ObamaCare

Remember when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – in a moment of surprising candor – said of Obamacare, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it”?

Well, we’re just 14 days into 2013, and already we’re beginning to find out just how harmful it’s going to be to our economy.  The first victims? Hourly-wage employees at fast-food restaurants.

Within the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Congress approved a “Free Rider” provision that is forcing businesses such as fast-food restaurants to cut hours on “part-time” workers.

Here’s the crux of the problem: The so-called “Free Rider” provision requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees that do not provide health coverage to pay a $2,000 penalty for every uninsured worker above the threshold of 30 employees.

What’s more, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center, businesses that do provide health coverage for their workers will need to ensure that the plan covers 60% of medical bills, on average, and costs employees less than 9.5% of their household income. If the businesses fail to meet these standards, they will be fined $3,000 for each employee above the 30-person mark.

As a result of this provision, employers in the food service industry are scrambling to cut the number of “full-time employees” to get under the critical 30-worker threshold.

An e-mail sent by an operator of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Florida to employees and obtained by CRC summarizes the problem this way: “The implementation of this act is causing me to differentiate between part-time and full-time employees. Because I’m considered a ‘large employer,’, I’ve had to make some difficult decisions.”

The operator wrote that hours would be cut for “part-time” employees in order to prevent them from being classified as full-time employees, which the law defines as employees working 30 hours or more.

Last week Fox News reported that nearly 100 Wendy’s ‘non-management’ employees in Nebraska would have their hours reduced because of Obamacare. This Wendy’s franchise in Nebraska, like the Chick-fil-A in Florida, is among many food service companies that are reducing the hours of hourly-wage workers to sidestep these new regulations.

Congressional Democrats and President Obama have outwardly expressed their pride in this law. They claim it will bring savings for families, equality for the uninsured, and stability to the health care sector.

What is clear right now, though, is that at least some of the people this bill was designed to help are actually being hurt. Many food service employees now have to look for second jobs because their hours are being cut – or worse, they have been let go and now have to look for another job altogether.

Many of these employees could barely afford insurance, if at all, before these cuts and layoffs. Starting in 2014, these same individuals will be required to purchase insurance—private or through the exchange—or face hefty fines.

The Free Rider provision in the ACA is another example of legislation that is both ineffective and harmful to individuals and to businesses.

FoxNews.com quotes me in an article about comic actor Jack Black and America Ferrera appearing in a commercial that mocks those who don’t like ObamaCare.

Here’s a link to the article.

Frequent Capital Research Center contributor Elias Crim has an excellent op-ed in the Washington Times touching upon the absurdity of the Catholic Health Association’s support for ObamaCare.

It begins

This Sunday, one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People will address this year’s senior class at Gonzaga College High School in Washington. For Sister Carol Keehan, here’s a suggestion for an inspiring topic: “How to make it big.”

As president of the Catholic Health Association (CHA), the largest group of not-for-profit health care facilities in the country, Sister Carol, as she’s called, delivered an 11th-hour endorsement of President Obama’s health care reform bill. Herseal of approval appeared to give the legislation a Catholic blessing. It even earned Sister Carol one of the 21 pens the president used to sign the bill into law.

However, the CHA’s endorsement contradicted the position of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a group whose commitment to health care reform is decades old. The bishops exercise oversight on Catholic moral teaching that transcends the legislative policy provisions over which politicians squabble.

So whom to believe? Which group represents authentic Catholic opinion? “Listen to the nuns,” urges columnist E.J. Dionne, a Catholic, like Sister Carol, who wins praise in the secular world by his redefinition of the word “Catholic.” His endorsement of Sister Carol is critical to politicians like North Dakota Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy, who cites the encouragement of “Catholic nuns” to defend his vote for Obamacare. [...]

Maybe.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) seems to think it’s over.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who may be unaware that he is currently enjoying his final term in the U.S. Senate, claims to have the 60 votes he needs to muscle ObamaCare through his chamber. God help us if he does.

The current iteration of ObamaCare is classic Mussolini-style Fascism (i.e. corporatism). It forces Americans at gunpoint to purchase health insurance, a requirement never before imposed on the American people. The big insurance companies and the federal government have combined to subject the public to this tyrannical mandate that Americans overwhelmingly oppose. This is the economic essence of Fascism.

Shame on them on all.

Nonetheless, William Kristol of the Weekly Standard offers some words of encouragement to the patriotic Americans who still believe in limited government.

Keep fighting on health care. Fight for the next few days in the Senate. Fight the conference report in January in the Senate and the House. Start trying to repeal the worst parts of the bill the moment it passes, if it does.

After all, never before has so unpopular a piece of major legislation been jammed through on a party-line vote. This week, Rasmussen showed 57% of voters nationwide saying that it would be better to pass no health care reform bill this year instead of passing the plan currently being considered by Congress, with only 34% favoring passing that bill. 54% of Americans now believe they will be worse off if reform passes, while just 25% believe they’ll be better off. Making the 2010 elections a referendum on health care should work–if Republicans don’t let up in the debate over the next year.

Indeed ObamaCare may be the Democrats’ undoing. They are betting it all on their healthcare plan, which won’t kick in for years to come. A public backlash before then could halt the program in its tracks and kill it, leading to a Bastille Day-like slaughter at the polls for the Democratic powers that be.

Of course, it would be better to abort this monstrosity while in the womb, but the beauty of politics is that the fight is never really over. There will be more battles to come.

As Kristol writes, “Fight on with respect to health care. Fight on other fronts. And recruit new fighters. In a word: Fight. ”

Amen.

Desperate to save ObamaCare, Organizing for America, the Saul Alinsky community organizing branch of the Democratic National Committee, is hosting an online forum with President Obama today at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time.

You can watch online at http://my.barackobama.com/watch.

Here is the schedule according to the above linked website:

Program Begins at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time

The President will update supporters on the fight to pass real health insurance reform. He’ll lay out our strategy and message going forward and answer questions from supporters like you.

2:30 Program Begins

   •  Addisu Demissie, Political Director, Organizing for America

   •  Governor Tim Kaine, Chairman, Democratic National Committee

   •  Jeremy Bird, Deputy Director, Organizing for America

   •  Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)

   •  Beth Kimbriel, OFA Volunteer from Chester, Virginia

   •  Mitch Stewart, Director, Organizing for America

2:45 President Barack Obama

After repeatedly denying that it was sending out unwanted email spam about President Obama’s plans for the healthcare industry, the White House did an abrupt about-face, according to a news report.

White House new media director Macon Phillips wrote a blog post indicating ”that independent groups — he didn’t name them — had signed-up their members to receive regular updates about Obama’s projects, priorities and speeches,” the report said. The blog post also said:

Email updates from the White House have played a central role in our effort to push back on misinformation and get the facts out about health insurance reform.  These updates will continue to be an important source of information about the President, his priorities and opportunities for public participation. 

 

It has come to our attention that some people may have been subscribed to our email lists without their knowledge –- likely as a result of efforts by outside groups of all political stripes -– and we regret any inconvenience caused by receiving an unexpected message.  We’re certainly not interested in anyone receiving emails from the White House who don’t want them.  That’s one reason why we have never — and will never — add names from a commercial or political list to the White House list.

Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) says that majority Democrats in the House are clamping down on Republican lawmakers’ freedom to communicate with constituents in their home districts, according to a video interview with Washington News Observer.

“Once the government is permitted to curtail free speech at any level then the door is open and we should be worried a lot about where that could go,” Carter said.

As KBTX reported,

The Republican representing Texas’ 31st District says last month, he had set up a telephonic conference call to his constituents, a free service run through what’s known as the Franking Commission which provides free communication to citizens.

When callers dial in, they hear a message from the representative stating what the subject is, but that message has to be approved by the Franking Commission.

Congressman Carter’s call last month was on healthcare, and he says his introduction included the phrase, “House Democrats unveiled a government-run health care plan.” Carter says Democrats on the Franking Commission refused to allow Carter’s call to take place unless the phrase was changed to “the House majority unveiled a public option health care plan.”

Carter says he’s found 24 other representatives who have had language in their statements held up by Democrats. [...]

Here is the WNO’s video of Carter:

ABC’s John Stossel hits the nail on the head in a segment about government-run healthcare in Canada:

Ah, humane socialist healthcare.

Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is cutting off painkilling drugs for some chronic back pain sufferers in order to reduce costs, the Telegraph (UK) reports.

This frightening story from Jolly Olde England ought to serve as a warning to Americans high on ObamaCare.

From the Telegraph article:

It hardly needs to be said that if a government takeover of America’s healthcare system happens, such headlines are likely to become commonplace here.

The Government’s drug rationing watchdog says “therapeutic” injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.

Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.

Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment.

The NHS currently issues more than 60,000 treatments of steroid injections every year. NICE said in its guidance it wants to cut this to just 3,000 treatments a year, a move which would save the NHS £33 million.

But the British Pain Society, which represents specialists in the field, has written to NICE calling for the guidelines to be withdrawn after its members warned that they would lead to many patients having to undergo unnecessary and high-risk spinal surgery. [...]

That’s just one universal healthcare horror story from the United Kingdom. There are thousands of others.

And just wait until socialist medicine comes to America.

The practice of medicine will become explicitly political.

Bureaucrats will make decisions that deny care and then the interest group warfare will begin because Americans, unlike submissive, statist Europeans, don’t like being told how to live by government officials.

It will be a bonanza for lobbyists and lawyers as they advocate for their respective patient interest groups. Politically effective groups will carry the day and those patients who lack political pull will be forced to go without care or will be provided substandard care.

Think of the frenzied lobbying and legislative horse trading that took place during the brief debate over President Obama’s stimulus legislation — and multiply that by 300 million.

That could very well be America’s future.