Tag: 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)

A perfect illustration why the GOP should not run candidates who cannot win

This is the Country’s payment for the GOP’s stupidity:

Ongoing Federal “stimulus” spending per year = $700B+

$700B+ / ~320,000,000 people = ~$2,200/yr/person.

$2,200 / 12 months = $180/mo/person. (that includes illegals, uninsured, transient tourists, etc. i.e. every “warm body”)

$180/mo could pay for basic catastrophic and (genuine) emergency treatment for every warm body in the US, and NOT require huge bureaucracy or expensive non-functional web sites to accomplish. Canadians pay less than half that per-person for their lame CannuckCare coverage.

via Ace of Spades HQ: The socialized medicine you paid for but never got.

This is what happens when the GOP decides to run a made beltway boy and some Alaskan shrieking harpy Femi-Nazi. Then, after being beaten badly and made to look like fools; the GOP then decides to run a man who is basically the “in the flesh” manifestation of the comic strip “Richy Rich“.  Say what you want; but that is basically what happened.

17 trillion and counting… All because the GOP wanted to twice play nice and wanted to appeal to people, who would not vote for them anyhow. 😡

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).

Left Wing Jewish Hatchet Job on Hobby Lobby?

How is it that people that make up only 2% of the population of the United States of America can be so controlling over Christian Businesses, American Banking, American Politics — liberal and Conservative, and our entire entertainment industry? It just does not make sense.

Sure looks like it to me.

Via HuffPo:

(RNS) Hanukkah comes early this year. But it apparently never comes to Hobby Lobby.

The national craft store owned by conservative billionaire Steve Green seemingly refuses to carry merchandise related to Hanukkah because of Green’s “Christian values,” and some Jews are taking offense.

“I will never set foot in a Hobby Lobby. Ever.” wrote Ken Berwitz, the New Jersey blogger who brought the Hobby Lobby Hanukkah flap to light in a Friday (Sept. 27) blog post.

Berwitz’s outrage has spread to other bloggers who are taking Hobby Lobby to task as a store that courts the general public, but refuses to stock anything related to Judaism — even in communities with significant Jewish populations.

“If they want to sell all over the nation then they must include all people within that nation,” wrote a Jewish visual artist named Abbey on a blog post entitled “Is Hobby Lobby Anti-Semitic?”

Of course, the vultures are coming out of the woodwork to take their swipes at the so-called “Intolerant Christian”.  See here, here, here, and here. I will make a accusation: This is nothing more than a left winged Jewish attack against a Conservative Christian business, who refused to bow down to President Barack Obama’s stupid Nationalized healthcare plan. Obama figured out a way to get this guy and he called on some left-wing Jewish friend of his to do the job. Sad part is, some right-wing Jews got in on the act as well.

Of course, Hobby Lobby’s President fearing his company might be picketed or boycotted by these idiot pukes, issued the following statement:

UPDATE 10/4/13 10:15am: Hobby Lobby President Steve Green has issued the following statement on behalf of the company:

We sincerely apologize for any employee comments that may have offended anyone, especially our Jewish customers and friends. Comments like these do not reflect the feelings of our family or Hobby Lobby. Our family has a deep respect for the Jewish faith and those who hold its traditions dear. We’re proud contributors to Yad Vashem, as well as to other museums and synagogues in Israel and the United States. We are investigating this matter and absolutely do not tolerate discrimination at our company or our stores. We do not have any policies that discriminate; in fact, we have policies that specifically prohibit discrimination. We have previously carried merchandise in our stores related to Jewish holidays. We select the items we sell in our stores based on customer demand. We are working with our buyers to re-evaluate our holiday items and what we will carry in the future.

This is my problem: I just do not see why ANY business of any sort should have to apologize for its owner’s Christian values, to ANYONE. I agree, what the employee said, was mildly offensive. But, this idea that the owner of the company has to grovel before these pukes is an outrage! 😡

Now, had this been my company? This is the statement I would have put out:

Hobby Lobby is owned by a born again Christian. A Born again Christian who happens to know that the Jews of the Bible arrested Jesus of Nazareth; They charged him with false charges, brought him before a rigged trial, of which they could not even agree on the accusations — and then ordered him crucified.

Because of the knowledge of this fact; Hobby Lobby does not sell items for Jewish holidays. This is still the United States of America, and if a business owner chooses not to cater, suck up to or kiss the ass of a protected minority, that is his business. Hobby Lobby is a multi-billion dollar company and I am sure we will not miss the business of a group of people, who make up 2% of the population of the United States of America.

Signed,

Steve Green
Owner Hobby Lobby AKA Your Mom.

That, is how things like this, should be handled.

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.

This is my problem with the current state of the GOP

In a earlier posting, I wrote some stuff in anger. Now that I have calmed down a bit. I have more to say.

Basically what I have to say is this: For all intents and purposes: I am finished with the GOP on a National level. They are not a conservative Christian party in my humble opinion anymore. If anything they are nothing more than an “Democratic Party Lite” type of a party. From this moment on, I will voting whatever third party I feel matches my own personal convictions.

It looks like the Republican Party might just end up making Ted Cruz the face of the GOP in 2016. I hope that I am wrong about this, but if I know politics like I do; the GOP will pick someone who is a reflection of their base and a reflection of current political winds. The GOP tried an establishment candidate twice before and they lost — they will not do this again. It is not that I do not like Cruz, I just believe that he wasted a good deal of time and taxpayers money grandstanding on a losing bet.

It is very strange what is happening in the GOP now. There are two factions: One faction is the Cruz faction that some call extremist. The ones that call him this are those that believe that Big Government Conservatism is a-okay; but I digress. The other faction is the old Neoconservative Big Government Conservative wing of the GOP. Both factions are entrenched and both factions are quite well funded. Both factions are working out of concert with the other.

As a result of this, Obamacare is going to get funded and we are going to get stuck with it. That is, unless the house of representatives does something and I mean something bold. However, the realist and the common sense part of me, sees this comment by President Obama and knows that he is correct:

I don’t know how I can be more clear about this: Nobody gets to threaten the full faith and credit of the United States just to extract political concessions. No one gets to hurt our economy and millions of innocent people just because there are a couple of laws that you do not like. It has not been done in the past. We’re not going to start doing it now.

I’m not going to start setting a precedent, not just for me but for future presidents, where one chamber in Congress can basically say each time there needs to be a vote to make sure Treasury pays its bills, we’re not going to sign it unless our particular hobby horse gets advanced.

Imagine if you had a Republican president and a Democratic speaker, and the Democratic speaker said, well, we’re not going to pass the debt ceiling unless we raise corporate taxes by 40 percent or unless we pass background checks on guns or whatever other list of agenda items Democrats were interested in. Does anybody actually think that we would be hearing from Republicans that that was acceptable behavior? That’s not how our constitutional system is designed. We are not going to do it.

The American people have worked too hard to recover from a bunch of crises _ several of them now, over the last couple of years, inflicted by some of the same folks in Congress that we’re talking about now _ to see extremists in Congress cause another crisis. And keep in mind, by the way _ this whole thing has to do with keeping the government open for a few months.

There is video of it on CSPAN, but for some reason, I could not cut it up and embed it here. I guess someone at CSPAN must read my blog. Because here is that video:

 

That part that I bolded and underlined? The President is absolutely correct about and I hope like the devil that Ted Cruz and the Tea Party house members read this; and remember it. If they set a precedent, the Democrats will exploit it to their liking once they are in office. So, I would be really careful and really think long and hard about what they are about to do in the House.