Pushing an Agenda

How do you gain and maintain power when your agenda conflicts with the majority of the population and you cannot win the debate on its merits? You lie, cheat, intimidate, and bribe.

Lies: Benghazi cover-up. Obamacare is not a tax, your premiums will go down, and it will lower the deficit. Global warming. Claim your opponents are racists, bigots, and homophobic. Fast and Furious. Consequences of sequester cuts. 

Cheating: IRS scandal. Voter intimidation. Illegal voter registrations. Recess appointments. Chrysler bondholders during the GM bailout. 

Intimidation: Gibson Guitar raid. NLRB and Boeing. Occupy Wall Street. Union thuggery. EPA regulations. Fox News reporter James Rosen. Releasing the names of Romney donors on Obama reelection website (some were also audited by the IRS).

Bribery: Record numbers of people on disability and food stamps. Millions receive perpetual welfare payments, housing subsidies, and cell phones. Corporate welfare and bailouts. Crony capitalism.

Healthcare Reform

The unconstitutional Obamacare law must be repealed and the federal government needs to get out of the healthcare business. Below are my recommendations to fix the healthcare system and my reasons for the repeal.

Recommendations:
The reason the American healthcare system is in such a mess, is because of government intervention and the third-party payer system. If we reduce government involvement and bring back capitalistic, free market principles, conditions will improve.

1. Allow people to buy health insurance across state lines like we do for life, homeowners and car insurance. Competition breeds better service and better pricing. If you think the free market can't fix the problem, you are obviously unfamiliar with the markets for Lasik eye surgery, elective cosmetic surgery, privately run urgent care facilities and services such as portable MRI machines all of which must compete in the free market for customers and all of which have seen dramatic price reductions over the last decade. 
2. Remove government-imposed mandates on heath insurance companies. Let people buy a la carte policies or major medical policies rather than forcing the insurance company to cover every ailment under the sun.
3. Implement portability rules. When you are young, you buy a health insurance policy that sticks with you your entire life regardless of your health. As long as you pay your premiums, the insurance company cannot kick you off the policy because of your health. The system we have now is ridiculous where you lose your insurance when you lose or change jobs. The insurance should stay with the person NOT the employer. When I get a new job, I don't lose my auto insurance! Why should I lose my health insurance?
4. Pass tort reform to reduce malpractice insurance costs. 
5. Promote and encourage the use of HSA's (healthcare savings accounts) - tax-free savings that can be passed down to the next generation. The other benefit is the patient is actually paying for the service rather than a third party. No more $15 co-pays! We should pay $75-$100 to visit the doctor. That will force the consumer to price shop and think twice about running to the doctor every time their stomach hurts. When your car needs new brakes or your house needs a repair, do you make a co-pay? How much does the average American family spend on their cell phone bill each month? $200? Their TV and internet service? $150? Entertainment and eating out? $100? Starbucks? $20? And we bitch and moan over having to pay our doctor $100 to take care of our bodies? How insane is that? 
6. Allow citizens with pre-existing conditions to join large pools and spread the cost. Most states already have these pools set up. People with pre-existing conditions should expect to pay more for their health care than a healthy person because they use more of it. 
7. Offer tax benefits to individuals rather than employers for health insurance premiums paid. 

Repeal:

1. The law is unconstitutional. There is no enumerated power for the federal government to be involved in the citizens' healthcare. Nor can the federal government force citizens to buy a product or service.
2. The manner in which the bill was drafted - with no input from Republicans - despite repeated promises by the President that negotiations would be broadcast on TV.
3. The manner in which the bill was passed - bribing Senators, using budget reconciliation to get it passed in the House, not a single congressman whom voted for the bill actually read or understood it! As the bombastic Nancy Pelosi said, "We will have to pass the bill to see what is in it".
4. The consequences of the law - rationing of care, fewer doctors, longer wait times, death panels, bureaucrats making medical decisions. Look at any country with socialized medicine and study their level of care, wait times, rationing, etc.
5. Do you really want your doctor's office to run like a post office or your local DMV? Can you name one government-run endeavor that is run efficiently with the customers' best interest served? Are you willing to turn your families healthcare decisions over to a bureaucrat?

What's the Big Deal About Obamacare?

Updated: March 25, 2013
There are four things wrong with Obamacare:

#1 - The way the law was drafted
#2 - The way the law was passed
#3 - The way the law was upheld by Supreme Court 
#4 - The effect 

#1 - The way the law was drafted and sold to the American people:

• Obama and the Democrats lied about virtually every component of the bill - the cost (to the nation as a whole and to individuals), the coverage, its impact on the deficit, its impact on level of care, its impact on the private insurance industry, and its impact on the most innovative healthcare system in the world. 
• The entire bill was drafted without Republican input and behind closed doors despite Obama’s repeated promise to broadcast the debate on CSPAN.

#2 - The way the law was passed:

• Bribes and kickbacks of senators in return for their vote.
• “We have to pass the bill to see what’s in it” Nancy Pelosi.
• Not a single Congressman read the bill before they voted on it (and I would venture a bet that few have read it since).

"I love these members that get up and say 'READ THE BILL.' What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages, and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you've read the bill?" -- Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)

“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. . . ” - James Madison, The Federalist #62

• Obama emphatically denied it was a tax. He knew it would never pass if it was represented as a tax.

“How is that not a tax?" George Stephanopoulos 

"A responsibility to get health insurance is not a tax increase," Obama 

• The bill was ultimately passed using a budget reconciliation method rather than a full vote on the House floor.

#3 - The way the law was upheld by Supreme Court:

• Despite repeated promises that this bill was not a tax, one of the administration’s arguments before the Supreme Court was just that, “it IS a tax”, therefore it is constitutional under Congress’ right to levy taxes.
• Instead of sending the bill back to Congress, Chief Justice John Roberts essentially re-wrote the law circumventing Article I, section 7 of the Constitution - "All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives". The Obamacare bill was originated in the Senate! Judicial activism at its worse.

#4 - The effect:

• Over 1,000 Obamacare waivers were granted within several months of the bill's passage, mostly to Democrat constituents (at one point 20% of the waivers were provided to Nancy Pelosi’s district). If this is the greatest piece of legislation in history why are waivers necessary? Why are senatorial bribes necessary?
• It is estimated that 20 million people will lose their current health insurance because it will become too expensive given all of the mandates.
• The private insurance industry will die leaving only the government (single-payer). Think of your doctor’s office as a national DMV.
• It gives the federal government essentially unlimited taxation power and amounts to the largest tax increase in world history.
• Obama promised insurance rates would decline by $2,500 a year. As of the last update of this post, studies show rates are up an average of $2,500 a year.
• Obama promised the bill would lower the deficit and cost no more than $1 trillion. Both claims have been proven false. 
• Ultimately, the quality of healthcare will decline as thousands of doctors retire because they can no longer make a living serving more patients for less money, Medicaid will get dropped by doctor’s offices due to low and delayed reimbursements, rationing of care will occur just like it does in every country that has socialized medicine, bureaucrats will make healthcare decisions for us, death panels will be established for end-of-life decisioning (yes it’s in the bill) and a massive bureaucracy will reign over us (you thought the TSA was big).