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Oops: How Not to Behave at a Memorial

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=43802

Medicare: What are the Options?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The basic problem: Currently, seniors (on average) receive far more in health benefits than they have paid into the system.

And with a worsening economy and baby-boomers reaching retirement, there are fewer employed Americans paying into the Medicare system.

Add to that the Congressional pilfering of the Medicare coffers and you have an economic disaster.

 

Many older Americans rightfully insist that they have paid into the Medicare system and deserve medical care.  And, basically, they can only get medical insurance through Medicare. 

 

But Medicare is going broke.  So what to do?

 

President Obama proposes cutting Medicare spending by raising taxes, limiting reimbursement to caregivers, and rationing health care. 

 

Rationing, you say?  Yes, through the IPAB (otherwise known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board) which will have the authority to restrict payments on certain medical procedures, which equals to rationing. 

 

Oh, and by Obamacare calculations, Obamacare will stave off Medicare bankruptcy by three years.  Oh, yeah, that helps....

 

So let's look at another plan, proposed by Congressman Paul Ryan.  He proposes that citizens over age 55 will continue to have traditional Medicare coverage.

 

If you are under 55, you will get money to purchase your own health care coverage.  You can choose what is best for you.  The free market system will help keep costs down and quality high.  Senior will have lots more choices!

 

Personally, I'm glad I'm under 55.

Medicare WILL Change with Obamacare

Perhaps you've heard or seen that advertisement showing Paul Ryan (or somesuch Republican) pushing dear old granny off the cliff--literally--by reforming Medicare.  (PS, go watch the video, it's pretty interesting to see some people' idea of rational discussion.)

But the dirty little secret is that Obamacare has ALREADY changed Medicare.

Let's see----

• Well, first of all, Obamacare has cut over a half-a-trillion dollars from the Medicare budget.  Now, that's a BIG change.  For the worse, with all the baby boomers retiring and hitting Medicare age.

• Next, Obamacare has replaced traditional fee-for-service with 30% cuts in physician re-imbursements.  This, by the way, is why doctors are dropping out of Medicare and why your older relatives can't find a doctor to take care of them.  Doctors will be losing money seeing Medicare payments.  And believe it or not, doctors have bills to pay (such as rent and employee salaries) and can't lose money on patients!

• Finally, Obamacare created the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, which will be a group of 15 UNELECTED people in charge of making sure Medicare spends less money.  If this unelected and unaccountable (to We, The People) board can't cut Medicare down to size, then the Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to do whatever is necessary to cut costs, without Congressional approval.

So, you see, things WILL change, and probably not for the better.

Who's really pushing Grandma off the cliff?

Medicare's Demise

 

 

 

 

 

Medicare is going broke, at a faster rate than previously thought.

 

The Medicare Trustees warned that Medicare Part A will be insolvent by 2024 (five years sooner than previously thought), while another report from the Office of the Actuary paints an even gloomier forecast.

Promises, Promises

A Memo from President Obama:  "My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government."

The Reality:
1)  President Obama promised to release White House visitor logs.  Only 1% of the first 8 months of these records have been released.

2)  President Obama promised to show congressional negotiations on C-Span.  But he refused to allow healthcare discussions to be televised.

3)  President Obama promised to whittle the influence of lobbyists on his Administration.  So instead of meeting with lobbyists at the White House (where visitor records could reveal these meetings), Administration officials meet with lobbyists across the street in the Caribou Coffee house.

4)  President Obama promised that ex-lobbyists would not work for the White House (again, to decrease lobbyists' influence on his Administration).  He even wrote out executive orders restricting their hire.  Yet over 40 ex-lobbyists now work for him, including Cabinet secretaries Vilsack and Sebelius, Attorney General Holder, VP Chief of Staff Klain, CIA Director Panetta, and various other Chiefs of Staff, Deputies and Assistants and Associates and what-not.

Unexpectedly, the Economy is Not Improving

Unemployment claims are up.  Unexpectedly.

Corporate profits are down.  Unexpectedly.  (Hint: there's probably a relationship between these first two items.)

Gross domestic product growth is lousy.

Consumer spending is slowing.

And inflation is increasing. 

Your Memorial Day BBQ will cost you about 29% more this year, according to the Daily Mail.

Perhaps the President Needs to Hire a Protocol Officer



Source

 After all, he's hired a teleprompter coach recently (for a taxpayer tab of about $100,000--on top of the $624,000 you are already paying for seven [7!] staff speechwriters).

And Mr. Obama also has just gotten someone to take care of  his Internet presence.  This new Internet czar will be "helping coordinate rapid response to unfavorable stories and fostering and improving relations with the progressive online community."

So, don't you think a Protocol czar might be in order?  After Mr. Obama totally goofed up a toast to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II?  He was supposed to wait to speak until AFTER the orchestra played "God Save the Queen."

Of course, many in the media are blaming the Queen.  Good grief, the President of the United States is supposed to be briefed on these details!

Miss Manners is probably appalled.

Netanyahu to Obama: Go Jump

Last week, President Obama proposed (without first consulting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu) that

1) Israel should shrink its borders back to pre-1967 borders, 
2) The question of Palestinians being allowed to return ("right of return")  to Israel is still up in-the-air,
3) Who gets Jerusalem is also up for negotiation, and
4) Israel must be the one to give all the concessions.

Other interesting tidbits from Obama's speech on Thursday include his call for a "contiguous Palestinian state", something that would result in Israel being cut right in two.

Obama also stated that recent pacts between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas "raises questions."  What questions?  Hamas, a terrorist group, clearly states its goal is to eradicate Israel and wipe every Jewish person off the face of the earth.

Obama then states that the PA should be "demilitarized" but also have "the right of defense."  What does that mean?

Prime Minister Netahyahu, getting his chance to speak after President Obama's preemptive directives, stated that return to 1967 borders won't happen.

And that Palestinians have no "right of return."

And negotiating with Hamas (as part of the PA) won't happen.

Netanyahu also offered a bit of a history lesson.

The 1967 borders, he stated, could not be defended.  Giving up the Jordan heights would place much of Israel in the sights of terrorist bombs.  This would also place much of Jewish Jerusalem under the PA.

Netanyahu then spoke on "right to return" for Palestinians:  “The Arab attack in 1948 on Israel resulted in two refugee problems, Palestinian refugee problem and Jewish refugees, roughly the same number, who were expelled from Arab lands. Now tiny Israel absorbed the Jewish refugees, but the vast Arab world refused to absorb the Palestinian refugees. Now, 63 years later, the Palestinians come to us and they say to Israel: accept the grandchildren, really, and the great-grandchildren of these refugees, thereby wiping out Israel's future as a Jewish state," because this would result in an Palestinian Arab majority in Israel.  Palestinians would have to move to the Palestinian state. 

Finally, Netanyahu reminded President Obama that Hamas was an enemy of the Unites States also.  He refused to negotiate with Hamas.

Rule of Law? Nawwwww....

The list of companies, labor unions, restaurants, etc. that have obtained exemptions from the Law of the Land (i.e. Obamacare) has risen to over 1,300.

How does one get an Obamacare waiver?

No one knows.  The White House and its wholly-owned subsidiary, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services decline to answer this question.

They also refuse to disclose the companies that have been refused waivers.

And the newest wrinkle in the Obamacare-waiver scheme?

Fully 20% of waivers approved in April 2011 were in Nancy Pelosi's district.  These waivers included "luxurious hotels, gourmet restaurants, hip nightclubs, day spas and four-star hotels."

The Administration's answer to this? Waivers are just a "regular thing."

The bigger question is how the Executive Branch can reject laws passed by Congress and also refuse to reveal exactly how they choose which companies get to violate the law.

And how exactly does the Executive Branch take on this power for itself?  It all seems just a tad power-grabby and illegal.

New Assault on Our Freedoms--Indiana-Style

The Indiana Supreme Court has decreed that citizens cannot resist the unlawful entry of police into their homes.
 
The right to keep government forces out of your private home unless they have a legal reason (i.e. a warrant) has been law since 1215--the Magna Carta of England.  Western law has abided by this ruling for the last almost 800 years (did I add correctly?)

Remember the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution? "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated."

Yet Judge Steven David writes that a police officer may "enter a home for any reason or no reason at all," and that the notion of requiring a warrant "is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.”

In short, your Constitutional rights don't matter in Indiana.

The Debt Ceiling?

First of all, when does the U.S. government hit the debt ceiling?  Mr. Geithner, Treasury Secretary, doesn't seem to have a grasp on that, despite multiple (different) predictions. 

Of course, I don't entirely trust Mr. Geithner's judgment, since he had so much difficulty with the country's federal tax laws.

Yet the U.S. government will sometime soon hit its limit on debt, at an astounding all-time high of over $14 BILLION dollars.  That means No More Borrowing Money.

President Obama warns that not raising the debt limit "could unravel the entire financial system," while Secretary Geithner feels that the debt limit must be raised to avoid default on loans and "irrevocable damage" the economy.

According to a paper by Dr. J.D. Forster, Congress has three options: (1) Refuse to raise the debt ceiling, (2) Raise the debt limit and drastically cut spending (3) Raise the debt limit, cut spending, and legislate comprehensive, strict new budget rules.

First of all, Congress has time to consider its options.  Despite the insistence of Mr. Obama that Congress take immediate action, there's no need to rush into decisions.  The options need to be carefully considered.

Second, holding the debt ceiling will NOT mean that the federal government must default on its loans.  In fact, Congress can make sure that interest continue to be paid on loans to ensure that federal loans are NOT defaulted.  Essential spending (such as Social Security and Medicare) will continue to be funded.

Third, the amount of money that the federal government would be denied (by not raising the debt ceiling) is approximately equal to its discretionary spending.  Surely Congress can figure out how to do without its pork projects (AKA entitlements) and extras.

Finally, why would anyone give (essentially) another credit card to a chronically spending-addicted entity?

If you count the loans that the U.S. government has, NOT counting the loans against Social Security and other trust funds, the money owed has grown from $3.4 trillion dollars in 2001 to over $9 trillion dollars in 2010.

The debt is expected to grow to $23 trillion dollars by 2019 (if the economy turns around!)

The question everyone asks is how the world market would respond.  According to Dr. Forster, it would inevitably wobble a bit.  But as creditors get paid and the U.S. government gets its spending under control, the dollar would again become the basis of a stable world economy.

Texas Denied Help to Fight Fires

President Obama has refused to help out Texas with wildfires that have destroyed more than 2 million acres of land and are STILL BURNING.

Texas is fighting seven (7) major fires over half a million acres.

Govenor Rick Perry has asked for help fighting these fires, under the guidelines required for federal help. 

One of the fires was apparently started by ATF agents!  Doncha think the federal government might help with some low-interest loans for a fire it's responsible for?

Meanwhile....It's the Economy, Mr. President

 

Okay, so bin Laden's dead...now what about the economy?

You are probably aware that the S&P downgraded the United States' "credit rating".  Basically, the S&P feels that the United States government is likely to become a poor investment within the next two years-- "expressing unprecedented doubts over the ability of Washington to bring the massive federal budget deficits under control." 

The S&P notes "that he government is on pace to run a record $1.5 trillion deficit this year, the third consecutive deficit exceeding $1 trillion."  The S&P "says Britain, France and Germany have moved much more quickly to contain deficits."   

Yesterday, the dollar hit a three year low in relation to other world currencies.  And the outlook for improvement is not good.

About 1 in 7 Americans is on food stamps.

And what about.....Jobs? 

Jobless claims are the highest in EIGHT months. And, there's been a big downturn in the services sector and less-than-expected hiring by private companies in April.

Home prices have plummeted. Over 1/3 of sales consist of bank-owned (another word for repossessed) homes.

Not to mention inflation.  The dreaded I-word is not mentioned much, but with the skyrocketing price of fuel, food and other essential goods--believe me, it's inflation.

Loose Lips Sink Ships!

Are you aware exactly how it's known that it was Navy Seals that killed bin Laden?

If you look back, it wasn't President Obama that revealed that Navy Seals were involved.  Neither the CIA nor the Pentagon admitted that Seals had the task of killing bin Laden.

No, it was our redoubtable (or is it doubtable?) Vice President Biden who spoke up and blabbed. 

Clip art from Wikipedia

The Truth About bin Laden? It Can't be That Hard....

How exactly did bin Laden die?
Who knows?
First, he died in a gun battle, inside his mansion, holding his wife in front of him, according to the White House.  Then, the story changed....bin Laden wasn't armed, didn't hold his wife in front of him. And he didn't live in a mansion.

“Even I’m getting confused,” White House spokesman Carney said.

And the picture of all sorts of important folks, intently watching "the raid in real time"?  The one released by the White House, with "US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sits near the president, her hand covering her mouth. Mr Obama is leaning forward in his chair in the same photograph, watching intently as the raid takes place"?

Faked.  Today, CIA director Panetta admitted that there was a blackout during the time of the raid.  NO ONE was watching the actual raid.

Well, at least bin Laden is dead.  Even if the White House is lying about HOW it happened.

Transparency....didn't Mr. Obama win an award for transparency?