Obamacare – Page 10

Friday night videos episode 28

This won’t be the longest edition of FNV but I think it will be a good one.

The TEA Party Express 3.0 is off and running. While they are coming no closer than Washington, D.C. they had quite the shindig in Searchlight, Nevada as I understand.

With success come imitation, and a candidate billing himself as a “Tea Party” candidate weaseled his way onto the Nevada ballot. The real TEA Partiers want him off.

Another real group of TEA Partiers express their fears of Obamacare thanks to fellow blogger Bob McCarty.

Note to self: remind Bob some of us need a 480-pixel wide format. Same for whoever put this next one up.

Just remember: the speaker in this next one is a Democrat who voted for Obamacare. This video has been viewed over 750,000 times and is proof positive a Congressman is no smarter than us average folk – and in some cases not nearly as bright!

Getting a little more local, fellow Red Maryland blogger Brian Griffiths put together Martin O’Malley’s first campaign advertisement. Surprised? You won’t be after you see this.

Last but certainly not least, here’s the musical portion of the program – old friends and a video shot by my significant other! She taped this last Friday night at Skip Dixxon’s Spring Luau at Pickles Pub in Ocean City. It’s foreshadowing of a post I’m going to try and put up this weekend – another weekend of local rock! But the sizzling coda at the end of this only comes out in video form, darn it!

Until next time, have a great weekend and hopefully I’ll have more goodies for the next edition of FNV!

Rancor rises about Viagra for sex offenders

There’s no question that last week’s series of reconciliation votes on Obamacare was designed to give Republicans the opportunity to put Democrats in the embarrassing position of casting a number of controversial votes – as I noted, one amendment was placed in there to keep convicted sex offenders from securing Viagra on the federal dime. Regardless, both Maryland Senators followed all but a couple of their Democratic counterparts in voting to kill the Viagra amendment sponsored by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

(continued on my Examiner.com page…)

My sentiments exactly

Thanks to the Patriot Post. Didn’t have a lot of desire to write this weekend, so I’ll use this cartoon instead.

Unlike the song “Beautiful Disaster” this will be quite ugly.

It’s not so much the questionable Constitutionality of the whole bill and its voluminous fixes but the effect on the economy this will have. Several large corporations have already claimed Obamacare will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, and what’s the easiest way to shore up the bottom line? You guessed it, layoffs.

Another worrisome provision ratchets up the percentage of revenue which needs to be paid out in claims. Well, if the insurer has to pay out a larger percentage of its revenue to policyholders, what will they have left to service all those people or providers wishing to be reimbursed for their preventive care? Once again, jobs will be lost.

For each effect something like Obamacare is intended to address, somehow government creates 1,001 unintended consequences. Naturally someone will come along and want to “fix” the problems (after all, the ink on the Obamacare bill was hardly dry before a repair was in order) and that in turn will create even more chaos. It’s getting harder and harder to walk things back, especially with the accelerating pace of government involvement in my lifetime.

But try we must. Certainly I would like to see repeal of the bill as a good first step, but it’s just a baby step in the right direction to repeal this monstrosity. Multiply Obamacare and its control of 1/6 of our economy by the other 5/6 and you may begin to see the scope of what is involved. It’s a fight that will take generations to win, and even that doesn’t take into account threats from without.

I just noted on Facebook in response to some other person that my task is to educate Marylanders and anyone else who wants to listen about the benefits of limited, Constitutional government. America in the 21st century thus far is (with the possible exception of the 2001/2003 Bush tax cuts) certainly not the poster child for the concept. Yet we must struggle on, and indeed I plan to.

Fighting the good fight

It was a battle which began last spring and it took the side of right nearly a year to fall despite the odds against it. As I write this, the nationalization of one-sixth of the nation’s economy and the ability for government to pry further into all aspects of your personal life – indeed, control the fate of your very being – is essentially one House vote and one Presidential signature away from happening.

Here’s yet another lesson to show elections mean things. Despite the turnover which played a vital role in the outcome, most of the main players were elected in 2008, the year America believed in hope and change. What we hoped for and what we’d change into were simply taken at the face value of that which was promised by most, but a few thinkers foresaw this entire drama coming and, like Paul Revere, attempted to sound the alarm.

And there were hopeful moments even after the 2008 elections played out. The dreaded 60-seat Democratic majority in the Senate didn’t occur right away – while Al Franken and Norm Coleman battled out a protracted election recount, Saxby Chambliss easily won re-election to his Georgia Senate seat. This denied the Democrats their 60th vote for a time, although that possibility was reborn last April when Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter switched parties from the GOP to the Democrats. A few weeks later, Coleman conceded, Franken was sworn in, and the Democrats had their precious 60-vote majority.

That Democrat victory was short-lived, though. On August 25th Ted Kennedy died, and it took a few weeks for Paul Kirk to be named his replacement. Yet even after Kirk was sworn in, Senate Democrats still needed until Christmas Eve to hammer out their health care bill. Most importantly, there were significant differences in the bills approved by the Senate and House – changes put in place to mollify particular Senators. The term “Louisiana Purchase” gained a new meaning and we learned more than we ever wanted to know about the “Cornhusker Kickback.”

Conventional wisdom held that Congress would come back from their holiday break and figure out the details. But Scott Brown’s election on January 19 ended the prospect of a conventional conference process and bill opponents were buoyed by the presence of “Mister 41” when he was sworn in on February 4th.

However, Obamacare was resurrected from the dead once again as the House employed a number of questionable tactics to allow their membership to swallow a Senate bill few liked. That’s where we are today.

All of the drama came about despite TEA Parties, acrimonious town hall meetings, a number of Capitol rallies (including two in the last week,) and the ominous threat that those who voted for Obamacare would be committing political suicide. Perhaps it will turn out that some did, as most national polls reveal the people are against Obamacare and a poll commissioned last week by Independent Women’s Voice showed 60% of respondents would vote for a candidate who opposes “the current version of healthcare reform and wants to start over.”

While it’s likely that the courts will be deciding on key aspects of the bill for months to come, it may not matter. Obamacare wasn’t slated to take effect until 2013 anyway.

The problem is that history has shown that once a new entitlement program is created, it’s impossible to kill. For all the brave talk of repeal it’s likely that we are stuck with Obamacare because of those who placed power before people. The people fought, but unfortunately they lost. We all did.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

This cleared the LFS wire on March 23rd.

Friday night videos episode 27

Hey, two weeks in a row! How about that? Let’s see what I have this week.

I guess we have enough anger out there over the Obamacare bill (boy did I get an earful in one Facebook forum.) Let’s try a more amusing look at the pitfalls of Obamacare from a group called TalkPAC.

And Rep. Mike Pence is right – it’s time to condemn those who turn to violence to oppose Obamacare, but it’s also time to end the smears!

On the other hand, Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak may be the most reviled man in America, particularly for pro-lifers. Here’s one reason why – he wasn’t really a firm vote against Obamacare.

Yet I thought the focus for Obama now was going to be on jobs – didn’t you? Producing our own energy resources would fit the bill.

The are jobs in the legal community, but do you ever get tired of these ambulance chasers pitching the legal lottery of having a dread disease pay off? Bob McCarty did.

Let’s transition to the music portion of FNV with this politically-charged song. A little more country than I like, but the lyrics are sound.

Now it’s time to rock. Last weekend at Marina’s up in Blades, Delaware I recorded my friends from Semiblind doing this little ditty.

This post is timed so you can enjoy it, then head over to Pickles Pub in Ocean City and enjoy Semiblind as headliners of the 8th Annual Spring Luau – Semiblind goes on at 1:00. (Why do you think I do my FNV posts in advance most of the time?)

Hopefully I’ll get more good video tonight for use in future FNV episodes.

If Republicans are from Mars, are Democrats from Venus?

Given the heated acrimony between Republicans and Democrats in the wake of a bruising debate over Obamacare, perhaps this passage related as part of a press release by U.S. Senate candidate Carmen Amedori is apt. This was placed on her Facebook page and brought to my attention:

Carmen Amedori, Republican candidate for United States Senate in Maryland, states that the incumbent Senator’s remark that “the Republican Party is from Mars” shows just how out of touch she is with the electorate.

(More on my Examiner.com page…feel free to subscribe there and you can get e-mail notifications when I write there!)

A prelude to April

This is actually going to be about the Americans for Prosperity meeting last night, which I was told would be a planning meeting for next month’s Tax Day TEA Party here in Salisbury. But apparently much of the event has been planned – however, what I didn’t know is that Ocean City will have one as well. More on that later, though.

To open the meeting, AFP Wicomico co-chair Julie Brewington had a monologue where she noted the Obamacare bill was “a finger poked in the face of the people” and created “a nation divided (which was) a very sad thing.” But rather than being depressed, she was “more energized than ever.”

To her, people were “fairly ignorant” on the contents of the Obamacare bill, and because of the lack of transparency, “we must change who represents us” here in Maryland.

At that point, we received some key dates.

On March 31st there will be a town hall meeting sponsored by Wicomico County Councilman Bill McCain regarding the revenue cap. McCain would prefer to see it repealed and allow the county to raise our property taxes through the roof (since property values are so far down the millage rate will probably increase regardless) but wants public input. I’m sure we’ll give it to him. The sobfest will be held in the Danang Room at the Wicomico County Youth and Civic Center beginning at 7 p.m.

Five days later sanity returns to the Danang Room as state Republican Chair Audrey Scott hosts a town hall meeting of her own, April 5th at 6:30 p.m. Brewington noted that the Republicans were “begging” for TEA Party input and personally I welcome them into the fold. (Otherwise there wouldn’t be any GOP Central Committee people attending AFP meetings, although the College Republicans also meet that night so that may account for one or two others.)

On April 6th the Wicomico County Council has its quarterly night meeting, where we were urged by AFP member Matt Trenka to “pack the house” and take advantage of the public comments. When pressed, County Councilman John Cannon (who was in attendance) said he supported the idea and noted it’s one of the few items brought back to the Council’s attention after a decision was made – the quarterly meetings were a compromise measure. The current schedule was “terribly confusing,” said Cannon, and I imagine this may be a side issue for this year’s election.

Finally, the Tax Day TEA Party will be held April 15th (naturally.) That was the last subject we covered, so I’ll get to that shortly.

G.A. Harrison (of Delmarva Dealings fame) next spoke on the prospects of an elected school board. He noted that only 6 of Maryland’s 24 school districts (each county and Baltimore City) still had appointed boards of education, and only Caroline and Wicomico counties had that method here on the Eastern Shore. To get an elected board, we would have to have a non-binding referendum and there were two methods of achieving this:

through the approval of County Council, or;
via petition drive, with the signatures of 10% of county voters in the last election for Governor. For Wicomico County, this would mean we have to gather 2,821 valid signatures. The time is tight for this petition though: the language needs to be filed by May 1, with 1/3 of the signatures in by May 31 and the remainder by June 30.

Obviously the easier route is County Council, and recently the Republican Central Committee sent a letter to the County Council expressing our support (a letter I was pleased to sign.) Harrison noted that the Democrats may be on board as well, but for differing reasons – the teacher’s union would certainly try to influence the school board election.

State AFP head Dave Schwartz was also in attendance, and he spoke at some length about the recent fight against Obamacare. He told us that, “the American people are with us” and had it not been for all of our efforts this would have been done last June. After the 2008 elections the only question was when Democrats would pull the trigger, noted Schwartz. But Americans got to look at how things work in Washington, D.C. and they don’t like it – a CBS News poll released this week revealed 62% want Republicans to keep fighting this bill!

While the media wants to paint this as an “accomplishment,” continued Schwartz, it was only an accomplishment in the sense of getting a third mortgage when you had difficulty paying for the first two.

The next steps in our fight were:

To “win the aftermath” by explaining the bill’s pitfalls (of which there are many) better than the other side explains the supposed benefits. After all, $500 billion in new taxes, $500 billion in Medicare cuts, and a “fast-forward” to single-payer only benefit the government.
Signing the petition at NOvemberiscoming.com. (As I write this 343,138 have.)
Attend the Tax Day TEA Party here – 600 did last year and we want double this year!
Call and get the Health Care Freedom Act passed here in Maryland. The bill lost in committee 6-5 but we are asking two Democrats to reconsider.

Schwartz concluded by citing an AMA study which suggested that a high percentage of older doctors (over 50) will simply choose to retire as early as possible once Obamacare takes full effect, leaving fewer providers to care for an increasing number of insured patients who expect free medical service.

Two other quick pieces of information we received were that the Leadership Institute candidate school originally scheduled for Cambridge this weekend was cancelled, but there were still openings up in Dover. Also, the Worcester County AFP chapter asked for donations to purchase the use of a billboard along U.S. 50 to promote a message.

Finally, the Tax Day TEA Parties.

In Salisbury, the TEA Party goes on Thursday, April 15th from 3 to 7 p.m. About the only desired thing missing from the planning is a band, but everything else seems to be going as planned (aside from hoping for better weather, of course.) The venue remains the front lawn of the Government Office Building downtown on Division Street.

This year, Ocean City joins in on the fun! On Saturday, April 17 from noon to 3 p.m. theirs will be held in the plaza which hosts Trader Lee’s on the southwest corner of U.S. 50 and Maryland Route 611.

In either case, I encourage my readers to attend and they can register at this website. It looks like AFP has taken the lead in planning and promoting these events in Maryland, although each individual one is different.

Their next meeting will be April 28th at Brew River in Salisbury. Be there early to grab a seat because we had over 70 in a room set up originally for 50.

Will Mikulski vote to keep sex offenders on Viagra?

To those who thought the debate over Obamacare ended when the President signed the bill yesterday, think again. The Senate now takes up “fixes” to the plan demanded by House Democrats, and in the meantime the process was opened up to amendments from Senate Republicans.

Since the bill as a whole will only require a majority vote (as opposed to the sixty votes to maintain a filibuster), the GOP is pinning its hopes on enacting amendments which, if nothing else, would force Democrats to make embarrassing votes against them – if the amendments pass, the House would have to again approve changes to the bill through a conference.

(Continued on my Examiner.com page…)

Republican reactions to Obamacare predictable

Some would-be Republican members of the House and Senate have already weighed in on the passage of Obamacare, making certain the issue won’t rest until after November.

(for more go to my Examiner.com page)

By the way, if you want to cut out the middleman and know when I post articles to Examiner.com you can subscribe to my posts and an e-mail alert will be sent to you. Just go here and look for the “subscribe” button to the right of my name. I don’t know who has the most subscribers in Baltimore or in the politics subsector but I want to acquire that distinction.

Maryland’s two ‘no’ votes

It wasn’t unexpected, but Maryland’s House delegation split 6-2 on the issue of health care reform legislation dubbed by some as “Obamacare.” Roscoe Bartlett of the Sixth District joined all of his GOP counterparts in voting against the bill, and Frank Kratovil voted with 33 other Democrats in his opposition. In neither case was this a complete surprise.

But in looking ahead to the November election we find an interesting variation of reaction on the issue from the respective districts. In Bartlett’s case, only one of the two leading Democrats vying for the Sixth District nomination even mentions health care as an issue on his site. Andrew Duck favors “universal access to healthcare” but Casey Clark doesn’t even bring health care up as an issue. Perhaps that’s a nod to the unpopularity of the reform package in Bartlett’s district.

The more intriguing case is Kratovil’s. In 2008 Frank ran for office on a platform which noted, “Universal health care…means universal.” His statement said in part, “Universal coverage cannot be achieved until we accept the premise that every adult and child must be insured. If elected to Congress, I will support and advocate for true universal coverage and will provide leadership in forging consensus on a policy that provides such coverage without harming employers.”

(More on my Examiner.com page…)

Ambition or safety for Congress?

While we can never assume the contentious issue of health care reform will be completely solved by this edition of Congress, indications are that it will be off the table by the time they go on spring break later this month. President Obama even held up departure on his Asian trip in expectation of having a health care bill on his desk by then.

Yet when Congress moved with lightning speed in the early months of 2009 it looked like the Democrats’ ambitious agenda would be wrapped up, tied with a bow, and presented to the President as a gift to the American people in time for last Christmas. Truth is, the agonizingly slow debate over Obamacare threw a wrench into the plans Democrats in Congress had for cap-and-trade, which in turn halted progress on the immigration fix promised by President Obama during his campaign.

Last year Democrats had their hopes up for a quick resolution to these issues as the second session of Congress traditionally is a time for members, particularly in the House, to play it a little more safe and avoid controversial issues which could spell trouble for their re-election chances. Instead, the question then becomes whether Congress will try and take the safe route when they return in mid-April.

Because Democratic leadership in Congress is already wildly unpopular thanks to their aggressive tactics of dubious legality in trying to get Obamacare passed, they likely will put the pedal to the metal and attempt to ramrod their agenda through before November. We could even get a Christmas surprise from the lame duck Democrats when they come back to wrap up their affairs after the fall recess, especially if the elections spell the end of their majority in the House.

House Democrats are already frustrated because they’ve done the hard work on some of President Obama’s pet projects like cap-and-trade only to see their efforts fizzle in the Senate. Senators now face a backlog of over 300 bills passed by the House which haven’t cleared the Senate, and the process is always fraught with the potential of requiring a conference committee to hammer out differences between legislation passed by the separate bodies. We already see what damage has been done to Congress’s reputation by not going to a conference on health care reform.

In having large majorities in both the House and Senate allied by party with the President, the last thing one would have expected would be a tag of a “do-nothing Congress.” But perhaps the most memorable thing about the Pelosi-Reid led 111th Congress was just how quickly it lost support among the people because it focused on the wrong things – in an economic situation which cried out for common-sense measures to create more private-sector jobs and stabilize the financial situation, Congress instead focused on changing a health care delivery system looked on favorably by a large percentage of the people.

This antagonistic attitude has spawned the largest protest movement in forty years, with millions taking to the streets demanding a smaller, more fiscally responsible government. But in a time where the best option would be doing more than just providing temporary fixes to the economic situation – such as the one-month unemployment extension which got Senator Jim Bunning up in arms because it wasn’t being paid for – it appears Congress is going to continue with an agenda the American people have soured on.

It’s an agenda which could spell doom for vulnerable Democrats in November, and April may be the last chance to change course.

Friday night videos episode 26

Doing this real time tonight, so let’s see what I have. Three guesses what the main subject is, first two don’t count.

Then again, perhaps I can deem this post already done – isn’t that what the House wants to do?

And here’s the epitome of sleaze part two, courtesy of the National Republican Congressional Committee:

And if that weren’t enough, the GOP came up with sleaze part three on the part of Democrats:

Finally, a voice of sanity: Indiana Congressman Mike Pence.

There are other things going on, though. This is an admirable effort by the Sunlight Foundation to bring government back into the open.

And this last one is just for inspiration for my friends heading up to Washington, D.C. tomorrow morning. I already had plans for the day, but I’ll be there in spirit.

It’s a good way to close this 26th edition of FNV. Well, actually a good way to close it out would be to announce they’ve dropped Obamacare and Ava Aston was coming here. Maybe by next time.