Income Redistribution
Make no mistake: The health care debate going on in
Washington is about one thing, and it is not the millions
of uninsured Americans.
It’s about the Obama administration’s goal of turning
this country into a socialist nation.
President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi (D-CA) are pushing Congress to pass the health
care overhaul before the August recess, riding rough
shod over the protests not only of Republicans, but
of some Democrats, many business interests and
hospitals.
Obama has made clear that, as White House advisor
David Axelrod put it, “Ultimately, this is not about
a process, it’s about results. … We’d like to do it with
the votes of members of both parties, but the worst
result would be to not get health-care reform done.”
Wednesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions Committee passed the “Quality,
Affordable Health Coverage for All Americans”
bill, otherwise known as QAHCAA (pronounce it as
it looks — CACA).
The House Ways and Means Committee followed
suit Thursday.
No Republicans have voted for it so far, and several
Democrats have voted against it.
During the presidential campaign, Republicans, including
candidates Fred Thompson and John McCain, warned
about the tax implications of electing Obama president.
They were right.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles
Rangel (D-NY) announced late last Friday that
Congress would pay for health care by hiking taxes
on the households earning more than $350,000 per
year and individuals earning $280,000.
The hike would put New York’s top bracket at nearly
60 percent.
Rangel predicts revenue of $540 billion over 10 years.
Democrats’ ultimate goal is to have the highest income
earners pay for health care for everyone else.
But even the liberal Washington Post editorialized,
“There is simply no way to close the funding gap by
taxing a handful of high earners.”
To cover part of this deficiency, Democrats propose
cutting tax breaks for hospitals because they don’t
provide enough charitable care to earn them any longer.
According to the American Hospital Directory, fewer
than half of the 5,482 hospitals in the country actually
pay federal, state or local taxes.
That will change.
Furthermore, the hospital industry agreed this week to
take $155 billion less in payments from the government,
leaving the money to cover the uninsured.
Beyond the money, the regulations are mind-boggling.
In the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section on page
16 of 1,018, under the Orwellian heading “Protecting
The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the bill
states:
“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual
health insurance issuer offering such coverage does
not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first
effective date of coverage is on or after the first day”
of the year the legislation becomes law.
In other words, according to Investor’s Business Daily,
“We can all keep our coverage, just as promised —
with, of course, exceptions:
Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it.
Nor will those who leave a company to work for them
selves be free to buy individual plans from private
carriers.”
Private individual coverage will be outlawed by attrition.
Meanwhile, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) added an
amendment to the bill that would require all health
insurance companies to provide unspecified “preventive
care and screenings” for “pregnant women and individuals
of child-bearing age.”
Asked if this would include abortion, Mikulski side
stepped: “It would provide for any service deemed
medically necessary or medically appropriate.”
More “highlights”: CNS News editor in chief Terence
Jeffrey also reports that “the legal use of tobacco
products is the only vice for which insurance companies
will be able to charge their customers higher premiums,”
adding, “a person could have been admitted to hospitals
three times for heroin overdoses, or been pregnant
five times out of wedlock, or been treated for venereal
diseases at least once per year for the past five years,
but none of these factors could be used to charge
that person a higher insurance premium.” Jeffrey further notes that the bill calls for improved immunization
coverage, including the use of “reminders or recalls
for patients or providers, or home visits” to accomplish
it.
Yes, home visits.
The BIG Lie
“I don’t know many small business men or women who
are making, themselves, $280,000 [per year], so I’m not
sure that very many small businesses are going to
be affected by this [$540 billion tax hike].” –House
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
Note to Steny:
Small businesses organized as Subchapter S
Corporations file individual returns for gross earnings.
Such a business would have to be small indeed to
report less than $280,000 in income.
This Week’s ‘Braying Jackass’ Award
“I don’t know how that one percent of households did
over the last 10 to 15 years, but my sense is pretty well.
I think the president believes the richest one percent
have had a pretty good run of it.” –White House Press
Secretary Robert Gibbs on raising taxes on the “rich”
to pay for health care.
Now we understand — as long as the rich “have had a
pretty good run of it,” it’s okay to take their money and
give it to someone who is less fortunate.
After all, as former Democrat congressman Dick
Gephardt once said, “Those who have prospered
and profited from life’s lottery have a moral obligation
to share their good fortune.”
July 18th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Well, limousine liberals and MSM “elites”, you had your fun… and probably almost broke your arm patting yourself on the back after you got the Dear Leader elected.
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Now you are getting the taxes you deserve, as Barack Obama is going to BLEED YOU DRY. And you can forget writing off your local taxes on your overpriced eastcoast/leftcoast home… you’ll be paying more on that, too.
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And here’s the kicker: you’ll be sending alot of that money to people in red states… to people whom you can’t stand.
New Yorkers, Californians, residents of the Northeast and the D.C. Corridor, you elected Obama… so step-up and pay those absurd taxes without complaining. You wanted bigger government.. so try THIS on for size.
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Those who live in places with more rational state tax structures like will welcome you when you want to move there… well, not really, LOL.
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So head-out first-thing Monday morning and jump in your Prius with the “Change” bumper-sticker on the back and GET TO WORK… Chairman O needs your money.