Filed under: Economy, Health Care, Law, Statism | Tags: Liberal lies, Obamacare, Politics
Now that ObamaCare the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is law, will the uninsured really stop going to the emergency room for their basic health care? A basic assumption about ObamaCare is that once people have insurance, they will stop going to the emergency room and make appointments with their doctors instead.
According to Stanley Goldfarb writing in the Weekly Standard, there are several assumptions involved here.
- Insurance payments to primary care physicians will change the habits of those accustomed to using the emergency room for care.
- There will be enough primary care physicians available to take on these new patients.
- The provision of insurance will reduce subsequent hospitalizations and emergency room visits by the previously uninsured.
- The cost for the care of these patients will decline and “the cost curve will be bent downward.”
All of these assumptions are wrong. Yale University researchers studied emergency room use in New Haven, Conn. and found that there was no difference in subsequent visits to emergency departments nor in the number of inpatient admissions. Primary care physicians are not available 24/7 and patients knew the emergency room would be open. In Massachusetts, in spite of requiring insurance for everyone, emergency room use went up, not down.
It takes 17 years from the decision to increase the physician workforce to actually get more doctors in a community. Thirty-two million newly insured will need a lot of doctors, and we don’t know how many will follow through in their plans to quit medicine. New facilities must be built, students recruited, and physicians trained. It all takes time.
Certainly all those folks with financial resources who are uninsured will be happy to pay for their health insurance rather than pay the much smaller financial penalty for not having insurance. Won’t they?
They wouldn’t try to sell us a bill of goods, would they? Surely they are sincere. They wouldn’t lie to the American people about something so important. Would they?
Filed under: Capitalism, Health Care, Law, The Constitution | Tags: Debunking Liberal Lies, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, Obamacare
Representative Phil Hare (D-Ill) is concerned about all those folks dying in the streets because they don’t have health insurance. Rep. Hare finds those people a much greater concern than the Constitution of the United States, even though they don’t exist. There is no one in the United States that goes without medical care, including illegals, poor people or the homeless.
The Constitution has served us well for 223 years, the oldest and most envied Constitution in the world, but too many of our legislators cannot be bothered to become familiar with it and ponder its meaning.
Do you suppose he really believes that people are dying because they are uninsured? Do they absorb their talking points to such an extent that they believe them? They keep giving us these marvelous glimpses of the Progressive mind. Sad. Really sad!
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Energy, Statism | Tags: Debunking Liberal Lies, Democrat Demagogues, Useless Regulation
The Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have set aggressive national standards for fuel economy (35.5 mpg by 2016) and the first ever “greenhouse gas emission levels” for passenger cars and light trucks.
Responding to one of the first major directives of the Obama Administration, DOT and the EPA jointly established “historic” new federal rules that set the first-ever national greenhouse gas emissions standards and will significantly increase the fuel economy of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States.
Essentially, the administration is announcing that the American people are not making the “proper” choices about the cars they drive. The government is better qualified to make those choices, and you will obey.
Since the only way to increase fuel economy is to make cars lighter, there will be an increased highway death rate. Decreasing “greenhouse gas emissions” will have no effect on climate. It will have little effect on cleaner air, since CO2 is not a pollutant as claimed by the EPA. Cars will cost more, at a minimum something in the range between $1,100 and $5,000 per car, which means that people will hang on to their old cars longer, meaning more jobs (estimates are 50,000) will be lost in the automobile industry, for car companies will sell fewer new cars.
Taxpayers spent $60 billion to bail out GM. They now own 60% of the company. Now they are going to buy its cars. Obama announced that Washington DC will purchase the first 100 plug-in cars to come off the line, which will have to be Chevy Volts, since they are the only ones available, at $40,000 each, or another $ 4 million from the taxpayers.
Somehow all of Obama’s new directives end up forcing something on Americans that they don’t want, that will cost more, that will accomplish absolutely nothing that it is intended to accomplish, and will destroy another large number of jobs in the process.
If you remember, GM didn’t even want to try to produce the Volt. It costs too much, will only go 40 miles on a charge (if you’re lucky) and its gasoline engine is wimpy. Obama insisted. He knows best.
Filed under: Economy, Health Care, News, Progressivism | Tags: Obama, Obamacare, Polls
Turns out Americans are increasingly deciding they don’t care for Obama’s “whether you like it or not” presidency:
President Obama’s overall job approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 44 percent, down five points from late March…
…When it comes to health care, the President’s approval rating is even lower — and is also a new all-time low. Only 34 percent approved, while 55 percent said they disapproved…
… Just 42 percent said they approved of how President Obama is handling the economy, only one point above January’s all-time low. Half of the public disapproves. [read more]
And that’s from CBS, the journalistic equivalent of the royal wipers from Coming to America. When even CBS can no longer hide the decline, you know the Obama presidency is in real trouble.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Health Care, Law, Statism, Taxes | Tags: Debunking Liberal Lies, Democrat Demagogues, Media Bias, Obamacare
Progressives apparently thought that the Tea Party Movement was so scary— all those people carrying flags and signs — that the ordinary folk out there would be frightened. After all, New York Times reporter Benedict Carey found the country running a right-wing political fever of rage, in a front-page Sunday Week in Review essay. The online headline said “When Does Political Anger Turn to Violence?”
An archive photo from Getty Images of the late-1960s left-wing domestic terrorist group The Weathermen, with Obama’s friend Bill Ayers sat directly above a picture of marching Tea Party protesters. Seems to me that the Weathermen were actually responsible for killing and attempted killing. The photos caption:
VARYING DEGREES OF RAGE The Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, second from right, during the Days of Rage in 1969, and anti-health reform protesters in Washington on Sunday.
Rep. John Lewis, (D-GA)claimed that when he and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus walked through a tea party protest last week in Washington, they heard the N-word shouted at them 15 times. No video or audio recording — when everyone seems to have a recorder — has shown up to back the claim. Andrew Breitbart offered a hefty reward for any such recording, but none has appeared, and videos of the Caucus walk have surfaced with a distinct absence of such threats. The only person arrested for threatening violence in recent days was held for threatening Eric Cantor, the No.2 Republican in the House, and a spent bullet hit the window of his district headquarters.
The Tea Parties I have seen videos of, seem cheerful, as if the protesters are having a great time waving their Gadsden ‘Don’t Tread On Me” flags or national flags, and their signs and conversation seem to indicate that they are well-informed, and object to policy. There is an absence of threats unless you consider “Kill the Bill” terribly threatening.
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) canceled a town hall meeting on the healthcare law Tuesday because of concerns about the security of the event reported The Hill.
The congressman’s office cited safety issues at the facility where the meeting was to take place and threats to his office, according to a report by News 21.
We just thought it best to cancel it for safety concerns. This was not meant to be a place where we’re going to talk partisan politics, Pat Lowry, a member of Ryan’s staff told News 21.
Cute idea, fellows, but it just didn’t work. The Tea Party people are angry, but their anger is directed at policy they disagree with, and at the process through which that policy was enacted. And just as a reminder, this is exactly the way things are supposed to work.
Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Gullible Left-Wing Media Discovers Right-Wing “Hate:”
And a Little Trip Down Memory-Lane:
There are few things so embarrassing as a montage of the media obediently following the talking points, especially when there was no basis for all their excitement, no basis at all.
American Elephants 