Left-wing group urges Obama to shut down campaign apparatus

From: The Daily Caller

by - Neil Munro - 02/26/2013

The president of the United States should close down his new lobbying, advocacy and fund-raising organization, says a left-wing group that has long sought to reduce the role of donations in politics.

“If President Obama is serious about his often-expressed desire to rein in big money in politics, he should shut down Organizing for Action and disavow any plan to schedule regular meetings with its major donors,” said Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause, which helped pass the 2002 campaign finance law.

“With its reported promise of quarterly presidential meetings for donors and ‘bundlers’ who raise $500,000, Organizing For Action apparently intends to extend and deepen the pay-to-play Washington culture that Barack Obama came to prominence pledging to end,” Edgar said.

OFA is a novel advocacy operation run by Obama from the White House, via his 2012 campaign staff. It is expected to play a role in the 2014 election, and likely will try to help Democrats gain a majority in the House, and buffer their Senate majority.

The group has caused Obama some embarrassment in recent days, following news reports that OFA’s leaders were offering political access in exchange for cash.

OFA’s leaders say that donations of $50,000 would ensure access to White House officials, while a donation of $500,000 could ensure a quarterly meetings with the president, said a Feb. 14 report in the Los Angeles Times.

“People are not doing this to get their third or sixth photo with the president. … Everybody is in because they are in,” a donor told the Times.

On Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney evaded questions about the pay-to-play offer.

“OFA, which you are asking about, is an independent organization that, as reported in the press, will engage in advocacy and grassroots mobilization activities around public policy issues,” he said, while reading a prepared statement.

“It will not be engaged in political campaign-related activities … [but] has been organized to rally support for the president’s policy agenda,” he claimed.

“White House and administration officials will not be raising money for Organizing for Action … [although] they may appear at appropriate OFA events in their official capacities,” Carney said.

“The fact of the matter is this is an independent organization that is supporting an agenda,” Carney insisted.

“The White House’s suggestion this week that this group will somehow be independent is laughable,” said Edgar at Common Cause.

of Obama’s top campaign staff, and it issues tweets under Obama’s name.

Previously, presidents worked with their political party’s campaign apparatus, and with candidates.

“At a minimum, any outside advocacy organization tied to the President should live by the ground rules the President has adopted for his Administration and the anti-corruption laws that apply to political parties,” Edgar said.

“That means any group associated with the President should refuse all donations from lobbyists, corporations and unions, provide complete and prompt disclosure of all its donors and the amounts they contribute, and impose an annual limit of $32,400 on the amount of money it will accept from any individual or political action committee.”

God bless,

JohnnyD

The Affordable Care Act Nobody Can Afford

Welcome to the destruction of our stellar healthcare and patient/doctor confidentiality, compliments of Obamacare

From: Canada Free Press

by - Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh - Thursday, February 21, 2013

I was just handed the Phreesia computer tablet by the receptionist under the guise of updating my medical and insurance information. I had seen this orange notebook in another doctor’s office and I became suspicious. Is this really meant to verify, as the website claims, my insurance eligibility automatically and help doctors collect on their insurance while easing the load of paperwork? Or is it forced electronic data compliance to Obamacare?

As soon as I started reading each screen, I realized that it was asking me to consent to third parties to obtain my medication prescription history from my pharmacy and to my entire medical history.

I had the right to request and restrict as to how my protected health information was used or disclosed. However, when I declined to sign, the computer stopped, and prompted me to talk to the receptionist. She informed me that diagnosis and/or treatment “may be conditioned upon my consent.”

The electronic screen and the paper copy the receptionist gave me said, “The [name withheld] is not required to agree to the restrictions that I may request and may refuse treatment based on my restriction as permitted by Section 164.506 of the Code of Federal Regulations.”

Suddenly, because I refused the IRS and HHS meddling in my personal health affairs, I had become persona-non-grata (unwanted person) to my doctor who had sworn a Hippocratic Oath to care for me and any patient who comes across his/her path.

In other words, I would not be treated if I did not sign yes. I had the right to say no, don’t give my medical information and history to anyone else but the doctor is not required to honor my request and may refuse treatment to me as permitted by Section 164.506 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

What if I said no, do not release my medical history to a third unapproved party and I paid cash? The doctor would not see me. Welcome to the destruction of our stellar healthcare and patient/doctor confidentiality, compliments of Obamacare.

How affordable is this Obamacare, the unfortunately named, the Affordable Care Act? The Democrats and the President said that costs would be so much lower; it would save the typical family $2,500 per year.

The cheapest category of Obamacare is the Bronze Plan which costs $20,000 per year for a family of two adults and three children and it pays only 60% of medical costs after the deductibles for the year have been met. And the deductibles are high per person and per family. The following tiers are Silver (70%), Gold (80%), and Platinum (90%).

During my 30-year teaching career, I seldom had to pay more than $3,600 a year premium for private insurance for my family. Even a retirement private plan did not cost more than $8,000 per year with 80% reimbursement as opposed to only 60% reimbursement under the Obamacare Bronze Plan. Is Obamacare really affordable? The answer is a resounding no.

According to the IRS, the penalty for not buying insurance is capped for now at either the annual Bronze premium, 2.5% of taxable income, or $2,085 per family in 2016.

President Obama said, “If you are one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your insurance.” Heritage’s Amy Payne estimated that “more than 11 million people will no longer have their employer-sponsored health coverage once Obamacare is fully implemented.” (Businesses Cutting Hours, Bracing for Costs of Obamacare, December 6, 2012)

The Obamacare employer mandate is killing jobs

The Obamacare employer mandate is killing jobs. An employer with 50 employees must provide coverage or pay a $2,000 penalty for each employee after the first 30 workers. It is easy to see how an employer would have to cut back employees to 30, replacing full-time employees with part-time ones, in order to avoid the penalty or the skyrocketing premiums for private coverage.  These private insurance premiums rose significantly because Obamacare mandates insurance for all children up to 26 years old and for those insured with pre-existing conditions whose treatment can be costly.

Breitbart News reported that Pennsylvania Community College of Allegheny County had already cut the hours of 400 adjunct professors, staff, and part-time teachers, saving $6 million in potential Obamacare fees. (Wynton Hall, Obamacare Layoffs, Hiring Freezes Begin, January 5, 2013)

Because of the Obamacare medical device 2.3 percent excise tax, Stryker medical supply cut 1,170 employees (5%). Boston Scientific, Welch Allyn, Medtronic, Kinetic Concepts, and Smith & Nephew are also contemplating cuts in their work force. Zimmer Holdings, makers of hip replacement implants, laid off 450 workers in expectation of a $60 million tax bill in 2013. (Bob Unruh, Democrats in Congress ‘want out’ of Obamacare)

Everybody’s private insurance has been disrupted and private premiums have escalated, in addition to adding the “Cadillac tax” to plans that are judged too generous. According to Jonathan Gruber of MIT and the actuarial firm Milliman, non-group premiums rose 19-30% in some states and 55-85% in others.

The federal government has built a data hub to be used only for Obamacare without saying how it will be run. The HHS has released 13,000 pages of regulations with only 30 days for public comment while attempting to re-engineer 17% of the economy. (WSJ, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Obamacare, December 13, 2012)

On the deadline of December 14, 2012 states had to declare health insurance exchanges. At that time, only six states (Colorado, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington) received conditional approval from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to operate their own exchanges. Twenty-six states stated that they will not set up exchanges.

If a state operates its own exchange, it must come up in 2015 with its own source of revenue to run the exchange, making a state a vendor to HHS. The state running an exchange must also expand Medicaid to “able-bodied, low-income, childless adults” in spite of the fact that the Supreme Court ruled the Medicaid expansion voluntary. The federal government was not planning on covering the full cost of such Medicaid expansion. “Half of the reduction in the number of uninsured promised under Obamacare was based on mandating that states expand Medicaid.” (Heritage’s Morning Bell, December 13, 2012)

Several states asked Kathleen Sibelius, the HHS Secretary, if they could expand Medicaid less. The answer was that only full compliance with the law will garner 90% reimbursement from the federal government. Nine states have refused to expand Medicaid to cover new populations. The feds will set up their own exchanges in those states but final regulations and specifics for the federal exchanges are not made public yet. Oklahoma and Maine have sued over Medicaid expansion and over statutory language and Medicaid expansion, respectively.

Three deadline extensions of implementing health exchanges have passed. Most states will share responsibilities with the federal government or default to a federal-run exchange. Only a minority of states have agreed to run their own exchanges.

A 3.5 percent administrative fee on coverage sold through federally-run exchanges will be levied. An additional $63 fee per employee must be paid in federal fees to cover people with pre-existing conditions.

Government funds will be set aside to promote/advertise [on primetime] Obamacare. Critics of the unaffordable health care law call such advertising “political advocacy.”

Practicing medicine will become more and less a government-run monopoly instead of the current monopolistic competition where patients are free to choose what doctors they go to, based on preference, doctor qualifications, specialty, reputation, insurance types, and premiums they choose to pay.

Doctors will either merge with hospitals, insurance companies, and specialty management firms or become “concierge” doctors, serving a reduced number of patients for a set fee. Consolidation will have a negative effect on patient access, price, and competition. Mergers in the 1980s and 1990s had negative effects in terms of patients being restricted or blocked from access to specialists and procedures.

More than $719 billion will be taken from Medicare over the next ten years to pay for Obamacare. According to Rep. Wally Herger, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, the Independent Payment Advisory Board established by Obamacare is authorized to unilaterally impose price controls and de facto rationing of medical care.

Medicare is already in trouble. Taking $719 billion over ten years from Medicare to fund Obamacare will exacerbate financial problems. Medicare benefits are not a return on taxes paid into the system over time because Medicare is run as “pay as you go” - today’s wage earners pay taxes to fund benefits for today’s retirees. Since people live longer, “Medicare payroll taxes cover only 38 percent of current benefits.” (Rep. Wally Herger)

Obamacare depends on bringing young, healthy people into insurance markets to help offset the costs of insuring the old and the sick. If young people do not participate in the program and elect to pay the fine instead, Obamacare will not be able to make coverage affordable for the uninsured.

Most young Americans do not have insurance. Young people who do have insurance purchase less coverage. Under Obamcare, young Americans must get more coverage and pay more whether they want the added coverage or not. Private insurers have increased their premiums because the law prohibits them from rejecting the sick, and are no longer allowed to charge higher premiums to older customers. Premiums for a young, healthy male could go up as much as three times. Young adults could then opt out of private coverage, causing the market to implode. (Washington Post, Insurers Warn of Health Law ‘Rate Shock,’ N.C. Aizenman, February 16, 2013)

To make matters worse, government officials announced on February 15, 2013 that state-based “high-risk pools” under Obamacare will be closed to new applicants on February 16 through March 2, depending on the state, because funding is running low. The existing 100,000 enrollees will not be affected. If the funding is running low now, what will happen by the time Obamacare is fully in force?

There is a glitch in Obamacare that could leave more than 500,000 children uninsured. Congress defined “affordable” in the Affordable Care Act as coverage not exceeding 9.5 % of family income. If people have coverage that fall under this 9.5% affordable, they cannot get subsidies to go into new insurance markets. This restriction was put into place to prevent people from switching from employer coverage to exchanges in droves. “Affordable” was calculated based on self-only, individual worker, with an average market cost of $5,600. But the current market family coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, is $15,700 per year. IRS announced on January 30, 2013, that employers are not required to pay for dependents, leaving the employee to pay the family premium since he/she will be locked out of subsidies in the federal exchanges.

Betsey McCaughey wrote that Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prediction that Obamacare would leave only 30 million people uninsured in 2016 was predicated on the assumption that kids would be covered by employees. If a parent is covered at work, no subsidies will be provided for the child in the health exchange.

Millions of people will remain uninsured because their states are choosing [wisely] not to expand Medicaid. The states do not have the money to expand Medicaid.

By the time the uninsured will be counted, almost as many Americans (40 million plus) will be left without insurance as the number of uninsured before the Democrats passed their signature monstrosity, the Affordable Care Act. Having sat in a drawer for decades, the bill was dusted off, repackaged, and polished. Nobody took the time to publicly debate or read the bill that passed after some arm-twisting.  The Democrats, who had promised free health care for all, feverishly proceeded to spend trillions of dollars we did not have to re-engineer our health care system in the name of social justice.

The states that refuse to set up health exchanges are expected to sell the government-mandated plans and to give out taxpayer-funded subsidies to those who enroll. Betsey McCaughey identifies the glitch:

“The law says that in states that refuse, the federal government can set up an exchange. But the law empowers only state exchanges, not federal ones, to hand out subsidies. The Obama administration says it will disregard the law and offer subsidies in all 50 states anyway, but the case will likely go to the Supreme Court.”

To safeguard from disaster, take care of your body, eat right, exercise if you can, and pray very hard that you will not get sick. There is a good chance that there will not be enough highly qualified doctors to deliver care when needed even if you do have insurance. Should you need specialists, expensive drugs or surgery, you are out of luck. Rationing will tell you, “no, you can’t have it.” The emergency rooms will be filled to capacity with confused, desperate, sick people, and new illegal alien arrivals.


God bless,
JohnnyD

Obama: Marxist Revolutionary

The Democrat Party is dominated by leftist radicals who are abetted by the Republican Establishment

From: Canada Free Press

by - Michael Oberndorf, RPA - Saturday, February 23, 2013

As most real conservatives know, Obama, by his own admissions, appointments, associates, and actions, is a hard-core, 21st century, Marxist revolutionary. This means that while he has no real plan for what his utopian, pie-in-the-sky collectivist state would look like, or how it would survive as an economic entity, he is dedicated to destroying our existing free, constitutional, capitalist republic to start the process. It also means that like all Marxists, archaic and modern, his primary enemy is what Marx called the bourgeoisie – the Middle Class.

As those who went to school while actual history was still being taught know, it was the rise of a Middle Class that made capitalism possible in the first place. It was the possibility of bettering one’s situation in life, economically, socially, and politically that motivated people to invent new products and the devices to make them, to create systems for the distribution of the products, to constantly improve on all these things to make them more and more available to more and more people. The ability to own property, create personal wealth, and maintain the individual’s power to control how both were used, motivated the colonists in America to become independent and to create a nation, as Abraham Lincoln put it, “…conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

The Founders original statement was, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The equality was of opportunity, not, as the Marxists claim, outcome. But long ago, the Marxists realized that they could sell the myth of equality of outcome to a whole lot of people. “From each according to his ability; to each according to his need” sounds really wonderful. But the reality was always that a large proportion of the people saw no point in working hard to benefit others who did not want to work at all. Participation had to be forced, in every single instance – there is not now, nor has there ever been, a Marxist country in the entire world that is/was not kept in place entirely by the threat of the use of arms. They are/were ALL totalitarian police states. And this is the “fundamental change” that Obama dreams of for America.

Under Obama,we have seen the Constitution violated on an almost daily basis. Laws that the public overwhelmingly disapproves of are passed regulary by a renegade Congress that consistently violates its own rules in the process. Huge bills are amassed, so big and introduced and voted on so quickly, that no one has time to read them, to know what they will require from us, and what the consequences of these radical rules will be. ObozoCare is a great example, but there are others like the highway and farm bills, and the upcoming 2013 Omnibus Federal Lands Bill. All are filled with laws that take more and more of our constitutional freedoms, the liberty that Americans have fought and died to protect and defend for over 200 years, that defined us and made possible the rise of our great Middle Class, and made us different from the rest of the world.

By now most people, even the “low-information voters,” know that Obama is a habitual, unabashed liar. What they need to grasp, however, is that his biggest and most dangerous lie is that he is out to help the Middle Class. As noted above, the Middle Class, aka We, the People, is his greatest, most hated enemy, and everything he has done since he usurped the office he occupies has been aimed at our destruction as a viable economic, social, and political entity. Everything. Period.

Obviously, too, Obama is not doing this on his own. The Democrat Party is dominated by leftist radicals who are abetted by the Republican Establishment. Obama himself is just a puppet, put in place by hugely wealthy, and therefore powerful, neo-fascist globalists, for whom George Soros is the public face.

The election process has been seriously corrupted by illegal money and massive voter fraud by the left. It is doubtful that fair ones will ever be held again, with the Marxists controlling the mechanism as they do. We, the People, are about to be slammed by an avalanche of unconstitutional laws, taxes, and administrative regulations that will cause the collapse of what is left of American capitalism. With it will go our jobs, our homes, our freedom, and our future. If we do not take action soon, it will be too late. Sadly, the options facing us all are difficult and will require sacrifice and commitment on a level our generations are totally unaccustomed to, and probably unprepared for. Someone wise once said, “We have no problems. We just have solutions we don’t like.” Oh, well.


God bless,
JohnnyD

Obama Reaches Out To A Culture Strangling A Free America

From: Last Resistance

by - John DeMayo - February 19, 2013

Obama’s America has gradually developed an irresistible tolerance for the dangerous and immoral culture of Islam. Islam’s whispers have now turned to shouts as this manufactured religion continues its assault on our freedoms and American ideals. American society’s distorted views of Islam as a legitimate religion, guaranteed a place in our free society, are fueling the conquest of our nation and the future subjugation of our free people.

For those broadminded Americans who have grown to accept Islam’s dynamic assimilation into U.S society, be warned. Islam is not a religion it is a culture. As hard as academics try, Islam cannot be defined as a belief system founded on personal choice as it is with Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or Hinduism rather it is an ideological scheme defining all life’s choices, social order and laws. More importantly, the Muslim belief system is grounded firmly in the conquest of its enemies and subordination of any conflicting faith or social order. Islam is not a faith respecting free will and a search for God. It is wholly materialistic, demanding adherence to its social precepts under penalty of death or enslavement.

Religious observance and loyalty is a quest for goodness and truth. All true religions inspire their followers to seek out God and experience God’s love. This is not the case with Islam. True Islam mandates conformity to a strict social construct that places Arab culture and its Islamic traditions above all things. To a genuine Muslim there is no higher truth than found in the Koran. God’s gift of free will is a falsehood and all things happen through the will of Allah. Islam is the antithesis of religion and spirituality. It does not exist to lead men to God only to perpetuate the growth and dominance of its culture. Islam is a fabricated religion designed by a man committed to world conquest. Unlike Christianity, there is no social benefit or charity for non-believers, Islam exists for the benefit of Muslims and Islam only.

In contrast to all other world religions, Islamic prayer allows no spiritual openness, no intimate or personal contact with God. It is purely a communal ritual designed to breed conformity of thought and action. Worship or the expressing of love and awe is not necessary in the Islamic culture, only obedience and submission.

No argument made in defense of true Islam’s forbearance for American values of religious freedom, human equality, and Democracy has a basis in fact or history. Islam is not tolerant. Those who wish to frame it as such willfully ignore Islam’s war among its faithful. The Islamic world is not only at conflict with non-believers, but also with its own people who are seeking to shed the shackles of social rule by its Sharia Law. All over the world, as the police state that is Islam falters, Islamic leaders turn on their own slaughtering those who would dare to question the humanity and righteousness of violently enforced religious laws and social paradigms.

Is it liberal America’s hope that Islam will allow itself to be marginalized and accept a more mild approach toward women’s rights, civil and criminal law, blasphemy, sexuality, polygamy and freedom of others to find God in their way and in their time? Does our government believe that the Islamic culture, a culture that promotes terrorism, forced marriage, murder, deceit, Sharia justice and the extermination of the Jewish race is entitled to the same Constitutional protections afforded those that teach peace and spiritual altruism?

First Amendment protections for the preference of religious practice and Civil Rights laws in America continue to be reshaped, by so-called American Muslims and a growing number of tax exempt Islamic Charities sanctioned by the U.S. government. Islamic influences have already integrated Sharia or Islamic law into the U.S. finance, banking industries and court systems. If Islamic cultural influences continue their current rate of ascendance, Islamic indoctrination will surely become a legally enforced mandate in our schools, social order, and government institutions.

Today in America, many in our government have grown to accept Islam’s Arab Imperialism and are working to afford it legal protections against free criticism and challenge. America cannot afford to legitimize a philosophy and culture as religious that sanctions the execution of those who turn away from its totalitarian political ideology.

In the United States, we have a social contract that provides for freedom of worship without government intrusion. Moreover, our religious faithful are not free to demand special protections and indulgences from our lawmakers in the course of their spiritual journey. Islamists operating in America are using first amendment rights to secure a protected place at the legislative table. This is not a conspiracy theory; it is part of their plan.


God bless,
JohnnyD

Obama Could Not Pass a Background Check

From: Canada Free Press

- Alan Caruba - Thursday, January 17, 2013

President Barack Obama could not pass a background check if he was applying for a gun permit or a job. Why has this man been allowed to remain in office or take the oath for a second time?

During the 2008 campaign, it was known that:

• His official, long form birth records were SEALED.
• His Occidental College records were SEALED.
• His Columbia College records were SEALED.
• His Harvard College records were SEALED.
• His College thesis – SEALED.
• His Harvard Law Review articles – SEALED.
• His Indonesian adoption records – SEALED.
• His passport file – SEALED.
• His medical records – Unavailable
• His baptism records – Unavailable
• His papers from his service in the Illinois legislature – Unavailable
• His Illinois State Bar Association records - Unavailable

The birth certificate that the White House released is reputed by document experts to be false.

The Social Security number he has used was issued to someone else. He could not pass an E-Verify test. The first three numbers of his Social Security ID are reserved for applicants with Connecticut addresses, 040-049. The number was issued between 1977 and 1979. Obama’s earliest employment reportedly was in 1975 at a Baskin-Robbins in Oahu, Hawaii.

Many of the “facts” he cited in his two memoirs have turned out to be questionable, if not outright lies; particularly as regards his birth father, a citizen of Kenya at the time of his birth.

A job applicant with Obama’s paper trail would not even pass the smell test, but this man was elected and reelected. The role of journalism is to vet the credentials of anyone running for public office, let alone the highest office in the land. Instead, he has been protected against all inquiries and those making them have been called “birthers” or simply ignored.

Obama so routinely lies that keeping track of them would require a team of full-time archivists.

In August 2009 he said, “I have not said I was a single-payer supporter”, but in June 2003, as an Illinois state senator, he said, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care system.”

In March 2006, he said “Leadership means the buck stops here…I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.” He is now into his second political battle to raise the debt limit. In July 2011, he said “It is not acceptable for us not to raise the debt ceiling and to allow the U.S. government to default.”

In response to a 1996 questionnaire he said “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages, but in November 2008 he said, “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.”

He spent his first term blaming the nation’s economic ills on his predecessor, George W. Bush, saying in July 2008, that “he added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion in debt that we are going to have to pay back. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.” Today, the debt stands at more than $16 trillion because Obama added more to the debt than all previous presidents combined. For the first time in U.S. history, our credit rating was reduced and rating services are warning they will reduce it again.

He has a record of using executive orders to bypass the constitutional powers and duties of Congress. His most recent effort was 23 such orders regarding gun control at the same time Americans are buying guns as fast as they can, fearing the loss of the right to own and bear arms. This is the same President who just signed a law granting him and his family lifetime Secret Service protection.

He used “executive privilege” to cover-up the “Fast and Furious” scandal in which guns were allowed to be purchased and transported for use by Mexican drug cartel members.

He lied about the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed a U.S. ambassador and encouraged members of his staff to spread the lie that it was “spontaneous” and the result of a video no one has seen.

He and the Democratic Party imposed “Obamacare” on the nation and its passage is already undermining the provision of healthcare services, driving up the cost of health insurance, and causing physicians and the providers of testing and other services to leave the profession and close their doors.

He no longer can blame President Bush, so now he blames the Republican Party that has offered solutions to the nation’s economic crisis that has worsened every day he has been in office. His foreign policy has consisted of apologizing for America and standing aside while one nation after another in the Middle East and northern Africa has fallen under the control of Islamist radicals. He is doing nothing to avoid the sequestration cuts that would harm national defense and a range of other government functions.

He has failed us. Congress has failed us.

It has taken four years for a case challenging his right to hold office and the Supreme Court has scheduled a “conference” in February that might decide to ignore a current case.

The mainstream media has failed us and we only hope the courts will not fail us.

He should not be administered the oath of office for a second time.


God bless,
JohnnyD

Uncle Sugar and the Rise of Obamunism

... A Fable

From: Canada Free Press

by - William Kevin Stoos - Thursday, February 14, 2013 

He used to be known as Uncle Sam—a tall, grandfatherly, if a little stern, gentleman dressed in red, white and blue. He was patriotic, straight laced, and distinguished. He taught us to say the pledge of allegiance, he asked us to help—whether it was “I want you to buy bonds,” or “I want you to serve in the Army,” and he even exhorted us to “ask not what the country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

He was a man we looked up to and respected. He was there for the needy, but he did not encourage sloth. Being out of work to him was a temporary thing—to be sympathized with, not encouraged. He did not mind paying welfare to those who truly needed it—after all he was a beneficent gentleman. Yet he frowned upon able bodied folks who simply did not like to work. That, he thought, was shameful. He believed that a family was a man, woman and a couple of kids—the building block of society and the source of American values. He encouraged the work ethic and believed in equal opportunity—not result—for everyone regardless of who you were. He encouraged respect for our heritage and for American values. He flew the flag. And when the national anthem played, he knew how to raise his hand to his heart or remove his cap in respect. It was unthinkable to stand around like some cool hipster with his hands in his pocket or folded in front of his crotch. Burning the flag was unthinkable. He had asked too many to fight and die for that flag. He was an unabashed patriot—an unapologetic advocate for the country and the freedom for which it stood. He was respected around the world. Those who did not love him, at least feared him.

 But in time Uncle Sam changed. In time he became hip, cool, modern. He wanted to be liked more than respected. His motto became not “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country,” but rather “what can your government do for you today?” He promised free stuff to the people without regard to cost or budget. He wanted too much to be liked. Rather than encouraging folks to work he allowed them to collect unemployment for years; he encouraged his people to live on the public dole. He even encouraged foreigners to apply for food stamps if they crossed our borders illegally. He wanted to be liked by them too. Too cool to salute the national anthem, he would sometimes drop his hands to his waist and stand there casually as if the song merited no special respect. He no longer cared about the traditional family. If man wanted to marry man or woman wanted to marry woman; if a woman wanted to kill her unborn or nearly born child inches from birth, it was fine with him. No longer Uncle Sam, he decided to change his name. Uncle Sugar had a cool ring to it. He wanted to be hip; he wanted to be relevant. He no longer encouraged his subjects to work hard, become independent, support their families and not have to depend on the government. Rather, he wanted to be loved. Most of all he wanted the folks to depend on him. He promised to take care of their every need. And if there were inequality in income or result, that was a bad thing—not to be encouraged. If there were inequality, then those who did work hard, created jobs and had some measure of success and wealth had to pay. Uncle Sugar would take care of those who wanted and take from those who produced. The plaque on his wall which used to read Ask not what your country can do for you, now read “From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs.” His goal was “an equal result for all,” and to punish those who produced wealth and employed folks. Success, for the first time in the history of the nation, became a dirty word.  Equality was the goal, and Uncle Sugar would decide how to achieve it.

Promises of free stuff flowed from his lips like honey from a jar and his subjects loved it. He would tax the rich to feed the poor; he would protect his subjects by chipping away at the Second Amendment—little by little banning certain weapons and ammunition until that day when only Uncle Sugar owned the guns. It was better that way. The press loved Uncle Sugar and had itself changed from an independent bulwark against government tyranny whose mission it was to speak truth to power, to a fawning group of cheerleaders who hung on Uncle Sugar’s every word, felt a collective tingle down the leg each time he spoke, and swooned each time they were in his presence. Uncle Sugar’s press corps trumpeted his every word and treated it as gospel. No longer was dissent possible—it was drowned out by the tinny yelp of lapdogs who followed Uncle Sugar like puppies. He was so sincere and his speeches so lofty. He would calm the seas, clean the air, bring prosperity to all, and peace to the world. His words were intoxicating and they drank it in—every word a gem, every speech memorialized in a headline. 

In time Uncle Sugar gained more and more power over his subjects by ramming through a Congress legislation which no one read, signing endless Executive Orders, and imposing administrative regulations, thereby gaining control over national health care, and forcing private citizens and religious groups to violate their own principles. He ruled by decree, raised taxes on the wealthy at first, and then the not so wealthy, and soon began to rule entirely by Executive Order rather than executing the laws passed by Congress.  His subjects were so enamored of Uncle Sugar that they did not seem to notice the almost imperceptible loss of their liberties or the fact that his promises came at a price. The free stuff he promised was not free at all. In time Uncle Sugar became more and more greedy. His appetite for power was insatiable. He appointed extrajudicial political commissars to regulate what his subjects could eat and drink, what they could drive, what medical treatment they could or could not have and nearly every other aspect of their lives. He regulated what industry could produce, imposed punitive regulations on businesses, and gained more and more control over the lives of his subjects. After all, Uncle Sugar knew best what his subjects needed.

Uncle Sugar promised a free ride for all who wanted it. He had a big wagon and anyone who wanted could ride for free—compliments of Uncle Sugar. At first there were still plenty of folks to pull the wagon and they generated enough wealth to pay for the ride.  A free ride and free stuff—cradle to grave care for your every need. After all, what was government for?  Obamunism, they called it: the belief that government would provide for your every need. And most people—at least at first—loved it; those who did not largely remained silent. There was nothing they could do. After all, Uncle Sugar was wildly popular among those who wanted a free ride. And there were more and more of them. It was more fun than working hard and paid better. There was little dissent. Uncle Sugar did not like dissent. Those who questioned him were mocked by him, marginalized, and called “kooks.” Dissent was uncool, and disrespectful. Uncle Sugar demanded respect, loyalty and above all, praise. Unlike Uncle Sam, Uncle Sugar was a narcissist.

But Uncle Sugar needed more money still. There was a price to pay for his munificence. But as long as your ox wasn’t getting gored and you were getting free stuff from him you did not mind. Or so the people believed. It was just fine to tax the rich and make those productive job providers pay. Someone had to pay. So Uncle Sugar decreed that those making $400,000 per year must pay more—it was only right; there were people who made less and did not work as hard. So it was only fair. And the 95% who did not make that much agreed. Shame on those who prospered while others did not live as well. Those pulling wagon of economic progress had a moral duty to pull harder and transport those who were riding in it for free. But, in time, taking from those who made $400,000 was not enough to pay for the free ice cream Uncle Sugar promised all who wanted it. In time he decreed that those making $150,000 or more per year needed to help. So Uncle Sugar required them to pay more too—after all there were a lot of folks riding in the wagon for free and Uncle Sugar needed to provide for them.  This was fine with most of the folks—except of course those who were moderately successful and had to pay the price. And still the people agreed—for most of them did not earn that much—if they worked at all. But it came to pass that taxing even those who made moderate incomes did not produce enough to pay for the free stuff Uncle Sugar promised. In time he decreed that those making $50,000 per year must pay more—after all, compared to others, they were rich and this could not be tolerated by Uncle Sugar.  And so it went until one day there were more people riding in Uncle Sugar’s wagon of economic happiness than pulling it.  It seemed that, in time, those who generated wealth and jobs no longer were able or willing to pull the wagon. After all, they thought, why should they? What was the point? It was easier to rely on Uncle Sugar.

In time, the people became restive. It seems that they could no longer rely on Uncle Sugar to provide their every need. Although they viewed the free stuff as their right, Uncle Sugar had simply run out of free stuff to give. He could no longer afford unemployment payments, free lunches, Uncle Sugar Medical Coverage, free abortions, free phones, food stamps for all, including immigrants whom he invited to partake in them—all the goodies his followers had come to expect. Businesses, which had groaned under the weight of high taxes and regulation, had gone bankrupt leaving millions of wage earners jobless; farmers were leaving their farms by the thousands (unable to comply with the stringent EPA “no dust” regulations and cattle exhaust taxes) and there was not enough food to feed his subjects. Power plants closed by the score—unable to bear the billions of dollars required by Uncle Sugar to install new scrubbers, causing rolling power shortages across the country. The dollar had lost its value owing to successive downgrades of Uncle Sugar’s credit rating.  There were frequent riots in the streets. The once strong and   prosperous country grew more fractious by the day and was coming apart at the seams.

And in the end, there was indeed equality—but not of opportunity. Rather Uncle Sugar’s subjects were equally poor, equally dependent, and equally hopeless. For the problem with Obamunism was simple: in the end you run out of other people’s money. And Uncle Sugar has nothing more to give.


God bless,
JohnnyD 

Guns or Not? It’s Time to Talk About the Constitution

From: Clash Daily

by Michael Schwartz - February 12, 2013

What has to be understood about guns is it doesn’t matter what polls say or what crime statistics show.  If it did matter and it was up to the public, we wouldn’t need an amendment in place to protect gun rights.

The Second Amendment guarantees civilians their right to own and carry guns used by the military.  That is the meaning and that is the purpose.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” – Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 1791.

 

“Well regulated” means competent and properly functional.  If it were written today it would probably read “well trained and equipped.”  “Militia” means a fighting force made of civilians who are not professional soldiers. 

“Necessary” means today what it meant back then: not an option, but essential.  “Security of a free state” means Americans across the country living under the experiment of self-governance.  “The right of the people” means the same thing throughout the writings of the documents that formed our country when “rights” and “the people” are used.  Rights are unalienable and given by nature or nature’s creator and “the people” are people within the borders of the United States.  “Shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says.

Because a trained militia is a requirement of a self-governing nation and because a militia is a military force made up of the country’s civilians, weapons used by our military, law-enforcement, and foreign military are exactly what the Second Amendment protects.  That means semi-automatic rifles and pistols with detachable magazines that carry 30 rounds of ammunition.

Make the argument that civilians should no longer have this type of access to arms used by the military and have that discussion.  Squirm around and furrow your brow while looking down your nose at all of America telling us that modern society no longer has the need for … blah, blah, etc.  But know that getting rid of the Second Amendment means two things: we are truly no longer a “free state,” with the self-governing experiment being over — and it means repealing and/or replacing the Second Amendment.  Not violating it as the California legislature does and as President Obama suggests.

Fortunately, public opinion and crime statistics both favor the side of the Second Amendment.  But as you debate the subject, be well-versed in the real purpose of the Second Amendment; to ensure that civilians have access to military arms that they can own and carry.  Just in case public opinion is swayed by emotion or the misinformation from media or interests groups, there is an amendment protecting that right.  It is no more a right to take away a civilian’s ability to own an AR style rifle via state law or presidential decree than it is to take away a woman’s right to vote, or an African American’s freedom, or everyone’s right to worship in the way they see fit.

It is time to stop pussyfooting around.  It is time to stop talking about “reasonable restrictions” and “common sense gun laws,” which are both simply code words for “gun ban.”  It is time to stop talking about home defense, hunting, and shooting sports. 

It is time to start pointing out the Constitution and law.  I can easily see in Article 5 what it takes to amend the Constitution.  Now show me where in Article 2 the executive branch has that same ability.


God bless,

JohnnyD

A MUST READ FOR EVERY AMERICAN!!

THE HARBINGER  -  by Jonathan Cahn

The Ancient Mystery That Lies Behind America's Future

The Message, Neither You Nor Your Friends Can Afford Not To Know!

Is it possible…

• That there exists an ancient mystery that holds the secret of America’s future?

• That this mystery lies behind everything from 9/11 to the collapse of the global economy?

• That ancient harbingers of judgment are now manifesting in America?

• That God is sending America a prophetic message of what is yet to come?

Before its destruction as a nation, ancient Israel received nine harbingers, prophetic omens of warning. The same nine harbingers are now manifesting in America—with immediate ramifications for end-time prophecy.

Hidden in an ancient biblical prophecy from Isaiah, the mysteries revealed in The Harbinger are so precise that they foretold recent American events down to the exact days. The revelations are so specific that even the most hardened skeptics will find hard to dismiss. It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood thriller – with one difference… IT'S REAL.

The prophetic mysteries are revealed through an intriguing and engaging narrative the reader will find hard to put down. The Harbinger opens with the appearance of a man burdened with a message he has received from a mysterious figure called The Prophet. The Prophet has given him nine seals, each containing a message about America's future. As he tells of his encounters with The Prophet, from a skyscraper in New York City, to a rural mountaintop, to Capitol Hill, to Ground Zero, the mystery behind each seal is revealed. As the story unfolds, each revelation becomes a piece in a greater puzzle - the ramifications of which will even alter the course of world history.


A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR:

The Disappearance of ‘Under God’

In the days and weeks after 9/11, one could hear or see the words “God bless America” almost everywhere. And yet in the years since 9/11, the words “God” and “Under God” have increasingly been under attack or, worse, hidden away from American culture. It was not long after 9/11 that a case arose challenging the words “under God,” in the pledges of Allegiance. A federal judge in California ruled that the words “under God” in such a pledge were unconstitutional.

In more recent days, other controversies rose around the same issue. The president was addressing a Congressional Caucus and quoted from the Declaration of Independence. He stated

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men

are created equal, that all men are created equal,

endowed with certain inalienable rights: life liberty

and the pursuit of happiness.”

 

It sounded right – except for one thing – something had been taken out. Here is the actual text of the Declaration of Independence with the missing words restored in bold:

“….that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creatorwith certain inalienable rights: life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

 

Recently it was noted that a pamphlet distributed by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, a pamphlet that included the text of the Gettysburg Address. The text of Lincoln’s famous words read:

 

“… …that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom…”

 

One problem… they had removed two words. The text to Lincoln’s actual address reads:

 

“… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…”

 

The words “under God” had now been omitted, in a written text, and in a text that was to be the reproduction of Lincoln’s address, word for word. Could all this have been an accident? It’s unlikely. The words of both documents are too famous too allow for that, and too central to American history, to give room for an extreme carelessness in reproduction.

For whatever reason, every word was faithfully transmitted except the words “God” or “under God,’ both of which were expunged. And for whatever the reason or intent, I believe the removal was very significant.

We are witnessing the rapid slight of American and western civilization away from God, away from its Judeo-Christian foundation, and away from God’s word and ways. And it’s not only the word “God” – but the words “under God” which are under attack. That’s also very significant – It’s a sign of a nation removing itself from any accountability, any responsibility, and any relationship to God or His Word.

What does that mean for you? In a day and age when “under God” is disappearing from national consciousness, you, as an end-time believer, must all the more live your life strong, decidedly, and visibly “under God.” In other words, in everything you do, live accountable, responsible, subject, and submitted to God. And especially now, in a time and place increasingly not “under God” – you, all the more, live an “under God” life… starting today.

 

Make this a month of putting everything under God… and you will be blessed!


God bless,
JohnnyD

The Sorry State of Obama’s Union

From: Americans for Limited Government

By Bill Wilson – February 12, 2013

Reporting annually on the “State of the Union” is one of the few founding principles U.S. President Barack Obama has bothered to honor over his first four years in office.

Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution states that the President “shall from time to time give Congress information on the State of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” To his credit, Obama has done that each year he’s been in office – eloquently, even.

“The time to take charge of our future is here,” Obama said four years ago in his annual address to Congress. “Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity.”

No one will dispute Obama’s “boldness” — but what has come of his promises for economic revival and securing our future prosperity?

Despite the President’s lofty rhetoric — and an unprecedented explosion of government spending and regulation — the state of the American union is slipping. Our economy has not recovered, our financial situation has not improved and Obama’s anti-competitive policies are poised to do even more damage moving forward.

First let’s look at jobs: According to the latest data from Obama’s own Labor Department, 12.3 million Americans are currently unemployed (including 4.7 million who have been without a job for more than 27 weeks). Even worse, America’s employment-population ratio is only 58.6 percent — while its labor participation rate is just 63.6 percent. Both of those numbers remain stuck at or near 30-year lows — in spite of the Obama stimulus, numerous bailouts and endless money printing by the Federal Reserve.

This chronic joblessness — along with a paucity of decent-paying positions with benefits – has severely depressed income levels. According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, annual household income fell for the fourth straight year in 2011. After adjusting for inflation, median annual household income stands at $50,054 — or 8.9 percent below its 1999 peak of $54,932. Meanwhile roughly 46.2 million Americans — 15 percent of country — are living in poverty.

Does that sound like a recovery to you?

Want more data on the state of Obama’s union?

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a record 47.7 million Americans are currently using food stamps.

According to the National Employment Law Project, 26 million Americans received unemployment insurance in 2011.

According to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a record 70.4 million Americans — or 22 percent of the nation’s population — received Medicaid benefits in FY 2011.

The costs associated with this welfare explosion are staggering — and unsustainable. According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, federal spending on various welfare expenses topped $1 trillion in FY 2011 — a 32 percent increase from four years earlier.

No wonder the federal government blew through $2.1 trillion in new deficit spending over the last seventeen months alone — pushing the national debt to a scarcely fathomable $16.5 trillion (or $146,151 for every American taxpayer).  Even after Obama’s $630 billion “fiscal cliff” tax hikes are factored into the equation, debt held by the public is still projected to reach 200 percent of GDP by 2040 according to a report issued last month.

The fiscal cliff deal “did very little to improve our long-term budget outlook,” the report’s authors concluded, adding the agreement “did not make meaningful progress toward the primary goal of a sustainable fiscal policy — stabilizing the debt as a share of the economy and putting it on a downward path.

In fact the report found the deal “improved our long-term budget outlook by only about one year.”

High unemployment. Low incomes. Soaring dependency. Staggering debt. Such is the true state of Obama’s union – and based on the tax hikes and entitlement expansions coming down the pipe, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

This is why Republican elected officials in Washington must resist the Obama agenda as opposed to continuing to accommodate it — and start embracing the sort of fiscal reforms put forward by the Republican Study Committee and U.S. Senate leaders like Rand Paul.

Otherwise America’s descent will soon approach terminal velocity.


God bless,
JohnnyD

The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness

From: Town Hall Magazine

by - Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD - Feb 12, 2013

Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion. Of special interest, however, are the many values about which the modern liberal mind is not passionate: his agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit; it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; it does not aspire to ideals of authentic autonomy and mutuality; it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination; it does not praise courage, forbearance or resilience; it does not celebrate the ethics of consent or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating. The liberal agenda does not comprehend an identity of competence, appreciate its importance, or analyze the developmental conditions and social institutions that promote its achievement. The liberal agenda does not understand or recognize personal sovereignty or impose strict limits on coercion by the state. It does not celebrate the genuine altruism of private charity. It does not learn history’s lessons on the evils of collectivism.    

What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”

The liberal cure for this endless malaise is a very large authoritarian government that regulates and manages society through a cradle to grave agenda of redistributive caretaking. It is a government everywhere doing everything for everyone. The liberal motto is “In Government We Trust.” To rescue the people from their troubled lives, the agenda recommends denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity and other-pity, fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family, legalizes all abortion, defies religious and social tradition, declares inequality unjust, and rebels against the duties of citizenship. Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone’s material welfare, provide for everyone’s healthcare, protect everyone’s self-esteem, correct everyone’s social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions. With liberal intellectuals sharing the glory, the liberal politician is the hero in this melodrama. He takes credit for providing his constituents with whatever they want or need even though he has not produced by his own effort any of the goods, services or status transferred to them but has instead taken them from others by force.

It should be apparent by now that these social policies and the passions that drive them contradict all that is rational in human relating, and they are therefore irrational in themselves. But the faulty conceptions that lie behind these passions cannot be viewed as mere cognitive slippage. The degree of modern liberalism’s irrationality far exceeds any misunderstanding that can be attributed to faulty fact gathering or logical error. Indeed, under careful scrutiny, liberalism’s distortions of the normal ability to reason can only be understood as the product of psychopathology. So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that characterize the liberal mind that its relentless protests and demands become understandable only as disorders of the psyche. The modern liberal mind, its distorted perceptions and its destructive agenda are the product of disturbed personalities.

As is the case in all personality disturbance, defects of this type represent serious failures in development processes. The nature of these failures is detailed below. Among their consequences are the liberal mind’s relentless efforts to misrepresent human nature and to deny certain indispensable requirements for human relating. In his efforts to construct a grand collectivist utopia—to live what Jacques Barzun has called “the unconditioned life” in which “everybody should be safe and at ease in a hundred ways”—the radical liberal attempts to actualize in the real world an idealized fiction that will mitigate all hardship and heal all wounds. (Barzun 2000). He acts out this fiction, essentially a Marxist morality play, in various theaters of human relatedness, most often on the world’s economic, social and political stages. But the play repeatedly folds. Over the course of the Twentieth Century, the radical liberal’s attempts to create a brave new socialist world have invariably failed. At the dawn of the Twenty-first Century his attempts continue to fail in the stagnant economies, moral decay and social turmoil now widespread in Europe. An increasingly bankrupt welfare society is putting the U.S. on track for the same fate if liberalism is not cured there. Because the liberal agenda’s principles violate the rules of ordered liberty, his most determined efforts to realize its visionary fantasies must inevitably fall short. Yet, despite all the evidence against it, the modern liberal mind believes his agenda is good social science. It is, in fact, bad science fiction. He persists in this agenda despite its madness.

God bless,
JohnnyD

ObamaCare's Broken Promises

Every one of the main claims made for the law is turning out to be false.

From: The Wall Street Journal

By DANIEL P. KESSLER - January 31, 2013

As the federal government moves forward to implement President Obama's Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services is slated to spend millions of dollars promoting the unpopular legislation. In the face of this publicity blitz, it is worth remembering that the law was originally sold largely on four grounds—all of which have become increasingly implausible.

• Lower health-care costs. One key talking point for ObamaCare was that it would reduce the cost of insurance, especially for non-group insurance. The president, citing the work of several health-policy experts, claimed that improved care coordination, investments in information technology, and more efficient marketing through exchanges would save the typical family $2,500 per year.

That was then. Now, even advocates for the law acknowledge that premiums are going up. In analyses conducted for the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Colorado, Jonathan Gruber of MIT forecasts that premiums in the non-group market will rise by 19% to 30% due to the law. Other estimates are even higher. The actuarial firm Milliman predicts that non-group premiums in Ohio will rise by 55%-85%. Maine, Oregon and Nevada have sponsored their own studies, all of which reach essentially the same conclusion.

Some champions of the law argue that this misses the point, because once the law's new subsidies are taken into account, the net price of insurance will be lower. This argument is misleading. It fails to consider that the money for the subsidies has to come from somewhere. Although debt-financed transfer payments may make insurance look cheaper, they do not change its true social cost.

• Smaller deficits. Increases in the estimated impact of the law on private insurance premiums, along with increases in the estimated cost of health care more generally, have led the Congressional Budget Office to increase its estimate of the budget cost of the law's coverage expansion. In 2010, CBO estimated the cost per year of expanding coverage at $154 billion; by 2012, the estimated cost grew to $186 billion. Yet CBO still scores the law as reducing the deficit.

How can this be? The positive budget score turns on the fact that the estimated revenues to pay for the law have risen along with its costs. The single largest source of these revenues? Money taken from Medicare in the form of lower Medicare payment rates, mostly in the law's out-years. Since the law's passage, however, Congress and the president have undone various scheduled Medicare cuts—including some prescribed by the law itself.

Put aside the absurdity that savings from Medicare—the country's largest unfunded liability—can be used to finance a new entitlement. The argument that health reform decreases the deficit is even worse. It depends on Congress and the president not only imposing Medicare cuts that they have proven unwilling to make but also imposing cuts that they have already specifically undone, most notably to Medicare Advantage, a program that helps millions of seniors pay for private health plans.

• Preservation of existing insurance. After the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of health reform in June 2012, President Obama said, "If you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your insurance." This theme ran throughout the selling of ObamaCare: People who have insurance would not have their current arrangements disrupted.

This claim is obviously false. Indeed, disruption of people's existing insurance is one of the law's stated goals. On one hand, the law seeks to increase the generosity of policies that it deems too stingy, by limiting deductibles and mandating coverage that the secretary of Health and Human Services thinks is "essential," whether or not the policyholder can afford it. On the other hand, the law seeks to reduce the generosity of policies that it deems too extravagant, by imposing the "Cadillac tax" on costly insurance plans.

Employer-sponsored insurance has already begun to change. According to the annual Kaiser/HRET Employer Health Benefits Survey, the share of workers in high-deductible plans rose to 19% in 2012 from 13% in 2010.

That's just the intended consequences. One of the law's unintended consequences is that some employers will drop coverage in response to new regulations and the availability of subsidized insurance in the new exchanges. How many is anybody's guess. In 2010, CBO estimated that employer-sponsored coverage would decline by three million people in 2019; by 2012, CBO's estimate had doubled to six million.

• Increased productivity. In 2009, the president's Council of Economic Advisers concluded that health reform would reduce unemployment, raise labor supply, and improve the functioning of labor markets. According to its reasoning, expanding insurance coverage would reduce absenteeism, disability and mortality, thereby encouraging and enabling work.

This reasoning is flawed. The evidence that a broad coverage expansion would improve health is questionable. Some studies have shown that targeted coverage can improve the health of certain groups. But according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured, "evidence is lacking that health insurance improves the health of non-elderly adults." More recent work by Richard Kronick, a health-policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton, concludes "there is little evidence to suggest that extending insurance coverage to all adults would have a large effect on the number of deaths in the U.S."

The White House economic analysis also fails to consider the adverse consequences of income-based subsidies on incentives. The support provided by both the Medicaid expansion and the new exchanges phases out as a family's income rises. But, as I and others have pointed out in these pages, income phaseouts create work disincentives like taxes do, because they reduce the net rewards to work. Further, the law imposes taxes on employers who fail to provide sufficiently generous insurance, with exceptions for part-time workers and small firms. On net, it is hard to see how health reform will make labor markets function better.

Some believe that expanding insurance coverage is a moral imperative regardless of its cost. Most supporters of the law, however, use more nuanced arguments that depend on assumptions that are increasingly impossible to defend. If we are ever to have an honest debate about entitlement spending, we will need to distinguish these positions from one another—and see them for what they really are, rather than what we wish they would be.


God bless,
JohnnyD