We Called It "Health Care" Reform

Epic Defeat... UPDATE: All Your Rights Can Be Taken Away With A Tax

A bitter pill: SCOTUS upholds Obamacare and individual mandate.

I'm reminded of a famous quote:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

From this point forward, it literally will take an act of Congress to get the health care you need.

UPDATE: Apparently Congress can do anything it wants to you as long as it's "characterized as a tax." (So this means Obama violated is solemn tax pledge?)

UPDATE II: "The Medicaid expansion thus violates the Constitution" -- says states have choice on participating in expansion.

The End is Near

The end is almost here. This is a pretty good synopsis of what lies ahead.

Secrecy or Stupidity? Lawmakers Mum on ObamaCare Contingency Plans

CNN may be creating a little drama for clicks here, but why haven't we heard anything about what will happen if the Supreme Court strikes down ObamaCare? Are lawmakers unprepared or are they hiding something?

With a decision looming from the U.S. Supreme Court on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's sweeping health care law, two lawmakers wouldn't describe in detail Sunday any plans for replacing the landmark piece of legislation.

Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," neither Republican Sen. John Barrasso nor Democratic Rep. Chris van Hollen could specify what preparations they were making should the Affordable Care Act be struck down.

RomneyCare: Replacing Obama's Big-Government Cronyism With Romney's Big-Government Cronyism

GIANT RED FLAG:

Romney’s de facto chief of staff, Mike Leavitt, wants to implement ObamaCare exchanges:

...he is convinced that “exchanges are part of the future, no matter what.”

In other words, Romney wants to repeal ObamaCare only to replace it with ObamaCare Lite.

Romney's liberal buddy would stand to profit from ObamaCare exchanges:

Leavitt is one of the few Republicans who has been actively campaigning for governors to implement Obamacare’s health care exchanges at the state level. Conveniently enough, his consultancy group would profit from such an expansion of government because he has won contracts to set up the exchanges.

If Romney stays on this course, I won't vote for him.

Justice Sotomayor's Shocking Ignorance

The following post was originally published at American Thinker

The liberal Supreme Court justices have demonstrated profound and shocking ignorance of the American health care system. Here's one of the most jarring examples:

"What percentage of the American people who took their son or daughter to an emergency room and that child was turned away because the parent didn't have insurance," asked Sotomayor, "... do you think there's a large percentage of the American population that would stand for the death of that child -- (who) had an allergic reaction and a simple shot would have saved the child?"

I have a precise answer for Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The percentage of American people who took their son or daughter to an emergency room and were turned away because the parent didn't have insurance is exactly zero.

No person, whether American or not, is ever turned away from an emergency room for lack of health insurance. Ever.

This simply does not happen.

Here's why:

1. It's illegal.

Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is a U.S. Act of Congress passed in 1986 as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). It requires hospitals to provide care to anyone needing emergency healthcare treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay. There are no reimbursement provisions. Participating hospitals may only transfer or discharge patients needing emergency treatment under their own informed consent, after stabilization, or when their condition requires transfer to a hospital better equipped to administer the treatment.

You can thank Republican President Ronald Reagan for that, for better or for worse.

As a health care provider who interacts with emergency room physicians on a daily basis, I can attest to the fact that seriously ill patients are never discharged from an emergency room in the tragic fashion that Sonia Sotomayor imagines. Even uninsured patients with minor, self-limited problems are treated better than that.

2. Morality and the patient-doctor relationship

Although this might come as a shocking revelation to liberal Democrats, most physicians understand the difference between right and wrong. No physician would turn away a child simply because the parent didn't have insurance. This is primarily because physicians, even conservative ones, are as compassionate as liberal Supreme Court justices. (And in securing scarce and enormously expensive resources for their patients in an emergency, physicians have virtually unlimited latitude.)

3. The legal risks of selfish, short-sighted decisions are enormous.

A jury would have no mercy on a physician who withheld treatment inappropriately, causing a child to die. The financial and professional consequences would be devastating.

It's disheartening to note that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, as profoundly ignorant as she is, will be making a monumental decision about a 2,700 page health care law.

Read the rest at American Thinker.

x-posted

Update:

Discussion at The Lonely Conservative... Note to Justice Sotomayor: Uninsured are not Turned Away from ERs. Thanks!

Update II:

Libertarian Patriot: "If you believe the progressives, there are corpses stacking up everywhere..."

Update III:

Liberals have suggested that I've misinterpreted Sotomayor by taking Sotomayor's comments out of context. Here's more context via Joe Conason, a liberal commentator:

Michael Carvin, the eminent attorney representing the National Federation of Independent Business, specifically rejected the notion that overturning health reform could result in denying care to the uninsured, during a crucial exchange with Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

"What percentage of the American people who took their son or daughter to an emergency room and that child was turned away because the parent didn't have insurance," asked Sotomayor, "... do you think there's a large percentage of the American population that would stand for the death of that child -- (who) had an allergic reaction and a simple shot would have saved the child?"

In his response, Carvin scolded, "One of the more pernicious, misleading impressions that the government has made is that we are somehow advocating that people be -- could get thrown out of emergency rooms, or that this alternative that they've hypothesized is going to be enforced by throwing people out of emergency rooms."

No post-Obamacare health care system would allow (or attempt to create) anything like the absurd scenario Sotomayor described. EMTALA precludes that kind of outcome.

The entire transcript of the oral argument is here.

Update IV: Am I too charitable in giving Sotomayor the benefit of the doubt by calling her ignorant?

Keith Wetzel: "Is she truly that ignorant? Or is she appealing to the ignorance of others?"

Update V: Thanks to the 2,000 Facebook users and 400 Twitter users who shared this story.

Unpredictable and Often Involuntary?

If Obamacare is found to be constitutional, forcing us to buy private health insurance, is there anything the government can't force us to buy?

What about cell phones for emergencies? Broccoli for good health? Burial insurance for unexpected death? An automobile for emergency transportation? Is there any "limiting principle"?

The best argument the Obama government can come up with is that the federal government will not be able force citizens to purchase other important goods and services, because there is nothing out there that is as unpredictable or as involuntary as the need for health care. Health care is unique, so we can be forced to purchase health insurance, but we can't be forced to buy anything else, because everything else is predictable, voluntary and non-unique.

Are you convinced by this argument? Supreme Court Justice Scalia wasn't convinced either:

ANTONIN SCALIA, associate justice, U.S. Supreme Court: ... It may well be that everybody needs health care sooner or later, but not everybody needs a heart transplant. Not everybody needs a liver transplant. I mean. . .

DONALD VERRILLI, solicitor general of the United States: That's correct, Justice Scalia, but you never know whether you're going to be that person.

ANTONIN SCALIA: . . . could you define the market -- everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food. Therefore, everybody's in the market. Therefore, you can make people buy broccoli.

DONALD VERRILLI: No. That's quite different. It's quite different. The food market, while it shares that trait, that everybody's in it, it is not a market in which your participation is often unpredictable and often involuntarily.

Anthony Kennedy, the court's swing vote, was not convinced:

At the end of the day’s argument Kennedy seemed skeptical of the government’s argument that the health care market is unique from other markets. He said, “And the government tells us that’s because the insurance market is unique. And in the next case, it’ll say the next market is unique.”

Speaking of unique markets, off the top of my head I can imagine being unpredictably and involuntarily in need of several other products: e.g., private legal services, renter's insurance, and homeowner's insurance.

If I don't happen to suffer from any serious illness before I'm old enough to get health care coverage through Medicare (which I'm currently paying for), I might need any of the above much more than I need comprehensive private health insurance.

But the government doesn't think we should be allowed to make our own decisions about what goods and services are most appropriate for our own lives.

Love Me at Quickmeme

Quickmeme.com is a fun place to slap a trenchant little quip on an amusing picture. Lately, more conservatives have been leaving their mark at Quickmeme. Check out the "College Liberal" memes and the ones on Rutherford B Hayes.

It looks like "Upvoting Obama" is catching on fast. Kindly browse out the fine selection of anti-Obamacare memes by yours truly and give me some love by clicking on the smiley faces. Popular memes rise to the top.

SAMPLES:

→ VOTE HERE (Shamelessly borrowed from David Burge)

→ VOTE HERE

→ VOTE HERE

MORE HERE.

Romney Made Iowans Pay

One-term wonder Mitt Romney is proud of his accomplishments as Governor of liberal Massachusetts. He's particularly proud of his health care "reform" law.

Here's Romney's best kept secret: Massachusetts isn't paying for it! The state has been able to shift the majority of the costs of RomneyCare to the federal government.

Do voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina know this?

More RomneyCare enlightenment here.

x-posted

RomneyCare: The Big Lie

September 22, 2011:

"Let me tell you this about our system in Massachusetts: 92 percent of our people were insured before we put our plan in place. Nothing’s changed for them. The system is the same..."

~ Willard Mitt Romney

Actually, quite a bit has changed for the people of Massachusetts since Mitt Romney signed the Massachusetts health care law in 2006 (with Ted Kennedy standing over his shoulder).

Here are the facts:

• RomneyCare killed more than 18,000 jobs in Massachusetts in 2010.
• Romney's health care law reduced personal income for workers and families.
• Under RomneyCare, private health insurance costs have risen by $4.311 billion in Massachusetts.
• Access to primary care physicians is becoming more restricted, as wait times continue to increase.
• Most primary care practices are closed to new patients.

Shortly before his plan became law, Governor Romney claimed that "Every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance and the costs of health care will be reduced. And we will need no new taxes, no employer mandate and no government takeover to make this happen." Nothing could be more completely divorced from the truth:

• With RomneyCare in place, state health care expenditures have risen by $414 million.
• The federal government has spent an additional $2.418 billion on Medicaid for Massachusetts.
• Medicare expenditures increased by $1.426 billion.
• Under Romney's health care law, the cumulative increase in the cost of health care has come to $8.569 billion, so far.
• Employers "who employ 11 or more full-time equivalent employees" and do not make a "fair and reasonable contribution" to their employees' health insurance are required to pay a fine.
• Mitt Romney increased taxes the moment he signed RomneyCare.

Here's the best kept secret: Massachusetts isn't paying for it! The state has been able to shift the majority of the costs to the federal government.

More troubling facts:

• More emergency room crowding: Despite reassuring predictions to the contrary, wasteful "low severity" ER visits continue to skyrocket. The total cost of emergency visits has soared by 36%.
• The number of people "gaming" the state’s health insurance system (by purchasing coverage only when they are sick) quadrupled from 2006 to 2008.
• RomneyCare increased single-coverage employer-sponsored insurance premiums by about 6 percent.
• As a direct result of Romney's proudest achievement, low-to-medium earning families often suffer financially when they work harder to earn more money.

The future of RomneyCare:

• Government rationing
• Price controls
• All physicians become government employees?
• Repeal?

Why is Mitt Romney so proud of RomneyCare?

x-posted

UPDATE: Linked at American Power. Thanks!

UPDATE II: Linked at The Other McCain! Thank you.

When Mitt Romney's Ideas Metastasize

The link between ObamaCare and RomneyCare is like the link between metastatic cancer and its primary tumor. For example: Barack Obama borrowed Mitt Romney's advisors...

Newly obtained White House records provide fresh details on how senior Obama administration officials used Mitt Romney’s landmark health-care law in Massachusetts as a model for the new federal law, including recruiting some of Romney’s own health care advisers and experts to help craft the act now derided by Republicans as “Obamacare.”

The records, gleaned from White House visitor logs reviewed by NBC News, show that senior White House officials had a dozen meetings in 2009 with three health-care advisers and experts who helped shape the health care reform law signed by Romney in 2006, when the Republican presidential candidate was governor of Massachusetts. One of those meetings, on July 20, 2009, was in the Oval Office and presided over by President Barack Obama, the records show.

“The White House wanted to lean a lot on what we’d done in Massachusetts,” said Jon Gruber, an MIT economist who advised the Romney administration on health care and who attended five meetings at the Obama White House in 2009, including the meeting with the president. “They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model.”

(Via HotAir) Also via Hot Air, this comment:

"The news here is…the level of access provided to RomneyCare architects, including to Obama himself…"

With all the damage they've already done, do we really want to send all of Team Romney to the White House?

x-posted

Young Adults on ObamaCare: Winning The Future?

(hhs.gov)

The number of young (i.e., mostly healthy) adults with health insurance has risen by 3.5 percentage points:

The Department of Health and Human Services is trumpeting new survey results showing a huge increase in the number of young adults with health insurance as sign that [Obamacare] has been a success.

According to a survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, nearly one million adults under the age of 26 gained health insurance in 2011. As a result, the percentage of adults between the ages of 19 and 25 with health insurance rose from 66.1% in 2010 to 69.6 this year.

One of the major provisions of [ObamaCare] allowed young adults to remain on their parents' health insurance program until age 26. That provision went into effect last September.

On the other hand, the percentage adults over the age 26 with health insurance decreased by almost 5 percentage points over the same period. This is a fact that our liberal counterparts at Firedoglake have not missed:

...overall that improvement has not been large enough to make up for the steady loss of insurance coverage due to high unemployment and rising insurance premiums. The percentage of Americans without insurance has continued to climb since the passage of [Obamacare] and is now at 17.4 percent among all Americans.

Let's not forget that the chain reaction of Obamacare, rising insurance premiums and rising unemployment was painfully predictable.

Let's also remember that there's no such thing as a free lunch. One commenter looks at it this way:

Of course more young people are getting health insurance - people like me are paying for it. My insurance went up 17% this year because of the provision in Obama care where young adults, up to the age of 26, can be covered by their parents plan.

This is not merely an unproven anecdotal observation:

The annual Milliman Medical Index (MMI) measures the total cost of healthcare for a typical family of four covered by a preferred provider plan (PPO). The 2011 MMI cost is $19,393, an increase of $1,319, or 7.3% over 2010...

Employees' share of the total cost is at an all-time high, having increased from 36.8% in the first year of the MMI (2005) to 39.7% in 2011.

Unfortunately, young adults who aren't covered by their parents are particularly hard-hit by Obamacare's restriction on age rating of premiums. Mandated “rate compression” forces insurers to overprice coverage for younger individuals.

To summarize, health care costs for families (including young adults) are at an all-time high. And while more young adults now have a health insurance card to carry around, health insurance coverage for adults over the age of 26 has dropped by approximately 5 percentage points.

Is this what "Winning The Future" is supposed to look like?

ADDENDA:

The annual Milliman Medical Index (MMI) measures the total cost of healthcare for a typical family of four covered by a preferred provider plan (PPO). The 2011 MMI cost is $19,393, an increase of $1,319, or 7.3% over 2010:

ANNUAL MEDICAL COSTS FOR FAMILY OF FOUR

Medical costs for employees and employers continue to rise steadily:

MEDICAL COSTS BY SOURCE OF PAYMENT

x-posted

Discussion: Memeorandum

UPDATE: Linked at The Lonely Conservative. Thanks!

Wholly Novel and Potentially Unbounded

Another blow to Obama's pièce de résistance:

...Barack Obama's signature healthcare law suffered a setback on Friday when an appeals court ruled that it was unconstitutional to require all Americans to buy insurance or face a penalty.

The U.S. Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, ruled 2 to 1 that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to buy coverage...

ObamaCare isn't the centerpiece of Obama's presidency simply because Obama devoted almost all of his time and bully pulpit mojo to its passage. ObamaCare also reflects the central themes of Obama's presidential philosophies.

Obama promised a wholly novel approach ― one that would "fundamentally transform the United States of America."

This was his idea of "change."

Perhaps more importantly, Obama promised a government unbounded, unconstrained, and unconcerned about the perils of excessive power. Obama framed this idea in his inaugural address:

"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works..."

HotAir pulls out an important phrase from the 11th Circuit's majority opinion. Bill Clinton appointee Frank Hull and George H.W. Bush appointee Joel Dubina declared the mandate to be “a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority.”

I would submit that the phrase "wholly novel and potentially unbound" is a perfect description of Obama's dangerously ambivalent vision for the Federal Government of the United States.

Discussion: Memeorandum

x-posted

Equal Division of Misery

Behold the future of American health care!

An official report from an independent panel that advises the British National Health Service (NHS), revealed that the NHS delays operations 'as it waits for patients to die or go private,' and that the NHS also forces private hospitals to delay surgeries so that patients at private facilities can suffer just as much:

An independent watchdog accused the National Health Service of forcing waiting times for surgery even when unnecessary in order to reduce the number of publicly-funded procedures in an attempt to save money. In fact, as the Telegraph reports, the NHS forced private hospitals to delay surgeries, too, in a “levelling down” of health care service to keep the NHS from looking bad:

Health service trusts are “imposing pain and inconvenience” by making patients wait longer than necessary, in some cases as long as four months, the study found.

Executives believe the delays mean some people will remove themselves from lists “either by dying or by paying for their own treatment” claims the report, by an independent watchdog that advises the NHS. …

Under government targets, patients should be treated within 18 weeks of referral by a GP. But even when surgeons could see them far sooner, the study found that some trusts made hospitals wait as long as 15 weeks before operating. The tactic forced private hospitals, which were more likely to be able to treat patients quickly, to operate as slowly as overcrowded NHS units in an “unfortunate levelling down”.

Remember, the Obama administration openly aspires to pattern the American health care system after the British NHS:

Dr. Donald Berwick, nominated by President Barack Obama to run Medicare and Medicaid, praised the government-owned British National Health Service (NHS) for not letting their health care system 'play out in the darkness of private enterprise.'

Berwick is also quite fond of the British health care rationing organization, NICE.

Q: NICE is a bogeyman here in the United States.

A: I know that, and it’s a misunderstanding of the deepest sort. NICE is extremely effective and a conscientious, valuable, and — importantly — knowledge-building system. The fact that it’s a bogeyman in this country is a political fact, not a technical one.

I can think of no better real-world illustration of Winston Churchill's famous quote:

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, While the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery"

Obama's Crank Yankers Call to Harass Your Doc

If you're wondering why the telephone line is busy at your doctor's office, it might be because one of Obama's people is wasting everyone's time.

In the near future, pranksters from the Obama administration will be jamming the lines at doctors' offices with thousands of fake requests. The goal is to find out if your doctor gives preferential treatment to patients with private insurance:

In the mystery shopper survey, administration officials said, a federal contractor will call the offices of 4,185 doctors — 465 in each of nine states: Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. The doctors will include pediatricians and obstetrician-gynecologists.

The calls are to begin in a few months, with preliminary results from the survey expected next spring. Each office will be called at least twice — by a person who supposedly has private insurance and by someone who supposedly has public insurance.

What "supposedly" means is that this is all a big fat ruse. Obama's friends will be calling from Chicago, but the doctors' offices won't know that:

To make sure they are not detected, secret shoppers will hide their telephone numbers by blocking caller ID information.

One of the purported objectives of the survey is to punish Obama's enemies address the increasingly severe shortage of primary care doctors:

[The survey] will also try to discover whether doctors are accepting patients with private insurance while turning away those in government health programs that pay lower reimbursement rates.

But we already know the answer to this question:

Medicaid, the program for low-income people, pays so little that many doctors refuse to accept Medicaid patients. This could become a more serious problem in 2014, when [ObamaCare] will greatly expand eligibility for Medicaid.

And as Pat Austin notes, we already know where the biggest physician shortages are.

How much do you want to bet that the O-bots conducting this survey will make shocking discoveries about health care disparities in which women, the poor and minorities are the hardest hit?

If you have qualms about Obama's "snoopy survey," take comfort in knowing that Big O is simply supersizing one of Dubya's initiatives (supposedly):

Federal officials said the initial survey would cost $347,370... The White House defended the survey, saying a similar technique had been used on a smaller scale in President George W. Bush’s administration.

No one knows how well this will work, but if all goes as planned, this could become a powerful new tool for government intrusion into the private sector:

Jennifer Benz, a research scientist at the center, said one purpose of the study was to determine whether the use of mystery shoppers would be a feasible way to track access to primary care in the future.

Why stop with primary care? Soon every business could be getting calls from Uncle Sam.

Synopsis...

Are we supposed to be surprised when they find out that people who are stuck with cheap, crappy, government-managed health programs wait longer for non-urgent health care services?

While we’re on this theme, how about some mystery lobbyists at the White House? Send them to congress too. Send in some mystery billionaire donors while you’re at it. Then get some mystery constituents into congressional offices.

Let’s collect some data!

I'm sure someone like James O'Keefe would be happy to help out with a project like that.

Obama's Death Panel: A Double Dose of Anti-Constitutional Outrages

Obamacare's death panel, a.k.a. the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), is a constitutional travesty:

The point of PPACA [Obamacare] is cost containment. This supposedly depends on the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB, which is a perfect expression of the progressive mind, is to be composed of 15 presidential appointees empowered to reduce Medicare spending - which is 13 percent of federal spending - to certain stipulated targets. IPAB is to do this by making "proposals" or "recommendations" to limit costs by limiting reimbursements to doctors. This, inevitably, will limit available treatments - and access to care when physicians leave the Medicare system.

The PPACA repeatedly refers to any IPAB proposal as a "legislative proposal" and speaks of "the legislation introduced" by the IPAB. Each proposal automatically becomes law unless Congress passes a measure cutting medical spending as much as IPAB would.

This is a travesty of lawmaking: An executive branch agency makes laws unless Congress enacts legislation to achieve the executive agency's aim.

And it gets worse. Any resolution to abolish the IPAB must pass both houses of Congress. And no such resolution can be introduced before 2017 or after Feb. 1, 2017, and must be enacted by Aug. 15 of that year. And if passed, it cannot take effect until 2020. It is transparently designed to permanently entrench IPAB - never mind the principle that one Congress cannot by statute bind another Congress from altering that statute.

...the IPAB is doubly anti-constitutional. It derogates the powers of Congress. And it ignores the separation of powers: It is an executive agency, its members appointed by the president, exercising legislative powers over which neither Congress nor the judiciary can exercise proper control.

[emphasis added]

Note that the author, George Will, assumes that physicians will be leaving the system en masse. In my humble opinion, he is correct in doing so.

In all the excitement over Anthony's Weiner, this important piece by George Will has been largely overlooked. Go read the rest and share it with your friends.

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The_Real_CA: Bill Whittle: Turncoat Nation

Quote of the Day:

"Women will compete with men and ... more bastards to be left on the steps of mosques."

Romney's Happy Prophecy: One Nation Under Mandates

With coercion and oppression for all...

Make no mistake about it, Mitt Romney looks forward to the day when every American is forced by government to make health care decisions at the point of a gun:

MR. RUSSERT: So if a state chose a mandate, it wouldn’t bother you?

MR. ROMNEY: I’d think it’s a terrific idea. I think you’re going to find when it’s all said and done, after all these states that are the laboratories of democracy, get their chance to try their own plans, but those who follow the path that we pursued will find it’s the best path, and we’ll end up with a nation that’s taken a mandate approach.

Think Mitt has changed his mind since making the statement above? Think again.

Mitt Romney is proud of the legacy of his health care mandate in Massachusetts, dire consequences notwithstanding.

UPDATE: Romney supported an individual health insurance mandate during the HillaryCare debate.

UPDATE II: The Wall Street Journal Delivers A Devastating Mitt Romney Takedown (via Business Insider)

Mr. Romney could push someone out of an airplane and blame the ground for killing him.

More

Mitt Romney: Proud of Massachusetts health care law

Massachusetts Doctors Not Seeing New Patients, Wait Times Lengthening

5 painful health-care lessons from Massachusetts

Mitt Romney: "No Apologies"

Romney Should Scrap Presidential Run to Avoid Ghost of Health Care Reform

X-posted

Obama's War on the First Amendment

Would you like to share your political views with other Americans by making a private contribution to an organization that shares your perspective?

You have every right to do so! Right?

Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Watch out buddy. Congress may not be able to silence you, but Obama believes that he can:

The White House last week began circulating a draft executive order that would require companies seeking government contracts to disclose contributions -- including those that otherwise would have been secret -- to groups that air political ads attacking or supporting candidates...

Administration critics, including the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are seizing on the White House's draft executive order, in particular, as evidence of an attempt to use executive power to punish or silence political adversaries, while rewarding supporters.

Calling the draft executive order "an affront to the separation of powers ... (and) to free speech," chamber spokeswoman Blair Latoff said it "lays the groundwork for a political litmus test for companies that wish to do business with the federal government" and is "less about disclosure than intimidation."

I think the Chamber of Commerce is right. Remember this headline?

A War Of Lies Against The Chamber

And this one from the New York Times?

Is Obama’s War With U.S. Chamber of Commerce Over?

Of course the war isn't over. Bellicose Obama never ends his wars.

To the point, if King Obama doesn't monitor the political activities of his subjects, how will he know "whose ass to kick"? How will he be able to punish his enemies and reward his friends? How will his administration decide who will receive his coveted Weiner Waivers?

X-posted at LCR

Obamacare: 6 Pages of Law Become 1,000 Pages of Regulation

A big eye-opener from our friends at Nealz Nuze:

In the 2700 pages of ObamaCare there are six pages that are devoted to something called "accountable care organizations." Somewhere in the bowels of the offices that house our wonderful Department of Health and Human Services we find a team of rule writers who were assigned the responsibility of writing the rules and regulations governing these six pages of ObamaCare. Tomorrow the work of these bureaucrats will see the light of day when HHS releases these rules. Would anybody care to guess just how many pages these rules will fill in the Federal Register? Try 1000. Yup, you got it! Six pages of ObamaCare are being transformed into 1000 new rules and regulations that will have to be followed by hospitals and doctors who formed networks for the delivery of patient care.

At that rate, we can expect ObamaCare to generate 450,000 pages of regulations. Sweet.

Even if every six pages of the health care law generates only one quarter of the regulations predicted by the example above, we can expect well over 100,000 pages of regulatory diarrhea from ObamaCare.

More

ACOs: A gold rush for high-priced lawyers and consultants.

Are ACOs A Financial Suicide Pact? "...with a plan like this, what could go wrong? Well, one thing that could go wrong is fiscal reality."

Update:

Hey, not so bad after all! ONLY 492 pages.

x-posted