Earlier, HughS highlighted testimony from Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, who bluntly told the Senate Budget Committee that ObamaCare would greatly increase both the Federal government's involvement in our nation's health care system, and the amount of money spend by the Federal government on health care, potentially expanding the size and cost of government beyond a sustainable level. Elmendorf convincingly blew a big hole in ObamaCare's biggest selling point, which is that the program would mandate increased efficiency across the entire spectrum of health care and thus would eventually save a tremendous amount of money by lowering health care costs. Or as our eloquent Vice President recently explained it: "...we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt."
Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh highlighted a different, and in many ways more alarming, aspect of Elmendorf's testimony. Audio excerpts from the Elmendorf testimony were filled "we don't know" and "we have yet to determine" and "I can't answer that." Essentially what Elmendorf told the Senate Budget Committee was that the CBO had not had time to fully digest the ObamaCare legislation, but from what work they were able to get done on the bill, the financial outlook was not good. This is serious, and terribly damning for Democrats -- the party that promised "bipartisanship" and "openness" and "transparency" is attempting to ram potentially the single most destructive bill in the history of the United States through Congress before anyone has a chance to digest it and fully analyze its broad, long-term effects.
Of course the reason for this is simple -- the more the bill is understood, the worse it looks. Consider President Obama's continual promises of "competition" and "choice" and "if you're happy with your existing insurance, you can keep it." Investor's Business Daily shattered these empty promises after reading only 16 pages of the 1000+ page House health care bill and discovering this shocking sentence:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" (of the year the legislation becomes law)
In other words, private insurers will be banned from enrolling anyone after ObamaCare becomes law. This draconian restriction, combined with the certainty of a significant number of businesses switching to the ObamaCare "public option" because it inevitably will be priced far below the cost of private insurance, will surely spell the end of private health insurance except for only the very rich (and dare I say, members of Congress and high-ranking government bureaucrats). Over at Reason, Steve Chapman has more to say about ObamaCare's false "competition," including a point that I have previously made here at WizBang. Chapman writes, "Competition is healthy, but how are private companies supposed to compete with an operation that can tap the Treasury?"
Finally, the New York Post has created a handy chart to show how ObamaCare's massive taxes and penalties will affect New Yorkers:
This chart perfectly illustrates how ObamaCare breaks yet another central Obama promise, that no one earning under $200,000 would see a single tax increase from his Administration. As the chart explains, a worker in New York City earning $80,000 a year (a modest sum of money for NYC) will be penalized (read: taxed) an additional $2000 annually if they do not have health insurance. And if you are high income earner, your total tax bill could approach 60 cents out of every dollar you earn.
It is obvious that the Obama Administration's solutions for our current recession have been pitifully inadequate and at times genuinely puzzling. The financial sector (the recipients of the first and, to date, biggest Federal bailout) has announced stunning profits and reportedly has set aside tens of millions of dollars in bonus money for its highest-paid workers -- arguably as a result of the TARP and PPIP Federal programs that empowered banks to re-classify toxic assets as income. But the rest of the private economy is in a free-fall, with double-digit unemployment looming and consumer confidence at all-time lows. State governments have so far been the major recipients of the Federal government's stimulus largesse, while the private sector, particularly small business, remains financially squeezed and may have to swallow even more financial poison as a result of ObamaCare.
It's almost as if ... no, it is as if the Obama Administration is deliberately creating an economic system where banks and investment firms (who generate enormous incomes and, lest we forget, make incredibly generous contributions to political campaigns and lobbying efforts) receive "endangered species" status from the Federal government, and are allowed to thrive under the full protection of the Treasury and Federal Reserve. Perhaps the Obama Administration sees them as a goose that lays golden tax revenue eggs, and which must be kept well-fed and healthy at all costs. Perhaps they also see health care as the single most effective way to impose broad government control over the rest of the economy and the population at large.
Undoubtedly President Obama would tell us that in the end, everything under this system will be fair -- everyone will have health care, the fattened financial sector will be appropriately taxed, governments will work more efficiently for the common good, etc. But whatever is going on, right now it seems scary as hell to me.
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Comments (14)
regarding the bit from Inve... (Below threshold)1. Posted by Adrian Browne | July 17, 2009 8:27 AM | Score: -12 (22 votes cast)
regarding the bit from Investor's Business Daily:
"That sounds scary! It also sounds completely implausible. So I went and looked at the actual bill, and there that paragraph was, on p. 16, in a section defining the term "Grandfathered Health Insurance Coverage". The fact that it's in a definition might lead readers to conclude that it doesn't mean that you can't buy individual insurance after the bill takes effect, but only that you can't buy such insurance and have it meet the bill's definition of "Grandfathered Health Insurance Coverage". There is a difference."
http://instaputz.blogspot.com/2009/07/breaking-glenn-reynolds-uncritically.html
1. Posted by Adrian Browne | July 17, 2009 8:27 AM |
Score: -12 (22 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 08:27
2. Posted by DaveD | July 17, 2009 9:39 AM | Score: 7 (11 votes cast)
Every rational individual should accept from this point forward that if a member of the Obama administration's mouth is moving they are lying. Period. The one exception unfortunately is Biden because he is the only one whose incessant gaffes actually provide any insight into how stupid these grifters believe the citizens of the United States actually are. It continues to stun me how these programs which amount to, in essence, forms of extortion and Ponzi schemes that would readily send any private citizen to jail for a long period of time.
2. Posted by DaveD | July 17, 2009 9:39 AM |
Score: 7 (11 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 09:39
3. Posted by MPR | July 17, 2009 10:04 AM | Score: 8 (12 votes cast)
New Yorkers paying higher taxes? Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of liberals. What will happen, as it always does, the people with money will figure out how to either get themselves or their money out of NY. The problem is that there are not many places left to go to be safe from Obamalala's socialist, spread the wealth policies.
3. Posted by MPR | July 17, 2009 10:04 AM |
Score: 8 (12 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 10:04
4. Posted by hyperbolist | July 17, 2009 10:23 AM | Score: -14 (18 votes cast)
MPR, have you forgotten 9/11 already? If so, let me refresh your memory: New Yorkers are better than you. You're welcome!
4. Posted by hyperbolist | July 17, 2009 10:23 AM |
Score: -14 (18 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 10:23
5. Posted by Hyperapologist | July 17, 2009 11:02 AM | Score: 5 (7 votes cast)
Gee, Hyper, back from visiting your Jihadi pals in Afghanistan?
5. Posted by Hyperapologist | July 17, 2009 11:02 AM |
Score: 5 (7 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 11:02
6. Posted by Winghunter | July 17, 2009 11:04 AM | Score: 6 (8 votes cast)
Apparently Adrian Browne and the Socialist "Blue Texan" think they know how legislation is written but, they don't have a clue. Congress writes a 1,000 page bill and almost always describes what they want the reader to see yet one single phrase turns the entire meaning towards a completely opposite purpose which was their intent to begin with. Other People's Money is NOT yours to spend. Never was, never will be so, get your butt out and get a real job ya' Marx wannabes.
Hyperbullocks,
I remember 9/11 vividly and always will as I watched it happen but, I fail to see how being a Socialist parasite and a target of terrorists makes a corrupt population somehow 'better' than anyone else. Perhaps, you can explain that claim in some semblance of sane terms, perhaps not.
6. Posted by Winghunter | July 17, 2009 11:04 AM |
Score: 6 (8 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 11:04
7. Posted by GarandFan | July 17, 2009 11:09 AM | Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
So many financial 'unknowns'. But we can trust Barry. PASS IT NOW! IT'S AN EMERGENCY! Yeah, just like the "Stimulus Bill". The one Joey admits they screwed up. The bill that DIDN'T "Stimulate". But they got it right this time. Trust them! And for you Obamabots, just what happens when the economy tanks with all this accumulated debt? What then? In former times, when a general led his army to defeat, he fell on his sword. Will Barry and Company be willing to do the same? ......crickets chirping......
7. Posted by GarandFan | July 17, 2009 11:09 AM |
Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 11:09
8. Posted by maggie | July 17, 2009 11:12 AM | Score: 3 (9 votes cast)
Mr.Browne,
What is the definition of difference according
to the administration.
You are playing footsy, are your feet paining
you yet?
8. Posted by maggie | July 17, 2009 11:12 AM |
Score: 3 (9 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 11:12
9. Posted by MPR | July 17, 2009 11:39 AM | Score: 4 (6 votes cast)
Leave it to a liberal to equate higher taxes with a terrorist attack. What the...???
9. Posted by MPR | July 17, 2009 11:39 AM |
Score: 4 (6 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 11:39
10. Posted by maggie | July 17, 2009 11:46 AM | Score: 5 (7 votes cast)
MPR,
Hyperbolist apparently has been on a long
two month vacation from work.
I suspect he just made a drive by hit, he
doesn't live on Wizbang anymore.
10. Posted by maggie | July 17, 2009 11:46 AM |
Score: 5 (7 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 11:46
11. Posted by Cindermutha | July 17, 2009 11:55 AM | Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
Should this monstrosity pass, my only consolation is that it will hit the democrat strongholds the worst.
11. Posted by Cindermutha | July 17, 2009 11:55 AM |
Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 11:55
12. Posted by OLDPUPPYMAX | July 17, 2009 11:59 AM | Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
You mean you wouldn't want Hussein deciding whether you should have that operation?? Well, you must be a RACIST!!
12. Posted by OLDPUPPYMAX | July 17, 2009 11:59 AM |
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 11:59
13. Posted by trig palin | July 17, 2009 4:38 PM | Score: -3 (3 votes cast)
I am Socialist, too. Palin 2012!
13. Posted by trig palin | July 17, 2009 4:38 PM |
Score: -3 (3 votes cast)
Posted on July 17, 2009 16:38
14. Posted by Lavender | November 9, 2009 9:29 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
There's so much wrong with this legislation, there's just no way to begin to wrap one's mind around it all. So let me just point out this: IF (and they probably -- God help us all -- WILL) pass this abomination, they'll need some type of "Obama-card" ID. You know, you show up at a clinic, Dr.'s office, hospital, etc. and need to provide "proof of Obamacare Insurance". To this nifty little card will be tied every last d4mn piece of personal & financial information an individual has or can imagine. In effect, it will be the failed REAL ID . . . through the back door, and far, far more dangerous. You don't have to drive, and don't have to have your DL on you if you're not driving. But you WILL have to have health care, and you WILL therefore have to have your "Obama-card" on you at all times. After all, illness and accidents can strike anywhere, anytime. Right?!
AND THAT, I do believe, is one (only one among many) of the *major* reasons behind this bankrupting, tyrannizing, threatening, illegal piece of cr4p. They couldn't get Real ID via our DL's to fly (the states didn't want to foot the bill. Not that they cared about the assault on our rights, but at least they stopped it for SOME reason, even if not the BEST reason) so, they'll ram Real ID down our throats through so-called "health care reform".
All of you -- go out and re-read Orwell's *1984*. After you get over the distress & disturbance that it'll cause you (if you have any d4mn sense), understand that Orwell was a member of the Tavistock Foundation, a think tank that was trying to devise methods of population control way back in the late 1940's. Frighteningly, Orwell wasn't writing a fictional story or "allegory". Folks, he was revealing Tavistock's recommended blueprint for total population control. Any of this sound familiar: Double-think? Endless wars? Ministries, such as the U.K.s "N.I.C.E." (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. One of its mandates: "clinical practice - guidance on the appropriate treatment and care of people with specific diseases and conditions within the NHS"). N.I.C.E recently mandated that a newborn baby be allowed to die, since it was *two days* too early to be declared premature! (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6142370/Bereaved-mothers-campaign-against-medical-guidelines-that-allow-premature-babies-to-die.html)
And now here we are, 25 years behind schedule, but catchin' up fast.
If you can't see it and think I'm a tin-foil-hat wearing nut, well -- just say that to anyone who survived the Holocaust or who, even better, saw the signs and got out in time (like Einstein. Now, there's a nut, huh?) That's if you can find any who are still alive. Say it to the British mother, Sarah Capewell, whose premature baby NICE allowed to die. She'll tell you how "nuts" people like me are. Yeah, right. Rather, she'll tell you how blind and stupid YOU are.
Hmmmm. Maybe that's why they're finally doing all this now -- the people who LIVED, this gawd-awful, deadly tyranny courtesy of Hitler and Stalin are now just about all gone, and they're no longer there to remind us, to warn us. So now we foolishly believe that if the pols' lips are moving, they're tellin' us the truth -- as long as it's what we want to hear!
Which leaves me to conclude: we're so stupid, we deserve what's coming.
14. Posted by Lavender | November 9, 2009 9:29 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on November 9, 2009 21:29