Myths of Ryan's Budget Plan; 30% of Companies to stop offering health coverage; Rationing under Obamacare; Florida v. United States on Obamacare; Sebelius promotes realistic "other health care choices" before taking away our current insurance

Heritage.org opines: Ten Myths of Ryan’s House Budget Plan Myth #1: The House budget recklessly cuts taxes by $4 trillion. Fact: It cancels a future tax increase. Myth #2: The House budget increases the deficit by giving tax cuts to the rich. Fact: The proposed change is a revenue-neutral tax reform plan that simplifies the tax code. Myth #3: The House budget represents only minor deficit reduction. Fact: It substantially reduces both short- and long-term budget deficits. Myth #4: The House budget exaggerates the long-term spending challenge. Fact: The challenge is real and potentially calamitous. Myth #5: The House budget balances the budget on the backs of seniors. Fact: Current and near-retirees are exempt from reforms. Myth #6: The House budget would privatize Medicare and hand seniors vouchers. Fact: Seniors would receive government support to purchase health insurance coverage on a tightly regulated government exchange system. Myth #7: Medicare is more efficient than private health insurance. Fact: Medicare’s administrative burdens are hidden and they outweigh private-sector costs. Myth #8: The House budget plan would end Medicare as we know it. Fact: Obamacare ended Medicare as we know it. Myth #9: The House budget plan would shift Medicaid costs to the states and hurt the poor. Fact: Medicaid block grants would help states lower Medicaid costs and provide them with the flexibility to better serve the poor. Myth #10: Most Medicare costs would continue to rise, and retirees would bear those costs with insufficient assistance. Fact: Intense market competition would reduce costs and enable Medicare patients to secure value for their dollars.  http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/05/Ten-Myths-of-Ryans-House-Budget-Plan  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- M arketwatch.com reveals: Once provisions of the Affordable Care Act start to kick in during 2014, at least three of every 10 employers will probably stop offering health coverage, a survey released Monday shows. [This fits very well with stated goals of working our way towards single payer (government) health care.]  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/firms-halting-coverage-as-reform-starts-survey-2011-06-06 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Investors.com wrote: The administration's regulatory czar tries to disavow his statement that a program that saves young people is better than one that saves their parents and grandparents. It's called rationing, and its name is ObamaCare. Rather than ensuring that everyone get the best care possible, Sunstein wrote that government should rely instead on the "value of a statistical life year" (VSLY), which would likely result in significantly lower benefit calculations for elderly people and significantly higher benefits for children. Government would assign a dollar value to your life in terms of what it's worth, and if you exceeded that limit, well, too bad. Britain's National Health Service has a similar measure of cost-effectiveness called the "quality adjusted life year" to see if your life is worth saving. In the paper, Sunstein said, "I urge that the government should indeed focus on statistical life years rather than statistical lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people." He added that under the VSLY approach, "Older people are treated worse for one reason, they are older. This is not an injustice."  http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/574539/201106061903/Valuing-Seniors-Lives.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wall St. Journal opines: The constitutional battle over ObamaCare has largely focused on the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Namely, does forcing individuals to buy health insurance violate the commerce clause? But as the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals prepares to hear Florida v. United States, a second issue is of equal importance: Was District Court Judge Roger Vinson correct to rule that the federal government can force states to expand their Medicaid programs as a precondition for continuing to receive matching federal funds for the program? Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, states have a choice: Expand their Medicaid rolls or bear the full cost of caring for their state's current Medicaid population, while continuing to subsidize the Medicaid programs of other states. The constitutional danger of such a scheme has long been recognized. In 1936, the Supreme Court warned in U.S. v. Butler that if conditional federal grants were not restrained, the taxing and spending power "could become the instrument for the total subversion of the governmental powers reserved to the individual states." And yet the government is comparing this Medicaid requirement to a "voluntary" contract. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304474804576367690213892556.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Expose Obama reports: We don’t want to take away people’s health insurance,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius so graciously declared earlier this year. But then she quickly qualified that with these ominous words: “before they have some realistic other choices.” Americans have overwhelmingly, consistently and wisely been opposed to a European-style, single-payer, government-run, socialized health care system. So how might the big- government types who are hell-bent on forcing their will upon us attempt to implement this oppressive system in America? Simple. By creating medical refugees desperate for any port in a storm.  President Lyndon B. Johnson promised that Medicare would cost about $500 million a year – yes, million. He even said that if costs went higher, then he was going to look like the “worst kind of damn fool.” Just a year later, in 1966, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated thatMedicare would cost about $12 billion a year by 1990. The actual 1990 cost was $107 billion – off by an order of magnitude but close enough for government work. And that’s when costs really took off. By 2008, annual costs hit $599 billion and the program for the first time went into deficit-spending mode. For all the Democrats’ dishonesty and reckless spending, Republicans weren’t exactly blameless either. In 2003, President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress doubled down and ushered in the largest expansion in Medicare history with their senior citizen prescription drug entitlement program. They claimed the price tag would be $400 billion for the first decade but quietly adjusted that estimate upward to $534 billion just one month after passage. http://www.exposeobama.com/2011/06/10/obamacare-ruins-medicare-deliberately-but-why/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=db1375b449-EO_06_10_20116_10_2011&utm_medium=email ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------