In the greater context of the health care debate, Medicare — the government’s health insurance provider program for the elderly — often is mentioned in passing as a program to make cuts and save billions, so that Congress can spend more than $1 trillion to overhaul the health care system. But, what’s often overlooked is the program’s colossal unfunded promises, which are on track to choke the nation’s budget in less than a decade. “There are four things that no one in Washington is arguing about Medicare,” said J.D. Foster, …
The Cartel is a new documentary film that should be seen by everyone who cares whether children in this country get a good education. It should especially be seen by anybody who thinks that merely shoveling more money into the schools will make them better. The Cartel reveals the story behind the story of educational failure in the United States: Teachers’ unions are special interest groups, and, just like any special interest group, the unions exert a disproportionate influence on the public policies that most affect their members. Candidates for …
Another day, another round of polls showing the American people do not want Obamacare. National Public Radio found that likely voters disapprove of Obamacare 47%-42% with 39% strongly opposed, compared to 25% strongly in favor. Wall Street Journal and NBC News found that 42% of Americans called Obama care a “bad idea” while only 36% said it was a “good idea.” Finally, the New York Times/CBS News poll found that ”Americans are concerned that revamping the health care system would reduce the quality of their care, increase their out-of-pocket health costs and …
As the old saying in Washington goes: if you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger. Nobody knows this strategy better than the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a big labor union known for bullying anyone it disagrees with into submission. And that is why they are turning their “activists” against the Lewin Group, a nonpartisan, independent health care research firm. In the past couple weeks, thousands of conservatives have taken to Twitter to say #handsoff and push for health care reform that leaves medical decisions in their hands and not …
From the International Business Times: Valero Energy Corp. chief executive officer Bill Klesse hopes the Waxman-Markey bill, which includes a proposal to enact a cap-and-trade system in the country, is eventually defeated when it gets into the U.S. Senate, he said Tuesday. The executive, who leads the largest independent oil refinery in the country, said the bill would impose a “hidden tax” in the form of a cap-and-trade system. Klesse said the bill is a “huge negative” for consumers and the country, as refiners would be charged for the carbon …
Yesterday at his AARP townhall, President Barack Obama claimed: “Nobody is talking about cutting Medicare benefits.” The July 28th Barack Obama needs to talk to the January 11th Barack Obama, who told ABC News: We’ve got to eliminate programs that don’t work, and I’ll give you an example in the health care area. We are spending a lot of money subsidizing the insurance companies around something called Medicare Advantage, a program that gives them subsidies to accept Medicare recipients but doesn’t necessarily make people on Medicare healthier. And if we …
In what chief executive John K. Welch called “shocking and disappointing,” the Department of Energy denied USEC’s request for $2 billion in loan guarantees for a new uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio. But should anyone really be surprised? The fact is that government policymakers have been dictating the future of nuclear power for decades. And this decision shows exactly why the nuclear industry should not put its future in the hands of Washington. America’s nuclear plants will need to be fueled with enriched uranium, and the U.S. has very …
From NRO’s “The Corner“: Thousand-page bills, unread and indeed unwritten at the time of passage, are the death of representative government. They also provide a clue as to why, in a country this large, national government should be minimal and constrained. Even if you doubled or trebled the size of the legislature, the Conyers conundrum would still hold: No individual can read these bills and understand what he’s voting on. That’s why the bulk of these responsibilities should be left to states and subsidiary jurisdictions, which can legislate on such …
From the beginning, President Barack Obama promised the American people his health plan would not add to our federal deficit in the long term. Just this past Saturday he again promised the country: “I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade. And by helping improve quality and efficiency, the reforms we make will help bring our deficits under control in the long term.” Problem is the official, independent, nonpartisan scorekeepers for Congressional spending and revenue, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) …
President Barack Obama is visiting North Carolina and Virginia today looking to shift the debate away from the massive new spending and government control in his health care plan, and to the “Security You Get” under Obamacare. But if “health insurance consumer protections” are what Obamacare is all about, then why is Congress fighting over massive expansion to Medicaid, the creation of a federal health board, and a public option? If these goals are what the President has in mind, why is Congress doing this other nonsense? White House talking point …
