HEADLINES

Monday, September 13, 2010

Obamacare: The Real Price Tag is a Moving Target

Two new studies highlight the growing concern that the true cost for Obamacare is greater than originally anticipated.  Last week, a new report from the Office of the Actuary at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) revised its estimates—exposing yet again that the new law will mean more health care spending, not less. Plus, the Congressional Research Service released a report that suggests states will face higher costs as a result of Obamacare.

These studies are just two examples of how assumptions, even small ones, in forecast models of Obamacare result in large differences for the total cost of the new law.  The CMS study, for example, assumes the scheduled physician payment cuts will continue as planned, resulting in significant savings that will help offset the massive expenses from Obamacare. However, history has shown that these cuts have never gone into effect and aren't likely to do so in the future. As a matter of fact, the physician cuts for this year already were postponed. The CRS report focuses on the variation in estimates regarding the impact of the new law on the states.

If any of the underlying assumptions for the new law miss their target, the price tag is sure to go up. To help Americans better understand how different the results of Obamacare can be with just small changes in the estimates, the Heritage Foundation will soon release an online calculator that will allow users to test out their own theories. It's one more way the public can decide what's realistic and unlikely when it comes to the savings and costs of Obamacare.








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Saudi Arabia: $60 Billion for U.S. Arms; $30 Million for Palestinians; Nothing for U.S. Policy Goals


By Barry Rubin

The United States is building up the defenses of Gulf Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, for the day that Iran has nuclear weapons. This program has two purposes: to make the local states feel more confident about resisting Tehran and relying on the United States. It also brings a lot of revenue into the faltering U.S. economy. The companies involved say this will provide more than 70,000 jobs.

This particular deal sets a record at $60 billion just for starters. Saudi Arabia will be buying 84 F-15 fighter jets; upgrades for 70 F-15s; and more than 150 helicopters including Black Hawks and Apaches sent over a number of years. Ships and anti-missile defenses may be added later.

Israel's concern about such a massive strengthening of the Saudi air force is mitigated by getting its own new planes, the F-35, and knowing that short of an Islamist revolution in Saudi Arabia, the American-supplied aircraft won't be a threat to itself.

The U.S. sale seems reasonable both in military and strategic terms. One should add, however, that the Saudis are never going to be able to defend themselves against Iran, just as they weren't able to do so against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime.

Everything depends on how scared Riyadh is by Iran and how confident it is in the willingness of President Barack Obama to act decisively in its defense. Here is one weak spot in the U.S. strategy. The other is the failure to understand—or at least to respond effectively—to Iran's campaign of ideological, terrorist, and financial subversion toward other countries in the region.

If one is looking for an omen about these problems, it can be found in the U.S. inability to get the Gulf Arabs to support U.S. policies. Supposedly, Arab devotion to the Palestinian cause is a major factor in the Middle East. But U.S. officials had to beg the United Arab Emirates to donate a paltry $42 million—an amount, one might suggest jokingly, equivalent to the royal families' expense account for lunches—to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

So don't get carried away by this latest "generosity." In 2009, the UAE gave the PA a mere $173.9 million. So far this year, the UAE has provided…$42 million.

Arab state contributions to the PA, never high, are plummeting. During an average year, the total donation of all Arab states and institutions combined to the PA has tended to be about one-eighth that of the United States alone. The Saudis have been particularly unwilling to give. Between January and August 2009, they sent $241.1 million—not serious money by Saudi standards.

So far in 2010? A grand total of $30.6 million.

To put this in perspective, following the Gaza flotilla episode alone, Obama pledged an additional $400 million in U.S. aid for the PA. American taxpayers have to make up for the money not paid by oil-rich Arab governments.

This situation can be taken as a measure of Obama's ability to get Arab states--after all of his flattery for Arabs in general and Saudis in particular, expressed sympathy for Islam and the Palestinians; and distancing from Israel—to get their support. The U.S. government can give and sell, but can it get? Apparently, no.

Of course, the Saudis are going to spend a lot more on defense than in foreign aid. The United States does that also. But what does this story reveal:

--Lack of Saudi and Gulf Arab interest in actually helping the Palestinians, rather than using them to bash Israel and the West, demand concessions from the West, mobilize people to support the regime, and distract their subjects' attention from conditions at home.

--Belief that they can get the West to subsidize the Palestinians and Israel to make all the concessions.

--Inability of the U.S. government to use its leverage to get Arab regimes to do anything, even when those regimes depend on it for survival. The U.S. government has no credible determination or toughness to get Arab rulers to listen to its concerns.

--At the same time, it points to how badly the Arab regimes (with some exceptions, Syria, Libya) need U.S. backing to survive.

Incidentally, even aside from everything else the Gulf Arabs should be doing more to help the PA because it is in their own interest to ensure that the PA wins out over Hamas. Otherwise, Iranian-Syrian-revolutionary Islamist influence will spread even further and endanger the Gulf Arabs' survival.

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DOJ’s Inspector General to investigate Obama Administration Voting Rights Record

Michelle Malkin just obtained a letter from DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine telling House Republicans that his office will open a review of the Obama administration's selective enforcement of civil right's laws.

You can read the letter here.








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MARXISM A BUST… Cuba Lays Off Half a Million; Allows Private Enterprise

This will upset a whole lot of leftists.
Hollywood sure won't like this news.

Commies and killers Fidel Castro and Che Guevara (Welt Online)

Let's hope the Obama Administration is paying attention…
The Castro Regime announced it will fire at least half a million workers by the middle of next year. The murderous regime will also allow private enterprise.

Cuba says it will fire at least half a million state workers by mid-2011 and will free up private enterprise to help them find new work – radically remaking employment on the communist island.

The layoffs will start immediately and run through the first half of next year, according to an announcement Monday by the nearly 3 million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation – the only labor union the government tolerates.

To soften the blow, it said the government would authorize simultaneous increases in job opportunities in the non-state sector, allowing more Cubans to become self-employed, to form cooperatives run by employees rather than government bureaucrats and to increase private control of state land and infrastructure through long-term leases.

Hat Tip Ed S.

Maybe they just didn't do it right?








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Success?… Obama Hails Opening of Michigan Plant That Makes $33,000 Car Battery

You've got to be kidding?…
Barack Obama hailed the opening of a Michigan battery plant today that produces car batteries that cost $33,000 each and go up to 100 miles before needing a charge. This is Barack Obama's stimulus success story. He obviously didn't learn much about the free market system from his socialist mentors during his community organizing days.

This is supposed to be a Stimulus Bill success story. A $33,000 battery. (A123 Systems)

The AP reported:

President Barack Obama celebrated the opening of an advanced battery plant in Michigan on Monday as a critical boost for hybrid and electric cars — and a success for his administration's economic stimulus program.

But even as mass-produced advanced batteries start rolling off assembly lines, costs are high for consumers, and hurdles remain.

"This is about the birth of an entire new industry in America, an industry that's going to be central to the next generation of cars," Obama said Monday in a phone call broadcast at the opening of A123 Systems Inc.'s lithium ion battery plant in Livonia, Mich.

"And it's going to allow us to start exporting those cars, making them comfortable, convenient, and affordable. …. When folks lift up their hoods on the cars of the future, I want them to see engines and batteries that are stamped: 'Made in America,'" Obama said, according to a transcript of the call released by the White House…

…Despite the fanfare, the battery industry faces many hurdles. Gas-electric hybrid vehicles represent about 1 percent of new vehicle sales, and many plug-in hybrids and battery electric cars are just entering the market.

Costs are high. The government has estimated that a battery with a 100-mile range costs about $33,000, although stimulus money could bring that down to $10,000 by the end of 2015.

Mary Ann Wright, a Johnson Controls vice president, said if all of the battery companies follow through on plans to build up the industry, it could create more capacity than is needed in the short term. But she said the administration was working to address that by creating tax policies to encourage consumers to buy the vehicles and directing government fleets to adopt the technology.

"The rapid buildup of production capacity by companies with limited experience for product with challenging market may prove wasteful," said Menahem Anderman, founder and president of Total Battery Consulting, a California-based battery consulting firm.

Anderman said by e-mail that if by 2013-14 the factories are profitable and running at full capacity, Obama officials will be able to claim success. "Unfortunately that scenario is pretty unlikely," he said.

Previously:
Obama Celebrates Jobs Created at Korean-Owned Plant That Makes Expensive Batteries for Expensive Cars (Video)








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EPA’s Power Grab Endangers the Economy

Nowhere in the Clean Air Act does the term "greenhouse gas" (GHG) appear, yet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is invoking the statute to unleash economy-busting emissions strictures.

The agency's latest power grab is not going unchallenged, however. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has filed a federal lawsuit to force the EPA to reconsider the regulatory scheme that will otherwise encumber the energy and manufacturing sectors as well as millions of offices, apartment buildings, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, houses of worship, theaters, and sports arenas.

The Chamber's suit is procedural in scope: It seeks to compel the EPA to reconsider its "finding" that GHG emissions, as the supposed cause of global warming, endangers public health and welfare. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson in July denied petitions for reconsideration filed by the Chamber, the states of Virginia and Texas, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Peabody Energy Corporation, and others.

Jackson's refusal to reconsider the "endangerment finding" was all the more objectionable for having followed closely a series of revelations exposing deception and fraud in the research widely cited as proof of anthropogenic climate change.

Moreover, the regulations are unsupported by either clinical studies or toxicological data normally relied upon by the agency to discern an actual threat to human health and the environment. In the case of greenhouse gases, however, the EPA has acted solely on hypothetical effects that remain hotly contested.

It was never the intention of Congress to regulate carbon dioxide or other so-called greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, and previous Administrations have declined to do so. Evidently, this Administration is more interested in scoring points with the green lobby than in alleviating unemployment and jumpstarting the moribund economy.








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Obamacare in Pictures Busts Health Care Myths | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/09/13/obamacare-in-pictures-busts-health-care-myths/<br><div style="color:rgb(60%,60%,60%)">Sent with <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/app/mobilerss-pro-google-rss-news/id325594202?mt=8" style="text-decoration:underline;color:rgb(60%,60%,60%)">MobileRSS for iPhone</a></div>


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ICE Says It's Caught-and-Released 506,232 Illegal Aliens Who Are Now Fugitives - More Than Entire Po

Not only has ICE released so many illegals - now fugitives - that it surpasses the population of Sacramento, CA, but they may be the population of Sacramento, CA. From CNS News:
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) says that as of Sunday, Sept. 5, it had caught-and-released 506,232 illegal aliens who are now fugtives. That is more than the population of Sacramento, California, which currently numbers 486,189.

Fugitive illegal aliens are individuals who were apprehended ICE for being in the United States illegally and then were released ahead of their court proceedings and deemed fugitive when they failed to appear in court.
Why would an illegal alien show up for a court date? What is the logic of this catch and release strategy, other than of course to keep these unregistered Democrats here in the states? How many burglars do you suspect would show up for their court date if the police simply released them after catching them in the act? Rapists? Murderers? Child molesters? If it doesn't work for those classes of law breakers, why oh why does anyone even pretend that it will work for illegal aliens? Exhibit #249.412 that our government is a charlie foxtrot. We don't need immigration reform. We need immigration enforcement! Good grief, already!







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Remember the couple who snuck into the White House with no credentials?


IN CASE YOU DON'T REMEMBER……..
HERE THEY ARE…

I usually find email forwards to be mostly annoying; but this one I liked (wouldn't be surprised if most of you have already seen/received it).

Hat tip: Bookworm Room








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New economic chairman: Unemployment rate ‘going to stay high’ in near term

President Obama's new chairman of the Council of Economic Affairs (CEA) said Sunday that the national unemployment rate will not decrease significantly anytime soon.

By Sam Youngman and Bridget Johnson at The Hill

EXCERPTS:

'"I don't think the unemployment rate will be coming down significantly at any time in the near future," Goolsbee said.'

'Goolsbee echoed that forecast on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "It's going to stay high," he said of the unemployment rate. "This recession is the deepest in our lifetimes, the deepest since 1929. If you take the people thrown out of work in the 1982 recession, the 1991 recession, the 2001 recession, not only is this bigger, this is bigger than all of those combined. So more than 8 million people lost their jobs.'

FULL STORY








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