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Polemics

MUST-READ: Does Obamacare encourage men to marry and start families?

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Consider this article from the New Ledger. (H/T ECM)

First the video of Democrat Senator Max Baucus explaining what health care reform was really about.

That’s the truth that no one would speak of until the bill had passed. It’s not a bill about health care – it’s a bill about redistributing wealth from rich to poor. The bill’s whole purpose is to capitalize on people’s fears to gain the power to equalize life outcomes by moving money around.

That’s what government-run health care is – it reduces the costs of risky behavior for some people by pushing them onto hard-working people who pay taxes. Those who need abortions, sex changes and in vitro get paid, those who work the hardest and live the cleanest pay. The way to get paid is to engage in risky and/or immoral behavior, and the way to pay is to engage in hard work – like starting your own business to create jobs. Those are the incentives that Democrats create with the government takeover of health care.

And the New Ledger article explains what it means to have the government take care of you.

Excerpt:

America was built on the belief that the dreams of each of us could be achieved through hard work, self-determination, and persistence. Immigrants from around the globe came to these shores to find refuge from the very governmental policies this administration is imposing on its citizens. Many an American has fought and died for our right to live in a nation of self-starters, where your hard work would allow you to provide a better life for your children, and grand-children, where you and your family were able to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Senator Baucus’ admission reveals the true nature of these policies – create an America where the incentive to succeed is squashed. Those who work tirelessly to provide for their family are not rewarded for their efforts, but penalized. In the Democrat’s America, those who sit lazily on their duff, are the ones who are rewarded.

This approach will not lift up the poor, but enslave them to the tit of federal leviathan. Without an education, or job training, or dream, Americans will be able to sit, aloof in front of their television and drown their sorrows in Big Macs and beer, still assured of their free health care and their government check. They will not earn that money after a hard day’s work…

The Democrats want people who work hard to have less money of their own. That makes it harder for hard-workers to execute their own life plan. So, it means that people who work hard will have to accept what the government gives them instead – public schools, public hospitals, public libraries, public universities, etc. That way everyone will be equal. Equally dependent on the government.

But these public facilities may not always be the best for Christians who have Christian life plans. And if you think that a secular government is going to give you what you need to raise a Christian family, think again. They’ll put Kevin Jennings, Planned Parenthood, the SEIU and Al Gore in the school to teach your children about same-sex marriage, abortion, socialism and global warming. And you’ll have no money left over to resist them.

What did the Republicans do instead?

Take a look at these graphs from a recent Powerline post.

Per Capita Income
Per Capita Income
Employment Rate
Employment Rate

Republicans want people to get their own jobs and to earn their own income. Pay their own way. Dream their own dreams. And to achieve those dreams. This is a lot better for Christians with a plan to do things in a way that honors Christ.

What do these graphs say to marriage-minded men?

These graphs are a green light to a man. They say to a man: “MARRY AND HAVE CHILDREN NOW”. They say that the harder you work, the more you will be able to provide for your family. That it is safe to take the responsibility for a wife and children, because it is in your power to protect them and provide for them. They mean that a man has nothing to worry about – that he should stop worrying about the future and just go for it! And this isn’t just a blind faith that things will work out – there are reasons to believe that things will work out. More income and more jobs means that things are more likely to work out.

What do 77% of young, unmarried women really want?

77% of young, unmarried women voted for Obama. They don’t really want husbands to protect and provide for them – because they voted for less personal income and fewer jobs. That’s what they’ve voted for, anyway. If they didn’t want to dissuade men from marrying, then maybe they shouldn’t have voted for Obama.

Related: MUST-READ: 20 reasons why the health care reform bill is a disaster.

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MUST-READ: 20 reasons why the health care reform bill is a disaster

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Here are TWENTY reasons from Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)

2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employees’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).

6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.
You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).

9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 50 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).

11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))

12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A)).

13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).

14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)

15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry… Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).

16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers… Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).

So… individuals will have less money in their pockets, small businesses will lay off employees… the number of doctors and hospitals will decrease… there will be fewer new medications and new medical devices developed… and insurance companies will go out of business so that consumers of health care will have fewer choices and pay higher prices.

Every time Obama attacks service providers and product manufacturers, then we get LESS of what they provide. When we get FEWER services and products, then that means that there will be LESS SUPPLY. When demand stays the same and supply goes down, then PRICES INCREASE. We are all going to have to pay for Obama’s economic ignorance. Eventually, the government ends up by closing hospitals and cutting service, as is being proposed right now in the UK. (20 billion euros worth of cuts!)

We could have had real health care reform to make buying health care like buying from Amazon.com. But no. We wanted to buy health care from the DMV, because the service there is SO MUCH BETTER.

News

How are big companies responding to Obamacare?

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Caterpillar and John Deere. (H/T Hot Air via ECM)

Excerpt:

Caterpillar Inc. said Wednesday it will take a $100 million charge to earnings this quarter to reflect additional taxes stemming from newly enacted U.S. health-care legislation.

[…]The charge is expected to be a one-time cost, but Caterpillar has argued that higher taxes and other potential cost increases related to insurance coverage mandates in the legislation will hinder the company’s recovery this year after a 75% plunge in income during 2009.

“From our point of view, a tax increase like this cannot come at a worse time,” said Jim Dugan, a Caterpillar spokesman.

[…]Farm equipment maker Deere expects after-tax expenses to rise by $150 million this year as a result of the health care reform law President Barack Obama signed this week.

Most of the higher expense will come in Deere’s second quarter, the company said on Thursday. The expense was not included in the company’s earlier 2010 forecast, which called for net income of about $1.3 billion.

The law could raise expenses for large U.S. employers. Industrial companies, which typically have large numbers of retirees, may be among those facing the biggest bill. Caterpillar had argued before the legislation passed that health reform would put it at a disadvantage against global competitors.

And National Review reports on Verizon. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Yesterday I posted a memo that Verizon sent to its employees concerning its view that the Democrats’ health-care bill would probably cause its costs to go up. Specifically, the memo keyed in on a change in the tax treatment of the Medicare Part D retiree drug subsidy. This is a subsidy that the government pays to employers that offer prescription-drug coverage to their retirees; it was created as part of the Medicare prescription-drug entitlement to encourage employers not to dump their retirees into the public system. As the Wall Street Journal editorial board reports today, the subsidy costs taxpayers $665 per person, “while the same Medicare coverage would cost $1,209.”

As part of their effort to keep their health-care bill deficit-neutral, the Democrats changed the law and exposed the subsidy to the 35 percent corporate income tax rate, adding $5.4 billion in revenue to the bill. In its memo to employees, Verizon warned that this tax change would make the subsidy “less valuable to employers, like Verizon, and as a result, may have significant implications for both retirees and employers.” This is a clear sign that Verizon and other employers will probably drop their retiree prescription-drug coverage, leaving Medicare Part D to pick up the slack.

UPDATE: More from National Review. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

AK Steele Holding Corp., “the third largest U.S. steelmaker by sales, said it will record a non-cash charge of about $31 million resulting from the health-care overhaul signed into law by President Barack Obama. The charge will be recorded in the first quarter of 2010.”

Valero Energy “will take a $15 million to $20 million charge to second-quarter earnings for the same reason.”

Medical-device maker Medtronic “warned that new taxes on its products could force it to lay off a thousand workers.”

And more from National Review. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Wow: “U.S. companies employed 3.9 million fewer workers in January 2010 than they did one year earlier.”

If you will recall, when touting the stimulus, President Obama and his team declared that “a package in the range that the President-Elect has discussed is expected to create between three and four million jobs by the end of 2010 . . . More than 90 percent of the jobs created are likely to be in the private sector.”

90 percent of three million jobs would be 2.7 million jobs. Yet we’re 3.9 million lower than when we started.

To meet the goal by the deadline, the country would have to create 6.6 million jobs in the next nine months. or more than 733,000 jobs per month for three quarters of the year.

UPDATE 2: Now Business Week reports that AT&T is screwed.

Excerpt:

AT&T Inc. will book $1 billion in first-quarter costs related to the health-care law signed this week by President Barack Obama, the most of any U.S. company so far.

A change in the tax treatment of Medicare subsidies triggered the non-cash expense, and the company will consider changes to the benefits it offers current and retired workers, Dallas-based AT&T said today in a regulatory filing.

Hey! Do you know what causes outsourcing of jobs? DEMOCRATS. Democrats cause jobs to be shipped overseas. Democrats hate companies. Companies hire people. Democrats cause American manufacturing jobs to be shipped overseas. Democrats cause unemployment. That’s why the unemployment rate is double what it was under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Democrats cause unemployment.

How do jobs get created, anyway?

Do you know what really works to create jobs?

I mean – do you know what actually has worked in the past to create jobs?

The Heritage Foundation reports:

President Ronald Reagan’s record includes sweeping economic reforms and deep across-the-board tax cuts, market deregulation, and sound monetary policies to contain inflation. His policies resulted in the largest peacetime economic boom in American history and nearly 35 million more jobs.

See:

That’s what actually worked.

Free. Market. Capitalism. Works.