If you would like to know what the White House really thinks of Obamacare, theres an easy way. Look past its press releases. Ignore its promises. Forget its talking points. Instead, simply witness for yourself the outrageous way the White House protects its best friends from Obamacare.
Last year, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had granted 111 waivers to protect a lucky few from the onerous regulations of the new national health care overhaul. That number quickly and quietly climbed to 222, and last week we learned that the number of Obamacare privileged escapes has skyrocketed to 733.
Among the fortunate is a whos who list of unions, businesses and even several cities and four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee) but none of the friends of Barack feature as prominently as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
How can you get your own free pass from Obamacare? Maybe you can just donate $27 million to President Obamas campaign efforts. Thats what Andy Stern did as president of SEIU in 2008. He has been the most frequent guest at Mr. Obamas White House.
Backroom deals have become par for the course for proponents of Obamacare. Senators were greased with special favors, like Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson and his Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary L. Landrieu and her Louisiana Purchase. Even the American Medical Association was brought in line under threat of losing its exclusive and lucrative medical coding contracts with the government.
Not only are the payoffs an affront to our democracy and an outright assault on our taxpayers, the timing itself of the latest release makes a mockery of this administrations transparency promises. More than 500 of the 733 waivers, we now know, were granted in December but kept conveniently under wraps until the day after the presidents State of the Union address. HHS is no stranger to covering up bad news; in fact, this is becoming a disturbing pattern. Last year, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius hid from Congress until after the Obamacare vote a damning report from the Medicare and Medicaid Office of the Actuary showing Obamacare would cost $311 billion more than promised and would displace 14 million Americans from their current insurance.
For this administration, transparency promises last only until the teleprompter is unplugged.
Backroom deals and cover-ups may be business as usual for Washington, but understanding why the Obama administration protects its friends from Obamacare offers special insight into what the purveyors of the mandate themselves think about their own law. This is key: The waivers arent meant to protect victims from unintended consequences of Obamacare; they are meant to exempt them from the very intentional increased costs of health insurance that the law causes. Under Section 2711 of the Public Health Service Act, Obamacare increases the annual cap of insurance benefits, which sounds great - as does everything else in big government - until the bill comes due, in this case, in the form of higher insurance premiums.
In short, the administration has decided that you will face increased health insurance premiums, but special friends in the unions will not. Look closely, and youll see not only the White Houses duplicity but also what the Obama administration really thinks of its crown jewel, Obamacare. White House words say that the annual insurance benefit cap is a feature of the program, but its actions say that its a bug.
The question remains: If Obamacare is such a great law, why does the White House keep protecting its best friends from it?...
A U.S.-Mexico border crossing in Texas' Big Bend National Park that was once popular among U.S. tourists and Mexican shoppers will re-open in April 2012.
Alan Bersin, U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, said construction on a National Park Service information center at the eastern border of the national park will begin this summer, the San Antonio Express-News reports. It will link the area to the town of Boquillas del Carmen across the Rio Grande River.
The unmanned port of entry will be monitored by immigration officials hundreds of miles away. U.S. citizens will scan their passports and the identity of Mexican nationals will be biometrically confirmed, NPR reports.
The "informal" crossing, which closed for security reasons after 9/11, was once popular among Big Bend visitors, who would take a boat across a shallow portion of the river to Boquillas for beer, tacos and maybe a burro ride.
The town has lost much of its population in the nine years since the border closure. But Big Bend superintendent Bill Wellman told the Express-News he believes the crossing will attract visitors interested in tours of the Maderas del Carmen Protected Area on the Mexican side, along with hot springs and an abandoned mine.
A park concessionaire will operate a cross-border ferry. Bersin said the crossing will not threaten U.S. homeland security.
"People who act criminally will act criminally regardless (of whether) there's a lawful crossing here," Bersin said.
Speaking on NPR, Rick Lobello, education coordinator at the El Paso Zoo, said,
" I think it's great news for the people of Mexico in that area, for Big Bend National Park, for ecotourism, and for the hopes of an international park some day."
#3
Crossing to reopen April 2012? That should give the Mexican government plenty of time to print up and distribute lotsa maps to the Great Bend crossing. Very thoughtful of us don't you think?
#5
Back when W. Bush first opened up the illegal alien can of worms in a big sort of way, there was a running gag that those powerful businessmen who made fortunes from illegal alien labor, and so, vehemently opposed any limits on illegal entry at all, had a racist saying: "The Spics must flow!"
Seriously, they approached the debate from the point of view that it threatened their wealth, and so they lobbied and fought long and hard, spending the big bills, while the anti-illegal immigration movement just tried to argue.
#8
It will be interesting to see how NPS handles the first drug transport killing in or around the park. This park is utilized like the Great Smokey Mountains, not so much for its special natural wonders but as a recreation park for locals. Texans won't be happy to feel threatened in thier playground.
#10
"It will be interesting to see how NPS handles the first drug transport killing in or around the park."
Simple, NS - they'll place all the blame on the American citizen who was careless enough to get shot by the illegal alien smugglers "entrepreneurs." >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/30/2011 11:26 Comments ||
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#11
If it is the crossing I think it is, it was silly to ever close it in the first place. I took the litle boat across the river - could have just taken my shoes off and walked - and walked into the little town and bought lunch at a (the) little restaurant there (with non-corn-syrup coke!), and bought some stones from a boy on a burro and smuggled them back into the country. It was not and will not be a prime location for smuggling or illegal immigration - way too public, and far from anything else on either side. (We did see obviously illegal crossings, but not there, and even those were pretty benign - looked like a family getting together for Easter & smuggling in deposit pop bottles and used car parts.)
#15
The US likely won't suffer like the UK or Sweden for a long time yet - THE GREATER DANGER TO US INTERESTS IS US MILFORS BEING "OUT OF THEATER" WHEN MAJOR CONFLICTS DO BREAK OUT, + LACK OF READY MATERIEL = WAR RESERVES, ETC. DUE TO THE "BIGGER-N-LONGER-THAN-1929/GREAT DEPRESSION" GLOBAL ECONOMIC DOWNTURN.
The Econ-troubled, "Weak/Declining" US "CAN'T" OR "WON'T" INTERVENE anymore widout NATO-EU, UNSC CONSENT + MASSIVE MIL SUPPORT???
#16
E.g. FOX NEWS AM > ANTI-MUBARAK PROTESTORS in Los Angeles, CA > one of them held up a large personal protest sign which said "THE US CAN'T DO ANYTHING ANYMORE".
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
