Facts Are Stubborn Things

In support of Congress passing the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare as the panacea to America's healthcare woes President Barack Hussein Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a host of liberal Democrats ridiculed and chastised critics saying “facts are stubborn things” as they spread their own misinformation about the law, including these gems:

• 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.
• Premiums will be reduced by $2,500.
• The cost around $900 Billion over 10 years.
• ObamaCare will reduce the debt by $4 Trillion.
• ObamaCare will not cover illegal aliens.
• ObamaCare will not include abortions on-demand
• Conservatives have not offered an alternative.

The Washington Post, arguably one of the most liberal newspapers and ardent Obama supporters, recently reviewed the first to statements and awarded four Pinocchios, the highest possible, effectively saying the statements were outright lies. The remaining statements were never supportable and are simply not true. That they entered and remain in the public's ObamaCare consciousness represents a failure of America's news outlets to investigate and report the truth.

All of which ignores the fundamental healthcare problem identified and championed by President Bill Clinton until he was silenced by Obama, America's exorbitant and growing spending on healthcare! The graph below was reported by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), in 2011, the most recent year in which most of the countries reported data on healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP.

• The U.S. spent 17.7% of its GDP on health care
• None of the other countries reported spending higher than 11.9%
• The US GDP for 2011 was $14.4 Trillion
• Therefore America spent $2.6 Trillion on healthcare that year
• The Congressional Budget Office reports the cost of ObamaCare is $1.8 Trillion over 10 years
• Spread evenly the cost for ObamaCare is $180 Billion a year.
• Therefore, ObamaCare will increase annual spending on healthcare by 7%.
• Which will in turn increase annual spending as a percentage of GDP to 18.9%

These expenditures are all the more amazing when you consider that America’s GDP is far and away greater than most other nations as shown in the graph below of the worlds top 10 GDPs!

America's spending on healthcare is dramatically disproportional to other countries and ObamaCare is not helping!

While the president was misleading America and enslaving future generations with socialistic policies that have never worked and in complete contradiction to Obama's lie that conservatives were not offering a solution the Cato Institute offered the following bright light: Yes, Mr. President: A Free Market Can Fix Health Care.

Obama was right about one thing, facts are stubborn things. America never should have enacted ObamaCare and had Barack Obama and his supporting cast of deceivers not lied about the benefits of ObamaCare so utterly and pervasively America would be far better off than we are now.

Happy Halloween!

America's Troubled Finances

It is amazing to me that people can be so ignorant of America's finances. For the past couple of years John Stossel has been trying to show America's budget to numbers most could relate and appreciate like this one here from John Stossel's Blog, on 22 February 2012:

Anyone who see those figures instantly understands that the situation cannot continue forever. Well, everyone it seems except the dimwit liberals. Somehow they think that one day politicians are going to wake up and realize that they cannot continue to buy votes by giving away other people's money, because they will have taken it all just as liberal pundit Bob Beckel recently admitted to Stossel.

Another, more recent view of America's finances was published by Freedom worksFreedom Works on 19 October 2013:

When will we wake up and stop celebrating liberal's unbridled spending?

Progress = Forget the Past

Ideas about government, its size and scope have changed very little over the years. What does change is our perspective and recollection of what has happened before. Frederic Bastiat's essays from 150 years ago are just as apropos today as they were then. The labels, how they are explained and used and how they are applied to specifics of the era, country and the situation make them sound different, but they are not.

Most of the discussions on government policies and laws are fundamentally about where we want to be on the governmental spectrum. On the far left is absolute governmental control and no or very little personal freedom. This has many faces and control is asserted via religion, nationalism or idealism and includes forms of communism, fascism and totalitarianism. On the far right is anarchy or the complete absence of governmental control and total personal freedom.

The founding fathers established a government right of center emphasizing individual freedoms and liberties, limited government, equal justice and equality of opportunity. The government they designed and implemented was the meant that anyone could grow up to be anything in America.

Liberal progressive meddling has moved us left of center, preferring bigger government, more spending and limitations on our personal freedoms, social justice, equality of outcomes and a limited or narrow disparity between the poorest and the wealthiest citizens.

Cost of ObamaCare

Far too many people, mostly liberals, are believing the deceptions President Obama and his supporting cast of prevaricators have been putting forth about the benefits of ObamaCare. The evidence is clear and convincing that ObamaCare is not beneficial and in fact it is harming America. And because the media is down playing ObamaCare negatives the true believer liberals can ignore the truth! And the truth is as follows.

• UPS has announced it would no longer cover spouses who can obtain coverage through their own employers New York Times, 8/21/2013
• Twenty percent of nearly 600 large employers in a survey completed this year charged a spouse surcharge in 2013. An additional thirteen plan to do it next year Huffington Post, 9/11/2013
• Trader Joe's tells employees that they will no longer offer healthcare for employees working less than 30 hours per week. Offers those employees $500 to help find coverage. In California, where Trader Joe is incorporated, the monthly premium for a 27 year-old is $215 Huffington Post, 9/11/2013
• 351 employers reduced workers hours below the 30 hour per week threshold so that they would not be liable to include them in their health care coverage pool Investor Business Daily, 10/18/2013
• One of the major cost drivers of ObamaCare is the HHS mandated coverage which has caused prices to rise in all but five states Heritage.org, 10/16/2013
• ObamaCare hates competition and has replaced many low income state alternatives as is the case of a young lady in Michigan whose local $75 a monthly premium jumped to $319 a month plus a $6,000 deductible Campus Reform, 10/9/2013
• The Cleveland Clinic sited by the President as a model for healthcare has announced $300 million cuts, including layoffs and early retirement buyouts and the closing of a 144-bed skilled nursing facility cited ObamaCare as the reason U.S. News and World Report, 9/18/2013
• The 4th Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures says the government cannot arbitrarily enter your home, meanwhile ObamaCare includes Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program FreedomOutpost.com, 10/2/2013 reviews the language and finds very disturbing language suggesting that smoking parents may be subjected to home visits that they cannot refuse
• All of your personal data can be used for law enforcement and audit activities under ObamaCare Weekly Standard, 10/8/2013
• Now that we are learning what in ObamaCare instead of liking what we are finding as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Democrats are becoming increasingly concerned that ObamaCare's cost cutting board will harm people on Medicare as Gov. Sarah Palin warned when she called them Death Panels The Hill, 8/8/2013
• President ignores the law and unconstitutionally delays the employer mandate for a year Forbes, 8/5/2013 exacerbating the social divide he has been fomenting
• Contrary to the President's promise that if people like their plan they can keep their plan, 300,000 Floridians, 160,000 Californians and probably millions more across the country will lose their existing healthcare insurance plans because they do not meet the ObamaCare minimum requirements NBC News, 10/18/2013

Within the first couple of years of its passage, unions and companies aware enough to do so, scrambled for waivers. The last report I found from HotAir.com, 7/16/2011 says the number of waivers issued was approaching the 1,500 mark. If ObamaCare was going to be so good, how come so many said no they don't want any part in it?

Now that the exchanges are open, the President and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius say they don't know how many have signed up. NPR quoted the president was targeting 500,000 sign-up by October 31. According to Kantar US Insights who was finally able to review ObamaCare data only about 36,000 people were able to successfully enroll in the first 5 days The Hill, 10/16/2013! At that rate, far fewer will enroll than the president predicted. And that is worrisome since ObamaCare needs widespread acceptance and enrollment from the young and healthy to cover the cost of the older and infirmed.

And the actual costs? The table below tells an expensive story.

Is it any wonder why enrollment is so sad?

Concealed Permit Holder Defends Himself

An Arkansas man was shot and killed when he attempted to rob a pharmacist as he was opening up his Dumas drug store early Friday morning.

Tavell Lawson, 31, entered the Meador Pharmacy behind its owner, Bill Canada, demanding money, with mask on and gun drawn.

According to KATV.com:

• He [Canada] tried to get away and told Lawson to stop, but Lawson continued to follow him, according to police.
• Canada said that’s when he then pulled out a gun, shot and killed Lawson. Lawson was pronounced dead at the scene.

Canada has a concealed permit and was not charged.

Via BizPac Review

Colorado Lunacy Jesus Not Permitted in Cemetery!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or 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.

        First Amendment, United States Constitution.

The founding fathers were smart men. They understood the importance of morality. They knew that too much morality in the form of a state mandated religion might lead to the religion mattering more than the republic they were starting. And they knew that the opposite, a totally non-secular view could well lead to an a moral society, or, at least, one that did not value morals so they included a prohibition against government interfering with each citizens individual right to the free exercise of their religion.

Some misguided and ignorant Ovid, Colorado politicians and bureaucrats recently ignored the part about prohibiting the free exercise of religion when they decided to refuse to engrave "Jesus" on a preacher's wife's grave marker.

Really? Really can they be that stupid?

Apparently, sadly, the answer is yes ...

Rep. Gowdy questions NPS Director on Barricading Monuments

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) is a take no prisoners kind of guy that is needed to combat the Chicago thuggery politics being practiced by the Prevaricator-In-Chief Obama. Look at the way he eviserates the miserable suffering bastard head of the National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis.

Kudos to Rep Gowdy, I wish we had more like him!

GOP Shutdown Surrender

So utterly disappointed in the GOP after the ignoble surrender. Senators McCain, McConnell and Rep. Peter King need to change their party affiliations to coward! No, that is an insult to cowards everywhere and way nicer than they deserve.

Totally agree with Gov. Palin who said the media is going to blame the GOP, if she understands, how come they cannot?