Posted by Tina
Last night’s victory for the President marks the first time since its inception that Obamacare is no longer a what-if; it is the future of health care in America.
It also means a near immediate impact on the economy. With 20 or so new or higher taxes set to be implemented, ranging from a $123 billion surtax on investment income, through the $20 billion medical device tax, all the way down to the $600 million executive compensation limit, Obamacare will be a nearly unbearable tax burden on the economy.
Who will pay? The middle-class workforce, of course.
Follow the link above to view the list of companies that have already said they must layoff workers in view of tax increases, expensive regulations, and rising energy costs.
Additionally, many of the larger hotel and restaurant business owners are considering moving their full time workers to part time as a result of government’s stepped up controlling influence. The immediate impact for our economy and unemployment numbers won’t be known for awhile but it’s clear that if this trend continues, the working folks in our brave new world will have to make some difficult decisions in the coming year. FreedomWorks has dubbed this election as “mourning in America”, a far cry from the “morning in America” of 1984. Make the comparison:
It is mourning in America. Government will control more of what we do, how much we can be paid, what business is allowed and what business is not allowed. Obama won; layoffs have already begun. I await an explanation for how progressive policy will be better for America.
This is only the beginning:
President Barack Obama’s administration deliberately held off implementing burdensome regulations that favored environmentalists, labor unions, and dealt with Obamacare in the month leading up to the election because they would be politically unpopular.
Before Obama won reelection, the backlog of regulations suggested to many industry experts that if Obama won reelection, his administration would be “publishing thousands of pages of regulations in the coming months.”
Now that Obama won, some in the business community expect a “tsunami” of regulations that will burst through the dam because about 70 percent of regulations under review have been held for more 90 days, which is 30 days more than the customary 60-day limit. And these are regulations that have made it out of the various agencies. There are many more still on hold.
Many of those regulations involve the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
According to the National Journal:
Industry lobbyists and environmental lawyers estimate that the EPA is currently sitting on about a dozen new major regulations, completed, and ready to roll out the door, but on hold until after the election. Nearly all of them will have a significant impact on the coal and oil industry.
Some of these regulations would increase gasoline prices, which the Obama administration did not want to do in the months leading up to the election. Others are expected to hurt the coal industry even more.
Business leaders also expect regulations in the banking (Dodd-Frank) and healthcare sectors (Obamacare).
Obamacare “regulations are critical for implementation,” but “many have unpleasant political ramifications”:
Rules specifying how and when the federal government would run state insurance markets would likely raise cries of ‘government takeover.’ And insurance industry regulations with the potential to raise premiums or eliminate existing insurance products could inspire criticisms that Obama was dishonest when he told people that, under his law, ‘if you like your plan, you can keep it.’
Aware of this, the Obama administration essentially put the Health and Human Services Department on lockdown before the election:
Several people who work closely with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency at the Health and Human Services Department responsible for most of the outstanding health care regulations, say they’ve been told the delays are due to political considerations, not technical difficulties. One congressional staffer who works closely with CMS said they had been told the agency is on ‘lockdown.’
Now that Obama has a second term, the locks will be coming off, and new regulations will be unleashed across all sectors.
Anyone for a cup of TEA?
Well said Harold and right on. Thanks for saying it here!
I can not take credit for the structure of the article as I copy and pasted it rather than link to it. Sometimes you just can not improve on the original. I found it to be essentially supportive as well as timely to the nature of Tina’s post and wished to expose it to the readers of Poet Scripts.
Although I will take credit for the offer of a soothing beverage 🙂
Of all the outrageous (to conservatives) taxes that are included in Obamacare the one that confounds me most is the tax on medical devices. It’s cruel! The people hurt most are the handicapped and the elderly. This law makes all of the things they must purchase more expensive…I just don’t get it.
As one person put it, wish I could recall who it was, we are not people we are units under this law.
Remember too the owner of a drug store who on the radio related his confusion of figuring out which items in his store he was going to have to add the new mandated tax to every health and medical product on his shelves. While some items like band aids, aspirin, cold remedies and canes were easy to identify others like soap with and without antibacterial agents in them were not.
He was upset at being forced to add this new tax, but even more upset at having to pass this tax along to people who are low income and struggling to afford their Rx medications.
This medical device taxs reach is much broader than wheelchairs and CAT scan-type diagnostic machines used in hospitals, its on every item found in our own medicine cabinets.
ObamaCare cost will be paid for by everyone including the poorest and most vulnerable.
Claims that the tax on medical devices will cause medical device companies to raise costs seem to ignore all the new demand created by the healthcare law. With millions of newly insured citizens, medical device companies are likely to see a boom in business. Bloomburg has an article which rebuts most of the opposition’s claims:
Sure enough, the Advanced Medical Technology Association, or AdvaMed, financed one such study. It concludes the tax would push manufacturers to move offshore, causing the loss of 43,000 U.S. jobs. An analysis by Bloomberg Government, however, says the studys assumptions conflict with economic research, overstate companies incentives to move jobs offshore, and ignore the positive effect of new demand created by the health- care reform law.
The AdvaMed study cites no evidence for the job-loss claim. Even if it is an educated guess, it still makes no sense — unless device makers plan to abandon the worlds most lucrative health-care market. The tax covers all devices sold in the U.S., no matter where they are made. Devices sold outside the U.S. wont be taxed. The tax, then, creates exactly zero incentive to move jobs offshore.
Then theres the claim that the levy will be passed to consumers, causing health-care costs to rise and demand for devices to fall. Industry sales will decline by as much as $6.7 billion, the AdvaMed study says. But as any health-care economist will tell you, the medical market doesnt behave like most other markets. Its inelastic: When prices go up, demand falls by only a fraction. Mathematica Policy Research has found that only a 2 percent drop in demand results from a 10 percent increase in price. The AdvaMed study, by assuming far higher effects, is off by as much as a factor of 10.
Health-care reform may have the opposite effect than the industry claims. It extends coverage to 33 million more Americans. Why wouldnt that lift demand for medical devices? The industry says it wont because older patients, who buy a disproportionate share of medical devices, are already insured under Medicare. Whats more, the newly covered who were too poor to purchase insurance were being treated already in emergency rooms.
This ignores that the expansion of health coverage will increase the number of elective medical procedures performed on those who were previously uninsured and, in turn, their purchase of medical devices. They might not buy artificial hips; they almost certainly will require tests, scans and outpatient surgery.
Harm Innovation
The industry next alleges that the tax will harm innovation as device makers stint on research to pay the levy. This is unlikely. The health-care reform law promotes innovation by calling for more cost-effective ways of delivering care. Analysts at PricewaterhouseCoopers believe that government pressure to shrink health-care costs could force the U.S. and other developed nations to make greater use of technology to achieve better results at lower cost.
Another fallacy is that the tax unfairly singles out the medical-device industry. Not so. Congress designed the law so it wouldnt add to the budget deficit. To cover those 33 million uninsured Americans, health-care reform taxes the industries that will most benefit: hospitals, home health agencies, clinical labs, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and, yes, medical-device makers.
The industrys last refuge is a claim that the tax will hurt small businesses. On close examination, this doesnt ring true, either. A handful of large companies accounts for most of the industrys revenue. The 10 largest medical device makers probably account for 86 percent of sales and therefore will pay 86 percent of the tax.
Repealing the tax would cost almost $30 billion over 10 years and undermine the implicit bargain in the law: In exchange for millions of new customers, health-care companies agreed to fund the cost. Repeal would open the gates to other health sectors seeking to renege on that deal.
The lawmakers most actively pushing repeal are also the ones who are most dependent on the industrys campaign contributions. They come from California, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Utah — the states where the device industry has the largest presence.
Campaign filings show that employees of pharmaceutical and health products companies were the single-biggest donors to Representative Erik Paulsen of Minnesota, who is the main sponsor of the repeal measure and whose state is home to Medtronic Inc. and St. Jude Medical Inc. Filings by those working closely with him — Republican Representatives Todd Rokita of Indiana and Brian Bilbray of California, and Democrat Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania — show that health professionals, pharmaceutical manufacturers and health products companies were among their top five sources of campaign money.
In the Senate, Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, facing a June 26 primary, took in $630,000 from drug and device makers this cycle. Even Elizabeth Warren, the liberal icon who took on Wall Street and is now running for a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts, home of Boston Scientific Corp., favors repealing the tax. Health-care providers gave Warren about $102,000, the No. 2 source of her campaign funds.
Congress may well withdraw the medical-device tax. If it does, it wont be because the industry mustered a strong economic case. It will be because its too easy to pull the wool over lawmakers eyes.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-06/taxing-medical-devices-will-keep-the-u-s-healthy.html
Obama Reelection Spurs Wave of States Petitions to Secede
http://www.infowars.com/obama-reelection-spurs-wave-of-states-petitions-to-secede/
I’d believe there are more than a few unhappy people are there.
Both Tina and Mr. Ey have hit the nail squarely on the head.
Someday, hopefully, some folks will figure out that you cannot reduce health care costs and health care insurance costs by putting into place policies that increase those costs. One would think that even Democrats could not be so stupid, but this is what they have wrought.
Obama is at war with small business, large business, and all Americans employed by business. Instead of encouraging businesses to grow and flourish his and the Democrats’ insane policies are encouraging them to hunker down, downsize and put more people on the welfare rolls.
I am not the sort to threaten riots and assassination over an election like Democrats and other assorted progressives and various Obama nitwits have recently done. But I am the sort to suggest that, what the hell, let Obama and the Democrats (to use their own language) “burn the mother****** down.” The sooner the better. The sooner we get it over with, the sooner they will self destruct, and the sooner we can rise from the ashes of this contemptible fiscal and economic insanity.
Here is Calif’s. petition to secede for those interested in signing it. It’s at over 4,000 signatures in just one day. 25,000 are needed to have get a response from the WH.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/peacefully-grant-state-california-withdraw-united-states-america-and-create-its-own-new-government/Rfg4ZhhC
Why would a conservative Californian want their state to succeed from the union? You do realize you would then be living in an even more liberal nation? This is the state Jack Donaghy calls “The People’s Gay Republic of Mexifornia.” You may want to rethink this petition.
Ran across this tidbit of information that was new to me and thought Id share. I didnt know the RNC was legally prevented from the, ability to engage or assist in voter fraud prevention unless the RNC obtains the courts approval in advance.
Anyone else know about this? Could this be why Allen West didnt pursue his recount and suspected voter fraud?
http://judicialview.com/Court-Cases/Civil-Procedure/Democratic-National-Committee-v-Republican-National-Committee/10/201975
Democratic National Committee v Republican National Committee
Case No. 09-4615 (C.A. 3, Mar. 8, 2012)
In 1982, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) entered into a consent decree (the Decree or Consent Decree), which is national in scope, limiting the RNCs ability to engage or assist in voter fraud prevention unless the RNC obtains the courts approval in advance. The RNC appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey denying, in part, the RNCs Motion to Vacate or Modify the Consent Decree. Although the District Court declined to vacate the Decree, it did make modifications to the Decree. The RNC argues that the District Court abused its discretion by modifying the Decree as it did and by declining to vacate the Decree. For the following reasons, we will affirm the District Courts judgment.
Here is another article:
http://longversion.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/voter-fraud-whats-the-gop-goint-to-do-about-it/
Voter Fraud? Whats the GOP going to do about it?
The answer to the question in the title is quite simply, nothing.
But the reason the GOP will sit quietly as reports come out of battleground states of voter fraud is not for lack of desire to right a wrong, but because they are legally prevented from doing so.
You read correctly. The GOP cannot legally file suit or petition the courts to look into voter fraud in any of the 50 states.
In 1981, during the gubernatorial election in New Jersey (NJ), a lawsuit was brought against the RNC, the NJ Republican State Committee (RSC), and three individuals (John A. Kelly, Ronald Kaufman, and Alex Hurtado), accusing them of violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), 42 U.S.C. 1971, 1973, and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
To settle the lawsuit, in 1982, the RNC and RSC entered into an agreement or Consent Decree, which is national in scope, limiting the RNCs ability to engage or assist in voter fraud prevention unless the RNC obtains the courts approval in advance.
The RNC has tried to get court approval to help prevent voter fraud but has been denied by the courts.
The RNC also agreed that the RNC, its agents, servants, and employees would be bound by the Decree, whether acting directly or indirectly through other party committees.
The Consent Decree was modified in 1987 and redefined ballot security activities to mean ballot integrity, ballot security or other efforts to prevent or remedy vote fraud.
Heres a fun twist. Since 1982, this Consent Decree has been renewed every year by the original judge, Carter appointee District Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise, now 88 years old.
Debevoise has been retired for years but comes back for the sole purpose of renewing his 1982 order for another year.
In 2010, the RNC unsuccessfully appealed to vacate or modify the Consent Decree in Democratic National Committee v Republican National Committee, Case No. 09-4615 (C.A. 3, Mar. 8, 2012). (I paid The Judicial Review $10 for the PDF of Case No. 09-4615 and uploaded the 59-page document to FOTMs media library.
The judge who denied the RNCs appeal to vacate the 1982 Consent Decree is an Obama appointee, Judge Joseph Greenaway, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. What? You were expecting a Reagan appointee?
The RNC and DNC made their Consent Decree 30 years ago, in 1982. The agreement in effect gives a carte blanche to the Democrat Party to commit vote fraud in every voting district across America that has, in the language of the Consent Decree, a substantial proportion of racial or ethnic populations. The term substantial proportion is not defined.
The Republican Party is either full of incompetents or part of a big plan where they are the Tom to the Democrats Jerry.
This is just another layer to be peeled back from the mess our election process has become, with each layer revealing an even bigger, deeper, and more disturbing problem.