Who Makes Money In ObamaCare ?

The following charts are from Forbes.com:

What the chart shows is the profits the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) will make as the result of the passage of ObamaCare. One of the aspects of ObamaCare is the end of the Medicare Advantage program–the favorite program of senior citizens.

The article at Forbes reports:

Not only did AARP succeed in getting Democrats to balk at Medigap reform. Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare Advantage will drive many seniors out of that program, and into traditional government-run Medicare, which will increase the number of people who need Medigap insurance.

It gets worse. AARP Medigap plans are exempted from most of Obamacare’s best-known insurance mandates. AARP Medigap plans are exempted from the ban that requires insurers to take all comers, regardless of pre-existing conditions. The plans are exempted from the $500,000 cap on insurance industry executive compensation; top AARP executives currently make more than $1 million. AARP plans are exempt from the premium tax levied on other private insurers. IPAB, Medicare’s rationing board, is explicitly barred from altering Medicare’s cost-sharing provisions, provisions that govern the existence of Medigap plans.

And AARP Medigap plans are allowed to have twice the administrative costs that other private insurers are allowed under Obamacare’s medical loss ratio regulations. This last point is key, because AARP’s 4.95 percent royalty is a significant administrative cost.

One of the most corrupt administrations in American history has ruined American healthcare. Unless we vote President Obama out of office and repeal ObamaCare, the crony capitalism engaged in by this administration will haunt us for years.

 

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Two Treaties To Watch In The Senate

There are two treaties coming up for a vote in the Senate in the near future. The first is the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. That treaty is expected to be finalized by July 27.

On Wednesday, an article in the Washington Times detailed some of the details of the treaty:

The criteria that arms should not be used to “prolong” or “aggravate” instability is troubling. China could use such a provision to label U.S. arms sales to Taiwan as a violation of international law. In 1941, such a treaty would have made illegal the U.S. lend-lease program to aid Britain before Pearl Harbor.

The implication is absurd: If giving arms to an ally fighting a tyrant prolongs the conflict, the only “legal” option for the ally is to surrender.

Another problem is the draft’s invocation of “international human rights law.” Unfortunately, liberal activists often claim that strict gun control is a “human right.” This reference, then, could be interpreted in ways that infringe on Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms.

Why should we care what some U.N. treaty says? Just ignore it, you say, because our Constitution trumps everything. Well, not if the U.S. signs and the Senate ratifies it. At that point, the treaty carries the weight of U.S. domestic law.

The second treaty coming to the Senate is the Law Of The Sea Treaty (appropriately called LOST). Forbes Magazine posted an article about both treaties on Tuesday.

In discussing the LOST treaty, the article states:

Then there’s the currently proposed, Obama-endorsed, Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) which would subordinate U.S. naval and drilling operations beyond 200 miles of our coast to a newly established U.N. bureaucracy. If ratified by Congress, it will grant a Kingston, Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA) the power to regulate deep-sea oil exploration, seabed mining, and fishing rights. As part of the deal, as much as 7% of U.S. government revenue collected from oil and gas companies operating off our coast will be forked over to ISA for redistribution to poorer, landlocked countries.

The U.S. would have one vote out of 160 regarding where the money would go, and be obligated to hand over offshore drilling technology to any nation that wants it… for free. And who are those lucky international recipients? They will most likely include such undemocratic, despotic and brutal governments as Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe…all current voting members of LOST.

Does either one of these treaties represent the country you want your children to inherit? Is American sovereignty important to you? The Senate switchboard telephone number is 202-224-3121. If you believe in upholding the Second Amendment of the Constitution and if you believe America should be able to control its own offshore waters, please call your Senator and ask him to vote against both of these treaties.

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More Questions Without Answers

A blog called the Daily Pen posted some information on Friday that may turn out to be important. Please take a look. There are an awful lot of unanswered quesitons about the history of President Obama. Even some in the major media are starting to wonder about his school records, etc. Forbes Magazine has posted an excerpt from a book called, “Hope Is Not A Strategy.”  Normally, a President’s college grades, educational history, etc. are public information. Why is there so much secrecy surrounding President Obama?

NOTE: The Forbes article referred to above has disappeared from the Internet.

Gateway Pundit has the story.

 

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About That Buffett Rule…

Pat Robertson on the 700 Club revealed some numbers his research people came up with regarding the taxes of Warren Buffett and Warren Buffett’s secretary. They are as follows:

Warren Buffett’s 2010 Taxes:

Adjusted Gross Income              $62.9 million

Taxable Income                          $39.8 million

Income Taxes                             $6.9 million

Warren Buffett’s secretary in 2010

Forbes Magazine estimated her income at somewhere around $200,000

Her estimated tax burden was approximately $70,000 or slightly higher

A significant amount of Mr. Buffett’s income came from sources that the government had already taxes at 35% (corporate taxes). There is no reason to tax that money again. Mr. Buffett’s secretary did not pay more in taxes than he did. That is a lie.

 

 

 

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One Answer To The Deficit And To Job Creation

In April of this year, the Daily Caller posted a story about the high cost of government regulations. The article reports:

Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, combed through the 81,405 pages of the Federal Registry — which contains the nation’s regulations on businesses, and state and local governments — and cites a report showing that regulation cost the economy a whopping $1.75 trillion in 2008.

In July, Forbes posted an article about the cost of Government regulation stating:

The country’s wealth creators need a real review of regulations, not comforting words from federal officials. Out of over 3,500 rules finalized in 2010, OIRA (Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) reviewed 66 — and of those only did benefit calculations for 20.

A simple perusal of the Federal Register shows over 430 rules costing over $65 billion so far this year alone, let alone the entire Crain (Nicole and Mark Crain, author of the SBA’s oft-cited report finding of $1.7 trillion in regulatory costs) universe of rules, which stops at 2008. As the Crains note, regulatory costs are often “indirect,” compared with direct taxation.

The article at the Daily Caller also points out:

Combining regulatory costs with federal FY 2010 outlays of $3.456 trillion reveals a federal government whose share of the entire economy now reaches 35.5 percent.
In 2010, federal agencies issued 3,573 final rules.

While agencies issued 3,573 final rules, Congress passed and the president signed into law a comparatively “few” 217 bills. Considerable lawmaking power is delegated to unelected bureaucrats at agencies, an abuse addressed recently in proposals such as the REINS Act.
Proposed rules in the Federal Register have surged from 2,044 in 2009 to 2,439 in 2010, a jump of 19.3 percent.
I don’t know what the President will say in his economy speech tomorrow night, but unless he agrees to cut government regulations drastically, the unemployment numbers will not change significantly.

 

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