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Sen. Lee: GOP Scheme to Both Defund AND Fund Obamacare ‘Disgraceful’ (+audio)

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photo credit: gage skidmore

photo credit: gage skidmore

In an interview on the nationally syndicated Mark Levin Show yesterday, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) slammed the Republican-led initiative to simultaneously propose legislation to fund and defund Obamacare.

Lee rhetorically asked Levin, “With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?”

Lee explained that Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is putting forward two different legislative proposals in one single vote.

One would defund Obamacare. The other would be a continuing resolution that would fund everything in government, including Obamacare.

This would allow House Republicans to vote both to fund and defund the president’s signature health law simultaneously, according to Lee.

Read more from this story HERE.

Study: Obamacare has Been Amended or Delayed 19 Times

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Photo Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta

Photo Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta

President Obama has already signed 14 laws that amend, rescind or otherwise change parts of his health care law, and he’s taken five independent steps to delay the Affordable Care Act on his own, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service, released Wednesday.

The release comes as congressional Republicans are pushing for a halt or outright repeal of the whole law, and as Mr. Obama and his allies decry that as a waste of time and an effort to undermine his signature political achievement.

CRS, in the report to Sen. Tom Coburn, said all sides have already agreed to 14 laws that changed parts of Obamacare, though they were usually minor changes or clarifications.

Read more from this story HERE.

Small Businesses May Face $100-Per-Day ObamaCare Fine

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

A little-noticed Obamacare provision could slap unknowing small business owners with a $100-per-day penalty starting in 20 days.

Beginning on October 1, any business with at least one employee making $500,000 or more a year must notify all employees via letter about the Obamacare government exchanges or face up to a $100-per-day penalty, reports Fox Business.

Kimmie Candy Co. CEO Joseph Dutra told Fox News he had never heard about the Obamacare fine.

Read more from this story HERE.

CBO: Obamacare Individual Mandate Delay Would Save $35 Billion

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

The House bill to delay Obamacare’s individual mandate would save $35 billion dollars, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis.

After the Obama administration revealed it would not enforce the employer mandate — a requirement that large companies provide their employees health insurance — until January 2015, the House quickly passed a measure that would not only codify that delay, but put off the individual mandate by one year as well.

The CBO found that just a one-year delay of the individual mandate would save $35 billion over ten years. But the basic cost structure of the Affordable Care Act would remain intact.

“I never thought I’d see the day when the White House, this president, came down on the side of big business, but left the American people out in the cold as far as this health care mandate is concerned,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said.

Cantor’s message carried over even to some in the President’s own party. The “Fairness for American Families Act” is one of many Republican-dominated efforts to delay certain aspects of Obamacare, but this time it received bipartisan support: 22 House Democrats bucked their own party and voted for the bill, which President Obama vowed to veto.

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Obamacare Implementation and Abortion Funding With Your Tax Money Coming Soon

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0CareIt’s silent. It’s deadly. And it’ll impact you and your family. Obamacare is coming (sooner than you may realize) and as pro-lifers, it’s imperative we be prepared.

The implementation begins as early as October with the funding for insurance plans that include elective abortion coverage. I don’t want you to be caught in the dark, which is why I felt it was necessary to re-visit this topic and provide you with important information relevant to your health insurance decisions.

The largest issue of contention is the abortion mandate. This is a secondary premium that’ll be on the majority of insurance plans and its sole purpose is to fund abortions. The reason this separate premium exists is because under the Hyde amendment, the government cannot directly provide funding for elective abortion services. This abortion surcharge will be collected by the insurance company, not the government, which is how Obamacare dodges the restrictions of the Hyde amendment.

What’s important to realize is the law dictates that the abortion surcharge is not disclosed until the time of enrollment. And even then, it can only be mentioned in the “Summary of Benefits and Coverage.” Essentially, it’s purposely hidden in the fine print. Your employer may not even know that their plan requires the abortion payment.

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Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Posts Obamacare Rates (+video)

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Photo Credit: altheadlines

Photo Credit: altheadlines

North Carolinians got their first look Thursday at the potential cost of getting health insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act – more commonly referred to as Obamacare.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina posted proposed premiums on its website Thursday morning. Rates range from a low of $145 to a high of $947 per month depending on the age of the customer and the level of coverage wanted.

“Health reform is complicated, and it affects everyone differently. We want to help North Carolina consumers understand how they will be affected and provide information to support them in making the best decision for their personal situation,” said Barbara Morales Burke of BCBSNC in a news release.

Blue Cross said it plans to offer 26 different coverage plans.

The N.C. Department of Insurance has given health insurers until the beginning of October to post rate information. Nationally, starting Oct. 1, those who don’t have health care coverage on the job can go to online insurance markets – also called exchanges – in their states to shop for a private plan and find out if they qualify for a tax credit. An estimated 4 out 5 consumers in the new markets will be eligible for some level of tax credit.

Read more from this story HERE.

Big Labor Boss Admits ObamaCare Causing Businesses to Cut Hours (+video)

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Photo Credit: United Liberty

Photo Credit: United Liberty

Fresh off admitting that ObamaCare “still needs to be tweaked,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka took note of the damage being done to workers as businesses have been forced to cut hours due to ObamaCare during a recent interview with David Shuster of al-Jazeera America:

This employer mandate requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to offer health insurance benefits or face a punitive tax. Because ObamaCare defines a full-time employee as someone who works 30 or more hours a week, many employers have been scaling back hours or hiring only part-time workers.

Interestingly, Trumka complained when the Obama Administration delayed the employer mandate. “In the health reform debate, we fought to ensure that employers have a responsibility to provide affordable, comprehensive health benefits to their workers and their families,” he said in July.

“The employer responsibility provision included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), while not as strong as we asked for, was designed to give large employers an incentive to offer or continue offering affordable, comprehensive health care coverage to some of their employees,” he added. “The Administration’s announcement that it is delaying employer responsibility assessments until 2015 is troubling because it removes that incentive for next year. In light of this decision, we believe it is even more urgent for Congress and the Administration to reaffirm their commitment to employer responsibility.”

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States Promoting Insurance Exchanges: Maybe People Will Enroll if We Don’t Call it ‘Obamacare’

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

National polls continue to show that the public is very wary about Obamacare—44 percent of U.S. adults think the ACA will make the healthcare situation in this country worse, according to a recent Gallup poll, and a Kaiser Family Foundation poll from last week shows 42 percent of Americans disapprove of Obamacare, while 37 percent favor it. With this level of unease about the law, the states that are running their own health-insurance marketplaces have developed a marketing strategy to boost enrollment: call it anything but Obamacare.

At the Minnesota State Fair, state employees are promoting a health-insurance marketplace called MNsure by handing out fans imprinted with pictures of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.

The legendary lumberjack and his sidekick are just part of a pitch—including a humorous reference to the state as the “land of 10,000 reasons to get health insurance”—that seeks to sidestep references to “Obamacare” or the long-raging national debate over the Affordable Care Act and instead promote the marketplace as a home-grown creation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Workers of the World Unite…Against Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Irish central

Photo Credit: Irish central

The greatest supporters of “Obamacare,” (disingenuously called the “Affordable Healthcare Act), are starting to openly revolt as promises made to them are not matching up to reality.

In a stunning move, 40,000 dues paying members of the International Longshoremen/Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced they have formally ended their association with Richard Trumkas AFL-CIO.

Trumka one of the most frequent White House guests of the Obama administration, played a key role in ginning up union support for the passage of Obamacare. A main selling point was unions wouldn’t be taxed on their existing Cadillac healthcare plans.

In the August 29th letter to Trumka; Longshoreman Union President Robert McEllrath said: “President Obama ran on a platform that he would not tax medical plans and at the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention, you stated that labor would not stand for a tax on our benefits.”

But since that time President Obama has proposed a tax on those unions “Cadillac” health plans and the AFL/CIO under Trumkas leadership has lined up in lockstep behind Obama.

McEllrath closed with: “We feel the Federation has done a great disservice to the labor movement and all working people by going along to get along,”

This is spelling trouble in labor paradise for President Obama as he tries to take Obamacare from promise to harsh reality.

Even Trumka said in a recent press conference regarding Obamacare: “Somebody” needs to fix the law pronto!

To add fuel to the anti Obamacare fire, in July, leaders of three major U.S. unions, including the Teamsters, sent a scathing letter to Democratic leaders:

In it they warned-unless changes are made, Obamacare will “destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.” If not modified, Obamacare will “destroy the very health and well being of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.”

Does “fixing something” mean more special exemption carve outs and subsidies for the special protected classes of politicians and Obama supporters? If Obama tries an end run to make an exception for union members, look for a defection of political support for his party as the 2014 elections loom and public resentment grows.

Already organized labor is at an all time low in the private sector with just 11.3% of the workforce. If workers are forced to pay taxes on healthcare plans they consider sacrosanct, especially after they were promised it would never happen…look for a tidal wave of defections from unions.

If unions lose, the Democrat party will lose. If unions win, the Democrat party will lose.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Citing Obamacare, 40,000 Longshoremen Quit the AFL-CIO

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picture - trumkaIn what is being reported as a surprise move, the 40,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced that they have formally ended their association with the AFL-CIO, one of the nation’s largest private sector unions. The Longshoremen citied Obamacare and immigration reform as two important causes of their disaffiliation.

In an August 29 letter to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, ILWU President Robert McEllrath cited quite a list of grievances as reasons for the dissolution of their affiliation, but prominent among them was the AFL-CIO’s support of Obamare.

“We feel the Federation has done a great disservice to the labor movement and all working people by going along to get along,” McEllrath wrote in the letter to Trumka.

The ILWU President made it clear they are for a single-payer, nationalized healthcare policy and are upset with the AFL-CIO for going along with Obama on the confiscatory tax on their “Cadillac” healthcare plan.

Read more from this story HERE.