The Smoking Argus

(OFFICIAL STATEMENT) WASHINGTON D.C. – In this week’s address, President Barack Obama highlighted a new report from the Treasury Department that found that about half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next ten years. The report also found that Americans under 21 have more than a 50-percent chance of going uninsured at some point in that time. And more than one-third of Americans will go without coverage for longer than one year. The full Treasury report can be viewed here.

Remarks of President Barack Obama

Weekly Address
The White House
September 12, 2009

On Wednesday, I addressed a joint session of Congress and the American people about why we need health insurance reform and what it will take to do it.

Since then, I’ve continued to hear from many Americans across the country about why this is so urgent and important.

I’ve heard from Americans who can’t get health coverage; men and women who worry that one accident or illness could drive them into bankruptcy.

And I’ve heard from Americans with insurance who thought that “the uninsured” always referred to someone else – but between skyrocketing costs and insurance company practices; they’re beginning to worry that they could find themselves uninsured too.

It’s an anxiety that’s keeping more and more Americans awake at night. Over the last twelve months, nearly six million more Americans lost their health coverage – that’s 17,000 men and women every single day. We’re not just talking about Americans in poverty, either – we’re talking about middle-class Americans. In other words, it can happen to anyone.

And based on a brand-new report from the Treasury Department, we can expect that about half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next ten years. If you’re under the age of 21 today, chances are more than half that you’ll find yourself uninsured at some point in that time. And more than one-third of Americans will go without coverage for longer than one year.

I refuse to allow that future to happen. In the United States of America, no one should have to worry that they’ll go without health insurance – not for one year, not for one month, not for one day. And once I sign my health reform plan into law – they won’t.

My plan will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance; offer quality, affordable choices to those who currently don’t; and bring health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government under control.

First of all, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in my plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.

What my plan will do is make the insurance you have work better for you. We’ll make it illegal for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition, drop your coverage when you get sick, or water it down when you need it most. They’ll no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or over a lifetime, and we will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses – because no one should go broke just because they get sick.

Second, if you’re one of the more than thirty million American citizens who can’t get coverage, you’ll finally have quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job, change your job, or start your own business, you will be able to get coverage.

And as I have said over and over again, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – period. This plan will be paid for. The middle-class will realize greater security, not higher taxes. And if we can successfully slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth of one percent each year, it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the long term.

Affordable, quality care within reach for the tens of millions of Americans who don’t have it today. Stability and security for the hundreds of millions who do. That’s the reform we seek.

We have had a long and important debate. But now is the time for action. Because every day we wait, more Americans will lose their health care, their businesses, and their homes – but also the dreams they’ve worked for and the peace of mind they deserve. They are why we have to succeed.

So if you’re willing to put country before party and the interests of our children above our own; if you refuse to settle for a politics where scoring points is more important than solving problems; and if you believe, as I do, that America can still come together to do great things – then join us. Give us your help. And we will finally get health insurance reform done this year.

—END OFFICIAL STATEMENT—

Related Material(s):
	WEEKLY ADDRESS: President Obama Highlights New Treasury Report on Instability of Health Insurance in America TRANSCRIPT (PDF 14.9kb)

Kelly

Let’s face it, the outlook is grim. To swallow the heaping pile of dung that has become our news cycle these days, I believe it is increasingly critical that we all take a minute or two of our day to laugh. Whether you require a simple chuckle or an all out wet your pants type laugh is, of course, up to you.

Welcome to the first installment of Monday’s Doom and Gloom, Followed by a Funny

Monday’s Doom and Gloom

Mike Adams: Where did the Fed’s Bailout Money Really Go?

Christopher Booker: President-elect Barack Obama Proposes Economic Suicide for US

Jennifer Corbett Dooren: FDA to Allow Trace Levels of Melamine in Baby Formula

Tim Shipman: Pentagon Hires British Scientist to Help Build Robot Soldiers that “Won’t Commit War Crimes”

Monday’s Funny, brought to you by The Simpson’s

*Editor’s Note: Monday’s Funny has been squashed due to Twentieth Century Fox’s copyright claim.

“Editor’s Note II: And now for something completely ridiculous

Allison Bricker

During the campaign, President-Elect Obama promised voters that if elected, he would get right to work on getting government to “fix” the environment.¹ You know, much in the same way that the government has “fixed” education, retirement, poverty, drug use, housing, etcetera. However, as they say, the devil is in the details.

In 1998, when President-Elect Obama was in the Illinois Senate, he voted ‘aye’ for a bill condemning “The Kyoto Treaty”, explaining in a campaign statement, [Kyoto] did not have “meaningful and achievable emissions targets.”² Additionally, President-Elect Obama routinely took electric utility and coal industry money during the campaign totaling $539,597. Previously, during his run for United States Senate in 2004, he was flanked by Illinois coal workers proclaiming “there’s always going to be a role for coal”. Even as recently as the West Virginia Primary, Illinois Representative Dan Reitz, original sponsor of the Illinois Anti-Kyoto bill stated:

“He [Obama] understands how important coal is to the state of Illinois and to the Midwest,”²

However after receiving the Democrat party nomination, President-Elect Obama stated in his election manifesto that he would set a goal of reducing US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system scheme and a 10-year program worth $150 billion Dollars in renewable energy research and development.³

This scheme when implemented, sets a ceiling on the total amount of gases allowed to escape into the atmosphere via assigned industry credits. If the industry goes over their allotment they are forced to purchase “credits” from a direct or indirect competitor which has not gone over their allotment. The end result, higher energy costs for Americans as the companies pass these “credit purchase” costs down onto the consumer. One then wonders exactly how he plans to “fix” the economy, when by proxy the government will help to increase American’s energy bills. As if the rising cost of groceries and durable goods was not enough, now we can look forward to Uncle Sam raising our energy bills.

Let us also not forget that once this “scheme” is in place, there will be an influx of speculators into the market, where just like with oil prices, the price of energy “credits” will swing wildly further destabilizing an already volitile market.

However, the saddest part of all this hot air (CO²) being expelled from King Obama, is the fact that while he is so concerned with pointing the finger at “we the people”, we have yet to hear him indicate his plans for tackling the biggest polluter of all. Yes fellow readers, the same group of scoundrels put in charge of “protecting the environment”, the United States Government⁴. From the gallons of jet and rocket fuel dumped into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by NASA, the Air Force and Navy, to the radioactive waste shipped cross country, the American government continues to escape the line of sight, while they target us, for “environmentally conscious behavior modification”.

Finally, President-Elect Obama will send transition team members to the upcoming United Nations Climate Summit, December 1st through 12th in Poznan, Poland. While we will likely glean some insight into King Obama’s policies; whether he wishes to completely hand over American environmental sovereignty will have to wait until just before the Copenhagen talks begin in 2009. It is my opinion that he will indeed seek to erode American sovereignty further via either an expanded Kyoto type treaty or global version of the “North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation”⁵. Neither of which will help protect the environment and instead will only line the pockets of professional environmentalist robber barons.

Source(s): ¹Bloomberg.com WorldWide • ² USA Today via GreenChange “Obama embraced coal industry, condemned Kyoto treaty” by: Ken Dilanian • ³ AFP – “Climate talks: Obama victory offers hope, but Congress is key” • ⁴ CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-Extensions of Remarks October 28, 2000 • ⁵Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Rob Obringer

If you think back to the 2000 Presidential election, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) had a real buzz about him as a different kind of Republican. He was one of the first politicians to realize that there is a middle ground in America. He tried to play himself as the person who could cross party lines and appeal to Americans that didn’t see themselves as strictly Republicans or Democrats. As a registered Independent, I even thought of voting for him for those reasons. It didn’t get there, as the Governor Bush and the Republican base pushed Senator McCain out of the primary. However, Senator McCain had something going, and he was the political “rockstar” of the moment back in 2000 because of his new way of looking at traditional party politics.

So we get to 2008, and Senator McCain wins the Republican party nomination. In some part I believe he wins the nomination because he is not a traditional party Republican. Then he selects Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) as his VP. I listened to all of the pundits say that he needed to pick someone like her to “satisfy the Republican base”. My question back to the pundits through the TV was, “Why does he have to pander to them, who else would they vote for?”. Was he not Republican enough for them that they wouldn’t show up on November 4th to vote? Why isn’t he picking someone to appeal to independents?

In the end, I think Senator McCain’s role of the dice on Governor Palin will result in him losing out, and it could be a big loss at that. His campaign changed and his image has changed since the selection. Senator McCain’s campaign has turned so ugly that even the candidate seems uncomfortable at his own rallies! We saw over the weekend that Senator McCain was correcting his supporters on their opinions of Senator Obama (D-IL), and telling them that they should not be scared if Senator Obama were elected President. The only time Senator McCain seems like the person I once considered voting for was when he was correcting his angry supporters. He seems frustrated with the kind of politics he is forced to be playing right now, and you can tell that he is not himself and may not even believe in the state of his current campaign.

Maybe it’s the “Bush Operatives” that are running parts of his campaign, maybe it is Governor Palin’s bulldog influence. Whatever it is, it isn’t working. The supporters at the Senator McCain rallies show that they are more angry at the prospect of Senator Obama than anything else. They should really be angry at the past 8 years. Senator McCain should be angry at the past 8 years, and he should be showing us that. Maybe it is all a political ploy to get the Republican base so angry, fired up, and scared of Senator Obama that they will surely show up and vote Senator McCain.

I think the tone has turned off a lot of Independent voters. Not only that, but Senator McCain’s fusion with the base of the Republican party at a time when the financial crisis caused a perfect storm to point fingers at the party currently in office. Bad move. I believe SenatorMcCain was on to something in 2000 when he made himself into the ultimate open minded politician in terms of crossing the aisle and getting things done. I think he is more comfortable as that kind of politician.

We’re three weeks away and the “Maverick” Senator from Arizona says he’s ready for a comeback. I wonder which version of himself we are going to see now?