Tag Archives: Redistribution of Wealth

Videos

MSNBC anchor asks Democrat Congresswoman about choice and competition

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This is from Newsbusters.

Excerpt:

RATIGAN: So, here’s a couple of the issues that come up I would love to get your response to, and I want to show you this, and you can explain it to me. As you know, in addition to everything you just described, this does very little to bring real competition and choice into the insurance marketplace. It does very little to reform the insurance monopolies. It does very little to create more choices for everybody in America for their healthcare. But at the same time, it mandates that everybody in America face penalties if they don’t buy healthcare.

So the result of that has been the following: you know the monopoly scenario. I want you to take a look at the insurance stocks in this country on news that a bill may be passed that mandates the creation of millions of new customers but does not reform the monopoly structure. Take a look at the insurance stocks since November 17th. WellPoint up thirteen percent, that’s over a course of a few weeks, United Health up ten percent, Aetna up twelve percent, Humana up six percent. Those health insurance companies are up because being an unreformed oligopoly, monopoly, and having now the benefit of a government that is assigning the expense of covering the uninsured without reforming the monopoly. It basically allows the taxpayer to take the hit to pay for the uninsured, but it does not deal with the underlying symptom as to why there are so many uninsured, which is we have an unreformed private insurance monopoly in this country that is now being guaranteed more customers by the government. Why is that a good thing for America?

Holy snark! Please watch this! I can’t believe that this news guy is from the hard-left MSNBC network.

He is basically pointing out that government is going to force a bunch of uninsured Americans to buy the products of these medical insurers, and force ordinary productive taxpayers to pay the bill. So it’s a massive transfer of wealth from ordinary productive taxpayers to big medical insurance companies, for the benefit of Obama’s key voting groups.

Videos

Lord Christopher Monkton on the Michael Coren show

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Compelling video. (H/T Sort of Political via ECM)

Thanks for finding these videos, ECM!

News

House health care bill provides health care for illegal immigrants with taxpayer money

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Robert Rector does the analysis here at the Heritage Foundation. (H/T National Review via ECM)

Here’s the abstract:

H.R. 3962 would deliberately permit illegal aliens to participate in the government health insurance exchange and in the public option insurance program. It would nominally bar them from receiving health care “affordability credits” and most regular Medicaid benefits, but verification procedures are weak and subject to fraud. Moreover, any limitations on benefits provided to illegal immigrants under the House bill are deceptive. The Presi­dent and the congressional leadership clearly intend that these limits will be only temporary, to be overturned by amnesty or “comprehensive immigration reform” legisla­tion that will be introduced next spring.

And here are the main points:

The health care bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 3962) clearly and directly contradicts the President’s declarations and promises. Under H.R. 3962:

  • Illegal immigrants are clearly permitted to purchase health insurance under the government health insurance exchange created by the bill.
  • Illegal immigrants are permitted to receive cover age under the “public health insurance option” created in the bill.
  • Illegal immigrants are ostensibly barred from receiving taxpayer-funded “affordability credits” to subsidize their health care, but the verification procedures used to determine the legal status of those who receive credits are weak and subject to fraud.
  • The bill expands the Medicaid program. Illegal immigrants are nominally barred from receiving most Medicaid services, but the verification procedures used to determine the legal status of those who receive credits are also weak and sub ject to fraud.
  • All illegal immigrant women who do not have private health insurance and who give birth inside the United States will have the full cost of childbirth paid by the U.S. taxpayers. There will be no effort to have the mother repay any of the cost. Given the fact that nearly 400,000 children are born inside the U.S. each year to illegal immigrant women, these costs could be quite large.
  • The bill will provide tax credits to small businesses to subsidize the purchase of health insurance for illegal immigrant employees. Under H.R. 3962, small businesses will be given tax credits to encourage them to purchase health coverage for employees; because firms are not required to verify the legal status of subsidized employees, both legal and illegal employees will receive taxpayer support.
  • Illegal immigrants will continue to receive so-called emergency medical services under the Medicaid program.

The full research paper, with references, is here.

BONUS: The Senate bill includes a monthly abortion premium for all enrollees in the government-run health plan.