Kentucky

Comment

Comment by John Diamond on January 3, 2010 at 9:11pm

Gunny,you just echo my thoughts,and feelings....we as a "PEOPLE" need to fire ALL of our employees and start over,can't do any worse,even if they are first graders.We also need to stop any gov employee from ever being able to vote them selves a raise.It's up to the people they are repesenting...and that should NOT be over 10% more than the majority of their aeras average income...."work for your people" or you don't gain....it's that simple. SEMPER FI!!

Comment by Bob J Criswell on January 3, 2010 at 3:08pm

Victory or Death the secret password of George Washington, we all must make this our agenda as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtjfMjjce2Y

Comment by Mark Littrell on January 3, 2010 at 9:50am

Take A Look At This And Remember It At Election Time - November 2010...

This past year the U.S. House & Senate voted themselves both a $4,700 and a $5,300 raise.

1. They voted against giving each of us a Social Security Cost Of Living (COLA) raise for both 2010 and 2011.

2. Your Medicaid premiums will go up $285.60 each year for the 2 years and you will not get the 3% COLA = $660/yr. Your total 2 year loss and cost is
-$1,600 or -$3,200 for husband and wife.

3. Over the same 2 yrs each member of our Congress and Senate will receive an additional $10,000!

4. Do you feel cheated?

5. Will the government cover the increase in the cost of drugs - doctor fees - local taxes - food, etc.? The answer is simply, NO . They have given themselves a raise and better benefits. Do you really believe that they care about you?
We have never done anything about it in the past.
They obviously believe that we are too stupid or simply don't care.

6. Do you really think that Nancy, Harry, Chris, Charlie, Barnie, et al, care about us?
Let’s send them a message----YOU'RE FIRED!
IN 2010 WE WILL HAVE A CHANCE TO GET RID OF THE SITTING CONGRESS:
Up to 1/3 OF THE SENATE, AND 100% OF THE HOUSE.

MAKE SURE YOU'RE STILL MAD AS HELL IN NOVEMBER 2010.

It is ok to repost this to your sphere of influence if you are finally tired of the abuse.

Maybe it's time for the........
28th Amendment

"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators or Representatives,
-and-
Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators or
Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the
United States."

Let's get this passed around, folks - these people in Washington have brought this upon themselves!!! It's time for retribution. Let's take back America.

If you don't forward this to all your friends you're just part of the bigger problem National Apathy.

Comment by Bob J Criswell on December 31, 2009 at 9:17am

Dec. 31, 2009 What kind of health does congress get and at what cost?
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5382782n

Comment by Bob J Criswell on December 30, 2009 at 2:23pm

FYI SENATE OPEN FOR ELECTION 2010

Kentucky (R-Open) Please join Rand Paul at the Kentucky Capitol as he officially files to run for the United States Senate representing Kentucky.

A press conference at the Republican Party of Kentucky headquarters will immediately follow the filing of papers.

Date: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Location: Kentucky State Capitol
Street: 700 Capitol Avenue
City/Town: Frankfort, KY

Comment by Bob J Criswell on December 30, 2009 at 10:13am

RAND PAUL IS WORTH LOOKING AT, LISTEN TO HIM AT www.randpaul2010.com he is a Dr. he doesn't want a life time career as a politician.

Comment by Bob J Criswell on December 30, 2009 at 8:09am

On a recent Glenn Beck Show, he had a graph that illustrated the percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. You know what the private business sector is... a real life business, not a government job. Here are the percentages discussed by Mr. Beck.

T. Roosevelt........ 38%
Taft.....................40%
Wilson ................. 52%
Harding................49%
Coolidge.............. 48%
Hoover................. 42%
F. Roosevelt......... 50%
Truman.................50%
Eisenhower.......... 57%
Kennedy.............. 30%
Johnson................47%
Nixon................... 53%
Ford..................... 42%
Carter.................. 32%
Reagan.................56%
GH Bush.............. 51%
Clinton ................. 39%
GW Bush............. 55%

And the winner of the Chicken Dinner is..............
Obama................ 8% !!!
Yep! Thats right! Only Eight Percent!!!..the least by far of the last 19 presidents!! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations how to run their business? They know what's best for GM...Chrysler... Wall Street... and you and me?

How can the president of a major nation and society...the one with the most successful economic system in world history... stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one?.. or about jobs when he has never really had one??!

And neither has 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers.! They've spent most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit jobs....or as "community organizers" ..when they should have been in an employment line.

GOD HELP US!!

Comment by Mark Littrell on December 29, 2009 at 9:10pm

An Eerie Lesson From History... Does This Sound Familiar Today?


Don't Cry For Me, America

In the early 20th century, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. While Great Britain's maritime power and its far flung empire had propelled it to a dominant position among the world's industrialized nations, only the United States challenged Argentina for the position of the world's second most powerful economy.

It was blessed with abundant agriculture, vast swaths of rich farmland laced with navigable rivers and an accessible port system. Its level of industrialization was higher than many European countries: railroads, automobiles and telephones were commonplace.

In 1916, a new president was elected. Hipólito Irigoyen had formed a party called The Radicals under the banner of "fundamental change" with an appeal to the middle class.
Among Irigoyen's changes: mandatory pension insurance, mandatory health insurance, and support for low-income housing construction to stimulate the economy. Put simply, the state assumed economic control of a vast swath of the country's operations and began assessing new payroll taxes to fund its efforts.

With an increasing flow of funds into these entitlement programs, the government's payouts soon became overly generous. Before long its outlays surpassed the value of the taxpayers' contributions. Put simply, it quickly became under-funded, much like the United States' Social Security and Medicare programs.

The death knell for the Argentine economy, however, came with the election of Juan Perón. Perón had a fascist and corporatist upbringing; he and his charismatic wife aimed their populist rhetoric at the nation's rich.

This targeted group "swiftly expanded to cover most of the propertied middle classes, who became an enemy to be defeated and humiliated."

Under Perón, the size of government bureaucracies exploded through massive programs of social spending and by encouraging the growth of labor unions.

High taxes and economic mismanagement took their inevitable toll even after Perón had been driven from office. But his populist rhetoric and "contempt for economic realities" lived on. Argentina's federal government continued to spend far beyond its means.

Hyperinflation exploded in 1989, the final stage of a process characterized by "industrial protectionism, redistribution of income based on increased wages, and growing state intervention in the economy."
The Argentinean government's practice of printing money to pay off its public debts had crushed the economy. Inflation hit 3000%, reminiscent of the Weimar Republic. Food riots were rampant; stores were looted; the country descended into chaos.

And by 1994, Argentina's public pensions - the equivalent of Social Security - had imploded. The payroll tax had increased from 5% to 26%, but it wasn't enough. In addition, Argentina had implemented a value-added tax (VAT), new income taxes, a personal tax on wealth, and additional revenues based upon the sale of public enterprises. These crushed the private sector, further damaging the economy.
A government controlled "privatization" effort to rescue seniors' pensions was attempted. But, by 2001, those funds had also been raided by the government, the monies replaced by Argentina's defaulted government bonds.

By 2002, ".government fiscal irresponsibility. induced a national economic crisis as severe as America's Great Depression."


In 1902 Argentina was one of the world's richest countries. Little more than a hundred years later, it is poverty stricken, struggling to meet its debt obligations amidst a drought.

We've seen this movie before. The government’s populist plans can't possibly work, because government bankrupts everything it touches. History teaches us that Health Care Reform in its current form and unfunded entitlement programs will be utter, complete disasters.

Today's government is guilty of enslaving future generations to poverty and misery.

We the People must be heard! Take a stand today!

Comment by Mark Littrell on December 28, 2009 at 10:05pm

Thoughts on Health Care Reform And How We Can Still Take Action To Stop It

Actions Which Need To Be Taken:

1. The Senate and the House will not reconvene until January. We need to contact each of the Senators and Congressmen over this holiday and let them know in no uncertain terms how unhappy we really are. The time to act is now, this is the 11th hour and the clock is ticking.

Now is the time to really let our employees (elected representatives) know exactly how we feel.

* Get businesses and individuals to withdraw all future contributions to the politicians that voted the wrong way.

* We need to immediately begin boycotting advertisers, supporting media and businesses that have supported those who voted in favor of this Bill.

* Freely spread the word to others regarding advertisers, supporting media and businesses which supported those who voted in favor of the Health Reform Bill.

2. Massachusetts Elections with a Semi Conservative vowing to overturn this bill...

The Senate will not start the reconciliation process until the 18th of January. There is a fairly conservative Republican named Scott Brown who is running in Massachusetts in a special Senatorial election who has come out against the Bill. Getting him elected would stop the cloture on the reconciliation of the two bills. Getting him elected would send a clear message to the Democrats.

3. Put pressure on Democratic Senators who’s Territories voted McCain in the election.

There has been one defection today of a Blue Dog Democrat to the Republicans in the House. I suggest that everyone that lives in a district that went for McCain in 2008 and has a Democratic congressman in the seat start a deliberate push on that Congressman to vote against cloture.

Again contact their offices yourself, directly. Now is not the time for half measures.

4. Pro-life Democrats need to be actively targeted every day.

A significant roadblock to the bill is to be found in the language on abortion funding. Everyone needs to get to any stated pro-life democrat and get them to hold firm on the Stupak language in the house bill during the reconciliation process. Tell them clearly to accept no substitute language or compromises and ensure that the Congressman / Senator realize that their job is on the line.

It will take masses and daily contact until this is over.

5. Nebraskans and the Nation need to target Ben Nelson Daily!

http://bennelson.senate.gov/email-issues.cfm

720 Hart Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-6551
Fax: (202) 228-0012

Nebraskans need to convince Ben Nelson to change his vote for cloture. Considering how much criticism that he is being subjected to recently, he might actually do it.

6. We need to establish or find and fund a non-profit program committed to start fighting this to the end.

A fund as well as a plan for Judicial challenges and test cases needs to be set up immediately. A group of individuals with legal experience as well as expertise needs to identify likely candidates with possible standing. As soon as the bill is put into law the taxes start and the lawsuits can be filed. There are numerous opportunities for challenges to the Health Reform Bill… mandated coverage and the unequal implementation on the states being the two most obvious but there are many others and we should challenge each and every one of them. A legal team needs to be formulated to review the bill and determine all of the potentially challengeable sections of the bill.

7. A concerted legal effort to fully dissect the bill and to disseminate all of the underlying information to the American public needs to be made immediately to assist in all of the above activities.

8. Should all of the aforementioned actions fail it may become necessary to resort to massive non-violent demonstrations. Perhaps a National Strike would get the message across that we are not willing to take this anymore.

Please keep in mind it only takes one Democratic Senator changing their vote or being unavailable for the cloture vote for the reconciliation cloture vote to fail.

It would require of twenty or so congressmen changing their stance (40 Democrats voting against to make sure) in the house.

America, we now find ourselves in the 11th hour. The long sleeping silent majority must awaken NOW. We must take a stand for as well as control our nation before it is too late. No one is crying “wolf”. This threat is very real and must be acted on now. If you can do nothing more… awaken your sleeping neighbor. Speak out now… Take a stand now… All of America and her future depend upon it…

Comment by Mark Littrell on December 28, 2009 at 1:26am

What Does It Take To Get A Wavering Senator To Vote For Health Care Reform?

Let’s see how many payoffs and last-minute backroom deals were needed to get Health Care Reform through the United States Senate and how much it cost the American Tax Payers in concessions (also know as bribery)

Here are the top Sixteen Health Care Reform bribes.

1) MARY LANDRIEU AND LOUISIANA: $100 million via Jonathan Karl:
Reflected on page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from major disaster.”
The section spends two pages defining which states would qualify, saying that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a major disaster area.
It has been reported that this section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, represented by moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been reluctant about voting in favor of the health care bill.
The bill utilizes two pages describing what could be written with a single world: Louisiana.
Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much did winning over Mary Landrieu’s support cost the American Taxpayers?
According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

2) CALIFORNIA: $300 million
Contained in the nearly 2,000-page House healthcare bill is a little-noticed provision — worth $300 million to the State of California. This provision would increase federal Medicare payments to doctors in a wide swath of California in response to complaints that low reimbursement rates have hindered them from taking new patients.

Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel) was able to include a reimbursement calculation fix in the overhaul legislation. It was a testament to California’s political muscle in the House, where its delegation is the largest of any state and includes Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- San Francisco) and five committee chairs.

3) AARP
a) $18 million in stimulus money
AARP, which has given its full-throated support to Democratic health care legislation even though seniors remain largely opposed, received an $18 million grant in the economic stimulus package for a job training program.

b) The Medigap royalty/kickback scheme
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it was investigating Humana for providing “misleading” information regarding the Administration’s proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage policies and prohibited other Medicare Advantage plans from providing similar information on how Democrat health “reform” could take away their current coverage.

The Administration’s edict prohibiting plans from communicating with their beneficiaries failed to include AARP, which sponsors a Medicare Advantage plan but has been a prime advocate of Democrats’ government takeover of health care, quite possibly because AARP has been supporting a health care overhaul from which it stands to gain overall handsomely. Even as AARP advocates for cutting Medicare Advantage plans by more than $150 billion, an analysis of the organization’s operations reveals that it stands to receive tens of millions of dollars at the expense of seniors’ medical care with Democrats’ full approval:

* The Congressional Budget Office has previously estimated that the cuts to Medicare Advantage plans proposed in Democrats’ government takeover of health care (H.R. 3200) would cause millions of seniors to lose their current plan and enroll in government run Medicare.

* Because the government run Medicare benefit is less generous than most private health plans, the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission found in June that more than nine in ten seniors not in nursing home settings utilize some form of Medicare supplemental insurance. While many of these individuals currently rely on Medicare Advantage plans for the extra benefits they provide to seniors, many would be forced to purchase supplemental Medigap policies should their existing Medicare Advantage plans be taken away from them due to Democrats’ government takeover of health care.

* A review of its financial statements finds that in 2008, AARP received more than half a billion dollars in revenue from selling products like Medigap supplemental insurance policies-$652.7 million in direct “royalties and fees,” and an increase of more than 31 percent from the $497.6 million in similar revenue AARP generated in 2007.

* Royalty revenues now comprise more than half-60.3 percent-of all AARP revenues.
Many seniors have felt betrayed after paying hundreds of dollars above market price for AARP-branded coverage. One noted that “AARP has great buying power, and people should be able to get the best deal….This is unconscionable, what AARP has allowed to happen.” Another disillusioned senior wrote to the organization’s leadership asking whether AARP had a “‘special relationship’ with insurance carriers by which it receives commissions, incentives, rebates, or dare I say kickbacks?

* While H.R. 3200 would place strict price controls on Medicare Advantage plans-requiring them to pay out 85 percent of premium revenues in medical claims, Medigap policies face a far less strict 65 percent requirement. In other words, under the Democrat bill, seniors could pay as much as 20 cents more out of every premium dollar to fund “kickbacks” to AARP-sponsored Medigap plans than Medicare Advantage plans.

The higher prices charged by AARP plans, and the organization’s increasing dependence upon revenue from “royalties,” provide tangible evidence why AARP would support cuts to Medicare Advantage that would likely increase their “kickbacks” from Medigap plans.

A Hill source summed it up for me this way: “AARP has endorsed a huge reduction in funding of Medicare Advantage, which touches over 10 million middle-lower income seniors. If Medicare Advantage funding is reduced, and seniors are forced out of the program, they become potential buyers of the heavily promoted and very profitable Medicare Supplement program sponsored by AARP (MediGap is 70% of AARP’s annual income). Medicare Supplement is a huge source of revenue to AARP. At a minimum, AARP should be required to disclose this every time they discuss Medicare Advantage. Medicare Advantage plans are making important contributions to the Medicare program. These plans focus on prevention and offer disease management programs for beneficiaries with chronic diseases. This focus on chronic diseases is not seen anywhere in MediGap. New research demonstrates that Medicare Advantage plans have reduced unnecessary hospitalizations and readmission rates for beneficiaries with diabetes and heart disease. By reducing the need for hospitalization and emergency room care, private plans are not only improving the health and well-being of Medicare beneficiaries – but also achieving greater efficiencies and cost savings. The House proposal (supported by AARP) would disproportionately affect beneficiaries in rural counties and areas where fee-for-service expenditures are relatively low. The current provisions in the bill would result in reductions in Medicare Advantage funding by more than 20 percent in many of these areas and likely limit seniors access to coordinated care through the Medicare Advantage program. The areas that are impacted the most by the bill are the same geographic areas where Congress has acted twice since 1997 to establish payment floors for private plan options in recognition of the inadequacy of existing FFS rates as the basis for Medicare Advantage payments.”

4) THE ABORTION LOBBY
Two leading pro-life organizations that have analyzed the new 2,000-page government-run health care bill released by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid late yesterday say the legislation contains massive abortion funding and a fake amendment that does not truly ban it.

The Senate health care bill does not contain the Stupak amendment the House approved that stops abortion funding under the public option and affordability credits.

Instead, the measure contains a slightly reworded version of the much maligned Capps amendment, which a House committee approved on a partisan vote and which pro-life groups say is an accounting scheme to hide government-funded abortions.

“Reid has rejected the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts Amendment and has substituted completely unacceptable language that would result in coverage of abortion on demand in two big new federal government programs.

Reid seeks to cover elective abortions in two big new federal health programs, but tries to conceal that unpopular reality with layers of contrived definitions and hollow bookkeeping requirements.

Rep. Lois Capps, whose amendment was deleted when the House adopted the Stupak language, has applauded Reid’s language. “It appears that their approach closely mirrors my language which was originally included in the House bill,” she said in a statement.

Johnson notes that Reid’s bill establishes the public option and authorizes (on page 118) the Secretary of Health and Human Services to require coverage of any and all abortions throughout the public option program.

This would be federal government funding of abortion, no matter how hard they try to disguise it.
The bill creates the affordability credits — new tax supported subsidies to purchase private health plans and that these government funded credits can be used to purchase health insurance plans that directly pay for abortions.

Attorney Mary Harned of Americans United for Life, has also examined the abortion sections of Reid’s new measure, which she says “provides for an unprecedented expansion of federally funded abortion. ”
“The bill includes pro-abortion language and mirrors the false compromise Capps Amendment from the House debate, it allows the public option to include abortion coverage and provides federal subsidies for private plans which cover abortion,” she said.

5) BIG LABOR
While higher profile aspects of health care reform drew attention, pro-union legislators slipped a variety of big benefits for labor into the proposed legislation. Quietly tucked among the proposals’ thousands of pages, these provisions have avoided much scrutiny.

One provision epitomizes the nature of this ploy. According to research firms, unions are woefully short of funds to pay their retirees’ anticipated insurance claims. Thus, under the House resolution, union leaders who have mismanaged these plans for their members could receive up to $10 billion in taxpayer funded bailout money, innocuously referred to as a “reinsurance program.”

Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Under the proposed public option, Secretary of Health and Human Services would wield tremendous discretionary authority to regulate participating health care workers. The Secretary and various federal panels, where the unions would have guaranteed seats, would take the lead in recommending health care policy. Thus, labor would have considerable influence over decisions affecting most doctors, nurses and patients.

The House resolution establishes a scenario that would effectively exclude non-union employers from eligibility to work on program funded contracts. It also requires participating health care providers to pay wages and benefits that have been collectively bargained or that union friendly appointees determine are competitive. This is plainly a move toward coerced unionization. With guaranteed seats at the table, unions are poised to control many newly formed oversight posts and / or committees, formed in connection with new employer mandates and cooperative health care associations.

Yet another provision would establish lucrative state training partnerships that contain little or no opportunities for non-union employee organizations. Provisions in Senate proposals would exempt union negotiated health care plans from taxes on premium health plans.

These features all encourage more unionization. The unions know that under Canada’s nationalized system, union membership among all health care workers is 61 percent, compared to just 11 percent in the United States.

Increasing membership similarly in this country would swell labor’s coffers with as much as another $2 billion in dues alone.

In fact, Senate proposals include language that could force home health workers into unions. Disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and former California Gov. Gray Davis used this approach to repay political debts to the SEIU in their states. They reclassified state reimbursed home health contractors as state employees, thus forcing them to pay union dues. Again and again, it is apparent that these union friendly proposals have nothing do with improving our health care system.

In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls that Health Care Reform will dole out to unions or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health care industry.
Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health care sector and the American economy at large.

The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and Gray Davis of California in 1999. Both men repaid tremendous political debts to Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by reclassifying state reimbursed in home health care (and child care) contractors as state employees—and forcing them to pay union dues.

Following this scheme, the Senate bill creates a “personal care attendants workforce advisory panel” that will likely impose union affiliation to qualify for a newly created “community living assistance services and support (class)” reimbursement plan.

The current House version of ObamaCare (H.R. 3200) goes much further. Section 225(A) grants Secretary of Health and Human Services tremendous discretionary authority to regulate health care workers “under the public health insurance option.” Monopoly bargaining and compulsory union dues may quickly become a required standard resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses across the country being forced into unions.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services will be taking marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health care policy affecting hundreds of thousands of doctors, surgeons and nurses.

With all 40 Republicans in lockstep opposition, all 60 members of the Democratic caucus had to vote yes and that gave each one an opportunity to extract concessions from Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid.

6. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) won a promise from Reid to support his plan to expand eligibility for health insurance.

7. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) got Reid to jettison a provision stripping health insurers of their antitrust exemption. Landrieu got the concessions for her money. And Lincoln won an extended, 72-hour period to study legislation.

8. Sen. Ben Nelson
Nebraska Democrat sellout special Medicaid expansion subsidy will initially cost an estimated $100 million. Nelson credited Nebraska’s governor for giving him the idea to lobby for the government preference, Nebraska’s governor assailed the payoff:
“Nebraskans did not ask for a special deal, only a fair deal,” Heineman said in a statement.. In response, Nelson fired off a letter to Heineman saying he’s prepared to ask that the provision covering Nebraska’s Medicaid share “be removed from the amendment in conference, if it is your desire.”

9. Vermont and Massachusetts will get similar (though less generous) special treatment by the feds in covering Medicaid expansion costs. Combined with Nebraska’s tab, the exclusive clique’s payoffs will cost taxpayers at least $1.2 billion over 10 years...

10. Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd
A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who faces a difficult re-election campaign. The legislation leaves it up to the Health and Human Services Department to decide where the money should be spent, although spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said Dodd hopes to claim it for the University of Connecticut. The provision is included in a 383-page series of changes to the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., outlined Saturday. …The one sought by Dodd provides $100 million for “a health care facility that provides research, inpatient tertiary care, or outpatient clinical services.” It must be affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in the United States “that contains a State’s sole public academic medical and dental school.” The money can cover a maximum of 40 percent of the facility’s construction costs.

11. “Some insurers are more equal than others” tax exemption. Nonprofit insurance companies will be exempt from a new, nearly $7 billion tax to pay for Health Care Reform. Democrat Sens. Ben Nelson and Carl Levin of Michigan pushed hard for the tax exemption, which will exempt insurers in their states.

12. Several lucky states will see an increase in Medicare payments to hospitals and doctors, “where at least 50 percent of the counties are ‘frontier counties,’ defined as those having a population density less than six people per square mile. And which are the lucky states? The bill gives no clue. But the Congressional Budget Office has determined that Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming meet the criteria.”

13. More Democrat hospital benefits. Another provision of the bill would increase Medicare payments to certain “low-volume hospitals” treating limited numbers of Medicare patients. Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the Senate health committee, said this ‘important fix’ would help midsize Iowa hospitals in Grinnell, Keokuk and Spirit Lake. Another item in Mr. Reid’s package specifies the data that Medicare officials should use in adjusting payments to hospitals to reflect local wage levels. The officials can use certain new data only if it produces a higher index and therefore higher Medicare payments for these hospitals. Senate Democrats said this provision would benefit hospitals in Connecticut and Michigan.”

14. Bernie Sanders He wanted a public option. Instead, he got socialized medicine satellite clinics funded to the tune of at least $10 billion. In his remarks before the cloture vote, he gloated about the funding as a crucial step toward universal care.

15. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., scored a big victory, too, with the inclusion in the amendment package of $10 billion to expand community health centers across the country — including at least two more in Vermont.

“We are talking about a revolution in primary care here,” Sanders said. Funding community health centers in an additional 10,000 communities would extend primary care to 25 million more Americans. The $10 billion, added at Sanders’ request, would also ensure there would be medical professionals to provide primary care by expanding the National Health Service Corps by an additional 20,000 slots. Doctors, dentists, nurses and other medical professionals who agree to work in areas where there are limited medical services get help paying off their school loans. The House version of the health care reform bill contains $14 billion for these initiatives. Sanders said he was hopeful the final amount, which will be hammered out in negotiations between the House and Senate, would be closer to $14 billion.
Vermont has 8 community health centers and 40 satellite offices. “New funding would make it likely centers could be opened in Addison and Bennington counties.

16. Fla.-Pa.-NY Protectionism. Three states – Pennsylvania, New York and Florida – all won protections for their Medicare Advantage beneficiaries at a time when the program is facing cuts nationwide.”

And you know there are many more untold payoffs paid for by stealing our hard earned tax dollars. I am certain that many more such payoffs have yet to be uncovered and many are yet to be added into this bureaucratic monstrosity.

What are the overall cost to We the People? I will leave that calculation up to you... but I can tell each of you that the price is far more then any of us are willing or able to pay!

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