The Plan For Incremental Takeover Of Our Lives
Mar 31, 2010 Political
The health care bill recently signed into law is a staring point for the Democrats and their progressive allies who intend to continue hammering away until government is completely involved in our health care decisions. Their ultimate goal is to have a single payer program run by the government. They want to put insurance companies out of business.
And they will do it with a manufactured “crisis.”
There were warnings that the health care takeover would result in higher costs for companies. The alleged benefits from tax cuts for small business are narrow and limited in scope and actually punish those with more than 50 employees.
As soon as the bill was signed into law many companies filed information regarding the impact on their business. The businesses have cited impacts of up to 1 billion dollars. For many, this is because they will no longer be able to write off a subsidy they get from the federal government. The government provides a subsidy to these companies to keep their retirees on the company plan for prescription coverage. Private plans are much better at cost control than the government and this is why the government pays a subsidy for companies to keep retirees. Having them on Medicare would be more costly to the government.
Now these companies are reporting the impact of the bill and how the new law will affect them. Their claims drew the scorn of Henry Waxman who wants to know how their assessments can be off compared to the independent assessment (read CBO) that Congress relied on.
News flash, the companies base their numbers on reality and the CBO bases its numbers on the imaginary world of government make believe. If the CBO was not told to assume anything that is actually impacting these companies then it could not figure the cost.
Waxman is trying to intimidate these companies because their reports run contrary to what we were all told. This plan is supposed to save money but it will cost us all money. If people think that these companies will not pass the cost on to consumers then they are living with Alice in a place called Wonderland.
Better yet, suppose the companies decide not to keep their retirees on the company prescription plan? They will be moved to Medicare prescription which would add about $1000 for each person enrolled. If this happens, about 2 million people could end up in the government plan. This would take away the “savings” estimated by the CBO ($5 billion) and would increase the amount the government spends by around 2 billion dollars (a 7 billion dollar swing). The CBO estimate was no doubt one of the “assume the companies can’t write off the subsidies and still keep their retirees on their rolls.”
If retirees are forced into Medicare prescription it would end the debate on whether you could keep your plan if you liked it.
Waxman is making a show of this but this is by design. Obama and the Democrats want costs to rise because then they can declare another crisis that requires government intervention. As Rich Lowry points out in his latest piece:
Democrats clearly plan to blame the private sector for all the downsides of their health plan. Pres. Barack Obama told liberal lawmakers in a private lobbying session that the bill is only “a beginning.” Any increase in costs and premiums — both of which are inevitable — will be attributed to corporate malfeasance requiring yet more government intervention.
Increase in costs and premiums both of which are inevitable. We were sold this plan on its cost saving qualities. Pelosi, Reid, Obama and every other Democrat appeared before the cameras and told us this would lower our costs and save money. Any mention of the increases in premiums that have occurred since the bill became law has been met with scorn and ridicule from those who believe that it will drive costs down.
Obama told his Democrats that costs and premiums will go UP and that this was inevitable.
And that is good because the Democrats can blame it on the companies and generate the need for even more government intervention.
Henry Waxman is the tool who is making this happen. As companies demonstrate the rise in costs (something Obama said was inevitable) Waxman can call them out, claim they are to blame and then Democrats can get busy generating more legislation designed to take control of even more of our lives.
This is all by design. These Democrats now have a foot in the door and they will, as Pelosi suggested, be kicking more doors down.
In other words, we created this mess which will create more messes and then we can get involved even more.
Remember, America will never accept Socialism outright but we can be led to it in tiny increments. The progressives have been making small gains for nearly a century and now they are ready to take much bigger ones.
They are ready to declare another crisis and generate more new laws to control more of our lives.
The Democrats must be defeated in November. We need to destroy them.
UPDATE: Interesting article from the American Spectator.
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: at&t, business, health care, lies, Obama, socialism, waxman
Health Care Bill Hits Companies In Wallet
Mar 27, 2010 Political
Well, it has started. Major companies are already adding up the mounting costs of the health care takeover law recently signed by Obama:
AT&T Inc. will book $1 billion in first-quarter costs related to the health-care law signed this week by President Barack Obama, the most of any U.S. company so far.
~snip~
AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company, joins Caterpillar Inc., AK Steel Holding Corp. and 3M Co. in recording non-cash expenses against earnings as a result of the law. Health-care costs may shave as much as $14 billion from U.S. corporate profits, according to an estimate by benefits consulting firm Towers Watson. AT&T employed about 281,000 people as of the end of January.
~snip
AT&T previously received a tax-free benefit from the government to subsidize health-care costs for retirees, who would otherwise be on a Medicare Part D plan. Under the new bill, AT&T will no longer be able to deduct that subsidy.
“As a result of this legislation, including the additional tax burden, AT&T will be evaluating prospective changes to the active and retiree health-care benefits offered by the company,” the carrier said in the filing. Business Week
The health care takeover is costing businesses and their stockholders a lot of money. Businesses will have to make adjustments that will include removing retirees from subsidized plans and putting them on Medicare plans as well as downsizing the number of employees.
This will not be good for the economy.
The takeover is not about health and not about care. It is about control and about Socialism as pointed out by the NYT and other liberal sources.
We are watching the destruction of America.
Yep, this was a historic piece of legislation. Obama and his progressives will go down in history as the group that destroyed our way of life.
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: at&t, caterpillar, health care, lies, Obama