Posted by Tina
It’s no surprise that citizens have discovered that the so-called “Affordable Care Act” was sold to the public with a bunch of promises that turn out to be deceptively false. Scott Johnson writes about the five untruths referencing a similar article in the Weekly Standard, in his Powerline piece. Here are the five things we were promised:
Deception #1: universal coverage
Deception #2: no new taxes on the middle class
Deception #3: annual premium savings of $2,500
Deception #4: no increase in the deficit
Deception #5: you can keep your plan if you like it
In other news today Heritage f=reports that a survey conducted by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), a trade group representing multi-physician medical practices found a number of physicians will not participate in the healthcare exchanges:
A majority (55.5 percent) of practices believe the exchanges will have an unfavorable, or very unfavorable, impact on their practice.
Fewer than three in 10 practices (29.2 percent) definitely plan to “participate with any new health insurance product(s) sold” on an exchange, with a majority (56.4 percent) still uncertain.
Of those not participating in the exchanges, the top concern, listed by 64 percent of practices, was “concerns about the administrative and regulatory burdens related to these products.”
More than two in three practices said that reimbursement rates for exchange plans are somewhat lower (36.2 percent) or much lower (33.2 percent) than “average payment rates from all commercial payers in your area”—and these lower reimbursement rates likely explain the lack of robust commitment by physician practices in participating in exchange plans.
This is only one survey but it does lend weight to the idea that Obamacare needs at least another look, if not to be scrapped with legislators starting over.
Scott Johnson puts it another way:
This is my refrain: If only we had a free press, Obamacare would be a bloody, unrelenting scandal, like Abu Ghraib, or Watergate. As it is, it is only business as usual for liberals and liberalism.
I have to agree. If republicans had devised such a failure and favored constituents over the general populace they would have resulted in an endless media hammering.
Good heavens! Did you BELIEVE any of that? I certainly didn’t.
I’ve always known that the ACA was only a first step toward universal coverage. By which I mean, you pay your taxes and everything is covered, absolutely everything, from cradle to grave … and that won’t be cheap.
Interesting that Chris’ hero is a serial liar. He regularly pouts that the people who write Post Scripts are liars yet his hero gets a pass.
On a completely different note, Christians who follow these pages might find this Forbes interview fascinating —
“The Book Of Revelation Is Hayekian”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybowyer/2013/10/10/the-book-of-revelation-is-hayekian/
Obumble isn’t known as the Liar-in-Chief for no reason.
And even the low info voters now are finding out that all of his glowing promises aren’t worth spit.
“Interesting that Chris’ hero is a serial liar.”
Pie, you have just listed one of the many components of the politician. Nobody’s denying it. Obama is really quite “artful” when it comes to exposing the rabble to concepts that violate their prejudices. That you choose to take such statements at face value, well, makes just the sort of simple soul who must be thus coddled.
However, my politician and angling toward what I want, and so I condone the angling.
Could I get you to admit, I wonder, that universal access to healthcare is a more noble goal than war?
Friday Night Flicks
“Lonely Are The Brave”
Memorable introductory quote, “All men are idiots.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oylr7J4OiB8&feature=share&list=PLEE54950D026DAC24
Like I have said before Libby doesn’t hide who she is. Who she is is purely Marxist. FOR that at least, she can’t be faulted.
A Marxist, like a Jihadist, will lie, cheat, steal, and subvert to achieve absolute rule over others. They preferred to slaughter people and blow things up in the old days but decided that although that was quick and effective, it was also expensive and destructive to infrastructure…they are the real imperialists. The empire they want includes everyone on the entire planet.
I don’t know how Libby imagines she will fair under this system…maybe she figures she will be dead before it becomes a moldy, depressing, lackluster existence.
And the truth, Libby, is that Obama, his wife and kiddies and their cadre of elitist overlords, will not get the same healthcare as you and I do; they will get five star treatment and the masses will get the drunk in the filthy clinic that long ago gave up on his hopes, dreams, and incentive to practice medicine with integrity and grace.
A Marxist doesn’t find it the least bit distasteful to refer to a serial liar as “artful”. She/he believes that those who value freedom are simply prejudiced and need to get their minds right. In the old USSR people who refused to bend to the will of communal living disappeared, killed or sent to a gulag in Siberia.
Wake up America.
Libby is willing to engage in the same “art” to further the Communist plans she has for our lives. She has no respect for others, their freedom, their rights. This is the face of the radical leadership in the Democrat Party.
Universal healthcare would be a more noble goal than war IF everyone was perfect and willing to participate fully…they won’t. If you can figure out how to magically rid the planet of ideologically driven aggressors it might be possible to let go of war…dream on. Human beings are not perfect.
I really enjoyed that article Pie…thanks for sharing it.
I had forgotten all about that scene with the horse and the blanket…but have they cut the original? I thought it went on longer.
Re #4 al-Libby :
I think al-Libby is sweet on me.
#7 Tina : I had forgotten all about that scene with the horse and the blanket…but have they cut the original? I thought it went on longer.
Can’t say. I haven’t seen this piece since film school. I can tell you this, I believe Sergio Leone was inspired by “Lonely Are the Brave” in his epic fable and contrast between the old and the new west “Once Upon A Time In The West”.
Re #4 al-Libby :
I’ll admit this — yes, I am a simple soul, while you are a great and grand one.
Meet Star Parker. What a wonderful conservative spokesperson.
“Star Parker talked about the government shutdown, the strategies congressional Republicans have used to engage the White House on spending, and the reaction by the White House and congressional Democrats. She also talked about her participation in the Values Voters Summit and her organization that promotes market-based solutions to poverty. She responded to telephone calls and electronic communications.”
http://c-spanvideo.org/program/StarP
“This is my refrain: If only we had a free press, Obamacare would be a bloody, unrelenting scandal, like Abu Ghraib, or Watergate.”
That is one of the most morally repugnant things I have ever read. A law intended to increase affordable access to healthcare should be treated as being equally objectionable to the gleeful torture and rape of prisoners? And you say you *agree* with this?
That is disgusting. Your moral compass is completely broken.
No…read it again. The methods used to pass the bill, including lying to the American people and bribing legislators for votes and the way the President has changed the law without going through the Congress would be a scandal to rival Abuu Ghraib or Watergate!
Here’s another refrain: If we had a free press the Abu Ghraib scandal would have been a scandal of lower level military performance, already under investigation, and due to be punished as proscribed by our military laws rather than an excuse to smear the President (making America a joke in the process…dumb, unpatriotic, agenda driven s*#ts!).
History does repeat itself. The very unpopular Vietnam War was ended because the Democrat controlled Congress used the power of the purse to cut off the funds to Nixon.
I apologize for the length of the content I copied below, but the comparisons of what took place back in the 1960s and 1970s to what is happening today with ObamaCare continued all the way to the very end of the article. More detailed information is available in the provided link.
———–
How Congress Got Us Out of Vietnam:
“…Congress during the presidency of George W. Bush, the Vietnam-era legislature compiled an impressive record in challenging flawed presidential decisions. Between 1964 and 1975, many legislators forced discussion of difficult questions about the mission, publicly challenged the administration’s core arguments, and used budgetary mechanisms to create pressure on the Pentagon to bring the war to a halt. A number of liberal Democrats started in the mid-1960s as some of the most vocal critics of escalation in Vietnam; by the early 1970s they were wielding the power of the purse.
Many observers have glorified the role of the media and anti-war protestors in forcing an end to one of America’s most disastrous foreign policies. But numerous members of Congress deserve equal respect, and can serve as a model for legislators who are today challenging the president.
Following his landslide reelection in 1964, Johnson had even more political space to make a choice. Vice President Hubert Humphrey privately urged Johnson to call for a withdrawal, since 1965 was “the first year when we can face the Vietnam problem without being preoccupied with the political repercussions from the Republican right …”
Congress also forced the administration to deal with the budgetary consequences of the war. In this case, the pressure came from conservative Democrats. While Johnson believed he could fund both domestic and wartime spending, some members of Congress forced him to make difficult choices.
Because Democrats had lost 47 seats in the House, the conservative coalition had increased its strength, and Mills felt emboldened. While the administration agreed to spending cuts, it did not want to go as far as Mills did. The confrontation escalated in 1968 when an international financial crisis put intense pressure on the United States to reduce its deficit. The Johnson administration finally acquiesced that year and accepted $6 billion in budget cuts in exchange for the tax surcharge. While conservatives were not happy with the tax hike, they were eager to curb the deficit and strike a blow against Johnson’s Great Society. At the same time, the tax surcharge “made many doves,” as Dean Rusk explained, by making it painfully clear that there were costs to fighting this war. Previously, many liberals had believed that America could support “guns and butter.” By 1968, they no longer thought so, and were willing to forego the war to save their ambitious domestic agenda.
In one respect, the antiwar coalition scored its most important victory when, upon taking office, President Nixon announced his policy of Vietnamization: The United States would gradually withdraw its forces from Vietnam to let the South fight the ground war on its own. Nixon’s decision was as political as it was strategic: He had become convinced that he had to end the ground war if he hoped to undermine the liberal media and the Democratic Congress. Nixon’s goal was to somehow “break the back of the establishment and Democratic leadership … [and] then build a strong defense in [our] second term.” Initially, his strategy worked. “The president has joined us,” Church boasted, “he is now on the same perch with the doves …”
Notwithstanding this huge policy shift — and also because it took Nixon four full years to withdraw U.S. ground forces from Vietnam — Democrats continued to challenge the administration. Nixon’s aggressive claims about executive power goaded the opposition. On June 25, 1969, the Senate, by a resounding vote of 70 to 16, passed a “national commitments” resolution that stated that the Senate needed to repair the balance between the branches of government when dealing with foreign policy.
On December 16, 1969, Congress finally used the power of the purse. In a closed floor session, Church and Cooper offered an amendment to a defense spending bill to prevent the further use of money in Laos or Thailand. The amendment received the support of 73 senators. Church called the amendment a “reassertion of congressional prerogatives” on foreign policy. It survived the House-Senate conference committee, and Nixon signed the legislation.
Following Nixon’s televised speech on April 30, in which he revealed that he had authorized a bombing attack on Vietnamese forces in Cambodia, Church and Cooper offered a new amendment that extended the 1969 prohibition to include Cambodia.
Following an intense seven weeks of floor debate over the constitutional balance of power, the Senate voted on June 30, 1970 to pass the Church-Cooper amendment with 58 votes. The amendment stipulated that the administration could not spend funds for soldiers, combat assistance, advisors, or bombing operations in Cambodia. To broaden support for the measure, the sponsors agreed to alter the language so that the amendment aimed to work “in concert” with the administration’s policies. They also declared the amendment did not deny any constitutional powers to the president.
The proposals to restrict funds and force withdrawal produced intense pressure on Nixon to bring an end to the war on his own terms before his legislative opponents gained too much ground.
While the Senate had watered down the amendment, the expanding number of votes in support of it made the administration well aware of an increasingly active and oppositional Congress.
In 1972, Church and Senator Clifford Case of New Jersey were able to push through the Senate an amendment to foreign-aid legislation that would end funding for all U.S. military operations in Southeast Asia except for withdrawal (subject to the release of all prisoners of war). Senate passage of the legislation, with the amendment, marked the first time that either chamber had passed a provision establishing a cutoff of funds for continuing the war. Though House and Senate conferees failed to reach an agreement on the measure, the support for the amendment was seen by the administration as another sign that antiwar forces were gaining strength. The McGovern-Hatfield amendment was enormously popular with the public. A January 1971 Gallup poll showed that public support for the amendment stood at 73 percent.
…in January 1973, the president knew that he only had a limited amount of time before Congress finally used the power of the purse to bring the war to an end — regardless of what the administration wanted. Indeed, to make certain that the president could not reverse course, in June 1973 Congress passed legislation that included an amendment sponsored by Church and Case to prohibit the use of more funds in Southeast Asia after August 15. Sixty-four senators voted in favor. When the House assented, its vote marked the first time that chamber had agreed to cut off funds, too.
Most importantly, Congress passed the War Powers Act in 1973 over Nixon’s veto. The legislation imposed a series of restrictions on the executive branch to ensure that the president would have to consult with the House and Senate …
For the remainder of the decade, congress continued to legislate its ideas about U.S. conduct in the Cold War and to restrict the authority of the executive branch. In 1975, Congress refused President Gerald Ford’s last-minute request to increase aid to South Vietnam by $300 million, just weeks before it fell to communist control.
Nor did Congress restrict its actions to Southeast Asia. Congress passed an amendment in 1976 that banned the use of funds to fight communist forces in Angola.
Congress also tackled the important national security issues of covert operations and intelligence. Hearings by Church pressured Ford into issuing an executive order that imposed restrictions on the CIA, including a ban on assassinations. Ford agreed to issue the order, rather than waiting for inevitable congressional reforms, after then–Chief of Staff Dick Cheney told him such action would protect the CIA from “irresponsible attack” and protect presidential authority. In 1978, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which required court-supervised monitoring of domestic surveillance operations by the federal government. The reforms were a response to revelations that the government had rampantly abused its power throughout the Cold War.
Today, members from both parties would benefit by looking back at the history of Congress in the Vietnam era. As Congress struggles over how to correct a failed military policy and how to deal with an administration that is refusing to change course, legislators need to draw on their resources — in the tradition of Fulbright, Church, McGovern, Cooper, Hatfield, and others — despite the political risks. The real risk would be for Congress to capitulate and fail to act on its disagreement with the administration. The costs of the war in Iraq have been enormous, as financial and military resources, and human lives, are drained away. If voters go the polls in 2008 with the same fire in their bellies they had in 2006, the electoral costs will also be high for incumbents who failed to act on their beliefs.”
http://prospect.org/article/how-congress-got-us-out-vietnam
Question is, will we learn from the past and apply what worked before to today?
Also, note this was a Democrat controlled Congress against a Republican president.
Re #14 Peggy : Thank you Peggy.
Re #12 Chris :
Yet you are still allowed to post your moss.
I didn’t think so.
Libby, I think its hilarious that you delude yourself, thinking you have taken a more noble position when in fact you are simply a person who enjoys the luxury of freedom and safety thanks to those who do fight wars and put their lives on the line. Pitiful.
And don’t go pretending that only Democrats are for peace or seeing to it that people have healthcare we just have a different approach…something that doesn’t destroy the economy, blow up the debt, and ruin the livelihoods and professions of millions of other people in the process. Something that works!
I swear…you people even lie to yourselves!
FYI – I just received three different surveys and request for donations from Calif. GOP, RNC, and George W. Bush Library.
Filled them all out, wrote “ZERO” in the “Other” contribution amount box, wrote, “contribution sent to FreedomWorks, and put them in the prepaid return envelope.
Not sure it will do any good, but I felt good doing it. Hope everyone who get these does the same.