Flag Day

Leaked Documents Show Most Employee Health Care Plans WILL NOT be "Grandfathered" under Obama Care

From Bizzy Blog --

Earlier this year, in his “Can we lose health coverage? Yes we can” column, syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock made a point asserted in dozens if not hundreds of columns and reports during the hide-and-seek legistlative process that ultimately led to the passage of what is commonly known as ObamaCare: The President’s core promise relating to the statist health care legislation that ultimately became law in March — namely that “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what” — could not and would not be kept.

In that column, Murdock quoted Cato Institute analyst Michael Cannon as follows:

“Obama’s definition of ‘meaningful’ coverage could eliminate the health plans that now cover as many as half of the 159 million Americans with employer-sponsored insurance, plus more than half of the roughly 18 million Americans in the individual market. … This could compel close to 90 million Americans to switch to more comprehensive health plans with higher premiums, whether they value the added coverage or not.”

In a late Friday afternoon blog post followed by a fuller early evening report, David Hogberg and Sean Higgins at Investors Business Daily confirmed that Obama’s never-credible core promise is on the brink of being shattered, and that the employer-related calculations by Cato’s Cannon were essentially correct (graphically illustrated by IBD at the top right):

Internal administration documents reveal that up to 51% of employers may have to relinquish their current health care coverage because of ObamaCare.

Small firms will be even likelier to lose existing plans.

The “midrange estimate is that 66% of small employer plans and 45% of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfathered status by the end of 2013,” according to the document.

In the worst-case scenario, 69% of employers — 80% of smaller firms — would lose that status, exposing them to far more provisions under the new health law.

…. The 83-page document, a joint project of the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the IRS, examines the effects that ObamaCare’s regulations would have on existing, or “grandfathered,” employer-based health care plans.

Draft copies of the document were reportedly leaked to House Republicans during the week and began circulating Friday morning. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., posted it on his Web site Friday afternoon.

… In a statement, Posey said the document showed that the arguments in favor of ObamaCare were a “bait and switch.”

… (A White House) source conceded: “It is difficult to predict how plans and employers will behave in the coming years, but if plans make changes that negatively impact consumers, then they will lose their grandfather status.”

… In total, 66% of small businesses and 47% of large businesses made a change in their health care plans last year that would have forfeited their grandfathered status.

When one looks at the list of what would cause a plan to get de-grandfathered compiled by Hogberg and Higgins, it’s easy to see why the percentages are so large.

The referenced Treasury document (an 83-page PDF) lays out how employers might react to the new law on Page 36:

Plan sponsors and issuers can decide to:

1. Continue offering the plan or coverage in effect on March 23, 2010 with limited changes, and thereby retain grandfathered status;

2. Significantly change the terms of the plan or coverage and comply with Affordable Care Act provisions from which grandfathered health plans are excepted; or

3. In the case of a plan sponsor, cease to offer any plan.

Option 1 would be nice, but as the IBD reporters noted in the bolded paragraph in the excerpt above, most employers would have run afoul of it during the past year. This means that they would have been forced into Options 2 or 3. Employers choosing Option 2 would have to buy pre-designed and very expensive coverage through the bill’s health insurance exchanges. Employers choosing Option 3 would force their employees to buy pre-designed and very expensive coverage through those same exchanges.

If the legislation stands, the end result over a not very long time will be that the large majority of employers and employees will be stuck in the exchanges, the roach motels of health care — Once you go in, you can’t come out. Statist mission accomplished.

The Associated Press has noticed the story too, but with the weakest of headlines: “Health overhaul to force changes in employer plans.” The content isn’t much better. Earth to AP reporter Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar: ObamaCare, as predicted by so many during the previous year by experts most of the establishment press willfully ignored, will cause many employers to drop their insurance entirely.

Wall Street Influence on Financial Reform Conference Committee

From the Center for Responsive Politics --

Democratic and Republican leadership in both the House and Senate have named 43 individuals to a conference committee tasked with hammering out the final version of the Congress' financial regulatory reform legislation.

Since 1989, all political action committees and individual employees of companies classified by the Center as part of the finance, insurance and real estate sector (FIRE) have contributed more than $695 million to the campaign committees and leadership PACs of current members of the 111th Congress.

More than $112 million from these interests has benefited the Democrats and Republicans named to the conference committee, which will reconcile differences between the Wall Street reform measures passed by the House and Senate.

Among specific interest groups within the FIRE sector, commercial banks were found to have given about $18 to a member of the conference committee out of every $100 donated to all current members of Congress.

The median amount of contributions from Wall Street interests received by the committee's 16 House and Senate Republicans ($1.75 million) is 81 percent larger than the median amount received by the committee's 27 Democrats ($969,600) -- although the parties have received nearly the same amount when one compares averages.

The conferees who have received the most from the FIRE sector since 1989 are Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). Schumer has received more than $17.5 million, while Dodd has received more than $15.1 million.

The next highest recipient of contributions from Wall Street interests has received less than half as much as either Schumer or Dodd. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the
ranking Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee, has collected more than $7.5 million.

The eight-figure sums collected by Schumer and Dodd increase the Democrats' average as a whole.

Thanks in large part to their hauls from Wall Street, Senate Democrats on the conference committee have received an average of 72 percent more from the FIRE sector than Senate Republican on the conference committee. More...

USPS Enabling Illegal Immigration

This is like allowing a beer distributor to supply the beverages at an AA meeting....

The Examiner --

Looking to capitalize on the growing remittance industry, largely fueled by illegal aliens sending money earned through illegal employment in this country, back home, the U.S. Post Office now offers a wire transfer service, but only to countries in Latin America.

The service, called Dinero Seguro (Sure Money) is being advertised in local post offices with posters showing a Latino family, along with the caption “for your wire transfer of funds back home.” More....

Reason # 745, 329 a Community Organizer shouldn't be President

Spreading around money that we don't have, President Mo' Money has pledged $124 Million for the new Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI). These funds will be used to combat illegal drug trafficking, strengthen regional defense and provide employment training & educational opportunities for the general public and at-risk youth in Caribbean states.

Even more alarming than this is that in ignoring our sky-rocketing unemployment rates, our national security & the regional defense of our one friend in the Middle East, BHO is giving $400 Million of our money that we don't have to a known terrorist group!

From the Washington Times --

Calling the situation in the Gaza Strip "unsustainable," President Obama on Wednesday said the Israeli blockade of the area should be curbed to focus only on weapons and separately announced a new $400 million aid package to help the Palestinian people there and in the West Bank.

Mr. Obama made the comments after meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Oval Office, where the two said they discussed how to allow more goods and services into the region, which has been the target of an airtight blockade by Israel aimed at preventing arms shipments.

Mr. Obama faulted the blockade for barring basic supplies from flowing into Gaza, though he acknowledged Israel's interest in keeping rockets out of the hands of the militant Hamas movement. He said that "there should be ways of focusing narrowly on arms shipments, rather than focusing in a blanket way on stopping everything."

Besides his presidency being consistent with a full frontal assault on our Constitution & is "unsustainable" to us keeping our rights protected within this contract, BHO is ignoring warnings from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that his out of control spending & the ever increasing federal entitlement programs equal to $53 trillion in unfunded liabilities are also "unsustainable" and has our country barreling down the path to an unrecoverable financial ruin.

Implying Isreal's blockade has the poor residents of Gaza fighting for food scraps with rats in the street is nothing more than state-sponsored propaganda. Gazan market shelves filled with food, children's toys, Olympic sized-swimming pools and 5-star like restaurants can hardly be considered an airtight blockade.

By clicking here, you can see pictures that show this is hardly the humanitarian crisis as being portrayed by President Obama -- our Fabricator in Chief.

Even some of Obama's supporters are questioning the truthfulness of his claims and are taking issue with his giving away our money to a known terrorist group that has sworn the destruction of Israel.....

It is one thing to send aid to a country. But it's another to pledge aid to an area run by known terrorists. That is exactly what President Barack Obama has done. (Kentucky Democrat Blog)

Agreeing with Rep. Mike Pence, one has to question exactly who's side this guy is on!

Here Comes the Double Dip Recession

From Dick Morris (via New Patriot Journal) --

The drop in the stock market (now about 1,000 pts on the Dow) is a graphic indication of the stark fact that we are entering the infamous double dip of the recession, long feared and predicted.

The economy is not in a V after all (down and then up) but in a W (down, up, down again, and then, finally, up). And the cause of the second dip is not the recession itself, but the cure administered to it by President Obama and the Democratic Congress.

Consider the indications (data provided by New America Foundation, analysis by Sherle R. Schwanninger and Samuel Sherraden):

• GDP growth has only been 2.2%, 5.6%, and 3.2% for each of the last three quarters, well below the rebounds typical in past recessions.

• Total civilian employment has rebounded by only 1% since the depth of the unemployment five months ago. In 1973, at a comparable point, it had rebounded by 7%. In 1981 by 8%. In 1990 by 4%. And in 2001 by 3%. U-6, the broadest measure of unemployment stands at 17.1% and we need 12.8 million new jobs.

• Housing prices have dropped by 30% since 2006 and “many economists expect housing prices to decline at least another 10%” according to Schwanninger and Sherraden.

• While corporate profits are 30.6% higher than one year ago, wages are up by only 1.6%, less than half their rate of increase two years ago.

• Financial sector profits make up 35.7% of all domestic corporate profits. These gains are driven by trading revenue which does not reflect real economic growth. Schwanninger and Sherraden report that “In the first quarter of 2010, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America earned 72%, 45%, and 16% of their net revenue [respectively] from trading profits.”

• Personal savings dropped from a high of almost 6% to 2.7% in March, 2010 so households have cut their debt by just $300 billion since it peaked in 2008. So household debt, which rose from 60% of GDP in 1990 to almost 100% in 2008, has only dropped to 97%. It has a long, long way to go before it goes down enough to free consumers to spend more.

• Meanwhile, retail sales have averaged only a 1.7% increase over the past three quarters, half of which was merely to restock inventories. Schwanninger and Sherraden note that “in a typical recovery, the rebound is closer to 3.5%.” And most of that increase is due to expanding government cash transfer payments which now make up 18.3% of personal income. “Excluding transfer payments, personal income increased just 0.3% since the third quarter of 2009.”

• And stimulus spending, which has failed to generate private sector growth, is now winding down. Only 43% of the tax benefits and entitlement spending remain to be doled out as does 63% of the contracts, grants and loans in the stimulus package.

• The strengthening of the dollar due to the collapse of the Euro will dry upp US export trade. Exports to EU nations account for 21% of American and 20% of Chinese exports. Schwanninger and Sherraden note that “A European slowdown will reduce demand for the two primary engines of world economic growth.”

But this second downturn in the economy will be accompanied by inflation, making it worse than the first recession. With interest rates set to rise (because the fed is no longer massively purchasing securities to keep them down), taxes set to go up (because of Obama’s ideology), and global energy use about to increase sending prices higher (because the rest of the world is recovering), prices have to go up. But with no growth in real personal income and household credit close to all time highs, there is not enough demand to pay the higher prices, so a deeper slump will ensue.

The solution? Cut – don’t raise – taxes. And bring down the deficit through massive spending cuts. Reduce our borrowing needs by slashing our spending. Free up capital to feed job growth.

It should be evident to all that Obamanomics is a disaster. It reminds one of nothing so much as the Medieval practice of bleeding the patient to make him well by expelling the evil spirits that dwelt within. When the patient did not recover, they just bled him more and, when he died, they just said that the spirits killed him. The practice of spending, borrowing, and then taxing to fuel job growth is the modern analogy.

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No Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants; Contact Senator George Voinovich TODAY!

Patriots,

The Grassroots Rally Team of Ohio is asking everyone join us in calling and faxing Senator Voinovich's Columbus office on Thursday June 10th at 3:00 P.M. We need to let him know there are Ohioans that oppose amnesty. We need the phones ringing while Reform Immigration For America is in his office demanding amnesty.

Senator George Voinovich
Phone Number: 614-469-6697
Fax Number: 614-469-7733

Below is the event being planned by Reform Immigration for America --

We can all agree that our current immigration system is broken. Families and communities are being torn apart by raids, fear, and hatred.

The longer Senator Voinovich and others wait to act on immigration reform, the more people suffer and the more the American dream is deferred for millions of people.

This Thursday is your chance to tell Senator Voinovich that the time to end the suffering is now. Supporters will rally by High Street at the Ohio Statehouse at 3 PM this Thursday. Then we’ll march to Senator George Voinovich’s office to demand his support for real immigration reform.

If you are unable to call Senator Voinovich's office today at 3pm, please make sure to contact his office sometime through the day and let him know you oppose any Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants. Remind Senator Voinovich Immigration Reform is not needed -- we already have laws to become a U.S. citizen.