This Is The Chart Democrats Don’t Want You To See

This is the link to the chart the Republicans tried to send out in a mailer and were blocked by the Democrats from doing so (see details below).  House Democrat Health Plan.  I tried to insert the smaller version here, but was unsuccessful. 

This chart gives you an idea of how complicated the new healthcare plan will be.  It also tells you how President Obama plans to cut unemployment–the only job area that is currently growing is government jobs!

Roll Call reported today that:

“Democrats are preventing Republican House Members from sending their constituents a mailing that is critical of the majority’s health care reform plan, blocking the mailing by alleging that it is inaccurate.”

This is a major infringement on congressmen communicating with the people they represent.  I resent the fact that the Democrat party is trying to jam down government healthcare before anyone actually has a chance to examine the bill.  If government healthcare is so important, we need to take the time to do it carefully.  I also resent the fact that President Obama is blaming healthcare costs for the increasing budget deficit–look at the spending bills passed since he has become President.  I also resent the fact that tort reform is not included in the present healthcare proposals when the rising cost of malpractice insurance is a major reason that hospitals and doctors have been forced to raise their fees. 

The Push For Healthcare

The sources for this article are the  Washington Times and the Cybercast News Service.

Just a note before I officially get on with the article.  President Obama is stating that the reason the economic recovery is slow is that he inherited a trillion dollar deficit.  Let’s just remember that the budgets that gave us that deficit were passed by a Democrat congress that took office in January 2007 (and voted on by then Senator Barack Obama).  Since Barack Obama took office he has also significantly increased deficit spending.  What he inherited he helped create and he has made worse since he took office.

President Obama has named insurance companies and doctors as the reasons the cost of healthcare has risen in this country.  Somehow he fails to mention the runaway lawsuits that have put a lot of money in lawyers’ pockets and only some in the pockets of patients.  He is not willing to consider tort reform so that doctors do not have to practice ‘defensive medicine’, which is one of the reasons for the high cost of healthcare.

It was reported that just before the press conference, negotiations on the healthcare bill were having some problems.  According to the Washington Post:

“Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, dropped out of the group of six bipartisan negotiators in the Senate Finance Committee, saying it had become clear to him that he could not support the emerging compromise blueprint.

Mr. Hatch said committee Chairman Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, has “not been given the flexibility necessary to construct a realistic health care reform bill that can achieve true bipartisan support.””

According to the Cybercast New Service, when asked if he would participate in the government plan, President Obama avoided the question:

But when asked if Obama, “as a symbolic gesture,” would agree to abide by the public option he’s advocating for others, Obama didn’t give a direct answer:
 
“You know, I would be happy to abide by the same benefit package. I will just be honest with you. I’m the president of the United States, so I’ve got a doctor following me every minute, which is why I say this is not about me,” Obama answered. “I’ve got the best health care in the world. I’m trying to make sure that everybody has good health care, and they don’t right now.”

I will gladly sign on to the congressional healthcare plan just as soon as Congress gives up their current healthcare plan and signs on to the plan they pass!

Huh?

There was an incident in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this week that almost brought Al Sharpton to town.  He still may show up.  A Harvard Professor, Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr., was returning home from a trip only to discover his key did not work in the lock on his door.  Mr. Gates and his driver attempted to strong arm to door to get inside Mr. Gates’ house.  A neighbor, seeing the activity and not recognizing Mr. Gates as the resident of the house, called the police.  The police showed up and checked id.  Evidently at this point Mr. Gates became verbally abusive to the policeman for not recognizing who he was.  That resulted in charges against Mr. Gates.  The police have since dropped the charges in an attempt to insert sanity into the situation.  Frankly, I think most of us would appreciate the police investigating a call saying that someone was breaking into our home.

According to an article in today’s Boston Herald:

“As it turns out, there won’t be any need for Rev. Al to exploit the incident on Ware Street, because Skip Gates has decided he’s going to create a full-length documentary for PBS based on his arrest.

“The idea never crossed my mind,” Gates told The Washington Post yesterday, “but it has now.”

I expect the documentary will soon be prefaced by Skip’s 10,000-word treatise in The New Yorker.

Exploitation can assume many forms – including Skip Gate’s sudden decision to train his historian/journalist eye on the subject of racial profiling. Obviously, there’s no need to ask why he wasn’t moved to make such a documentary before yesterday.”

I’m really sorry this is the caliber of the instructors at one of America’s most prestigious universities.

Another Promised Missle Shield?

Today’s Washington Times is reporting on a remark by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicating that the United States may actually accept Iran as a nuclear nation. 

According to the article:

“Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday the United States could extend a “defense umbrella” over its allies in the Persian Gulf if Iran does not abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

Frankly, I think this has more to do with the fact that President Obama is not willing to stand up to Iran (he wants Iran to help us in Afghanistan) than wanting to protect any of our allies in the Middle East or Europe.  I can’t help remembering the fact that a missle shield was promised to Poland then abondoned as soon as the Russians objected.  We currently have a President who will not stand up to evil, should any country trust him as an ally?

The article futher states:

“It was not clear Wednesday whether the idea has been discussed at the White House since Mr. Obama took office in January. In spite of Mrs. Clinton’s insistence that her comments were not meant as an acceptance of a nuclear Iran, Israeli officials were concerned enough to react immediately.

“I was not thrilled to hear the American statement . . . that they will protect their allies with a nuclear umbrella, as if they have already come to terms with a nuclear Iran,” Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor told Israel’s Army Radio.”

I think all of us need to pay attention to this statement.  It may represent a serious change in America’s Middle East policy.  

People Who Know Talk About Healthcare Reform

Yesterday’s Washington Times posted an article quoting the Mayo Clinic’s evaluation of the  healthcare reform currently proposed in the House of Representatives.

According to the article:

“Minnesota’s not-for-profit Mayo Clinic, which Mr. Obama has repeatedly hailed as offering top quality care at affordable costs, blasted the House Democrats’ version of the health care plan as lawmakers continue to grapple with several bills from each chamber and multiple committees.

The Mayo Clinic said there are some positive elements of the bill, but overall “the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher quality, more affordable health care for patients.”

“In fact, it will do the opposite,” clinic officials said, because the proposals aren’t [R]patient-focused or results-oriented. “The real losers will be the citizens of the United States.””

Some of the problems with the bill include how to fund it, and the fact that in order to make it work, healthcare would need to be rationed.  There is also some question as to whether the government controls of what doctors could charge patients might result in fewer people studying to become doctors.

Generally speaking, the healthcare reform bill as currently stated is a bad bill that will result in less care for the elderly of America and higher taxes for all of us.  It needs to be scrapped and rewritten.

Wondering Where The Summer Budget Numbers Are?

According to Power Line yesterday, President Obama has decided not to release the annual mid-summer budget update (traditionally released in mid-July) until mid-August. 

According to the article:

“Already, as AP observes, “the public and members of Congress are becoming increasingly anxious over Obama’s economic policies.” A Washington Post-ABC News survey released today shows approval of Obama’s handling of health-care reform slipping below 50 percent for the first time. The poll also found slippage in support for Obama’s handling of economic issues across-the-board.”

Aside from the fact that the information is being delayed in the hopes of getting Congress to pass some very expensive legislation before anyone realizes how bad our financial situation is, this is not fair to the American people.  We have a right to know what affect President Obama’s policies have had on the economy in the six months he has been in office.

This reminds me of the child who brings home a bad report card on Friday and waits until Monday morning to show it to his parents.  The delay doesn’t change the facts, he’s just hoping for a shorter, less intense reaction.

Governmental Intrusion In The Name Of The Environment

Watts Up With That has posted an article from Planet Gore concerning new regulations concerning toilet paper.  According to the article:

“Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer has proposed legislation calling on a federal agency to define toilet paper.

Really. It says it right in the bill, the “Water Resources Protection Act” (I know, I know — you were expecting it to be called the Protecting Infrastructure and Sewer Systems Act):

”SEC. 4172. DEFINITIONS AND SPECIAL RULE.

‘(b) WATER DISPOSAL PRODUCT. — For purposes of this subchapter —

(4) TOILET TISSUE. — The term ‘toilet tissue’ means toilet tissue, as determined under regulations prescribed by the Secretary.”

No, it’s not as silly as it sounds. It’s sillier.

The rulemaking to define what rises to the level of a bottom-wipe is in the name of a good cause: to tax the stuff. The current band of feds don’t think you’ve paid enough tax — this has been established ad nauseum — and now want a dedicated revenue, er, stream, to pay to replace corroded pipes and overburdened sewer sytems nationwide.”

I have nothing to add to this!  If you want to read more, please follow the link!

A Word From Someone Who Has Actually Read The Healthcare Bill

On July 17th the New York Post published an article by Betsy McCaughey on the healthcare plan currently being promoted by President Obama.  Betsy McCaughey is the founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former lieutenant governor of New York.  She hosts a webside called Defend Your Healthcare.

According to her research:

“Two main bills are being rushed through Congress with the goal of combining them into a finished product by August. Under either, a new government bureaucracy will select health plans that it considers in your best interest, and you will have to enroll in one of these “qualified plans.” If you now get your plan through work, your employer has a five-year “grace period” to switch you into a qualified plan. If you buy your own insurance, you’ll have less time.”

This does not sound like an improvement in healthcare.  The dangers to senior citizens in this bill are many–rationed care will lead to care denied to the elderly.  The bill also has a provision to could be used to encourage senior citizens to refuse treatment:

One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430). The sessions cover highly sensitive matters such as whether to receive antibiotics and “the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.”

This mandate invites abuse, and seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care. Do we really want government involved in such deeply personal issues?”

Please visit Defend Your Healthcare to learn more and stay informed.  This bill is not something that will improve our healthcare.  Until the President and Congress agree to give up their healthcare and sign on to the bill they pass, we should not accept their healthcare proposals!! 

Watch Out For Small Print In The New ‘Card Check’ Bill

Today’s Wall Street Journal has posted an article on the Democrat’s seeming abandonment of the idea of ‘card check’ legislation.  Card check would have eliminated the secret ballot in voting to unionize a company; it would also have set up a government arbitration situation within a few months of a union vote.  This law would have been very unfriendly to business and would have been a ‘job killer.’

Senators Tom Harkin (Iowa), Mark Pryor (Arkansas), Mr. Specter and others are now considering a new bill which would still give unions the whip hand in negotiations with management.  Some of the proposals include making the time between signing cards and actually taking a vote to unionize much shorter, giving workers less time to consider the consequences (much the way this administration is pushing bills through Congress without giving Congressmen a chance to read them).  There is also a demand by Big Labor to bar companies from requiring their workers to hear management’s side during a union campaign.

The article further states:

“Democrats also aren’t giving up on binding arbitration, which would let a federal arbitrator impose a contract if management and a newly established union at a work site aren’t able to agree within 90 days. The provision would encourage unions to make maximum demands and play for time, knowing that an arbitrator could force management’s hand. Binding arbitration also denies employees a vote on a contract.”

The average American is now beginning to see the role the unions have played in the demise of certain companies and industries.  Union membership has been declining since 1954 when it peaked at 28%.  It is now at about 11 %.  This is according to the Becker-Posner Blog.

This is a very pro-union administration, and I believe that we will see some growth in union membership during President Obama’s term, but I do not believe that unions will ever regain 28% of the workforce.

Ted Kennedy’s Statement On National Healthcare

Today’s Washington Examiner posted an article by William Kristol on a letter from Ted Kennedy published in NEWSWEEK on the subject of healthcare.  Kennedy and his co-author, Bob Shrum discuss the idea of a government-supervised healthcare that will save us all money.  The article states:

“We also need to move from a system that rewards doctors for the sheer volume of tests and treatments they prescribe to one that rewards quality and positive outcomes. For example, in Medicare today, 18 percent of patients discharged from a hospital are readmitted within 30 days–at a cost of more than $15 billion in 2005. Most of these readmissions are unnecessary, but we don’t reward hospitals and doctors for preventing them. By changing that, we’ll save billions of dollars while improving the quality of care for patients.”

This is an interesting concept.  Readmission of patients in hospitals is a problem for Senator Kennedy–ok, let’s think about that for a minute.  Many medicare patients are elderly.  They may have recurring problems toward the end of their lives that will put them in the hospital frequently.  We do not have the knowledge to solve all end-of-life medical problems.  This is another example of the government saying it can (and will) do something to cut medical spending when it has no control over the events that are causing the spending (unless you begin to deny admission to the hospital to these people).

This is one of many questions and problems with the idea of government-run healthcare.

National Security As A Political Issue

Today’s New York Post has an article by Representative Peter Hoekstra (R- Mich.), the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, addressing what has happened to the bi-partisan approach to national security.

To review a bit of history, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed that she was not informed of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ used on captured terrorists.  When presented with the evidence from the CIA that she was briefed, she said that they had not made it clear that the techniques had been used.  She later said that the CIA routinely mislead Congress.  The ruckus that has followed is an attempt to restore her credibility.

According to the New York Post, this is where the situation stands:

“Democrats are claiming they were lied to by the CIA about a program and gleefully charge that then-Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the agency to not brief this program to Congress.

CIA Director Panetta refused to back the allegation that Cheney gave such an order. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden flatly denied that he’d ever been instructed not to brief Congress. Now Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has also distanced himself from these over-the-top allegations by House Democrats.”

This is really not a good place for the Democrats to be.  The attacks on the Intelligence Community have not been good for our national security.  When intelligence is at the mercy of party politics, nothing positive gets done to help our country protect or defend itself against attack.  The leaks of classified information have made the job of the CIA more difficult, and I can understand why the CIA might be hesitant to brief Congress on every program it considers but does not carry out.

Privacy, Anyone?

This is a story from Hot Air that I could have read fifteen times without understanding, but I am married to a computer geek who explained what happened.  Now I know enough to be upset.

Evidently Amazon,com has an online ‘store’ called Kindle where you can buy books and download them to your computer to read.  Considering the electronic savvy level of the generation under 30, that is a great idea.  Well, every program has its challenges.  Two books, oddly enough “Animal Farm” and “1984,” were added to the Kindle store by companies that did not have the right to sell them.  When Amazon.com heard about this from the people who did hold the rights to the books, they removed the books from the Kindle store and from customer’s devices and issued refunds to the customers.

The article points out:

“Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.””

It seems to me that I don’t want Amazon.com taking things out of my personal computer for any reason.  I don’t want them to have access to my computer.  The article concludes:

“If the holder of the Orwell copyright wants justice, by all means let him sue Amazon and the unlicensed publisher of the digital books for damages. That’s the surest way to get Bezos and company to more closely police the copyright status of books being sold in their Kindle store. Why they’re not already doing that is frankly unfathomable to me, but doubly unfathomable is them reaching into your virtual bookshelf to forcibly repurchase a book you’ve already bought. Exit question: Is this a dealbreaker for would-be Kindle purchasers?”

It’s ironic that the books involved were “1984” and “Animal Farm.”  We seem to be heading toward the worlds those books depict!

$700 Million For Mustangs

As if the spending by this Congress has not been ridiculous enough, Friday, the House of Representatives discussed H.R. 1018, the Restore our American Mustangs Act (ROAM). ROAM is a $700 million bill that would fund the The federal Bureau of Land Management as it aims for a manageable population of 27,000 wild mustangs.  Right now there are 36,000 wild mustangs, and the population doubles every four or five years.

Mark Steyn at National Review Online has posted an article entitled “The Gelded Age” which explains how ROAM will spend its $700 million.  Please follow the link and read the full article, it is hilarious, and nothing I can say as a summary will do it justice.

One of Mark Steyn’s comments:

“The bill also calls for a biennial horse census (presumably run by ACORN) and mandates that government bureaucrats perform home inspections before Americans can adopt wild horses or burros. Presumably this will require a Federal Burro of Investigation or some such.”

There is also a breakdown of the bill (and a really good music video) at Power LIne yesterday. 

This is the current state of fiscal responsibility in our representatives.  We need new representatives! 

A Prominent Democrat Speaks Out Against The Current Healthcare Reform Proposal

Susan Estrich is the Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Southern California Law Center. She serves on the Board of Editorial Contributors for USA Today, as a presidential appointee on U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and as a mayoral appointee on the City of Los Angeles Ethics Committee.  She was also national campaign manager for Dukakis for President in 1988.  Her Democrat Party credentials are impeccable.  Today she has an article at Creators.com about the stimulus program and the healthcare reform proposal.

She comments that although the number of people employed in Washington, D. C., has increased, it is decreasing in California where she lives.  She states:

“The idea that somehow you’re going to tax the “rich” enough to pay for quality health care for every American who doesn’t have it, can’t afford it or stands to lose it, not to mention for all of the undocumented aliens who receive it for free now and presumably will continue to in Obama health land, is almost laughable. It’s one of those things candidates say in campaigns, ignoring the fact that it doesn’t add up. But in a bill that might pass? Add a 5 percent surtax on every small business in the country that makes $250,000 or more? This is going to create jobs? What am I missing?”

She is absolutely right!  Thank you, Susan Estrich, for your honesty and clarity in evaluating the direction the current healthcare reform program would take us. 

Summertime???

As most of you know, I live in Massachusetts.  After a recent trip to California to help move my military kids from Camp Lejeune to Camp Pendleton, I developed ‘weather envy’.  San Diego is an unbelievably beautiful place with an awesome climate.  It didn’t make my return home any easier when the weather in Massachusetts didn’t seem to understand the concept of warm and sunny.  (About 78 with no humidity and lots of sunshine would be really good!)

Well, today I read in Power Line that Minnesota isn’t having summer either.  According to the article, 1816 was the “year without a summer,” and this year is following the same pattern.  The article lists the possible causes of the 1916 lack of summer:

“The year 1816 is still known to scientists and historians as “eighteen hundred and froze to death” or the “year without a summer.” It was the locus of a period of natural ecological destruction not soon to be forgotten. During that year, the Northern Hemisphere was slammed with the effects of at least two abnormal but natural phenomena. These events were mysterious at the time, and even today they are not well understood.

First, 1816 marked the midpoint of one of the Sun’s extended periods of low magnetic activity, called the Dalton Minimum. This particular minimum lasted from about 1795 to the 1820s. It resembled the earlier Maunder Minimum (about 1645-1715) that was responsible for at least 70 years of abnormally cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere. The Maunder Minimum interval is sandwiched within an even better known cool period known as the Little Ice Age, which lasted from about the 14th through 19th centuries.

But the event that most severely shaped 1816’s cold phenomena was the cata-strophic eruption the previous year of Tambora on the island of Sumbawa, in modern-day Indonesia. The ash clouds and sulfur aerosols spewed by this volcano were widespread, chilling the climate of the Northern Hemisphere by blocking sunlight with gases and particles.”

It seems to me that we need to admit that we do not totally understand climate cycles.  We also need to realize that although clean air is a really good idea, we do not need to cripple the worldwide economy to bring about results we are unsure of to solve a problem that may not exist.  Sometmes the idea that we as people can control everything gets in the way of clear thinking.

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Rest In Peace, Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite was a powerful figure in American media during the 1960’s amd 1970’s.  Like all well-known people, he was loved by many people and disliked by many people.  Now that he is dead, most of the obituaries will focus on the good things.

John Podhoretz at Commentary Magazine has an analysis of the inpact Walter Cronkite had on the Viet Nam war.  Walter Cronkite essentially caused us to lose the war (by turning American public opinion against our troops and the war) after we had achieved a major victory.  To understand how this happened, we need to remember the impact of the three major network newscasts before the age of cable and internet. 

According to the article:

Cronkite was a key figure in many ways, but foremost among them, perhaps, was the fact that he cleared the way for the mainstream media and the Establishment to join what Lionel Trilling called “the adversary culture.” Cronkite, the gravelly voice of accepted American wisdom, whose comportment suggested he kept his money in bonds and would never even have considered exceeding the speed limit, devastated President Lyndon Johnson in the wake of the 1968 Tet Offensive by declaring that the United States “was mired in stalemate” in Vietnam–when Johnson knew that Tet had been a military triumph.”

Walter Cronkite was the forerunner of the elite media we have today–he was not objective and does not serve the country well.  Because of the foundation he laid in the ‘mainstream media’, an alternative media has grown up in the form of talk radio, cable television, and the internet.  Regardless of how you feel about talk radio, they only way to get a balanced newscast is to listen to both the network news and talk radio.

In reading some of the blogs and comments from other blog readers, I was surprised at how intense the reaction to Walter Cronkite’s death was.  As a member of the generation that fought in Viet Nam and the wife of a Viet Nam era veteran, I can understand the intensity, I was just surprised that it was still there.  Unfortunately the template he put in place for network news lives on, but at least today we have an antidote.  It’s time to forgive and move on.

The Unusual Auto Accident Of The Day

Yahoo News has posted a picture and article about the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile crashing into a private home in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, about 35 miles south of Milwaukee.  The wienermobile crashed into the deck and garage of the private residence.  There were no injuries–no one was at home at the time of the crash.  

This screams for a really good punch line.  If anyone has one, please email it to rightwinggranny@live.com or put it in the comments.

  

The Wall Street Journal’s View On Healthcare Reform

Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an editorial on what the currently proposed healthcare reform will do to the federal budget and the tax rates of average Americans.  According to the article:

“Mr. Obama’s February budget provided the outline, but the House bill now fills in the details. To wit, tax increases that would take U.S. rates higher even than most of Europe. Yet even those increases aren’t nearly enough to finance the $1 trillion in new spending, which itself is surely a low-ball estimate. Meanwhile, the bill would create a new government health entitlement that will kill private insurance and lead to a government-run system.”

Please read the entire article for the entire picture of what is in store for America if this bill is passed.  It will give us a basic tax rate similar to the countries in Europe which are considered socialist countries.

Swine Flu

We haven’t heard a lot of reporting in America lately about the swine flu, but the number of cases in Britain is growing rapidly.  According to the BBC News yesterday:

More than 73 people per 100,000 reported flu-like illness from 6-12 July, the Royal College of GPs said.”

The figures from the Royal College of GPs showed that the number of cases increased 46% from the week before.  The swine flu vaccine is expected to arrive in the United Kingdom at the end of August.  There will be a priority list to determine who is eligible to recieve the vaccine.

There have been seventeen swine fle-related deaths in the United Kingdom.

Should Congress Be Required To Live Under The Laws It Passes?

Sounds like a pretty obvious question–until you realize that Congress opted out of Social Security, then started taking money from the program while increasing the amount of money ordinary Americans pay into the system.  They are about to do something similar with healthcare. 

Representative John Fleming of Louisiana is drafting legislation to force Congress to live under the laws they pass.  His website, fleming.house.gov, posts the following:

“Under the current draft of the Democrat healthcare legislation, members of Congress are curiously exempt from the government-run health care option, keeping their existing health plans and services on Capitol Hill. If Members of Congress believe so strongly that government-run health care is the best solution for hard working American families, I think it only fitting that Americans see them lead the way. Public servants should always be accountable and responsible for what they are advocating, and I challenge the American people to demand this from their representatives.

Together we will work to ensure that any plan that is good enough is for American families is good enough for every member of Congress.

View Resolution

If you would like to download a letter of support for House Resolution 615 to send to your representative click here.”

This is a wonderful idea.  Please follow the links above to support it.

National Healthcare? Sure, Just Send New York The Bill!

According to today’s New York Post, if the healthcare bill is financed by the surtax on high income people, some residents of New York City could wind up paying up to 60 percent of their income in taxes!   According to the article:

“The top rate in New York City, home to many of the state’s wealthiest people, would be 58.68 percent, the Washington-based Tax Foundation said in a report yesterday.”

Under the proposed new surtaxes supported by House Democrats and championed by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), New York would become the third-most-hostile place for top earners to live.  To say that this will drive people out of New York City and New York State in obvious.  (See rightwinggranny.com article “The Unintended Consequences Of Tax Increases” from May 20 of this year).  My question is “Where will they go?”

According to the article:

“The legislation is especially onerous for business owners, in part because it penalizes employers with a payroll bigger than $400,000 some 8 percent of wages if they don’t offer health care.

But the cost of the buy-in to the program may be so prohibitive that it will dissuade owners from growing their businesses — a scary prospect in the midst of a recession.”

The impact of this tax program on small businesses would be profound.  Please read the entire article to see the extent of the problem.  The surtax program suggested by Representative Rangel would cripple economic growth in New York City and probably in New York State.  I wonder if the representative has considered the consequences of his actions.  

Losing Private Healthcare Coverage

Yesterday’s Investor’s Business Daily has discovered the smoking gun in the current healthcare proposal.  I am not good at interpretting bureaucratic gobbledy gook, so here is the quote from the article:

“…The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of “Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section of the bill clearly states:

“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.”

One of the ‘advantages’ of making an awful piece of legislature 1,018 pages long is that most of the lawmakers won’t read it very carefully (if at all).  Based on the promises currently being made and the contradictions between fact and promise, I wonder how many Congressmen have actually read the bill.

Universal healthcare is a great idea in theory that has never worked in practice.  We need to learn from the mistakes other countries have made.  Please call your Congressmen and let him or her know that you do not support the end of American medicine as we know it. 

A Quick Note From The National Review

One of the blogs at National Review, Planet Gore on National Review, has a very short post today dealing with the fact that Toyota is closing down its California auto plant, the so-called NUMMI facility outside San Francisco.  OK, so what’s the big deal?  Well, let’s look at the reasons why:

Neither NUMMI’s labor costs nor business conditions are competitive.  The article explains why:

“NUMMI is Toyota’s only unionized plant in the U.S. — and that California’s energy and regulatory costs (envied by the Obama administration as a national model, natch) make it prohibitively expensive to make cars — even in Toyota’s largest U.S. market.”

“..The difference is, while Toyota sheds NUMMI to eliminate its only UAW plant, GM is emerging from a Democrat-arranged bankruptcy more beholden to Big Labor than ever (the union now owns 17 percent of the company.”

The regulation atmosphere in California is one of many reasons the state is going bankrupt.  (I have just returned from southern California and, were it not for the fiscal insanity of the state, would actually love to live there.)  Toyota will continue to be profitable in the worldwide auto market–they understand how to run a business in tough economic times.  The new government-owned GM has fired the executive core of the company.  Had they actually wanted to make the company competitive without government subsidies, they would have taken steps to decrease union influence–not increase it.  It kind of makes you wonder what the actual end game is.

Who Will Be Covered In National Healthcare?

National Review posted an article today about the healthcare plans moving through Congress and their relationship to illegal immigration.  According to the article:

“Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) told the Dallas Morning News in May, “We’re not going to cover undocumented aliens, undocumented workers. That’s too politically explosive.””

What about because it is basically unfair to burden legal, working Americans with the healthcare expenses of people who are breaking the law by being here illegally?

The article also points out:

“Approximately 15-22 percent of the 46 million residents of the United States without health coverage are illegal aliens. That’s about 9 or 10 million people. More generally, a third of the foreign-born are uninsured, Census data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies show. That means something like 12.6 million people, or more than a fourth of the total uninsured, are immigrants, both legal and illegal. Since 1989, immigration is responsible for 71 percent of the rise in those without health insurance.  The fact is, the problem of the uninsured would be a more manageable one if the U.S. were not admitting millions of uninsured immigrants.”

I would be willing to help people here legally get good medical care at reasonable prices, if someone is here illegally, they are breaking the law and should be sent home.  If they have nowhere to go, I’m sure the government can work that out on an individual basis.

We need sane legal immigration policies, but we don’t need to finance the medical care of people who do not respect our laws at the expense of the people who do.

Congress Is Very Good At Taking Other People’s Money and Spending It

The latest release of the coming universal health plan calls for a tax surcharge on anyone making more than $1 million a year.  This legislation, according to Bloomberg.com, would also place additional taxes on households with more than $350,000 a year in income and calls for further increases if the measure doesn’t hit a target for cost savings.

First, let’s take a look at who makes $1 million a year.  Many small business owners have their businesses set up so that when they file income tax, the business income is treated as personal income.  Then things are adjusted, and they pay their taxes.  These are the people who are going to be affected by this tax.  These are the people who will not be able to hire new people or expand their businesses because of the extra tax expense.

According to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce:

“The intention of this plan is to tax high-income households, but the real victims would be America’s small business owners,” the Washington-based group’s president, Thomas Donohue, said in a statement. “Since when does our great free-market country punish success?”

Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican, picked up on the theme, saying the plan would be paid for by “small business men and women we are counting on to start hiring workers again.”

The legislation would raise taxes on larger corporations as well. Among other things, it would make it easier for the Internal Revenue Service to prosecute tax shelters, and deny certain cross-border deductions that some companies are able to claim through tax treaties.

This is a sure-fire way to kill the chances of any solid economic recovery from the current recession.