Democrats Seek Obamacare Opt Out For Congress, Boehner Says No

April 26, 2013 2 Comments

It appears Congressional Democrats aren’t too happy that they and their staff are subjected to Obamacare. The original bill did not exempt Congress from the bill and thus Congressmen and their staff are stuck buying health insurance from the exchanges. Rather than save money, it appears that it’s likely to cost Congressional aides as much as $7,000. For a fresh out of college new staffer making $25,000, Obamacare becomes a cost prohibitive career move. Most of the Democrats are seeking to sneak a provision in that would exempt Congress. After some relatively secret talks, Speaker Boehner wants a full repeal rather than a Congressional exemption.

While Congressional Democrats are concerned about their staffers, they also reveal what they’re really worried about. They’re worried about a “brain drain” as smart people move away from work in Congressional offices because of the cost of health insurance thanks to Obamacare. This is part of the problem we have in this country, the supposedly intelligent people are being recruited to work for government rather than the private sector. The Federal government shouldn’t be in competition with the private sector for the best and brightest. If Obamacare forces these people into the private sector because government work isn’t lucrative enough, we should rejoice.

Interestingly enough the Democrats aren’t in the least bit concerned about what Obamacare is going to do to the rest of the country. They’re only concerned with themselves and their staff. That Obamacare will add a massive new tax on people who don’t buy insurance isn’t of much concern to them. Neither is the growing practice of cutting hours so that employees won’t be entitled to health insurance under Obamacare. That’s if employers aren’t dumping employees altogether to avoid the cost of Obamacare. The Democrats aren’t interested in any of that they’re only interested in protecting themselves.

If Boehner holds firm here we should at least give him a little credit. He’s going to subject Congress to the same laws everyone else is subjected to. Surely this can’t be a popular move among Congressional staffs, even within the GOP Caucus. It probably isn’t particularly popular with Congressmen who rely on their Congressional salaries (not all of them are millionaires, many sleep in their offices because they can’t afford a DC apartment). Boehner is doing the right thing though, it may actually be a move that boosts his popularity and perhaps the popularity of Congress. Everyone hates it when Congress exempts themselves, when the Speaker forces Congress to live by the asinine laws they subject everyone else to he’ll at least get some credit.

That Congressional aides are going to be subjected to massive costs because of Obamacare ought to wake Congress up to the fact that this bill is going to be a massive boondoggle beginning next year. It’s expensive, it’s added costs. It doesn’t insure a single person who didn’t have insurance before. The Democrats have to know it’s a big mess, odds are they’re happy about it because it will give them cause to demand single payer socialism in the 2016 or 2020 campaigns. The question is whether the GOP will be able to parlay this boondoggle into a 2016 victory, which could lead to outright repeal or substantial repeal of Obamacare. In the very least, for the time being Congress will be subjected to the same disaster as the rest of us. I hope the staffs of every Congressman feel quite a bit of Obamacare pain.

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Obamacare Disaster Looms In 2014

April 5, 2013 10 Comments

Obamacare is beginning to collapse upon itself. The administration has already delayed the much touted exchanges until 2015 because regulators can’t seem to put the whole plan together fast enough. Because of Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare, cancer clinics are now beginning to turn away cancer patients. It appears that we’re facing a doctor shortage of 45,000 by 2020, a problem that Obamacare is making worse. Who would want to become a doctor in the uncertain Obamacare world? It’s easier to apply for a green card than Obamacare, don’t think potential med students don’t notice that. We’re only going to hear about more problems as Obamacare comes online next year.

Employers are cutting back on hours to avoid Obamacare requirements. People are beginning to lose their health insurance already. It’s perhaps a reason why places like Walgreens has suddenly become the place to be treated for chronic illness. In 2008 Obama campaigned on the notion of handing health insurance to 40 million who were uninsured. Obamacare does nothing for them and in fact increases the number of uninsured. The 2,700 page bill is producing anywhere from 50,000-100,000 pages of regulations. The administration can’t even keep up with writing regulations to get the bill fully implemented in 2014.

All of this is creating uncertainty in the health market. No one believes they’re going to be able to keep the same insurance that they have now, yet no one knows what insurance will be available on January 1st and beyond. In typical government fashion, they’re making health insurance far more convoluted than it needs to be. Form after form has to be filled out, it makes the DMV appear easy to deal with. All of the problems associated with Obamacare are snowballing into the general economy. Employers are cutting back hours or getting rid of employees in anticipation of Obamacare. People are concerned about losing jobs or income, they’re cutting back on consumer spending.

There are of course no worries out of the White House, where Obama is to busy playing basketball poorly and lusting at California’s Attorney General to care about Obamacare’s failures. The campaigner in chief would rather talk about how non-ideological Nancy Pelosi is while trying to get her reinstalled as Speaker of the House than anything else these days. The 2012 election didn’t close the book on Obamacare, it still has to be put into practice. So far, it’s looking like every bit the disaster that Republicans said it would be. When it turns out to be a disaster next year, there isn’t a shot that Pelosi and the Democrats take back the House.

Obama is a far better campaigner than he is chief executive. His governing skills must rank near the bottom of all the nation’s President’s. He essentially has zero relationship with the GOP, largely of his own making. His management of the executive branch is at best poor. Obama’s signature piece of legislation was passed in haste full of holes. Now that it is exclusively in the administration’s hands they can’t even get it up and running. None of what they said about Obamacare has turned out to be factual. The end result is that the health insurance market is about to implode while people who used to get care will no longer be able to get it. Unless of course they fill out dozens of Obamacare forms. None of this is affordable, all of the blame will go to Obama.

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Obamacare Costs Are Astronomical

March 28, 2013 5 Comments

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has finally acknowledged that Obamacare will increase insurance premiums. So much for the $2,500 premium reduction Obama promised us. It’s more like a $3,500 increase in premiums. One study has shown that medical claims costs will rise 32% under Obamacare by 2017. In that study, most states saw double digit increases in these costs. Ohio will see an 80% increase, California a 67% increase. All of those cost increases translate into higher premiums for middle class Americans buying health insurance. There was never anything affordable about Obamacare. How anyone thought a 2,700 page bill with 50,000 pages of regulations could reduce costs is beyond comprehension.

The administration will claim that middle class Americans won’t be hit hard by these increases because they’ll be given tax credits to offset the higher cost. That’s only partially true. The tax credit is only available if your employers health coverage (or coverage otherwise) will cost more than 9.5% of your wages. Once you figure out if that’s the case, then you might be able to go to one of the exchanges and buy one of these expensive health policies that have been made expensive because of Obamacare. You’ll then get a tax credit to cover a portion of your health policy. One wonders if it wouldn’t be cheaper to just pay the Obamacare individual mandate tax and forgo insurance coverage.

This is a problem many middle class Americans are going to face in the next year. It’s a gigantic mess waiting to happen as Americans try to figure out if they qualify for tax credits and try to figure out how these exchanges work. Meanwhile costs are increasing dramatically under Obamacare, it’s a far cry from the price reductions Obama promised the country. Obamacare remains unpopular, it still has majority opposition. With Obama pinning his hopes for second term success on winning the House in 2014, the full effect of Obamacare may prevent the Democrats from reclaiming the House.

The left will no doubt blame all of these price increases on “greedy” insurance companies all while ignoring that health insurance profits are at best around 2% of premiums. The fact is these increases are created by government regulation. In fact, much of the price increases over the past two decades have been due to government regulations. Doctors aren’t getting paid substantially more today than they were a decade or two ago. There are certainly cost increases for new technology and new procedures. However government has caused any number of increases via regulation. Obamacare happens to be a massive government program, creating massive numbers of regulations and costs associated with implementing them.

Until we return to a free market in terms of health insurance, we can’t expect to see prices decrease or even stabilize. Government creates problems and their solution to the problems they create is more government. The free market barely exists in medicine anymore. We ought to reduce regulations and employers ought to cut back on health benefits. Health insurance started out as protection against major illnesses and injuries. In a free market, it’s likely to return to that. Especially so if premium costs are lower because insurance companies aren’t forced to jump through hundreds of moving government hoops. Obviously that isn’t going to happen with Obamacare on the books. As Obamacare starts coming into play, the country will see how dreadful it really is. There may still be a chance to repeal this law.

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Obamacare Mandates On Food And Housing

February 9, 2013 3 Comments

Obamacare is a 2,000 page monstrosity of a bill that we are now seeing will affect our day to day lives. If you believed that a bill that large was only about healthcare costs, you probably believed the President when he said you can keep your current insurance if you like it. Hopefully you’re not one of the seven million people who will lose health coverage because of Obamacare. Obamacare goes well beyond the controversial individual mandate tax, death panels and contraception mandate. This bill, which has nothing to do with affordable care since the IRS has told us the cheapest plan will cost $20,000 for a family of four, seeks government involvement in every aspect of our lives.

In the name of health living, the Federal government is going to mandate “healthy housing.” Rather than housing regulations coming from your local government, the Federal government will now be making recommendations. They’ll be spending tax money on propaganda advertisements telling people how their homes ought to be. The American left loves spending money on propaganda television ads, in doing so they behave just like their socialist pals in Canada and Europe. No one is opposed to “healthy housing” but one wonders why the Federal government must be involved. In Detroit, who is going to pay for housing updates on thousands of dilapidated homes people are living in? Sounds like a new welfare program, all in the name of health of course.

Obamacare requires restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus. McDonald’s for example has already started doing this. Because of Obamacare the FDA is currently demanding Supermarkets post calorie counts when they offer ready to eat food. Since most grocery stories have a deli with ready to eat food, nearly every Supermarket chain will be required to post calorie counts. Unfortunately this is a $1 billion proposition in an industry that already has small profit margins. Figuring out calorie counts is expensive, if they’re wrong it means massive fines and potential jail sentences.

If restaurants or other food establishments post calorie counts it should be because consumers demand it not because government mandated it via a healthcare bill. Likewise, housing regulations aren’t a Federal issue, it’s a state and local issue. What Obamacare is doing, in the name of health, is placing the Federal government in our daily lives. Obamacare is absolutely a transition from a marketplace based health insurance system to single payer socialism. All of these “healthy” living mandates in Obamacare will only get worse once we move to single payer. At that point taxpayers and politicians will have a vested interest in how everyone chooses to live their lives.

When we move down the path of socialist healthcare, we lose our freedom. It isn’t just in terms of losing our ability to buy the best medical care. It means having the government involved in what we eat, where and how we live, what activities we participate in etc. Obamacare hasn’t done anything to insure the 40 million Americans who didn’t have health insurance in 2008. In fact that number will only grow under Obamacare, by seven million apparently. What Obamacare did was lay the groundwork for direct Federal involvement in the basics of everyday life such as what we eat and where we sleep and spend most of our time. Nancy Pelosi told us we would find out what was in the bill after it passed. Americans should have had an opportunity to debate whether they wanted this kind of Federal intrusion in their lives.

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Obamacare Creates Its Own Fiscal Cliff

December 31, 2012 2 Comments

While everyone is focused on the fiscal cliff negotiations, there are nearly $1 trillion in tax increases set to begin tomorrow regardless of what happens in Washington today. Obamacare is going to nail the middle class with nickel and dime tax increases. The medical device tax will hit the middle class hard as crutches and wheelchairs become more expensive. Obamacare will now limit the formerly unlimited flex spending account to $2,500. Itemized medical tax deductions will now be limited. To say nothing of the individual mandate tax and the capital gains surtax for the “rich” who earn $250,000 a year. These taxes are set to begin tomorrow, they’ll bring in more money next year than the fiscal cliff tax increases Obama is fighting with Congress about.

Obamacare isn’t going to do anything but create a massive regulatory nightmare. It isn’t going to insure more people, in fact there are incentives for employers and individuals to drop health insurance. As it stands today, the individual mandate tax is less than the cost of an insurance policy. While those who have no policy today will be hit hard with a costly new tax for which they will derive zero benefit, those who today have an insurance policy may decide it’s cheaper to just pay the Obamacare tax. Certainly that incentive exists for employers who currently provide health insurance benefits, it’s those who don’t provide health insurance who are concerned about costly new taxes.

While the second most pathetic Republican nominee in my lifetime’s defeat ensures that Obamacare becomes law, the states are in rebellion against it. Half of the states have refused to create insurance exchanges, which are a big portion of Obamacare. Without a Democrat House, Obama is going to be unable to dangle money in front of the states to force them into the exchanges. In short, Obamacare is doomed already as the main regulatory point cannot be achieved. To say nothing of the fact that it won’t insure any more people, we will still have a large group of uninsured people.

The left of course already knows that Obamacare is doomed to failure. They knew it when they passed the bill before reading it. What the far left is after, Obama included, is socialist single payer healthcare. Obamacare is a step towards that as it creates the underlying regulatory system that would be needed for a massive takeover of the healthcare industry. Arguably Obamacare is set up to fail. When it doesn’t work as planned the left will have a grand solution to the problem they created. The left always seems to be ready with the solution to the problem they created. The right always seems to be a step behind, this time perhaps it would be wise for our 2016 candidate to offer a comprehensive healthcare reform law that focuses on free markets.

We’re probably going over the fiscal cliff at midnight tonight. But for millions of middle class Americans, the fiscal cliff is going to hit for them at midnight no matter what happens in Washington. Obamacares $1 trillion in new taxes will devastate the middle class next year. We must all wonder for what? Obamacare is a doomed program that isn’t going to insure any more Americans than they day it passed. It provides incentive for everyone to drop their policies. It’s a disaster in the making, tomorrows tax increases are just the beginning.

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Obama’s Alinsky Style Supreme Court Attack

April 3, 2012 2 Comments

President Obama declared war on the Supreme Court yesterday. One wonders if he hasn’t been leaked information about how the Friday’s vote went down because Obama was particularly outraged at the prospect of Obamacare being ruled unconstitutional. He declared that ruling Obamacare unconstitutional would be an unprecedented move by the Supreme Court, undoing a law the democratically elected Congress passed. It is clear what the Democrat strategy is going to be if Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional. They’re going to accuse the Court of being partisan and if that doesn’t fail the left will go to its old standby and call conservatives morons.

Obama once again displayed his narcissism for the world to see yesterday. As though nothing negative has ever happened to any other President before. As though other President’s haven’t seen legislation they supported ruled unconstitutional. Obama displayed a glaring lack of historical knowledge when it comes to the Supreme Court. FDR saw eight of his New Deal programs ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The Court went so far as to shut down FDR’s beloved NRA and it’s infamously nasty blue eagle program. The court also ruled various wage and price controls unconstitutional, undoing an important part of FDR’s socialist New Deal. Obama’s lack of historical knowledge is glaring considering he’s a former Constitutional law professor. You would think he would know about these cases.

Obama attacked conservatives who oppose judicial activism, a thinly veiled warning to those on the court who support original construction. In making this argument Obama shows he doesn’t even understand what the conservative argument is regarding the Constitution. Judicial activism has given us such gems as Roe v Wade wherein rights are created out of thin air and deemed constitutional. Original construction opposes the creation of additional rights, it also opposes the Federal government acting outside of the limited enumerated powers in the Constitutional. Obamacare is unconstitutional because the Constitution doesn’t grant the government the power to order Americans to buy products. Obama seems to think conservatives believe the Congress can do whatever it wants without any comment from the judiciary. It’s a patently ignorant position coming from a Constitutional law professor.

The truth is Obama doesn’t care what original construction is and he isn’t interested in what conservative jurisprudence believes. All he cares about is demonizing his enemies ala Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. He’s doing two things in his comments on the Supreme Court. First he’s threatening them, likely trying to scare Kennedy into switching sides. Second, he’s setting up the narrative for late June if Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional. He’s going to demonize a Supreme Court that disagrees with him. He’ll call them partisan, though one wonders what we are to consider the four Democrat appointees who likely will vote Obamacare Constitutional. They won’t be partisans of course, only Republicans are.

Obama believes a whole lot of Constitution law professors agree with him. No doubt he’s correct. But just because a bunch of professors think something doesn’t make it so. Apparently Obama either didn’t pay attention or doesn’t care to pay attention to the 27 states who challenged Obamacare’s Constitutionality or to the lower courts who ruled it unconstitutional. Perhaps he didn’t read any of the briefs filed by any of the lawyers who believe it’s unconstitutional. As an attorney, Obama ought to know there are two sides to every issue. He displays incredible ignorance in pretending otherwise. But of course he’s not interested in acknowledging the “enemy’s” point of view. He’s only interested in demonizing it. This is what happens when we elect a community rabble rouser, I mean a community organizer.

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Not A Good Day For Obamacare

March 27, 2012 4 Comments

Last week I opined that Obamacare would be ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court. In that piece I reserved the right to change my position based on the arguments made before the court. Today the court heard arguments on the individual mandate. What is clear is that Obamacare is in serious trouble. There’s no reason for us to get overly excited yet but if the comments of the five Republican appointees is any indication Obamacare may be going down in flames.

Chief Justice Roberts was one of the two conservatives who was thought to be on the fence. It became clear today that he isn’t as on the fence as originally thought. He wondered whether the government could force citizens to buy cell phones because they might need emergency services one day. Scallia wondered if the government could force us to buy broccoli, after all it’s healthy. Justice Alito asked if we could be forced to buy prepaid funeral services, since we’ll all need to be disposed of. Roberts seems to be buying into this line of reasoning, that being if the government can force us to buy health insurance there isn’t anything they can’t force us to buy.

The real fence sitter though has always been Justice Kennedy. Kennedy has always been a moderate, though he has trended towards the right lately. It still isn’t clear which way Kennedy will vote. But his line of questioning was clearly in opposition to Obamacare. Kennedy said during today’s hearing:

But the reason, the reason this is concerning, is because it requires the individual to do an affirmative act. In the law of torts our tradition, our law, has been that you don’t have the duty to rescue someone if that person is in danger. The blind man is walking in front of a car and you do not have a duty to stop him absent some relation between you. And there is some severe moral criticisms of that rule, but that’s generally the rule.

And here the government is saying that the Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases and that changes the relationship of the Federal Government to the individual in the very fundamental way.

Of course this doesn’t mean that Kennedy is going to vote a certain way. But his line of questioning and his statements were clearly in opposition to the Obamacare law. It’s entirely possible that he’s asking these questions and making these statements to see how the solicitor general responds. Kennedy could be swayed by his arguments. But in the very least, Kennedy is coming from a position opposed to Obamacare’s constitutionality.

What’s most interesting though is that the Supreme Court seems the siding with the very arguments Obama made against the individual mandate. You’ll recall Obama opposed the individual mandate before he supported it. This took place during the 2008 Democrat Primary wherein Obama supported an outright socialist model while Hillary supported an individual mandate. Obama made all the arguments the five conservatives on the Court made today.

Obamacare has a real shot at being ruled unconstitutional. We don’t know how the justices will react to the attorney’s arguments and we won’t get to find out until late June. But if their line of questioning is any indication, Obamacare is going down. Liberals must hold out hope that Kennedy can be swayed during the court’s private discussions after this week’s hearings. It’s always possible that a Justice can be convinced to vote a different way, it’s happened before. The odds of Obamacare being ruled unconstitutional have increased substantially though.

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Why Obamacare Will Be Ruled Constitutional

March 23, 2012 4 Comments

Obamacare should be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It is patently absurd that the Commerce Clause would allow the Federal government to order Americans to buy a product. It’s also absurd that the Necessary and Proper Clause would be used to allow the government to do the same thing. Nevertheless when the Court takes up the issue in oral arguments next week and when it delivers its opinion in June, Obamacare will be ruled constitutional on a 5-4 vote. This power grab by the government will forever doom our national economy, it will reach far beyond health care.

Let’s go into this assuming the four liberal justices all support the Constitutionality of Obamacare. Let’s also assume that Scalia, Alito and Thomas oppose it. The issue then comes down to Roberts and Kennedy. Roberts tends to take the more traditional conservative approach to the Constitution, which is to say he doesn’t like to rule things unconstitutional but would rather allow Congress work out all the political details. In United States v Comstock 130 S.Ct. 1949, 176 L.Ed.2d 878 (2010) Roberts sided with the liberals and deferred to Congress concerning the detention of sexually dangerous prisoners who had completed their sentence.

The Obama administration is relying heavily on this case, focusing at least a portion of their brief directly at Justice Roberts. They clearly think there’s a chance that Roberts will simply defer to Congress. However we cannot forget that Roberts sided with the conservatives in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission 130 S.Ct. 876, 175 L.Ed.2d 753 (2010). In Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled that the McCain-Feingold act, which severely limited political free speech was unconstitutional. In short, neither Roberts or Kennedy deferred to Congress on this matter. Meaning that the left cannot rely upon their natural inclination to defer.

Kennedy has gone back and forth on the Commerce Clause throughout his years on the Supreme Court. There are periods when Kennedy finds no wrong in Congress and other periods when Kennedy cannot seem to find anything they pass Constitutional. The administration is however focusing on Gonzales v. Raich 545 U.S. 1, 125 S.Ct. 2195, 162 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005). Gonzales focuses on medical marijuana’s sale via the Commerce Clause. Kennedy ruled for an expansive view of the Commerce Clause in this case, which is why the administration is focusing on it and why we should be nervous.

Three lower court conservatives have ruled the individual mandate constitutional, which could aid either Kennedy or Roberts to do the same. The view these judges take is that the mandate is a political issue, best left to Congress. This is hardly a conservative position at all as it renders the Constitution irrelevant to the whole matter. It’s easier for lower courts to simply rule matters Constitutional because they know there is always an appeal available above them. The Supreme Court has to think beyond Obamacare itself, they need to ask themselves what sort of precedent this case will set and what that will mean for commerce in the future.

The one thing that may end up swaying Kennedy and Roberts isn’t something that’s in the briefs they’re reading. The administration decision on contraception, forcing religious organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church to pay for it despite their moral opposition, may end up hurting their case. It’s no secret that all of the Republican justices are Roman Catholics. Supreme Court justices don’t live in a vacuum, they know what’s going on outside the courthouse. Roberts and Kennedy may very well not like the administration’s attack on religious freedom and that could hurt the case in favor of Obamacare.

Nevertheless, Obamacare will be ruled constitutional by the court. It will be a 5-4 decision with Kennedy as the deciding vote. Roberts has showed a willingness to oppose Congress before, so he ought to be able to do it again. Kennedy on the other hand has recently voted in favor of expanding the Commerce Clause and there’s no evidence to suggest he won’t this time around. As with all pre-argument opinions, I reserve the right to revise after next week’s oral arguments. We’re likely to have a very good idea where this case is heading by the end of next week.

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Obamacare Costs Double, Cause 4 Million To Lose Coverage

March 15, 2012 1 Comment

In 1965 when Congress passed Medicare the pols sold it as something that wouldn’t be particularly costly. They said in 1990 Medicare would only cost $12 billion, which included an allowance for inflation. When 1990 rolled around the program cost $107 billion or 9 times the estimate. In 2010 Medicare cost taxpayers $523 billion. When Obamacare was passed the Democrats told us it would cost $900 billion over 10 years, or $90 billion a year. This week the CBO doubled their estimate of Obamacare’s cost to just under $1.8 trillion over a decade. Keep in mind, Obamacare doesn’t even fully take effect until 2014.

Is anyone surprised by this news? You can bet that in a year or two the CBO will tell us it will cost twice their current estimate and still no one would be surprised. Congress routinely pulls this stunt wherein they claim that their programs will only cost a little bit of money but once everything is passed suddenly it costs twice as much. The Republicans foolishly passed the Rx drug bill in 2003 and magically the next year the cost estimate had doubled. It will end up costing taxpayers four times as much as we were told when the bill was going through Congress.

Obamacare isn’t going to cut any costs and is going to cost taxpayers a fortune. Everyone knew that when it was passed, even the Democrats who lied about it being a cost savings program. Obamacare isn’t anything more than an intermediate step toward outright socialist healthcare controlled by the government. The Democrats still aren’t honest about that. But then when a party spends the better part of a year telling the public Obamacare won’t cost taxpayers much and will be an overall cost savings truth isn’t exactly important.

Yesterday we talked about how America has become a regulation nation with hundreds of thousands of pages of Federal and state laws and regulations dictating our every move. Obamacare’s cost isn’t going to be seen in simply financial terms. It will also be seen in the 10,000 plus pages of regulations being created by the Obama administration. These regulations will dictate every healthcare action we take. The financial cost of Obamacare is staggering, the Democrats clearly lied about how much the law was going to cost. A substantial portion of the cost is going to be seen in the regulatory world where bureaucrats will obtain the power to control our health. Ultimately we won’t be able to opt out when the Democrats seal the deal and move us into a fully socialist health system.

The CBO estimates that 4 million people will lose insurance from their employer by 2016. That’s a direct result of the regulations created by Obamacare, both by the act itself and by regulations promulgated by the administration. The cost of health insurance is high as it is, Obamacare is making matters worse. Insurance premiums skyrocketed after Obamacare, in an industry that averages a profit of barely 2%. The increased prices aren’t paying dividends for the owners of health insurance stock, the increased prices are paying for compliance with Obamacare.

We knew Obamacare was going to be a mess when it was passed. We knew it wasn’t going to cost $90 billion a year and we knew it was cause health insurance premiums to skyrocket. We knew that the regulations created by Obamacare would give the Federal government vast power over our personal lives. All we can do now is pray that the Supreme Court would rule Obamacare unconstitutional and if Mitt Romney is the nominee, hold him to his promise to repeal Obamacare if he’s elected.

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Where Is The Leftist Outrage Over Obama’s Prayer Vigil?

March 10, 2012 4 Comments

The White House is concerned that Obamacare is going to be ruled unconstitutional. They’re currently working to shape the media narrative around the upcoming oral arguments in the case before the Supreme Court. The left is always a step ahead of the Republicans in this regard. While the GOP is fighting a pointless nomination battle, the left is controlling the media on the Obamacare case. The most interesting part of the administration’s attempt to control the narrative is their organization of prayer vigils. I thought prayer in the public square was an outrage and unconstitutional according to the left.

Can you imagine if President Bush had organized a prayer vigil before an important Supreme Court case? The shouts of theocracy from the left would be deafening. As it stands, the entire Bush administration years were spent listening to the left complain about theocracy for no other reason than Bush admitted that he prayed before making important decisions. Yet when the Obama administration organizes a prayer vigil before the Obamacare oral arguments the left remains completely silent.

This is yet another in a long line of hypocritical leftist actions. They cry theocracy when Republicans pray, when Democrats pray they say nothing. When Republican President’s organize a Bible study, it’s called a theocracy by the left. When a Democrat President organizes a prayer vigil, it’s not commented on at all by the left. When a conservative commentator calls a feminist activist a slut it’s an outrage. When a liberal commentator calls a Republican pol, out of office no less, a cunt the left says nothing. In fact the left says nothing whenever a liberal commentator says something sexist or racist but then react with indignant outrage when a conservative does something half as outrageous.

The double standard that liberals hold conservatives to is absolutely absurd. What’s pathetic is that the media goes right along with it. There won’t be any opinion stories masked as news stories quoting well connected liberals on their outrage over Obama’s prayer vigil. There won’t be any atheists whining and complaining on the front page of the New York Times. MSNBC won’t say anything negative about the Obama prayer vigil. But you can imagine their outrage if Bush had done such a thing, you can imagine the outrage if Romney were to pull such a stunt. The left might have an aneurism if Santorum held a prayer vigil.

The double standard is obvious. The media’s reporting of this double standard is non-existent. Obama holding a prayer vigil is good and noble, Bush praying is a sign of democracy. Among the leftist media, this is obvious. They don’t see the double standard because they aren’t objective. Keith Olbermann called Michelle Malkin a mashed up bag of meat with lipstick, the media said nothing because they agree. Countless left-wing commentators have called Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin morons, sluts, bitches and idiots and the media reacts without the slightest bit of outrage. They either agree with such statements or they agree with the outcome such statements are meant to create.

Obama is free to hold a prayer vigil if he so desires. It won’t change the outcome of Obamacare of course. But he’s free to do it. It isn’t a creation of theocracy, it isn’t a bad thing for America. What is a bad thing for America is the blatant double standard displayed by the left-wing media on these matters. We won’t see a single hit piece from the far left attacking public prayer. Don’t take this as a sign that the media has given up such reporting, it will return the second a Republican prays in public. In fact, they’re hitting Santorum for being religious while saying nothing of the White House organizing prayer vigils. The left has yet again exposed their hypocrisy and they’ve once again exposed media bias.

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