During the roughly six months since the federal takeover of health care was passed, some of the “fog of confusion” so memorably described by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – whose talent for obfuscation gives new meaning to her hometown’s nickname, the “Fog City” – has indeed lifted, as she predicted. Unfortunately, the picture that’s forming isn’t reassuring. Let’s take a look at some specifics:
Has the heath care takeover lowered costs for families and for businesses?
No. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, “insurers have asked [state regulators] for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators. [Insurers] say Congress’s landmark refashioning of U.S. health coverage, which passed in March after a brutal fight, is causing them to pass on more costs to consumers than Democrats predicted.” – “Health Insurers Plan Hikes”, Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2010.
Will the health care takeover improve access to health care for children?
No. According to the Los Angeles Times, many health insurance companies are dropping child-only policies, “because the new federal requirement could create huge and unexpected costs for covering children.” – “Big health insurers to stop selling new child-only policies”, Los Angeles Times, September 21, 2010.
Will the health care takeover lower health care costs?
No. In fact, the new health care law will actually increase costs. The Obama Administration’s own Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a report that stated that the health care bill “will have negligible effects on total national health spending in the next 10 years.” In fact the report went on to say that health care spending will actually increase at a faster rate. – “Health Outlays Still Seen Rising”, Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2010.
(The new government report released by HHS says President Obama’s health care law will have negligible effects on total national health spending in the next 10 years, neither slowing nor fueling the explosive growth of medical costs.)
What seems clear as we learn ever more about the health care takeover is that the very premises for passing the law – to increase access and reduce costs – are not being honored as it begins to take effect. And this is just the beginning. America needs a plan that works, and on November 2, your vote for Nan Hayworth will be a step towards achieving that. The choice, too, is clear.
Some observers from the left side of the political spectrum have been bending themselves into pretzels trying to explain why President Obama isn’t making headway with the American public in the midterm election campaign push. Their efforts would be comical if they didn’t reflect a political philosophy that has cost us so dearly.
In December, 1799, President George Washington contracted a severe throat infection. His doctors–distinguished experts all–treated him with calomel, to induce vomiting, and bloodletting. When their patient’s condition deteriorated, they treated even more vigorously, giving more calomel and taking more blood in the hopes that this time they’d succeed.
George Washington died of dehydration, blood loss, and choking from the uncontrolled infection. His very well-meaning physicians had actually hastened his death.
Statement by Nan Hayworth on the 75th Anniversary of Social Security
Social Security represents the aspiration within the American character to do right by our neighbors and our fellow citizens. When Social Security was signed into law 75 years ago, our government was prepared to finance the program responsibly. Much has changed during the intervening decades to create an ever greater role for Social Security, and that in turn demands that we anticipate future needs so that we can continue this program that is critically important for tens of millions of Americans.
Let’s say you love jelly beans (who doesn’t?), so you use your life savings to open The Bean Counter. Unfortunately, most of your prospective customers think you’re offering accounting services rather than candy, and the rest are worried about getting cavities, so after a couple of months you have to close up shop; your whole venture down the drain. Now, what do you do to pick up the pieces? Well, if you follow the lead of the current Administration, you borrow some more money to pay for an ad campaign to trumpet the success of The Bean Counter!
You may have noticed the first recurring feature on our blog, “John Hall vs. the Constitution” (link to Part I, Part II, and Part III). As it happens, Mr. Hall provides so much for us to talk about that we’re introducing a second recurring feature, in which we’ll be cataloguing the ways in which he fails to live up to his own criteria for re-election.
The Business Roundtable, a longtime Obama Administration ally, finally announced today what many voters have known for months: President Obama and Nancy Pelosi are creating an “increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation” that will “harm our ability…to grow private-sector jobs in the US.”
Missing a budget deadline is a failing with which we New Yorkers, through our dysfunctional State Legislature, have become all too familiar. The Pelosi/Reid Congress, however, has taken budget delinquency to a new level, by actively refusing to pass a budget resolution before the fiscal year expires at the end of September – and isn’t likely to do so before the November elections, either. To which one can only respond, in a year in which the American public is increasingly, and justifiably, furious at the completely irresponsible behavior of this Congress: “Good luck with that.”
Summer officially starts today, which means baseball season is now in high gear. As a Yankee fan myself, I love watching Teixeira or Granderson send one sailing over the fence (as both did last Saturday night, I’m happy to say!). Sadly, however, even the Yankees’ best occasionally fall to that third strike. Disappointing, but not the end of the world. You shake it off and move on to the next batter.
Governance, on the other hand, is a little more exacting.
In 1964, Lyndon Johnson’s Presidential campaign released “Daisy”, an ad that was so striking in its evocation of Americans’ fears of Cold-War annihilation that it only ran once. That one time was enough, though, to secure its place in our cultural memory. And, thanks to a combination of factors over the ensuing decades, the eventuality described in “Daisy” did not come to pass.
That does not mean, however, that Americans are now free of any fears about our country’s future security and prosperity. In fact, as Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana noted in a remarkable speech yesterday in Washington, our enormous and mounting debt means that “the American experience is mortally threatened.”
And the outcome this time may not be so reassuring. If our Congress and Administration do not stop making politically convenient but fiscally disastrous decisions, we will, in no uncertain terms, squander our children’s future. President Reagan said, echoing Churchill: “there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones.” Fiscal discipline is the simple (and only) answer, and we are going to have some very difficult choices to make, but our candidate, Nan, has the intelligence and the integrity to make them.
The Young Voters have adapted “Daisy” for 2010 to make clear what will happen if we ignore that imperative:
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Nan Hayworth for Congress: Official Campaign Blog 