Thread: Reid: House Vote to Derail Obamacare a 'Waste of Time'

Reid: House Vote to Derail Obamacare a 'Waste of Time'





Republicans controlling the House are moving to ship to the Senate a measure that would prevent a government shutdown but cripple the healthcare law that’s the signature accomplishment of President Barack Obama’s first term.
The top Senate Democrat has pronounced the bill dead and calls the House exercise a “waste of time.” The White House has issued a veto threat.
Even before the House vote expected Friday, lawmakers were looking a couple of moves ahead on the congressional chessboard to a scenario in which the Democratic Senate would remove the “defund Obamacare” provision and kick the funding measure back to the House for a showdown next weekend.
The vote was something House leaders had tried to avoid because it initiates a fight that raises the possibility of a partial shutdown of the government when the fiscal year ends at midnight Sept. 30.
But an earlier plan by GOP leaders like House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, designed to send a straightforward bill to keep the government running through Dec. 15 ran into too much opposition from tea party members who demanded a showdown over the Affordable Care Act, the official name of what Republicans branded Obamacare.
Boehner has sought to reassure the public and financial markets that Republicans have no interest in either a partial government shutdown when the budget year ends or a first-ever default on a broader set of U.S. obligations when the government runs out of borrowing ability by mid- to late October.
“Let me be very clear,” Boehner said. “Republicans have no interest in defaulting on our debt — none.”



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http://bighealthreport.com/9725/reid...waste-of-time/

Obama: U.S. Competitors Have 'More Effective' Health Care Systems


President Obama said on Thursday that until the Affordable Care Act passed, other nations had more “effective” health care systems than the United States did.

He also said Obamacare is having a positive impact on American businesses’ bottom lines, which will help boost American exports.
In the three years since Obamacare passed, health care costs have grown at the slowest pace on record, the president told a meeting of his Export Council.
“And I think this is critically important to recognize, because one of the huge competitive disadvantages that our businesses have had is that we — American businesses oftentimes are shouldering health care costs that their competitors are not, because they’ve had a more efficient, more effective system.”



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http://bighealthreport.com/9734/obama-u-s-competitors-have-more-effective-health-care-systems/




Gee Really!!!!! But then I don't think our "competitors" as you call them, invade everyone's privacy with their healthcare either....Maybe you should have brought forth those kinds of health care policies instead of the 2000 pages of rules, conditions,regulations, and controls!! It seems you are in the corporations pockets and are working only to get them out from under what they give their employees to save their bottom line!! It shows you don't work for the American people at all with the policies you keep bring forth...you just love those "private policies" at the tax payer expense!!!!

The Obamacare Scams Are Already Starting



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Heritage warned that the new Obamacare insurance exchanges could threaten your privacy—and it’s already happening, before the exchanges are even open.

In a new report, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee presented these shocking findings:

there are already numerous reports of scam artists posing as Navigators and Assisters to take advantage of people’s confusion about ObamaCare. According to recent news reports, scam artists are calling individuals and asking for information to sign them up for their “ObamaCare card,” are asking seniors for their personal information to verify their Medicare and Social Security status and are going door-to-door threatening people with prison time if they do not sign up on the spot. The Administration is keenly aware of these reports and concerns, but has thus far failed to take appropriate measures.

Even when it’s not malicious, the new Obamacare system—employing “navigators” who aren’t run through background checks or adequately trained—opens up a host of opportunities for identity theft. Last week, an employee of Minnesota’s insurance exchange (MNsure) emailed out the names and Social Security numbers of 2,400 insurance agents. The insurance broker who received the email said, “If this is happening now, how can clients of MNsure be confident their data is safe?”


Indeed.



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http://bighealthreport.com/9727/the-...eady-starting/

Democrat freaks out over Obamacare defunding vote:

‘We need to believe in this government again!’

Posted on September 20, 2013

Liberals think that conservatives just need to accept the fact that government needs to be the provider for the lazy. Check it out: A Democratic congressman from Virginia raised his voice on the House floor Friday and lamented how the Republican push to defund Obamacare makes him less “proud” to be a member of Congress. “I used to be really proud of this institution,” Virginia Rep. Jim Moran said before the body voted Friday on a continuing resolution that defunds Obamacare. “I used to be able to go through my community and, many of those who have served as long as I have, know what it was like to be proud to be a member of Congress.” Moran’s dramatic remarks came before the body voted to continue funding the government through the rest of the year while defunding President Obama’s unpopular health care law.

video at link below:

Continue Reading on dailycaller.com ...

Read more at http://conservativebyte.com/2013/09/...yRGx47ij7fY.99

Home Depot Dumps 20,000 Employees Onto ObamaCare Exchanges

Written by Michael Tennant






Add The Home Depot to the list of companies dumping part-time employees onto ObamaCare’s insurance exchanges — and taxpayers’ backs. According to the Daily Caller, the Georgia-based retailer announced that it is dropping health coverage for approximately 20,000 part-timers as a direct result of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

“Unfortunately, the ACA precludes us from offering the limited liability medical plan we’ve been offering the part-time associates,” Home Depot’s director of corporate communications, Stephen Holmes, told the conservative website.

Like many other companies, Home Depot currently offers a low-cost health plan with limited benefits to its part-time employees. Such plans, however, are prohibited under ObamaCare, which requires employers to offer unlimited coverage with numerous mandated benefits and shoulder most of the cost of that coverage. In addition, the ACA requires employers to offer such coverage to all employees working at least 30 hours per week. Thus, the law simultaneously bans plans that both employers and employees could afford and forces employers to cover more people at a higher cost, giving them a great incentive to cover only those employees they absolutely must.

Those Americans who lose employer-based coverage are not permitted simply to go without insurance, however. The ACA mandates that individuals who do not have coverage through their employers purchase it on a government-run insurance exchange, which “requires people to buy insurance for a government-designed set of health-care services, including services promoted by corporate lobbies,” notes the Daily Caller. “The insurance packages can be more expensive than sought by workers, especially younger workers, but the extra costs are partially offset by subsidies from other taxpayers.”

With Home Depot’s announcement, taxpayers will now be burdened with subsidizing coverage for an additional 20,000 or so people. (The company declined to state an exact figure.) This is on top of the thousands of others being dumped onto the exchanges by employers such as Wegmans supermarkets and Universal Studios Orlando. Other companies, such as Walmart, are refusing to cover new part-time workers, while still others are restricting employees’ hours to avoid having to cover them at great expense. These individuals, too, will be seeking out subsidized coverage next year.

This trend cannot be a good thing, the Daily Caller observes:

The accelerating shift of workers to Obama’s taxpayer-funded network will likely drive up costs to taxpayers, disadvantage companies that try to pay for their employees’ health-care and make more voters dependent on health-care decisions made by Democratic officials and legislators.

The switch is also making a mockery of Obama’s promise that Americans would be able to keep their pre-Obamacare insurance if they prefer.

“If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what,” he said in June 2009.
Other companies are not yet dropping coverage altogether but are taking other cost-cutting measures in anticipation of ObamaCare’s implementation. Illinois-based Walgreens, for example, just announced that it will no longer be offering health insurance to its 160,000 eligible employees in the traditional fashion. Instead, the company will make a flat contribution toward each employee’s purchase of insurance in a private exchange. The exchange will offer the employee a choice of plans from several different insurers. The employee will then be responsible for making up the difference between the premium for the plan he selects and the amount contributed by his employer — an amount not guaranteed to rise as fast as the premium in subsequent years.

According to Forbes, Walgreens is the 18th large employer in the country to adopt the private-exchange model. Companies are switching to this approach to help limit their share of ever-rising healthcare costs. While healthcare inflation long predates the ACA, Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey points out, “If employers like Walgreens expected ObamaCare to actually control costs, they wouldn’t be dumping employee coverage.”

Companies are, in fact, expecting the ACA’s mandates to drive costs even higher — another good reason to get out of the business of insuring their employees. “Aside from rising health-care costs,” writes the Wall Street Journal, “[Walgreens] cited compliance-related expenses associated with the new law as a reason for the switch.”

Businesses aren’t alone in foreseeing higher healthcare costs under ObamaCare. In its most recent forecast, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that federal healthcare spending would grow by 74 percent over the next 25 years. But considering that by the end of its first 25 years Medicare was nine times as expensive as originally projected, there is an excellent chance that the CBO is vastly underestimating how fast healthcare costs will increase over the next quarter century, especially with the advent of ObamaCare.

Shifting employees to private or public exchanges, therefore, would appear to be the wave of the future. No matter which exchange employers choose, someone — either the employee or the taxpayer — is probably going to pay more and get less. And in keeping with Ron Paul’s dictum that a law will accomplish the exact opposite of that which its name implies, that is precisely what one would expect from the Affordable Care Act.

Photo of Home Depot store: AP Images

http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/hea...care-exchanges

Thursday, 19 September 2013 15:07 Poll: Most Americans Support Federal Shutdown to Defund ObamaCare

Written by Alex Newman







Despite attack ads by an Obama front group blasting Republican lawmakers for refusing to fund ObamaCare in the upcoming budget, a new poll released this week shows most Americans actually support partially shutting down the federal government until funding for the administration’s controversial healthcare takeover is cut. Other recent surveys, meanwhile, revealed that public opposition to the so-called “Affordable Care Act” has reached record levels — and as time goes by, it is only becoming more unpopular.

Perhaps the most significant public-opinion information on ObamaCare for policymakers in Washington, D.C., are the results of a poll published by Rasmussen on September 17. According to the survey of 1,000 likely voters, 51 percent of Americans support shutting down the U.S. government until GOP and Democrat lawmakers in Congress can figure out how to cut the massive federal budget — and how to slash funding for Obama’s deeply controversial healthcare regime.

Americans overwhelmingly favor cutting federal spending, which continues to balloon as Washington, D.C., runs up trillion-dollar budget deficits and borrows ever-greater amounts from the Communist Chinese regime and the Federal Reserve just to stay afloat. Almost 60 percent of respondents favored budget cuts, while just 16 percent wanted the federal government to spend more. Some 20 percent wanted similar spending levels, the poll found.

Breaking down the numbers further, nearly four out of five Republicans favored a budget that cuts federal spending, while only eight percent wanted more spending. Even among Democrats, more than one third of respondents supported spending cuts — more than the number that favored a bigger budget, actually, despite statist politicians and commentators consistently suggesting that Democrats always support bigger government. Self-described “moderates” also favored cutting the budget by overwhelming margins.

Just one in five Americans thought a government shutdown would be good for the economy, even if payments for Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment continued to flow. A full 56 percent thought it would be bad for the economy, while 16 percent did not think it would have an impact. Tea Party members mostly thought it would be good. Still, despite the public largely believing that shutting down much of Washington, D.C., would harm the economy, a majority of respondents were willing to risk it in order to dismantle ObamaCare.

While most voters support a partial government shutdown until ObamaCare is de-funded and the budget is cut, some 37 percent of respondents said they would prefer that Congress authorize existing spending levels, as proposed by Obama, in order to keep the federal leviathan operating at full speed. In both houses of Congress, however — under immense pressure from constituents — a growing coalition of liberty-minded Republicans is seeking to stop the healthcare takeover by cutting all funding for it. The president has threatened to veto any budget that does not fund ObamaCare, setting the stage for a possible shutdown. Multiple polls sought to find out who voters would blame.

Separate polls on the healthcare scheme commissioned and conducted recently by a wide variety of media outlets and firms showed similarly widespread opposition to ObamaCare. Even numbers gathered by reliably pro-Obama establishment news companies, many of which played a key role in selling the scheme to the public, suggest that the healthcare law has become an albatross around the necks of Democrats.

A recent poll by CNN, for example, found that just 39 percent of Americans support ObamaCare, with the numbers still plunging fast across all demographic groups. Separately, a USA TODAY/Pew Research Center Poll revealed that a solid majority of respondents — 53 percent — oppose the healthcare scheme, with a whopping 41 percent saying they “very strongly” disapprove. Only one fourth thought ObamaCare would be positive for their family, while more than four out of 10 said the impacts would be negative.

Another poll, commissioned by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News, found that, by a massive 45 percent to 23 percent margin, Americans believe the scheme will have a negative impact on the nation’s healthcare system rather than a positive one. The survey also found that about three fourths of respondents were already satisfied with their coverage, presenting further hurdles for proponents of so-called “healthcare reform.” A majority believes it will increase costs, too — a phenomenon that is already occurring.

“We’re going to get worse health care, and it’s going to increase the debt,” one Republican-leaning female respondent from North Carolina was quoted as saying by NBC News. “There are death panels in there, and they’re going to decide whether people get treatment or not.” A Republican-leaning male respondent from Texas expressed similarly negative attitudes toward the scheme. “Raises costs for everybody and limits choices,” he said. “It was put together so crudely and nobody knew all the unintended consequences.”

The Obama administration and its apologists, however, do not seem to be very concerned with public opinion. In a recent e-mail blast by Organizing for Action, an AstroTurf group that emerged from Obama’s election campaign machine “Organizing for America,” the organization even lashed out at GOP lawmakers for listening to their constituents’ demands to put the brakes on the federal healthcare boondoggle.

“There are Republicans in the House so dead set on stopping Obamacare that they're willing to sabotage our economy to do it. Really,” complained OFA boss Jim Messina, whose rabid pro-Obama front group failed to muster a single supporter at a “climate change” rally last month. “Instead of passing a budget by the September 30th deadline, they're threatening to shut down the government if Obamacare isn't defunded. It's time for them to cut the crap and get serious.”

In the e-mail, OFA touts a new ad it released this week calling on GOP lawmakers to roll over and hand over the taxpayer funds needed to implement the healthcare scheme. According to the organization, Republicans have been able to “get away with it” without feeling “the pain of public pressure to knock it off.” Presumably, OFA has not seen the latest polling data, because it claimed that the new advertisement will do “just that.”

“Even after more than 40 votes to dismantle Obamacare — a law that is already helping millions of Americans get better, more affordable health care — this group of House Republicans is still clinging to this obsession,” the OFA screed continues without offering any evidence to support the claims. “Their latest plan is dangerous — we know that. They know it, too.” It was not immediately clear what part of the GOP efforts were “dangerous,” or why.

ObamaCare, as regular readers of The New American know well by now, usurps a broad range of authorities in a supposed effort to reduce costs and expand access. Among the most controversial provisions is the so-called “individual mandate,” which, in a nutshell, purports to force every American to purchase government-approved health insurance schemes or face major fines. The “reforms” also dramatically and unconstitutionally expand already-overwhelming federal control over healthcare.

Of course, as is typical, each poll found variations in public opinion depending on the wording of questions and other variables. One survey cited in the Washington Examiner last month, which asked about shutting the government down entirely rather than partially, suggested that even most Republicans were opposed to the idea. The trends, however, are clear: Opposition to ObamaCare — already wildly unpopular when it was passed — is becoming increasingly strong and widespread.

Now, even Big Labor, which played a key role in getting Obama elected and his radical agenda passed, is starting to turn against the president on ObamaCare. With conservative Republicans and a powerful coalition of grassroots organizations working hard to abolish the federal takeover before it all sets in, analysts say the prospects for stopping it are looking increasingly bright.

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com.

Related articles:

House GOP Leadership Thwarted by Tea Party Conservatives over Defunding ObamaCare

The ObamaCare Battle of Capitol Hill

House Republicans Introduce ObamaCare Alternative

ObamaCare Will Lead to Insurance “Death Spiral,” Study Says

Businesses Cut Full-time Workers Because of ObamaCare

Impeachment Support Soars as Voters Say Feds “Out of Control”

Citing ObamaCare, Maryland’s Largest Insurer Seeks 25-percent Rate Hike

http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/16568-poll-most-americans-support-federal-shutdown-to-defund-obamacare

Thursday, 19 September 2013 14:42 House Speaker Boehner Schedules ObamaCare Vote for Friday

Written by Bob Adelmann

• E-mail

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced on Wednesday that he would schedule a vote for Friday on his newly revised bill to continue government spending at current levels but without funding for ObamaCare, in response to pressure from a small but critically important group of Tea Party conservatives. Fresh from the hustings, that group, estimated to be about 40 in number, have been reminded afresh of their constituents’ demands to stop ObamaCare before it becomes cemented into place on October 1, and they forced Boehner to revise his original bill to include defunding critical parts of the president’s healthcare law.

Members of that group included Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) who said, “We’re doing what the American people are asking us to do. I think now is the time. You take the best opportunity that you have.” Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) added, “I think over the next 12 days there’s going to be a strong argument from the American people that this is the path forward.” Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) was even stronger, saying he would not vote for any bill that funded ObamaCare: “This is the line in the sand.” Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) said that ObamaCare “is a devastating law that’s having a devastating impact on all of our health care across the country.”
The bill puts the onus on the Senate to pass the bill to keep the government running but without funding ObamaCare, or reject the bill and not allow government spending beyond October 1. The president claims that passage of such a bill will shut down the government and it will be the Republicans’ fault. But Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.), another member of the recalcitrant group of 40, said the president has got the message backward: "The president [would shut] down the government because he wants to protect Obamacare."
Senator Marco Rubio agreed with that assessment. In an interview with Newsmax TV, Rubio said he was pleased that Boehner was forced to revise his bill before sending it to the House floor:
That’s very positive news. It’s now going to call attention to the fact that we can keep the government open, we can fund the government, we don’t have to shut down the government, and we don’t have to fund Obamacare.
It’s the president who’s threatening to shut down the government because he’s saying … that unless they fund Obamacare, they won’t fund the government…
If … the government shuts down, it will be … because the president and his allies believe that Obamacare is so important to them that they are willing to shut down the government over it.
Speaker Boehner said that if his revised bill passes the House, the Senate will be forced to deal with it: “We’re going to put Obamacare defunding directly into the [bill]. And then we’re going to send it over to the Senate so our conservative allies over there can continue the fight. That’s where the fight is.”
That fight could be nasty, or it could result in the Senate simply stripping out the offensive defunding language and sending it back to the House for another vote. Although Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called Boehner’s decision “terrific news,” he was less clear about just how the outnumbered Republicans would continue that fight. Cruz was dismissive of any attempt to filibuster against the bill:
Harry Reid will no doubt try to strip the defund language from the continuing resolution [passed by the House], and right now he likely has the votes to do so.
At that point, House Republicans must stand firm, hold their ground, and continue to listen to the American people.
To some this appeared to be waving the white flag of surrender in the Senate. One House GOP aide exclaimed: “We expect them stand and filibuster like Rand Paul.” Said another: “It’s time [for Republican Senators like Cruz and Rubio] to put on the big boy pants. Maybe this will wean us of the bed-wetters.”
The bill, if passed as expected by the House, won’t necessarily sail through the Senate and be bounced immediately back to the House. As the Wall Street Journal noted:
Because of potential delaying tactics [employed by Republicans], it could take a week or more for Senate Democrats to pass [the] bill, and they would need 60 votes at several junctures. If senators move to whittle the [Boehner] bill into a simple short-term funding extension, they would need six Republicans to vote with the 54 Democrats and allied senators.
The establishment is getting increasingly nervous about the matter. Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) was livid about the House Tea Party conservatives standing in the way of continuing government spending, including fully funding ObamaCare, saying, “They’re on a different planet!” He added:
This small group of people, who even Republicans know are off the deep end on this issue, have the Republican leadership in the House so shaken and scared that that leadership is going along with that insane plan.
Even the New York Times editorial board was so concerned about the matter that it inveighed against that rebel group, repeating Harry Reid’s ad hominem that called them “the anarchists.” Said the board:
On Wednesday … the full Republican caucus, leadership and all, joined the anarchy movement, announcing plans to demand the defunding of health care reform as the price for keeping the government open past September 30th….
By choosing this as their live-or-die issue, Republicans are driving straight toward the brink and removing the brake pedal.
The rant by the Times’ board continued, reiterating that such a plan had little chance of success, that nothing would have changed, that the Republicans are wasting critical political capital playing a game they cannot win:
As a strategy, the House plan makes little sense. After the House takes its vote this week to approve a temporary resolution that pays for the government to keep running through mid-December — but defunds the health law — the measure will go to the Senate.
Assuming 60 votes can be found to beat back the inevitable filibuster from Republicans like Mike Lee or Ted Cruz, the Senate will almost certainly approve the resolution minus the defunding language, sending the bill right back to the House.
Nothing will have changed, except that there will be only a day or two left before the government’s financing runs out.
Without admitting it, the Times has perceived that the political landscape has in fact changed significantly. When a group of 40 members of the House of Representatives, taking seriously their oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic, can shift the conversation to the point where left-wing liberals like Schumer and liberal mouthpieces such as the Times take to the airwaves and the digital universe to castigate such efforts, something momentous is happening.
No matter what happens whenever or however the ping-pong ball, bouncing from House to Senate and back again, finally comes to rest, the establishment Republican leadership has been shaken to the core, and establishment liberals have taken notice.
A graduate of Cornell University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at badelmann@thenewamerican.com.



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