White House Tells Insurance Industry: SHUT UP About Obamacare-Caused Rate Hikes Or Else

 

My family began to understand some of the unknown effects of Obamacare a few weeks ago when my wife showed me a letter from our health insurance company informing us that our premiums were going up more than usual because of the progressive health care bill. Other insurance companies have followed suit with letters to their clients. The progressive White House, not a big fan of the First Amendment is now telling the insurance industry to shut up or else!

Starting on September 23, 2010 insurance companies are force to include new benefits because of Obamacare that increase costs including:

• Prohibition on lifetime limits  
• Restrictions on annual limits 
• No Co-Pay on coverage of preventive services 
• Extension of dependent coverage up to age 26  
• New internal and external appeals processes 
• New rules regarding coverage for emergency services 
• Prohibition on pre-existing condition exclusions for children

Based on their track record, the White House probably doesn't realize for an insurance company to remain solvent, when costs go up they need to find a way to pay for it.


According to the Wall Street Journal,

Aetna, one of the nation's largest health insurers, said the extra benefits forced it to seek rate increases for new individual plans of 5.4% to 7.4% in California and 5.5% to 6.8% in Nevada after Sept. 23. Similar steps are planned across the country, according to Aetna.

Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon said the cost of providing additional benefits under the health law will account on average for 3.4 percentage points of a 17.1% premium rise for a small-employer health plan. It asked regulators last month to approve the increase.

In Wisconsin and North Carolina, Celtic Insurance Co. says half of the 18% increase it is seeking comes from complying with health-law mandates.

The report says that most of these rate increases apply to policies issued to individuals and small businesses, the very people Democrats claimed would be most helped by ObamaCare. It also says that "about 9% of Americans buy coverage through the individual market, according to the Census Bureau, and roughly one-fifth of people who get coverage through their employer work at companies with 50 or fewer employees, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation."

But the White House wants the insurance companies silenced, HHS Secretary Sebelius sent a letter to the AHIP an insurance industry advocacy group. The letter written in a threatening tone said in part:

Given the importance of the new protections and the facts about their impact on costs, I ask for your help in stopping misinformation and scare tactics about the Affordable Care Act. Moreover, I want AHIP's members to be put on notice: the Administration, in partnership with states, will not tolerate unjustified rate hikes in the name of consumer protections.

Already, my Department has provided 46 states with resources to strengthen the review and transparency of proposed premiums. Later this fall, we will issue a regulation that will require state or federal review of all potentially unreasonable rate increases filed by health insurers, with the justification for increases posted publicly for consumers and employers. We will also keep track of insurers with a record of unjustified rate increases: those plans may be excluded from health insurance Exchanges in 2014. Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections.

Someone should tell the Sebelius that the same exact thing happened with Obamacare's model, RomneyCare. The Journal also reported that Massachusetts, which enacted universal insurance coverage several years ago, also has seen steadily rising insurance premiums since then.

I suppose that's just another benefit of Obamacare, along with higher insurance costs and making access to certain medical services more difficult, Obamacare has given the White House an excuse to threaten the first amendment rights of the insurance industry.

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Thanks Barack… US Debt Is More Than All Money In the World

Thanks Barack.
The US now owes more money than all of the money in the world combined.
Kevin D. Williamson at National Review Online reported:

I have argued that the real national debt is about $130 trillion. Let's say I'm being pessimistic. Forbes, in a 2008 article, came up with a lower number: $70 trillion. Let's say the sunny optimists at Forbes got it right and I got it wrong.

For perspective: At the time that 2008 article was written, the entire supply of money in the world ("broad money," i.e., global M3, meaning cash, consumer-account deposits, checkable accounts, CDs, long-term deposits, travelers' checks, money-market funds, the whole enchilada) was estimated to be just under $60 trillion. Which is to say: The optimistic view is that our outstanding obligations amount to more than all of the money in the world.

Global GDP in 2008? Also about $60 trillion. Meaning that the optimistic view is that our federal obligations outpace the entire annual economic output of human civilization.

So, John Boehner wants to roll spending back to where it was in the last year of the Bush administration. Okay, great. Nice start.

The Obama-Pelosi economic plan resulted in a cumulative 7.5 million jobs deficit. By every objective measure the democrat's Trillion dollar stimulus bomb was a complete disaster.

Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi tripled the national deficit last year by nearly a trillion dollars – something unheard of in our nation's history.

After an unheard of record deficit last year of $1.4 Trillion the economy is on track to experience a $1.3 Trillion deficit this year.

Instead of focusing on the economy the past two years the radicals in Washington beat up on business and rammed through an unpopular nationalized health care entitlement program.

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/09/thanks-barack-us-debt-is-more-than-all-money-in-the-world/

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Figures… Former Commie-TRUTHER Green Czar Van Jones Was Behind the “Turn 9-11 into Community Service

Today, in his weekly address Barack Obama marked 9-11 as a day of community service and soup kitchens.

SISU discovered who was behind this effort–
Commie and TRUTHER Van Jones.

On Aug. 4, 2009, the White House offered a glimpse into its plans to desecrate 9/11 for political advantage. Commie-TRUTHER Van Jones appeared in a 33-minute video posted on the official blog of the White House and spoke about the left's plans to remake the tragedy into a day of community service.

SISU reported:

The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service … The plan is to turn a "day of fear" that helps Republicans into a day of activism … that helps the left …

On Aug. 4, the White House offered a glimpse into its plans to desecrate 9/11 for political advantage. [The now disgraced Van] Jones appeared in a largely ignored 33-minute video posted on the official blog of the White House to discuss the administration's plan to flush 9/11 down the memory hole just as it has tried to do by rechristening the Global War on Terror the "Overseas Contingency Operations."

"The first milestone for Green the Block will be on our National Day of Service, September 11, 2009, where we will organize Green the Block service events around the country in coordination with the President's initiative, United We Serve," said Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. of the Hip Hop Caucus. Click on image for "Open for Questions: Green the Block with [Under-the-Bus former Green Czar] Van Jones August 4, 2009."

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/09/figures-former-commie-truther-green-czar-van-jones-was-behind-the-turn-9-11-into-community-service-day-movement/

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U.S. Backs $1B Loan to Mexico for Oil Drilling Despite Obama Moratorium

Despite President Obama's moratorium on U.S. deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Export-Import Bank intends to guarantee $1 billion in loans to PEMEX, the Mexican state oil company, to bolster the company's oil drilling in the region.

http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/HiugXYlK5yY/

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AP Nails Obama for Health Care Falsehood

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama told voters repeatedly during the health care debate that the overhaul legislation would bring down fast-rising health care costs and save them money. Now, he's hemming and hawing on that.
 
So far, the law he signed earlier this year hasn't had the desired effect. An analysis from Medicare's Office of the Actuary this week said that the nation's health care tab will go up — not down — through 2019 as a result of Obama's sweeping law, though the increase is modest.
 
Obama offered some caveats when asked in his news conference Friday about the apparent discrepancy between what he promised and what's actually happening so far. On several other topics, too, his rhetoric fell short of a full accounting.
 
___EDITOR'S NOTE — An occasional look at assertions by public officials and how well they adhere to the facts___A look at some of the claims at his news conference and how they compare with the facts:
 
OBAMA: Said he never expected to extend insurance coverage to an additional 31 million people "for free." He added that "we've made huge progress" if medical inflation could be brought down to the level of overall inflation, or somewhere slightly above that.
 
THE FACTS: Those claims may be supported in the fine print of the plan he pitched to Congress and a skeptical public months ago. But they were rarely heard back then. "My proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions — families, businesses and the federal government," he declared in March.
 
Last August he predicted: "The American people are going to be glad that we acted to change an unsustainable system so that more people have coverage, we're bending the cost curve, and we're getting insurance reforms."
 
On Friday, he conceded: "Bending the cost curve on health care is hard to do." The goal: "Slowly bring down those costs."
 
ALSO:

Obama: We Knew Health Costs Would Go Up

http://www.thefoxnation.com/business/2010/09/10/ap-nails-obama-health-care-falsehood

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New GM CEO's pay package worth $9 million - Yahoo! News

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SCOFFLAWS: IRS Reports Federal Employees Owe $1.3 Billion in Back Taxes

There is a suspicion in this country (which I share) that the people who run our government have a sense of entitlement, that they believe that there are two sets of laws, one for them and one for the rest of the rest of the people. We can now put an end to those suspicions. They have now been proven.

All this political talk about tax cuts is all nonsense. Federal employees have taken their own tax cut. Not an approved tax cut mind you, but a tax cut the same.  According to the IRS people presently working for the federal government owe an aggregate of more than $1.3 billion in back taxes.  The average federal scofflaw owes $8,700. When you add in retired Civilian and military employees, that number jumps to $3.3 Billion.

According to the Washington Post Article reporting the scofflaws, one of the biggest collection of scofflaws can be found within the organizations making our tax law, the legislature:

 The debt among Hill employees has risen at a faster rate than the overall tax debt on the government's books, according to Internal Revenue Service data. It comes at a time when some Republican members are pushing for the firings of government workers who owe the IRS and President Obama has urged a crackdown on delinquent government contractors.

The IRS information does not identify delinquent taxpayers by name, party affiliation or job title and does not indicate whether members of Congress are among the scofflaws. It shows that 638 employees, or about 4 percent, of the 18,000 Hill workers owe money.

The average unpaid tax bill is $12,787 among the Senate's delinquent taxpayers and $15,498 among those working in the House.

But its not just congressional staffers who owe money.  Some of the most ironic examples of tax avoidance include the department of treasury, where the IRS sits $7.6 million, the FDIC $2.2 million, Stedman Graham Eric Holder's Department of Justice who prosecutes tax scofflaws, $14.4 million and of course my personal favorite the Office of Government Ethics $75 thousand.

What the list below which shows delinquency by department, is that the people who are taking the money out of your pockets aren't putting in their fair share.

Organization/Type of worker	Number of delinquent employees	Balance owed to the IRS
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts	754	$ 11,808,236
Agriculture	2,265	$ 17,824,971
Air Force	5,817	$ 46,787,244
Armed Forces Retirement Home	14	$ 164,072
Army	11,330	$ 89,966,859
Broadcasting Board of Governors	56	$ 653,395
Civilian retirees	40,000	$ 454,938,448
Commerce	1,556	$ 22,246,314
Commission on Civil Rights	3	$ 2,537
Commodity Futures Trading Commission	13	$ 160,623
Consumer Product Safety Commission	12	$ 96,638
Corporation for National and Community Service	24	$ 108,202
Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency	61	$ 420,776
Defense	4,454	$ 38,495,128
Education	163	$ 3,995,066
Energy	331	$ 4,899,649
Environmental Protection Agency	442	$ 5,862,994
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission	84	$ 1,303,316
Executive Office of the President	41	$ 831,055
Export-Import Bank of the United States	10	$ 166,288
Farm Credit Administration	7	$ 17,290
Federal Communications Commission	58	$ 712,416
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation	155	$ 2,249,326
Federal Election Commission	8	$ 115,747
Federal Housing Finance Board	4	$ 79,829
Federal Labor Relations Authority	7	$ 11,599
Federal Maritime Commission	3	$ 21,646
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service	7	$ 25,662
Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission	5	$ 11,769
Federal Reserve System - Board of Governors	81	$ 1,076,733
Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board	4	$ 23,519
Federal Trade Commission	35	$ 363,579
General Services Administration	385	$ 4,646,308
Government Accountability Office	66	$ 704,485
Government Printing Office	158	$ 2,143,812
Health and Human Services	2,841	$ 37,327,491
Holocaust Memorial Museum	5	$ 42,872
Homeland Security	4,856	$ 37,012,174
Housing and Urban Development	421	$ 4,991,608
Institute of Museum and Library Services	3	$ 22,541
Interior	1,812	$ 12,684,470
International Boundary and Water Comm.	8	$ 6,879
International Trade Commission	12	$ 63,936
Justice	1,971	$ 14,350,152
Labor	463	$ 7,481,463
Merit Systems Protection Board	10	$ 126,398
Military active duty	28,853	$ 109,557,536
Military Reserves/National Guard	30,631	$ 219,525,138
Military retirees	84,034	$ 1,525,688,378
Millennium Challenge Corporation	9	$ 8,412
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	327	$ 3,854,072
National Archives and Records Administration	100	$ 341,061
National Credit Union Administration	17	$ 48,299
National Endowment for the Arts	7	$ 34,740
National Endowment for the Humanities	4	$ 79,279
National Labor Relations Board	43	$ 497,974
National Science Foundation	67	$ 588,764
National Transportation Safety Board	8	$ 70,469
Navy	6,841	$ 72,432,604
Nuclear Regulatory Commission	57	$ 1,099,897
Office of Government Ethics	3	$ 75,304
Office of Personnel Management	172	$ 2,367,268
Office of Special Counsel	6	$ 34,737
Other civilian	4,125	$ 37,921,682
Overseas Private Investment Corporation	3	$ 1,605
Peace Corps	31	$ 75,459
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation	43	$ 334,211
Presidio Trust	10	$ 680,682
Railroad Retirement Board	31	$ 531,798
Securities and Exchange Commission	91	$ 1,030,485
Selective Service System	5	$ 68,163
Small Business Administration	249	$ 2,745,489
Smithsonian Institution	251	$ 2,226,791
Social Security Administration	1,920	$ 17,841,329
State	356	$ 3,259,502
Tennessee Valley Authority	292	$ 6,766,333
Transportation	1,328	$ 17,098,463
Treasury	1,204	$ 7,670,814
U.S. Agency for International Development	123	$ 1,104,009
U.S. House of Representatives	421	6,524,892
U.S. Postal Service	27,807	$ 283,365,996
U.S. Senate	217	2,774,836
U.S. Tax Court	4	$ 51,111
United States Access Board	3	$ 11,495
Veterans Affairs	12,013	$ 156,604,799

SOURCE: IRS | GRAPHIC: Karen Yourish and Kenneth W. Smith Jr. - The Washington Post

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41 Obama White House aides owe the IRS $831,000 in back taxes -- and they're not alone | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

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Obama administration threatens insurers who criticize ObamaCare

President Barack Obama's top health official on Thursday warned the insurance industry that the administration won't tolerate blaming premium hikes on the new health overhaul law.

"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a letter to the insurance lobby.

"Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections," Sebelius said. She warned that bad actors may be excluded from new health insurance markets that will open in 2014 under the law. They'd lose out on a big pool of customers, as many as 30 million people nationwide.

The letter to America's Health Insurance Plans was the latest volley in a war of words over who gets the blame for rising premiums. Polls show that many people expect their costs to go up as a result of the law, but there's also widespread mistrust of the insurance industry.  read more »

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Wait, Pay, Cough: FDA Seeks To Limit Consumer Access to Cough Medicine

Five years ago when Congress was considering a requirement that nasal decongestants be placed behind the counter to combat their use in methamphetamine production, I was one of many policy analysts who argued against this restriction.

I believed it would do little to curb meth use, make the purchase of cold products by law-abiding citizens time consuming and inconvenient, and shift methamphetamine production to Mexican drug cartels.

Since the bill passed, seizures of domestic labs dropped while meth use rose, and consumers now wait behind prescription customers just to buy cold pills. Mexican drug cartels increased in power and violence while becoming the primary supplier of methamphetamine to the U.S.

Unfortunately, I was correct on all counts.  Yet here we go again.

Government is limited in its ability to fight the war on drugs, leading bureaucrats to pick low hanging fruit.  To fight abuse of marijuana, prescription drugs, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and over-the-counter drugs, it must find producers, identify distributors and catch users – all of whom operate in the shadows.

Cough medicine on the other hand, is easy.  There it is, in plain sight, on store shelves.

In an effort to pass a ridiculous regulation and then declare a victory in the drug war, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering a rule that would require a physician's prescription for your favorite off-the-shelf cough medicine.

Yes, I know; I can't believe it either.

In a recent survey conducted by the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, high school teachers and police officers were asked to identify substances they believed put young people most at risk.  The order of the drugs listed in the paragraph above mirrors the order of their concern.

After alcohol as the number one problem, Marijuana was chosen second by 69% of police and 51% of teachers.  Twenty-seven percent of police and 15% of teachers considered illegally obtained prescription drugs the greatest danger.

After alcohol, tobacco, inhalants and seven other categories of drugs, cough medicine came in dead last – and barely that.  No police officers and only one percent of teachers listed it as having a serious negative impact on youth.

A 2008 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on cough medicine abuse found that in a one year period, only 1.7% of people aged 12 – 25 used it to get high.

Another critical HHS finding was of those who admitted to illicit use of cough medicine at least once, 82% considered themselves "lifetime" marijuana users while nearly half admitted regular use of LSD or Ecstasy.  Clearly, the majority of those who abused cough medicine were already at-risk youth with existing drug problems.

The active ingredient in cough syrup is the suppressant Dextromethorphan, often referred to as  "DXM" or "DM."  It has been used safely and effectively since 1958.   Adverse reactions are rare.

If you are coughing, the recommended dose of DXM will help you stop.  If used as a recreational drug, chugging an entire bottle can bring on hallucinations and a dissociative state.

My daughter, a chronic cougher, always says "coughing makes you cough."  Indeed it does.

Under new regulations being considered by the FDA at an upcoming September 14^th hearing, if you develop a cough, you must go to the doctor, wait, then pay for an unnecessary visit for the same cough formula you've been using for years.

If you do not have time or money for a doctor visit, your untreated minor cough could lead to bronchitis, pneumonia or pleurisy – and increased healthcare costs for the patient and/or system.

And will insurance cover it?  At what cost now that the insurance bureaucracy is added to the    equation?

Drug abuse ruins the lives of users and breaks the hearts of those who love them.  It locks too many in a vicious cycle of poverty and can result in premature death.  But relegating cough medicine to behind the counter under any circumstances is like swatting a fly with a mailbox – it's a foolish overreach to a minor problem.

Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have co-sponsored the Dextromethorphan Abuse Reduction Act, which simply requires the purchase of cough medicine be restricted to consumers over age 18.  As retailers already ID for tobacco products, this would be an easy lift for them.  It's a solution that makes sense and fits the problem.

What government should do is provide educational materials for teachers, parents and police explaining the dangers and signs of recreational cough medicine use.  It can't mandate locks on family medicine cabinets, so as always, the best enforcement starts at home.

The FDA should heed the lesson learned from placing decongestants behind the counter: Some unintended consequences are foreseeable and the fallout from the fix can be worse than the original problem.

http://biggovernment.com/ktoloczko/2010/09/10/wait-pay-cough-fda-seeks-to-limit-consumer-access-to-cough-medicine/

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