Actuary denies delaying report

The Chief Medicare Actuary, Richard Foster, called "completely inaccurate" a report that the Department of Health and Human Services buried a report on health care in the days before a crucial vote.

"Consistent with the Office of the Actuary's longstanding independent role on behalf of Congress, we did not seek approval or clearance from HHS (or anyone else) before issuing our analysis," he said in response to a question from POLITICO.

The report in the American Spectator has gained some traction on the right, but First Read's close look at the timeline suggests the report would have been unlikely to make it out in time for the passage of the legislation.


Foster backs up that reporting, and his denial carries a good deal of weight: He's an independent figure who testified, damagingly, in 2004 that the Bush Administration had -- in not dissimilar circumstances -- delayed the publication of a report on the cost of the Medicare prescription drug plan; last year, he delivered a report on Medicare cuts that sharply challenged the Obama Administration's claims that they were holding senior citizens harmless in health care legislation.


Regardless of whether the report was buried and delayed or not, the report CONFIRMS many people's belief that President Obama and the Democrats purposely misled the American public about the true cost of Healthcare Reform legislation! This issue is not right vs., left, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican; it is an issue of TRUTH, HONESTY, and CORE VALUES. How many professional politicians in our country adhere to those items? When Republicans held power in both house of Congress and the White House, they were no better at being honest with America than Democrats are now. The true ambition of both parties is to maintain the power, not the interest of the people. 

Healthcare Reform Fact Check...

President Obama, in his joint address to congress, made the following statements, concraditing his own previous statements about Healthcare Reform (or is that Healthcare Insurance Reform):


9/9/09 "We are the only democracy -- the only advanced democracy on Earth -- the only wealthy nation -- that allows such hardship for millions of its people.  There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage."


8/15/09 "You are absolutely right. I can't cover another 47 million people for free. I can't do that. We're going to have to find money from somewhere."


In a span of three weeks, the President lost nearly 15 million uninsured people, what happened to them?


9/9/09 "The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies — subsidies that do everything to pad their profits and nothing to improve your care. … So don't pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut… That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare."


9/23/09 WASHINGTON – Congress' chief budget officer on Tuesday contradicted President Barack Obama's oft-stated claim that seniors wouldn't see their Medicare benefits cut under a health care overhaul.
 
The head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, told senators that seniors in Medicare's managed care plans could see reduced benefits under a bill in the Finance Committee.


9/9/09 "First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future.  (Applause.)  I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.  And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize."


7/19/09 CBO chief testimony to congress on Healthcare Reform costs, "Although the House plan to cover the uninsured, for example, would add more than $1 trillion to federal health spending over the next decade, according to the CBO, it would trim about $500 billion from existing programs -- increasing federal health spending overall. " 


Latest Rasmussen polls show 43% of americans favor the reform legislation in Congress now, 59% oppose it. Theses numbers have remained constant since July despite all the speeches and appearances by the President to get his points across. The fact is MOST Americans do nto trust the President or Congressional leaders on Healthcare reform!

Are there any Democrats that do not Flip-Flop on Values?

 
 

Obama to Restart Terror Tribunals for Guantanamo Bay Detainees - This after he decried President Bush's use of them...

 
 

Obama Moves to Bar Release of Detainee Abuse Photos - This after he previously said he would not oppose the release - Now he has the ACLU pissed at him!

 
 

Saying his administration will be "looking forward," Barack Obama suggested he won't pursue criminal charges against national security officials accused of committing crimes in President Bush's war on terror.

Then President Barack Obama left the door open to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terror-suspect interrogations, saying the United States lost "our moral bearings" with use of the tactics.

 
 

Pelosi first accuses the Bush Administration of torture and abuse... and supports prosecution of advisers who wrote legal memos validating the abuse... Now it turns out she knew about it all the time, and never objected until now! Looks like the spider got caught in her own little trap! With any luck this scandal will bring her down, or at least force her to vacate the leadership role in the House!

 
 

Dick Durbin... the guy that compared our troops to the Nazis, Pol Pot, and Stalin in one sentence on the floor of the Senate. 

In remarks first expressed on the Senate floor late Tuesday and then re-read verbatim on Thursday evening, Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, read the report of an FBI agent who described treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

One knowledgeable official familiar with the memo cited by Durbin as well as other memos said the FBI agent made no such allegation. Now the possibility arises that he fabricated most of the "FBI memo" he quoted in his now-infamous Senate speech.

Barney Frank, who is openly gay, had a relationship with Herb Moses, an executive for the now-government controlled Fannie Mae. Frank was and remains a stalwart defender of Fannie Mae, which is now under FBI investigation along with its sister organization Freddie Mac, American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG) and Lehman Brothers (NYSE:LEH) – all recently participants in government bailouts. But Frank has derailed efforts to regulate the institution, as well as denying it posed any financial risk.

Frank served on the House Banking Committee for 10 years. The committee is the primary House body which along with the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) has jurisdiction over the government-sponsored enterprises.

 
 

"If I'm corrupt, it's because I take care of my district." -Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) Known for directing earmarks to companies and institutions run by family members, his questionable ethics are public knowledge to the extent that he doesn't even bother trying to cover them up.

Murtha is a crook, and if the House Democrats were really serious about fighting corruption, they would have expelled him from the caucus when the first definitive corruption stories broke. The fact that he is continuing to use his position to benefit family is disgraceful, but more disgraceful is that he is getting away with it.

He is a symbol of the greed and waste of the old boy's network Washington that Obama promised to take down... which brings us back to Obama campaign promises!

Budget deficits since 2000.

Given that President Obama has already quadrupled the deficit with his stimulus package, pledging to halve it by 2013 is hardly ambitious. Assuming he could "halve" it by the end of his first term, we would still have a deficit twice what it was when he took office four years earlier! Not only does President Obama's budget fail to reduce deficits "overnight", his budget actually moves them in the opposite direction. President Obama's budget would:

• Permanently expand the federal government by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over 2007 pre-recession levels;
• Borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010;
  
• Leave permanent deficits that top $1 trillion in as late as 2020;
  

President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. 
President Obama would add another $1 trillion.


President Bush began a string of expensive financial bailouts. 
President Obama is accelerating that course.


President Bush created a Medicare drug entitlement that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade.
President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new government health care fund.


President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. 
President Obama would double it.


President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs.
President Obama has already increased this spending by 20 percent.


President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. 
President Obama would continue that trend.


President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008.
(Setting aside 2009, for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt),
President Obama's budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.

Companies come forward with impact of Obamacare...

Dallas-based AT&T said in a regulatory filing yesterday it would record $1 billion of costs. “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,” 

New York-based Verizon, the second-largest U.S. phone company, told employees in a note shortly after the law was signed that the tax will make a drug subsidy less valuable to employers like Verizon and so “may have significant implications for both retirees and employers.”

Moline, Illinois-based Deere, the world’s largest maker of farm machinery, said on March 25 that the new health-care law would increase its expenses by $150 million this fiscal year.

Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of bulldozers and excavators, expects to record a charge of about $100 million in the first quarter of 2010, reflecting new tax liabilities on retiree drug benefits.

Medtronic has just announced that the new Obamacare taxes on its products could force it to lay off 1,000 workers. What do those guys do? Well, they develop products such as the recently approved pacemaker that's safe for MRI scans or the InterStim bladder control device. So that's a thousand fewer people who'll be working on new stuff.

A dire warning from Bay State medical-device companies that a new sales tax in the federal health-care law could force their plants “This bill is a jobs killer,” said Ernie Whiton, chief financial officer of Chelmsford’s Zoll Medical Corp., which employs about 650 people in Massachusetts. Many of those employees work in Zoll’s local manufacturing facility making heart defibrillators.

“We could be forced to (move) manufacturing overseas if we can’t pass along these costs to our customers,” said Whiton.

The cost to companies of the landmark U.S. health-care overhaul continued to mount Wednesday as Boeing Co. said it will take a $150 million charge against first-quarter earnings because of tax changes in the legislation.

Also Wednesday, fellow aerospace company Lockheed Martin Corp. estimated that it will take a $96 million charge because of the health-care legislation and expects the charge to reduce per-share earnings by 25 cents in the first quarter.

The firms became the latest in a string of companies to reveal charges tied to retiree prescription costs since President Obama signed the health bill into law last week.

3M, $90 million; 

AK Steel, $31 million; 

Valero, $20 million. 

General Electric Co., the world’s biggest maker of jet engines, power-plant turbines and locomotives, said today it doesn’t anticipate taking a charge tied to the health-care law.

All in all, the Wall Street Journal estimated a $14 billion haircut for these corporations.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Dems-fear-honest-Obamacare-accounting-89466462.html#ixzz0jkiisES6

Quote from one of our Founding Fathers

This goes a long way to explain why the Obama administration has NO problem trampling out constitutional rights: "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other" - John Adams

Privilege of a Few

Have you seen the commemorative certificate being distributed by Organizing for America? It is being given out to supporters who helped pass this landmark legislation. The certificate reads: "We achieved the dream of generations -- high-quality, affordable health care is no longer the privilege of a few, but the right of all." 

How can they say the Privilege of a Few when 85% of all Americans are covered by private or employer provided insurance? Are the typical, in the street level, supporters of this Obamacare healthcare reform really that gullible, naive, and ignorant to believe healthcare is really a privilege of the rich and famous?

Income Redistribution

Have you seen the comments by several prominent Democrats about the real thrust behind Obamacare? VP Joe Biden, Senator Max Bascus, Howard Dean, and an economics columnist from the New York Times have all touted the fundamental provision of the recent healthcare legislation… Income Redistribution! 

Our illustrious Vice President (King of the Gaffes) stated on March 31^st: "It's a simple proposition to us: Everyone is entitled to adequate medical health care," Biden says. "If you call that a 'redistribution of income' -- well, so be it. I don't call it that. I call it just being fair -- giving the middle class taxpayers an even break that the wealthy have been getting." 

Senator Max Baucus, on March 25^th told reporters: Health reform is "an income shift," Democratic Sen. Max Baucus said on March 25. "It is a shift, a leveling, to help lower income, middle income Americans." Baucus explained "the maldistribution of income in America has gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle income class is left behind." Baucus promised, "will have the effect of addressing that maldistribution of income in America."

Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate, and former head of the DNC said on CNN the health bill was needed to correct economic inequities: "The question is, in a democracy, what is the right balance between those at the top ... and those at the bottom?" Dean said during an appearance on CNBC. "When it gets out of whack, as it did in the 1920s, and it has now, you need to do some redistribution. This is a form of redistribution."

The New York Times, the liberal economics columnist David Leonhardt called Obamacare: "the federal government's biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obamacare-was-mainly-aimed-at-redistributing-wealth-89725302.html#ixzz0jxREuwRd 


Now this really should not be a surprise to anyone who was listening and doing their own research, but many of you were blindly led like sheep, believing all the altruistic talking points about healthcare reform. Does this not disturb any of you enough to take action and vote these people out before they destroy our country?

Un-Presidential comments made by President Obama!!!

March 2009 During the taping of the Jay Leno show, President Obama compares his bowling skills to Special Olympic competitors, ""It's like -- it was like Special Olympics or something," Obama says.:

July 2009 President Barack Obama "says police in Cambridge, Mass., acted "stupidly" this week when they arrested Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates,"

March 20101 You turn on the news, you’ll see the same folks are still shouting about there’s going to be an end of the world because this bill passed. (Laughter.) I’m not exaggerating. Leaders of the Republican Party, they called the passage of this bill “Armageddon.” (Laughter.) Armageddon. “End of freedom as we know it.”

So after I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there any -- (laughter) -- asteroids falling or -- (applause) -- some cracks opening up in the Earth. (Laughter.) It turned out it was a nice day. (Laughter.) Birds were chirping. Folks were strolling down the Mall. People still have their doctors.

How immature is the President?

In a speech during his around the country "Sell the Healthcare Legislation, President Obama mocked Republican references to life in America, as we know it, coming to an end... Armageddon, as it were. He joked how after he signed the bill, he looked out the window for a meteor shower to destroy us. While I firmly believe the passage of this legislation will change America drastically, and not for the good, I do not subscribe to comparing it to Armageddon, but at the same time I think the President of the United States mocking the opposition, especially in the face of overwhelming anger by the American public, over healthcare shows a high degree of immaturity on his part. It coincides with his public rebuke of the Supreme Court during his State of the Union speech. He is entitled to his opinion, but he degrades the Office of the Presidency with his remarks!

Liberals Democrats attack basic tenant of American Life... Free Speech!

As companies in America come forward and announce their projections of the impact of Obamacare on their companies, the economy, and thus Americans in general, they are being assailed and attacked by the left.

Rep. Henry Waxman is summoning the CEO's of these companies to appear before Congress with evidence of their statements. Seems sort of ironic, since the proponents of this healthcare bill never had to provide credible proof of their outrageous statements on deficit reduction, lowering premiums, and outrageous profits by health insurance companies. Now they want to censor those who speak out about the true cost of Obamacare.
AT&T, Deere CEOs Called by Waxman to Back Up Health-Bill Costs - BusinessWeek