Filed under: auto insurance, Barack Obama, big pharma, Communism, Congress, corpoatism, corporatists, Dictatorship, drug companies, Empire, Fascism, finance committee, fines, government, government bureaucrat, government control, government health care, government option, government regulation, government takeover, health care, health care reform, health insurance companies, Healthcare, insurance companies, lobbyist, max baucus, medicaid, medical care, medical industrial complex, medicare, nanny state, national socialist, Nazi, Neolibs, obama, obama care, obama deception, obama fines, obamacare, obamacare fines, Oppression, Police State, Propaganda, public option, qui bono, Senate, socialism, universal health care, universial health care
Fines Up to $3800 for Failing to Get Health Insurance
FOX News
September 8, 2009
Families who fail to get health insurance could be fined up to $3,800 under a health care reform plan proposed by a top Senate negotiator.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is leading talks among the “Gang of Six” senators to hammer out a bipartisan compromise, offered what he described on Tuesday as a “framework” and not a “final product.”
But the detailed proposal comes just days ahead of a self-imposed Sept. 15 deadline for such a deal. Baucus is pushing his committee members hard to hammer out a bill, and those details come as strong suggestions.
Baucus has set a deadline of 10 a.m. Wednesday morning for fellow members of the bipartisan group to offer “specific proposals” for a compromise bill. He made clear “time is running out” to get a deal.
“The rubber is starting to meet the road….We’re not going to dawdle,” Baucus told FOX News Tuesday evening.
“Time is running out very quickly. I suspect I’ll be making some decisions very quickly,” said Baucus, who added that he would like to have something to give to Obama before the tomorrow night’s speech to the joint session of Congress.
Baucus says he does not think the lack of a public option at all endangers the bill or its support with members of his party.
“Over the next week or so, the Finance Committee will move forward with health care reform.”
“We very much want a bipartisan agreement,” Baucus said. “To get a proposal out of the Finance Committee, it cannot have a public option.”
The framework of Baucus’ proposal, a copy of which was obtained by FOX News, includes what amounts to a no-choice option. It would make health insurance mandatory, like auto insurance.
The plan would provide tax credits to help small employers and help cover the cost for households making up to three times the federal poverty level. That’s about $66,000 for a family of four, and $32,000 for an individual.
Those who still don’t sign up would face hefty fines, starting at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families — for those making up to three times the poverty level.
For those who make more than that, the penalty on individuals would jump to $950 and the penalty on families would jump to $3,800.
There would be a few exemptions, including for Native Americans and for those making incomes below the federal poverty level.
The plan does not include a government-run health insurance plan to soften the blow of the coverage mandate.
Instead, Baucus opts for a system of non-profit cooperatives, as part of a broader health insurance exchange.
As a way to pay for the package, estimated to cost under $900 billion over 10 years, Baucus is proposing a 35 percent excise tax on insurance companies for high-cost plans — defined as those above $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for family plans.
The Senate Finance Committee is meeting Tuesday, as President Obama prepares to deliver a high-stakes speech to both chambers of Congress Wednesday night in a bid to invigorate the push for reform.
Four committees have already passed their bills; Baucus’ panel is the only one yet to act. His committee’s bill is also the only one that could be considered bipartisan.
Baucus hits major elements in his plan that other top Democrats say are important. His plan would require health insurance plans to guarantee coverage and would prohibit them from excluding coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
Premiums would be allowed to vary based only on tobacco use, age and size of family.
But the fines pose a dilemma for Obama. As a candidate, the president campaigned hard against making health insurance a requirement, saying it’s too expensive to mandate. White House officials have since backed away somewhat from that stance, but there’s no indication that Obama would support fines.
Obama Betting His Charm Will Be Enough Counter Health Care Reform Opposition
Already, 23 Dems have said they will vote ‘no’ on healthcare reform
Filed under: Argentina, Barack Obama, big bankers, Communism, Coup, Credit Crisis, DEBT, deflation, Dictatorship, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, Fascism, FDR, Federal Reserve, global economy, global elite, global government, Globalism, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, imf, Income Tax, income taxes, Inflation, interest rate cuts, internationalist, internationalists, manipulated economy, national socialist, Nazi, Neolibs, New World Order, obama, obama deception, private banks, rate cut, socialism, Stock Market, tax, taxes, Taxpayers, US Economy, Wall Street, White House, World Bank
Barack Obama accused of making ‘Depression’ mistakes
London Telegraph
September 7, 2009
History repeating itself? President Obama has been accused by some economists of making the same mistakes policymakers in the US made in the Great Depression, which followed the Wall Street crash of 1929.
His policies even have the potential to consign the US to a similar fate as Argentina, which suffered a painful and humiliating slide from first to Third World status last century, the paper says.
There are “troubling similarities” between the US President’s actions since taking office and those which in the 1930s sent the US and much of the world spiralling into the worst economic collapse in recorded history, says the new pamphlet, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs.
In particular, the authors, economists Charles Rowley of George Mason University and Nathanael Smith of the Locke Institute, claim that the White House’s plans to pour hundreds of billions of dollars of cash into the economy will undermine it in the long run. They say that by employing deficit spending and increased state intervention President Obama will ultimately hamper the long-term growth potential of the US economy and may risk delaying full economic recovery by several years.
The study represents a challenge to the widely held view that Keynesian fiscal policies helped the US recover from the Depression which started in the early 1930s. The authors say: “[Franklin D Roosevelt’s] interventionist policies and draconian tax increases delayed full economic recovery by several years by exacerbating a climate of pessimistic expectations that drove down private capital formation and household consumption to unprecedented lows.”
Although the authors support the Federal Reserve’s moves to slash interest rates to just above zero and embark on quantitative easing, pumping cash directly into the system, they warn that greater intervention could set the US back further. Rowley says: “It is also not impossible that the US will experience the kind of economic collapse from first to Third World status experienced by Argentina under the national-socialist governance of Juan Peron.”
The paper, which recommends that the US return to a more laissez-faire economic system rather than intervening further in activity, has been endorsed by Nobel laureate James Buchanan, who said: “We have learned some things from comparable experiences of the 1930s’ Great Depression, perhaps enough to reduce the severity of the current contraction. But we have made no progress toward putting limits on political leaders, who act out their natural proclivities without any basic understanding of what makes capitalism work.”
The authors of the pamphlet, Charles K. Rowley and Nathanael Smith, give their views.
Argentina’s Economic Collapse
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, 9/11, Airport Security, Barack Obama, Big Brother, biometrics, Control Grid, DHS, Dictatorship, DMV, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Drivers License, Empire, Fascism, Hitler, Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, left right paradigm, michael chertoff, nanny state, national id, national socialist, Nazi, neocons, Neolibs, New World Order, NWO, obama, orwell, Police State, Real ID, RFID, right to privacy, S. 1261, Surveillance, US Constitution, War On Terror
REAL ID Back From The Dead
Richard Esguerra
Electronic Frontier Foundation
August 24, 2009
In February, the opponents of REAL ID were given a bit of hope when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that she wanted to repeal the REAL ID Act, the federal government’s failed plan to impose a national identification card through state driver’s licenses. But what has taken place since is no return to sanity, as political machinations have produced a cosmetic makeover called “PASS ID” that has revived the push for a national identification card.
The PASS ID Act (S. 1261) seeks to make many of the same ineffectual, dangerous changes the REAL ID Act attempted to impose. Fundamentally, PASS ID operates on the same flawed premise of REAL ID — that requiring various “identity documents” (and storing that information in databases for later access) will magically make state drivers’ licenses more legitimate, which will in turn improve national security.
Proponents seem to be blind to the systemic impotence of such an identification card scheme. Individuals originally motivated to obtain and use fake IDs will instead use fake identity documents to procure “real” drivers’ licenses. PASS ID creates new risks — it calls for the scanning and storage of copies of applicants’ identity documents (birth certificates, visas, etc.). These documents will be stored in databases that will become leaky honeypots of sensitive personal data, prime targets for malicious identity thieves or otherwise accessible by individuals authorized to obtain documents from the database. Despite some alterations to the scheme, PASS ID is still bad for privacy in many of the same ways the REAL ID was. And proponents of the national ID effort seem blissfully unaware of the creepy implications of a “papers please” mentality that may grow from the issuance of mandatory federal identification cards. Despite token provisions that claim to give states the freedom to issue non-federal identification cards, the card will be mandatory for most — the PASS ID Act seeks to require everyone to show the federally recognized ID for “any official purpose,” including boarding a plane or entering a federal building.
At the moment, health care reform is commanding tremendous attention and effort on the hill, so the PASS ID Act seems to be on the backburner for now. But after the August recess, anything can happen. So stay tuned for more about PASS ID and critical opportunities to flag your opposition to this flawed national ID scheme.
Filed under: Barack Obama, big pharma, Communism, Congress, corpoatism, corporatists, Dictatorship, drug companies, Empire, Fascism, government bureaucrat, government control, government regulation, health care, health care reform, health insurance companies, Healthcare, insurance companies, Kennedy health care bill, lobbyist, medicaid, medical care, medical industrial complex, medicare, nanny state, national socialist, Nazi, Neolibs, obama, obama care, obama deception, obamacare, Oppression, Propaganda, public option, qui bono, Senate, socialism, universal health care, universial health care | Tags: families usa, Healthy Economies Now, predatory pricing, reform
Americans Will Be Forced To Buy Health Insurance – Big Pharma and Insurance Companies Will Benefit Greatly If Health Care Reform Passes
John Stossel
Real Clear Politics
August 12, 2009
“What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand,” Frank Rich wrote in Sunday’s New York Times.
That manipulation should disturb us. But contrary to Rich, it is not the work of “corporatists” who have sprung up to attack progressive reforms proposed by Obama and the Democratic majority. Manipulation is what we got many years ago when we traded a more or less free market for the “progressive” interventionist state. When government is big, the well-connected always have an advantage over the rest of us in influencing public policy.
Observe: Although President Obama and big-government activists demonize health-insurance companies, the companies “are still mostly on board with the president’s effort to overhaul the U.S. health-care system,” the Wall Street Journal reports; and …
Although the activists criticize Big Pharma, “The drug industry has already contributed millions of dollars to advertising campaigns for the health care overhaul through the advocacy groups like Healthy Economies Now and Families USA. It has spent about $1 million on similar advertisements under its own name,” the Times reports.
Big Pharma and Big Insurance want Obama-style health-care reform?
It’s not so hard to understand. “The drug makers stand to gain millions of new customers,” the Times said.
And from the Journal: “If health legislation succeeds, the [insurance] industry would likely get a fresh batch of new customers. In particular, many young and healthy people who currently forgo coverage would be forced to sign up.” No wonder insurers are willing to stop “discriminating” against sick people. (Forget that the essence of insurance is discrimination according to risk.)
Not that Big Pharma and Big Insurance like every detail of the Democratic plan. Drug companies don’t want Medicare negotiating drug prices — for good reason. If it forces drug prices down, research and development will be discouraged. (Depending whom you believe, Obama may or may not have agreed with the drug companies on this point.)
As for the insurance companies, they worry — legitimately — that a government insurance company — the so-called public option” — would drive them out of business. This isn’t alarmism. It’s economics. The public option would have no bottom line to worry about and therefore could engage in “predatory pricing” against the private insurers.
But despite these differences, the biggest companies in these two industries are on board with “reform.”
noworldsystem.com 