Obamacare Cost Control: Physician Assisted Suicide

Amazing. Just amazing. Watch the first three minutes and you'll want to watch the whole hour.

From the YouTube description:

The Determinators is a chilling story which uncovers the dark underside of the massive healthcare reform bill that, once fully implemented, will significantly threaten the way Americans live...and die. Based on the book "The Battle for America's Soul" by CL Gray, MD. The Determinators feature leading experts in the field of healthcare who have studied the fill and it's impending ramifications. http://www.thedeterminatorsmovie.com 

The Determinators highlights several of the worst elements of Obamacare that big-government bureaucrats want to keep hidden from the public until it's too late. It's information people need to know before they decide how to vote. 

Tea Party Patriots presents a Ground Floor Video production
Producer - Luke Livingston
Adapted and Directed by Pritchett Cotten
www.GroundFloorVideo.com

Related articles

• SLIDESHOW: Obamacare's Impact - in Pictures (heritage.org)
• Pediatric group supports repeal of Obamacare (illinoisreview.typepad.com)
• Obamacare - The Good, the Bad and the Missing Puts Health Reform in... (prweb.com)

When the State Makes Working Illegal

In October of 2010, I reported on the decision in Peace of Mind Adult Day Care Center vs. Department of Social Services (DSS), et. al. At the heart of the decision was Judge Rod Chapel's finding that the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) had demonstrated "racially discriminatory animus" in their treatment of Stephanie Patton, an African-American woman who owned and ran Peace of Mind Adult Day Care Center.

Last week I reported that Missouri's Court of Appeals for the Western District had taken issue with Chapel's decision. In part, the Appeals Court ruled:

Evidence that a single agency employee made a racial remark to Patton is insufficient as a matter of law to support a conclusion that the entire agency thereafter acted in its handling of Patton with racial animus.

One of the side effects of the lawsuit during the two year appeals process was Stephanie's inability to find employment doing the work that she loves.

Stephanie spent over fifteen years running an adult day care service in Missouri. She is not only familiar with the business side of Medicaid, but also the day-to-day operations of caring for her client-patients. Adult day care providers have to be knowledgeable about a range of issues because they have to be able to address the healthcare needs of the people they see. Those needs can range from physical disabilities to psychological challenges in the social environment of the day care facility. Stephanie has the skills required; however, she was not been able to find work in her field.

While the state of Missouri is suffering with the worst unemployment in the region, Stephanie's skills are in an area that has continued to grow: healthcare. Early on in the appeals process, she had interviews with other adult day care providers and hospitals, but those potential employers turned her away. When potential employers checked her in the DHSS database, there was a warning not to hire her. She had been blacklisted.

At the suggestion of a relative, she contacted the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) in late June of 2011. DHSS responded with a letter indicating that she was now eligible to work for hospitals and other healthcare providers.

Why wasn't Stephanie ever notified of the fact that she had been blacklisted? Was an overzealous DHSS employee out for revenge after her court victory?

I think knowing this background to Stephanie's story, knowing what Stephanie went through, that's what makes the Appeals Court's ruling so disappointing to me. Judge Chapel's original finding that, not just an employee, but rather the Department of Health and Senior Services had demonstrated "racially discriminatory animus" towards Stephanie seems closer to the truth.

Healthcare: Ballot Language Victory for Prop E

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Judge's ballot language ruling won't be appealed:

The Missouri attorney general’s office will not appeal a Cole County judge’s ruling this week that removed one of Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s ballot summaries from the November ballot. 

Judge Dan Green on Tuesday sided with Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and other Republican officials, who said Carnahan’s summary for a measure that deals with the creation of a state-based health insurance exchange was not “fair and sufficient,” as required by law.

The original ballot language for Proposition E was a travesty of partisanship concocted by Missouri's leftist Secretary of State Robin Carnahan and approved and defended by liberal Democrat Attorney General Chris Koster. Here's the ballot summary language that the court threw out at the end of August:

"Shall Missouri law be amended to deny individuals, families, and small businesses the ability to access affordable health care plans through a state-based health benefit exchange unless authorized by statute, initiative or referendum or through an exchange operated by the federal government as required by the federal health care act?”

Here's the court approved ballot summary that will replace it:

"Shall Missouri law be amended to prohibit the governor or any state agency from establishing or operating state-based health insurance exchanges unless authorized by a vote of the people or by the Legislature?"

Interestingly, Koster seems to abandon Carnahan after Judge Green's decision as reported by the P-D:

On his decision not to appeal, Koster, also a Democrat, said Greene’s summary more accurately reflects the Legislature's intent. 

"My job is to call balls and strikes in an impartial manner," he said. "The argument is over.”

However the Janus-faced Koster defended the Carnahan language in court and inexplicably approved it before that. CBS St. Louis reports conservative Republican Ed Martin, who is running to unseat Koster, was critical of Koster for failing to address the ballot language when Carnahan had originally submitted it:

Koster’s office is responsible for representing the state in lawsuits and defended Carnahan and the ballot summary in court. The attorney general declined to appeal the judge’s ruling, although the secretary of state’s office wanted to do so. 

Martin said Tuesday that Koster should have said Carnahan’s ballot summary was misleading. The attorney general’s office is responsible for approving the legal content and form of ballot summaries prepared by the secretary of state’s office. 

Martin criticized the handling of the ballot summary and court challenge, charging that Koster “signed off on ballot language that was inappropriate, not clear and should never have been allowed to be presented.”

Had Koster returned Carnahan's blatantly biased language to the Secretary of State's office for revision instead of approving it, Missouri would have avoided the court costs of defending Carnahan's partisanship.

The legislative changes underlying this ballot initiative are available in Missouri Senate Bill 464.

Related articles

• Judge Revises Wording For Mo. Health Care Measure (fox2now.com)
• Missouri Democrats fret over future of their party (stltoday.com)
• Judge Revises Wording for Missouri Health Care Measure (stlouis.cbslocal.com)
• Republicans Claim Victory on Health Care Ballot (stlouis.cbslocal.com)
• Shane Schoeller and Ed Martin Demand Changes to Missouri's Ballot Initiative Process (rebootcongress.blogspot.com)
• The Star's editorial | How about voting for a saner ballot process in Missouri? (kansascity.com)

Video: Richard Mourdock: Replace Obamacare with Sound Healthcare Reforms

On Monday, I interviewed Republican candidate for the US Senate from Indiana Richard Moudock. In this segment of that interview, Mourdock talks about the need to repeal and replace Obamacare/Obamatax and lists the healthcare reform policies that he would like to implement: raising the contribution limits for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), selling health insurance across state lines, allow small businesses and sole proprietorships to form health insurance pools with other businesses, and allow individuals to deduct health insurance expenses from their income taxes just as businesses currently do with their health insurance expenses.

Related articles

• Video: Richard Mourdock on Jobs and the Economy (rebootcongress.blogspot.com)
• Video: The Daily Caller Interviews Indiana Tea Party Leader Greg Fettig (rebootcongress.blogspot.com)
• Keep Richard Mourdock strong (legalinsurrection.com)
• Richard Mourdock - "the economy still stinks" (legalinsurrection.com)

Video: St. Louis Tea Party Protest Obamacare Ruling

The St. Louis Tea Party held a rally to protest the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Obamacare on the evening the ruling was handed down. Speakers included Michelle Moore, Bill Hennessy, Stephanie Rubach, and the Gateway Pundit. Included in the video playlist above:

• Bill Hennessy arrives with the casket once used to protest Russ Carnahan
• Michelle Moore's introductory remarks and the Pledge of Allegiance
• Stephanie Rubach on the Obamacare decision
• Bill Hennessy on the Obamacare decision
• Gateway Pundit on the Obamacare decision
• Michelle Moore's closing comments

Related articles

• Photos: St. Louis Tea Party Protest Obamacare Ruling (rebootcongress.blogspot.com)
• Protesters at Supreme Court react to Obamacare decision: 'We will not comply' (dailycaller.com)
• THEY'LL BE PROTESTING OBAMACARE at the Capitol in Denver tomorrow at noon. If you're in Colorado Sp... (pjmedia.com)
• Michele Bachmann: It Only Takes 50 Plus One Senators to Repeal Obamacare (Video) (thegatewaypundit.com)
• Obamacare Is Not Constitutional (nationalreview.com)
• SCOTUS Rules on Obamacare (mypetjawa.mu.nu)

Photos: St. Louis Tea Party Protests Obamacare Ruling

The St. Louis Tea Party gathered at the top of Art Hill in Forest Park to protest the Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare. In a controversial ruling Thursday morning, the Court held that Obama's signature healthcare legislation would remain in place because the so-called individual mandate was, in fact, a tax.

Supreme Court Vindicates Joe Wilson, Rules that Obama's a Liar

By now you've seen that the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare in a 5-4 ruling. The ruling found that there was no basis in the Commerce Clause for Obamacare as the government's lawyers had argued; however, the high court cited the government's taxing authority:

The justices rejected two of the administration's three arguments in support of the insurance requirement. But the court said the mandate can be construed as a tax. "Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness," Roberts said.

Because Obama promised not to raise taxes on the middle class and the Supreme Court has now ruled that Obamacare is a series of taxes, the Court has handed the president what could be a Pyrrhic victory on his signature legislative accomplishment. In short, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court found that Republican Rep. Joe Wilson was right when he said of President Obama: "you lie". It's good to see the Court take such an active role in the 2012 Presidential campaign. Perhaps the next American president will be a bit more respectful of the Supreme Court lest a Justice accurately observe that the president's comments at a State of the Union address are "not true".

Update: Great quote from Chief Justice Roberts in his majority opinion:

Members of this Court are vested with the authority tointerpret the law; we possess neither the expertise northe prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences oftheir political choices.

Supreme Court Decision on Affordable Care Act

Reason TV's Wrap-up of the Obamacare Arguments at the Supreme Court

From the YouTube description:

"If I was in the Obama administration, I would not be comfortable with how the last three days went." 

Reason's Damon Root was in attendance for the third and final day of oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which focused primarily on the issue of severability, which brings into question whether the individual mandate be excised from the law, or if the law in its totality must be struck down.

Reason has also assembled a playlist of their recent videos about the case now pending before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Related articles

• Previewing Day Three Of Health Care Reform Oral Arguments (showmedaily.org)
• Previewing Day Two Of Health Care Reform Oral Arguments (showmedaily.org)
• Previewing Day One Of Health Care Reform Oral Arguments (showmedaily.org)
• AP: Striking Down the Individual Mandate Won't Kill Obama's Health Care Law (theblaze.com)

Another Laugh at Russ Carnahan's Expense

Washington Examiner: CBO: Obamacare to cost $1.76 trillion over 10 yrs:

President Obama's national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.

That reminds me of Russ Carnahan's promise to Missourian's back in the Summer of 2009:

It was funny when he made that promise based on the CBO's numbers back then and it's funny now that it's broken based on the CBO's numbers today. What an incompetent fool.

Towards the end of the video above, Kevin Jackson of the Black Sphere shouts out: "If it's so good, why doesn't Congress have to be on it."

Related articles

• ObamaCare To Cost Nearly Twice As Much As First Projected (thedaleygator.wordpress.com)
• CBO: Deficit estimate for 2012 hiked to $1.2T (stltoday.com)
• Health reform coverage cost falls slightly (money.cnn.com)

Video: Nullify Obamacare Forum

These fifteen videos are Caroline's footage of the Nullify Obamacare Forum held earlier this month. The forum featured panelists Bill Randles, Ed Martin, State Senator Jim Lembke, and State Representative Paul Curtman. Brian Nieves MC'd the forum.

• Part  1:  Intro & Ed Martin's Opening Remarks
• Part  2:  Bill Randles' Opening Remarks
• Part  3:  Jim Lembke's Opening Remarks
• Part  4:  Paul Curtman's Opening Remarks
• Part  5:  Q & A re:  Health Care Compacts
• Part  6:  How to say NO to Obamacare regulations
• Part  7:  Handling the Court System and Judicial Activism
• Part  8:  What effect will the Health Care Freedom Act have on Obamacare?
• Part  9:  Isn't refusing a Health Insurance Exchange a form of nullification?
• Part 10:  Did the Founding Fathers advocate single-state nullification?
• Part 11:  How much power does Missouri's governor have to resist the Feds?
• Part 12:  Why do we need attorneys to interpret the Constitution?
• Part 13:  Why doesn't the State just keep more of its own money?
• Part 14:  What steps would you take to nullify Obamacare?
• Part 15:  Closing Remarks

Thanks to Caroline for producing the video above. Great job!

Lloyd Sloan's excellent observations about the Nullify Forum. Give 'em a read.

Related articles

• Video: Nullification Forum (rebootcongress.blogspot.com)

Gov. Jay Nixon Runs on Obamacare in 2012

In a surprise move, Governor Jay Nixon has decided to base his 2012 campaign for re-election on the single most unpopular piece of legislation to come out of President Obama's administration and the Pelosi-Reid Congress: Obamacare. That legislation cost Democrats the House in 2010 and was a factor in the recent victory of Republican Bob Turner who won liberal Anthony Weiner's New York Congressional seat in a special election earlier this week. Nixon, who has generally been a centrist governor, has decided to may outsource Missouri's healthcare sovereignty to Washington, DC. In exchange for this sell-out, the Federal government will return $21 million to the Show Me State. Could someone please explain why our money has to go to DC before being returned to us as a grant?

Earlier today, Nixon signed the executive order below creating "healthcare exchanges." Governor Nixon is considering an executive order that would create "healthcare exchanges." This effectively ended a committee hearing that was underway in Jefferson City to consider those exchanges. State Senators Jim Lembke and Rob Schaaf stormed out of the hearing disgusted with the executive overreach of Governor Nixon. In 2010, Missourians overwhelming passed Prop C which rejects federal intrusion into healthcare.

Update: I clarified with my source in Jefferson City and revised the copy above. Nixon has not yet signed the order.

Related:

• Ed Martin to Missouri Legislators: Stop Obamacare Today! Nullify This Bad Law and Send Back the Money
• @United4MO: Latest word from JC is that the Healthcare Exchange issue was pulled from the MHIP agenda and Nixon has not signed the executive order.

Jay Nixon Executive Order for Health Care Exchanges

Goodnews: Obamacare's Individual Mandate is Unconstitutional

Reuters: Appeals court rules against Obama healthcare law:

An appeals court ruled Friday that President Barack Obama's healthcare law requiring Americans to buy healthcare insurance or face a penalty was unconstitutional, a blow to the White House.

The Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, found that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to buy coverage, but also ruled that the rest of the wide-ranging law could remain in effect. 

Related articles

• 11th Circuit Appeals Court Finds Obamacare Unconstitutional (thegatewaypundit.com)
• US Appeals Court Rules Obamacare Individual Mandate Unconstitutional (michellemalkin.com)
• Appeals Court Strikes Down ObamaCare's Individual Mandate, Calls It "a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority." (reason.com)
• Shock Poll: Obama Approval Rating 45%, Disapproval 49% - in New York (hotair.com)

Will the Courts Stop Obamacare?

WSJ.com: Rivkin and Casey: Why ObamaCare Is Losing in the Courts:

Three U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals are poised to render decisions on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the coming months. Despite hundreds of briefing pages and numerous oral arguments, government lawyers have yet to address the law's most basic constitutional infirmity. Only a "general police power"—the right to enact laws alleged to be in the public interest without regard to interstate commerce or some other federal legislative authority—can support the law's centerpiece, the "individual mandate" that all Americans purchase health insurance. The Constitution denies that power to the federal government, reserving it to the states alone.

In enacting the individual mandate, Congress purported to rely on its power to regulate interstate commerce and, in the process, reach individuals who are already engaged in that commerce. But the individual mandate does not regulate commerce, interstate or otherwise. It simply decrees that all Americans, unless specially exempted, must have a congressionally prescribed level of health-insurance coverage regardless of any economic activity in which they may be engaged. Requiring individuals to act simply because they exist is the defining aspect of the general police power that Congress lacks.

There are so many reasons why it's a bad idea to vest a "general police power" with the Federal government. Healthcare is just one of them. Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not the courts will grant this power to DC.

Related articles

• ObamaCare Has No Place in a Limited Government (biggovernment.com)
• Obamacare Makes A Stop At The Eleventh Circuit (biggovernment.com)

Ed Martin's Inaugural Obamacare Hearing

Ed Martin, Republican candidate for US Senate in Missouri, hosted the first in a series of Obamacare Hearings in downtown St. Louis near the Arch in mid-February. Participants in the panel discussion included Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, Phyllis Schlafly, and Bill Hennessy.

Missouri AG Chris Koster Considering Healthcare Lawsuit

Missouri AG Chris Koster (D) is considering joining the lawsuits that have been brought by other states against Obamacare. MissouriNet reports on the story and has audio from an interview with Koster:

Koster has told Missourinet affiliate KWIX that he expects to make a decision in the next few weeks about whether Missouri should join the legal challenge of the health care law.

Mitt Romney Flirts with Presidential Run in #CPAC Speech

Mitt Romney speaking at CPAC 2011

Mitt Romney alluded to a possible 2012 presidential run in his Friday morning speech at CPAC. The speech also included several good one-liners; however, he oddly omitted the crowning achievement of his tenure as governor of the Bay State. There was no mention of Massachusetts state paid healthcare system.

There are Death Panels!

I'm still shocked. The Boston Globe reports on the reality of death panels:

SUPPORTERS OF President Obama’s health care reform law have relentlessly derided Sarah Palin’s notion of “death panels’’ as a vulgar rhetorical technique, with no basis in reality, devised merely to scare a gullible, uneducated citizenry into rallying to repeal the law....

That sort of hemming and hawing carries on for ten paragraphs until we finally get to the lead:

But... Palin is right. Death panels are an inevitable consequence of socialized medicine. The law of scarcity demands them.

Will Lindsay Beyerstein reconsider her ill-planned post about Sarah Palin, blood-libel, and death panels in which she writes: "Death panels were a complete fabrication, of course."

Related articles

• Palin effective again: Death panels removed from medicare regulation (riehlworldview.com)
• White House Propaganda Department Attempts to Quash Death Panel Talk (gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com)

Comprehensive List of Tax Hikes in Obamacare

Americans for Tax Reform has compiled a comprehensive list of tax hikes in Obamacare:

...the U.S. House of Representatives will be voting on an historic repeal of the Obamacare law. While there are many reasons to oppose this flawed government health insurance law, it is important to remember that Obamacare is also one of the largest tax increases in American history. Below is a comprehensive list of the two dozen new or higher taxes that pay for Obamcare’s expansion of government spending and interference between doctors and patients.

Remember to call your Representative and ask them to vote to repeal Obamacare.

Related articles

• GOP: House Will Vote to Repeal Obamacare Next Week (gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com)
• House to Resume Push to Repeal Obamacare (biggovernment.com)
• House Reschedules Vote on Obamacare Repeal (theblaze.com)
• House to Vote to Repeal Obamacare (rebootcongress.blogspot.com)

Study Showing Link between Vaccines and Autism was 'Elaborate Fraud'

Image via Wikipedia

British journal finds retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud':

An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was 'no doubt' Wakefield was responsible.

'It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors,' Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. 'But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data.'

 Wikipedia adds some interesting tidbits about Andrew Wakefield's professional misconduct:

Between July 2007 and May 2010, a 217-day 'fitness to practise' hearing of the UK General Medical Council examined charges of professional misconduct against Wakefield and two colleagues involved in the Lancet paper.[55][56] The charges included that he:

• Was being paid to conduct the study by solicitors representing parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR, and failed to disclose this in his application to the Ethical Practices Sub-Committee of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust.[22]
• Ordered investigations 'without the requisite paediatric qualifications'.
• Acted 'dishonestly and irresponsibly' in failing to disclose how patients were recruited for the study, and that some were paid to take part.
• Caused to be performed colonoscopies, colon biopsies and lumbar punctures ('spinal taps') on his research subjects without proper approval and contrary to the children's clinical interests, when these diagnostic tests were not indicated by the children's symptoms or medical history.
• Conducted the study on a basis which was not approved by the hospital's ethics committee.
• Purchased blood samples - for £5 each - from children present at his son's birthday party, as described by Wakefield himself in a videotaped public conference.

While I do not agree with parents that refuse to have their children vaccinated, I do support their right to make that decision. The healthcare debate has highlighted the encroachment of government into patient autonomy. Obamacare would trample that autonomy and much of the nannystatism behind universal childhood vaccinations is a forerunner to that trampling. The compromise that I would like to see in the debate over childhood vaccinations is that parents have the right to refuse childhood vaccines, but that health insurers are not obligated to pay healthcare costs related to a disease that could've been vaccinated against (unless, in fact, it was vaccinated against). This would lead to a secondary health insurance market where parents who refused vaccines for their children could buy insurance for small pox, measles, dengue fever, etc. That secondary market would help parents evaluate the cost of their morale vanity by putting a price on it.

Related articles

• Confirmed: Study that linked autism to vaccinations a total fraud (hotair.com)
• Andrew Wakefield, the Autism-Vaccine Link and 'Deliberate Fraud' (psychcentral.com)
• Scientific Fraud: A Disgraceful Phenomenon (powerlineblog.com)
• Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds - CNN.com (gruntdoc.com)
• Famous British Autism Study an 'Elaborate Fraud' (science.slashdot.org)
• "A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an 'elaborate fraud'..." (althouse.blogspot.com)

Claire McCaskill Abandons Healthcare Mandate

Image via Wikipedia

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) walks back her commitment to Obamacare:

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), expected to face stiff competition from Republicans in the 2012 election, said she understood why the requirement was included in the reform law, but said lawmakers should find other ways to boost insurance enrollment.

“There’s other ways we can get people into the pool — I hope — other than a mandate, and we need to look at that,” McCaskill said Wednesday morning on MSNBC.

Well there's nothing like an impending election to encourage a politician to pursue policies that help them retain their taxpayer subsidized lifestyle.