Category: Obamacare

Sarah Palin has been vindicated

Remember the whole controversy about Sarah Palin and her quip about “death panels” that had the left all pouncing on her and calling her stupid?

She has just been vindicated. Here’s a telling commentary from the WSJ:

You would think it would be simple to find a health-exchange plan that allows me, living in San Diego, to continue to see my primary oncologist at Stanford University and my primary care doctors at the University of California, San Diego. Not so. UCSD has agreed to accept only one Covered California plan—a very restrictive Anthem EPO Plan. EPO stands for exclusive provider organization, which means the plan has a small network of doctors and facilities and no out-of-network coverage (as in a preferred-provider organization plan) except for emergencies. Stanford accepts an Anthem PPO plan but it is not available for purchase in San Diego (only Anthem HMO and EPO plans are available in San Diego).

So if I go with a health-exchange plan, I must choose between Stanford and UCSD. Stanford has kept me alive—but UCSD has provided emergency and local treatment support during wretched periods of this disease, and it is where my primary-care doctors are.

Before the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.

What happened to the president’s promise, “You can keep your health plan”? Or to the promise that “You can keep your doctor”? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician.

For a cancer patient, medical coverage is a matter of life and death. Take away people’s ability to control their medical-coverage choices and they may die. I guess that’s a highly effective way to control medical costs. Perhaps that’s the point.

via A Stage-4 Gallblader Cancer Survivor Says: I Am One of ObamaCare’s Losers – WSJ.com.

You cannot say the people were not warned. I spent a good deal of time on my last blog and on this one here; arguing the fact that Obamacare was going to be a utter disaster and you know what? I and every other Conservative blogger were right about it and now; you can see it here, up close and in color.

I hope the Democrats enjoy the crap sandwich that they have made. Because it is going to be a long time before they ever recover for this little overreach.

Others: Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Colorado Peak Politics, The Jawa Report, The Daily Caller,TheBlaze.com, Power Line, Forbes, Scared Monkeys, The Right Scoop, americanthinker.com, Betsy’s Page, Mediaite, The PJ Tatler, Weasel Zippers, The Gateway Pundit, Conservatives4Palin and Twitchy (via Memeorandum)

Sean Hannity is an honorable man (With Video)

What I am about to share with you is something amazing. What happened is this; on Monday, Sean Hannity called the 1-800 number for the Obamacare hotline. He gets an operator that will actually talk to him, and basically, tell him the truth about the Obamacare website; and what happens? She gets fired. Sean Hannity not only gives this woman her year’s pay, but also offers to try and get her another job. It is a classy move on Hannity’s part and I commend him for it.

For the record, this woman was employed by a contractor; not the U.S. Government. But, they fired her for talking to the media. Did they bother to tell her not to do this in the first place? No, they didn’t. 😡

I’ll tell you this too; if you think that this order to fire this woman, didn’t come down from the White House, you are crazy.

The Video:

The Transcript:


SEAN HANNITY: Something happened between the time we made that call to you, and now, what happened?

ERLING DAVIS: They fired me from my job.

HANNITY: Because of the phone call, the information that you gave us?

DAVIS: Yes sir.

HANNITY: Tell us what happened.

DAVIS: Okay, the day I received the call from the radio station, I had to go pick up my best friend that night, and then someone was like, ”someone was looking for you.” But, I don’t know who that person is. So I was like, well I’m going to come back in the morning, because I had to go back to work. So the next day I came back and they had, like, two people escort me upstairs to H.R. And then it was three head people and me, we sat down, and I’m like, “why am I up here?” I figured, okay, they wanna talk about the phone call – the incident.

Then the lady sitting behind the desk; I don’t know what their name is, but the lady that was sitting behind the desk, I guess called up another head lady on her cell phone, so the lady was talking, and I couldn’t really understand what she was saying because she had me on speakerphone. I remember her saying, “We can’t have this type of stuff going on here, so we have to release you.” But they had locked the doors and everything; I guess they didn’t want anybody to come in there.
So when she told me they had to release me, that’s when I put my name tag – my badge – on the desk, and something was going wrong with my cell phone, so that’s when I tried to call my ride to come pick me up, but the lady next to me was just, like, being rude. She had, like, an attitude.

HANNITY: Now, did they give you… You were hired… How long had you been working with this company?

DAVIS: I started September 23.

HANNITY: Okay, so it’s a fairly new job for you. Did they—I assume they put you through some training, right?

DAVIS: Yes sir, they did.

HANNITY: And did they ever tell you that you’re not allowed to take a call from a radio show? Your job was to answer phones.

DAVIS: I did not hear anything about that. There were so many of us in a big group, you can only talk so loud.

HANNITY: Right, and one of the things that struck me. I was really impressed, and I said that to you on Monday. You are patient, you are kind, you answered all our questions. You were totally honest. Wasn’t that what you were hired to do?

DAVIS: Yeah, I’m just out here tryin’ to help everybody. And I know, like, some people have been making bad comments about me. Some people have been making good comments about me. But, some people are like, “Oh, you knew you shouldn’t have said that!” And I’m just like, okay… I kinda felt bad about it. My gosh, I got fired.

HANNITY: And what was the specific reason? When they sat you down, did they give you a specific reason?

DAVIS: They said that no contact with the media. No type of media whatsoever. We’re not allowed to do that at that company.

HANNITY: Meaning, in other words, they didn’t tell you before you were hired, they didn’t tell you during your training, but then they told you after the fact that you aren’t allowed to be on the media if somebody called in. It’s not your fault I called.

Hopefully, she gets back to work, to provide for her kids. I just wonder how long it is, before she starts getting death threats from the losers on left; who call her a house negro and/or sellout for taking the gift of charity from Sean Hannity. It is to wonder. 🙄

Others:  Hot Air, Villainous Company, The PJ Tatler, Independent Journal Review and The Gateway Pundit (Via Memeorandum)

Video: Republicans are turning on Ted Cruz

As I wrote on here before — twice, the Republican picked the wrong game to play here and now, they’re paying for it. Not to mention that the Republicans have been utter hypocrites on the entire Obamacare issue.

The Story:

A Republican congressman said Monday that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is largely responsible for the first government shutdown since 1996.

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that while he believes many individuals are at fault, including President Barack Obama, he said Cruz and others who bought into the quixotic campaign to defund the Affordable Care Act “took a lot of folks into the ditch.”

“But if I had to cast blame anywhere, I would say it was Sen. Cruz and those who insisted upon this tactic that we all knew was not going to succeed,” Dent said. “What he did essentially, Sen. Cruz, basically, he took a lot of folks into the ditch. Now that we’re in the ditch, you can’t get out of the ditch, the senator has no plan to get out of the ditch, those of us who do have a plan to get out of the ditch and will vote to get out of the ditch will then be criticized by those who put us in the ditch in the first place.”

Dent said that he will continue to urge House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to bring a “clean” continuing resolution — one that includes no language to undermine the health care law — to a vote.

via GOP Rep Blames Cruz For Shutdown: ‘He Took A Lot Of Folks Into The Ditch’ (VIDEO).

Republican Hypocrisy on Obamacare?

Hmmmmmmmm…..

Via the Nation:

Even before President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, Republicans were vowing to repeal it. It’s no wonder, because polls showed that the basic elements of the ACA were quite popular, and there was a real danger that it would become more so as people found out that the plan denounced as a “monstrosity” by the National Republican Senatorial Committee would not trample on their liberties so much as help protect their health. Desperate to avoid this, the GOP-controlled House has voted no fewer than thirty-seven times to repeal Obamacare in the three years since it was enacted.

Now letters produced by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that many of these same anti-Obamacare Republicans have solicited grants from the very program they claim to despise. This is evidence not merely of shameless hypocrisy but of the fact that the ACA bestows tangible benefits that even Congress’s most extreme right-wing ideologues are hard-pressed to deny to their constituents.

As I reported here last September, Congressman Paul Ryan, who as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012 called for its repeal, sent a letter requesting ACA money for health clinics in his district two years earlier. The Nation has obtained documents revealing that at least twenty other Obamacare-bashing GOP lawmakers have similarly pleaded for ACA funds on behalf of constituents. Among them are Kristi Noem, a Republican lawmaker from South Dakota likely to run for the Senate next year, as well as Ohio Senator Rob Portman, who has been touted as a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2016.

In one of two letters sent by Portman to the Department of Health and Human Services, the senator requested ACA funds to help a federal health center in Cleveland, where the money could help “an additional 8,966 uninsured individuals” to receive
”essential services,” in his words. In Noem’s case, the congresswoman requested ACA funds to construct a community health center in Rapid City to provide primary services to the uninsured. Both Noem and Portman won office in 2010 campaigning vigorously against the law and have since worked to repeal it.

Though notably less transparent, the behavior of these GOP lawmakers parallels that of GOP governors like Arizona’s Jan Brewer, who blast the president’s health reform package while embracing the millions in Medicaid funds that it provides.

Here’s the letters, read it and weep for that Party:

Rod Dreher writes one of the smartest things on the shutdown so far.

Good points here:

They are a barking-mad pack of ideologues, is what they are. I haven’t written much about the Obamacare thing because I don’t follow policy closely. As far as I know, Obamacare is a bad idea. But here’s the thing: it’s the law. It was passed, signed by the president, and upheld in the Supreme Court. There is no way the House Republicans, or Ted Cruz or Rand Paul, is going to overturn it. The best they can do is to delay it. And then what? Guess what: the 2012 elections were their last, best chance to overturn Obamacare, and the country didn’t go for it.

[…]

When I think of the Republican Party, I don’t think of principled conservative legislators who are men and women of vision strategy. I think of ideologues who are prepared to wreck things to get their way. They have confused prudence — the queen of virtues, and the cardinal virtue of conservative politics — with weakness. I know I’m very much a minority among conservatives in this, but the behavior of Congressional Republicans pushed me out of the party two years ago, even though I almost always vote Republican, or withhold my vote. I am not a liberal, and do not want to vote for liberals, especially on social policy. But I told a Louisiana conservative friend the other day that the Congressional Republicans are making me consider the previously unthinkable: throwing my vote away by voting for a Democrat in the special election next month to replace my GOP congressman, who just resigned to take another job. The GOP candidates in this local race are hot and heavy to overthrow Obamacare. I think about how poor this district is — 26 percent of the district lives in poverty, making it one of the poorest Congressional districts in America — and how badly we need jobs and economic growth, and I think: What kind of world do these people live in? 

via Rod Dreher – Republicans, Over The Cliff | The American Conservative.

Go read the whole thing, as it makes for a good article.

This too:

There are other battles to fight. These guys are taking the government and the economy to the brink of crisis, and for what? For the sake of rebel yells and the Lost Cause?

Amen. We lost that battle, we should be looking to shore up what we can now and then in 2014 try to win as much as we possibly can; and then, in 2016, go in a new direction with a Republican President that is actually electable. (See 2012 and 2008, please.)

The problem is that Republicans would rather shoot off their own damned toe, to spite their entire foot —- and for what? Making brownie points with a bunch of people, who really do not like them anyhow?

It simply does not make any sense to me at all.

It’s Official: Ted Cruz and the Tea Party lost the battle on Obamacare

All that work, and for what? Nothing. 😡

Senators from both parties linked arms to defy Sen. Ted Cruz, defeating his attempt to filibuster the stopgap spending bill and clearing the way for it to pass — including full funding for Obamacare — later Friday afternoon.

The 79-19 vote saw 25 Republicans join with all Democrats to advance, easily overcoming Mr. Cruz and his allies who had argued this was the key vote in trying to defund President Obama’s healthcare law.

Next up are votes to waive budget rules, to strip out the Obamacare defunding — which Democrats expect to pass on a simple majority vote — and then passage of the bill, which will also only require a majority.

At that point the bill would go back to the House, where Republicans are struggling to figure out a path forward.

“This is like the movie ‘High Noon. The two sides are walking down the street. I just hope that like the movie ‘High Noon,’ I hope the good guys win,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who accused Mr. Cruz and his allies of being anarchists, hoping to destroy governmentaltogether.

He said the country is facing a situation “every bit as dangerous” as the lead-up to the Civil War.

For Republicans, the rhetoric was more muted but the vote was no less weighty.

“Do we just give up?” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican who joined Mr. Cruz’s push to block the spending bill.

Without any action, the government’s authority for basic spending expires at midnight Monday, and operations such as school funding and national parks would have to cease.

The House has passed a bill to fund government through Dec. 15 but to withhold any money for Obamacare. If all goes according to Senate Democrats’ plans, they will pass their own bill that funds government through Nov. 15 and restores money for the health care law.

via Senate defeats Cruz filibuster, passes bill that funds Obamacare – Washington Times.

To tell you the blunt truth; I am so damned angry now — angry at the RHINO Republican establishment, angry at the liberal socialist far leftist Democratic Party. Angry at the ruling class in this Country; just damned angry at the entire damned thing.

This is what happens when people choose someone based upon his speeches and his personality and his SKIN COLOR! This is what happens when Republicans choose someone who could not win a damned election if his damned life depended on it! This is what happens when big Government conservatives rule a damned supposed party that defends the idea that the United States of America is a Constitutional Republic!

I am about ready to just pull the plug on this damned blog, and the old one; and just go on the damned Government dole and say to hell with it. I will be just like everyone else in this damned Country — a damned leech and if the Government collapses under the weight of socialism, and the money is no good anymore; I will just try to survive the best way I can. 😡

This is an outrage, John McCain, Mitch McConnell sold us out and now we’re stuck with that Communist healthcare plan. I can hear it now; when my parents get the notice that their healthcare plan with Blue Cross is cancelled and they are forced to join one of the exchanges and they end up paying MORE for the plan. I can hear it now, “What the hell?!??!?”

I will simply say to my parents: “That’s what you get for voting for a Democrat.”

We are officially screwed.

Enjoy the next three years people — because it is over for America.

 

 

Rep. Peter King makes good sense

I can see where he is coming from, although, I think calling Cruz a “Fraud” is a bit over the top. I especially like one part, which I will bold and underline.

What offends Mr. King is that Mr. Cruz, whose office did not respond to an e-mail message, dared other Republicans to be as pure and relentless in their opposition to the health care program as he is, even though everyone knew his tactics were doomed. It also struck Mr. King as an unprincipled attempt to change the law without consent of the voters. Losing actually means something; Mr. King himself said he had voted against the Obama health care overhaul at every opportunity, then voted to repeal it, and thinks it’s a law that ought to be undone.

“But I also believe in democracy, and I don’t mean that in a Fourth of July way,” he said. “We’ve lost on the House floor, we lost on the Senate floor, the president signed the bill, the Supreme Court held it to be constitutional, and the 2012 election was run on Obamacare as much as any issue. President Obama won.

“I still think we should try to repeal the bill. But you repeal it the same way you passed it. You get bills through both houses of Congress, and you get the president to sign it. The only way we are going to do that is by electing more Republicans and winning the presidential election.”

About two-thirds of the Republicans in the House of Representatives agree with him, Mr. King asserted: “A lot of them are intimidated by the Ted Cruz wing. There were robocalls and efforts in districts throughout the country during August against Republicans, telling them why they had to support defunding Obamacare.

“What do you accomplish? You build up this mailing list for Cruz, and a fund-raising list. And you also are going to generate primaries against people who I would consider to be good Republicans, pretty solid conservative Republicans.”

via A Republican Calls Another a ‘Fraud’ – NYTimes.com.

I believe when Representative King refers to “Democracy” he is simply referring to the political process in general. The fact is though that we are a Constitutional Republic and we have a process and by the process we should go. This filibustering is nothing more than a sideshow for the Republicans and it will also be used as a fundraiser for pressure groups. King is right, the Democrats won the election, and they passed a bill, fair and square. Now, the Republicans need to win some elections, like 2014 and 2016 and get the bill removed. Which is basically what I said right here.

Others:  Weasel Zippers,