Tea party supporters demonstrate before the arrival of President Barack Obama at the Renaissance Grand …

By Karen Kwiatkowski on Mar 14, 2010 in Uncategorized

Good ole Mitt “has urged the Tea Party leaders not to be quite so independent minded”, cautioning them not to mount direct electoral challenges outside the GOP establishment. I guess Romney will be running for President on the Anti-Change platform, against Obama’s “Really, I mean it this time Change” platform. Decisions, decisions.

h/t Blonde Sagacity

“What we need from the next president is somebody who will not just tell you what they think you want to hear but will tell you what you need to hear.”

– Barack Obama, Feb. 27, 2008

One job of presidents is to educate Americans about crucial national problems. On health care, Barack Obama has failed. Almost everything you think you know about health care is probably wrong or, at least, half wrong. Great simplicities and distortions have been peddled in the name of achieving “universal health coverage.” The miseducation has worsened as the debate approaches its climax.

There’s a parallel here: housing. Most Americans favor homeownership, but uncritical pro-homeownership policies (lax lending standards, puny down payments, hefty housing subsidies) helped cause the financial crisis. The same thing is happening with health care. The appeal of universal insurance — who, by the way, wants to be uninsured? — justifies half-truths and dubious policies. That the process is repeating itself suggests that our political leaders don’t learn even from proximate calamities.

How often, for example, have you heard the emergency-room argument? The uninsured, it’s said, use emergency rooms for primary care. That’s expensive and ineffective. Once they’re insured, they’ll have regular doctors. Care will improve; costs will decline. Everyone wins. Great argument. Unfortunately, it’s untrue.

A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the insured accounted for 83 percent of emergency-room visits, reflecting their share of the population. After Massachusetts adopted universal insurance, emergency-room use remained higher than the national average, an Urban Institute study found. More than two-fifths of visits represented non-emergencies. Of those, a majority of adult respondents to a survey said it was “more convenient” to go to the emergency room or they couldn’t “get [a doctor's] appointment as soon as needed.” If universal coverage makes appointments harder to get, emergency-room use may increase.

You probably think that insuring the uninsured will dramatically improve the nation’s health. The uninsured don’t get care or don’t get it soon enough. With insurance, they won’t be shortchanged; they’ll be healthier. Simple.

Think again. I’ve written before that expanding health insurance would result, at best, in modest health gains. Studies of insurance’s effects on health are hard to perform. Some find benefits; others don’t. Medicare’s introduction in 1966 produced no reduction in mortality; some studies of extensions of Medicaid for children didn’t find gains. In the Atlantic recently, economics writer Megan McArdle examined the literature and emerged skeptical. Claims that the uninsured suffer tens of thousands of premature deaths are “open to question.” Conceivably, the “lack of health insurance has no more impact on your health than lack of flood insurance,” she writes.

How could this be? No one knows, but possible explanations include: (a) many uninsured are fairly healthy — about two-fifths are age 18 to 34; (b) some are too sick to be helped or have problems rooted in personal behaviors — smoking, diet, drinking or drug abuse; and (c) the uninsured already receive 50 to 70 percent of the care of the insured from hospitals, clinics and doctors, estimates the Congressional Budget Office.

Though it seems compelling, covering the uninsured is not the health-care system’s major problem. The big problem is uncontrolled spending, which prices people out of the market and burdens government budgets. Obama claims his proposal checks spending. Just the opposite. When people get insurance, they use more health services. Spending rises. By the government’s latest forecast, health spending goes from 17 percent of the economy in 2009 to 19 percent in 2019. Health “reform” would probably increase that.

Unless we change the fee-for-service system, costs will remain hard to control because providers are paid more for doing more. Obama might have attempted that by proposing health-care vouchers (limited amounts to be spent on insurance), which would force a restructuring of delivery systems to compete on quality and cost. Doctors, hospitals and drug companies would have to reorganize care. Obama refrained from that fight and instead cast insurance companies as the villains.

He’s telling people what they want to hear, not what they need to know. Whatever their sins, insurers are mainly intermediaries; they pass along the costs of the delivery system. In 2009, the largest 14 insurers had profits of roughly $9 billion; that approached 0.4 percent of total health spending of $2.472 trillion. This hardly explains high health costs. What people need to know is that Obama’s plan evades health care’s major problems and would worsen the budget outlook. It’s a big new spending program when government hasn’t paid for the spending programs it already has.

“If not now, when? If not us, who?” Obama asks. The answer is: It’s not now, and it’s not “us.” Pass or not, Obama’s proposal is the illusion of “reform,” not the real thing.

The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.

It’s time to start cashing them in.

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits _ billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes _ nearly $29 billion more.

Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs _ in the form of Treasury bonds _ which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg’s municipal offices.

Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn’t be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.

Social Security’s shortfall will not affect current benefits. As long as the IOUs last, benefits will keep flowing. But experts say it is a warning sign that the program’s finances are deteriorating. Social Security is projected to drain its trust funds by 2037 unless Congress acts, and there’s concern that the looming crisis will lead to reduced benefits.

“This is not just a wake-up call, this is it. We’re here,” said Mary Johnson, a policy analyst with The Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group. “We are not going to be able to put it off any more.”

For more than two decades, regardless of which political party was in power, Congress has been accused of raiding the Social Security trust funds to pay for other programs, masking the size of the budget deficit.

Remember Al Gore’s “lockbox,” the one he was going to use to protect Social Security? The former vice president talked about it so much during the 2000 presidential campaign that he was parodied on “Saturday Night Live.”

Full article here

March 15, 2010 / 12:01 am • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

Public option: In

School loans: In

And yet, it’s called a “shell” bill that will be stripped. Philip Klein explains it all. Here’s a bit:

Shortly before midnight on Sunday, Democrats released a 2,309 page health care bill that will start the process of reconciliation — but don’t let that fool you, it’s not the actual reconciliation bill with all the changes you’ve been reading about. Instead, as Rep. Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member on the Budget Committee, explained to me last week, this is just the “shell” bill — the vehicle that Democrats need to get moving on health care. Once the bill gets approved (likely Monday), Democrats will send this phantom bill over to the Rules Committee, where it will be stripped, and then they’ll insert in all of the actual changes that they’ve negotiated.

Rep. Paul Ryan says:

Despite claims of transparency and calls for a “simple up-or-down vote,” there is nothing simple about this process. This convoluted legislative charade demonstrates how far the Democratic majority has wandered from real health-care reform and cost control, employing any means to achieve political victory.

Then the 2300 page non-bill bill aka “shell” will be sent for mark-ups. Link here.
Now, is the time to fight. Call your representative. Write. Pray. Do not sleep. This bill must die. Or there won’t be much left to fight for.

Michelle Malkin has who to call, where to go and what to do.

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Sheila Jackson Lee at odds with constituents

(click for video)

10:04 AM CDT on Sunday, March 30, 2008

By Wendell Edwards / 11 News

HOUSTON — On the campus of Texas Southern University was a Democratic Senate District convention unlike the others being held across the state.

Democrats together, but yet still divided over who should be the Democratic presidential nominee.

And never more was that more apparent than when longtime Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee took the stage.

A majority of the crowd showed its support for Barack Obama by shouting his name and booing the congresswoman, letting her know what they thought of her allegiance to Hillary Clinton.

To some, especially Clinton supporters at the convention, the booing came out of nowhere.

“I was a little surprise there was that kind of activity going on,” said Jeffery, who is a Clinton supporter.

But for those backing Obama, they said it sent a clear message to the congresswoman from her constituents.

“For her to standout against the wishes of her district and be a Clinton supporter, I guess pissed off our delegation,” said Obama supporter Phillip.

For years, Sheila Jackson Lee has been a popular politician in the 18th Congressional district; winning re-election overwhelmingly at least five times since 1995. The district is predominately made of up African American voters.

“It is always tough to go into the face of adversity,” she admitted to the chorus of boos she received Saturday.

But could the disfavor from those who support Obama, hurt Jackson Lee?

“We are somewhat in uncharted waters,” said 11 News political expert Bob Stein. “It simply reflects the fact that Lee is in tough position here.

“Her district when 90-percent to 10-percent for Obama.”

For Jackson-Lee though, it is all about keeping her word.

“What would I be if I went back on my word to an individual that I’ve worked with for more than a decade and sat down talked to me about her vision for America,” said Jackson Lee.

Apparently she opposes Obama and his war.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 202 of the concurrent
resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2010.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH –, 2010

Mr. SPRATT from the Committee on the Budget, reported the following bill;
which was committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State
of the Union and ordered to be printed

A BILL

To provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 202 of
the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2010.
1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Reconciliation Act of  2010’’.

Born into slavery, Frederick Douglass was definitely ahead of his time and
United States of America.” It was due in part to his direct and candid
discussions with President Abraham Lincoln that led to the President signing
and later issuing The Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 that
led to the freeing of slaves in the South.

Subsequently, it is through our organization and others like-minded groups
that we profess and demand he be given the credit  he justly deserves. Like
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Jackie Robinson and James Weldon Johnson
(author of ‘Lift Every Voice’), he was a dedicated and active Republican at
the time of his death.

For far to long, the Black community has come to believe it was the
Democratic party and their liberal leaders  who fought for their rights. This
perhaps is the biggest lie that continues to be spread across the nation.
Well, we will be providing an array of historical facts that not only rebut the
lies, but clarify why these assumptions and mis-lead bits of information have
sustain themselves  for over a half of century.

The time for honesty is here and will we bring the facts to you throughout the
month of February 2010.

National Coffee Party Day flops

Anti-tea movement kicks off with miniscule crowds

Posted: March 13, 2010
11:15 pm Eastern

By Drew Zahn

© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Leading up to today’s “National Coffee Party Day” – the countrywide launch of a leftwing movement meant as an answer to the tea parties – a CNN article asked, “Will the Coffee Party rise to the scale of the Tea Party movement? Saturday is the first big test.”

If “scale” is indeed the measure by which the Coffee Party will be graded, however, today’s cup-o’-Joe kickoff has earned a resounding “F.”

Despite a news-media buildup over the past few weeks from CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, National Public Radio, Washington Post, Seattle Times and dozens of other outlets, the estimated 350 coffee houses hosting events around the country today welcomed mostly miniscule crowds.

Last year, the fledgling tea party movement scheduled nearly 2,000 gatherings on April 15, Tax Day. Over the summer, tea partiers packed health-care town halls by the hundreds, overflowing venues and leading to lines running around the block. On Sept. 12, the crowd of tea partiers that flooded Washington, D.C., was estimated into the hundreds of thousands, possibly topping 1 million.

By contrast, Alex Pappas of the Daily Caller reports showing up to a Washington, D.C., coffee party at Peregrine Espresso in the Eastern Market area today, “only to find a small gathering of five activists huddled at a small table.”

As you will see in the article this YouTube is from a different Coffee Party.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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