Sunday, September 19, 2010

Abbreviated Weekend Newsbites: Sunday, September 19, 2010


Sorry, Phil, but unfortunately...

(Folks... to those of you who weren't there... it was one hell of a bash!)
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2 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/09/14/morning-bell-obamacare-vs-the-rule-of-law/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Obamacare is deeply unpopular with the American people because, as the massive regulatory regime goes into effect, the American people are noticing that none of the administration’s major promises are being honored.

The cost of health care is going up, not down.

Health care spending is going up, not down.

Millions of Americans are not able to keep their insurance.

To combat this reality, the Obama administration struck back last Friday. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to America’s Health Insurance Plans warning them that “there will be zero tolerance” for “falsely blaming premium increases” on Obamacare. Specifically, Sebelius threatened to punish non-subservient firms by excluding them from the government regulated and mandated health insurance exchanges. Since these exchanges will be the primary way most Americans receive health insurance (especially if more private firms decide to end their current coverage) such a decision by Sebelius would be a death sentence for any insurer that does not comply.

Never before in the history of our republican form of government has an administration threatened to extinguish individual firms for merely communicating with their customers. But such are the dictatorial powers Obamacare grants to Secretary Sebelius.

There are over 1,000 instances in the more than 2,700 page bill where Congress granted Secretary Sebelius new powers to regulate the health care industry. For example, her power to “determine” what does or does not count as a medical expense alone will decide the fate of many health insurance firms.

Is this the type of government our Founders intended our federal government to become? No.

The Founders understood that there are two fundamental ways in which government can exercise its authority. The first is a system of arbitrary rule, where the government decides how to act on an ad hoc basis, leaving decisions up to the whim of whatever official or officials happen to be in charge; the second way is to implement a system grounded in the rule of law, where legal rules are made in advance and published, binding both government and citizens and allowing the latter to know exactly what they have to do or not to do in order to avoid the coercive authority of the former.

Secretary Sebelius’ Hugo Chavezesque threats against the health insurance industry demonstrate why the fight to repeal Obamacare is also the fight for the soul of our country.

Obamacare and the progressive movement represent a fundamental threat to our founding principles. For the left, “progress” means fundamentally transforming America through bureaucratic dictates that will engineer a “better” society by assuring equal outcomes. Through Obamacare, progressives would redistribute wealth through a distant, patronizing welfare state that regulates more and more of the economy, politics and society.

The question Americans face is: Are we a country ruled by law or by bureaucrat?

September 19, 2010 at 2:04 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/09/15/morning-bell-the-obamacare-and-obama-tax-hike-double-whammy-on-seniors/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

No demographic was more opposed to Obamacare’s passage and no group wants to see the law repealed more than America’s seniors.

They know that Obamacare used Medicare as a piggy bank to transfer half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, not to shore up Medicare’s solvency, but to spend on a new government program.

As if that were not enough, now President Barack Obama wants to raise taxes on the dividend payments that millions of seniors depend on for their livelihood.

President Barack Obama repeatedly promised Americans that if they liked their current health plan, they could keep it. But as Heritage analyst Robert Book and Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow James Capretta detail in their new analysis of Reductions in Medicare Advantage Payments, that is demonstrably not true for millions of senior citizens.

Medicare Advantage (MA) plans are the private insurance options available to Medicare beneficiaries. In 2006 (the latest figures available), Medicare covered only 59% of traditional beneficiary health care expenses. [Thankfully,] 91% of all Medicare beneficiaries have some sort of supplemental coverage.

* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...

Obamacare is going to change all that.

(*SIGH*)

The new law imposes deep cuts in the payment rates for MA plans, beginning with a payment freeze in 2011. In addition, the other indiscriminate payment cuts to hospitals and health care providers will also get passed on to MA plans as well. Book and Capretta calculate that the average nationwide per capita reduction in the value of coverage for MA and would-be MA enrollees will total about $3,700 annually by 2017, or a nearly 27% cut from what would have occurred without the new law.

Faced with these cuts, MA plans will be forced to raise premiums, reduce benefits or leave the market entirely. The President’s own Medicare chief actuary estimated that the number of seniors with MA plans will drop from 10 million today to just 7.4 million in 2017.

The top tax rates on qualified dividends are scheduled to jump from 15% to 39.6% on January 1, 2011. The Left will claim that these tax hikes will only soak the rich while lower-income Americans will enjoy a free ride. This is false. Higher taxes on dividends will reduce the value of all corporate stocks traded in U.S. markets, regardless of who owns them.

According to some estimates, the tax hike on dividends would cause stock prices to drop by more than $211 billion. The reduction in share values would happen almost immedi­ately at the beginning of 2011, or whenever Congress makes clear it will allow the rate to rise.

Seniors hold the most stock of any demographic group, so the Obama tax hike is a direct assault on the retirement security of millions of Americans.

Millions of seniors also rely heavily on dividends to supplement their Social Security income. And when dividend payments are taxed at a much higher rate than capital gains (as they would be after the Obama Tax Hikes), companies that return value to shareholders by paying dividends are penalized. As Heritage fellows Rea Hederman and Patrick Tyrrell detail, companies will therefore pay out less in dividends. Retirees who rely on dividend income from stocks will then see their annual income decline.

For tax year 2010, seniors are almost twice as likely to report dividend income on their tax returns as any other demographic group. Low-income households are also more likely to own dividend-paying stocks than high-income households. They will all be victims of the Obama Tax Hikes.

The imminent threat to senior citizen’s health care will only be resolved once Obamacare is repealed. And the only way to protect senior’s retirement savings is to reject the Obama Tax Hikes.

September 19, 2010 at 2:15 PM

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