The Senate health care bill gives employers two powerful incentives to stop offering health insurance coverage to their workers. First, if an employer does offer coverage, its lower-wage workers will lose the federal insurance subsidy they would otherwise get. Secondly, if an employer does not offer coverage, the $750-per-worker fine it faces will be far less than the premiums it would pay if it did offer coverage.
Where does this leave a mom and dad with two children and an annual income greater than $88,200? It leaves them without employer-based health insurance and facing a federally mandated $15,000-per-year insurance bill.
If this legislation is not stopped now, there will surely be a popular rebellion when the insurance mandate hits in five years.
When that happens, the liberals will not say: We made a mistake. We never should have forced families out of their employer-based health insurance and required them to purchase a $15,000 policy. They will say: We told you so. We cannot trust these greedy insurance companies. We need a single-payer system so the government can provide everyone with health care.
Just like they did in the Soviet Union. http://townhall.com/columnists/TerryJeffrey/2009/12/23/obamacare_slaps_$15,000_annual_fee_on_middle_class_families?page=2
As Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) explained the morning after the Senate bill passed, "What we're building here is not a mansion, it's a starter home … it has room for expansion and additions in the future. If we don't start the starter home, we'll never get there. So this is not the end of health care reform, this is the beginning of health care reform."
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Two key issues seem to be attracting the bulk of the legal threats [to attempt to declare the new bill unconstitutional]: a mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance and the special treatment that states like Nebraska are getting in the bill.
On the first issue, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., on Tuesday renewed the call to examine the constitutionality of whether the federal government can require Americans to purchase a product. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/22/health-care-face-string-legal-challenge
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Sterling, Ill. – Federal and state officials faced a vociferous public and skeptical state legislators here Tuesday at a public hearing on the proposal to transfer Guantánamo Bay detainees to the Thompson Correctional Center in northwest Illinois.
Three issues dominated the debate: whether or not the state will lose money in selling the correctional center to the federal government, whether giving up an underused facility was wise given the overcrowding in the state's prisons, and finally, whether the safety of Illinois residents is at stake in housing terror suspects in their backyards.
“We’re talking about bringing terrorists to Illinois,” said state Sen. Bill Brady (R). He was one of several who chastised state officials such as Illinois Department of Corrections Director Michael P. Randle with “doubletalk” in suggesting the state prison was at average capacity while at the same time endorsing an early release program for 200 prisoners to shore up bed space. http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20091223/ts_csm/270290
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Rep. Alan Grayson, Lunatic-Fla., known mainly for saying the Republicans' health plans called for asking the sick to "die quickly" and for telling former Vice President Cheney to "shut the f--k up," sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking the Department of Justice to investigate, fine, and perhaps send to jail for five years a Florida activist who reacted to his behavior by setting up a fundraising Web site called "mycongressmanisnuts.com."
He complained that the blogger was "senseless and juvenile." "Just five years?" queried blogger Ed Morrissey. "Why doesn't Grayson just demand that Holder chop off her head?" http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/_Shut-up_-is-a-favorite-Democrat-talking-point-8675353-79938422.html
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Looks like the steadily growing list of constitutional, ethical and political outrages that constitute the Harry Reid version of Obamacare is sparking a rebellion in the states, as AP reports South Carolina's attorney general plans to investigate the vote-buying that surrounded the proposal in the Senate majority leader's office.
According to AP, South Carolina's Henry McMaster is being joined by the attorneys general of Michigan and Washington state in a suit to determine the constitutionality of the Obamacare proposal. Their initiative was prompted by a request from South Carolina's two senators, Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint, both Republicans. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obamacare-sparking-10th-Amendment-rebellion-79937187.html
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(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said the White House and the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives have been pressuring him not to speak out on the "compromise" abortion language in the Senate version of the health care bill.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/58921
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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) - A U.S. House Democrat who opposes the health care overhaul announced Tuesday he is defecting to the GOP, another blow to Democrats ahead of the midterm elections. U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith spoke to reporters at his home in northern Alabama, a region that relies heavily on defense and aerospace jobs. "I believe our nation is at a crossroads and I can no longer align myself with a party that continues to pursue legislation that is bad for our country, hurts our economy, and drives us further and further into debt," Griffith said as his wife Virginia stood by his side. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091222/D9COJHCO0.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why wouldn't insurers support a bill that places a gun at the head of every American and shouts: "Write a check to an insurer, or we'll send you to jail!"
Independent-thinking liberals are now suffering from buyer's remorse. Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called in vain for the death of Obamacare. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann promised to go to prison before he would comply with the bill's mandate to purchase health insurance. Markos Moulitsas of the liberal Daily Kos wrote on Twitter: "Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate."
But none of them will learn the underlying lesson that the legislative process tried to teach them. The free market is a harsh mistress, but a fair one. Big Government, on the other hand, is always for sale to the powerful. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Rude-awakening-for-naive-Left-about-big-government-8677436-79987917.html
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House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said, “Rather than sitting here and carping about what Nelson got for Nebraska, I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle: Let’s get together and see what we can get for South Carolina.” http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/203961
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