Love My Country, Loathe My Government: February 2017

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

March, 2017, Political Class Insanity, Part 1: Chelsea Is Out Of Touch, Starving In Venezuela, Another Social Security Scandal and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Today and for all of the insanity posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy."

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) Over the past couple of days we discussed the situation that government debt, at all levels of government in this country, is growing dangerously high. As we discussed many times in this blog, one reason for the runaway spending is the massive amount of fraud, crime, and inefficiencies of the Federal government spending programs. That bad reality was again demonstrated by a recent article by Elizabeth Harrington, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on February 22, 2017:

According to the inspector general of the Social Security Administration (SSA), the SSA incorrectly paid out $1 billion to people who did not have a Social Security number.
Let that sink in for a few minutes: people without a Social Security number actually got payments totalling $1 billion from the SSA, insane.
The $1 billion improperly went to 22,426 of people without Social Security numbers.
The inspector general concluded that: “Furthermore, unless it takes corrective action, we estimate SSA will pay about $182.5 million in benefits, annually, to representative payees who do not have an SSN or paper application supporting their selection.”
These payments were made to people who served as representatives of people who did not have the ability to apply for SSA disability benefits on their own but the inspector general found that the SSA paid $853.1 million in benefits since 2004 to individuals who had been terminated as representative payees by the SSA.
SSA benefits were also paid to illegal immigrants through this representative system.

$1 billion paid out for no reason, just a small brick in the $20 TRILLION national debt.

2) According to an ongoing Gallup poll, the credibility of the mainstream press has been deteriorating for a long time,with currently only about one in three Americans trusting the mainstream press. I would bet that recent comments by Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC is not going to turn that trend around any time soon. On a recent episode of her morning news show she claimed that controlling “exactly what people think” is the job of the media.

I always thought it was the job of the media to present facts and reality as honestly as possible and let citizens make their own assessment and develop their own thoughts and positions based on unbiased news reports. I never thought, and I would bet that most Americans do not want their thoughts controlled by large mass media corporations. Specifically her words were: "Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he [Trump] is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he [Trump] could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job."

She sounds a little jealous, doesn’t she, “that is our job.” How dare the President try to get his message out to the people, i.e. explain his reasons for his actions. In her mind, it is the job of the media to tell you what you need to know and how to think. In the Soviet Union, with its Tass news agency and Pravda, maybe she would be right, but in America the purpose of the press should be to inform people, not form opinions for people. How insulting and how typical.

The video of her remarks can be seen at:

https://news.grabien.com/story-brzezinski-our-job-control-exactly-what-people-think

3) Liberals and Democrats are constantly looking for ways to expand government’s involvement and interference in our lives “for our own good.” This results in higher taxes and less freedom, an extreme example of which is playing out in Venezuela. There, a socialist government has taken over most aspects of citizens lives with dire, dire consequences, of which the following details from an Associated Press report show:

The government in that country has screwed things up so bad that the basic necessity of basic food is now difficult to obtain.
A new nationwide study across Venezuela has found that 75% of the population has lost an average of 19 pounds over the past year due to the lack of food.
And the poorer you are, the more weight you are likely to have lost.
The 2016 Living Conditions Survey was conducted with 6,500 families.
The study also found that 32.5% of those surveyed eat meals only one to two times a day, up threefold from the same survey results done last year when that figure was only 11.3%.
Despite having the potential for high living conditions, given the country’s access to vast oil reserves, 82% of the country lives in poverty.
Government interference in the market has also caused shortages of all consumer goods, vital medicines, and the currency as lost 80% of its value in just the past year.
93.3% of those surveyed said that their family income is not enough to cover their food needs, resulting in far less meat being eaten which has been replaced by food types like potatoes.
65% admitted keeping children at home because of food-related reasons — including filling in for their parents in the long food lines.
Government policies has caused inflation to be about 700% in the past year.

The wonders of socialism and allowing politicians to dictate all aspects of your life, you know they will screw it up and Venezuela is an extreme but instructive case.

4) Washington politicians have shown time and time again how out of touch they are with reality. They live among themselves, rarely dealing with real live constituents outside of the Beltway, they are almost always rich, earning more than three times the median household income so they are able to send their kids to private schools with other rich politicians' kids and hang out with other rich people, both inside and outside of politics, so they never really get to experience reality. From George Bush long ago not knowing that bar scanners rang up your groceries in a supermarket to Hillary Clinton having no idea that should would lose states in the past Presidential election that she was positive she would win, being out of touch is a politician trademark.

And apparently politicians’ kids are not much better dealing with reality. Consider the recent idiocy spouted by Chelsea Clinton. She recently stated that it was “horrifying” that U.S. customs agents had recently deported an illegal immigrant that had been arrested seven times. This illegal immigrant’s background included the following aspects, as reported by Brian Anderson of the Downtrend website on February 16, 2017:

The female illegal immigrant had been deported six times previously and had returned to Mexico once voluntarily.
Customs agents received information that the female was back in the country and was someone who had recently been sentenced to 12 months in jail for possession of stolen mail and illegal entry into the country.
In addition, the female had an alleged criminal history that includes convictions for false imprisonment and probation violations in 2013, assault, probation violation and domestic violence in 2011 and false imprisonment-minor-parental in 2010.
So for at least six years, the U.S. taxpayer has been paying for law enforcement, court, and prison costs for this illegal immigrant who has left and illegally reentered the country at least seven times.
If this is not a logical, common sense, textbook case of someone that we do not want or need in this country, this is the example. Unless you are Chelsea Clinton, who tweeted out the following message of her personal disgust with this situation: “I need a thesaurus. What’s another word for horrifying? Sick? Awful? Running out of adjectives these days that mean unconscionably terrible.”
Is it because this illegal immigrant is a transexual individual that Chelsea thinks she should be exempt from current laws? That this person’s criminal history, which includes the serious crime of false imprisonment, does not matter and our immigration laws should not apply because she is a transsexual? That we should spend limited taxpayer money on handling this illegal individual, depriving Americans who are homeless, hungry, and drug addicted the extra care and extra support they need and could get if we did not have to spend so many resources deporting or imprisoning a criminal so many times, even if she was a transexual? So out of touch, so insane.

That will do it for today’s insanity, we are just getting warmed up, much more political class insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Monday, February 27, 2017

When The Debt Bubble Bursts Nothng Else Matters, Part 2

Americans are worried and upset about a lot of issues these days. Politicians, lousy job opportunities, stagnant household income growth, who is allowed in what bathrooms, terrorism, high taxes, bad schools, crumbling infrastructure, etc. But all of these issues, while seemingly important, are trivial vs. the only big issue that matters: a Federal government (and many local and state governments) that is hurtling towards fiscal disaster and insolvency.

If and when the fiscal integrity of the United States crumbles, and that possibility grows larger and larger every day, no one is going to care what the local bathroom policy is, why little Johnny is not getting educated, etc. because it will be a matter of basic survival in a collapsed economy that is the only concern.

Given that the Obama administration and legacy has almost doubled the national Federal debt from about $10 TRILLION to almost $20 TRILLION, this is the current Federal debt burden in the United States:

Debt per household - just under $159,000
Debt per every man, woman and child - abut $62,500
In other words to wipe out just the Federal government debt, every household, on average, would have to write a check for about $159,000.
Every person, including kids and infants.would have to pony up about $62,500 to wipe out just the Federal government debt.
A family of four would have to write a check for about a quarter of a million dollars.

Given that we have previously written on studies that show over 40% of Americans would have a hardship paying off an unexpected household expense of $400, it is obvious that American households and individuals cannot pay out $159,000 or $62,500 to help bail out the incredibly deep spending hole that Washington has dug.

Now, some liberal readers I know are thinking, tax the rich, let them pay off the debt. Let me give one example why that is such an ignorant thing to say. Bill Gates has a net worth of $86.4 billion as of February 24, 2017 according to Forbes.

For this example, rather than just raise Mr. Gates taxes on his annual income, let’s confiscate everything he owns, liquidate his assets, and apply that $86.4 billion to the national debt. In this case, his entire fortune would pay off .4% of the current national debt. Not 4%, only .4%. Since we are not going to confiscate his entire fortune, just having a higher tax on his income, in reality not even this paltry .4% would ever be attained.

Let’s take this theoretical example one step further. Since the government spends about $10.4 billion a DAY, Bill Gates entire fortune would operate the Federal government for a little over eight days, just over a week, never mind paying off a $20 TRILLION national debt.

Yesterday, we took this national debt theme deeper into analysis with other terrifying economic and fiscal numbers. Today, let’s look at some other government debt situations at the local and state government levels since the debt burden on Americans is not just the $20 TRILLION at the Federal level. Politicians across the country have gotten us even more debt holes, holes that are already causing government financial crises and bankruptcies.

Many of these local and state debt situations have already been discussed here but we will repeat them, along with new debt crises, to show the more complete picture of how bad things are:

The city of Detroit has already declared bankruptcy because of the mismanagement of that city’s finances over the past several decades.
The debt and financial situation is so bad in Illinois and the political class there is so dysfunctional that the state government has been unable to payout the winnings to citizens who played the state lottery and were winners, causing them to file lawsuits to force the state to pay what they won. However, the state continues to sell lottery tickets even though it knows that it currently cannot pay the winners.
In fact, Illinois is in such overall bad financial shape that in 2011, the state government doubled both the personal and corporate income tax rates to try and fill in the debt hole they they themselves had dug.
But that backfired when employers and businesses left the state to get away from the onerous tax increases which reduced the business tax base and which increased unemployment which reduced the personal income tax base.
And since then things there debt-wise have not gotten any better as state comptroller Leslie Munger told the Chicago Business publication and Illinois politicians earlier this month: “…the state increasingly is doing what a cash-strapped family would do: letting the bills pile up. We can’t go bankrupt and we can’t print money. Taxpayers are going to have to pay this bill.”
Which means that the state will have to again hit up taxpayers, personal and corporate, with even higher rates which will cause more businesses to leave the state and cause more unemployment, both of which will decrease the tax base and the debt death spiral is now fully underway.
In addition to Detroit, Stockton, California has already had to declare bankruptcy and go to court to get relief from their financial obligations.
Scranton, Pennsylvania is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
Richmond, California is likely the next California city to go belly up financially, having already cut city jobs, reduced street repairs, and closed libraries: ”Richmond has cut about 200 jobs — roughly 20 percent of its workforce — since 2008. Its credit rating is at junk status. And in November, voters rejected a tax increase that city leaders had hoped would help close a chronic budget deficit. I don’t think there’s any chance we can avoid it,” said former City Councilman Vinay Pimplé, referring to bankruptcy.
One possible contributing factor to the mess in Richmond is that the politicians have been focusing on and touting efforts and accomplishments that have nothing to do with running a fiscally sound city, as illustrated by quotes from former Mayor and current Council member Gayle McLaughlin’s page on the city’s website: “Gayle’s focus on environmental justice led the city to move forward as a leader on many environmental initiatives….Thanks to her efforts advancing solar installation, Richmond was noted as leading the Bay Area for solar installed per capita…Richmond also received countless awards for its model green job training program…”, all of which means nothing if the city goes bankrupt.
I do not think that the citizens of Richmond really care much about McLaughlin’s prideful “green” achievements and priorities if their libraries are closed, their roads are falling apart, and the city is bankrupt.

Many states (e.g. Hawaii, New Jersey, California) are also in deep financial troubles as are other cities, (e.g. Chicago). The debt problem in this country is not just the $20 TRILLION national debt. It is the trillions more in debt that local and state politicians have caused. So as we said yesterday, other issues that you may think are important really do not matter because when the government debt bubbles across this country burst, those other issues will pale in comparison.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Sunday, February 26, 2017

When The National Debt Bubble Bursts Nothing Else Matters, Part 1

If and when the fiscal integrity of the United States crumbles, and that possibility grows larger and larger every day, no one is going to care what the local bathroom policy is, why little Johnny is not getting educated, etc. because it will be a matter of basic survival in a collapsed economy that is the only concern.

Given that the Obama administration and legacy has almost doubled the national Federal debt from about $10 TRILLION to almost $20 TRILLION, this is the current Federal debt burden in the United States:

Debt per household - just under $159,000
Debt per every man, woman and child - abut $62,500
In other words to wipe out just the Federal government debt, every household, on average, would have to write a check for about $159,000.
Every person, including kids and infants, would have to pony up about $62,500 to wipe out just the Federal government debt.
A family of four would have to write a check for about a quarter of a million dollars.

Given that we have previously written on studies that show over 40% of American households would have a hardship paying off an unexpected household expense of $400, it is obvious that American households and individuals cannot pay out $159,000 or $62,500 to help bail out the incredibly deep spending hole that Washington has dug.

Now, some liberal readers I know are thinking, tax the rich, let them pay off the debt. Let me give one example why that is such an ignorant thing to say. Bill Gates has a net worth of $86.4 billion as of February 24, 2017 according to Forbes.

For this example, rather than just raise Mr. Gates taxes on his annual income, let’s confiscate everything he owns, liquidate his assets, and apply that $86.4 billion to the national debt. In this case, his entire fortune would pay off .4% of the current national debt. Not 4%, only .4%. Since we are not going to confiscate his entire fortune, just having a higher tax on his income, in reality not even this paltry .4% would ever be attained by "taxing the rich."

Let’s take this theoretical example one step further. Since the government spends about $10.4 billion a DAY, Bill Gates entire fortune would operate the Federal government for a little over eight days, just over a week, never mind paying off a $20 TRILLION national debt.

Hopefully these examples, numbers and realities give you an idea of how bad the debt and fiscal situation is in this country. But if you want to be scared even more, consider some debt realities in an article written by Peter Suderman in the April, 2017 issue of Reason magazine (and some simple population and household calculations we added):

Within 10 years, on the current spending and budget path of the Federal government, the Federal government debt will increase by about 64%.
Last year the interest on the debt was $241 billion or about $1,900 for every U.S. household.
This is $1,900 that cannot be spent on a new car, vacations, movie tickets, dinner out, and other healthy economic activities to help grow the economy.
This is $1,900 that cannot be spent on better schools, fixing crumbling infrastructure, or helping the less fortunate.
Interest payments on the debt, under Federal government current spending paths, will grow 196% in the next ten years, the fastest growing component of the Federal budget.
This growth translates to an annual interest payments of $712 billion a year in ten years, up from $241 billion in 2016.
This $712 billion translates to a debt burden of about $5,600 a year per household.
And this assumes that interest rates do not jump higher than expected since every percentage point above the current government projections would add another $1.5 TRILLION in debt.

A number of things to take away from all of these numbers:

The Federal government debt hole is gigantic and getting deeper every day by the out of control spending by the Washington political class.
Taxes diverted to pay for debt is wealth that cannot be spent by those that earned it or by government to fix what needs to be fixed in this country, it is a dead weight expense.
You cannot come close to paying off this debt by increasing everyone’s taxes since that amount of wealth that would need to be taxed to pay off the debt simply does not exist.
You cannot come close to paying for this debt by taxing the rich, only significant drops in government spending can help tame the debt burden.
And the situation could get worse if interest rates go higher than expected.

One more debt fact to scare you. A recent Businessweek blurb announced that the entire net worth of every company, in the the S&P 500 stock index, if added together would be just over $20 TRILLION. In other words, the Federal government national debt is now roughly equivalent to the TOTAL worth of the 500 companies listed in the index. If this does not say government is out of control, nothing does.

So as the political class divides us up and pits citizen against citizen on a whole slew of issues, they continue to spend like there is no debt crisis at all. But when the debt bubble bursts, when your savings and assets crash, when your Social Security and Medicare benefits are slashed or evaporate, and possibly the need to survive and eat is a day to day struggle (see current day Venezuela), who uses what bathroom, why is Johnny not getting educated and other issues will become unimportant and trivial.

This whole mess reminds me of an old Peanuts Sunday comic from long ago. Snoopy goes out for a jog on a very cold morning and before you know it every part of his body is complaining. His knees hurt and complain, his feet hurt and complain, his ears are getting frost bite and complain, his stomach is hungry and complains when his brain questions why they are out jogging on a cold day when all of the body parts are complaining and do not want to be out.

At which part the heart speaks up and says the reason they are out jogging on a cold morning is to keep the heart healthy because if the heart goes, everything else is secondary. When the ever inflating debt bursts, everything else is secondary.

Tomorrow, to add to the horror, we will discuss bad situation at the local and state government level.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Friday, February 24, 2017

Voter Fraud: It Exists, It Could Be Massive, People Go To Jail For It, and It Endangers Our Democracy

One of the most basic building blocks of any democracy is the right of the people to choose will be their spokesperson at the local city hall, the state government or in Washington. Theoretically, those elected should be representing and voting on legislation that reflects what the citizen voters of a nation want to be done. One vote, one citizen in theory guarantees that everyone is equal when it comes to their rights and lives in a democracy.

But when the integrity or perceived integrity of that process comes about, then the very foundation of a democracy is shaken. When there is any kind of doubt whether or not every citizen’s vote has equal weight and equal share with others then the system starts to crumble. When people start thinking that the ballot boxes are being stuffed with non-citizen’s votes or some citizens are being allowed to vote more than once, then we are in big trouble.

And may of us in this country think that is exactly what is going on today, that this very basic democracy foundation is under attack. Now, some politicians, almost always Democrats, will say this is a myth and that there is no need for any kind of voter id laws, that the id laws are racist anyway (ever notice that whenever Democrat or liberal is trying to make a point they now ALWAYS play the race card?), never mind more stringent ones. And many of us would disagree with their point, pointing out that it is almost always Democrats that benefit from voter fraud so why should they want to address and resolve the problem.

Today we will make the case that these Democrats are wrong and that there is widespread voter fraud across the country, fraud that comes in many different forms and shapes. And if this fraud is not addressed, then at some point you can kiss democracy good bye because voting becomes nothing more than a sham usually reserved for banana republics and other dictatorships around the world.

1) Let’s start our voter fraud discussion with a report from the Associated Press which found that hundreds of Texans may have voted illegally back in the November Presidential election:

Voting officials have acknowledged that hundreds got past the Texas voter id law by simply signing a sworn statement that they were legal voters.
Two top election officers in two of Texas’ largest counties are considering pressing charges for this illegal voting.
While Texas voting id laws require someone to present one of seven different forms of id, a court ruled that this was discriminatory against minorities and that the sworn statement route was needed to help voters who could not obtain identification for a variety of reasons, including disability or illness, lack of transportation or conflicts with work schedules.
But the Associated Press analysis of 13,500 affidavits submitted during voting in Texas’ largest counties found over hundreds of instances where voters got around the id law by signing a sworn statement to vote even though they indicated they had a valid voter id document.
In Bexar County, home of San Antonio, the top election official estimated that a large percentage of the 600 sworn statements filed in that county should have been declined.

And yes, hundreds of bad votes would not have changed results at the Presidential level. But hundreds of illegal votes could be crucial in local or Congressional elections. Plus, even if it was only hundreds, it still brings into question the integrity of the entire voting process since hundreds of bad votes were found but was that all of the bad votes, were there hundreds of others or thousands that were not caught?

2) Gregg Newton writing for the NewsMax website on February 16, 2017, reported on a study that found that upwards of 2.1 million Hispanics may have voted illegally in last year’s elections:

The Washington Times cited a 2013 study, conducted by McLaughlin and Associates, and a more recent study by the nonprofit research firm, Just Facts, which concluded there may have been massive voter fraud in this past November Presidential election.
The McLaughlin found that 13% of non-citizen Hispanics said they were registered to vote.
The Just Facts organization took that 2013 finding, applied it to the 2013 U.S.Census data and calculated that as many as 2.1 million Hispanics would have been illegally registered to vote: "Contrary to the claims of many media outlets and so-called fact-checkers, this nationally representative scientific poll confirms that a sizable number of non-citizens in the U.S. are registered to vote," James Agresti said, a spokesperson for Just Facts.

Now, while several hundred illegal voters in Texas may have had little effect on the Presidential outcome, 2 million voters, especially if concentrated in a single state or two, could have had a major effect on the outcome.

3) If you want to see voter fraud in action, go to the following link where you will actually see and hear poll workers coaching people on how to vote illegally and not get caught:

http://mobile.wnd.com/wnd_video/undercover-video-shows-nh-election-officials-allowing-out-of-state-voters/

4) Consider the case of Rosa Maria Ortega. She is not an American citizen, she lives in Grand Prairie, Texas and she was recently convicted and sentenced to 8 years in jail and fined $8,000 for voting illegally. She tried to become a registered voter in her home Texas county of Tarrant but was denied because she willingly acknowledged on her application form she was not an American citizen. Five months later she tried again but this time falsely declared she was a citizen.

However, an investigation uncovered the following illegalities:

She had illegally voted in a different county.
She had illegally voted in the 2004 Republican primary.
Since then she had illegally voted five other times.

If you are going to break the law, might as well get your money’s worth.

5) According to Rowan Scarborough, writing for the Washington Times on January 26, 2017, relative to voter fraud last November:

Hillary Clinton may have received more than 800,000 votes from non-citizens last November.
This was the finding of Professor Jesse Richman of Old Dominion University and his study of non-citizen voting.
According to the article: “Based on national polling by a consortium of universities, a report by Mr. Richman said 6.4 percent of the estimated 20 million adult noncitizens in the U.S. voted in November. He extrapolated that that percentage would have added 834,381 net votes for Mrs. Clinton, who received about 2.8 million more votes than Mr. Trump."

That 834,381 votes represent about 81% of the non-citizen votes that were cast.

If true, based on this professor’s analysis and research, 834,381 votes IS VERY significant, especially when you consider that many swing states vote total differences were only in the thousands or tens of thousands difference, well within the 834,381 estimate. If this had happened, then the election wishes of tens of millions of U.S. citizens could have been denied and overruled by only thousands of votes by non-citizens.

So what do we conclude out of all of this:

Voter fraud exists, at least one person has gone to jail for committing it.
Voter fraud exists across the country.
In at least one voting district, voter fraud was encouraged and explained by poll workers.
There is enough evidence of voter fraud to have the potential for swinging elections at all levels of government.

In addition today’s examples of voter fraud, there have been many other cases of voter fraud that we have already discussed:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/05/voter-fraud-explored-part-1-convictions.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/06/voting-fraud-explored-part-2-mutiple.html

Thus, for anyone to conclude that voter fraud does not exist to any great degree, is ignorant of the facts. Voter fraud exists, it could be massive, people have gone to jail for executing it, and until it is wiped out, the danger to a basic foundation of our democracy continues to be at risk.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Thursday, February 23, 2017

February, 2017, Part 6, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Real Life Hardship Stories As A Result Of Obama Care

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements its rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
Americans smoke too much.
Americans do not exercise enough.
The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
Obama Care never “followed the money”to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

Today we will focus on some distressing and sad stories of real Americans sufferings as a result of Obama Care, the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Washington. The source of these real stories is the website:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com

Through their eyes and experiences you will see what we have been discussing in this blog for the past few years: higher costs, lower choices, less job opportunities, loss of access to preferred doctors, etc. Anyone who thinks Obama Care is still a good thing after reading their stories is delusional.

ROSE - PENNSYLVANIA: I can not believe what has happened to my health insurance at work. Last year it cost me about 85.00 a month with 80% coverage. This year it doubled! I now pay 171.00 and for less coverage, as with a very high deductible! When I went to the Doctors just recently, they paid only 0.896 cents. Last year they covered the cost at 80%, so I do not know how they calculate or what my deductible is! I have to get blood work done, sure it will cost a lot more this year! When I called my benefits office they claim it's because of the new laws. Tried to cancel my insurance due to the fact I can not afford to pay them, and they claim company policy I can not unless I have a different insurance or leave the job. Why shouldn't I be able to get rid of something I can not afford?

TIM - VIRGINIA: From an NPR report with John Ydstie:

YDSTIE: Tim Blanchard(ph), a law student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville liked the $46 a month Humana policy he had, too. It's being discontinued and he doesn't know yet whether he'll be able to get it back.

TIM BLANCHARD: I certainly think that if the old policy was available at anything close to the price that I'm currently paying, I would stick with it in a heartbeat.

YDSTIE: Blanchard knows he got the old policy cheaply because he's young and healthy. But he thinks that's fair.

BLANCHARD: Me having to pay for, you know, people who don't take care of themselves, people who are old, people who are sick, I mean, that's really a hidden tax.

CYNTHIA - VERMONT: I not only have to pay a higher premium, but I can not afford the deductable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PATRICIA - MINNESOTA: In order to keep my monthly payment the same, I had to raise my annual deductible from $3,000.00 to $5,000.00. I also lost the three times each year that I could go to the doctor for a $30.00 co-pay. I also lost the flat fee I paid on prescriptions of $10.00 for generic and $25.00 for non-generic. These items I now pay from dollar one. This conceivably could cost me a lot of money each year.

AARON - LOUISIANA: Scalise extended his invitation to Aaron Hirsh, 44, an Information Technology (IT) consultant, who says his previous health care coverage was cancelled and that the replacement policy offered by the insurer comes with higher premiums -- from $568 a month to $1,019. Hirsh said the policy was cancelled because it didn't meet the minimum coverage requirements of the new law, and while the president has said such policies could continue for another year, he hasn't gotten that option from his insurer.

Hirsh said he is still shopping, and will look at the Affordable Care Act's exchanges to see if they offer a lower cost option. The new higher cost policy, he said, has coverage for maternity care that he and his wife, parents of two children, feel they don't need, along with something he likes -- dental coverage for the kids. The dental coverage will provide savings, Hirsh said, though "it won't make it a wash by any means" with what he was paying previously.

MARK - ALASKA: [Mark Knapp] and his wife Angel own a custom knife shop in Fairbanks. Until last December, they were happy paying $750 a month for health insurance from Premera. But because the plan didn’t meet Affordable Care Act requirements, it was canceled. President Obama then extended many canceled plans for a year, but the Knapp’s plan didn’t qualify:

“So we decided we’d shop around.”

On healthcare.gov, Knapp found a similar plan to the one the couple had for $1260 a month. The subsidy they qualified for brought the cost down to about $600. But Knapp says he and his wife didn’t feel right about accepting a subsidy:

“It doesn’t really fall under affordable health care to me, even though I wasn’t going to pay it all, somebody was going to have to pay it for me.”

So instead, the Knapps found a new policy through a small business organization they belong too. The monthly premium is $850:

“So that’s about $100 a month more than what we were getting it for with Premera.”

It’s also $250 more than what they would be required to pay on healthcare.gov. The plan doesn’t comply with the Affordable Care Act, so it’s scheduled to be canceled at the end of this year. After that, Knapp isn’t sure what he and his wife will do, but he says they won’t ever feel right about accepting a subsidy

TOM: My premiums were $399 a month for my family. Cheapest plan with the same deductible that qualifies for ObamaCare is $743/month.

JANETTE - CALIFORNIA: The chiropractor who expects her premiums to rise, the 60s-something company manager who has to pay for maternity coverage, the Simi Valley contractor and many others who make at least $46,000 a year -- they all pound away at the same rhythm.

They say the middle class is once again getting tattooed, this time by President Barack Obama's health care reform.

"However you look at it, the son of a gun lied to us," said Janette Ramsey, a Bakersfield business owner with a weekend home in Ventura. She's losing her current coverage and expects to pay $50 more a month for a policy with nearly double the deductible.

"I think it's an abomination," she said. "... I'm going to pay more and get 100 percent less."

STEVE - MASSACHUSETTS: Premiums went up 104% overnight so had to decrease coverage substantially to keep similar premium. Not surprised at all tho, exactly as expected. Much higher cost for lower quality service.

REBECCA - COLORADO: From Complete Colorado:

– a health exchange navigator in Colorado told a woman with a cancelled health plan she’ll pay more in monthly premiums to continue seeing her long-time physician. At least $140 more a month

– or $1,680 a year.

Ryan previously paid a premium of $375 a month from “CoverColorado,” a government-run plan intended to provide insurance for people with pre-existing conditions. However, in the wake of the new rules from the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Cover Colorado and all of its nearly 14.000 plans were terminated.

Replacing her plan with the least expensive option through the “Connect for Health Colorado” site could save Ryan $15 a month, but would also require her to switch doctors.

However, choosing a plan that allows her to continue seeing her doctor, who has treated her for approximately the last nine years, will cost her $515 a month, $140 more than Ryan was previously paying.

KELLY - GEORGIA: After losing our home to foreclosure, I tried to comply with the "Affordable" Health Care Act by finding insurance. What a farce! I have been unemployed so long I don't even "count" on the rolls as unemployed OR as a displaced worker, because I can't collect unemployment. My husband is on Medicare as he is semi retired. We are in terrible financial straights, and I was eligible for medicaid, according to my income. HOWEVER, I kept getting bounced to the ObamaCare site instead. The best I could do was $160 a month payment, which I CANNOT pay, with a $6,000 deductible! So, if I actually wanted ACCESS to healthcare, I would first need $6000, which I don't have. I have serious problems and cant see a doctor or get the medical scans I need. Also, I think it is DESPICABLE that my child and grand kids will be stuck with the bill for this

That’s enough bad news for today. As you can see, the high levels numbers that we often discuss do relate to real life hardships for millions of Americans across the country, as illustrated by these stories listed above. Anyone who tells you that Obama Care is working is a fool and an ignorant fool at that. More unfolding disasters from this wretched piece of legislation next month.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

February, 2017, Part 5, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Real Life Disasters, The Failure Of Government Healthcare In England and More

Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
Americans smoke too much.
Americans do not exercise enough.
The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
Obama Care never “followed the money”to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

Today we will focus on some of these root causes to show how they are the main drivers of our high healthcare costs, causes that Obama Care never addressed and which still stay unresolved:

1) We often talk about the high level numbers and results of Obama Care. How premiums and deductibles have increased dramatically over the years for Obama Care policies. How millions of people lost access to their preferred doctors, policies, and hospitals. How 18 out of 23 Obama Care co-ops have already gone bankrupt with more to follow. But consider the personal agony and stress below the high level numbers that Obama Care has caused a typical American:

James Rogers, writing for the Heritage Foundation on February 17, 2017, documented the harrowing Obama Care trip of Kim Quade.
Ms. Quade left her job as a school speech pathologist after 17 years to work solo, knowing that she would have to replace her school provided health insurance with an individual health insurance policy.
She did her research and found a plan that suited her particular needs for $188 a month with a $5,000 deductible and health savings account, terms she could afford.
She liked the concept of a health savings plan since it empowered her to take care of herself: “It was something that I was able to take care of on my own and I was happy about it. It’s the way I was raised: You take care of yourself.”
By 2015, her monthly premium cost had more than doubled to $188 (despite Obama’s promise that Americans could see an up to $2,500 annual reduction in their health insurance premiums).
But despite the whopping increase in premiums, she kept the policy since she liked the doctor network that it covered.
But shortly after the doubling of the premiums, they went up another $200 a month, at which point she switched to an Obama Care policy.
She ended up getting a policy with monthly premiums of $773 a month which was reduced to $333 after Federal subsidies, cheaper but still much more expensive than her original policy of $188 a month.
And that original policy covered flu shots and physicals, which her Obama Care policy did not, and after a bout with pneumonia, her Obama Care policy paid out only $50 towards the cost of two x-rays.
And now she has to go back out into the market again since the original Obama Care policy she took on is no longer available as insurance companies have left the area she lives in outside of Kansas City.

High costs, lower quality, fewer choices, higher turnover, that is how Obama Care played out for a regular American who just wanted some affordable health insurance coverage.

2) Michael Tanner, writing for the National Review recently, pointed out that the average cost of prescription drugs rose 11% last year and are expected to rise at least that much in 2017. So much for Obama Care reducing healthcare costs in the country. It has not worked for insurance premiums and insurance deductibles, and apparently it has not worked to stem the tide of ever rising drug costs.

3) Obama Care, along with Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration, have proven how poorly government performs when given health care responsibilities. Medicare and Medicaid are hurtling towards fiscal insolvency and the Veterans Administration’s inability to serve our veterans’ healthcare needs is an ongoing scandal. But some people still think that giving government even more control over our healthcare needs is a good idea, often pointing to other countries that have total government control over their citizens’ health care needs.

One of those countries is England but according to the Foundation For Economic Education, for those in England, where government controls all aspects of one’s health care needs, it is not a good idea:

In the United States, the age-adjusted breast cancer 5-year survival rate is 88.9%, compared with just 81.1% in England.
The United States leads the world on the equivalent stat for prostate cancer (97.2%) vs. 83.2% in England.
Lung cancer: 18.7% in the United States vs. 9.6% in England; bowel cancer: 64.2% vs. 56.1%.
U.S. survival rates are also better for leukemia, ovarian cancer, stomach cancer, and liver cancer.
The age- and sex-standardized 30-day mortality rate for ischaemic stroke is just 3.6% in the United States vs. 9.2% in England; for haemorrhagic stroke, the figures are 22% vs. 26.5%.

Thus, real data shows us that giving the Federal government more control of our health care needs, going even beyond Obama Care, would not be healthy for us. Just ask the English folks, those have not died prematurely already vs. what would have happened in the U.S.

The Foundation quoted a line from The Guardian newspaper summary of a Commonwealth Fund Report where the report found that England’s health system was “the best in the world” with “the only serious black mark against the NHS was its poor record on keeping people alive.” In other words, the operation was a success even though the patient died. Obama Care is dying, replacing it with a program that is even more like Obama Care would be fatal to so many Americans.

4) Vox considers itself a new age news operation but it really is nothing more than a liberal, Democratic Party, left leaning cheerleading organization. Several years ago, Ezra Klein, the founder of Vox, put out an article that tried, and failed, to show how successful Obama Care was despite the reality of the legislation’s failing numbers.

But having not learned from that failure, it recently tweeted out a request to its readers to send Vox success stories as it related to Obama Care. Unfortunately, it kind of blew up in its face as Obama Care policyholders shared their failures relative to Obama Care, not their successes with Obama Care:

Mccahill told Vox: my family premium went from $789 a month w/1k ded. to $1929 w/8k ded. In 3 years. We also lost several key doctors.

Adam Prenger told Vox: I have given several thousands of dollars to a company and a service that I have never used.

ClemsonGrl told Vox: the hospital I work for is freezing raises because insufficient reimbursement for services rendered. The ACA needs to go.

Alexis In NH told Vox: We lost our insurance and I became a Republican as a result.

Never ask a question you do not want the answer to or you have not wired the right answer in advance.

More real life stories tomorrow relative to the unfolding disasters that is Obama Care.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

March, 2017, Political Class Insanity, Part 1: Chelsea Is Out Of Touch, Starving In Venezuela, Another Social Security Scandal and More

Monday, February 27, 2017

When The Debt Bubble Bursts Nothng Else Matters, Part 2

Sunday, February 26, 2017

When The National Debt Bubble Bursts Nothing Else Matters, Part 1

Friday, February 24, 2017

Voter Fraud: It Exists, It Could Be Massive, People Go To Jail For It, and It Endangers Our Democracy

Thursday, February 23, 2017

February, 2017, Part 6, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Real Life Hardship Stories As A Result Of Obama Care

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

February, 2017, Part 5, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Real Life Disasters, The Failure Of Government Healthcare In England and More

Blog Archive

About Me