Tag Archives: Senate

News

Obamacare website won’t reveal plan costs until after midterm elections

4 Comments

Last year, they revealed all the plans on October 1st. What could cause them to delay the prices this year for over a month?

The Washington Times explains.

Excerpt:

Those planning to purchase health insurance on the Obamacare exchange will soon find out how much rates have increased — after the Nov. 4 election.

Enrollment on the Healthcare.gov website begins Nov. 15, or 11 days after the midterm vote, and critics who worry about rising premium hikes in 2015 say that’s no coincidence. Last year’s inaugural enrollment period on the health-care exchange began Oct. 1.

“This is more than just a glitch,” said Tim Phillips, president of free-market Americans for Prosperity, in a Friday statement. “The administration’s decision to withhold the costs of this law until after Election Day is just more proof that Obamacare is a bad deal for Americans.”

[…]The Iowa insurance commissioner approved last week premium increases for three insurance carriers: Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, CoOpportunity Health and Coventry Health. Two of those insurers will implement double-digit hikes ranging from 11.9 to 19 percent, the Des Moines Register reports.

[…]The issue is also resonating in the Louisiana Senate race, where Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu is seeking re-election against Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy. Documents filed with the Louisiana Department of Insurance show some insurers are anticipating double-digit rate hikes, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Mr. Cassidy, who’s a doctor, issued a statement Thursday calling the higher premiums “another hurdle for families and businesses already struggling under the demands of Obamacare.”

“Premiums have gone up by 53 percent for the average Louisiana policyholder and many of these policies will again see double-digit increases,” Mr. Cassidy said. “It’s unfair to Louisianans who have to balance their budgets and their businesses.”

I can understand why the Democrats would want to keep the exchange rates private before the election. They are counting on hoodwinking the American public again – vote first, find out what’s in the bill later.

 

News

Democrat Senate candidates support late-term abortion

Leave a comment

Take a look at the views of some of these Democrat candidates for the Senate.

First, North Carolina Senate candidate Kay Hagan:

The Weekly Standard explains:

North Carolina senator Kay Hagan’s position on abortion is the target of a new $620,000 TV ad campaign that is being launched today by the Women Speak Out PAC.

In the ad, a husband and wife, Becca and Ned Ryun, tell the moving story of how doctors saved the life of their daughter Charlotte who was born prematurely at 24 weeks into pregnancy. Photos of their daughter in the neo-natal intenseive care unit flash across the screen, and it isn’t until the end of the minute-long spot that the viewer gets a political message.

“For those who are advocating late-term abortions, look at my daughter,” says Ned Ryun. The ad concludes with a narrator conveying that North Carolina’s senator thinks it should be legal to abort infants like Charlotte late in pregnancy: “Kay Hagan supports painful, late-term abortions. She’s too extreme for North Carolina.”

Hagan said in 2013 that she opposed legislation that would protect the lives of unborn children after the 20th week of gestation, when babies are old enough to feel pain and able to live long-term if born in many cases.

The bill was introduced and passed the House of Representatives in the summer of 2013 following the trial of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist who was convicted of murder for killing infants outside the womb. When Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, was asked what the difference was between killing a 23-week-old baby outside the womb and aborting that same child in utero, she sputtered and couldn’t answer the question.

The Republican candidate in this race is Thom Tillis.

Second, Colorado Senate candidate Mark Udall:

The Weekly Standard explains:

At the outset of the Denver Post‘s senatorial debate on Tuesday night, a moderator asked Democratic senator Mark Udall the following question: “We know that you support a woman’s right to choose, but given the advances in scientific understanding of fetal development, where pregnant mothers know at which week babies grow fingernails and can swallow, would you support a ban on late-term abortions and if so at what week?”

Udall replied by citing the case of a woman who discovered during the eighth month of pregnancy that her child had a severe brain deformity. “To demand that that woman carry that child to term would be a form of government intervention that none of us want to see happen. We ought to respect the women of Colorado and their point of view,” Udall said.

Udall gave no indication that he supports any legal limits on aborting healthy infants late in pregnancy or any other restrictions on abortion, a position consistent with his voting record.

The Republican candidate in this race is Cory Gardner.

The story of the midterm elections next month is the Republican attempt to take the Senate, in order to block Obama’s plan to pack the courts with leftist judges.

News

Charles Krauthammer: what the GOP should do if they retake the Senate

2 Comments

From National Review, a follow-up to my post yesterday about the midterm election projection.

Excerpt:

The Democratic line is that the Republican House does nothing but block and oppose. In fact, it has passed hundreds of bills, only to have them die upon reaching the desk of Senate majority leader Harry Reid. He has rendered the Senate inert by simply ensuring that any bill that might present a politically difficult vote for his Democratic colleagues never comes to the floor.

Winning control of the Senate would allow Republicans to pass a whole range of measures now being held up by Reid, often at the behest of the White House. Make it a major reform agenda. The centerpiece might be tax reform, both corporate and individual. It is needed, popular, and doable. Then go for the low-hanging fruit enjoying wide bipartisan support, such as the Keystone XL pipeline and natural-gas exports, especially to Eastern Europe. One could then add border security, energy deregulation, and health-care reform that repeals the more onerous Obamacare mandates.

If the president signs any of it, good. If he vetoes, it will be clarifying. Who then will be the Party of No? The vetoed legislation would become the framework for a 2016 GOP platform. Let the debate begin.

The risk-averse will say: Why take chances? Why not just run against the Obama legacy in 2016?

The GOP should and will do that. What has happened to economic growth, social cohesion, and America’s standing abroad will be a significant drag on Democrats. But it could very well not be enough.

[…]Memo to the GOP: Win the Senate, then enact an agenda and dare the president to veto it. Show the country what you stand for. Then take it to the nation in 2016.

So, if the GOP takes the House and Senate, they can proceed to pass every single bill that makes sense to the American people and then have Obama veto each one. Then they can run on those vetoed bills in 2016. Obama is a left-wing radical, so this is exactly who we want to represent the Democrat party in such an operation. Republicans can say “We wanted THIS and the Democrat in charge said no”. That’s one way of working around the liberal media. Now is the time to debate all the bills that they will want to pass should the GOP win the Presidency in 2016.