Destroying the Very Fabric of the American Healthcare System

I wish that the politicians in Washington weren't so busy building sound bites for the 5 o'clock news that they could actually get together and save America's Health Care System, but, alas, they are incapable of compromise or even intelligent analysis.

Group "A" are so determined to save the reputation of the President they will never admit they made a (gigantic) mistake or compromise to find a solution.

Group "B" is so determined to bring down the President a notch or two that they cannot offer intelligent or reasonable compromises that just might solve the problem at hand.

And the public is so caught up in the political rhetoric, many do not see the tsunami on the horizon about to drown us all.  

But make no mistake about it, the entire Health Care System in the United States, unarguably the finest health care infrastructure in the history of mankind, is months away, a year at most, from complete and utter destruction.

And it's all being caused by The Affordable Care Act, the single worst piece of legislation ever passed by the United States Congress.

About 200 million Americans will lose their current Insurance.  The replacements, if they can be found, will be significantly more expensive for most Americans (about 4/5th will pay several thousand dollars more annually) and they new insurance will have significantly higher deductibles and may well (or most certainly will) force Americans to change their doctors and hospitals.

The hospital infrastructure will collapse.  Some hospitals will be forced to close.  Others will greatly curtail services.  A few, perhaps fifty or less nationwide, will become hospitals for the super rich, those able to afford completely private care.

Sarah Palin's Death Panels of non-medical actuaries will decide on care and payments, effectively making the best care treatments unavailable except to the super rich.

The total economy is mere months away from a total collapse into recession or depression.  The ACA (or ObamaCare) is a nothing more than a hidden super-tax that will drain hundreds of millions of dollars out the middle class taxpayer's wallets, through increased (and unaffordable) premiums and deductibles. 

It's happening every day now.  Moments ago REUTERS reported that insurer UNITED HEALTH CARE is being forced to drop thousands of doctors form Medicare patients programs due to Barack Obama's ego driven theft of millions of dollars from Medicare to fund his ObamaCare albatross.

This was one hundred percent foreseeable and avoidable. Many Republicans and many pundits and analysts and blogger like me have been correctly forecasting this for three years.  But we are all branded by Democrats and media not willing to actually read the ACA bill, as anti-Obama haters.  Alas, that was never true, we were and are the lookouts, warning the people of the on-rushing waves of health care and economic destruction, begging you to save yourselves and get to higher ground.  

Every day a few more are swept away and a few more listen.  I fear it's too late.

The World is NOT Coming to an End

TODAY'S HEADLINE:  Fiscal Cliff Talks Frozen

Two thoughts.  First and, by far, most important: If Congress fails to act the world will not come to an end.  Far from it. In fact I believe the complete failure of talks is the optimal outcome.  We need to aggressively deal with the national debt. This is the only approach that does that.

I am confident the economy will not go into recession.  In fact, I predict with confidence, it will improve.  After all Nancy Pelosi's $800 million dollar stimulus had no effect on the economy.  Neither will this tax increase coupled with the minor spending reduction.

This is much ado about nothing.

Second, in spite of my bold suggestion we allow the tax cuts to expire and the spending cuts to take effect, neither will happen.  Compromise will be reached.

The Silly Super Committee Blame Game

Thank God Joe Scarborough gets it, because I swear not one other commentator, left or right, sees the truth of the Super Committee's failure.  For today's politicians, it's all the blame game.




Joe Scarborough said, in part:


“Blaming Grover Norquist for this collapse is the lamest Democratic fiction since the Tonkin Gulf incident [used to justify American intervention in Vietnam]. Like LBJ said a couple of years later, they were shooting at ghosts or whales, and yet that was his excuse to go into Vietnam.


"Grover Norquist, for anybody that works in Washington, D.C., understands that, like a lot of people in Washington, he’s got his own point of view. But Grover holds no magical power over anybody. … He’s not really a powerful guy. His idea may be powerful to conservatives, but he in of himself is not a powerful guy.”


“Democrats have the president of the United States, right? They’ve got the United States Senate — the world’s most deliberative body, the upper chamber. What else do they call them? America’s most exclusive club. They haven’t produced a budget in over 900 days."


"The president of the United States, a Democrat, appoints a commission to take care of the debt. And then he ignores everything that commission says."


"Anybody today trying to blame Grover Norquist or to suggest that Grover Norquist is somehow more powerful than the president of the United States and the United States Senate, which everybody in Washington knows runs Washington. It’s not the House. It is the upper chamber. And the Democrats own it. They are close to a monopoly of Washington, D.C., but to blame this on Grover Norquist is laughable.” 


"This is a straw man to end all straw men.  Grover Norquist has been a straw man. Republicans haven’t even been in charge of the House of Representatives for a year. It’s as if 2009 and 2010 and the massive deficits that were accumulated then didn’t even exist. But, again, I’m blaming both sides today. Both sides have their feet in ideological cement. But Grover Norquist is a straw man."


"These same Democrats that said that George W. Bush abused the powers of office and, ‘Oh, the executive branch had become too powerful,’ are now suggesting Barack Obama, who, by the way, has been completely AWOL on this issue, is powerless? A man who put a debt commission in — he put Simpson/Bowles together and then completely threw them under the bus."


"Mika, you and I, if I ever come back, then I’ll shut up, we have to get Senate Democrats on this program and start asking them exactly why, in the midst of America’s greatest budgetary crisis in 235 years, they have refused, stubbornly, to produce a budget for over 900 days.”


“The president of the United States is still president of the United States. Democrats still control the United States Senate. Grover Norquist’s idea may be a strong one. Grover Norquist has absolutely no power in Washington, D.C. other than the idea he carries. And I am so surprised that Democrats really believe that the presidency is as weak as they believe it is now. That this president couldn’t step forward and show at least a little bit of leadership. He has been AWOL since he and [House Speaker John] Boehner failed on the debt ceiling. He better engage quickly or else we’re going the way of Europe.”


The above is an abridged transcript of Scarborough's comments taken from Jeff Poor's excellent article in The Daily Caller. Read it all here: Scarborough scolds MSNBC colleagues: Stop blaming Grover Norquist

We Seriously Need A Better Quality of Protester

File under Tea Party Protester Envy.


Ann Coulter wrote a devastating column in which she was 100% correct. Colter wrote (in part):

"I am not the first to note the vast differences between the Wall Street protesters and the tea partiers. To name three: The tea partiers have jobs, showers and a point."

"Tea partiers didn't block traffic, sleep on sidewalks, wear ski masks, fight with the police or urinate in public. They read the Constitution, made serious policy arguments, and petitioned the government against Obama's unconstitutional big government policies, especially the stimulus bill and Obamacare." 

"Then they picked up their own trash and quietly went home. Apparently, a lot of them had to be at work in the morning."

Damn but Coulter is right. The Tea Party folks had literally hundreds of individual protests and involved hundreds of thousands of protesters with virtually no arrests, no destruction of property and organization and cleanliness that was stunning.  Most parks, streets and protest venues were left cleaner than before the protests began.


The Occupy Wall Street protests are now limping across America, but have no logic, no intelligent commentary and virtually no point. But there are plenty of arrests and tons of garbage and filth.

Videos abound showing the tragically uninformed protesting the banks and bankers, the wealthy and super rich and the high price of broccoli. Demands include, but are not limited to forgiveness of all debt, especially student loans and all mortgages, guaranteed jobs for everyone at high wages, and that all retirees can vacation in Cancun (no joke).




Some rally around President Obama, others call him a traitor. Many call for the overthrow of the government and the abolition of capitalism.


What's even more frightening is how many Democrat politicians and pundits have endorsed their cause, what ever-the-hell that might or might not be. Even President Obama and Vice President Biden have added their voice of support. Nancy Pelosi, who we must remember was terrified of the law abiding Tea Partiers, Has heartily endorsed the Occupy Wall Street Crowd and many other Dems have given them moral support.

Keith Olbermann is their biggest and most visible supporter. I guess he's praying he can become to the Occupy Wall Street crowd what Glenn Beck was to the Tea Partiers and ride the movement to giant protests and a television special on the capital mall. The problem is Olbermann has to carefully chose his interviews and generally supply meaning and message when none is actually there. If only the entire rest of the national media had stayed away and hadn't reported the truth about the protests. Alas, Olbermann look more like an idiot with each passing day.


The final insult is that, in order to move the protests nationwide, politicians and union members have had to print up signs and then pay illegal immigrants and out of work union members to carry the signs.  Many of the pseudo-protesters do not speak English and have no idea what the signs even say.

A Cloud of Doom

No Deal: Debt Ceiling Talks Between Obama, Boehner Break Down

"Boehner sent a letter to his Republican colleagues explaining his decision to pull out of talks for a "grand bargain." Here are some highlights:

"It has become evident that the White House is not serious about ending the spending binge that is destroying jobs and endangering our children's future," he wrote, adding, "A deal was never reached, and was never really close."

"The president is emphatic that taxes have to be raised. ... The president is emphatic that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs," Boehner wrote."

"For these reasons, I have decided to end discussions with the White House and begin conversations with the leaders in the Senate in an effort to find a path forward.""

President Obama lacks the intellectual capacity to deal with this disaster. He has no vision, no plan, no ideas and a massive ego. Is ego an impeachable defect?

Peggy Noonan, long one of the President's biggest supporters and cheerleaders has had enough. She write for all America today when she says "Out of the Way, Please, Mr. President." You can read her entire essay here: The Wall Street Journal

Sloganeering While America Burns

"The Republicans and Democrats should get in a room until they fix it. Instead, they seem to be sloganeering at each other.... And it's not helpful. And it's really, I think, starting to wear on the American people. It's time for them to stand up, and go in, and be adults and fix the problem."

"[President Obama], you're elected executive to lead. And I think it's incumbent on the president to put the plan out there. You cannot wait for members of a legislative body to lead. The executive has an obligation to lead."

---- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

Alas, All For Nothing

I'll make a safe prediction this evening (5:30 pm CDT, July 14, 2011). Republicans will emerge from the debt ceiling increase/budget cut debates with absolutely nothing. The nation's Debt Ceiling will be raised significantly and there will be no budget cuts of any importance made.

In other words, America loses.

The reality is that the Republicans always had a losing hand. And they played it horribly with arrogance and stupidity. Anyone hoping to save our nation had to sit back in absolute horror as Representative Eric Cantor displayed ignorance and arrogance simultaneously.

The Republican position was untenable. Tax increases, or as the Democrats misleadingly describe them, "Revenue Enhancements" are inevitable. Had the Republicans not overplayed their weak hand, they might have engineered a significant budget cut in exchange for modest "revenue enhancements."

Instead we Americans get placed on the bus, with no brakes and no driver, down a slippery slope and a deep cliff. Look out below.

In the end, the Debt Ceiling WILL BE RAISED. There was never any doubt. How Eric Cantor or any Republican thought they could hold the government and American People captive is beyond imagination.

I don't look for anything to improve. President Obama is unbeatable (at this time, at least). And, while he's gotten pretty good at his job at his day job, he lacks any vision of the future and lacks any political power to push needed changes through Congress.

All we've accomplished is insuring that true and full government default will happen around 2016. Kiss your nation goodbye.

The Littlest Victims of Obamacare

I had hoped, and lobbied hard, to defeat every member of Congress who had voted to pass The Federal Health Care Reform Act, now often referred to as ObamaCare. Sadly while many were defeated, many gained re-election in spite of their complete betrayal of the American public, our health care system and, especially, senior citizens. We can only hope that the revised Congress can repeal parts of this horrendous act and repair other parts.


As Nancy Pelosi had promised, once we passed the bill we are now actually finding out what is in it. And, we are discovering, everything Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama promised about the bill was a lie.

But Michelle Malkin has discovered the ultimate irony. The massive labor union, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has lost the very benefit they touted as the major reason for passage, insurance coverage for children. The SEIU paid millions of dollars in hard earned union dues lobbying for this bill. Today, that very same union cancelled all health insurance benefits for children BECAUSE they can no longer afford the price of that insurance under the ObamaCare mandatory guidelines.

READ THE FULL and very tragic STORY AT MICHELLE MALKIN'S BLOG:

Here's a tiny excerpt:

Late last month, the Service Employees International Union informed dues-paying members of its behemoth 1199 affiliate in New York that it was dropping its health care coverage for children. That’s right. A radical leftist union, not an evil Republican corporation, is abandoning the young ‘uns to cut costs.

More than 30,000 low-wage families will be affected, according to The Wall Street Journal. Who’s to blame? SEIU 1199 benefits manager Mitra Behroozi singled out oppressive new state and federal regulations, including the much-ballyhooed Obamacare rule forcing insurers to cover dependents well into their 20s:

“…(N)ew federal health-care reform legislation requires plans with dependent coverage to expand that coverage up to age 26,” Behroozi explained in an Oct. 22 letter to members. “Our limited resources are already stretched as far as possible, and meeting this new requirement would be financially impossible.”

Nightmare on Main Street

If you toggle between CNBC and the Fox Business News Channel you quickly learn that business, investors and economists all really despise the Health Care Reform Bill, enacted six months ago today.

If you read virtually any of the polls you already know the public really hates the same health care reform, generally called ObamaCare. I believe that this single bill is the primary cause of the growth of the Tea Party movement and the unexpected Republican resurgence.

It is possible that Republicans will take control of the House, although I fear that is unlikely. But it is a moot point regardless, as without either controlling the Presidency or having a filibuster proof majority in the Senate (60 whopping votes), overturning the bill is virtually impossible.

It sure as hell needs to happen as the bill is quickly becoming the Freddie Kruger of legislation and it haunts our every dream, turning any hope of an economic recovery into a nightmare of recession and possibly depression.

Here, thanks to the editorial page writers of the Washington Examiner are a few bullet points of the current and impending disaster:

» Obamacare won't decrease health care costs for the government. According to Medicare's actuary, it will increase costs. The same is likely to happen for privately funded health care.

» Obamacare won't allow employees or most small businesses to keep the coverage they have and like. By Obama's estimates, as many as 69 percent of employees, 80 percent of small businesses, and 64 percent of large businesses will be forced to change coverage, probably to more expensive plans.

» Obamacare will increase insurance premiums -- in some places, it already has. Insurers, suddenly forced to cover clients' children until age 26, have little choice but to raise premiums, and they attribute to Obamacare's mandates a 1 to 9 percent increase. Obama's only method of preventing massive rate increases so far has been to threaten insurers.

» Obamacare will force seasonal employers -- especially the ski and amusement park industries -- to pay huge fines, cut hours, or lay off employees.

» Obamacare forces states to guarantee not only payment but also treatment for indigent Medicaid patients. With many doctors now refusing to take Medicaid (because they lose money doing so), cash-strapped states could be sued and ordered to increase reimbursement rates beyond their means.

» Obamacare imposes a huge nonmedical tax compliance burden on small business. It will require them to mail IRS 1099 tax forms to every vendor from whom they make purchases of more than $600 in a year, with duplicate forms going to the Internal Revenue Service. Like so much else in the 2,500-page bill, our senators and representatives were apparently unaware of this when they passed the measure.

» Obamacare allows the IRS to confiscate part or all of your tax refund if you do not purchase a qualified insurance plan. The bill funds 16,000 new IRS agents to make sure Americans stay in line.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: Examiner Editorial: Obamacare is even worse than critics thought

Let Them Eat Cake

Michelle Obama now leads my list of the most piggish, disgusting people on earth. There is no excuse for this lecturing, holier than thou, out-of-touch aristocrat.

The UK Daily Mail is reporting today:

Spanish police close public beach for Michelle Obama's £250,000 Spanish holiday

Michelle Obama today faced a fresh wave of attacks over her lavish break in Spain with 40 friends, which could easily cost U.S. taxpayers a staggering £50,000 a day.

The First Lady has been lambasted for her extravagance at a time when the economy is still struggling. One blogger went so far as to brand her a modern-day Marie Antoinette.
And her critics will be further annoyed when they learn that the president's wife had a Spanish beach closed off today so that she, her daughter and their entourage could go for a swim.

Spanish police cleared off a stretch of beach at the Villa Padierna Hotel in Marbella after the Obamas had finished a busy day of sightseeing.

Police used palm trees and police tape to mark off the boundaries of a 100-yard expanse for the American delegation. On either side, onlookers gawked - and police occasionally stopped and searched sun lovers if they strayed too close to the private party.

The per diems for the secret service team runs at around £172 each, which amounts to nearly £60,000 for the length of the summer break.

Use of Air Force Two, the Air Force version of a 757, comes in at £91,900 for the round trip. This does not include time on the ground.

Mrs Obama's personal staff, of which there are an unknown amount and who might cost considerably more per day, also have to be taken into account.

The American public will also cover the cost of the only official part of the holiday, a visit to the Spanish royal family on the island of Majorca.

This will involve transport there and back for the entourage - as well as travel, accommodation, food and expenses for all while on the island.

Barack Obama is my President. Michelle Obama is My First Lady. I respect the offices and everything those esteemed positions stand for both historically and today. We elected Barack Obama and we certainly knew that Michelle Obama was the most important member of the Barack Obama team.

We knew, and I wrote often, that Barack Obama had "imperial tendencies." I certainly feared his political and management experience. There are dozens of essays I wrote leading up to the election that highlighted these risks.

Today virtually every worst fear has been realized. The country is in shambles and headed down a path that will likely lead to the worst economic depression in written history. It is had to imagine a worse President or a worse Congress. The Health Care Bill alone may destroy our country.

But, let's be honest, President Obama genuinely doesn't know this and certainly doesn't agree.

But he sure a hell does know the the real economic facts facing the nation today. And so does our very own Marie Antoinette, the First Lady of our very Imperial President.

It's time for our government, our President and our Senators and our Congress members to share in our pain. If 41 million people have to go on Food Stamps, if we lost 131,000 jobs in July alone, if unemployment continues to hover at 9.5%, if teachers are loosing their jobs and our children are suffering with larger class sizes and fewer supplies, if small businesses are being crushed under an insane burden of paperwork, no available credit and taxes being raised to astronomical levels, then the First Lady can get her *#@ home and go on one hell of a diet.

Our nation can no longer afford an Imperial President with Marie Antoinette as our First Lady. If the bloated Executive Office of pollsters and advisers and consultants can't figure this out themselves, then the American Public needs to make this extremely clear with the November Election.

It is time for our First Lady to stand in line and get her Food Stamps.

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ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:

1.) At least President George Bush had the common sense to go cut wood and clear brush in Crawford, Texas when he went on a summer vacation.

2.) Michelle Malkin addresses my same points but with more restraint and more attention to the economic realities: Unemployment at 9.5%; another Obama econ adviser bails; Mrs. Obama hits the beach

3.) We've seen this coming. Here is my essay from April, 2009 on The French Revolution and comparisons to today's events: The French Revolution

The 2,000 Page Nightmare

Only now are accountants, government officials and government agencies like the IRS unraveling the massive Health Care Reform Law. And only now are we beginning to understand the consequences of taxation and regulation included in the bill.

In three short words: It's a Nightmare.

I genuinely believe that we must never allow Congress to enact to two thousand page bill again. And I believe that every single member of Congress who voted for this monstrosity should be removed from office.

We will spend months, if not years, undoing the damage this bill has done. But that's if, and only if, our country survives the interim damage.

Small business had feared the actual Health Care requirements would damage business and profits. As it turns out the most severe damage is coming from a new, massive ($$$$ 17 BILLION DOLLARS $$$$$) that will devastate all Americans earning LESS THAN $250,000.00 a year. And small business as we have long known it will likely cease to exist.

The small hidden regulations sound simple enough. Families and business have long been requires to report on an IRS Form 1099 any monies paid to workers or independent contractors. Money paid to nannies or yard workers for example had to be reported to the government. Many a politician has been tripped up by his or her failure to properly document such payments.
But, under new regulations in the Health Care Reform Act, all people and businesses must also file an IRS Form 1099 for and purchase of goods or material from a single individual that totals a mere six hundred dollars ($600.00) per year or more. For many businesses this could be tens of thousands of such forms (and taxes). Imagine a small restaurant who buys lettuce, tomatoes, fruits and vegetables from a variety of local farmers. Or a grocery store.

But similar situations apply to virtually all small businesses. The loudest complaints are streaming from Gold bullion and coin dealers who buy and sell from the public all day long.

In an article today on the ABC NEWS Website they report that "...every time a member of the public sells more than $600 worth of gold to a dealer the transaction will have to be reported to the government by the buyer (in this case the small business)."

Pat Heller, who owns Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Mich., deals with around 1,000 customers every week. Many are individuals looking to protect wealth in an uncertain economy, he said, while others are dealers like him.

With spot market prices for gold at nearly $1,200 an ounce, Heller estimates that he'll be filling out between 10,000 and 20,000 tax forms per year after the new law takes effect."
Rep. Daniel Lungren, R-CA, has introduced legislation to repeal the section of the health care bill that would trigger the new tax reporting requirement because he says it's a burden on small businesses.

"Large corporations have whole divisions to handle such transaction paperwork but for a small business, which doesn't have the manpower, this is yet another brick on their back," Lungren said in a statement e-mailed to ABCNews.com. "Everyone agrees that small businesses are job creators and the engine which drives the American economy. I am dumfounded that this Administration is doing all it can to make it more difficult for businesses to succeed rather than doing all it can to help them grow."

That's an understatement, Mr. Lungren.

CNBC Rick Santelli, The Last American Hero

I can't quite figure out why 90% of the reporters and analysts on television can't or won't ask the really tough questions.

Thank god Rick Santelli doesn't suffer from this disease. Santelli teed off on Rep. Paul Kanjorski’s (D-PA) claim that Democrats’ couldn’t reform Fannie & Freddie in their financial regulation bill because it was “too complicated.”

SANTELLI: “It’s too complicated? You think taxpayers that go to work to pay the money you are subsidizing, it will end up a half a trillion, do you think they think complicated is an excuse?”



Our Members of Congress and our President SERIOUSLY DON'T GET IT. Just read my next post immediately below (or click this link, if you as reading this as a single entry in my blog) to see the real consequences of their inaction.

Lawrence O'Donnell and James Cramer Tag Team Against the Horrific Health Care Bill

When James Cramer, Ultra-Capitalist of Mad Money on CNBC agrees with Euro-Socialist Lawrence O'Donnell you know the Health Care Restructuring Bill being crafted by Congress is a complete disaster.

This is the most IMPORTANT 9 MINUTES you can possibly spend today. Watch it all.

Call Your Congress Person TODAY and demand they stop the current Health Care Legislation.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy