Liberals Lose Minds Over Obamacare Ruling

When the D.C. Appellate Court ruled federal subsidies only applied to state-run exchanges, libtards throughout the country lost their minds.  Imagine this government actually having to follow a law.  One that Democrats fought tooth and nail for, and by hook and crook, shoved down our throats.  How dare these judges interpret the law as written!  Who does that these days?  Here is a tweet from Mother Jones:

The New Republic published this chart to emphasize the price increases without taxpayer subsidies.  Their intent was to demonstrate what life will be like without a government teat.  I, on the other hand, believe it demonstrates the incompetence of the federal government.  This is what happens when a government entity over regulates and mandates unnecessary coverage.  Insurance no longer becomes affordable.

A friend of mine informed me next year, his employer based health insurance plan, which covers a family of four, will cost more than his monthly mortgage.  And he works for a hospital!  Affordable Care Act my ass.

Source:

http://watchdog.org/160919/obama-halbig-burwell/

Obamacare Architect Caught Lying about State Exchanges

After awhile, you’d think at some point in time Democrats would demonstrate a little shame and admit they were wrong, or at least tell the truth.  That is one bridge too far.  Progressives will deny what they’ve said even though they’ve been recorded multiple times.  To them, we are the idiots for not understanding their intent. 

Jonathon Gruber is one of the architects of Obamacare.  This man declared, on multiple occasions, that Obamacare subsidies were tied to state run exchanges.  Brietbart.com reported the following:

A clip of Jonathan Gruber circulated last night in which he states that Obamacare subsidies are tied to the existence of state exchanges. This statement is extremely problematic for the law's supporters because it appears to confirm the view of plaintiffs in the Halbig case, i.e. that only state-exchanges were intended to deliver subsidies.

This morning Gruber told the New Republic's Jonathan Cohn that he know why he said it at the time in 2012. "I was speaking off-the-cuff. It was just a mistake," he claims. He added, "My subsequent statement was just a speak-o—you know, like a typo." A typo is usually a simple slip of the finger on the keyboard, i.e. a misspelling or missed bit of punctuation. Gruber's statement is nearly a minute long.

Also, it turns out it was not the only time he made such a statement. An clip from a public appearance Gruber made at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on January 10, 2012 reveals he made the same connection between subsidies and state-based exchanges on at least one other occasion (hat tip to MorgenR).

There is no doubt this man is a progressive.  His liar qualifications are off the chart. 

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  Source:  http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2014/07/25/Obamacare-Architect-Jonathan-Gruber-Once-Again-Ties-Subsidies-to-State-Based-Exchanges

Who Pays for These Obamacare Federal Subsidies?

How many times have we read or heard about federal government subsidies for those who are lucky enough to qualify in the Obamacare exchanges.  Newspaper editors, columnist and talking heads all claim that “affordable” health care is on the way for those below the poverty line and the chronically infirmed.  But where do these”subsidies” actually come from.  Who is actually paying for this monstrosity?  Carolina Journal outlined the following:

Individual Mandate — This provision of the law is not a penalty, but a tax. The Obama administration euphemizes the individual mandate as the “individual shared responsibility provision.” If an uninsured individual does not purchase health insurance between now and February 2014, that person will face a tax of either $95 or 1 percent of income, whichever is greater.

Employer Mandate — Also referred to by the Obama administration as the “employer shared responsibility payment,” employers with 50 or more full-time workers (30 hours/week) must provide affordable, qualified health insurance for their workers. If not, an employee who obtains subsidized coverage on the exchange triggers a tax on the employer.

Large employers may be subject to two penalties under the employer mandate,one strong and one weak. The ultimate smack-down penalty is a $2,000 fine per worker for every worker after the 30th employee if an employer does not provide any health benefits. Meanwhile, the slap-on-the-wrist penalty occurs when an employer does offer coverage, but the firm either does not cover 60 percent of the employee’s costs or requires the employee to pay a contribution that exceeds 9.5 percent of his income. In these situations, an employer is fined $3,000 per worker, but only for those who choose to purchase subsidized private coverage on the health insurance marketplace.

Reinsurance Tax — The reinsurance tax applies to any company that provides health insurance (big businesses, labor unions, insurance carriers). It is a $63 fee assessed on not just every worker or individual, but dependents as well. Because of this, The Wall Street Journal refers to the “reinsurance tax” as the “belly-button tax.”

The reinsurance tax has a lifespan of three years and is supposed to kick in at the start of the new year. The majority of the estimated total of $25 billion it will raise will be designated as a fund for individual insurers to offset the cost of high-risk individual policyholders both on and off the exchanges. It will also serve as a pain reliever for these insurance companies when young and healthy invincibles refuse to sign up for costly health plans.

High-risk individual policyholders will therefore benefit at the extra expense of those who do not even participate in the individual marketplace, such as small businesses, large businesses, and the self-insured.

Health Insurance Tax — Unlike the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, HIT will live up to its name, in which consumers will take a direct one to the wallet. The tax kicks off in 2014, when insurers catering to the individual and small group markets will have to pay an annual fee to the federal government.

And what they can’t tax, the Federal Reserve will print or digitize.  This law is not economically sound.  Either Obamacare will fail, or the country will.  Something has to give.

Source:  http://www.carolinajournal.com/daily_journal/index.html

Obamacare Screws N.C. Teachers

Welcome to the world of Obamacare, part-time teachers!  What you thought was going to be free, ended up screwing thee.  You thought you were going to be immune from this monstrosity, just because you’re public employees.  Didn’t turn out that way did it? 

McCoy Faulkner collects $81 a day as a substitute teacher in the Wake County Public School System. A mere sub, he has no benefits.

The 62-year-old former Raleigh police officer shells out $580 a month for an individual insurance policy, more than half his monthly pay. The full-time teachers for whom Faulkner fills in, however, are eligible for free health insurance, with no monthly premiums, through their employer.

That’s why Faulkner was looking forward to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, figuring he was the kind of person that the health care reform law was designed to help. Under the new law, anyone who works 30 hours or more a week for a large business will be eligible for employer-sponsored health care.

But instead of adding subs like Faulkner to its health care plan, the school system is looking for ways to avoid doing so. Wake is considering restricting its 3,300-plus substitutes to working less than 30 hours a week, effective July 1.

The reason: If just a third of the system’s subs were to qualify for employer-sponsored insurance, it would cost Wake schools about $5.2 million, chief business officer David Neter said.

There is an option.  Just not the one he expected.

Those who can’t buy insurance through work will have a backup option: buying coverage through a health exchange. The Affordable Care Act even includes federal subsidies for people at certain income levels to offset insurance costs. The subsidies are available to individuals making as much as $45,960 a year, and for a family of four making as much as $94,200 a year – well within range for substitute teachers and Piggly Wiggly clerks.

Nearly 900,000 North Carolinians are eligible for these subsidies, according to a recent report issued by the N.C. Institute of Medicine, a nonpartisan research organization in Morrisville.

Health exchange details are not out yet, so Faulkner doesn’t know how that option will compare to the Wake schools plan, but he doubts the exchanges will be able to compete with the county’s health plan.

“People who need the benefits won’t be able to get in,” Faulkner said. “They were hoping they would be able to have insurance, which is what the law was designed to do.”

You can get insurance, Mr. Faulkner.  You just have to pay for it.  Before, you had the option of not buying it.  Now you must.  This isn’t your grandpa’s America, any more.

Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/06/01/2932880/some-nc-employers-cut-worker-hours.html#storylink=cpy

Green Agenda Goes Bankrupt

Green energy has become one of the biggest boondoggle frauds perpetuated on the American people by a politically mischievous centralized government in the history of our nation. Billions of dollars have been lost to this pie-in-the-sky fantasy. And all of the companies who received federal funding are now closing their doors. Evergreen Solar, Solon Corporation, Spectrawatt, and just recently Solyndra have all went down in flames.

The green agenda is dependent upon government subsidies and without it, they go bankrupt. Two republican congressmen smelled something fishy about the loan to Solyndra:

Republicans have been looking into the Solyndra loan for months. The House Energy and Commerce Committee subpoenaed documents relating to the loan from the White House Office of Management and Budget. GOP Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and Cliff Stearns of Florida issued a joint statement on Wednesday saying it was clear that Solyndra was a dubious investment.

"We smelled a rat from the onset," the two lawmakers said.

The Institute for Energy Research pulls no punches on how dependent green energy is on taxpayer largess:

Solar panel manufacturing may be profitable for some countries where skilled labor can be found cheaply, especially as long as governments direct consumers to purchase electricity from such sources, regardless of economics. But, in the United States, solar manufacturing plants are closing and the “green jobs” associated with them are evaporating. One may wonder why, but the economics are clear. Without massive subsidies, these industries cannot survive, and without policies that force these products to be purchased, they can’t survive. European countries (e.g. Spain and Germany) are examples where legislative and regulatory policies required solar energy to be purchased at rates far above the going retail rate.[ix] These countries found that they had to slash subsidies because of high rates and little power production due to low capacity factors of solar plants.

With such European experiences, and with companies closing down solar manufacturing plants and laying off workers, why must our government continue to push for these expensive technologies[x] that cannot survive in the market place on their own?

And that is a good question. Maybe Obama can answer that for us during his joint address to Congress.

Source: http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2011/08/22/solar-manufacturers-slowly-closing-up-shop-in-u-s/

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/08/31/business/AP-US-Solar-Manufacturer-Bankruptcy.html?_r=3&hp

Charlotte Observer Editor Wets Underoos Over Rail Line

Just last week the editorial board at the Charlotte Observer was lamenting the huge debt and budget deficits that the federal government has incurred. This same newspaper lauded the Bowles – Simpson Debt Commission on their austerity programs to cut cost and raise taxes. Boy, what a difference a week makes. Associate Editor, Jack Betts in this Sunday’s editorial is applauding a government subsidy to build a high speed commuter train on the eastern seaboard:

Now, 40 years later, as North Carolina and other parts of the South cope with the effects of dramatic population growth, traffic congestion and the post 9-11 inconveniences of airplane travel, the Obama administration is pushing for a remake of a rail passenger system that once was the predominant way of moving people about the country. The administration is making available more than $10 billion in grants to 31 states to create a system of high-speed trains that could link 80 percent of the nation's population by 2035. It will cost many billions of dollars.


And here's the thing: North Carolina finds itself well-positioned to tap into that funding to rebuild its rail lines and significantly increase its ability to help move people up and down the East Coast. That will happen if rail planners succeed in linking the Northeast Corridor of existing fast trains between Washington and Boston with the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor, sending fast trains from Richmond south through Raleigh, Charlotte, and Atlanta with connections to South Florida.

These progressive spendthrifts at the Charlotte Disturber are about as fickle as a five year old. Give them a new shiny government program and their eyes glaze over and you begin to see a wet spot expand in their Underoos. You can feel the excite in Mr. Betts prose at the prospect of a state funded rail system:

The rail division at the N.C. Department of Transportation has worked with existing Amtrak service and contracted for operation of state-supported trains restoring daily round-trip service between Raleigh and Charlotte with connections north and south. Those trains, especially the state-sponsored train sets, are clean, comfortable and a bargain for travelers who don't own cars or don't want to fight traffic in the Triangle, through the Triad and into Charlotte.

Amtrak is a bargain because they are highly subsidized by the American taxpayer:

According to the Congressional Budget Office, “only 16 percent of Amtrak’s long-distance passengers use sleeper service, at a subsidy that ranged in 2004 from $269 to $627 per passenger and exceeded subsidies for coach service by at least 50 percent and sometimes more than 100 percent per route.” These losses are made up by taxpayers. During these increasingly tough economic times, taxpayers do not need to be additionally burdened by paying for turn-down service and pre-paid movies. This unprofitable activity is one reason that Amtrak has received $37 billion of taxpayer subsidies since 1970



Mr. Betts reminisces about the resurrection of the old Orange Blossom Special line from New York to Miami. He however omits the fact that the line was built by men of vision who took the risk of investing their own time and money; they were entrepreneurs.

The Orange Blossom Special eventually went bankrupt due to the vicissitudes of the housing market in Florida. This new project is dependent upon taxpayers; dreams of progressive newspaper editors; and the vicissitudes of politicians.



Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/11/21/1853503/will-seaboard-line-roll-again.html#ixzz15wp5t1Je

http://books.google.com/books?id=znJ_RPNe-CgC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=s.+davies+warfield+and+the+orange+blossom+special+line&source=bl&ots=BZfd9yiwbA&sig=9viN6yY18ceW3p__i640GpsIIpE&hl=en&ei=PWbpTOuvHcH6lwfRnfyyCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=s.%20davies%20warfield%20and%20the%20orange%20blossom%20special%20line&f=false

http://biggovernment.com/krasmussen/2010/09/17/amtrak-subsidizing-first-class/

Alaskan Federal Contractor Stumps for Murkowski

An Alaskan federal contractor gathers his employees and implicitly informs them that a vote for Lisa Murkowski is a vote for their jobs. He goes onto say that he doesn’t consider government subsidies funneled to his projects as “pork barrel spending.” Of course you don’t. Nobody considers themselves teat suckers.


Senator Lisa Murkowski is on the appropriations subcommittee: a choice appointment. Alaska is known for milking the taxpayers. The late Senator Ted Stevens was on this very same committee. He brought so much pork home that the state flag should have been changed to a squealing pig standing on the capitol steps, clutching a fistful of dollars. Remember the bridge to nowhere?

It’s this kind of attitude that is bankrupting this country.

H/T: Lonely Conservative