The Smoking Argus

For his first Texas Straight Talk of the New Year, Dr. Ron Paul discusses the dangers of continuing to listen to Keynesian economists, thus relying on government as the only growth industry, and their belief that government can spend its way out of a recession via printing more money out of thin air. Dr. Paul urges us to consider listening to the Austrian economic school and its teachings as a hedge against runaway inflation due to the destruction of the currency, which will, lest we change course, ultimately lead to the destruction of the middle-class in America.

The full audio and transcript of this week’s Texas Straight Talk are available for your consideration.

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	Representative Ron Paul Texas Straight Talk for January 4th, 2010 TRANSCRIPT (PDF 15k)

Souce(s): Representative Ron Paul, House Web Page • Minnesota Chris YouTube Channel

Allison Bricker

Synopsis:

Global warming alarmists want Americans to believe that humans are killing the planet. But Not Evil Just Wrong, a new documentary by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, proves that the only threats to America (and the rest of the world) are the fl awed science and sky-is-falling rhetoric of Al Gore and his allies in environmental extremism.   The film warns Americans that their jobs, middle-class lifestyles and dreams for their children will be destroyed if the government rushes to judgment and imposes job-killing regulations on an economy already mired in recession.

Not Evil Just Wrong exposes the deceptions about global warming that scientists, politicians, educators and the media have been force-feeding the public for years, including fear-mongering about floods and dying polar bears. The documentary shows how environmentalists are pushing the same kind of anti-human propaganda that triggered a ban DDT and condemned millions of children to death by malaria, a story recounted in the documentary. Not Evil Just Wrong asks: Is carbon dioxide the new DDT and are we taking the same risks with our future?

Source(s):

Wire Report

Michael D. Tanner, Senior Fellow

Michael Tanner heads research into a variety of domestic policies with a particular emphasis on health care reform, social welfare policy, and Social Security. His most recent book, Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution (2007), chronicles the demise of the Republican party as it has shifted away from its limited government roots and warns that reform is necessary to avoid electoral defeat in 2008. Under Tanner’s direction, Cato launched the Project on Social Security Choice, which is widely considered the leading impetus for transforming the soon-to-be-bankrupt system into a private savings program. Time Magazine calls Tanner, “one of the architects of the private accounts movement,” and Congressional Quarterly named him one of the nation’s five most influential experts on Social Security.

Sen. Baucus (D-MT) and his fellow “Gang of Six” negotiators have labored mightily and brought forth a mouse—a steroid-enhanced, misshapen mouse, but a mouse nonetheless. In fact, despite months of work, Sen. Baucus has not actually produced a bill, but a 223-page summary of what he hopes a bill will contain. Unfortunately, without seeing actual legislative language, many questions still remain.

Here is some of what we know and don’t know:

The Good:

• The plan drops the idea of a government-run “public option” in favor of co-ops. Government involvement with these co-ops would essentially be limited to providing start-up grants. The co-ops are unlikely to have much, if any, impact on the cost or availability of health insurance, but are far preferable to a government run plan.

• The plan takes the first tentative steps toward allowing people to purchase health insurance across state lines. It would allow states to establish interstate compacts for insurance purchasing beginning in 2015. It would also allow insurers to develop national products that could be sold in any state. National plans would be exempt from state mandated benefits. This doesn’t go far enough, and risks simply transferring regulation and mandates from the state to the regional or national level, but a first read suggests it is a step in the right direction.

The Bad:

• The plan would force states to increase Medicaid eligibility to individuals at 133 percent of the poverty level, and to enroll single, childless adults. The federal government would pick up some of the increased cost; states would be responsible for at least some of the increase, a provision that will undoubtedly strain already tight state budgets.

• While the employer mandate is much watered-down, it is still there. The Baucus plan has no specific requirement for employers to provide insurance. But any employer who fails to do so would have to pay the cost of all subsidies that the government provides his or her workers to help them pay for insurance on their own, up to $400 per worker. Since it will ultimately be the worker who pays the mandate’s cost, through reduced compensation or reduced employment, the government will be giving the worker a subsidy with one hand, and taking it back with the other.

• The bill would cut payments to the Medicare Advantage program. In response, many insurers may stop participating in the program, while others could increase the premiums they charge seniors. Millions of seniors will likely be forced off their current plan and back into traditional Medicare.

The Ugly

• The Baucus plan contains a heavily punitive individual mandate, a requirement that every American purchase a government-designed minimum insurance package. Failure to comply would result in a fine that could run as high as $3,800 for a family of four. Moreover, the mandate may not apply just to those without insurance today. While the summary says that those with “grandfathered” plans would not have to change their current plan to satisfy the mandate, it is vague about what qualifies as “grandfathered.” The summary also says that employer-provided plans would have to be changed within five years to comply with new insurance regulations, and that “grandfathered” plans would not be eligible for any subsidies. It is unclear, therefore, whether people will be able to keep their current plans.

• The Baucus plan imposes a 35 percent excise tax on health insurance plans that offer benefits in excess of $8,000. Insurers would almost certainly pass this tax on to consumers in the form of higher premiums. Roughly half of Americans, mostly middle-class, would be impacted. There are also “fees” on prescription drug companies, medical device manufacturers, and clinical laboratories. This is simply a way of hiding taxes, and will result in higher health care costs that will be passed on to consumers.

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	Chairman’s Mark – “America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009″ a.k.a “Baucus Bill” (PDF 1.2 Mb)
	Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
	Michael D. Tanner discusses health care reform on WBT’s “The Tara Servatius Show” (Charlotte, NC)

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

With the transition process from George W, Bush to Barack Obama already in high gear, liberals everywhere are filled with a tenacious hope that this moment in time is the beginning of a new era, a new dawn. If you voted for Barack Obama, then greatness is upon us, or in the very least, the need to believe that greatness is upon us is still fresh in the hearts of the Obama supporters. I cannot blame them. When people so fervently believe in something as broadly defined as ‘change’, and then put a man at the forefront of responsibility to create that ‘change’, it becomes increasingly difficult to be critical of their well-oiled, well-groomed, hypnotic leader; in much the same way that Christians are not particularly inclined to be critical of their leaders or beliefs.

Barack Obama has become a brand name, packaged and sold to the masses. There were promises made, like so many before, of a better, more efficient government that would end ‘politics as usual.’ The leading product, ‘Change,’ sold because we were told that we ‘could believe in it.’ Though, there is little doubt that the Bush Administration laid the groundwork, brick by brick, for change to become the word so desperately sought. It seems the time was never more ripe, the stars never so well aligned.

The Bush Administration led an invasion of Iraq with promises of “cake-walk” that quickly went from ridding America of the threat known as WMD’s to a war campaign based on Iraqi freedom and the deliverance of democracy to the Middle-East. And lest we forget the atrocities that followed; numerous Executive Orders, the warrant-less searches and wire-tapping (only to be feared if you’re not doing anything wrong), the private security forces of Blackwater, Walter Reed Hospital, Katrina, FEMA, Guantanamo, water-boarding, Attorney General Gonzales, and the more recent mess on Wall Street- the Bailout. ‘Tis no wonder Barack Obama is now our President-Elect.

The so-called value-voters were outnumbered this November 4th, at least as it pertains to the Presidential election, since the moral high ground seems to have gained something in all of this as the gays went from wedge issue to bargaining chip (California, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas.)

In 2004, moral values outnumbered the Iraq war as Americans stood at the ballot box. In 2008, it was ‘the economy, stupid.’ Focus on the Family was won out by Focus on the Globe, as President Elect Obama is promising to change the world (Civilian National Security Force, anyone?) Though, I suppose it’s fair to say that every administration has changed the world in one form or another, whether it has been for better or worse is completely subjective.

Clearly, eight years under neo-conservatism was enough. But, where will we go from here? The American citizens were seeking change, and with good reason. But, is another stimulus check the only thing on the minds of a shrinking and sinking middle class? If so, then one could only conclude that the ‘hope’ that backed the 2008 election is an empty idea at best and by this time next year ‘hope’ will surely return to the apathy from whence it came. Or, are the Obama-ites truly enticed by the farce of a luscious utopia, sprouting with entitlement and more government powers, sprinkled with redistribution of wealth and the consequential loss of liberties? I’m afraid that too many believe that they can have their cake and eat it too, but one can hope that a return to apathy is just around the bend.