South Bay Tax Day Tea Party

Jeanette Nordstrom - National Center for Policy Analysis

Dear Policy Patriots -

"They're Baaaaack!" Congress returned to Capitol Hill this week and the battle over health care will resume at the "Health Care Summit" on Thursday. The Obama Administration has invited 20 Democrats and 17 Republicans to discuss health care reform and promised that the event would be broadcast live and in its entirety.

The President's New Health Plan. President Obama has offered his own proposal for the legislative way forward which is largely a mixing and matching of the House and Senate plans already on the table.

Three New Surprises. While most of the President's plan is old hat, there are three new ideas, all bad.

Purpose of Summit: Policy or Politics? While Democrats insist the Summit is no political trap, some in the GOP are skeptical. When is the last time you saw a real deal negotiated before television cameras?

The Threat of Reconciliation. On Friday, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid threatened that Democrats were prepared to use reconciliation, a controversial legislative tactic which would allow the Senate to pass government-run health care with only fifty votes. Punctuating his assertion, Reid said, "We're going to have that done in the next 60 days." Reconciliation remains unpopular, however. Only 18 percent of Americans support use of reconciliation.

Policy Patriots Can Help Stop This! You're making a huge difference in the fight against government-run health care, having sent almost 550,000 emails and placed nearly 11,000 phone calls to Congress. Major media outlets are taking notice of the NCPA's health policy solutions, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Thanks for your continued support!

Your Support is Crucial! The chips are down with President Obama making a last ditch effort to force government-run health care on the American people. Please let your voice be heard:

• Go to Free Our Health Care NOW!

• Enter your personal information and click TAKE ACTION!

• You can write a letter or make a phone call. You can do either; both are important!

Contribute to the Cause! We appreciate your past support and know that without you this fight wouldn't be possible. You can donate online or send a check to:

National Center for Policy Analysis
P.O. Box 650098
Dallas, Texas 75265-0098

Thank you for your continued support of the NCPA.

Warm regards,

Jeanette Nordstrom
National Center for Policy Analysis
www.ncpa.org

Canadian Premier Comes to US for Operation

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.

Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation or how it would be paid for.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2510700#ixzz0eRw62ZzO
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British Healthcare Unhealthy

Grandmother disgusted at filthy hospital nursed and bathed other patients on her ward

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:09 PM on 29th January 2010

• Comments (59)
• Add to My Stories

Appalled: Janet Halsall was disgusted by the conditions in Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon

A grandmother was so disgusted by the filthy conditions and neglect on a hospital ward that she bathed and cared for the patients herself.

Janet Halsall, 74, was admitted to Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, for three days to have a scan on her liver, when she was shocked to see staff repeatedly ignore pleas for help and leave fellow elderly patients to ‘fend for themselves’. 

The kind-hearted pensioner was so appalled by the conditions in the hospital that she

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247030/Grandmother-disgusted-filthy-hospital-nursed-bathed-patients-ward.html#ixzz0e1gcBqyI

Conservative Action Project: The Individual Mandate in “Obamacare” is Unconstitutional

Posted on December 21st, 2009 by Robert Romano  LINK

MEMO FOR THE MOVEMENT:

RE: The mandate under the Obama-Pelosi-Reid healthcare legislation requiring American citizens to purchase health insurance violates the U.S. Constitution.

ACTION: We urge you to make this point to members of the U.S. Senate—and if a bill passes the Senate to impress upon members of both chambers of Congress—that the key provision in the healthcare legislation violates the U.S. Constitution.

ISSUE: Mandating that individuals must obtain health insurance, and imposing any penalty—civil or criminal—on any private citizen for not purchasing health insurance is not authorized by any provision of the U.S. Constitution. As such, it is unconstitutional, and should not survive a court challenge on that issue. Supporters of the legislation have incorrectly contended that the legal justification for the mandate is authorized by the Commerce Clause, the General Welfare Clause, or the Taxing and Spending Clause. Given that this mandate provision is essential to Obamacare; its unconstitutionality renders the entire program untenable.

• The individual mandate is unconstitutional unless there is a specific constitutional provision that authorizes it. The federal government is a government of limited jurisdiction. It has only enumerated powers. Therefore unless a specific provision of the Constitution empowers a particular law, then that law is unconstitutional. There is no such authorization for the mandate.

• The individual mandate is not authorized by the Commerce Clause. Most of those advocating the Democrats’ bill say that Congress can pass this legislation pursuant to its power to regulate interstate commerce. That argument is incorrect, because there is no interstate commerce when private citizens do not purchase health insurance.

• The Commerce Clause only covers matters where citizens engage in economic activity. The last time the Supreme Court struck down a law for violating the Commerce Clause, in United States v. Morrison (2000), the Court did so on the grounds that the activity in question was not an economic activity.

• The Commerce Clause only extends to persons or organizations voluntarily engaging in commercial activity. Government can only regulate economic action; it cannot coerce action on the part of private citizens who do not wish to participate in commerce. In the most expansive case for Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce, Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Court upheld the agricultural regulation in question against a wheat farmer who earned his entire living from growing and selling wheat, making him a willing participant in interstate commerce.

• The Commerce Clause requires an actual economic effect, not merely a congressional finding of an economic effect. When the Court struck down the Violence Against Women Act in United States v. Morrison (2000), the Court noted that although the statute made numerous findings regarding the link between such violence and interstate commerce, it held that those findings did not actually establish an economic effect. Therefore the various interstate-commerce findings in the Senate version of the “Obamacare” legislation do not make the bill constitutional.

• The individual mandate is not authorized under the General Welfare Clause. The Supreme Court made clear in United States v. Butler (1936) and Helvering v. Davis (1937) that the General Welfare Clause only applies to congressional spending. It applies to money going out from the government; it does not confer or concern any government power to take in money, such as would happen with the individual mandate. Therefore the mandate is outside the scope of the General Welfare Clause.

• The individual mandate is not authorized under the Taxing and Spending Clause or Income Tax. The Constitution only allows certain types of taxation from the federal government.

• The Article I Taxing and Spending Clause permits duties, imposts, excises and capitation taxes — duties, imposts and excises are taxes on purchases. A capitation tax is a tax that every person must pay, and the Constitution’s apportionment rule requires that every person in each state must pay exactly the same amount. The Obamacare mandate is imposed on people who are making no purchase, and is a tax that some people in a state would pay, but others do not.

• The Sixteenth Amendment allows an income tax.  An income tax is imposed only on earnings, but people would have to pay this tax even if they had no income.

Therefore it cannot be any of these constitutionally-permitted taxes.

• The individual mandate is unconstitutional regardless of whether there are criminal penalties involved. There is no distinction between criminal and civil penalties for determining the constitutionality of legislation, and the penalty imposed in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) was not a criminal penalty. Therefore even if the criminal sanctions were removed from the legislation, the imposition of any penalty or consequence for not purchasing insurance renders the mandate unconstitutional.

• The individual mandate cannot be properly compared to requiring auto insurance. President Obama said in a Nov. 9 interview on ABC television that requiring people to buy health insurance and penalizing those that do not buy is acceptable because people are required to buy car insurance. That statement is untrue.

• Only state governments can require people to get car insurance. While the federal government is limited to the powers enumerated in the Constitution, the states have a general police power. The police power enables state governments to pass laws for public safety and public health. The federal government has no general police power, and therefore could not require car insurance.

• States do not require people to purchase car insurance. Driving a car is a privilege, not a right. States require people to get insurance only as a condition for those people who voluntarily choose to drive on the public roads. If a person chooses to use public transportation, or use a bicycle instead of a car, or operate a car only on their own property, they are not required to have car insurance, and cannot be penalized for lacking insurance.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE UNCONSTIUTIONALITY OF THE HEALTH CARE MANDATE, PLEASE VISIT THESE WEBSITES:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm0049.cfm

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28463.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28620.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28787.html

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/10/30/ken-klukowski-open-letter-pelosi-gibbs-constitution-individual-mandate/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/02/beware-the-health-insurance-police/

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/11/interview-with-the-president-jail-time-for-those-without-health-care-insurance.html

http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=7a758af3-1b78-be3e-e03a-c0eea6d515c5

12/21/09

(All organizations are listed for identification purposes only)

CONSERVATIVE ACTION PROJECT

Edwin Meese, former Attorney General

Steven G. Calabresi, Professor, Northwestern Law School

Mathew D. Staver, Founder & Chairman, Liberty Counsel

Curt Levey, Executive Director, Committee for Justice

Marion Edwyn Harrison, Past President, Free Congress Foundation

Kenneth Klukowski, Senior Legal Analyst, American Civil Rights Union

Wendy Wright, President, Concerned Women for America

J. Kenneth Blackwell, Visiting Professor, Liberty School of Law

Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform

William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government

Matt Kibbe, President, FreedomWorks

Jim Martin, President, 60 Plus Association

David McIntosh, former Member of Congress, Indiana

Colin A. Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council

Brent Bozell, President, Media Research Center

Brian McManus, Council for Affordable Health Insurance

Karen Kerrigan, President, Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council

T. Kenneth Cribb, former Counselor to the U.S. Attorney General

Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com

Alfred Regnery, Publisher, American Spectator

 

NHS [UK] maternity services in meltdown

NHS maternity services in meltdown: A former midwife reveals how understaffed wards are sinking into chaos.

By Verena Burns
Last updated at 1:21 AM on 16th December 2009

Clutching her husband's hand and with agony and exhaustion etched on her face, a young woman struggled into a room in the maternity unit where I worked.

She was in the early stages of labour with her first baby, she was terrified, in excruciating pain and desperate for any crumb of support.

Helpless beside her, her overnight bag in his hand, her poor husband looked equally traumatised.

My heart went out to them. But I knew there was little I could do. With five other pregnant women to care for at the same time, all with hugely different and complex problems, I was rushed off my feet and didn't have the time to look after her properly, to allay her fears or to hear about how she wanted the birth to unfold.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1235921/Midwives-meltdown-A-NHS-worker-reveals-understaffed-maternity-wards-sinking-chaos.html#ixzz0ZpAg9lI9

WSJ - What the Pelosi Health-Care Bill Really Says

By BETSY MCCAUGHEY

The health bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is bringing to a vote (H.R. 3962) is 1,990 pages. Here are some of the details you need to know.

What the government will require you to do:

• Sec. 202 (p. 91-92) of the bill requires you to enroll in a "qualified plan." If you get your insurance at work, your employer will have a "grace period" to switch you to a "qualified plan," meaning a plan designed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. If you buy your own insurance, there's no grace period. You'll have to enroll in a qualified plan as soon as any term in your contract changes, such as the co-pay, deductible or benefit.

• Sec. 224 (p. 118) provides that 18 months after the bill becomes law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will decide what a "qualified plan" covers and how much you'll be legally required to pay for it. That's like a banker telling you to sign the loan agreement now, then filling in the interest rate and repayment terms 18 months later. 

MORE

One in six NHS patients 'misdiagnosed' (in UK)

Doctors were making mistakes in up to 15 per cent of cases because they were too quick to judge patients’ symptoms, they said, while others were reluctant to ask more senior colleagues for help.

While in most cases the misdiagnosis did not result in the patient suffering serious harm, a sizeable number of the millions of NHS patients were likely to suffer significant health problems as a result, according to figures. It was said that the number of misdiagnoses was “just the tip of the iceberg”, with many people still reluctant to report mistakes by their doctors.  Article from the UK telegraph. 

Obama in his own words - I believe in a Single Payer Heathcare System.

Case closed: (UK) 4,000 born in waiting rooms and more becuase of "Shortages"

Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds.

The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets - even a caravan - went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000.

Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity beds is partly to blame for the crisis, with hundreds of women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they are full.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1209034/The-babies-born-hospital-corridors-Bed-shortage-forces-4-000-mothers-birth-lifts-offices-hospital-toilets.html#ixzz0PJ2SqZUG

Patients forced to live in agony after (UK) NHS refuses to pay for painkilling injections

(This is a real example of exactly what we can look forward to with Obama's NightmareCare.)

Tens of thousands with chronic back pain will be forced to live in agony after a decision to slash the number of painkilling injections issued on the NHS, doctors have warned.

By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent www.telegraph.co.uk
Published: 7:45AM BST 02 Aug 2009

 

The Government's drug rationing watchdog says "therapeutic" injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.

Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.

Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment.

The NHS currently issues more than 60,000 treatments of steroid injections every year. NICE said in its guidance it wants to cut this to just 3,000 treatments a year, a move which would save the NHS £33 million.

But the British Pain Society, which represents specialists in the field, has written to NICE calling for the guidelines to be withdrawn after its members warned that they would lead to many patients having to undergo unnecessary and high-risk spinal surgery.  More...

Meeting with Jane Harman

Gary Aven, Jane Harman, Nathan Mintz (6/30/2009)

We had a great meeting with Jane Harman who was cordial, gracious, and very interested in this growing grassroots TEA party movement that we are a part of.  She said she was impressed by the number of calls that she has gotten from our group.  She is a Blue Dog Democrat and one of our goals was to support her in all of her fiscally conservative positions and encourage her in future bills because we the people want to stop the staggering spending, balance the budget, and stop the bailouts.  And on the Health-care bill which has not hit the floor yet that we want a fiscally conservative solution that does not grow the power of the Federal Government in any way.  We also expressed our profound disapointment with her Cap and Trade vote.  More on all this later as I must get on a plane in a few minutes. 

Cap and Tax, ObamaNonCare, Porkulus - When does it stop?

Cap and Tax, ObamaNonCare, Porkulus, when are we going to get fed up enough to hit the streets again?  The time to stop these bills are before they are enacted.  Join us July 17^th.  MORE…  See how your Representative voted.

In The Heritage Foundation's analysis of the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation, the GDP hit in 2020 was $161 billion (2009 dollars). For a family of four, that translates into $1,870--a pretty big chunk of change that the CBO is ignoring.  MORE… Jane Harman just voted for this 6/26/2009 MORE…

WASHINGTON -- The Senate Finance Committee wrestled Tuesday to bring down the total cost of its health-care package, after an initial estimate put the price tag for one version at more than $1.6 trillion over 10 years.  MORE…

The Numbers Don't Add Up for ObamaCare - It's Madness

We keep hearing about 50 Million uninsured.  This is a lie as you can read below. 

The official Census figure for uninsured in 2007 was actually 45.7 Million.  But even that does not tell the whole truth.

- Of that number 9.7 Million are immigrants of which at least 5.6 Million are illegal.

- About 9.1 Million have household income above $75,000.

- Half (23 Million) of the 46 Million are between 18 and 34 and don’t feel they need insurance.

- 12 Million qualify today for Medicaid.  (Source: Factcheck)

That leaves us between 3 Million and 15 Million of actual uninsured.

The average cost per person for insurance ranges from $2,000 to $4,000 a year with a 2,500 deductible (Source: eHealthInsurance.com) for 114 different plans.  Talk about real choice.  We will use $3,000 plus add $2000 for a Health Savings Account per year to calculate.  Price tag for 6 Million people is $30 Billion (6 Million X $5,000). 10 year cost 300 Billion.  Obama’s 10 year cost 1,600 Billion.  Where is the extra money going? - To hire a completely duplicate government insurance bureaucracy.  Make one Government Risk pool, mandate that the money can only be used for Health Insurance, and pro-rate it for those that make $40,000 or more and you can insure maybe 12 Million people or more.  With NO additional Government. 

And I am just an engineer... who has to balance his household budget.  Imagine that.

The Truth About Healthcare

Obama said, "The public plan, I think, is an important tool to discipline insurance companies," he said. "Too often, insurance companies have been spending more time thinking about how to take premiums and then avoid providing people coverage than they have been thinking about 'How can we make sure that insurance is there, health care is there, when families need it?'" wsj

 

The implied thinking in just these few statements by Obama is unbelievable.  Obama is willing to say anything to get his plan accepted, and few in the media are giving the other side.  He truly believes in his Socialist agenda.  This is at the core of his being.  He sat for 20 years and listened and loved speeches on Liberation Theology, which is at the core of Obama’s beliefs.  It comes out in every speech he makes.  In Liberation Theology a free market economy, capitalism and profits are bad, poor people government run economy and forced redistribution of wealth are good.  “Companies take premiums”?  NO!  Companies’ trade limited resources (product) for money from willing buyers.  It is Governments who TAKE taxes from those who are not always willing participants.  This kind of language has been mostly out of the public eye since the mid 1980’s, so we have forgotten this language that Obama uses so regularly.

 

Obama thinks he is right, he is very powerful, and is totally supported by the Press and the Congress.

 

TRUTH:

The “public plan” will be ultimately be subsidized by you the US tax payer.  This will make it impossible for a private plan to compete if the Government will tax or print money to subsidize the public plan.  The gross inefficiencies of bureaucratic government are staggering.  The public plan will also limit health costs by limiting the supply of healthcare.  This does not mean that we do not need to fix some areas of Healthcare.  We need to solve the problem of the person that loses their job and has a preexisting condition.  However the Obama socialized medicine “public plan” is not the solution, it is the problem.

 

The engine of the world is a motivated innovator, inventor, and thinker.  Innovations help supply more goods that people want at less cost, which improves the living standard of all people, rich and poor.

 

How are profits good?  Profits motivate people who innovate.  Insurance companies must compete (see list of 24 major ones in Wikipedia) with each other.  That means that they must innovate by offering better service, lower prices, and pay claims fairly to stay in business.  You can complain to your state insurance commissioner and the commissioner may sue the Health Insurance company if warranted or you can sue.  Insurance companies must obey the laws and keep their customers happy or they go out of business.  No one is forced to do business with any of the 24 major companies if they do not want to.  But you will not be able to sue the Federal Government.  Or think IRS audit, or getting the post office to not deliver the neighbors mail to you. 

 

Most of these 24 insurance companies are listed on a Stock Exchange and are known as “public companies”.  If you have a 401K plan, you most likely own at least part of one of these companies.  You the reader, the American public are the owners of these Health Companies that need “Discipline”.  So, if they profit YOU profit.  They are not faceless Capitalistic enterprises (bad guys) that take premiums.  They are you.  Obama wants to discipline you.  If you do not like how they run their company you can invest in other companies.  You have a choice.

 

“Discipline Health Companies” – When has the government ever shown discipline?  Amtrak is run by the government and loses Billions every year.  Social Security is run by the government and is going broke.  Medicaid is costing the US Tax Payers Billions of dollars.  The US Post office loses money every year.  Fannie May and Freddie Mac have cost the country over a Trillion Dollars.  Would you ever hire a person with such a track record to “Discipline Health Companies”.  Is there even one example of the government being efficient in anything? NO.  How does the free market discipline companies?  If they provide poor service, and a product that we are not willing to buy they, unless they improve, go out of business, and a new business arises who will provide a product (limited resource) at a price we are willing to pay.

 

Profit is not bad, as Obama makes it out to be in so many speeches.  Profit is the result of supplying a limited resource at a price that a customer is willing to pay.  Profit motivates a company to innovate, and reduce costs, so they can increase their profit.  At the same time other companies are doing the same thing.  When one company does this better they grow faster.  With no profits there is no motivation. 

 

“when families need it” – Sounds so good, “when families need it”.  A world driven by “need” is a world that soon runs out of suppliers.  Who is to say my “needs” are not greater than your “needs”.  If it is up to you no doubt, when faced with a dire health need you would say your needs are greater.  Who determines how much you really need.  Do you need treatment for the common cold?  Or have needs for a multitude of things that some people treat themselves and others run to the doctor or worse the emergency room.  Who is to decide?  What if your neighbor is more vocal then you are or knows the right government official and gets their “need” met, thus not leaving enough money for you?  Right now many of us have a high deductible plan that we pay out of pocket for with the insurance plan picking up the high ticket items like cancer.  This is because we are motivated by a price that we are willing to pay for a limited resource that could be used in other ways.

 

Limiting the supply of Healthcare -- Yesterday, I was talking with a neighbor who is a successful, wealthy businessman.  His father was a Doctor and a surgeon.  Even 30 years ago his father recommended that it was becoming not worth the 18 years (includes 4 years of college) of education that it would cost his children to become doctors themselves.  None of the kids went into medicine.  Ask yourself, if you could become a brain surgeon would you spend the 20 year of study to become one?  Would you become a general practice doctor (10 to 12 years) who on average makes less than an experienced fireman in Los Angeles, about $120,000?  When you artificially limit a price the result is you get less of it.  Why?  Because suppliers have limited resources and it is their job to put them to use where it will benefit the owning public the best.  In countries with Obama type health plans they limit the pay of doctors thus, highly skilled doctors are in short supply.  The doctors can do other, better things with their life and time then be slaves for an ungrateful government.  The result - worse healthcare.  This is why thousands of Canadians come to the US every year and pay for treatment when if they had just waited long enough they could get it for free from a substandard doctor. 

 

The Alternative: the Center for Health Transformation 

 

And some think we do not need a NATIONAL DISCUSSION when it takes this much space to counter  a few sentences of the Socialist philosophical blather that spews out of the White House every day.  It is mind numbing.  Call your Congressperson or Senator today.

Don't Let Liberals Pass Socailized Medicine Without a Fair Fight!

FreedomWorks Health Care Freedom Campaign Call to Action:

Those who want to see a socialized medicine system for the United States similar to what Canada and Cuba have are working hard to include in the final budget resolution that Congress will be voting on in a matter of weeks, a sneaky provision that would allow them to do it as part of budget “reconciliation;” a process requiring just 50 votes in the Senate instead of the traditional filibuster-protected margin of 60.

FreedomWorks has fought hard to thwart their efforts, and just before the April Easter Recess engaged a major campaign blitz that was successful in stripping out the health care provision from the Senate version of the budget, but not the House. READ MORE!

Now these two versions are headed to conference and it’s critical that we put concerted pressure on the 8 Members of the Conference Committee (see below). These 8 legislators will ultimately decide whether Congress provides an opporunity to legitimately fight socialized medicing by requiring a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate, or if they will use their majorities in both chambers to ram through government-run health care.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT AWAY!

Click HERE to download your own Healthcare Freedom Action Kit.  The materials in this kit will help you in contacting the offices of these targeted lawmakers and urging them not to allow Congress to create a backdoor for government-run healthcare. MORE...