It’s been a year since the president was elected, and he’s already piled up an impressive list of lies and broken promises.
The broken promises include his pledge to enact a “net spending cut,” his promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year, and his promise not to sign bills without first giving the public five days of notice.
The Congressional Budget Office says that Obama’s proposed budgets will explode the national debt through massive spending increases, increasing the already large deficits…
Read the full story
The Wall Street Journal calls the House version of President Obama’s health care plan “the worst bill ever,” noting that it will lead to “epic new spending and taxes, pricier insurance, rationed care, dishonest accounting,” and other problems.
At the Atlantic, Megan McArdle, who voted for Obama, explains how ObamaCare will cost much more than promised — at least $150 billion more. That’s true even if promised cuts to Medicare included in ObamaCare actually take place — but as McArdle notes, even…
Read the full story
In the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson explains in the “Public Plan Mirage” how the so-called “public option” contained in congressional health-care reform bills is just a gimmick: “It pretends to control costs and improve access to quality care when it doesn’t.” Steve Chapman wrote earlier about the “‘Public Option’ Health Care Scam.”
In other news, a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that the provisions in the Senate health care “reform” bill sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) would add $1,700 a year…
Read the full story
With Democratic support coalescing around Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-Mt.) health care reform proposal, passage of a comprehensive overhaul now appears more likely than ever. Opponents had their summer of protests. But, Democrats have shown a renewed sense of energy since discrediting Sarah Palin’s “death panels” and Sen. Charles Grassley’s claim that ObamaCare would “pull the plug on grandma.” Still, while those charges may have been a little overwrought, there is plenty to be concerned about with the Democratic health reform…
Read the full story
Last week, after the industry association America’s Health Insurance Plans released a study showing that premiums would rise 18 percent under the Senate Finance Committee’s reform proposal, top Democrats took to the airwaves to condemn the industry for standing in the way of health care reform. President Obama used his Saturday radio address to accuse the industry of using “deceptive and dishonest” attacks to derail reform legislation. And Obama and congressional Democrats threatened to repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which exempts insurers from most…
Read the full story
Health-care “reform” always costs more than predicted, as ObamaCare provisions have at the state level. So the claim that the new, cheaper version of President Obama’s health care plan will cost only $829 billion, while not increasing the deficit, should be taken with a grain of salt.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid admitted that the actual cost will be more like $2 trillion, and health-care experts have given it a similar price tag of more than $2 trillion.
The reason for the…
Read the full story
Detractors of capitalism decry that it caters to special interests. The opposite is actually true. Just look at what’s happened in the last year.
Most of Wall Street came to government asking for a bailout when the government-created housing bubble popped.
The Big Three automakers also went to Washington for largesse when their customers came to prefer Toyotas and Hondas.
Health insurance companies stand to make a killing if Obamacare passes.
T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore would make millions from environmental legislation.
Ludwig von…
Read the full story
The middle class is facing big tax increases thanks to Obama and liberal congressional leaders.
Even the trimmed-down version of Obama’s health-care plan recently announced by a ranking Senator contains lots of tax increases for the middle class (see below).
And the costly cap-and-trade energy legislation passed by the House and supported by Obama would lead to big tax increases in the name of fighting global warming, Administration officials privately have conceded, even though they publicly claim otherwise. “Officials at the Treasury Department think…
Read the full story
In a blog post at Rolling Stone, Journalist In Name Only Matt Taibbi accuses the media of “help[ing] sandbag health care reform.” In the rambling, incoherent post, Taibbi goes on to complain about his current private insurance plan and how he “can’t have the pleasure of a routine proctological exam unless I want to pay cash for it.” Given his profanity-laced description (which I won’t re-post here), it appears he has some sort of high-deductible plan.
Many on the left are critical…
Read the full story
Tributes are pouring in for Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy, who lost his battle with brain cancer late Tuesday evening at the age of 77. Most tributes to the “Liberal Lion” focus on his accomplishments at expanding government spending and regulation. And indeed, those were the bulk of his achievements.
But for a brief, shining moment, in the mid to late 1970s, Kennedy viewed smaller government as the most compassionate answer in one area of economic life: transportation. Kennedy was the prime mover…
Read the full story
Yesterday in a press release from CEI’s Center for Risk, Regulation, and Markets, the Center raised many questions that should be brought to Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty’s attention. The questions mainly surrounded doubt over whether or not Florida has enough capital to pay out insurance claims in the event of a catastrophic hurricane.
As Christian Cámara, director of CEI’s Florida Insurance Project, said in the release, “There are a lot of very serious unanswered questions.”
There was one question that was unfortunately…
Read the full story
Constitutional law professor Rob Natelson argues that Obama’s health-care plan is unconstitutional in four different ways. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says that the racial preferences and quotas contained in ObamaCare are likely unconstitutional.
Professor Natelson says that ObamaCare is unconstitutional because:
“1. It is not based on any enumerated power of Congress, not even on a very expansive reading of the power to regulate interstate commerce.
2. It relies on Excessive Delegation of the type held unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry.
3. It violates Substantive Due Process, and…
Read the full story
In one regulated area of the economy after another, it’s exasperating to hear journalists and pundits claim that, “The market has failed,” when in fact it hasn’t been allowed to function. That’s especially true in the case of insurance, which operates under a regime of state-level protectionism, as former CEI Brookes Fellow Tim Carney makes clear in his Washington Examiner column today:
Rep. John Shadegg, a conservative Republican from Arizona, has proposed a bill to allow interstate purchase of health insurance. Blue…
Read the full story
Obama’s health-care plan is drawing criticism from one of his own advisers, Harvard University’s Martin Feldstein. In today’s Washington Post, Feldstein warns that “For the 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, the Obama health plan is bad news. It means higher taxes, less health care and no protection if they lose their current insurance because of unemployment or early retirement.” Obama’s plan would “cost more than $1 trillion,” and raise the top federal “income-tax rate from 35 percent…
Read the full story
For the Democrats still supporting the health care overhaul, the blows just keep coming. As if the financial problems I described in a previous post were not enough to deter this fiscal suicide, the Congressional Budget Office has now said that a plan to offset the massive costs by putting an outside panel in charge of budget-cutting for other government health care programs will amount to savings of only about $2 billion over 10 years — practically negligible in comparison to the final…
Read the full story
“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.” ~Ayn Rand
Most agree that the US health insurance market is in need of reform. However, there is a wide spectrum of beliefs about what the problems in the market are and the best way to confront them.
Those who believe that…
Read the full story
by Wayne Crews
July 24, 2009 @ 12:34 pm
I think that about sums it up.
Read the full story
In 2008, Obama promised not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. But he is now breaking that promise by proposing to tax some middle-class families to pay for health care. Obama has also falsely pledged that if you like your health insurance, you will be able to keep it under his plan. But the Congressional health-care bills he backs would destroy countless inexpensive health-care plans by gutting a federal law called ERISA that makes it possible for employers to offer…
Read the full story
Listening to President Barack Obama and other top Democrats on the subject of health care, one could be forgiven for thinking commercial medicine itself is on the verge of collapse, and that most of us soon will be completely unable to access decent medical treatment. In response to criticisms from GOP lawmakers and gloomy CBO projections, Obama re-emphasized what he insists is a need for immediate, drastic reform. He dismissed the illumination of the fiscal insanity of his prized health care plan…
Read the full story
Loading ...