the myth of Das Kapital. Instead they have come to accept Mussolini’s model of collectivism for the practical purpose of governing. As China’s President Hu Jintao would say they have come to see that you must adapt Socialism to local conditions. I guess Mussolini would say that Fascism is the form Socialism takes when you account for national social-cultural dynamics.
Fascism is not opposition to Socialism as poor citizen would have you believe. It is Socialism properly understood.
And an afterthought.
You see Comrade, our version of Il Duce is so much smarter then you. He understands that when he allows the fiction of private enterprise to exist all declines in the quality of care will blamed on doctors and insurance companies. If on the other hand he went with a full government takeover of the medical system right away failures will be blamed on him. Obama does plan to eventually move to a single payer system but her will wait until the memory of quality medical for everyman to fade from the collective memory. He or his successor will then scapegoat the faux market and take the system over. You can read what happens after that here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7529454/Hospital-wards-to-shut-in-secret-NHS-cuts.html
I think America is a country of people so brainwashed and devoid of “think for yourself” ability, so consumed by foxcnnmsnbcnprabccbsetal…that any opinion outside that mainstream is not considered. The foundational understanding of the macro issues at playing the US is completely unknown to the public…
This includes PJ…
Faced with a reality, outside America’s brainwashing, they accept rude adjectives rather than consider “could I be wrong”…
It is over…you do not understand what is being done, you do not know how to elect people that are representative of “us”; not ideology or corporations or the military industrial…
You would not know Jesus if he walked in your church…You could not recognize the “actual market conditions” if they were spelled out in black and white…
It is over…you do not understand what is being done, you do not know how to elect people that are representative of “us”; not idealogy or corporations or the military industrial…
You would not know Jesus if he walked in your church…You could not recognize the “actual market conditions” if they were spelled out in black and white…
Well, you can’t hold Congress accountable for Unintended Consequences. After all, they are trying as hard as the can.
Great comment, eon!
I agree that B is the answer for some, but A certainly works for many, because they think “things are different this time” because they are smarter than the last group that failed. Of course, that is how the last group talked themselves into the last fiasco.
Keep writing!
Harry
If you think this article and most others at PM are factual and news worthy you are fools and deserve to to looked upon as sheep who are flocked to the right side of wrongness.
“In fact, historians of social programs see no correlation between the intensity of controversy at the birth of a program and its ultimate popularity.”
There was little controversy when FDR pushed his New Deal programs through Congress. As matter of fact, they were wildly popular. Dissent was muted because the president’s ideological thugs intimidated the media outlets. The eventual costs of Medicare were also downplayed. We now know that it was far too expensive. In our present era, the alternative media is force to be reckoned with. The MSM no longer runs the show. Americans are quickly learning about the destructive aspects of Obamacare.
10. Poor Citizen: Your Medicaid won’t change right away.
-
-
The Unions thought they would be immune-
ATT is taking a 1 billion dollar hit.
Caterpillar and others are in the hundreds of millions of dollars loss column.
Union jobs and retirement benefits will be lost.
(you voted for the punk)
Trillions of dollars to be lost on top of the trillions of dollars already stolen by this administration.
November will be a Bloodbath for the Demo-rats.
but poor certified will still get his check.
Well just doing a little back of the envelope cost benefit analysis, I spend 1400 dollars a month on health care premiums, after taxes. I can cancel the insurance, go on the public dole or sign up for insurance when I need it, pay a 2000 dollar tax penalty, and save 12000 dollar a year in health care costs. Looks good to me. I’m sure many others are making the same calculations. Looks like the end of the private health care insurance industry. Yes indeed, incentives do work. Of course, next year they’ll need a VAT tax to pay for the sky rocketing public health care costs. If you can get past the violence factor, Mexico is starting to look good. Costa Rica? Besides, the drug cartel wars are coming to America anyway. Why should we be exceptional?
Spit at them all. Spit at Poor Citizen. Spit at Gary. They don’t want to listen. Don’t bother throwing pearls before swine, just spit on them.
10. Poor Citizen:
“The government never took health care over….”
“I do not understand….please explain…”
So why ask for an explanation? Disingenuous?
An eight-lane highway is being built, and your doorstep has a close up view of it. Being Poor Citizen, you are a bit alarmed that it appears the some unknown entity, Smith Construction, is building this. You contact Smith Construction and ask them to stop immediately. Smith Construction refers you to a letter they sent telling you that you will use the highway too, but you sue, and you lose. However, you are relieved to find out during the proceedings that the government has mandated, planned, funded and owns the highway in totality, and that Smith Construction made only a mandated profit.
You are happy, and now enjoy your mandated view of your mandated highway immensely.
The next day you get in your mandated car, wearing your mandated clothes, drive down the mandated highway to your mandated job, where you work with your racial – gender – ________ mandated team, producing a mandated number of widgets in a mandated fashion, for a mandated number of hours, receiving a mandated amount of sustenance, with provisions for mandated health, happiness, and well being. You then go home to your mandated family, where you partake in mandated down time, and wonder (mandated) why the hell anyone would not want to live in your mandated village, Mandaville GI.1961.8.04.
By the way, your sexual mandate has been eliminated, and you discover that your ex-partner, who is the mandated best friend of your present mandated partner, is the chair of the mandated Sexual Appropriation Committee in your mandated village. Oh well, the greater mandated good is being served.
Happy (mandated) mandated life… and death! Mandated?
This progressive tyranny, beginning with Obamacare, is very much like what I would imagine to be a sodomist rape…
The gang of perpetrators has overwhelming force on its side. While they pin you down the Sodomizer-In-Chief smirks as he tells you, “Don’t resist, just relax and it won’t be that bad. Actually, you might even end up enjoying it.”
All apartment rents will be going up at least 3.8% because of the added Medicare tax on rental income. Starting this year.
Landlords costs go up – Renters costs go up.
Enjoying your Federally directed health care – where’s my rent check?
Now the facts finally : Those with over 50 Employees and grossing over % 250.000.00 will be laying off many employees . Small business is over 72.6 % of all American business Obama is at war with sadly ?
There is no way Small Business can put up 100 % of the new health care payments even D med.s , new taxes , more capitol gains and Corp taxes.. cost of Green EPA B/S ……Obama well knows .
This is really about his war on Capitalism all radical Socialist hate .
After being a small business man for 40 years there is no way I would start a new business today .
I own me not Big Govt.
In the next 3 months America will learn the fine print hidden until now .It will blow even a simple mans mind .
If this bill is not repealed We are on our way to be a Greece and Spain currently .
Fore those who know a little about economies …. ACCORDING TO CBO own figures starting in 2011 ….. Govt, cost will be 90 % of GDP .
During WW 2 IT WAS 24 % .
The welfare state on steroids.
35. ReConUSMC:
The first social program to go will be disability benefits.
Then drastic cuts in state Medicaid and then govt. Medicare benefits.
Social Security will be the last to go under because any politician that messes with it will be tarred and feathered,
but it will still go under.
90% of GDP is impossible to maintain unless you print money like Zimbabwe.
Local Paperboy-
http://www.zimtelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/zimbabwe-money-bread-boy-kid1.jpg
Most of the ‘lay at home’ deadbeats will be sleeping under bridges.
So…what part of The Constitution gives the government the power to regulate and license marriage? If you take that power away from it, the power it doesn’t have, anyway, you won’t have to worry about such legal ‘penalties’ or taxes against marriage.
The underlying problem, of course, is that social conservatives and progressive socialists can’t see their way past using the government to try to tell the rest of us how to live.
#4 For a historian to be discussing ‘ultimate popularity’ strains credibility. That’s crossing into the realm of a soothsayer. The failures of social security and medicare are playing out now and the reasons for it are the same as the arguments against their implementation in the first place.
I fear that violence is on the horizon but I don’t know if that is such a bad thing. The Marxist/socialists have spent over 100 hundred years dismantling the constitution is it possible to restore the Republic working through the current system?
26. Methman:
Your name is perfect for your assertion.
@#40
Pursue every avenue of peaceful resolution, first.
…but stock up on the beans, bullets and band-aids and get to know your local survivalist or Prepper.
We’re almost out of options.
Read Patrick Henry’s speech in the Virginia convention, and insert, “White House” Congress,” “Senate” and “House” in the appropriate spots and see if sounds like something you could say, yourself, today.
38. Warren Bonesteel:
Actually you won’t even find the word marriage in the constitution at all!
Gambling that no one will ever age or get sick makes perfect sense to me.
What bothers me is without the pain or suffering that would come from less than perfect health or age what incentive would people have to live their lives in service of the wealthy and powerful.
Ann Coulter says it best; the troops, the mechanics, the barbers, hairdressers, dishwashers, cashiers, janitors and senior citizen attendants pay no taxes anyway.
What right have half of the nations citizens to demand anything.
It is just a privilege to make your children available for service and be able to tithe in this great nation of winners.
Rush says competition is what made this country great, not the sacrifice of the noble or brave, not the devotion to duty of our military or the dedication of our service people, but the need to strive to be better than your neighbor, and move as soon as you can to a better neighborhood.
If we are not careful the wealthy will leave, then what will we do for jobs? Drill for oil?
38. Marriage contracts are the purview of state governments. Doing away with marriage as a legal institution may be a good idea, but for one aspect- spousal privilege in court testimony. It, too, appears nowhere in the Constitution, but rather in the Bible. The spousal privilege extends from the right not to be compelled to testify against oneself and the belief that husband and wife “become one flesh.”
Fore those who know a little about economies …. ACCORDING TO CBO own figures starting in 2011 ….. Govt, cost will be 90 % of GDP .
Guys, get a grip. That’s debt, not expenditures.
Has anyone given an ounce of thought to what will happen to ordinary Americans who can`t pay the enormous health taxes coming our way? Will the IRS seize our homes for payment and toss us to the streets? Will our paltry bank accounts be emptied? Then what?
“Fore those who know a little about economies …. ACCORDING TO CBO own figures starting in 2011 ….. Govt, cost will be 90 % of GDP .
During WW 2 IT WAS 24 % .”
I don’t know what those numbers are supposed to represent, but government spending at all levels (federal/state/local) was about 35% of GDP when Obama was elected. By the time the Democrats get done with reorganizing America, I reckon it will be more like 50%, which will make us about even with the most socialistic European states.
During WWII (when everything under the sun was rationed), government spending was also about 50% of GDP, with the vast majority of that spending going to the military, of course.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html
Back in the days when the United States grew to be the economic monster of the world (mainly in the last half of the 19th century under the wise rule of the Republicans…well, wiser than the Democrats, anyway), government spending was more like 5% of GDP…which is exactly why we grew so rich. It’s not because we had a good government, it’s because we hardly had any government.
If we keep going the way we’re going, we’re going to lose all the economic advantage we used to have over foreign nations. We’ve already lost most of it, thanks to nitwits like Woody Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and we’re going to lose the rest of in due course, and we’ll also be living under a totalitarian state that controls virtually every thing we do.
Hope that’s what folks want…’cause that’s what you’re going to get if you keep voting liberals into power.
You’re reaching, guys. Like the tenth season of a bad sitcom, you’re really, really reaching.
The left is unhinged. This article is unhinged. It is opinion journalism at its best.
Hyperbole about Grandma getting divorced is unnecessary and silly.
Rector’s article presents the facts without the foolishness in this article.
The impact of these subsidies goes well beyond Grandma.
Should you stop selling on eBay – the largest home business site on the web?
Should blogs remove advertising?
Should people start home businesses?
Should employers convince people to take pay cuts?
Should employees ask for pay cuts?
And please note, facts well presented speak for themselves. If you have to add hype to make a point, you weaken your case.
I submit that there may be more small businesses going off line that grandma’s getting divorced.
But the MSM type headline about Grandma would get more attention than one about small business.
The approach to the discussion of the isssue in this article is childish, I submit. And in line with the way the left is dicussing issues.
The healthcare-related increased tax burden on businesses, investors, even renters, will necessarily mean most Americans will see substantial increases in their cost of living. So though Obama insists most Americans will not see tax increases, his policies will precipitate the same net effect of leaving most of us with a little less money in our pocket. The only difference is that, in his deluded mind and with his deceptive speech, Obama will claim innocence to any rise in rent costs or consumer goods prices. He’ll point an accusatory finger to those “evil” profiteering corporations, conveniently ignoring how it’s his tax schemes that will force them to raise prices to cover the excess costs.
How many companies do you think will be willing to hire new employees? How can we keep businesses from leaving the US if we keep raising the cost of doing business here? If we penalize some things through taxation, and promote others through subsidies -what does it mean when our government seems to be taxing success and subsidizing mediocrity?
“We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle” — Winston Churchill
Where is the petition by the people for our House of Representatives to impeach Mr. Obama?
Has anyone else pointed out the 3.8% tax on divdens and RENTAL INCOME. Now I put that in all caps because once our leases and rental agreements are up currently is there anyone who doubts that the 3.8% tax won’t be passed on to the renters?
The cheesy narcissist in chief is quite pleased with his rape of America.
*gags*
Conservatives don’t want to raise any taxes to pay for any ‘socialist’ programs like Medicare, health care, etc. No one is going out of business for raising taxes. Look at the price of gasoline, it went from about $1 to about $4 and now at $3. What did people do? They bought mileage efficient cars, took public transportation, walked, bicycled, and re-prioritized purchasing decision. It’s going to happen again. Expensive emergency room visits will be traded for scheduled doctor office visits. More preventive care will develop a healthier population, or at least avoid expensive emergencies, again.
Concentrating in the POTENTIAL negative aspects of the plan doesn’t resolve anything. If you see a pothole, fix it, not whine about it.
Vivo says: “Expensive emergency room visits will be traded for scheduled doctor office visits.”
No Emergency room visits will increase like they have in Massachusetts because the waiting line for medical appointments will increase and people with immediate problems won’t be able to get a timely appointment.
http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/23/skyrocketing-massachusetts-health-costs-could-foreshadow-high-price-of-obamacare/
He also said: More preventive care will develop a healthier population, or at least avoid expensive emergencies, again.”
Once again no. This bill will reduce availability of medical services in general and access to specialized care in particular so the practice of preventive medicine will be impeded. The Federal government has already recommended that women between 40 and 50 and over 75 not get mammograms. Twenty states have followed suit and with passage of the new healthcare bill these restriction will be applied across the board. An increasing number of preventive procedures will be restricted due to cost effectiveness calculations. We have adopted the European socialist healthcare model and will stop treating sick people. Our survival rates for heart attack and cancer will fall to European levels. It is always cheaper not to treat sick people then try to cure them. All this talk of preventive care is a smoke screen because health problems are either due to lifestyle decisions or genetics. Given that the most productive medical research will come to an end in the United States as it has in Canada and Europe we will be dependent on others to find cures for the genetic component. Even then it will have to pass the very high hurdle of comparative effectiveness.
Remember: future socialism always succeeds where both current and historic socialism have failed.
I repeat the future of American Healthcare:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7529454/Hospital-wards-to-shut-in-secret-NHS-cuts.html
Vivo, you’re being naive.
A) “No one is going out of business for raising taxes.” Tell that to those who will likely be laid off because of the business downsizings precipitated by the higher taxes.
Higher taxes = more expensive to run businesses = businesses less likely to hire/expand -or more likely to downsize- at precisely the time we NEED more jobs. Why are companies moving to China/Mexico? Do you think they’ll be LESS likely to move if we raise the cost of business? Why is it that states with lower tax rates (e.g. Arizona, New Mexico) have better economic outlooks, while states with higher tax rates (e.g. California, NY, MA) are worse off?
B) “Look at the price of gasoline, it went from about $1 to about $4 and now at $3. What did people do? They bought mileage efficient cars, took public transportation…” How innocuous. Did you forget how those in the underclass struggled to heat their homes in winter? How they found it hard to buy food, given higher prices? The fact is, the rise in the price of oil made everything that required transportation -including food- more expensive, and it contributed to our economic stagnation. Higher taxes threaten to do the same.
Have you stopped to think WHO will pay these taxes? Do you really think the “greedy evil” corporations will take a hit on their profits? More likely, they’ll cut costs -by cutting jobs or shifting them overseas – or they’ll pass on the increased cost to consumers. So indirectly, it’s the consumer who is getting taxed. Your money supply may be the same, but as prices rise, your purchasing power decreases. You still have $100 in your pocket -but what you wish to buy now costs $108… Perhaps for you, a 5-8% drop in your purchasing power won’t mean much, but to many of us, it will. And given that much of our economy depends on consumer spending, if we buy less, the economy stagnates.
C) “More preventive care will… at least avoid expensive emergencies, again.” You’re towing the myth that preventive care will save money. For each individual who is successfully diagnosed with cancer through prevention, thousands of healthy individuals must be screened, driving up costs. And individuals who are discovered to have chronic illnesses earlier (e.g. diabetes) will thus begin receiving treatment (sometimes expensive) earlier. Prevention may help America be healthier, but it certainly will not lower costs.
Cost increases aren’t POTENTIAL -they’re real. Several companies (AT&T, John Deere, Valero Oil, etc., see http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704100604575146002445136066.html ) have already announced they will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to cover the changes in the tax code. Where do you think they’ll get the money?
Even New Hampshire ski resorts are being hit: “John DiStaso of the New Hampshire Union Leader reported this week that ObamaCare could cost the Granite State’s major ski resorts as much as $1 million in fines, because they hire large numbers of seasonal workers without offering health benefits. ‘The choices are pretty clear, either increase prices or cut costs, which could mean hiring fewer workers next winter,’ he wrote.”
So in the end, Obama can give all the florid speeches he wants -they won’t change the reality that it will be you and me -and everyone- who will pay for Obamacare.
“This article is unhinged. It is opinion journalism at its best.”
An opinion fully supported by a plethora of facts in not unhinged. Your use of it @ #50 indicates you do not know what the word means. Your string of “should’s” shows you do not understand the meaning of the phrase, “marginal utility”.
The sum of the healthcare bill is to, among other things, decrease the marginal utility of marriage amongst the aged.
That is an opinion this article well supports by facts.
Your post at #50 are a bit unhinged, however.
Take your lumps with grace or not, your option.
Chileno:
You nailed it on Vivo’s attempt to apply market economics to his talking points. The $4+ gas price was the pin that pricked the housing bubble as stained budget could no longer support mortgage payments.
Has anyone, including Tom, actually read the bill?
Too many people watch America burn and run for the marshmellow’s.
#61, The answer is “yes, the Senate bill,” to the extent such things can be “read.” There are so many references to other areas of the law not in the text that you would literally have to have had the entire federal code available so you could find out what the true effect of inserted or deleted language is. Did I do that? No. Did anyone in Congress who voted for this monstrosity even get in the neighborhood of doing that? Puh-leeze.
To get to another inherent element of your question, which is “where did the subsidy amounts come from?” — much but by no means all of the answer is at a Kaiser Family Foundation calculator here:
http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx
For single/cohabiting (and treated as single) people at the higher income levels, Rector built the tables and made the comparisons by putting in various combinations of income and age based on the Senate bill as of January 20. But at lower income levels he also had to take into account other additional subsidizing factors in the bill. For Married couples, he had to do more work on his own, because the Kaiser calculator is limited to either singles or a family of 4.
You can verify how the subsidies at medium/higher income levels disappear by playing around with income amounts and seeing what happens to the subsidy. There is also a new choice where you can do the calculations based on the final legislation.
The final legislation does not materially change the table results obtained. For example a family of four making $85,000 gets a subsidy of $10,625. A family of four making $90,000 gets no subsidy — effectively a 212% “tax” ($10,625 divided by $5,000) on $5,000 in additional income, before consider federal income, FICA, Medicare, and state/local income taxes. This is economic madness — but great for keeping people in their place.
57. tdiinva:
58. Chileno:
Downsizing and layoffs never helped companies in the long term. When you look at the stable workforces of France and Japan, you see motivated workers and good productivity. Slightly raising prices a and maintaining quality should help companies to survive and thrive. How much did you pay for a loaf of bread in 1950 and how much is it now?
Maybe you are right that emergency room visits will increase and doctors will be swamped. But this demand should motivate people to join the ranks of medical care. If Americans don’t supply the numbers, foreign doctors will jump into the game. Look at high tech.
You also may be right that preventive care could create another flood of patients and treatments. But some diseases, like diabetes, can be treated by educating large groups of people in treating themselves through diet, exercise and monitoring. Most of the work is done by nurses and technicians. Other creative solutions will be developed. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Obama and his D-rat storm troops have declared war on the American people. We will defend ourselves. This illegitimate, lying, mentally unbalanced, racist, anti-semitic, anti-American tyrant will get what he deserves.
Let’s not forget who foisted this fascist twerp on us: Big Media, gov’mint employee unions, academic intellectuals, George Soros, ACORN, the UN, and Hollywood idiots, for starters. The list is long. Their voices are loud and strident, but their true popular support is very small. Now that their mendacious “health care” cram-down is being exposed for the outrage which it in fact is, they actually have the nerve to bray that those of us who object should be rounded up and killed. Yet they dare to attack us for inciting violence! A very large goose has just the sauce for that gander.
These louts are public enemies. Their goal is to enslave us. They are treasonous gangsters, and we will hold them all accountable, in whatever form and however long it takes.
Vivo:
You don’t see doctors flocking to Canada or Great Britain to alleviate the doctor shortage do you? Why aren’t doctors flocking to Massachusetts? Doctors are imported because the local population does not see a high enough rate of return to go into medicine. Government medicine reduces doctors incomes and supply necessarily goes down.
“Downsizing and layoffs never helped companies in the long term.”
If it gets them throught short term, it sure does. Can you have three consecutive words come out of your kbd without lying or saying something inane?
Vivo,
Companies need to survive the short term before thinking about the long term. And in order to survive the millions -if not billions- in added costs, they will do what they’ve always done before: downsize. It’s debatable whether downsizing hurts companies in the long run. What is certain is how downsizing destroys individual workers’ livelihoods.
I don’t think we’re talking about “slightly raising prices…”, but we’ll have to see how events unfold. I hardly think it’s fair to talk about bread in the 1950s – inflation will always be present, regardless of government policies (Pepsi was 5 cents in the early 20th century). But government policies like this healthcare law can exacerbate inflationary tendencies and accelerate the erosion of an individual’s purchasing power, beyond that of “regular” inflation.
“…help companies survive and thrive…” Wow, never thought you’d be pro-business!
Increased demand for medical care won’t necessarily mean there will be more doctors. There’s a limited number of medical schools in the US, and there are limited spaces in US medical residency programs (which any foreign doc has to go through as well), and I don’t see plans to expand med school/residency slots. Physicians aren’t like plumbers or construction workers, there is only a limited number that can enter the workforce each year. You also assume more individuals than presently do, can or even wish to go through the trials that being a doctor entail. But with rising medical school costs (many docs leave med school with $100,000+ in debt), decreasing reimbursements, and the ever present threat of being sued (which this so-called healthcare reform failed to address), this may not be a certainty. If being a doc today was so
attractive, why do polls show many older docs -citing the deteriorating work environment- considering closing their practices? The current healthcare law will leave us with a greater, not a lesser shortage of docs in the near future. True, nurse practicioners have filled in part of the shortage, but we’re also presently in the midst of a nursing shortage as well…
You are right that things like smoking/diabetes/obesity -major causes of illness in the US- could be treated by educating the masses. The problem is the masses don’t want to be educated. Major
ad campaigns could help (is this even envisioned in the new healthcare law?), but many love their bad habits and won’t want to give them up… Look at smoking: after years of its widely known detrimental health effects, and despite being ever more ostracized in society, a sizeable minority of the population still chooses to smoke. Personally, I’d support greater “sin” taxes, including taxes on soft drinks. The government can’t stop people from engaging in harmful behavior, but it might be able to discourage it, or at the very least make those who engage in these harmful practices pay a greater share, as they will eventually be among those who over-utilize our healthcare system!
Socialism taking our nation without fireing a shot. Freedom isn’t free.