Posted tagged ‘Affordable Care Act’

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Must Reads For The Week 8/15/15

August 14, 2015

The pen is mightier than the sword...

 The pen is mightier than the sword… (Photo credit: mbshane)

Fed Finally Figures Out Soaring Student Debt Is Reason For Exploding College Costs, at zerohedge.com. The Fed has figured out that when money, from debt and money printing, is injected into a particular area of the economy, it raises the price (creates a bubble). Does this revelation hold true for all of the Feds printed money that has gone into the stock market?

The Doctor Won’t See You Now, at Forbes.com.  The laws of economics will be strictly obeyed.  The money quote from the article, “Many exchange policies limit patients’ choices of doctors and hospitals in order to keep premiums down in the face of Obamacare’s intrusive regulations and costly mandates.”  Who could have predicted that?

Navajo Nation Vows To Hold EPA Accountable, at zerohedge.com.  The EPA is responsible for releasing 1 Million, 3 Million gallons of toxic waste water into Colorado’s Animus River.  Like all Government agencies they are currently blaming the contractor for the accident.  Tough luck for New Mexico and Utah who are downstream from the toxic release.  I haven’t heard a peep from the media or environmental groups about this.  I guess it’s neither illegal nor a big deal if the government does it.  I wish the Navajo nation good luck in any lawsuit.  It’s great to be the tyrant, king!

Did EPA Intentionally Poison Animus River To Secure SuperFund Money?, at zerohedge.com.  It appears that a retired geologist predicted that the EPA would foul the Animus River a week before it actually occurred.  The implications of his accusations are chilling.  Never let a good crisis go to waste?

The Battle Intensifies: Police Raid Uber’s Hong Kong Office, at economicpolicyjournal.com.  Car Wars! Return of the Jitneys continues.  At this point, a rational government would realize they can’t put the genie back in the bottle.  Protecting special interests always trumps rationality but it can’t defeat the basic laws of economics.

Going Breadless in Venezuela, at economicpolicyjournal.com.  Socialism and price controls rear their ugly head again as bread shortages are the new norm in Venezuela.  Weren’t there food riots last week?  Don’t they have a toilet paper shortage as well?  Hey, let them eat cake!  Sorry, that’s reserved for the rulers.

Minimum Wage Effect?, at Carpe Diem Blog.  January to June job losses for Seattle area restaurants reaches 1300.  While there are many reasons for declining employment, artificially raising the price of labor means you will have less of it.  Businesses must make adjustments to increased costs.  My guess is that one unintended consequence will be less tipping for servers.

China’s Currency Policy: Devastating Manipulation or a Form of Generous Foreign Aid to Americans?, at Carpe Diem Blog.  This is a very different take on China’s recent efforts to devalue their currency.  Government intervention in currency whether it is printing counterfeit money, zero point interest rates, fractional reserve banking, or devaluing will always have unforeseen and negative consequences.  As for devaluing currency, how do you jump off a cliff halfway?

The Disturbing Messages In Police Recruiting Videos, at The Washington Post.  You don’t have to watch all the videos to get the point.  Why would you stress violent confrontation in your recruiting videos?  Even the Marine Corps doesn’t do that and they have the best military recruiting videos bar none.  If it is part of the recruiting tactics then it is likely the emphasis of their training.  When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Make sure you check out the last recruiting video by the Decatur Alabama police.  Quite the difference!

Serfdom USA!, at economicpolicyjournal.com.  Let’s end the week with some laughs.  This is for all of the true Austrian Economics Addicts out there.

 

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Obama Wants “Net Neutrality” Regulations. That’s Why We Should Oppose Them.

November 19, 2014

Here is a video of The President talking about net neutrality.

Sounds like he really wants to protect us, the little guys, from big corporations doesn’t it. Why should we believe the man who pushed a bill titled, “The Affordable Care Act”, which made healthcare less affordable. Is the term “Net Neutrality” any different from “The Affordable Care Act”. You can bet your life that Net Neutrality regulations will make the internet less neutral, less free, and more expensive.

This video is an example of the truth about Obamacare aka The Affordable Care Act. The administrations favorite economist when it came to Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, is proud of the lies that were told in order to sell Obamacare to the public. When you watch this guy, you are actually watching what the President, his administration, and the Congressmen and Senators who voted for this, think about you.

Obamacare has made individuals less free to choose how they want to pay for their healthcare. Insurance companies were for this law because they thought they would benefit by its passage. With the stroke of the pen, the law created 30 million more costumers for insurance companies. The fact that it expanded Governments power over the individual makes politicians and bureaucrats happy. But who among us wouldn’t want our power expanded?

Net neutrality laws will help the already established tech companies and hurt the upstart competitors who, under normal market conditions, would normally be a check on the big providers. The threat of competitors trying to get market share keeps them in line. This is what Uber is doing to the taxi cartel. Big tech companies will be for this, or at least be tepid in their resistance to it. Once Government regulates the internet, these tech companies will be the protected cartel.

Politicians and bureaucrats will not only be able to tax the internet more easily, they will be able to make rules about content and access. Think of what bureaucrats (Lois Lerner) in the IRS did to stifle liberty minded groups from getting their message out. Politicians and bureaucrats are only in favor of free speech if they agree with what is said, they are never neutral when it comes to losing power.

Politicians and bureaucrats have been trying for years to figure out how to intervene into the internet. The internet is what has allowed our economy to grow in spite of the interventions by the Government and the Fed. Now, for some reason, the President and bureaucrats want to intervene into an area of the economy that has had exponential expansion without the “help” of Government regulations.

Tyrants want to control information because truth is never on their side. Since the internet is the marketplace for truth, even democratically elected tyrants want to have the ability to control and/or propagandize their message.

Even if the President and the FCC succeed in getting regulations, the internet Jeannie is out of the bottle. They will show their true tyrannical colors with these regulations, but the marketplace will find ways to deliver a highly demanded market good outside of these Government regulations. The tighter they squeeze, the more will slip from their hands.

 

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Gruber Tells The Truth About Obamacare!

November 11, 2014

Jonathan Gruber was the go to guy when it came to lying about the Affordable Care Act. In this video he tells us what the anointed, (politicians, bureaucrats, academics, lawyers, and journalists), actually think about us the benighted masses. The public was sold a bill of goods that was a complete lie. But if you understood economics you knew the Affordable Care Act wouldn’t make healthcare “affordable”. How could adding a layer of bureaucracy to a healthcare system that was already deemed “unaffordable”, make healthcare affordable? It couldn’t.

This article, Jonathan Gruber Failed To Disclose His $392,600 Contracts With HHS, by emptywheel, at firedoglake.com, is another example of people thinking they are above the law, especially when they work for Government. Remember Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner forgot to pay his taxes when he was working for the International Monetary Fund (read here).

This arrogant ass sickens me to my core. Our founders told us not to trust anyone in positions of power. It is our fault we have allowed Governmental power to expand to the degree that it has today. It is our responsibility to try to roll it back. This is going to be a long fight because big Government progressives are entrenched in both parties.

The first article below was written in the fall of 2012, and the other was written in the fall of 2013. I think we nailed it.

Related Article – The Economics Of Healthcare vs. The Right To Healthcare, by austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – The Reality Of Obamacare, by austrianaddict.com.

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Must Reads For The Week 10/11/14

October 10, 2014
The pen is mightier than the sword...

 The pen is mightier than the sword… (Photo credit: mbshane)

How Michelle Obama’s Daughters Eat vs. The Rules She Has Set Down For Public School Kids, at economicpolicyjournal.com. The fact that the ruling elite don’t have to abide by the rules they impose on the benighted masses is one thing. The more important point is, a  Government that has the power to make this mandate has too much power, and is therefore tyrannical.

How The Real World Reacts When Minimum Wage Laws Raise The Cost Of Labor Above What It Produces, at economicpolicyjournal.com. Here is the money quote from the article,“If government could transform unskilled entry-level positions into middle-income jobs, the Soviet Union would be today’s dominant world economy. Spain and Greece would be thriving.”

Mayo Clinic To Bring A Medical Kiosk To An Employer Near You, by Jeff Hansel, at m.postbulliten.com. Health care “affordability” would have taken care of itself if politicians in the Democrat party would have passed legislation that moved healthcare toward a free market system instead of passing “The Affordable Care Act”. This article is an example of markets reducing costs and providing a better product for the consumer.

Obamacare Causes Wal-Mart To Cut Benefits For Some Part Time Workers, by John Lott, by johnrlott.blogspot.com. This is the opposite of what you read about in the above post regarding the Mayo Clinic. Government intervention in the free market produces outcomes that have higher costs and inferior products.

3D Printing Entire Homes And Neighborhoods May Be Just Around The Corner, by Michael Krieger, at libertyblitzkrieg.com. Technology is in the process of changing how we do things in ways we can’t even imagine. Technology is advancing  faster than Government can regulate it (the fracking revolution is another example). This gives me hope that at some point, our current experiment with big government will someday be a chapter in history that people will read about and say, “what made them think that would work”.

“Common People Do Not Carry This Much Currency”. How Police Justify Theft via Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws, at zerohedge.com. Taking money without probable cause, is only going to escalate the tension between police and citizens. Watch the video in this post, it makes great points in a humorous way.

Hong Kong Ranks First In Economic Freedom, The US Is Twelfth, at freetheworld.com. We were ranked second in ‘2000’ , but a decade of regulation, Fed counterfeiting, loss of property rights, and growth of Government has us cheering, “we’re number 12, we’re number 12”! We are not moving toward more individual, economic, and political freedom.

How The US Ranks In Corporate Tax Rates (Not Pretty), at economicpolicyjournal.com. The US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world! We’re number 1, We’re number 1!

Upcoming Anniversary: Oct. 1st Will Mark 18 Years Of No Global Warming, by Barbara Hollingsworth, at cnsnews.com. The evidence doesn’t match the chicken little rhetoric.

A Decade After Welcoming Wind, States Reconsider, by Sean Murphy, at eaglefordtexas.com. Here is a quote form the article, “Today, many of the same political leaders who initially welcomed the wind industry want to regulate it more tightly, even in red states like Oklahoma, where candidates regularly rail against government interference.” Politicians used Government subsidies and tax breaks to allow an industry to exist that would have probably had problems competing in a free market. Government picked the winner. Now they want to regulate an industry that wouldn’t have existed without the previous regulation. Here is my advice; repeal all regulations pertaining to wind, and allow the market to pick the winners and losers.

Reasons For Political Hope, by Bruce Thornton, at victorhanson.com. I know it’s hard to believe, but I am optimistic that freedom will win out over tyranny. It may not seem like it right now but there are signs that we are starting to wake up.

 

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Some Humor To Take The Edge Off

July 17, 2013

I found these on theburningplatform.com.

Related Article – What Is Tyranny? at austrianaddict.com.

134473 600 Warning Lights cartoons

Related Article – The Economics of Health Care vs. The Right to Health Care, at austrianaddict.com.

134483 600 Student Loan Debt cartoons

Related Article – Young People Get Hooked Into Huge Debt When They Take The Student Loan Bait, at austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – The Most Recent Arbitrary And Unrestrained Exercised Of Power By The Federal Government, at austrianaddict.com.

TV Station KTVU thinks it’s revealing the names of the pilots who crash landed the Asiana  flight at San Francisco International Ariport, but it turns out to be a prank. How long would it have taken you to figure out what was going on?

 

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Observations From The Margin

July 10, 2013

Observation Tower

-The Affordable Care Act [Obama Care], was signed into law on March 23, 2010, its implementation was delayed until 2014 so the results wouldn’t affect the 2012 Presidential election. Now they are delaying the implementation until 2015. Does anyone want to take a guess what happens in 2014 that would make them want to delay this for a year? I’ve got an idea, let’s have an election every year so the implementation of Obama Care will be on a permanent one year delay.

-Intelligence Director James Clapper admits lying under oath, but he says he is sorry. This is like the ever popular get out of jail free card, “I take full responsibility for………” No one is ever held accountable for their actions even though they take responsibility for their actions. The ruling elite; which consists of politicians, bureaucrats, and Government employees, are never held to the same standard when they break the law compared to what we citizens deal with everyday from a basic speeding ticket at the local levels, to IRS regulations at the Federal level. Two sets of rules exist in this country, one set for the ruling aristocracy and another set for the serfs. At some point people will not comply.

-The Obama administration is proposing changes in The Freedom on Information Act . These changes would allow federal agencies to lie about the information being sought. When you control information you control individuals. I’m surprised the administration would even worry about changing the rules, they have a track record of not abiding by rules in the first place. If no one holds them responsible for breaking the law, they will keep doing it, just like the dog that isn’t disciplined for peeing on your carpet, will keep peeing on the carpet.

-In all the scandals from Fast and Furious, the IRS targeting tea party groups, the confiscating of reporters electronic communications, the NSA data mining, the Benghazi fiasco, and many others, the administration says these were the fault of low-level employees, and the administration didn’t know anything about what they were doing. If they don’t have enough knowledge to control the Government apparatus, how is it possible for them to have enough knowledge to control the free market. The amount of knowledge needed to even begin to understand what is going on in the free market is exponentially bigger than the amount of knowledge needed to control Government.

-Our favorite  rock stars played in front of packed houses back in the day, now thirty years later they are playing in small clubs for hundreds of people. President Obama spoke in front of 250,000 in Germany before his first election, he was lucky to get  20 thousand two weeks ago for a speech at the same venue. It’s only been five years, either the presidency prematurely ages you, or the thrill is gone.

-Do people who condemn the U.S. for force feeding prisoners who are on hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay realize the alternative is letting them starve to death?

-The President lectured on constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from ’92 to ’04. After watching the way he has used the constitution as toilet paper or a cape, I hope his students either got F’s or withdrew from the class.

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Observations From The Margin.

June 24, 2013
Observation Tower

Observation  (Photo credit: mooglet)

The administration that thinks it’s a good idea to give Syrian rebels weapons in their fight against a better armed Assad Government, is the same administration that thinks it’s a bad idea for law-abiding citizens to possess or carry a weapon in order to defend themselves  against armed criminals.

Many wring their hands about violating the rights of  “illegal aliens” because law enforcement  is “targeting” them, but it doesn’t bother these people when the IRS violates the first, fourth, and fifth amendment rights of legal citizens on a daily basis.

On Russia Today television Former KGB agent turned Russian President Vladimir Putin disagreed with President Obama’s statement “that you can’t have 100% security and 100% privacy”, saying,  it is possible if done within the law. (Isn’t this bass ackwards. Aren’t we the country that was founded on the rule of law.)

Because the Assad regime has crossed the Presidents “red line” on the use of chemical weapons, the White House is now going to arm the Syrian Rebels. Will arming the rebels take care of the chemical weapons problem?

Individuals from China and Russia used to seek asylum in the U.S. when they ran afoul of their tyrannical Government. Now an individual from the U.S., Edward Snowden, is seeking asylum in China or Russia because he ran afoul of our tyrannical Government. Someone please wake me up!

The Affordable Care Act was 2500 pages. The immigration bill is pushing 1000 pages. These pages are great places for politicians to hide benefits for some groups, and costs for other groups, simply because it is impossible to read and decipher that much information in a timely fashion. This is similar to document dumping by lawyers.

Kathleen Sebelius won’t intervene for the ten-year old girl who was wanting to get on the adult list for a lung transplant. The age requirement is twelve years old to be on the adult list. Two points before a final point. 1) Sebelius is applying the rule of law in this case, even though she ignores the rule of law when it doesn’t work in her favor. 2) A judge intervened and the ten-year old received the transplant, but what about the unseen person who is now further down the donor list and may die because the ten-year old got placed higher up the list. Final point) This is just a glimpse of what the Affordable Care Act is going to look like, medical decisions are going to be taken out of the hands of the patients and the doctors, and placed in the hand of a bureaucrat. You better not be on the wrong side of a “bureaucrat extraordinaire” like Lois Lerner (IRS) if she’s the one making decisions on your health care.

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The Economic’s of Health Care vs. The Right to Health Care.

October 9, 2012

This clip, by Illinois state senate candidate Dr. Barbara Bellar, makes you think about the realities which lie ahead, with the implementation of “The Affordable Care Act” aka. “Obama Care”. She states the reality of the situation, then asks, and we all should have asked, “what could possibly go wrong?” Here is another example of a Government solution in search of a problem, a problem which was created by Government in the first place.

Is health care a right? No! Health care is a good or service, provided in the market just like (more…)

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Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, Doesn’t Work as Planners Planned.

September 26, 2012
Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010

Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (Photo credit: Leader Nancy Pelosi)

“How do you expect us to go through the day and work hard when they give us smaller portions and we’re hungry”. This is a quote by Ashley Chaneco age 13 of Greater New Bedford Vocational-Technical H.S. after school lunch nutritional standards were changed under the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act”.

In this article, by Natalie Sherman in South Coast Today, you will see what happens when government try’s to intervene into our lives. The price goes up, the quality of the product goes down, people find ways around the law through black markets and smuggling. If the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act” makes kids hungry, do you think “The Affordable Care Act” will make health care affordable. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it becomes affordable.

Search – students, black markets, school lunch, – and you will find articles about how students around the country are dealing with the new school lunch mandates. It gives me hope for the future when I see young people acting toward onerous government mandates like our founding fathers acted toward the Kings onerous rules constraining individual freedom.

One question, looking at the picture above, do you think this bill was signed into law to “help the children”, or to help the “adults”.

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