Tag Archives: Benefits

News

Washington Post: Democrat health care reform bill would reduce senior care

Leave a comment

Story here from the left-wing WaPo.

Excerpt:

A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending — one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health-care system — would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

[…]…the report questions whether the country’s network of doctors and hospitals would be able to cope with the effects of a reform package expected to add more than 30 million people to the ranks of the insured, many of them through Medicaid, the public health program for the poor.

In the face of greatly increased demand for services, providers are likely to charge higher fees or take patients with better-paying private insurance over Medicaid recipients, “exacerbating existing access problems” in that program, according to the report from Richard S. Foster of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

[…]The report offers the clearest and most authoritative assessment to date of the effect that Democratic health reform proposals would have on Medicare and Medicaid, the nation’s largest public health programs.

Seniors voted 53 to 45 in favor of McCain over Obama.

News

Understanding why Democrat policies don’t create jobs

Leave a comment

Before we take a look at why Democrat policies don’t crate jobs, let’s first make sure that Democrat policies don’t create jobs. As it stands, Obama policies have lost 3 million jobs and driven the unemployment rate to 9.7%. But let’s take a look at an example to show that his socialist policies failed to do what he promised (and I think he sincerely believed) they would do.

New Hampshire gets $413 million, creates 34 jobs

Now! Hampshire reports:(H/T ECM)

The stimulus package is working and has already “improve[d] the number of jobs” in New Hampshire, according to Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) in a recent radio interview with WGIR radio personality Charlie Sherman.

“New Hampshire certainly has seen some jobs come and, actually, we grew jobs. We’ve actually had improvement in the number of jobs,” said Shea-Porter.

Shea-Porter’s comments notwithstanding, New Hampshire has lost roughly 16,000 since the beginning of the year and the New Hampshire Union Leader reported recently that the stimulus plan has thus far created only thirty-four fulltime jobs despite the $400 million plus dollars that have come into the Granite State from the federal government.

Obama is very surprised by this unintended consequence of his anti-growth, anti-business policies. He meant well. Aren’t good intentions enough to create jobs?

Democrats in Michigan

The American Thinker writes about how Democrats plan to create jobs to alleviate Michigan’s over 15% unemployment rate.

  1. “Hiking the minimum wage to $10 an hour for all workers.
  2. Imposing a blanket moratorium on home foreclosures for 12 months.
  3. Cutting utility rates 20% across the board.
  4. Requiring all employers to provide health care to their employees.
  5. Hiking, by $100 a week, and extending, for six months, unemployment benefits.”

Let’s take a look at these one at a time.

  1. If you force employers to pay more for each employee, and employers are still getting the same amount of production from each employee, then the employer will lay off the least productive employees and fewer employees who can offer better productivity for the higher salaries they are required to pay. Raising the minimum wage RAISES unemployment.
  2. If you force banks to not foreclose on homes, then banks will take huge losses and have less money to lend anyone else. Small businesses, new home buyers and existing homeowners will suffer, as well as bank shareholders.
  3. Cutting utility rates by 20% across the board will make consumption increase while supply decreases, causing a shortage. This would lead to blackouts, which is exactly what happened in California when the Democrats tried to do the same thing.
  4. If employers are forced to provide health care for all employees, they must pay more for each employee for the same amount of productivity. This will result in increased unemployment and reduced hiring as employers reduce their number of employees. The least productive employees are the first to go.
  5. Raising unemployment benefits will create a budget deficit that has to be filled by spending cuts or, more likely, tax increases. Tax increases cause the most productive people like investors and business owners to dial back their productivity. That raises unemployment.

Michigan is probably one of the worst states in the Union in terms of being run by Democrats who have no idea how jobs are created. You might as well give the job of running the state to a four-year old. Democrats just don’t understand anything about economics. Democrats are trying to fix problems on the basis of what makes them feel good about themselves and what makes people like them.

News

Does Obama plan to tax people making less than $250,000?

1 Comment

Keith Hennessey explains how Obamacare will result in higher taxes on the middle class.

Excerpt:

As expected, the House bill would mandate that individuals and families have or buy health insurance.

But what if they don’t buy it?

Then Section 401 kicks in.  Any individual (or family) that does not have health insurance would have to pay a new tax, roughly equal to the smaller of 2.5% of your income or the cost of a health insurance plan.

I assume the bill authors would respond, “But why wouldn’t you want insurance?  After all, we’re subsidizing it for everyone up to 400% of the poverty line.”

That is true.  But if you’re a single person with income of $44,000 or higher, then you’re above 400% of the poverty line.  You would not be subsidized, but would face the punitive tax if you didn’t get health insurance.  This bill leaves an important gap between the subsidies and the cost of health insurance.  CBO says that for about eight million people, that gap is too big to close, and they would get stuck paying higher taxes and still without health insurance.

He uses several different examples to show how Obama’s plan would raise taxes on people making much less than 250,000 dollars a year. I know what you’re thinking – “Wintery! Obama promised he wouldn’t raise taxes on the middle class!” Well, he’s going to do exactly what is consistent with his voting record. If only the left-wing media had told us his voting record, instead of talking incessantly about Sarah Palin’s children.

I should note that Obama broke his tax pledge many times already.

Americans for Tax Reform has been documenting Obama’s string of broken tax promises. Obama first shattered his $250K promise only 16 days into the presidency when he enacted a 61 cent tax increase on cigarette packs, disproportionately hurting low-income Americans. Next, Obama aggressively supported the cap-and-trade tax that, if the bill passes the Senate, will increase energy costs for an average American family by $1,500. Now, in a recent interview with Obama’s Senior Adviser David Axelrod, the administration is waffling about how taxes will be raised for health care reform. When asked if tax increases on families making less than $250,000 might pay for health care, Sen. Schumer, D-N.Y. said, “There are lots of things on the table now.”

Next time, don’t worry about Tina Fey’s sketches, worry about the thousands of dollars that Obammunism will cost you in increased health care costs, increased electricity costs, higher taxes, lost income, stock losses, interest on the national debt, etc. Katie Couric isn’t going to give you all your savings back. Campbell Brown isn’t going to give you your job back. They’re rich Democrats. They don’t care about truth.

UPDATE: Hot Air links to the story and adds this:

As John Boehner points out, many of the so-called “rich” above $250K a year in earnings are small-business owners who simply file their business revenues as personal income.  A 5.4% “surtax” — really just a hike in the upper tax bracket — will take more of their capital out of their businesses and reduce the opportunity for job growth.

The Post notes that the “surtax” would apply to about 2.1 million Americans.  The mandate for coverage will force almost four times as many middle-class Americans to pay higher taxes as a result of the ObamaCare plan in the House while preventing them from getting coverage.  The House hasn’t soaked the rich; they’ve declared war on the middle class and the uninsured.

Socialists against the middle class.