Showing posts with label Pelosi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pelosi. Show all posts

Monday, November 09, 2009

Eureka! Health care is now free!


Richard offers a stunning insight into the sheer economic illiteracy of the current Democrat Party. Exhibit A: Jan Schakowsky (Marxist-IL):

In the debate on the health care bill in the house, Democrat Jan Schakowsky made a revealing comment. Asked about the abortion restrictions placed in the bill (the Stupak amendment), she responded that the bill was overall good for women.

Now there would be free breast cancer screenings for women.

Did you hear that? Free. Nobody pays. Do the doctors get paid? By whom?

Will this new "free service" add to insurance premiums? This is not the Congresswoman's concern. If the price of anything is free, there will be more of the service delivered of course. But remember, whatever the volume, Shakowsky thinks it is free, because the consumer does not pay at the point of service.

That, of course, is one of the reasons why American healthcare costs so much. Almost everyone thinks that the service is free at the point of service. When people pay out of pocket for things -- flat screen TVs, cellular phone service, etc. -- they are good consumers.

When they think something is free at the point of service, they are terrible consumers, using more of whatever is "free".

Someone else pays of course: government, their employer, insurance companies, your children and grandchildren... all future taxpayers. Barack Obama made a similar comment about colonoscopies in his last prime time news conference on health care reform.

Everyone should have a colonoscopy and it should be free (no deductibles, or co-pays). These, for the record, are not inexpensive procedures, and involve the use of anesthesia, which is always a risk factor for any procedure.

But if insurers are now mandated to provide free colonoscopies, there will be many more of them performed. It will be the gastroenterologists' full employment act. Many who are not at risk (family history, over age 50) will have the procedure done

Costs will go much higher. But, hey, it is free. And isn't that a good thing? In microcosm, this is the bill the Democrats have passed: lots of goodies, and the piper will be paid later. Kick the can down the road.

Fiscal responsibility? Why worry? Do you think this bill will actually cost only $1.2 trillion over ten years? If volume is higher than estimated by the CBO, then the premiums for insurance will rise whether in a private insurance or public plan, and so will the subsidies paid under this bill.

Those subsidies do not just cover the poor. Families with incomes up to $88,000 get subsides to buy insurance in the House bill. Are these poor folks, needing a handout? I think not. The purpose of this bill is to create a new middle class entitlement. Make these people think they owe their "free" health care to the government and the party of big government.

The reality is that less care often means higher quality than more care. The New York Times has an article in the Sunday magazine on the Intermountain system in Utah. This is the system run by those horrible Mormons, who voted against gay marriage.

Intermountain happens to have the best health care system in America. Books have been written about this system. They don't prescribe treatment protocols from up high, but actually look to see what works at their hospitals.

Hospitals from around the country are coming to Utah to learn what they do. While Mayo and Cleveland Clinic have models of collaborative care among MDs who are salaried (and hence do not directly benefit from fee for service over utilization), Intermountain achieves its results with measurement.

There are models of low cost quality care in America. But Obamacare or PelosiCare have a one-size-fits-all model that will lead to even higher levels of over-utilization than already exists. When the country starts going broke, we will see rationing from up high, not the Intermountain model or the Mayo model.

The Obama team trusts bureaucrats and politicians, not doctors.



Sunday, November 08, 2009

PelosiCare: Reaction Roundup featuring Sarah Palin, Thomas Sowell, The Anchoress, Dr. Helen, Tom Jacobson, John Locke and Doctor Zero


The anger of the American public is only just beginning

Dr. Helen's message is inspiring:

You are never doomed until you are dead. There is always something that can be done. The anger of the American public is only just beginning. It is an energy that will be needed in the coming days, weeks and months to protest, stand up, debate, argue and get in the face of every government official, public figure and others who support a bill that leads us down The Road to Serfdom.

The people who gave us Fannie Mae now want to run health care

Sarah Palin is on fire:

We’ve got to hold on to hope, and we’ve got to fight hard because Congressional action tonight just put America on a path toward an unrecognizable country.

The same government leaders that got us into the mortgage business and the car business are now getting us into the health care business...

...Speaker Pelosi has broken her own promises of transparency to ram a health “care” bill through the House of Representatives just before midnight. Why did she push the 2,000 page bill this weekend? Was she perhaps afraid to give her peers and the constituents for whom she works the chance to actually read this monstrous bill carefully, if at all? Was she concerned that Americans might really digest the details of a bill that the Wall Street Journal has called “the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced”?

This out-of-control bureaucratic mess will be disastrous for our economy, our small businesses, and our personal liberty. It will slam businesses at a time when we are at double-digit unemployment rates – the highest we’ve seen in a quarter of a century. This massive new bureaucracy will cost us and our children money we don’t have. It will rob Americans of more of our freedom and further hamper the free market.

Make no mistake: we’re on course to have government commandeer one-sixth of our economy. The people who gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now want to run our health care.

The Day the Blue Dogs Died

The John Locke Foundation calls it "The Day the Blue Dogs Died":

...more than half (28 out of 52) of the supposedly fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats voted FOR HR 3962 — the nearly 2,000-page bureaucratic monstrosity that, if implemented, will stifle the economic prospects of this generation, and many generations to come. I cringe when I think about what is to come for my stepdaughter’s small children, who will enter the work force in the next 15 to 20 years...

...To illustrate the clean break between what the Blue Dogs profess, and what the majority of them voted for last night, be sure to visit the coalition’s home page, which carries a national debt tally.

The shadow of the jackboot...

The Anchoress is realistic:

We’d best prepare ourselves for an America we could not have imagined even 9 years ago, and a world besieged by an ideology that seems to be heading to a victorious ascendancy.

Will government-run health care be better or worse?

Thomas Sowell's questions are piercing:

What is so wrong with the current medical system in the United States that we are being urged to rush headlong into a new government system that we are not even supposed to understand, because this legislation is to be rushed through Congress before even the Senators and Representatives have a chance to read it?

...Will a government-run medical system make these things better or worse? This very basic question seldom seems to get asked, much less answered.

Maybe this time...

Doctor Zero hits another grand-slam.

The Heritage Foundation’s estimate of $2.4 to $2.6 trillion over 10 years, beginning when the House bill transitions from front-loaded tax hikes to full Daffy Duck freak-out spending in 2014, is the most logical projection of its true costs I’ve seen.

Even this will likely prove to be an underestimation of the true long-term costs. No other Big Government program has ever stayed within an order of magnitude of the promises made when it was signed into law. Medicare originally cost about $3 billion, when it began in 1965, and was projected to cost about $12 billion by 1990, adjusted for inflation. The actual cost in 1990 was nearly ten times that figure, $107 billion. It was up to $440 billion by 2007. The architects of the program would have been run out of town on a rail, if these future costs had been known to the voters of 1965.

The difference between promised benefits and expected revenues for Social Security and Medicare amounts to about $107 trillion dollars, which Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute points out is double the annual Gross Domestic Product of the entire world. The most strident opponent of the New Deal would never have dreamed of predicting this level of cost overrun. Name any government program that has been around for more than five years, and the odds are good it costs at least triple what its opponents originally said it would cost.

In The End: No Public Option, No Abortions, No Pelosi, No Reid

William A. Jacobson has a hopeful analysis of a possible endgame.

Keep in mind, Nancy Pelosi cut a deal to get her health care bill through the House (by a mere 5 votes) by allowing a floor vote on the Stupak Amendment, which reiterates existing federal law banning federal funding for abortions, and takes that law several steps further by requiring any health plan which participates in the newly established exchanges to offer competing plans, one which covers abortion and one which does not. The Stupak Amendment makes clear that any plan offering abortion coverage must be self-funding, with no federal funds used directly or indirectly. As many left-wing bloggers are screaming, the Stupak Amendment guts Roe v. Wade in reality (but not in law) by creating a subclass of health insurance coverage which will cost more and be less available than alternatives without abortion coverage.

So Harry Reid needs to drop the public option to get a bill through the Senate. Nancy Pelosi needs to drop abortion coverage even for most private plans, to get a bill through the House.

The end result: If a bill is to pass both houses of Congress, it will have no public option and no abortion coverage.

The left-wing will take care of dropping Pelosi and Reid from their leadership positions. And if Obama were to sign such a bill, who knows whether he would be dropped in 2012.

From his lips to God's ears.


The Health Care Bill in Ninety Seconds

The key 'features' of of H.R. 3962:

Cost

The CBO now estimates health bill spending at $3 trillion over 10 years. Since the CBO historically underestimates expenses, assume massive new deficits for a country that can ill afford them.

Personal Requirements

You'll be required to buy a 'qualified' health plan. A family earning $102K a year will pay $1,700 a month in premium and out-of-pocket expenses. 'Willful' failure to buy a plan will result in a fine of up to $250,000 and 'imprisonment of up to five years'. Illegal immigrants are exempt from fines and imprisonment.

Business Requirements

Every business in America must provide a 'qualified plan' for employees and pay 72.5% of the cost. Failure to do so results in an 8% payroll tax.

Impact to Seniors

Medicare reimbursements will be slashed by $500 billion. Medicare Advantage plans will be slashed by 20%. In many cases, seniors will be forced to see nurse practitioners rather than doctors.

Payments for Community Organizers, Translators and Racial/Ethnic 'Balance'

The bill provides grants to community "entities" with no required qualifications. The bill also provides translators for patients who do not speak English and offers grants to schools serving students with "disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities."

Illegal Immigrants Covered, Abortion Funding Still Possible

Proof of citizenship requirements were gutted, so illegal aliens will be subsidized. The legislation also "doesn't close the door to using taxpayer funds" for abortions.

This bill truly is, as Michele Bachmann describes it, the "crown jewel of socialism". Its implementation will result in an economic catastrophe of the first order as certainly as the sun rises in the morning.


Hat tip: Frogg at ChronWatch. Linked by: Linkiest, Memeorandum, Curmudgeonly & Skeptical, Protein Wisdom and Family Security Matters. Thanks!

PelosiCare's price controls will bankrupt health insurers in one year


Buried deep inside the 2,200 pages of H.R. 3962 ("The Affordable Health Care for America Act", A.K.A. "PelosiCare") is a section that mandates the profit margins of health insurers.

‘SEC. 2714. ENSURING VALUE AND LOWER PREMIUMS.

‘(a) In General- Each health insurance issuer that offers health insurance coverage in the small or large group market shall provide that for any plan year in which the coverage has a medical loss ratio below a level specified by the Secretary (but not less than 85 percent), the issuer shall provide in a manner specified by the Secretary for rebates to enrollees of the amount by which the issuer’s medical loss ratio is less than the level so specified.

No company has ever survived with a loss ratio approaching 85%.

What exactly is a 'loss ratio'?


Put simply, it is the ratio of the claims paid by an insurance company to the premiums collected. Usually the ratio is calculated on a yearly basis. And, in the context of legislation, loss ratios are price controls.

A 2008 document by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance describes state experiences with mandated loss ratios.

While many states have implemented loss-ratio requirements, few have ever tried loss ratios at or above 70 percent... states hope[d] that by squeezing down the [insurers'] administrative costs... insurance [would] become more affordable and more accessible. However, the experience of other states... provides little hope for success.

An 85% loss ratio, as mandated by PelosiCare, would bankrupt insurers within a year. No mandated loss ratio has ever come close to 85%.

Why would a loss ratio that permits only a 15% administrative margin for insurers cause companies to fail? Consider that the administrative expenses include collecting premiums; processing and paying claims; monitoring patient care; staffing customer service functions; paying costs to state and federal regulators; paying sales agents; and general overhead (rent, power, heat, light); etc.

I repeat: No company has ever survived with a loss ratio approaching 85%.

A loss ratio of 85% will bankrupt health insurers in less than a year


If you work for a health insurer, if your business is a supplier to a health insurer, or if you are customer or simply a shareholder, say goodbye to the private health insurance industry.

So, no, you won't get to keep your private insurance plan. That's guaranteed under H.R. 3962.


Update: An employee of a health insurer clarifies, "Congress voted to fire me last night." (hat tip: Larwyn).

Update II: Liberty died last night... to thunderous applause.

Saturday, November 07, 2009

ObamaCare: If It's Private, Kill It!


Dan from New York:

Excerpt of an email received from a big "community organizer":

Health insurer Humana posted a 65% jump in third-quarter profit on Monday, due largely to a bulging membership and to premiums from Medicare Advantage...

Humana has faced the wrath of seniors across the country after falsely warning them that their benefits are at risk due to health reform...

Many senior advocates see the gigantic rise in profits as further proof of Medicare Advantage subsidies being an unnecessary corporate giveaway from the government to private insurers at the expense of seniors.

In other words, seniors' benefits - namely their Medicare Advantage plans - are at risk due to Obama's health reform because Obama's health reform reduces or eliminates the government subsidies that make those privately-issued plans possible.

And once regular Medicare's competition is put out of business, seniors will have no choice but take the sharply reduced benefits ObamaCare gives them.

That's the way Obama and his Leftocrats plan to drive you into their arms, and then squeeze the life out of you.

And what happens to the employees, vendors, partners, suppliers and shareholders (direct and indirect through mutual funds) of private health insurers?

The SEIU is licking its chops at the opportunity to unionize millions of new public sector employees.


National Health Care's Test Bed: Puerto Rico


Vic sent in his observations from a recent visit to "The Beautiful Island".

I recently returned from a long anticipated sojourn to the land of my ancestors: Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a beautiful tropical getaway for travelers in the know and was a melting pot for Spanish, French, Irish Geese and so many more during the Colonial Period when Spain ruled the seas and wars were fought over honor and commodities such as gold and cotton. From 1508 until the Spanish ceded Puerto Rico to the United Sates in 1898, gold was mined and depleted, the island was depopulated of Taino indians, repopulated with Europeans, and natural disasters shaped the culture and ethos of its inhabitants.

My visit re-acquainted me with long lost relatives and introduced me to a raft of previously unknown loved ones. One such newcomer (to me anyway) has been employed by the Commonwealth for decades and ran for office against the corruption as he saw it and is solidly for statehood; a perennial issue that comes to a head with a vote periodically. Puerto Rico is a true colony of the United States: it owes its economic survival to the sustenance provided by the Federal Government and would sink into Third World poverty if not for the billions of dollars pumped into the economy. It really is a welfare state and the Puerto Ricans are well aware of their status as a 'stepchild territory'. It is an outpost for the United Sates that hems in Cuba and its strategic importance can not be understated. That having been said, the Island economy is depressed and has been for many years.

The number one industry in Puerto Rico is administering the distribution of the money provided by the United States in the form of so many programs and a welfare system rivaling any Cold War satellite of the USSR. There was an amazing burst of economic activity until the early nineties, when the Clinton Administration eliminated an enhanced tax status for corporations operating on the Island. Then the companies pulled up stakes for Asia and the economy collapsed. A drive through the southern shore treats you to an ugly display of abandoned and rusting oil refineries among the tropical lushness. A stunning sea bordered by a coastline of deteriorating factories: disgusting in all of its irony.

This long-winded description of island life is meant to inform you of the mindset of the Puerto Rican people. One of resignation to economic slumber and permanent dependency on the United States. Are they proud to be Americans? You betcha! But many long for statehood and the responsibilities that go along with it. But they are also proud perversely, as I see it, of their health care system.

The Puerto Ricans see government-run health care as a right and not a privilege of gainful employment. Understand that redistribution of money is the prime industry there so it follows that a sense of entitlement is ingrained. Only a minority, however large it may be, want the sometimes crushing responsibilities of statehood and the status the goes with it. Case in point: California is effectively bankrupt because of its social programs and unceasing support for illegal aliens who neither pay taxes nor re-invest in local communities.

The Islanders are intensely proud that the Obama Administration had studied their model and has decided to take it nationwide. They see the benefits of a centrally run program but have cautions for the White House regarding implementation. Firstly, it is expensive, depleting funds that would otherwise be used to spur economic activity. The Puerto Ricans are sensitive to the financial costs in the long run but trust the Government will make up the lost growth later.

The second caution is more of a warning to our aging population: Rationing. Certain procedures and modalities are simply not available for a small 'nation' who never had the budget for the more exotic equipment and treatments anyway. If you get a fatal illness that will consume lots of resources and buy a few months; you go home to settle your affairs. On an island that has commercial vehicles belching smoke and abandoned buildings on every street can it surprise anyone that top level health care simply does not exist?

In a commonwealth that appears to a visitor to be stuck in the 1970s there is no expectation of emerging from near poverty and the achievement of the wild prosperity that the mainland boasts. There is the feeling of just getting along and the hope for more funding from 'Mother Congress'.

And as the United States emerges from its recession more money will come: As a territory it is their right. Don't get me wrong, Puerto Ricans are very proud to be Americans. They are simply the victims of 'Mother Congress' socializing and completely controlling their economy. There is no other option for them as the Government has taxed most industry right off the island and has a stranglehold on its income.

When a government can dictate how much money you earn and where you may work it has infinite control over the decisions you make. And that is not the America I want for my children. Don't let 'Mother Congress' and headmistress Pelosi nationalize health care. It will be the undoing of the best medical system in the world and have the unanticipated result of suppressing our economy. It will unquestionably lead to a lower standard of living. I fear for the Democracy if this dog of a bill passes.



Chart o' the Day: We Went a Trillion in the Hole for THIS?

Spotted at InstaPundit:


Click to bigg-ify

Logical: let's turn over one-fifth of the economy to the same Einsteins that obliterated the economy with a Keynesian "Stimulus" disaster. And let's do so using a 2,000-page bill that puts Rube Goldberg to shame.


Friday, November 06, 2009

Collectible Postcards from 11/5 Capitol Hill Protest!


Isn't entrepreneurship wonderful? No sooner had concerned citizens descended on Washington than the gift shops started selling these collectible postcards.


Click to bigg-ify

Best question posed by protesters: "Will the public option pay for Pelosi's botox?"

Collect 'em all!


Saturday, October 31, 2009

Mission Accomplished! Fannie Mae Loan Delinquency Rate Skyrockets 300% Over 2008


Tyler Durden paints an ugly picture for the U.S. taxpayer, courtesy Barney Frank (D-MA) and Chris Dodd (D-CT).

The [Fannie Mae] "seriously delinquent" rate has gone parabolic, increasing by roughly 5% sequentially and just under 300% YoY [year-over-year]. As mere text will simply not do this metric justice, please enjoy this chart of the dataset from Blytic. It tells you all you need to know about the Fed's containment of the housing problem.

The August seriously delinquent single-family number comprised of a 2.87% non-credit enhanced delinquencies and a very bothersome 11.52%, consisting of credit enhanced loans... The deterioration of FNM's book however did not stop it from increasing the size of its book [loans]. In September Fannie's total book of business hit $3.242 trillion, up from $3.229 trillion in August and $3.079 trillion in the prior year...

...This trend should bother you, dear taxpayer, because it is your money on the hook here, which is not only massively mismanaged by Bernanke & Co., LLC, but which sees another $80 billion of free funding every month courtesy of the dollar printing press to onboard even more toxic garbage onto your balance sheet.

Thank goodness the Stimulus kicked in and, according to the pinpoint-accurate White House, "created or saved 640,329 jobs."

Business Week's Peter Coy observes, "If this is the best a stimulus can do, we're in real trouble."

Remember the end of the movie Animal House, when ROTC frat-boy Kevin Bacon tries to calm the crowd by screaming, "Remain Calm! All is well! All is well..."?

That's the message the P.R. flacks at Goldman Squids are marketing.

So just pile into the stock market, rubes! All is well!



Linked by: InstaPundit. Thanks!

Democrats Admit: Our Health Care Bill Is a Cluster****

Just read between the lines of the 2,000-page ObamaCare bill and you'll find two stark admissions. Democrats are convinced that the bill will lead to an unmitigated catastrophe.

Admission 1: After months of proclaiming the "urgent" need for health care reform, PelosiCare doesn't actually kick in for at least three (3) years.

There are two reasons for the delay.

First, it's a tacit acknowledgment that prompt implementation would destroy Obama's reelection chances in 2012.

Second, it's an outright financial scam authored by the Statist Democrats: " The CBO has scored the bill at $1.055 trillion [which] does not take into consideration that fact that the ten-year window contains ten years of revenue and only three to eight years of major payouts –- meaning that the bill will bleed red ink [in subsequent years."

Admission 2: The only Americans not required to join the national health care program are -- wait for it -- members of Congress. Democrats are so certain that their own health would be endangered that they want no part of the disastrous Rube Goldberg contraption they've created.

* * *

"ClusterCare" is a $700 billion tax hike that will bankrupt the country as certainly as night follows day. It is 2,000 pages of pure horror: a perfect read for Halloween, but completely inappropriate for children, who must ultimately pay for this disaster.



Update: Trial lawyers rejoice: ObamaCare punishes states that implement tort reform.

Linked by: Ed Driscoll and Say Anything. Thanks!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Child Slavery

Nothing gets my dander up like someone who hurts a child. Who abuses a child. Who steals from a child.

A few months ago in Greenville, South Carolina, a man approached a mother and daughter selling Girl Scout cookies at the Bi-Lo on West Wade Hampton Boulevard.

He asked to buy a box of lemon cookies. When the mother turned around, he grabbed their cash box -- which contained $300 -- and fled.

The suspect was described as "a white male with dirty blonde hair between the ages of 25-35, approximately 5’8 and 170 pounds, wearing blue jeans, a denim coat and a baseball hat."

The little girl -- a first year Girl Scout -- was heartbroken. The suspect was never identified.

Earlier this year Idaho high school students visited Washington and carried with them a petition. The students -- fearful of massive deficit spending -- called for a balanced budget.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, President Obama's 2009 budget triples the annual deficit: the record setting figure is $1.9 trillion. His claim about cutting the deficit in half in a few years is a fairy tail -- like "slashing prices" by 50 percent the day after you’ve doubled them.

And the administration blatantly fibs, stating that tax increases will not affect 95 percent of taxpayers. New taxes on energy -- under the fraudulent "cap-and-trade" regime -- will force every business in America to raise its prices. Taxpayers will be wounded... directly and indirectly.

The President also appears close to implementing socialized medicine, a failure everywhere it's been tried -- into the Statists' plans. As for the $45 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities represented by Medicare and Medicaid? On that subject, Obama is utterly silent.

Obama and the rest of the Democrats want to tell you how much energy you can use (smart grids that can automatically shut off your air conditioner), whether you can give money to charities and which kinds of toilets you can buy.

Even ignoring his oppressive energy taxes, every dollar of Obama's new debt means that future taxes must be $1 higher in present-value terms. This translates to a discounted present-value legacy of $6.5 trillion of new, future taxes.

The tax burden each family of four can expect? $163,000. Let me repeat that: $163,000 for each and every tax-paying household in America.

Your children... my children... our grandchildren... are all slaves to the Obama budget. Because Barack Obama and his comrades in Congress are ideologues. They could care less about the economy.

They're beholden to ACORN, the SEIU, the ACLU and trial lawyers of every vintage and variety.

As subscribers to a failed ideology, Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of the radical Statists are consigning our descendants to slavery. Girl Scouts. Boy Scouts. Toddlers. Infants. The unborn.

Let me be the first to apologize to your kids for not handing off a better future than we had.


Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Real Cars of Genius: Cash for Clunkers Cost You a Mere $24,000 Per Car -- Report: Feds Could Have Just Given Away Free cars Instead


Brian at Snapped Shot sends us this email alert: "HOLY CRAP: Cash for Clunkers Program Ended Up Costing $24,000 PER CAR!"! The Christian Science Monitor reports:

American taxpayers paid a lot of cash for those clunkers: $24,000 for each new car sold, according to a study released Wednesday.

That’s a lot of money, especially when the so-called “cash for clunker” stimulus program offered only a maximum $4,500 in cash for each person who traded in an old gas-guzzler and bought a new car.

The government could have done almost as well by just giving away cars for free...

Gee, Grampa, I feel sooooo much better about socialized medicine now. Don't you, Barney Pelosi-Schumer?


Friday, October 23, 2009

Pelosi stunned senseless by health care Constitutionality question


I love the folks at CNSNews, instigators of some of the spiciest Beltway interviews in recent memory. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the latest, eh, victim. Asked whether the act of requiring every American to purchase a product or service -- in this case, health insurance -- Pelosi stammered a nonsensical response.

When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Pelosi's press secretary later responded to written follow-up questions from CNSNews.com by emailing CNSNews.com a press release on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform,” that argues that Congress derives the authority to mandate that people purchase health insurance from its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.

The exchange with Speaker Pelosi on Thursday occurred as follows:

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”

Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a "serious question."

“You can put this on the record,” said Elshami. “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”

Oh, Elshami, I beg to differ. It is a serious question. Just don't ask the whackjob Marxists at Think Regress:

Pelosi is right to be dismissive of the fringe right-wing theory behind this question, which has no basis in the Constitution itself. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power “[t]o regulate commerce... among the several states” as well as the authority to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” its power to regulate commerce.-Een [sic] ultra-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia acknowledges that these constitutional provisions give Congress sweeping authority to enact laws that regulate “economic activity.”

By that standard, Congress could tax you at 100% and require you to wear stiletto high heels when playing basketball.

The colonies authored the Declaration of Independence because they rejected authoritarianism.

The Framers wrote the Constitution to protect the individual from the state. And the Constitution is the highest law in the land.

Pelosi's inability to articulate a semblance of a response speaks volumes.

Requiring every American to purchase a good or service is unconstitutional. It's never been done. It can't be done. And anyone who isn't a crackhead knows that.


Thursday, October 15, 2009

I - N - S - A - N - I - T - Y


Politicians in Washington keep telling us that it is the financial system that needs regulation.

What Washington won't tell you is that the greatest risk to our economic system lies not with Wall Street. It lies with the federal government's catastrophic debt -- and the wounded U.S. dollar -- inflicted upon us by the very same politicians scapegoating the financial services industry.

About half of the federal budget must be paid for by borrowing money from foreigners, primarily from China. This behavior has frightened global investors and severely weakened the dollar.

In June, the Congressional Budget Office warned that the "federal budget is on an unsustainable path -- meaning that federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy... [and] Rising costs for health care and the aging of the U.S. population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly..."

"... Large budget deficits [will lead] to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress income growth... The accumulation of debt would seriously harm the economy. [Or] if spending grew as projected and taxes were raised in tandem, tax rates would have to reach levels never seen in the United States [95%]."

Yet the same federal bureaucrats who decry the financial system are themselves addicted to spending far beyond their means. But why would they care? They will be long gone by the time their bills will come due.

Dichotomy: outside the U.S., the "biggest story in the world economy is the continuing fall of the U.S. dollar" (Wall Street Journal); while inside the U.S., the mainstream media gleefully markets the proposition that that Congress' "Baucus Bill" is cost-neutral.

Even before the health care bill becomes law, $9.3 trillion of new deficit spending was added to the national debt. The Baucus Bill supposedly gets its cost neutrality by slashing Medicare ($400 billion) and raising taxes on health care insurance premiums (another $400 billion).

But the mainstream media forgot to tell you that even the CBO doesn't trust its own numbers! The head of the CBO wrote Baucus, telling him that -- if Congress failed to cut Medicare (highly likely, given seniors' voting habits) -- the new entitlement would add catastrophic new debt to the federal budget.

But even if the numbers were real, the illogical thinking is shocking. President Obama told us that passing health care reform was central to a healthy economy. The Democrats proclaim victory with supposed deficit neutrality while our current "unsustainable" deficit grows like a devastating form of cancer.

Instead of just starting with cuts to Medicare and adding insurance taxes -- thereby cutting the 10-year deficit by $1 trillion (including interest) -- the Democrats are attempting to nationalize 20% of the economy as a payoff to the SEIU bosses who contributed $27 million to Obama's 2008 campaign.

Helping a few million uninsured people get access to health insurance is a noble goal, but not at the expense of permanently destroying the United States economy. Adding entitlement programs while we can barely crawl out of the current deficit hole is suicidal behavior.

Washington must:

• Slash federal spending on needless programs
• Begin to raise the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security
• Starting offering optional, private savings accounts to young people to eventually replace the dying Medicare and Social Security programs

We have no choice! We must stop the insanity before it leads us to economic devastation.



Based upon: Tony Blankley's "Washington Is Nuts" via Mark Levin.