The Unraveling Of ObamaCare
Thirty companies and organizations get waivers from the new health care overhaul because otherwise they’d have to raise rates or drop coverage. The president said neither would happen. Hey, where’s our waiver?

When McDonald’s told federal regulators in a recent memo that it would be “economically prohibitive” for its insurance carrier to continue to cover its 30,000 hourly workers unless it received a waiver from the ObamaCare requirement that 80% of premiums for such minimed plans be spent on medical care, alarm bells went off in the White House.

Suddenly the “affordable health care for Americans” that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke of when she passed a bill no one had read was revealed to be an unaffordable fraud that threatened to throw untold numbers of young workers into the ranks of the uninsured in an already precarious election year.

So now McDonald’s has its waiver, for 115,000 workers, not just 30,000. Jack in the Box also has a waiver, as do 28 other companies and organizations. The largest waiver, for 351,000 people, is for, appropriately enough, a union — specifically the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund, a New York brotherhood that covers teachers. (Read more from investors.com)

Lawsuits over health care law heat up
Matt Sissel of Iowa City proudly served in Iraq as a combat medic. But he objects to being “conscripted” into an overhauled federal health care system.

The uninsured artist is riled about a provision in the new health law that would require him to purchase insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014. Last July, he filed a lawsuit to have the landmark act declared unconstitutional. “I don’t want the federal government dictating my personal financial decisions,” says Sissel, 29. “It can’t even run its own budget.”

In attacking the law in the courts, Sissel has plenty of company. A number of interest groups, state officials and ordinary citizens are seeking to have the health care law struck down in federal court, and action is heating up: (Read more from usatoday.com)

Did you know that the Fraser Institute publishes an annual review of hospital waiting times in Canada?

Here’s the 2009 report: WaitingYourTurn_2009.pdf

Excerpt:

The Fraser Institute’s nineteenth annual waiting list survey found that Canada-wide waiting times for surgical and other therapeutic treatments decreased in 2009. Total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed, fell from 17.3 weeks in 2008 to 16.1 weeks in 2009.

. . . .

Despite a two week fall from the high reached in 2007, the total wait time remains high, both historically and internationally. Compared to 1993, the total waiting time in 2009 is 73 percent longer.

. . . .

Finally, the promise of the Canadian health care system is not being realized. On the contrary, a profusion of research reveals that cardiovascular surgery queues are routinely jumped by the famous and politically-connected, that sub urban and rural residents con front barriers to access not encountered by their urban counter parts, and that low-income Canadians have less access to specialists.

I posted this to reddit in /r/politics. It was downvoted into oblivion and received one comment: “I don’t trust political think tanks to be impartial.”

WTF kind of willful ignorance is this?

Big Pharma has almost reached the finish line of its decades-long battle to wipe out all competition. As of 1 April 2011—less than eight months from now—virtually all medicinal herbs will become illegal in the European Union. (Read more from gaia-health.com)

Dear socialists, please read this article carefully. It is yet another example of how abusive businesses BENEFIT from big government. Please stop suggesting that more government is the solution for everything.

Another lecture from the 2010 Property and Freedom Society Conference.

PFS 2010 – Anthony Daniels (Theodore Dalrymple), “Public Health” as a Lever for Tyranny from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

The inevitable consequence of central planning.

About a quarter of the swine flu vaccine produced for the U.S. public has expired — meaning that a whopping 40 million doses worth about $260 million is being written off as trash.

“It’s a lot, by historical standards,” said Jerry Weir, who oversees vaccine research and review for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The outdated vaccine, some of which expired Wednesday, will be incinerated. The amount, more than twice the usual leftovers, likely sets a record. And that’s not even all of it.

About 30 million more doses will expire later and may go unused, according to one government estimate. If all that vaccine expires, more than 43 percent of the supply for the U.S. public will have gone to waste. (Read more from theintelhub.com)

Most people know about the individual mandate in the new health care bill, but the bill contained another mandate that could be far more costly.

A few wording changes to the tax code’s section 6041 regarding 1099 reporting were slipped into the 2000-page health legislation. The changes will force millions of businesses to issue hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of additional IRS Form 1099s every year. It appears to be a costly, anti-business nightmare.

Under current law, businesses are required to issue 1099s in a limited set of situations, such as when paying outside consultants.

. . . .

Basically, businesses will have to issue 1099s whenever they do more than $600 of business with another entity in a year. For the $14 trillion U.S. economy, that’s a hell of a lot of 1099s. When a business buys a $1,000 used car, it will have to gather information on the seller and mail 1099s to the seller and the IRS. When a small shop owner pays her rent, she will have to send a 1099 to the landlord and IRS. Recipients of the vast flood of these forms will have to match them with existing accounting records. There will be huge numbers of errors and mismatches, which will probably generate many costly battles with the IRS. (Read more from cato-at-liberty.org)

The nation’s most influential small business lobby is joining a court challenge to President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, arguing that Americans cannot be required under the Constitution to obtain insurance coverage.

The National Federation of Independent Business will announce Friday it is joining a federal lawsuit filed in Florida by 20 state attorneys general and governors, NFIB President Dan Danner said in an interview.

. . . .

A groundswell of opposition to the law from small business owners prompted NFIB’s decision to join the court challenge, said Karen Harned, a senior lawyer for the group. “The second the law was signed, NFIB was hearing from its members: ‘What are you all going to do about this?’,” said Harned. “So we hunkered down. We looked around. This state attorneys general lawsuit made the most sense for us. It’s the only one that has a national presence.”

Congressman Paul has officially introduced his legislation to repeal the federal health insurance mandate. The bill (officially titled “End the Mandate”) number is HR 4995, and the text should be on the Library of Congress’ Thomas website very soon. (Read more from campaignforliberty.com)

This speech was given recently at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.
* debt
* earmarks
* cost of foreign policy
* the credibility gap of Republicans
* corporatism
* healthcare
& more

Iowa City residents will continue to drink fluoride along with their tap water.

After considering concerns raised by some residents, City Council members said at this evening’s work session they’ve found no reason to drop the practice.

“Not seeing in my mind enough significant statistical data to imply harm, I’m not prepared” to end the practice, Councilmember Sue Mims said. (Read more from infowars.com)

The new law seeks to limit those kinds of increases, while giving businesses incentives to cover more workers.

Here’s how:

• Businesses with fewer than 25 employees that pay an average of no more than $40,000 will get a tax credit – up to 35 percent of the company’s share of their total health care premium.

• Companies with 26-49 workers are unaffected.

• Businesses with 50 or more workers must offer coverage or pay $750 per worker. That penalty applies for every employee if even one signs up for government-subsidized insurance.

But there are potential problems. Case in point: It would be much cheaper for Dick Bus to drop the generous coverage he now offers and take the hit at $750 a head for his 120 workers. The penalty would be $90,000 a year. He’s currently spending $480,000.

Bus would save $390,000, but canceling his plan would force his workers to the health plan exchange and could cost more than they’re paying now. The Senate is considering an increase in the $750 penalty to prevent that scenario.

The law’s benefits are clearer for Fank Hesch and the four employees at his auto shop. He provides insurance for two, and pays $4,800 a year. Under the new law, he would get a tax credit of $1,680 and he says he would roll the money into health insurance for new workers as his business grows.

At the Lehigh Valley Zoo, CEO Rick Molchany pays $189,000 to insure 21 workers.

“Our health care is in excess of 10 percent of our annual operating expense,” he said.

As a non-profit, the zoo gets a smaller credit for insurance than other businesses. The savings – about $9,000.

When you add it all up, most small businesses could save up to 4 percent on what they pay for employee health insurance.

Nationally, that savings could exceed $10 billion. (Read more from cbsnews.com)

Good and welfare clause?