TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~
DHS Updates Immigration Rule
Limiting Welfare Recipients
Thomas Gallatin
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New 2,273-Page Regulation From Medicare
Illustrates The Problems With Single Payer
By Christopher Jacobs
{ thefederalist.com } ~ What do provisions in a federal regulation, released on a sleepy Friday in August, have to do with the raging debate regarding single-payer health care?... As it turns out, plenty. By definition, single-payer health care assumes that one payer will finance all the care provided by the nation’s doctors, hospitals, and other medical providers. But this premise comes with an important corollary: Funding all medical providers’ care through a single source means that source—the federal government—must pay those providers the right amount. Paying providers too much wastes taxpayer resources; paying them too little could cause them to close. Would a centralized federal bureaucracy ensure that all the country’s medical providers get paid the right amount under single payer? Suffice it to say that this conservative harbors significant doubts, and not just because the United States has a larger and more diverse population than European countries with socialized medicine systems. Consider, for instance, the regulation governing Medicare inpatient hospital payments for 2020, which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released on Friday, August 2. That 2,273-page regulation—no, that’s not a typo—included major changes to Medicare payment policies. Most notably, the final rule changed the Medicare hospital wage index. For years, hospitals in rural areas have complained that the current wage index exacerbates wage disparities, under-paying hospitals in low-wage and rural areas, while over-paying hospitals elsewhere. According to CMS, the final rule increased the wage index for many rural hospitals, while slightly reducing payment rates to other hospitals, because CMS must implement the change in a budget-neutral manner. Consider also a comment made several years ago by Donald Berwick, former CMS administrator and a strong advocate of single-payer health care. In a 1993 interview, Berwick said that “I want to see that in the city of San Diego or Seattle there are exactly as many MRI units as needed when operating at full capacity. Not less and not more.”....
NY Times Misreports Major Parts
of Trump’s Economic Plan
by Carrie Sheffield
{ aim.org } ~ The New York Times misreported major aspects of President Donald Trump’s economic agenda in its reported article that reads more as an editorial... “Trump’s Push to Bring Back Jobs to U.S. Shows Limited Results.” “From tax cuts to relaxed regulations to tariffs, each of President Trump’s economic initiatives is based on a promise: to set off a wave of investment and bring back jobs that the president says the United States has lost to foreign countries,” the Times starts out, while then narrowing in on a few, cherry-picked anecdotes that ignore positive macroeconomic conditions achieved under President Trump’s tenure. In a story about job creation, the Times makes no mention of record-low unemployment achieved during the Trump administration, including among women, black Americans and Latinos. The Times mentions deregulatory efforts in passing in its lead paragraph, but then doesn’t actually report anything about deregulation and its positive effect on the economy. The Times fails, for example, to mention the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) estimating an approximate $3,100 benefit per household resulting from regulatory reform. This estimated benefit amounts to a huge pay raise for each family. The Times’ Jim Tankersley also makes no mention about wage growth, especially for those on the lower end of the economic scale. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, median weekly earnings for all workers in the second quarter 2019 increased by 3.7 percent over the year. And Heritage Foundation analyst Adam Michel wrote for the Foundation For Economic Education–facts that the Times ignores–about how in April, “the unemployment rate for Americans with a high school degree fell to the lowest rates since before the Great Recession....
‘We’re all in the closet’: Trump’s Hamptons supporters go underground
By Isabel Vincent
{ nypost.com } ~ President Trump’s Hamptons supporters have gone underground. While Trump attended two big-money fundraisers for the Republican Party and his 2020 re-election campaign at mansions in Southampton and Bridgehampton on Friday... many of his East End supporters are eschewing the spotlight — especially after last week’s calls for boycotts of billionaire Stephen Ross’ gyms because he hosted the president. “We are all in the closet,” said a boutique owner in Southampton who fears reprisals from his customers — most of them moneyed Democrats — if he speaks openly about his allegiance to Trump. “It’s like you have this disease and people want to run away from you.” A builder based in Westhampton worried that his customers would boycott his services if he reveals his support of the president. “People have really strong opinions here and if you go around wearing a MAGA hat, you really need to fear physical violence,” he said, adding the anti-Trump aggression comes mostly from summer residents. Trump won 51.5 percent of the vote among year-round residents of Suffolk County in the 2016 election, compared to 44.6 percent for Democrat scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton. In 2008 and 2012, most of the county voted for Barack scumbag/liar-nObama. Despite the recent shift, many of Trump’s core supporters fear speaking out, especially during the summer months, when beachfront villages from Westhampton to Montauk are filled with left-leaning visitors from New York City....
Killing Free Speech in Canada
by Judith Bergman.
Longshot 2020 Democrat Says “Powerful Forces”
on the Left Are Smearing Her Campaign
by patriotnewsdaily.com ~ She’s flailing in the polls, her New Age spirituality has made her the most meme-worthy Democrat on the debate stages, and she doesn’t seem to have a prayer of winning the nomination... But Marianne Williamson claims that Democrats are running scared of her insurgent campaign, which has, to be fair, garnered more coverage than many other, more established competitors. In an interview with the Daily Mail this week, Williamson said that there were “powerful forces” on the left desperate to wreck her campaign and keep her off the next Democratic debate stage. As far as forces on the left go, Williamson is right about one thing: She has been attacked and vilified by liberal pundits more than almost anyone else in contention for the nomination. Just in the past month, we’ve seen left-wing bloggers assail the self-help guru for peddling a philosophy that puts the individual above the group, a person’s triumphant inner self over their life circumstances. This is, of course, a cardinal sin for any Democrat, who must always see people as being victims of SOCIETY and the many injustices therein. For a self-help author to suggest that people can overcome those circumstances…well, that just doesn’t get it. It’s far better to blame the white man. Of course, since starting her campaign, Williamson has done plenty of that as well.Nevertheless, Williamson says that criticism of her ideas is part of a “well-strategized effort to smear me.” “There’s no doubt about that,” she told the Mail. “It’s very frustrating because I like to think on the left we don’t do things like that. [Editor’s note: HA!] So it’s been a bit of a wake-up call. But apparently there’s some very powerful forces that want to make sure I’m not in that third debate so I must be doing something right if they’ve worked so hard to create that.” Once again: HA! The left, of course, does nothing BUT eat their own. If you don’t have the right opinion as a black man or as a woman or as a New Age spirituality teacher, you will be devoured by their groupthink mob. They’ve turned on Bill Maher, they’ve turned on Sam Harris, they’ve turned on loose lips liar-Joe Biden, and of course they aren’t going to tolerate Marianne Williamson, who, while she may be for reparations, doesn’t necessarily think that everyone’s problems are perpetuated by The Man. To the left, there is only one acceptable way to view minorities – be they African-Americans, women, gays, or fat people: They are victims of the oppressors. If you’re not carrying the torch for that philosophy, you might as well be a Nazi..
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DHS Updates Immigration Rule Limiting Welfare Recipients
Thomas Gallatin: On Monday, the Trump administration released its update to rules on immigration applicants that aims to limit the number of impoverished immigrants allowed to legally enter and remain in the U.S. Acting Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli explained, “This is really an example of President Trump enforcing long-standing law that required people coming to the country or that wanted to be here long term to be self-reliant. That self-sufficiency is a core American value, and it is central to the purpose of this rule.”
Under the update, U.S. immigration authorities will view applicants’ use of government assistance programs as a negative mark against them when considering their eligibility for a temporary visa or a green card. National Review notes that “the rule change will affect those migrants seeking to enter the U.S. and those who entered the country illegally but wish to obtain legal status. [Department of Homeland Security] officials will take into account would-be immigrants’ education, skills, employment history, health, and a number of other factors to determine whether they are likely to become dependent on the government.”
The change broadens the scope of the “public charge” rule that in 1996 had been limited to only cash-assistance programs to now include non-cash government assistance programs. The change is aimed at limiting the number of new migrants who take advantage of the nation’s welfare programs. As The Wall Street Journal reports, “The use or potential use of a benefits program such as Medicaid, some types of housing assistance or food stamps could disqualify an applicant.”
The idea that the kind of immigrants who the U.S. should seek are those who are primarily motivated by the opportunities afforded by Liberty and not those looking for government-provided handouts has been long held throughout most of America’s history. And this latest effort by Trump is intended to restore this perspective on immigration within the U.S. government. Preventing further abuse of America’s arguably overly generous welfare programs is the goal. ~The Patriot Post
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