Category: ObamaCare

Categories
Featured ObamaCare

Teaparty Republican Wishes Colon Cancer on Five Supreme Court Judges

Former Town Councilor Mike Malzone, the founder of the Merrimack Tea Party, said Thursday in a Facebook post reacting to the Supreme Court ruling on health care, “I hope the (5 supremes) get colon cancer.”

A day after posting the message, Malzone said he stands by what he said. He clarified that he doesn’t want anyone to die, and the cancer reference was more to make a point that he wants them to feel the pain being inflicted on Americans being overburdened by taxes.

“I didn’t wish for anyone to die, but I said I do wish for them to feel our pain,” he said. “No one cares about me, they all make their promises and then go do what they goddamn feel.”

Malzone, who briefly considered running against Congressman Frank Guinta, posted the message on the Merrimack Tea Facebook page.

Categories
ObamaCare Politics

Mr. President, This Is A Big F*ing Deal – Part 2

As Donald Trump would say, what the Supreme Court did Thursday in upholding President Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act is “HUGE!”

Even Mitt Romney realized the magnitude of what would happen if ObamaCare was declared constitutional. On the days leading up to the Court’s decision, Mitt Romney was heard at various campaign events saying, “if this law is unconstitutional, that would prove that Obama wasted his presidency.”

Needless to say, the Supreme Court – whose main task is to interpret laws in accordance with the Constitution of the United States – disagreed with Mitt Romney wholeheartedly.

But if we are to apply Romney’s logic to this, wouldn’t it mean that the President’s first term was not wasted but turned out to be a tremendous success? Wouldn’t it then mean that President Obama has done his job in accordance to the Constitution – approved and validated by the highest Court in the land – and furthermore, if we apply Romney’s logic to this situation, wouldn’t it mean that Romney, with his everlasting calls to repeal ObamaCare, is going against a Supreme Court that called the law constitutional, thus, is he not going against the United States Constitution?

When President signed the Affordable Health Care Act into law in 2010, Vice President Biden was overheard whispering in the President’s ear, “Mr President, this is a big f*cking deal.” With the Supreme validating the constitutionality of the law on Thursday, consider this a big f*cking deal… part 2!

And by the way, why exactly are Republicans pushing Mitt Romney as their presidential candidate? The  man is apparently against the Constitution of the United States.

Categories
Domestic Policies ObamaCare

The Health of the Nation

Years from now, will you remember where you were and what you were doing when the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Affordable Care case? It was that important and it seemed as though just about everybody was following it like a World Series game. Participatory democracy gets no better than that.

Of course there were the obvious glitches, such as CNN and FOX getting the story wrong at first. You’d think that after waiting three months for the decision, they could have waited an extra 3 minutes for their experts to parse the details. Then there’s the story that talks about a “jaw-dropping switch,” meaning Chief Justice John Robert’s joining the four liberals on the court to uphold the law. This completely unexpected move is only unexpected if you happened to buy into the narrative that the law, or at least the mandate, was toast because, well, the media and the Intrade market said it was.

Even better was the comeuppance of the ultra-smug conservative media that was absolutely sure that they had this case sewn up as soon as Don Verilli was done speaking. That he’s been vindicated (need free registration to read this link) in both the health care and immigration cases speaks volumes about what people don’t know about what passes muster in court arguments.

The big questions, though, are obviously political. In terms of policy, Obama has his base-energizing victory and a policy he now has to defend with gusto, something that’s been missing since the bill was passed. Polls have shown that the mandate is still unpopular, but other aspects of the bill have support. It’s time for the administration to start selling this hard and in earnest. More Americans will have health insurance, seniors will no longer have to tolerate the doughnut hole in their Medicare prescription coverage, and those with preexisting conditions will now be covered. Many changes have already taken effect. More states will also need to set up exchanges to help people find insurance.

As for Mitt Romney, he’s already addressed the court’s decision with a full-throated call for repeal, calling the law a violation of our freedoms and bad for the economy. His problem is that today the court also indirectly validated the Massachusetts health care law that Romney championed as governor. And remember that the mandate was originally a Republican idea meant to provide an alternative to the Clinton health care plan of the early ’90. So for Mitt, this decision means that he has to run even harder against one of the signature accomplishments of his political career. The good news for him is that his base is also fired up because of today’s decision. The bad news is that he’s going to run against the whole law, even the parts that people like, and he doesn’t have an alternative to the clear problem of the uninsured and the very sick except to say that the magic of the marketplace will cure their ills. That’s a tough sell.

The other political issue is the election horse race. Obama’s poll numbers have been improving for the past week, both nationally and in several swing states. There are some states that Obama needs to win that are now considered tossups, which is better news for Romney, but the trend is toward Obama. The Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls will give us some idea of the effect of today’s ruling, so I’ll check back in with that early next week, and I’ll have a full polling report on July 6.

In the end, Barack Obama rolled a huge set of dice by asking the Supreme Court to rule on this issue in the middle of an election campaign, and he won a huge victory. He’s also staked his positions on marriage equality and immigration reform for the children of illegals that speak to fairness and equality. Mitt Romney is now in a position where he has to disagree, and that puts him at odds with basic American values. June was always going to be a pivotal month. It has not let us down.

Join the discussion at www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

Categories
Healthcare ObamaCare

Thanks to ObamaCare, Americans Will Receive Over $1.1 Billion in Rebate Checks This Summer

Thanks to ObamaCare, 12.8 millions of Americans will receive a rebate check in the mail this summer. The check is because of a provision in President Obama’s Health Care Law called the 80/20 rule. It requires insurance providers to spend 80% of premiums on providing health care to policy holders with the remaining 20% going to administrative costs. Any remaining balance must be returned to consumers instead of going to CEO’s bonus checks.

The total rebate of $1.1 billion is scheduled to go out this summer. An average of $151 will be sent to qualifying policy holders with other Americans receiving up to $800 checks depending on the type of policy, the state they live in and other factors. According to HealthCare.gov, Americans will be rewarded in one of the following ways;

  • a rebate check in the mail
  • a lump-sum reimbursement to the same account that was used to pay the premium if it was paid by credit card or debit card
  • a direct reduction in their future premiums
  • their employer providing one of the above rebate methods, or applying the rebate in a manner that benefits its employees.

ObamaCare, also called The Affordable Health Care Law is presently being debated in The Supreme Court. A Congressional Republican push to paint the law as unconstitutional will be decided by the Supreme Court in a few more days. If the Republicans succeed and the Court determines the law violates the Constitution, insurance companies may chose to pay their CEO’s with the rebate checks instead, just like they did before the law went into effect.

Just another example of Congressional Republicans, working for Corporations instead of the American people.

Categories
Health Care ObamaCare Politics Repeal

Health Care Spending at Slowest Pace in More Than 50 Years

The New York Times is reporting that the growth of health spending has slowed substantially in the last few years, surprising experts and offering some fuel for optimism about the federal government’s long-term fiscal performance.

Much of the slowdown is because of the recession, and thus not unexpected, health experts say. But some of it seems to be attributable to changing behavior by consumers and providers of health care – meaning that the lower rates of growth might persist even as the economy picks up.

Because Medicare and Medicaid are two of the largest contributors to the country’s long-term debts, slower growth in health costs could reduce the pressure for enormous spending cuts or tax increases.

In 2009 and 2010, total nationwide health care spending grew less than 4 percent per year, the slowest annual pace in more than five decades, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. After years of taking up a growing share of economic activity, health spending held steady in 2010, at 17.9 percent of the gross domestic product.

The growth rate mostly slowed as millions of Americans lost insurance coverage along with their jobs. Worried about job security, others may have feared taking time off work for doctor’s visits or surgical procedures, or skipped nonurgent care when money was tight.

Still, the slowdown was sharper than health economists expected, and a broad, bipartisan range of academics, hospital administrators and policy experts has started to wonder if what had seemed impossible might be happening – if doctors and patients have begun to change their behavior in ways that bend the so-called cost curve.

If so, it was happening just as the new health care law was coming into force, and before the Supreme Court could weigh in on it or the voters could pronounce their own verdict at the polls.

Source: The New York Times

Categories
ObamaCare Politics

Mitt Romney Caught on Video Recommending RomneyCare As Model for ObamaCare

Hey Mitt Romney, exactly how are you going to repeal something when you actively called for its implementation? And the amazing thing is that these conservatives gleefully buy into the Romney lies.

Why are these people so easily fooled?

Video 1.

Video 2.

Video 3.

Source – Buzzfeed.

Categories
Mitt Romney ObamaCare Politics

Romney To Obama – Use RomneyCare as a Model for ObamaCare

Ever heard this line, “…and if I’m given the opportunity to be your president, I will repeal ObamaCare.”

That is the line use by Mitt Romney in debates and at all his rallies,  as he tries to convince anyone listening that his Massachusetts health care plan – also known as RomneyCare – is somehow different from the health care plan signed into law by President Obama.

But before he decided to be “severely conservative” in order to get the conservative vote, Mitt Romney was more of a liberal moderate and in 2009, he wrote an opinion piece on healthcare, advising President Obama to use his Massachusetts RomneyCare plan as a model for what we now call ObamaCare.

“Health care cannot be handled the same way as the stimulus and cap-and-trade bills,” Romney wrote. “With those, the president stuck to the old style of lawmaking: He threw in every special favor imaginable, ground it up and crammed it through a partisan Democratic Congress. Health care is simply too important to the economy, to employment and to America’s families to be larded up and rushed through on an artificial deadline. There’s a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it.”

The original article was posted on USA Today’s website, but is now unavailable. Thanks to the internet’s archiving abilities however, the entire article was found and is available once again to remind Mitt Romney of the man he once was… before this presidential thing that is.

Categories
Healthcare Mitt Romney ObamaCare

Mitt Romney Compares RomneyCare to ObamaCare — ” Well, There Are Similarities”

If you listen to Mitt Romney today, you will think that President Obama is breaking all kinds of laws with his Health Care Reform law, also referred to as ObamaCare. Romney would like you to believe that President Obama health care law is so wrong, so intrusive, that saving America depends on the immediate repeal of ObamaCare.

But what did Romney think of ObamaCare just as recently as two years ago?

Buzzfeed dug up this interview.

Smith: Earlier today, President Obama remarked to NBC on the degree of similarity between his health-care reform policies and those that you passed in Massachusetts under your term as governor. How is the health-care reform legislation signed by Obama last week significantly different from the policies that you passed in Massachusetts?

Romney: Well, there are similarities. And some of the best features of his health-care plan are like ours — such as, we do not allow insurance companies to drop people who develop illnesses, our insurance is entirely portable, virtually all of our citizens are insured and there is an individual responsibility for getting insurance.

The big differences are that he raised taxes; we did not. He cut Medicare; we did not. He put in place price controls; we did not. And his is a federal program — a one-size-fits-all solution — and in our view — in my view, the best approach is a state-by-state creation of programs designed to fit the needs of citizens of each state.

Categories
Health Care ObamaCare Politics

Saving The Economy – ObamaCare Ia A Job Creator

While the Republicans dwell in the land if make-belief with their “corporations are people my friend” mentality and their wish to deny you health care by repealing the law also known as “ObamaCare,” reports are surfacing showing more ways the health care law is benefiting the economy – by creating more jobs.

President Barack Obama’s effort to bring the health-care system into the digital age is boosting a couple of software startups — ZocDoc and Practice Fusion — that are trying to do just that.

ZocDoc, which lets patients book medical appointments via the web, said today that former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle and Bill Frist have joined the advisory board to help the New York City-based company expand.

Practice Fusion, meanwhile, announced today it raised $2 million in debt from a group of angel investors, following a $23 million round of financing last year. Physicians use Practice Fusion’s software to track their patients’ medical history, schedule appointments, prescribe medication and provide referral letters.

While companies big and small have spent years trying to crack the electronic medical records market, it was President Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus plan that sped up the process. As part of the plan, the government will invest up to $27.4 billion by 2021 to get health organizations on board.

So the reality of the situation is this; Republicans’ wish to repeal “ObamaCare” would not only affect you by once again allowing insurance companies to deny you care when you’re sick, even if you’ve paid your premium, a repeal will literally cost thousands of jobs in an already bad economy.

Categories
Barack Obama health care law Mitt Romney ObamaCare Politics

Report: President Obama Modeled “ObamaCare” From “RomneyCare”

In a newly released ad by Rick Perry, Mitt Romney was asked whether he would take the same health care law he enacted in Massachusetts and apply it nationwide. Mitt Romney is heard saying, “Yes,” he will.

Well in newly released documents, it seem Romney got his wish. The documents show that President Obama used Romney’s plan, even employed some of Romney’s people to model the Affordable Health Care program he signed into law over a year ago.

MSNBC reports;

Newly obtained White House records provide fresh details on how senior Obama administration officials used Mitt Romney’s landmark health-care law in Massachusetts as a model for the new federal law, including recruiting some of Romney’s own health care advisers and experts to help craft the act now derided by Republicans as “Obamacare.”

The records, gleaned from White House visitor logs reviewed by NBC News, show that senior White House officials had a dozen meetings in 2009 with three health-care advisers and experts who helped shape the health care reform law signed by Romney in 2006, when the Republican presidential candidate was governor of Massachusetts. One of those meetings, on July 20, 2009, was in the Oval Office and presided over by President Barack Obama, the records show.

“The White House wanted to lean a lot on what we’d done in Massachusetts,” said Jon Gruber, an MIT economist who advised the Romney administration on health care and who attended five meetings at the Obama White House in 2009, including the meeting with the president. “They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model.”

In an apparent move to get the conservative vote, Romney flip flopped saying he would not apply the Massachusetts Health care model nationwide. He now believe that each state should implement their own plan.

If Romney wins, the debates between him and President Obama regarding RomneyCare and ObamaCare should be very interesting.

Exit mobile version