This'n'That; November 10th[ClownPrinceBribes;GreenJobs;TeaPartyPatriots]

True Costs Of obamaCare Farce [Since when.... have Americans travelled to foreign shores for medical care?? Other than the recent phenomenon of going to India and elsewhere for less expensive surgical procedures, Americans rarely opt for foreign health care. By-and-large, other nationalities TRAVEL HERE for medical and surgical procedures!! These obamacRATs and their self-designated leader the "Clown Prince," are even MORE CROOKED THAN A SNAKE'S BELLY!!] Just prior to the obamacRATs' rubber-stamping obamaCare reform the "Clown Prince" revealed endorsements by the AMA and the AARP. The endorsements are all bought and paid for:

• **The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians reimbursements under the current law. The "Clown Prince" promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are in a law requiring annual 5-6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Congress rolled the cuts over each year, suspending them but not repealing them. They accumulated to 21% this year. As with other world rulers, the "Clown Prince" FORCED the AMA to support his bill!!
• **The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) got a windfall in return for its support of fluffyCare. With a subsidiary insurance company, AARP is one of the primary suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues. To solve their problem, the "Clown Prince" eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage thus forcing the elderly to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP — which supposedly represents them — will make more money.
• ##(If this galls you, join the American Seniors Association, the alternative group. Contact sbarton@americanseniors.org.)
• **The drug industry backed fluffyCare by putting it's considerable advertising budget at the disposal of obama's fascist handlers. In return they'll get a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade). They also have fascist assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S.
• **Insurance companies were to get access to 40 million new potential customers. But when the Senate Finance Committee lowered the fine that would be imposed on those who don't buy insurance from $3,500 to $1,500, the insurance companies jumped ship and now oppose the bill--for the worst of motives.
• **The only industry that refused to knuckle under at the outset was the medical-device makers. By standing on principle, they're now subject to additional taxes imposed by the Senate Finance Committee!! The new taxes will apply to devices like automated wheelchairs, pacemakers, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs, artificial knees and hips, and other necessary devices.

Porkulus-25Bln; "Green" Jobs-Zero!! [One of the porkulus plan's most prominent programs, a $25 billion “energy efficiency” program is as disfunctional as the rest of the fascist regime currently in office!! It was promoted as creating kaZillions of "green" jobs..... did it??]

• **In Baltimore, the 300 block of East 23 1/2 Street is getting patched up in time for winter. One economic stimulus program is paying to insulate 11 rental rowhouses, another is paying for furnaces and a third is covering the cost for reflective roofs to be installed by prison inmates in a job-training program.
• **The block is part of one of the biggest initiatives ever undertaken by the federal government, a nationwide push to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. But as the national unemployment rate crosses into the double digits and Republicans question the stimulus program’s impact, the work on East 23 1/2 — even with all of its activity — has so far not produced a single job.
• **Nine months after Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus package, there is little tangible to show for one of its biggest single areas of investment, the $25 billion energy-efficiency effort. That points to one of the central tensions of President Obama’s landmark stimulus package: His goal was to inject money quickly into the economy while at the same time laying the groundwork for his broader, transformational agenda on energy, education and health care.

Are You One?? Both the "Clown Prince" and the house leaders showcased obamacRATs’ newest colleague, Rep Bill Owens, who last Tuesday won a special election in upstate New York. In the campaign, Mr. Owens gave unabashed support to the pending House health care bill, despite the opposition of national conservative groups, including the new Tea Party Patriots. The "Clown Prince," during his private pep talk to obamacRATs, recognized Mr. Owens’s election and then posed a question to the other lawmakers....

According to Rep Earl Blumenauer [d-Or], who supports the health care bill, the "Clown Prince" asked, “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” obamacRATic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”

Til Nex'Time....