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POPSObamaCare endorsements: What the bribe was The AARP got a financial windfall in return for its support of the healthcare bill. Over the past decade, the AARP has morphed from an advocacy group to an insurance company (through its subsidiary company). It is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost, privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues. Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP — which supposedly represents them — will make more money
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POPSThe internal contradictions of ObamaCare Another major difference is that medical school is free in places like France. Here, doctors go to work with truly crushing med school debt that take years to pay down. Its hardly fair that they invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in their education and could now be told they can’t expect the ‘doctor’ type compensation we’re used to seeing.
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POPSGood Intentions with Disastrous Effects
But fraud and corruption are only part of the failed system that is Medicare – the other is basic accounting. In this morning’s Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson compares the troubles with Medicare to the “public option,” which he calls a “mirage,” that is gaining strength in Congress. While Medicare is a monopoly, the proposed government-run health insurance plan seeks to attract investment capital to subsidize the enormous costs that it will incur (such as marketing campaigns). If this fails, which it undoubtedly would, Congress would step in to bail it out. When asked why it has taken Medicare so long to figure out they were being scammed, Attorney General Eric Holder told CBS’s Steve Kroft, "I think lack of resources probably. And then I think people I don't think necessarily thought that something as well intentioned as Medicare and Medicaid would necessarily attract fraudsters. But I think we have to understand that it certainly has." Good Intentions maybe but...
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POPSThe Government Loves Spending Your Money Health care is turning into a big game of hot potato between the states and the federal government. At least between those who acknowledge somebody actually has to pay for it. Carl Oberg contributed to this article Write to tdoheny@afphq.org
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POPSReal Slime: An Open Letter To Bill Maher
But the most pathetic thing is when you expose your lack of education (both formal and informal) with your crackpot “theories.” This was no more evident than in the season finale of Real Time this past friday, where you asserted that it was doctors and patients “colluding together” to “corrupt” the healthcare system. This statement was so absurd and bizarre that your entire guest panel (all liberals) and even your reliably sycophantic studio audience just stared at you in disbelief. After three seconds of uncomfortable silence both the audience and panel (that included Chris Matthews and Alec Baldwin) erupted in laughter—not with you, but AT you. Things unraveled further when you launched into a diatribe defending more stupid comments you’d made the previous week about vaccines being “dangerous medical procedures.” Both Matthews and Baldwin were visibly disgusted by this, which resulted in Matthews aggressively confronting you and making you look like an idiot—again.
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POPSToo Darned Loud And while we’re at it, can we add an amendment to turn down the volume on TV news punditry as well? Sorry… flying too close to the sun.
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POPSEvil Insurance Companies!! So should we get rid of the evil insurance companies who pay a higher percentage of claims than medicare? And that is BEFORE the Medicare cuts and BEFORE "Comparative Effectiveness Research" starts being used to determine care... remember - "Maybe Grandma would be better off with a pain pill" and of course stopping those evil capitalist doctors wanting to remove kids tonsils because they would make more money than prescribing antibiotics.
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POPSRead the Union Health-Care Label There's more. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has suggested that the federal government could pay for health-care reform by taxing American workers' existing health-care benefits—but he would exempt union-negotiated health-care plans. Under Mr. Baucus's scheme, the government could impose costs of up to $20,000 per employee on nonunion businesses already struggling to afford health care plans. Mr. Baucus's proposal would give union officials another tool to pressure employers into turning over their employees to Big Labor. Rather than provide the lavish benefits required by Obamacare, employers could allow a union to come in and negotiate less costly benefits than would otherwise be required. Such plans could be continuously exempted. ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse for more forced unionization.
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POPSCompulsarary Insurance Won't Work and they get caught again. More fines they can’t afford, just like the insurance they couldn’t afford in the first place, and then they go to jail for failing to pay the fines. Now the government gets to provide their room and board and when they get out of jail they no longer have a job. Before long, the state legislatures start cranking out new bills and regulations aimed at coercing more people to buy insurance, forcing the insurance companies to sell insurance to people they don’t want to sell to, increasing penalties for not having insurance, and setting up multi-million dollar systems to track who has insurance and who doesn’t. Finally, the state gets into the insurance business to sell insurance to people who the insurance companies won’t or can’t afford to insure — call it a public plan to compete against greedy private insurers. .
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POPSRear-Facing Car Seats Protect Older Children in contrast to forward-facing seats, rear-facing seats provide full alignment of the head, neck, and spine, so that crash forces are dispersed over these areas rather than centered on one site. The message for healthcare professionals, the authors say, is that they should recommend rear-facing car seats for children under 4 years of age. To fully address the issue, however, seat manufacturers and retailers need to "increase the availability of rear-facing car seats for children over 20 pounds."
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POPSHere is the Chart Congress won't let you see This chart is actually banned from mailings to Constituents. It was created by staffers who read the bill and put it together based on the new agencies and bureaucracies created by the healthcare bill.
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POPSDemocrats Censor Mailing of Health Care Bill Chart “I have never seen such an outrageous example of censorship since I’ve been in Congress,” Brady said. ___________________ Okay, so who is afraid of the facts? Why were they trying to rush such a complicated plan through so quickly? Obama says we should just be quite and let them "fix" it ? Who is sending in the "Purple shirts" to intimidate those who speak up and dare to ask difficult questions?