Author Topic: Thank you Obama/Reid/Pelosi/Kucinich/Stupak/Spectre/Straw/Blackass/Benny  (Read 1405 times)

Soul Crusher

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Re: Thank you Obama/Reid/Pelosi/Kucinich/Stupak/Spectre
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2012, 09:42:59 AM »
SEBELIUS HAS ‘NO IDEA’ IF OBAMACARE ADDS TO THE DEFICIT (HAS SHE EVEN READ THE BILL?)
Washington Free Beacon | 03/08/2012


Posted on Thursday, March 08, 2012 12:39:25


Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius appeared flummoxed by questioning from Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) at a hearing on the new health care law Wednesday.

Johnson challenged Sebelius over a number of the Obama administration’s claims about the new health care law, namely that it will reduce the deficit and allow individuals to keep their current healthcare plans.

On several occasions, Sebelius professed to have “no idea” what Johnson was talking about.

Johnson cited a McKinsey Group study that estimated 30 to 50 percent of employers would drop their employee coverage once the new law is fully implement, the effect of which could be hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, added to the federal deficit.

President Obama has repeatedly claimed that, under the new law, individuals who are satisfied with their current health insurance plans will be able to keep them.

“First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan,” he said in July 2009. “Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”

Sebelius could not say with confidence how many employers would drop coverage, or how many would have been forced to drop coverage if not for the thousands of waivers the administration has issued.

“The bottom line here is, the cost of this healthcare law is so uncertain, don’t you think we ought to put the brakes on it?” Johnson asked. “You know, Nancy Pelosi said, ‘We have to pass this law to figure out what’s in it.’ What I don’t want to see is that we have to implement it to figure out how it’s going to bust a hole in our already horribly broken budget.”

SEBELIUS: The original estimate, yes. I think that’s–

JOHNSON: Right. So, the original estimate for deficit reduction–

SEBELIUS: I’m assuming–

JOHNSON: The original estimate for deficit reduction in the first 10 years was $143 billion, correct?

SEBELIUS: Yes–

JOHNSON: So now we, we’ve reduced that $143 billion by $86 billion – by not getting revenue from the CLASS Act – and now $111 billion because we’ve increased the mandatory costs of the exchanges, correct?

SEBELIUS: I’m assuming the numbers are correct. I’m sorry I don’t have them.

JOHNSON: So, when you add those together, that’s $197 billion added to the first 10-year cost estimate of Obamacare, so now we are instead of saving $143 billion, we are adding $54 billion to our deficit, correct?

SEBELIUS: Sir I –

JOHNSON: We’ll submit that to the record. But, that’s basically true. So instead of saving $143 billion, by this administration’s own figures and budget, we’re now adding $54 billion to our deficit in the first 10 years. To me, that would be the first broken promise. It is true that the President said that by enacting this healthcare law, every family would save $2500 per year, in their family insurance plan – correct?

SEBELIUS: He said that once the exchanges are up and running, and you have an affordable marketplace, the insurance estimates were that the rates would go down by about $2500, yes– that has not occurred yet.

JOHNSON: The Kaiser Family Foundation has already released a study saying that average costs of family healthcare plans is up $2200, correct?

SEBELIUS: Again, there is no new marketplace yet for insurance policies.

JOHNSON: But the costs are already up. We’re already different by $4700; it’s going to be hard to get us down to $2500 cost savings. I would consider that broken promise number two.

It’s also true, that President Obama very famously said, ‘if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.’ Period. ‘If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan.’ Period. No one will take it away, no matter what. Now, we’ve granted quite a few waivers – about 1,200 to 1,700 waivers – on about 4 million Americans, correct?

SEBELIUS: I’ve no idea what waivers you’re talking about or–

JOHNSON: Well, those are waivers–

SEBELIUS: On doctors and health plans, is that…I–

JOHNSON: Just waivers from having to implement portions of the healthcare law that probably would have allowed those – or forced those workers – off their employer-sponsored care.

SEBELIUS: Again, I’d be happy to answer these questions, but I have no idea what waivers you’re talking about–

JOHNSON: The waivers that HHS has granted to employers not–

SEBELIUS: Which do what?

JOHNSON: Not having implemented sections of the healthcare law.

SEBELIUS: There have been waivers granted to employers, yes.

JOHNSON: And had those waivers not been granted, chances are, those employees probably would have lost their employer-sponsored care, correct?

SEBELIUS: I have no idea. I mean, I’m happy to answer those one at a time and look at the waivers and see what–

JOHNSON: Unfortunately, I’m pretty short on time.



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It’s Obamacare, Stupid
Jeffrey H. Anderson and William Kristol
March 19, 2012, Vol. 17, No. 26
It’s not easy to lose 63 seats in a House election. Before 2010, the last time it had been done was when Joe DiMaggio was still patrolling center field for the New York Yankees. It’s even harder to pull off such a feat when exit polling shows that Americans were inclined to blame the prior president (a member of the other party) for the poor economy. This raises a question that Democrats and the media have been avoiding for the past 16 months: Just how did the Democrats do it?

A new academic study says the answer can likely be reduced to one word: Obamacare. The study, which was conducted by scholars from Dartmouth and elsewhere, finds that “supporters of health care reform paid a significant price.” The authors looked at cap and trade, the economic “stimulus,” and Obamacare, and concluded that the latter had by far the most adverse effect on Democrats’ fortunes—voters were “approximately 5 points less likely to vote for an incumbent who supported health reform than one who opposed it.”

Indeed, if “all Democrats in competitive districts [had] opposed health care reform,” that likely would have swung about 25 seats from the Republican column into the Democratic column and would have given the Democrats “a 62 percent chance of winning enough races to maintain majority control of the House.”

But that’s not the only interesting finding. The authors ask, “How is it that .  .  . votes come to affect election outcomes?” They conclude that Democrats’ support for Obama-care led voters “to perceive them as more liberal,” “more ideologically distant,” and “out of step.” This was particularly true for independent voters. In other words, voters not only oppose Obamacare as policy but view it as a symbol of a commitment to big-government liberalism.

This strongly suggests that the more Obama-care becomes an issue in the fall, the more it will highlight President Obama’s liberalism in the minds of voters—particularly independent voters. It correspondingly suggests that the more this election is focused simply on stewardship of the economy, the less Obama’s big-government liberalism will be highlighted in voters’ minds.

In other words, should Mitt Romney win the Republican presidential nomination, he could surely run (and has given every indication that he would run) as a centrist who’s focused on the economy. But by choosing to de-emphasize Obamacare, he would allow Obama to come across as more of a centrist as well. This would effectively take the GOP’s best issue off the table. What’s more, no issue will more starkly highlight the differences between the parties than Obamacare. Voters know that if Obama is reelected, Obamacare is here to stay. If the Republican wins, there is at least a very good shot at repeal.

Rick Santorum clearly has no intention of de-emphasizing Obamacare. To the contrary, Obamacare is the issue on which he has staked his candidacy. The contrast between Romney’s and Santorum’s levels of emphasis on Obama’s signature legislation could hardly have been clearer than during their speeches on the night of Super Tuesday. Santorum spent no less than seven minutes on Obamacare, while Romney devoted seven words to it.

Romney said, “He passed Obamacare. I will repeal Obamacare.” This is pretty much how Romney has talked about Obamacare throughout this campaign. On the few occasions when he has talked about the subject at greater length, he has emphasized how Obamacare would loot money from Medicare and raise taxes. Both points are true. They’re also well down the list of reasons why almost all Republicans, and the vast majority of independents, loathe Obamacare.

Santorum made the point well:

The reason that .  .  . I ultimately decided to get into this race was .  .  . one particular issue that to me breaks the camel’s back with respect to liberty in this country—and that is the issue of Obamacare. .  .  . [A] little less than 50 percent of the people in this country [now] depend on some form of federal payment, some form of government benefit, to help provide for them. After Obamacare, it will not be less than 50 percent. It will be 100 percent.

Now every single American will be looking to the federal government, not to their neighbor, not to their church, not .  .  . to the community .  .  . [but] to those in charge, to those who now say to you that they are the allocator and creator of rights in America.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the beginning of the end of freedom in America.

Santorum also took direct aim at Romney:

It’s one thing to defend a mandated, top-down, government-run health care program that you imposed on the people of your state. It’s another thing to recommend and encourage the president of the United States to impose the same thing on the American people. And it’s another thing yet to go out and tell the American public that you didn’t do it.

In response to what has become Santorum’s principal line of attack, Romney effectively has two choices: He can tell the 60 percent of Republicans who haven’t been supporting him in primary voting to date that they effectively have no choice but to support him—and, in any event, that he is the only one who can beat Obama. Or he can make the effort to convince Republicans that he genuinely shares their desire to repeal Obamacare—and that he understands why it’s such an affront to them, and to the nation.

If Romney wants to convince Republicans that he’s with them—rather than convince them that they have no choice but to be with him—he would do well to pledge repeatedly that he would use every tool at his disposal to repeal Obamacare, instead of saying simply that he’ll sign repeal legislation if it happens to cross his desk. He would also do well to explain to voters why he’s so committed to repeal. Why is it so much worse to have a government-run health care system and an individual mandate at the federal level than at the state level? Why is the federal version more of an affront to liberty? (It is, but Romney needs to explain why.)

The electability argument is ultimately about issues. Obamacare is Obama’s greatest weakness. He is more likely to be defeated by a candidate who is willing to run against Obamacare as the epitome of big-government liberalism—emphasizing its singular threat to Americans’ liberty and their way of life.


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SEBELIUS HAS ‘NO IDEA’ IF OBAMACARE ADDS TO THE DEFICIT (HAS SHE EVEN READ THE BILL?)
Washington Free Beacon | 03/08/2012


Posted on Thursday, March 08, 2012 12:39:25


Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius appeared flummoxed by questioning from Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) at a hearing on the new health care law Wednesday.

Johnson challenged Sebelius over a number of the Obama administration’s claims about the new health care law, namely that it will reduce the deficit and allow individuals to keep their current healthcare plans.

On several occasions, Sebelius professed to have “no idea” what Johnson was talking about.

Johnson cited a McKinsey Group study that estimated 30 to 50 percent of employers would drop their employee coverage once the new law is fully implement, the effect of which could be hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, added to the federal deficit.

President Obama has repeatedly claimed that, under the new law, individuals who are satisfied with their current health insurance plans will be able to keep them.

“First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan,” he said in July 2009. “Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”

Sebelius could not say with confidence how many employers would drop coverage, or how many would have been forced to drop coverage if not for the thousands of waivers the administration has issued.

“The bottom line here is, the cost of this healthcare law is so uncertain, don’t you think we ought to put the brakes on it?” Johnson asked. “You know, Nancy Pelosi said, ‘We have to pass this law to figure out what’s in it.’ What I don’t want to see is that we have to implement it to figure out how it’s going to bust a hole in our already horribly broken budget.”

SEBELIUS: The original estimate, yes. I think that’s–

JOHNSON: Right. So, the original estimate for deficit reduction–

SEBELIUS: I’m assuming–

JOHNSON: The original estimate for deficit reduction in the first 10 years was $143 billion, correct?

SEBELIUS: Yes–

JOHNSON: So now we, we’ve reduced that $143 billion by $86 billion – by not getting revenue from the CLASS Act – and now $111 billion because we’ve increased the mandatory costs of the exchanges, correct?

SEBELIUS: I’m assuming the numbers are correct. I’m sorry I don’t have them.

JOHNSON: So, when you add those together, that’s $197 billion added to the first 10-year cost estimate of Obamacare, so now we are instead of saving $143 billion, we are adding $54 billion to our deficit, correct?

SEBELIUS: Sir I –

JOHNSON: We’ll submit that to the record. But, that’s basically true. So instead of saving $143 billion, by this administration’s own figures and budget, we’re now adding $54 billion to our deficit in the first 10 years. To me, that would be the first broken promise. It is true that the President said that by enacting this healthcare law, every family would save $2500 per year, in their family insurance plan – correct?

SEBELIUS: He said that once the exchanges are up and running, and you have an affordable marketplace, the insurance estimates were that the rates would go down by about $2500, yes– that has not occurred yet.

JOHNSON: The Kaiser Family Foundation has already released a study saying that average costs of family healthcare plans is up $2200, correct?

SEBELIUS: Again, there is no new marketplace yet for insurance policies.

JOHNSON: But the costs are already up. We’re already different by $4700; it’s going to be hard to get us down to $2500 cost savings. I would consider that broken promise number two.

It’s also true, that President Obama very famously said, ‘if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.’ Period. ‘If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan.’ Period. No one will take it away, no matter what. Now, we’ve granted quite a few waivers – about 1,200 to 1,700 waivers – on about 4 million Americans, correct?

SEBELIUS: I’ve no idea what waivers you’re talking about or–

JOHNSON: Well, those are waivers–

SEBELIUS: On doctors and health plans, is that…I–

JOHNSON: Just waivers from having to implement portions of the healthcare law that probably would have allowed those – or forced those workers – off their employer-sponsored care.

SEBELIUS: Again, I’d be happy to answer these questions, but I have no idea what waivers you’re talking about–

JOHNSON: The waivers that HHS has granted to employers not–

SEBELIUS: Which do what?

JOHNSON: Not having implemented sections of the healthcare law.

SEBELIUS: There have been waivers granted to employers, yes.

JOHNSON: And had those waivers not been granted, chances are, those employees probably would have lost their employer-sponsored care, correct?

SEBELIUS: I have no idea. I mean, I’m happy to answer those one at a time and look at the waivers and see what–

JOHNSON: Unfortunately, I’m pretty short on time.







Well, if you didn't think Sebelius was an idiot before...

I love how all the tards were claiming before this thing was passed, all the great savings.  Now...hiding like little bitches.

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