President Obama Contradicts Senator Obama
President Obama once again repeated his assertion that he is not advocating for a single payer health care system (one in which the government is the sole provider of all U.S. health care services). In the past he has explained his new current position by explaining that the votes aren’t there, and it may take decades to transition towards his desired result. Whether or not he will currently admit, as he did here in 2003, that a single payer system is his goal, it is logical to assume from his own rhetoric that he is designing a system that puts America on that path. President Obama may say he wasn’t a “single payer supporter” but Senator Obama certainly was.

Taxing Low-Income Workers to Pay for Health Care
Congressional advocates of the latest health care reform proposal claim that it will not cost ordinary Americans more--the costs will be borne by "the rich" and by employers. After all, both the House and the Senate versions require employers who do not provide health benefits to pay higher taxes. But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently reported what economists have long known: Regardless of who is formally required to pay, the burden of these taxes and costs will ultimately fall primarily on employees through lower wages. An employer mandate does not give workers without health insurance something for nothing but rather forces them to purchase it out of their wages whether they like it or not--and no matter how low those wages are. Congressional rhetoric to the contrary, much of the burden of paying for an employer mandate will fall on ordinary Americans, and lower-income workers will be hit the hardest.

CBO Letter to Congressman Rangel
According to CBO’s and JCT’s assessment, enacting H.R. 3200 would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period. That estimate reflects a projected 10-year cost of the bill’s insurance coverage provisions of $1,042 billion, partly offset by net spending changes that CBO estimates would save $219 billion over the same period, and by revenue provisions that JCT estimates would increase federal revenues by about $583 billion over those 10 years.

The Impact of the House and Senate Health Bills
Under the House and Senate bills, taxpayers are going to pay more for health insurance. Health insurance is supposed to provide individuals access to quality health care and ensure protection against financial calamity due to a catastrophic illness or injury. But as the cost of insurance rises as a percentage of a family's budget, so does the rate of uninsurance. To make insurance more affordable, the cost of care needs to be lowered or subsidies will need to be provided (or some combination thereof).

Micromanaging Americans' Health: The Impact of House and Senate Bills
Both the pending House health care bill and Senate HELP Committee bill include provisions that would, if enacted, result in sweeping, complex, and highly discretionary new federal regulation of health insurance. Yet virtually all of the proposed new health insurance requirements are completely unnecessary to achieving the legislation's intended objectives of expanding health insurance coverage and reducing health care costs. Indeed, many of the provisions would make the current situation worse either by driving costs higher or by encouraging more employers and individuals to drop coverage.

Medicaid Expansion: The Impact of the House and Senate Health Bills
Congress is proposing a major expansion of Medicaid as a primary vehicle to reduce the number of people without health insurance. But this idea would balkanize families based on arbitrary income levels, history, and geography. While it might theoretically be a cheaper alternative, it would not necessarily serve the best interests of families inside or outside of Medicaid. Further expansion of Medicaid would create new inequities among individuals, even within families.

Empowering Individuals in Health Care Reform
Portability of health insurance policies—enabling individuals to keep their coverage when they change jobs or maintain coverage through life changes— would be key to stabilizing health insurance markets and dramatically reducing the numbers of the uninsured, especially among blacks and Hispanics.

A Federalist Approach to Health Reform
Support for state action should be part of any strategy to expand health insurance coverage. Decades long political dead lock in Washington has frustrated national efforts to expand coverage. Whether one thinks that ensuring coverage requires a unified national approach or that diverse conditions require different methods in different states, the likelihood of progress will be advanced if states test out various ways to expand coverage.

Health Care Reform in West Virginia: A Lesson from the States
A big casualty of the congressional health care reform legislation would be the loss of state flexibility in the financing and delivery of affordable health care options for their citizens. Under the House bill, the federal government would regulate private insurance for the first time and dramatically increase its control over the Medicaid program. Flexibility will be sacrificed for uniformity and federal control. Congress is ignoring important lessons that states have learned. It should pay particular attention to West Virginia, which has experimented with Medicaid reform and has learned a lot about what those reforms accomplished.

Healthcare, Democracy, and Freedom
The debate over government healthcare is an important one, but let us remind our public servants not to forget first principles. Don’t forget freedom. And remember that many have come to rue the existence of grand projects of man which once initiated are terribly difficult to reverse. Better perhaps, not to ask for an earthly leviathan to care for us.

Fannie Med? Why a "Public Option" Is Hazardous to Your Health
A full accounting shows that government programs cost more and deliver lower-quality care than private insurance. The central problem with proposals to create a new government program, however, is not that government is less efficient than private insurers, but that government can hide its inefficiencies and draw consumers away from private insurance, despite offering an inferior product.

The Grass Is Not Always Greener: A Look at Worldwide Health Care Systems
However, a closer look shows that nearly all health care systems worldwide are wrestling with problems of rising costs and lack of access to care. There is no single international model for national health care, of course. Countries vary dramatically in the degree of central control, regulation, and cost sharing they impose, and in the role of private insurance. Still, overall trends from national health care systems around the world suggest the following:

The Myth Of Free Market Health Care In America
The point is that there is no health care model, whether privately or publicly financed, that can offer unlimited access to medical services while containing costs. Ultimately, such a model arrives at a crossroads where it has to either limit access in an arbitrary way, or face uncontrolled cost increases. France and Germany, which are mostly publicly funded, are increasingly marching down the first road. America, which is half-publicly and half-privately funded, has so far taken the second path. Should America offer even more people such unlimited access through universal coverage, it too will end up rationing care or facing national bankruptcy. The only sustainable system that avoids this Hobson's choice is one that is based on a genuine free market in which there is some connection between what patients pay for coverage and the services they receive. That is emphatically not what America or any Western country has today. Looking to these countries for solutions as Obama and other advocates of universal health coverage are doing will lead to false diagnoses and false cures.

Obamacare and Abortion
The ensuing debate over proposed legislation to overhaul America's healthcare system is generating news and capturing the attention of Americans with a steadily growing level of outrage. And one particularly outrageous element of that legislation as it currently exists in the House of Representatives demands our special attention. If passed in its current form, this legislation will mandate abortion coverage in health care reform and it will be paid for with our tax dollars. That's because, unless amended to specifically exclude abortion coverage, abortion will automatically become a minimum required benefit as a simple matter of interpretation of the law. Here's how it works. Under the House bill, insurers would be required to provide an "essential benefits package," which would be defined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Unless Congress specifically excludes abortion from coverage, it is a virtual certainty that abortion will be part of that package either because it will be overtly required by the Secretary of HHS, or because the courts will determine that the broadly worded coverage requirements include abortion.

White House official: Abortion funding will be part of health care reform debate
The White House budget chief has said that he will not rule out whether a government-funded public health insurance proposal will allow taxpayer money to pay for abortions. Rather, the matter will be “part of the debate.” The White House’s Office of Budget and Management Chief Peter Orszag, speaking to Fox News Sunday, said he is not ready to say whether abortion services would be part of a final taxpayer-funded health care package being considered by Congress for about one third of the 50 million uninsured Americans.

Oregon health plan covers assisted suicide, not drugs, for cancer patient
An Oregon woman suffering from lung cancer was notified by the state-run Oregon Health Plan that their policy would not cover her life-extending cancer drug, telling her the health plan would cover doctor-assisted suicide instead. Barbara Wagener discovered her lung cancer had recurred last month, the Register-Guard said. Her oncologist prescribed a drug called Tarceva, which could slow the cancer growth and extend her life. The Oregon Health Plan notified Wagner that it would not cover the drug, but it would cover palliative care, which it said included assisted suicide. “Treatment of advanced cancer that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of this disease, is not a covered benefit of the Oregon Health Plan,” said the letter Wagner received from LIPA, the Eugene company that administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County. “I think it’s messed up,” Wagner said. She said she was particularly upset because the letter said doctor-assisted suicide would be covered. “To say to someone, we’ll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it’s cruel,” she said. “I get angry. Who do they think they are?”

Obama "Reality Check" Web Site Doesn't Dispute Abortion in Health Care Plan
"Both Senate and House bills would, for example, create a nationwide federal insurance plan, the 'public option,' that would pay for all abortions," Johnson said. "Also, both bills would create a huge new program that would subsidize private plans that cover elective abortion. Unfortunately, much of the institutional news media is helping Obama hide these provisions by disseminating unsophisticated and often flatly inaccurate descriptions of what the bills contain," he told Baptist Press. Three House committees have approved the main House health care bill, HR 3200, and one panel adopted a phony amendment that purports to ban abortion funding but actually allows it under a complicated accounting scheme. The Senate has already approved language allowing abortion funding and repeatedly defeated pro-life amendments to stop it.

House Health Care Bill Gives Doctors Financial Incentive to Push Euthanasia
At issue is Section 1233 of HR 3200, the government-run health care plan that the House will consider when it returns from its August recess. The measure would pay physicians to give Medicare patients end-of-life counseling every five years or sooner if the patient has a terminal diagnosis. While pro-life advocates say the section opens the door to physicians pushing euthanasia or withdrawal of lifesaving medical treatment, or even basic food and water.

USCCB Prolife Chief Draws 'Lines in the Sand' on Healthcare
The Executive Director of the USCCB Prolife Office today demands explicit exclusion of abortion from any health care reform proposals. He makes the very good point that Medicaid had funded 300,000 abortions a year at a time when "abortion" was not even mentioned in the Medicaid statute. It took the Hyde Amendment to stop abortion in Medicaid.

'Health Care Reform Must be Abortion-Free,' says Supreme Knight
"A health care system designed to save lives on the one hand must not become a vehicle for taking lives through abortion and euthanasia," Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson said in his annual report at the organization's 127th annual convention yesterday. Referring to health care legislation now being considered in the U.S. Congress, he declared that "Health care reform must be abortion-free."

U.S. Bishops warn against using 'abortion rights' agenda in health care reform
The U.S. Bishops' Pro-life Committee chairman, Cardinal Justin Rigali, is calling on the members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to amend the health care reform legislation so that it will not cover abortion and will protect the consciences of medical personnel.

Obamacare called 'euthanasia bill'
Under Section 1401, a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research would be set up, creating a bureaucracy through which federal employees could determine whether any treatment is "comparatively effective" for any individual based on the cost, likely success and probably the years left in life.

Nice time for a cell phone chat Congresswoman
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee talks on the phone as a woman asks a question at a town hall event regarding health care. So much for a Representative of the People!

Hey, we’re happy to pay for abortions through ObamaCare!
Here’s a town-hall moment to capture in amber. A constituent asks Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) to explain why ObamaCare will cover abortions when at least 90% of them are not medically necessary — in other words, the kind of elective surgery that insurance plans usually don’t cover. CA-16 is a heavily Democratic district, so Lofgren must have thought that she could tell the truth in an entre-nous sort of way. When she explains that a national health-care system should cover abortion, she gets a surprisingly hostile reception.

Health care bills that fund abortion are ‘seriously deficient,’ Cardinal says
While expressing support for some kind of health care reform, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the chair of the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat on Pro-Life Activities, says the present reform proposal is “seriously deficient” because it bypasses restrictions on the federal funding of abortion and allows federal officials to make unlimited abortion a mandated benefit.

Catholic college’s ‘no contraceptives’ healthcare policy is discriminatory, EEOC charges
Revisiting a case that had been thought closed, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has ruled that Belmont Abbey College’s decision to remove contraception from its faculty health care policy, in accordance with Catholic teaching, discriminated against women.

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Moore Unwilling to Listen to Constituents
For months Congressman Dennis Moore has not been willing to meet with many of these constituents, who are frustrated with the huge stimulus spending, the House passing the “Cap and Trade” bill that will increase taxes, and more recently, health care reform that is being rushed through Congress. Those listening to Moore on the radio in the parking lot today feel Congressman Moore is not listening, and is not voting in Congress as the fiscally-responsible “blue dog” Democrat he claims to be.

Say NO to Government Health Care Rally at Congressman Dennis Moore's Office
The video shows everyday citizens explaining their signs at a health care protest rally outside of Congressman Dennis Moore's Office in Overland Park, KS.

Senate candidate plans Topeka health care forum
Rep. Todd Tiahrt is traveling outside his south-central Kansas district for a public meeting on health care. The event was set for Thursday morning at the Topeka public library. Tiahrt, an eight-term Republican, is expected to face a receptive audience of people opposed, as he is, to proposals from President Barack Obama. That was the experience Wednesday of Rep. Lynn Jenkins, a freshman Republican whose eastern Kansas district includes Topeka. Her event Wednesday in Topeka drew more than 200 people, and she received applause for criticizing Obama's plan. Tiahrt is running for the Senate next year and faces fellow Rep. Jerry Moran in the August 2010 Republican primary.

Anti-Democrat feelings evident, but tempers held in check at Jenkins’ town hall health forum
U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka, conducted the forum at the Holiday Day Inn Holidome, saying Democratic proposals would destroy the best health care system in the world. “The bottom line is simple: A plan that drastically expands government will even further bankrupt our country and saddle our kids and grandkids with more and more debt,” she said. She said the proposal would result in 114 million Americans losing the insurance they currently receive through their employers. President Barack Obama has denied this allegation and said he wants a plan to extend coverage to 47 million Americans who have no insurance and reins in the skyrocketing cost of health care. Jenkins also said she was concerned that Democratic proposals would reduce care to the elderly and provide federal funding of abortions — allegations that supporters of various plans in Congress say are falsehoods.

VA Doc Sentenced in Drug Fraud Case
Here’s an example of government run health care! A former psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration hospital in Topeka has been indicted on drug charges that have ties to Lawrence. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Thursday that Dr. Ethan E. Bickelhaupt was charged with five counts of diverting controlled substances and one count of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud. Prosecutors said Bickelhaupt would have people who weren’t his patients fill prescriptions for controlled substances at pharmacies in Lawrence and Topeka. The individuals would then give him the drugs and sometimes be compensated with controlled substances or cash, prosecutors said.

“Funds paid into these plans are fungible, and federal taxpayer funds will subsidize the operating budget and provider networks that expand access to abortions. Those who must purchase the public health plan will be forced by the federal government to pay directly and specifically for abortion coverage.”

Cardinal Justin Rigali

Gospel according to Matthew 18:21-19:1

21 Then came Peter unto him and said: Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 22 Jesus saith to him: I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times. 23 Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened to a king, who would take an account of his servants. 24 And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. 27 And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence: and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: Pay what thou owest. 29 And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. 30 And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt. 31 Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. 32 Then his lord called him; and said to him: Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me: 33 Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee? 34 And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. 35 So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts. 1 And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these words, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judea, beyond Jordan.

Health care reforms are turning into health care revolts. Americans are turning up the heat on congressmen in town hall meetings across the U.S.

While watching these political hot August nights, I decided to research the reasons so many are opposed to Obamacare to separate the facts from the fantasy. What I discovered is that there are indeed dirty little secrets buried deep within the 1,000-plus page health care bill.

Dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is about the government's coming into homes and usurping parental rights over child-care and development.

It's outlined in sections 440 and 1904 of the House bill (Page 838), under the heading "home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children." The programs (provided via grants to states) would educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.

The bill says that the government agents, "well-trained and competent staff," would "provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains ... modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices," and "skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development." Are you kidding me?! With whose parental principles and values? Their own? Certain experts? From what field and theory of childhood development? As if there are one-size-fits-all parenting techniques! Do we really believe they would contextualize and personalize every form of parenting in their education, or would they merely universally indoctrinate with their own? Are we to assume the state's mediators would understand every parent's social or religious core values on parenting? Or would they teach some secular-progressive and religiously neutered version of parental values and wisdom? And if they were to consult and coach those who expect babies, would they ever decide circumstances to be not beneficial for the children and encourage abortions?

One government rebuttal is that this program would be "voluntary." Is that right? Does that imply that this agency would just sit back passively until some parent needing parenting skills said, "I don't think I'll call my parents, priest or friends or read a plethora of books, but I'll go down to the local government offices"? To the contrary, the bill points to specific targeted groups and problems, on Page 840: The state "shall identify and prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families."

Are we further to conclude by those words that low-income families know less about parenting? Are middle- and upper-class parents really better parents? Less neglectful of their children? Less needful of parental help and training? Is this "prioritized" training not a biased, discriminatory and even prejudicial stereotype and generalization that has no place in federal government, law or practice?

Bottom line: Is all this what you want or expect in a universal health care bill being rushed through Congress? Do you want government agents coming into your home and telling you how to parent your children? When did government health care turn into government child care?

Government needs less of a role in running our children's lives and more of a role in supporting parents' decisions for their children. Children belong to their parents, not the government. And the parents ought to have the right -- and government support -- to parent them without the fed's mandates, education or intervention in our homes. Kids are very important to my wife, Gena, and me. That's why we've spent the past 17 years developing our nonprofit KICKSTART program in public schools in Texas. It builds up their self-esteem and teaches them respect and discipline. Of course, whether or not they participate in the program is their and their parents' choice.

How contrary is Obamacare's home intrusion and indoctrination family services, in which state agents prioritize houses to enter and enforce their universal values and principles upon the hearts and minds of families across America?

Government's real motives and rationale are quite simple, though rarely, if ever, stated. If one wants to control the future ebbs and flows of a country, one must have command over future generations. That is done by seizing parental and educational power, legislating preferred educational methods and materials, and limiting private educational options. It is so simple that any socialist can understand it. As Josef Stalin once stated, "Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."

Before so-called universal health care turns into universal hell care, write or call your representative today and protest his voting Obamacare into law. Remind him that what is needed in Washington is a truly bipartisan group that is allowed an ample amount of time to work on a compromise health care law that wouldn't raise taxes (for anyone), regulate personal medical choices, ration health care or restrict American citizens.