From Investors Business Daily

Internal administration documents reveal that up to 51% of employers may have to relinquish their current health care coverage because of ObamaCare.

Senator John Cornyn - TX

By W. James Antle III

Well, that didn’t take long. After Democratic supermajorities rammed through their health care bill, Republicans were full of sound and fury about how this injustice will not stand. Even John McCain was on board, telling a television interviewer, “Outside the Beltway the American people are very angry and they don’t like it and we are going to try to repeal this.”

But in the GOP, cooler heads always prevail. What these Republican heads want to cool down is the campaign to repeal the health care takeover. Reports the Associated Press: “Top Republicans are increasingly worried that GOP candidates this fall might be burned by a fire that’s roaring through the conservative base: demand for the repeal of President Barack Obama’s new health care law.”

One of the Republican leadership’s volunteer firefighters is none other than Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who chairs the committee responsible for getting GOP candidates elected to the Senate this fall. Cornyn initially unfurled the “repeal and replace” banner, only to quickly make an exception for the “non-controversial stuff,” such as the ban on preexisting conditions which is unfortunately exactly what necessitates the “controversial stuff” like the individual mandate.

Cornyn was later seen pouring cold water on the idea entirely. Asked by the AP whether he was going to advise Republican senatorial nominees to run on repeal, he said, “Candidates are going to test the winds in their own states… In some places, the health care bill is more popular than others.” Meanwhile, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee doesn’t need a weatherman to tell him where the wind blows: “It’s just not going to happen.”

Republican candidates seeking to join Cornyn and Corker in the club have gotten the memo. Shortly before Obamacare passed, Congressman Mark Kirk — the Republican running to fill Barack Obama’s old Senate seat in Illinois — bravely vowed to “lead the effort” to repeal the bill. Now he glumly tells a local newspaper, “Well, we lost.”

Not only is it the case that Republicans “do not have the votes,” but Kirk noted “a sliver of good things in the bill which Republicans agreed with.” Judging from the similarities between the new national health care regime and the Massachusetts bill Republican Sen. Scott Brown voted for and GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney signed into law, for some Republicans it is more than a sliver.

Republicans against repeal have found an amen corner in the cooler heads among conservative commentators. One Oliver Garland even counseled that repeal was fundamentally unconservative: “True conservatives are not radicals; they respect tradition and work for stable reform to fix institutions.”

Read the rest of this article at The American Spectator.

Senator Tom Harkin on three separate occassions in the course of a single week basically admits the current health care ‘reform’ bill is nothing more than a stepping stone towards a government takeover of the health care industry.

Senator Reid Proposes Restrictions on Self-Governance

Senator Harry Reid has slipped language into the heath care bill, via an amendment that would tie the hands of future Congresses with regard to repealing or amending it. The amendment makes substantial changes to the standing rules of the Senate, a move that normally requires a super-majority vote of at least 67 Senators. When questioned about this by Senator DeMint, The Senate president ruled that the bill changes Senate procedure, but not Senate rules, so the 67 vote threshold did not apply. The unasked question that begs to follow is, “what establishes Senate procedures?” Answer: The rules. 

Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment (page 1020) states that “it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.” The subsection pertains to regulations imposed by the Medicare Advisory Board. The amendment goes on to require a vote of 3/5 the Senate (60 votes) to waive the paragraph. 

This posturing, setting some provisions of the law above others, so as to make them untouchable sets a dangerous precedent. It is the Constitution that is established as the supreme law of the land. The threshold for changing it was set high by the founders. Senator Reid and his cohorts are now attempting to enshrine provisions of their health care bill as above normal laws, and not subject to the normal democratic processes to change or repeal them. 

DeMint observed, “I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this into every bill.” 

Ed Morisey made the point well in his article: “The elected representatives of today should not have greater authority than those who will follow them. Any attempt to pass this into legislation aggrandizes the power of this Congress at the expense of those that follow.” 

The proposed language of this health care amendment would, by simple majority vote, establish a requirement for a super majority to alter or repeal it. If this anti-democracy measure is allowed to stand, the implications for this and all future legislation are dire. Hundreds of years of established Congressional process will be subverted, the future will of the people, expressed by the election of their representatives, thwarted by unreasonable and unprecedented obstacles to our right of self-governance.

From LifeSiteNews

Take the recent amendment to the Senate health care plan by Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). This language allocates hundreds of millions of dollars of your money toward “Personal Responsibility Education for Adulthood Training.”

What can this possibly mean? According to the amendment’s mostly vague language, $400 million from the years 2010 to 2015 will be spent on “evidence-based effective programs” that will supposedly teach kids “healthy life skills,” including things like “goal-setting, decision making, negotiation, communication and interpersonal skills, and stress management.” This looks like standard Washington-speak: a great pile of words that mean whatever they need to mean.

That is, it looks that way until we get to the part of the amendment that deals with sex. Here we find reference to very specific “activities to educate youth who are sexually active regarding responsible sexual behavior.” The amendment claims to implement “evidence-based effective programs … that have been proven on the basis of rigorous scientific research to change behavior, which means delaying sexual activity, increasing condom or contraceptive use for sexually active youth, or reducing pregnancy among youth.”

Here we come to the nub of the matter. The “personal responsibility education” referred to in the Baucus amendment is actually sex education. The Senate health care plan is going to teach kids about sex. Graphically, and early. With heaps of tax dollars.

The amendment includes the obligatory passing reference to abstinence, (and does reinstate Title V funding for abstinence programs), and claims to provide “age-appropriate information and activities.” However, history shows that these claims are misleading at best. What “age-appropriate information” can the bill possibly have in mind for an 11-year-old boy (included in the bill’s intended target group)? Probably not the same “age-appropriate information” the boy’s parents have in mind.

And what good is “abstinence education” if contraception and abortion are being pushed right alongside it? Kids receive a mixed message. They are told, with a wink and a nod, that maybe they should abstain from sex, but the chances are that they simply can’t – and that no one really can. The past teaches us that “evidence-based” or “comprehensive” sex education is simply code for sexual education that treats sex as unavoidable, rather than a human choice.

In this bleak fantasy, kids are nothing more than farm animals, inevitably and indiscriminately sexual. All that the rest of us can do is simply pick up the pieces.

Read the rest of the column.

By Allen Quist

“There is a huge middle class marriage penalty hidden in the House and Senate health care bills. The penalty becomes evident by evaluating questions like the following:

How much would two single people, each making $30,000 per year, pay for private health insurance if the Pelosi bill was in effect now? The answer is $1,320 per year for both individuals combined (based on the premium limits and subsidies outlined on the charts below).

But how much would they pay for the same level of insurance under the Pelosi bill if they were to marry? Their combined cost would then be about $12,000 a year (the estimated cost for private insurance).

Health insurance premium costs for two adults with equal incomes if the Pelosi bill was in effect now

Sources:  The numbers on the chart are based on (a) a chart provided by The Committees on Ways & Means, Energy & Commerce, and Education & Labor, October 29, 2009, see next chart; (b) the current Federal Poverty Levels; see final chart below; and (c) the estimate that two adults would pay $12,000 annually for individual health insurance with average benefits if their income exceeds 400% of the Federal Poverty Level.

“Once the income of Americans exceeds 400% of the Federal Poverty Level, there are no limits on the premiums they can be charged, and their premiums are no longer subsidized. The poverty level is much higher for two people living unmarried as compared to the same two people being married. That is why citizens in many cases will pay far more for insurance if they are married. Why should married people be subjected to financial discrimination?  

“This extraordinary penalty people will pay, should they marry, extends all the way from a two-person combined income of $58,280 to $86,640, a spread of $28,360. A large number of people fall within this spread. As premiums for private insurance escalate, as expected, the marriage penalty will become substantially larger.

“The Senate bill also creates a marriage penalty, in this case by imposing a new tax on individuals who make $200,000 annually but it also applies to married couples making $250,000 each year. This marriage tax on the affluent, however, is just the tip of the marriage penalty iceberg in the Senate bill.

“The Senate bill stipulates that two unmarried people, 52 years of age, with private insurance and a combined income of $60,000, $30,000 each, will pay a combined cost of $2,483 for medical insurance. Should they marry, however, they will pay a combined cost of $11,666 for insurance—a penalty of $9,183 for getting married (based on tables available here).

“This substantial marriage penalty applies to persons on individual insurance, but, as the Heritage Foundation’s Bob Moffit said: ‘if an employer has a health care benefits package that is 12 to 13 percent of payroll, and they can solve their problem by paying an 8 percent payroll tax [into the Exchange], I think they’re going to do it,’ (New York Times, 9-30-09). And Howard Dean said that, ‘small business won’t need to buy health care for its employees any more’ (Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, 11-29-09).

“Businesses will shed their employees and health care dollars into the Exchange, but the dollars that are paid back out will be directed only to those who make less than 400% of the Federal Poverty Level. Those above the Poverty Level will receive none of their previous insurance benefits from businesses. For that reason the new system is income redistribution on steroids.
 
“ ‘Household’ is defined in both bills as including those who can be claimed as dependents for federal income tax purposes thereby clarifying that adults can avoid the marriage penalty by living together unmarried. The new system provides a huge incentive for doing so.

“The bills additionally contain De Facto salary caps. How much would a married couple pay for private insurance under the House bill if their income was $58,000 per year?  The answer is $2,088. But what if their income increased by $1,000? Their annual premium would then be about $12,000. The economic penalty for going off the subsidized system is so severe that it will be difficult for people to increase their earnings beyond 400% of Poverty Level. The Senate bill works essentially the same way.

“Senior citizens and small businesses have already been identified as big losers in the health care bills. Married citizens in the middle class need to be added to the list.”

Official summary of premium limits and subsidy levels in the House bill*

Federal Poverty Levels now in use:

• Single person = $10,830
• Two person household = $14,570
• Three person household = $18,310
• Family of four = $22,050

400% of Federal Poverty Level:

• Single person = $43,320
• Two person household = $58,280
• Three person household = $73,240
• Family of four = $88,200

*  Chart provided by The House Committees on Ways & Means, Energy & Commerce, and Education & Labor, October 29, 2009.

From CNS News

The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), claimed it posted the “full text” of its health care reform bill, “America’s Healthy Future Act,” on its Web site. But when users clicked the link to read the proposed law, they could only access a 259-page document that included summaries of both current law and the proposed legislation–or what some senators called a “plain English” version of the bill.
 
The actual “legislative language” of the bill–the words that would become the law of the land if the bill were enacted–is not available to the public and apparently has not even been written.

Nonetheless, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scored the plain text summary of the bill on Oct. 7, cautiously estimating its cost at $829 billion. The members of the committee voted the bill out of the committee based on the summary on Tuesday, 14-9, picking up only one Republican vote, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.

While the committee released a memorandum to reporters and  editors on Oct. 2 claiming had released the “full text of the America’s Healthy Future Act,” the link attached to the online version of the memorandum led to the summary–not an actual legislative text–and the CBO’s Oct. 7 “preliminary analysis” of the bill contradictng the committee’s claim that it had released the “full text.” 

“The Chairman’s mark, as amended, has not yet been converted into legislative language,” said the CBO. ”The review of such language could lead to significant changes in the estimates of the proposal’s effects on the federal budget and insurance coverage.”

Read the rest of the story

From CCN Money

Now that the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that the health-care bill proposed by Sen. Max Baucus will shrink the federal deficit over the next ten years, its champions are heralding the legislation as a model of fiscal responsibility.

But the CBO’s comforting analysis relies on a big assumption that’s highly questionable, an assumption that virtually no one on either side of the debate — politicians, pundits, even economists — is even challenging.

The assumption is that America’s employers will keep providing coverage for their workers. But, in fact, the Baucus bill severely undermines the employer rationale for offering insurance. Economist Michael Tanner of the conservative Cato Institute points out two main reasons.

First, the Baucus bill would substantially increase the costs of coverage, for example by requiring rich benefits packages and coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions at far less than their actual expense. At some point, employers will decide that the appeal of offering insurance as a tool for recruiting and retaining employees no longer compensates for its soaring cost.

Second, the bill is based on perverse incentives that no one is even discussing. The subsidies it offers to citizens are so rich that if companies were to drop their plans, the majority of workers would get the same lavish coverage, and extra cash in their paychecks to boot. “Those two factors will change the equilibrium,” says Tanner. “With the government providing huge credits, employers will feel a lot less guilty about dumping their plans.”

Read the rest of the column.

Posted from World Net Daily

By Chuck Norris – Flying under the radar last week was a new government report that forecasts that the national debt will double over the next decade. The White House has projected a cumulative $9 trillion deficit between 2010 and 2019, while the Congressional Budget Office estimates a more optimistic $7.1 trillion based upon the expiration of Bush tax cuts. What this means is that Washington’s out-of-control spending will likely turn the nation’s already-staggering $11 trillion debt into an astronomical $20 trillion.

But there are at least two ginormous expenses that are excluded in these projections. First, both projections from the White House and CBO incorporate their belief that the deficit will decline quickly over the next three years, as they assume less bailouts are needed and the economy rapidly grows. But isn’t there also the real possibility that the economy will not recover as quickly as they hope? Every additional bailout or stimulus (large or small), and every margin of error in their three-year prospective climb-out of the economic pit, will inflate our nation’s debt balloon even more.

The second expense is far less speculative – and it has to do with about one-fourth of America. The 72 million baby boomers (people born in America from 1946 to 1964, excluding immigrants), the largest generation America has produced, are going into retirement over the next two decades and will face the golden years of declining health and rising medical costs. Under current law, if the government were to add the projected baby boomer costs of Medicare and Social Security to its debt tab, it would send deficit projections into the abyss.

Here’s the primary problem: Medicare is bankrupt. Medicaid is bankrupt. And Social Security is bankrupt. Though boomers have paid into these programs via their taxes for decades, there are not enough benefits to offer them, now and even less in the future. The problem is compounded when one understands that the number of people in the United States ages 65 and older is expected to double by 2030, and so is the amount expected to fund their retirement and health care in their twilight years, which relatively few are prepared to handle themselves.

So what is the U.S. government to do, especially when it is already projected to have a $20 trillion dollar debt in 2019 (let alone what it will be in 2030)?

That reform is needed in health care is not a question, mostly because Americans are being raped by the insurance companies. But Obamacare in its present form is not the answer, because it will progressively cut (yes, cut) the care for baby boomers in the future, if not through the reductions and costs of private options then through the mandatory benefit cuts the government has to make in Social Security and Obamacare (former Medicare). Think about it. If government can’t handle the costs of the elderly now in retirement via its Medicare and Social Security programs, do we really expect they will offer the baby boomer better (and more costly) benefits in the future?

The government knows that, with any version of a public option in health care, it is impossible for them to assist the baby boomer generation the way they assist their parents’ generation right now. Do the math. It’s impossible, in any form – not without the biggest tax increases ever levied upon the American people. This Washington knows: It must cut the benefits of Medicare and Social Security, otherwise the government itself will go bankrupt trying to offer those programs to the boomers over the next two decades. For a little inside peak into the Washington corridors on this issue, consider the following. 

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s own report, “The U.S. Retirement System and the Baby-Boom Generation,” “Present trends are unlikely to persist indefinitely, however, because total payments to retirees are expected to grow much faster under current law than either the total incomes of workers who pay Social Security and Medicare taxes or the revenues earmarked for those programs. That widening gap will place increasing stress on both programs. Narrowing the gap could involve slowing the future growth of benefits.”

Notice the words “under current law” and “slowing the future growth of benefits”? That is key. The only way around this future financial dilemma (at least according to this administration) is to change “current law” and to “slow” or lower the benefits for baby boomers. That new law (or basic legislation upon which such changes can be amended) is Obamacare. Are we so gullible to believe that the CBO’s report on baby boomers has no interplay with Obamacare legislation?

Look closely at the carefully stated italicized words (emphasis mine) within the Congressional Budget Office’s political strategy found within that same boomer report: “The extent to which baby boomers are providing for their own retirement – and have time to react to policy changes – is thus an important consideration in evaluating proposals to reform the Social Security and Medicare programs.” The only way the boomers will “have time to react to policy changes” is if they are enacted before they go into retirement! (Are you catching another reason for the White House’s rush to pass this legislation?!)

This is dirty secret No. 4 in Obamacare that our government isn’t telling you: Obamacare is ultimately designed to force retiring baby boomers into a much cheaper version of socialized medicine than Medicare, which is already being positioned to be cut to the tune of $500 billion. Obamacare is not merely about reforming health care to aid 47 million Americans who are uninsured. It is about reforming “current law” to ax 72 million retiring Americans who the government can’t afford to support over the next two decades.

Now you know why President Obama and recently White House budget director Peter Orszag both declared that health-care reform is “central” to economic recovery. Many have wondered how or why they can say that. They aren’t saying so because the government is expanding medical coverage or because it will cost them a trillion more dollars to socialize medicine. They are saying that because offering 72 million baby boomers less Social Security and Medicare benefits (via Obamacare) will save the government trillions over the next couple decades.

Consider the fact that we’re already feeling the birth pains of this generational catastrophe: For the first time in Social Security’s history last week, Social Security checks are projected to freeze or be cut in 2010, 2011 and even 2012. In fact, according to Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., another bailout could be imminent for Social Security.

Cut Social Security checks?! Let me get this straight. Corporations are given Washington bailouts. Society is infused with government stimuli. Consumers and car lots are given cash for clunkers. And the elderly, who will undoubtedly bear the brunt end of disproportionate medical costs and coverage merely because of their age, are experiencing an economic freeze already from the administration that promises not to cut their future benefits? Sounds to me that health-care rationing has already begun via Social Security!

Bottom line: Washington believes it must control spending on retirement and health benefits before millions of baby boomers retire, and Obamacare is the ticket to accomplish that objective. As Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said, “Today’s budget numbers send a clear signal that the time for putting off tough choices is over and the time to act is now.” But wouldn’t you like to know if those “tough choices” had to do with your future health care?

Again, friends, Washington’s whole covert plan can be summed up and seen in these words from the CBO report on baby boomers: “Under current law … slowing the future growth of benefits … have time to react to policy changes.”

I’ll say it one last time: Before so-called universal health care turns into your universal hell-care, write or call your representatives today and protest their rushing and voting Obamacare into law. Remind them what is needed in Washington is a truly bipartisan group that is allowed ample amount of time to work on compromised health-care law that reigns in out-of-control insurance companies and doesn’t raise taxes (for anyone), regulate personal medical choices, ration health care or restrict American citizens’ freedoms in any way.

My last four columns (outlining the four dirty secrets of Obamacare) are more than enough reason to kill this present so-called health-care legislation and send our politicians back to the drawing boards. That is why I’m sending my congressman this message that I also encourage you to send yours: “If you vote in Obamacare, I’ll fight to vote you out of office!”

Read Dirty Secret #1, Dirty Secret #2, Dirty Secret #3

Posted from World Net Daily

By Chuck Norris – Ever heard the saying, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”?

That’s true for any of the 1,000+ page versions of Obamacare.

Having informed you in previous columns of “Dirty secret No. 1” and “Dirty secret No. 2” in Obamacare, dirty secret No. 3 is the sin of omission. It’s what the health care bill doesn’t say that will bite you in the end.

If you were writing 1,000+ pages on a subject, don’t you think you’d have enough space to cover the essentials? But what if some of the issues were political hotbeds? And, if you were trying to sell the package, are there issues you’d intentionally leave out? If you were a Washington bureaucrat, I know you would!

In 1,000+ pages, there’s surprisingly sparse coverage or complete avoidance of a host of necessary issues. I would cite pages in the bill as I’ve done in my other articles, but there aren’t any covering them. These are questions that need specific answers by the Obama administration as well each of our representatives.

• What are the child developmental methods and values used in training parents in home visitations?
• To whom or what is the national committee, which oversees the entire health care system, accountable?
• What are the extents of power and limitations or boundaries of the national committee?
• Will the national and regional health care committees eventually run with the power of the Federal Reserve system, as Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the health care adviser to the Obama administration, proposes in his book “Guaranteed Healthcare”?
• Will Medicare be “phased out” as Dr. Emanuel proposes in his book?
• Will employee-provided health insurance eventually cease, as Dr. Emanuel proposes in his book?
• Specifically, how will the nation provide and pay for the expansion of needed medical and administrative personnel to cover roughly 50 million more people?
• Specifically, how will the nation provide and pay for the expansion of medical facilities and equipment to equip those new medical and administrative personnel?
• What are the specific cost projections for such extensive and extra medical personnel, practices, offices and equipment?
• What about the maldistribution of physicians?
• What about tort reform?
• What about class-action lawsuits?
• Will illegal immigrants be covered under this program?
• What about the specifics of abortion services, and will taxpayer funds finance them?
• What types and limitations of end-of-life counsel will be offered?
• Any guarantees that the middle class won’t eventually be paying for Obamacare?
• Have you investigated or read any other options and alternatives to health care reform besides the recent version of Obamacare? If not, why not? If so, what are the pros and cons of each?
• And most important, will you write or sign amendments that guarantee the restrictions or explanations of the above points into law before passing any form of Obamacare?

Now read that list slower one more time and ask yourself: Is it a complete coincidence that all those specifics aren’t already mentioned in Obamacare legislation? Would you want your representative to sign off on a bill that doesn’t specify them? (Would you sign a contract to buy a car that didn’t discuss financing or even the specifics of the car you were buying?)

Friends, of critical concern to me is not merely what the health-care bill is today, but what that implemented program will look like when a national board (like the Federal Reserve, according to Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel) has all power and jurisdiction, without checks and balances by other powers. If a national medical board is given the power of the Federal Reserve, a “death panel” will be only one facet of its monstrous head. But is a Supreme Court of universal medical counsel and decisions what we want presiding over the future generations of America? Our kids and grandkids?

Isn’t this just the same ol’ doubletalk and dirty politics we’ve seen in Washington? What ever happened to Obama’s campaign promise about the “most sweeping ethics reform” or “unprecedented transparency”? Why doesn’t Washington start telling us the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God?

If Obama is concerned about the “moral obligation” of universal health care, maybe he should begin by not “bearing false witness” or giving complete witness to the entirety of his health care plans and program?

Obama repeatedly promises that universal health care will not increase the deficit, but he is not only bearing witness in contradiction to the Congressional Budget Office, but without knowing the specifics of the program or what it may morph into in years to come.

Similarly, Obama promises that the middle class will not pay for the program, yet Obamacare legislation shifts progressive onus (beginning on p. 846, line 16) for aspects of ongoing health care onto state and local communities – which will in turn pay for those services how? It doesn’t say. And if the state doesn’t meet other eligible reimbursement federal criteria, do we assume they’re going to write it all off, or will we the taxpayers foot that bill, too? It doesn’t say. Generalities like “the State share of the cost” (p. 847) should cause your pocketbook to tremble.

What ever happened to the America just a few months ago that was, according to Obama, on the verge of an economic Armageddon? Do Americans actually believe the president when he says that universal health care is “central” to economic recovery? Are people really buying this shtick? Is this really the year to tack another trillion onto our oppressive national debt?

So here’s what the specific implementation plan of Obamacare comes down to: “trust government.” I’d rather do what a California highway patrolman friend of mine says, “In God we trust – all others we search.” And that includes government.

According to recent Rasmussen poll, 51 percent of Americans fear government more than private insurance companies. And we’re going to blindly trust government with the details of universal health care and allow it practice nationalized medicine on us and our posterity?

Before so-called universal health care turns into universal hell-care, write or call your representatives today and protest their rushing and voting Obamacare into law. Remind them that what is needed in Washington is a truly bipartisan group that is allowed ample amount of time to work on compromised health care law that reigns in out-of-control insurance companies and doesn’t raise taxes (for anyone), regulate personal medical choices, ration health care or restrict American citizens’ freedoms in any way.

Watch your back, America! As the adage goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Read Dirty Secret #1, Dirty Secret #2

Posted from World Net Daily

By Chuck Norris — I’ve read on several blogs that if Chuck Norris’ tears can cure cancer, he should take care of universal health care. Cute.

The real fact is that neither I nor Obamacare (in its present form in any of the 1,000+ page versions like H.R. 3200) can provide the remedy.

In my last column I explained that dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is that the House bill grants government the authority to come into homes and usurp parental rights over child care development.

I have a few more secrets to share over these hot August political nights.

Dirty secret No. 2 in Obamacare is that Obama is not the leader of Obamacare. And neither is Congress. The one who has been spearheading the initiative behind the scenes is one who goes under the misnomer “adviser” to the Obama administration, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist and breast oncologist and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. And “his bible” for health care reform is his book, “Healthcare Guaranteed.”

Dr. Emanuel has served as special adviser to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget for health policy as far back as February, when he confessed to the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times that he was “working on (the) health care reform effort.” The first draft of Obamacare?

If you want to know the future of America’s universal health care, then you must understand the health care principles and plans of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. I find it far more than coincidence how much Dr. Emanuel’s book parallels Obamacare’s philosophy, strategy and legislation.

First, Dr. Emanuel rejects any attempts at incremental change or reform to our health care system (Page 185). What’s needed, he concludes in his book (p. 171), is an immediate and totally comprehensive reconstruction of health care as we know it. That of course describes the vision of Obamacare to a tee.

Second, in the chapter “Opening the door to comprehensive change” starting on p. 171 (which reads more like a political and mass-manipulating strategy than a health care manual), Emanuel drives home “a key political lesson: the need to rush the legislation through.” (Seen this methodology being used lately?!)

He then cites historical proof: “Within a few months, President Johnson rammed the four central elements of his Great Society program through,” and Medicare and Medicaid were born. Emanuel says that the reason the Clinton administration couldn’t pass a health care bill was because it waited too long (after his inauguration – the political honeymoon period) and it “established a large task force that worked in secret. … The delay and the secrecy were deadly” (p. 181). Sounds to me that Dr. Emanuel is as much a political strategist as he is a doctor.

You are bearing witness to these political principles at work at this very moment in Washington and across this nation with Obamacare. President Obama and Dr. Emanuel both know that if too much time elapses their legislation is likely to die (and their preferences with it) because Americans will actually have time to examine it and come up with better alternatives.

Third, as Obama crusades around the country pitching Obamacare, he continues to avoid giving virtually any specific details of the program. That too is a strategy of Dr. Emanuel: “Americans need to avoid the policy weeds. Focusing on details will only distract and create tangles and traps” (p. 183). So “details” of health care reform are “weeds”? That is why we continue to hear only warm-and-fuzzy generalities from Obama like,”If you’ve got health care, the only thing we’re going to do is we’re going to reform the insurance companies so that they can’t cheat you.”

Fourth, Dr. Emanuel describes a comprehensive government health care program that is completely run by a national health board with 12 regional health boards (”modeled on the Federal Reserve system” – p. 83).

Imagine a national health board with the power of the Federal Reserve?! Imagine them doing with medicine and health what the Fed does with interest rates and the financial system. An apolitical board like that sounds appealing at first, until it is immune in ways (like the Federal Reserve) to congressional protocol and oversight. Once these boards are in place, like the Federal Reserve system over our financial system, they will have absolute power over the ebbs and flows of the medical world.

Critics would say, “But that is not the national board as described in Obamacare or H.R. 3200.” Not yet anyway. Of course, Obamacare uses much softer language for describing a national board – they call it the “Health Benefits Advisory Committee” (there’s that “advisory” word again!), which would be under the executive branch (like the Federal Reserve).

Does anyone doubt that the duties and power of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee will morph and grow over time? And what liberties and controls will they have 10 years from now? I have a hunch they will be very reflective of the power of the Federal Reserve – I’ll let you guess why.

Fifth, Dr. Emanuel believes in the “phasing out of Medicare and Medicaid” (Pages 88-89, 94-95). Of course, no proposed legislative wording by the current administration is going to describe the eventual elimination of these programs, at least in these incipient stages – remember, this bill is a sales pitch, too. But what stops the “Health Benefits Advisory Committee” care from “phasing them out” down the road? Could their eventual termination be the reason this administration won’t merely reform those programs to accommodate their universal health care desires? But then again, maybe you believe Obama when he “avoids the policy weeds” by saying, “Nobody is talking about trying to change Medicare benefits. What we want to do is to eliminate some of the waste that is being paid for out of the Medicare trust fund.”

Sixth, Dr. Emanuel believes in ending employer-based health care (Pages 109-112). President Obama knows that to propose such a restriction on American freedoms and choice would mean certain death to this legislation, let alone likely his popularity as president. However, throughout all Obama’s rhetoric about how Americans will have the choice of health care insurance, they will have little choice in the matter, especially when employers are footing the bill. As any businessman knows, why would a company pay the exorbitant costs for employees’ private health care insurance when they can benefit big time from a free ticket for government health care coverage? Some have even proposed that provisions in the House’s health care legislation, under the titles “Limitation of New Enrollment” and “Limitation on Changes in Terms or Conditions” (p. 16), could essentially make individual private medical insurance illegal.

Seventh, Dr. Emanuel believes a universal health care program could be paid for by phasing out Medicare and Medicaid, adopting a value-added tax of at least 10 percent, etc., and then allowing Americans themselves to “pay extra with after-tax dollars” (p. 100) for additional medical benefits (beyond the norm of the government program). Ironically, Obamacare proposes cutting $500 billion from Medicare and proposing taxes upon the wealthy, as just a couple ways to pay for the $1 trillion it will cost to run the new national health care program over 10 years. But even the Congressional Budget Office says that won’t be near enough.

Just last week at a Montana town hall meeting, the president continued to struggle to explain how he would pay for Obamacare without taxing the middle class. Of course, three of his top advisers (Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers and White House senior adviser David Axlrod) have already gone on the record saying they will not rule out the need for a middle-class tax hike to pay for Obamacare.

The truth is, whether the money comes from higher corporate taxes, taxing employer-provided health insurance, eliminating health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts, limiting the deductibility of medical expenses, increasing taxes on selective consumptives, etc., or all the above, trust me, sooner or later, we all will pay.

Eighth, speaking of ethics, enough has been written lately about Dr. Emanuel’s end-of-life counsel and consultation, including his advice from The Hastings Center Report (1996) that medical care should be withheld from those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. … An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

I find it striking that Obama’s ethics have similarly allowed him already to pass more laws increasing the terminations of life in the womb than any administration since Roe v. Wade. To add insult to injury, Congress has repeatedly rejected amendments to this universal health care bill that would prevent federal funds to be used for abortions.

Friends, if you don’t think Dr. Emanuel’s and President Obama’s “life ethics” will bear out in the practice of the policies within their future universal health care program, I have a London bridge to sell you in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Obama was telling the truth about this campaign promise: His presidency would provide “the most sweeping ethics reform in history.” I guess more Americans should have been watching which way he was sweeping.

In short, whether in title or not, Dr. Emanuel is Obama’s health care czar. Obamacare is a junior version of Emanuel-care, or should I say the beginning stage of Emanuel-care. What’s almost eerie is how they both could be juxtaposed to intersect in full bloom sometime in America’s future.

One last thing: Someone once said to me, “If two people think so much alike, you can bet that one person is not thinking.” Think about it.

Read Dirty Secret #1

Posted from WorldNetDaily

By Chuck Norris — Health care reforms are turning into health care revolts. Americans are turning up the heat on congressmen in town hall meetings across the U.S., who apparently hoped that citizens would simply swallow the hook of Obamacare.

It’s unfortunate that rather than respecting and welcoming citizens’ questions and grievances, many of our national leaders are belittling, demonizing and marginalizing them as extremists. They refuse to believe these groups represent any real grass roots resistance. Instead, they concoct conspiracy theories that they are conservatives who are secretly mobilizing these irrational marches.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that protesters of Obamacare are “un-American” and “carrying Swastikas.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused the protesters of trying to “sabotage” the democratic process. And Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., responded that “well-dressed” protesters are out to “hurt our president.”

So who are the real extremists – citizens who voice their First Amendment grievances or politicians who through their rhetoric try socially to quarantine citizens and impede democratic debate?

While watching these political hot August nights, I decided to research the reasons why so many are so opposed to Obamacare – to separate facts from fantasy. What I discovered was that there are indeed dirty little secrets buried deep within the 1,000-plus page proposed health care bill.

Having already given “Six reasons Obamacare is bad medicine” for America in a previous column, I thought through August I’d expose the political syringes through which it will be injected into the veins of America if Obamacare passes.

Dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is about the government coming into homes and usurping parental rights over child care development.

It’s outlined in passages like Section 440 and Section 1904 of the House bill (page 838) under the heading: “Home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children,” which would provide (via grants to states) for home visitation programs to educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.

Home visitation programs? Sounds so quaint!? You mean, for parents endangering their children or for those who want to better their parenting skills? If it’s for those who endanger their children, we already have a government agency for that – Child Protective Services. And if it’s merely for family education, most communities have a plethora of help there through local and state agencies and schools, outside of that other government vassal – Planned Parenthood. So do we need another federal bureaucracy for training parents and families? Or is there a hidden agenda in that vague outline?

The bill says that the government agents, the “well-trained and competent staff,” will “provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive language, social, emotional and motor domains … modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices, skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development.”

Are you kidding me?! And with whose parental principles and values? Their own? Certain experts? Who? From what field and theory of childhood development? As if there are one-size-fits-all parenting techniques? Do we really believe they will contextualize and personalize every form of parenting in their education or merely universally indoctrinate with their own?

Are we to assume the State’s mediators will understand every parent’s social or religious core values on parenting? Or will they teach some secular-progressive and religiously neutered version of parental values and wisdom? And when they “consult and coach” those who are expecting babies, will they ever decide circumstances are not beneficial for the child and encourage abortion? 

One government rebuttal is that this program is “voluntary.” Is that right? Does that infer that this agency will just sit back passively until some parent says, “I need parenting skills. I don’t think I’ll call my parents, priest or friends, or read a plethora of books, but I’ll go down to the local government offices”? Not according to the specific targeted groups and problems, as identified on page 840 of the bill: the State “shall identify and prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families. …”

Are we further to conclude by those words that low-income families know less about parenting? Are middle and upper-class parents really better parents? Less neglectful of their children? Less needful of parental help and training? Is this “prioritized” parental care giving not a biased, discriminatory and even prejudicial stereotype and generalization that has no place in federal government, law or practice?

Bottom line, is all this what you want or expected in a universal health care bill being rushed through Congress: government agents coming into your home and telling you how to parent your children? When did government health care turn into government child care?

Or as Glenn Beck asked, “When did we go from being a nation that believed in hard work and picking yourself up by the bootstraps, to a nation that wants government to control everything from our light bulbs to our parenting techniques?”

Government needs less of a role in running our children’s lives and more of a role in supporting parents’ decisions for their children. Children belong to their parents, not the government. And the parents ought to have the right, and government support, to parent them without the fed’s mandates, education or intervention in our homes.

Kids are very important to me and my wife. That’s why we’ve spent the last 17 years developing our non-profit KICKSTART program in public schools in Texas. It builds up their self-esteem and teaches them respect and discipline. Of course, whether or not they participate in the program is theirs and their parents’ choice.

How contrary is Obamacare’s home intrusion and indoctrination family services, in which state agents prioritize houses to enter and enforce their universal values and principles upon the hearts and minds of families across America?

Government’s real motives and rationale is quite simple, though rarely if ever stated. If one wants to control the future ebbs and flows of a country, one must have command over future generations. This is done by seizing parental and educational power, legislating preferred educational methods and materials, and limiting private educational options. It is so simple any socialist can understand it. As Joseph Stalin once stated, “Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

When will Washington learn there are millions of us Americans who aren’t just going to sit back and swallow the hook of this candy-coated Obamacare (child care) legislation? We’re tired of it! Tired of America going into trillions of dollars of debt. Tired of government over-reaching its arms into our lives. Tired of government refusing to hear our grievances. Tired of government turning our opposing voices into battering rams of its rhetoric. Tired of government making us feel guilty (and as if we don’t care) unless we accept and support its rushed decisions. After all, who is working for whom?

Before so-called universal health care turns into universal hell care, write or call your representatives today and protest their voting Obamacare into law. Remind them what is needed in Washington is a truly bipartisan group that is allowed ample amount of time to work on a compromise health care law that doesn’t raise taxes (for anyone), regulate personal medical choices, ration health care or restrict American citizens.

By the way, if you think “Dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare” is oppressive, just wait until you see “Dirty secret No. 2″ next week.