Random Politics & Religion #00

Actually the whole world needs her to fall in popularity along with Bush. You can't honestly want another Clinton or Bush in office, do you?

All Americans who bought health insurance policies this year – not just those enrolled in Obamacare – face a 41 percent increase in excise taxes because of hidden fees contained in an obscure section of the Affordable Care Act, according to an investigation by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Virtually everyone who pays for health care insurance this year will be affected by the tax. The little-known tax was imposed on all consumers regardless of whether they obtained their insurance through Obamacare or through their employer or as individuals in the private market.

This year the tax will cost individuals more than $500 in extra premiums according to one actuarial estimate. Families who purchased insurance will see their premiums go up by more than $700.

The new tax also hits senior citizens who rely on Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage. It will land on the nation’s poor who depend upon Medicaid-managed care programs.

The 41 percent sticker shock increase doesn’t stop in 2015, however. Over the next four years, the statutorily mandated Obamacare fees are expected to double again.

Over the next decade, consumers will pay more than $145 billion for the tax, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The levy will continue to go up each and every year into the future.

The tax was buried by congressional authors in section 9010 of the law and was envisioned as a way to raise future funds to pay for Obamacare.

The Obamacare fees were designed by the program’s authors to be delayed, kicking in only in 2014 at $8 billion and mushrooming into a $14.3 billion annual price tag on insurance policies by 2018.

Republican Sen. John Barrasso, who favors repeal of section 9010, said the tax “is another example of how the president’s health care law was designed so the most painful parts of the law kick in years later.”

CBO reported the fee was a “statutorily fixed” amount that must be collected each year from consumers, as opposed to a percentage rate.

The statute describes the levy is an “annual fee” but health-care economists say it has been commonly referred to as an excise tax.

The Joint Committee on Taxation said the Obamacare tax was “similar to an excise tax based on the sales price of health insurance contracts.”

The panel predicted the fee on insurance policies would be borne by consumers. The panel also told then-Sen. Jon Kyl in a June 2011 letter that, “an excise tax generally is borne by consumers in the form of higher prices.”

An actuarial review of the Section 9010 by the management firm Oliver Wyman for the health insurance industry predicted that individual policyholders will pay $514 more this year due to the Obamacare tax.

Those who use small group policies will see a rise of $688, while family coverage would rise by $719, the firm stated.

Ironically, the elderly and the poor — those who were supposed to benefit most from Obamacare — will be adversely affected by the new tax, as will financially hard-pressed state governments.

Section 9010 mandates that taxes must be paid for seniors who rely on Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D.

Oliver Wyman estimated Medicare Advantage would cost seniors $360 more this year. Medicaid managed-care enrollees will be expected to face increases of $152, according to the firm.

Milliman, the national health actuarial firm, reported in 2014 that states will lose 52 cents for every dollar they receive from Medicaid because of the fee.

“The result is a transfer of $0.52 from state government to the federal government for every $1.00 of ACA health insurer fee,” the accounting firm said.

Milliman further said the Obamacare tax will cost states 1.8 percent to 2.8 percent more for Medicaid managed care, which is a low-cost way to offer medical services to the poor. Half of the nation’s Medicaid recipients are signed up by the states under Medicaid managed care, according to Milliman.

This fee, while seemingly low, can put many Medicare-managed care companies at great financial risk or perhaps out of business.

“Given Medicaid managed care profit margins were less than 2% in CY 2012, increases of this magnitude are meaningful,” Milliman said.

The actuarial firm estimated the Obamacare tax will cause the states that use Medicaid-managed care losses of up to $13.9 billion.

For years the health insurance industry has battled but failed to persuade Congress or the president to repeal the tax.

Earlier this year, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and Barrasso introduced legislation to repeal the excise tax. It has 38 Republican co-sponsors. No Democrats have backed the bill to date.

Hatch described the tax as “yet another hidden health care tax arbitrarily created to pay for Obamacare.”

Republican Rep. Charles W. Boustany introduced legislation in the House to repeal Section 9010. He has claimed bipartisan support among the 218 co-sponsors, a majority of the House.

The only group exempted from the tax are people who work in large corporations that “self-insure” their workforce. In a self-insurance system, no insurance company is used, only the company assets.

USA Families, a non-profit group that vigorously supports Obamacare, did not respond to a TheDCNF request for comment on the tax.

Its a pity Bill can't run again.

Its a pity Bill can't run again.

I'm assuming I'm the cop who shows up after the fifth noise complaint, in this scenario.

You jerks better like Macaroni pie because I'm bringing it and some deep fried turkey.

Now that's deliciousness you can believe in.

Nah I'm sure face to face it would be a lot more civil.

Bill couldn't win the Democratic party nomination again; it's moved so far to the left.

Where would this theoretical Thanksgiving take place?

Vegas, duh.

So in other news, they're saying that Jindal and Perry (who can't even pay his staff now) will be the first candidates to drop out.

Hold your hand out in front of you and make right angle with your thumb and forefinger. Which one makes an "L"? Don't worry, I have to help my nephew remember directions that way, too.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Thursday declined to rule out resuming the use of torture under some circumstances by the U.S. government.

“I don’t want to make a definitive, blanket kind of statement,” Bush told an audience of Iowa Republicans, when asked whether he would keep in place or repeal President Barack Obama’s executive order banning so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA.

“This is something that I’m actually struggling with because I’m running for president … and when you are president your words matter,” he said.

The former Florida governor said that in general, he believes torture is inappropriate, and that he was glad his brother, former President George W. Bush, largely ended the CIA’s use of the techniques before he left office. The CIA used waterboarding, slapping, nudity, sleep deprivation, humiliation and other methods to coerce al-Qaida detainees — methods the military would be prohibited from using on prisoners of war.

A Senate report released last year cited CIA records in concluding that the techniques were more brutal than previously disclosed, that the CIA lied about them, and that they failed to produce unique, life-saving intelligence. The CIA and its defenders take issue with the report.

Jeb Bush said he believed that the techniques were effective in producing intelligence, but that “now we’re in a different environment.”

He suggested there may be occasions when brutal interrogations were called for to keep the country safe.

“That’s why I’m not saying in every condition, under every possible scenario,” Bush said.

Bush has been walking a careful path, seeking to disassociate himself from some of the unpopular aspects of his brother’s legacy while praising him.

In discussing the Iraq war, for example, Bush, who previously acknowledged that the intelligence didn’t support the decision to invade, on Thursday said he had learned from some of the mistakes made during the occupation, including what he said was a wrong decision to disband the Iraqi military. He said his brother also now believes that was a mistake.

Bush blames the rise of the Islamic State group on what he said was Obama’s failure to negotiate an agreement to leave U.S. troops there in 2011. Asked if it was true that there would be no IS absent a U.S. invasion of Iraq, he said there was no way to know.

He repeated his call for a more aggressive posture toward the Islamic State group but, like the Obama administration, he opposes sending in regular U.S. ground forces. He does favor putting special operations troops on the battlefield.

Bush spoke at a foreign policy forum sponsored by Americans for Peace, Prosperity and Security, a group chaired by Mike Rogers, a former Republican congressman from Michigan who chaired the House Intelligence Committee.
0

I won't miss Jindal a bit, but Perry entertains. Then again we do have a real entertainer in the race.

You really don't think the Democratic party has shifted to the left since the 90s? Bill was a moderate even for that era; not saying his stance hasn't shifted too, but if you put 1992 Bill Clinton up on stage today, he's on the right of the aisle. Not far right - he's still a moderate - but not left at all.

You really don't think the Democratic party has shifted to the left since the 90s? Bill was a moderate even for that era; not saying his stance hasn't shifted too, but if you put 1992 Bill Clinton up on stage today, he's on the right of the aisle. Not far right - he's still a moderate - but not left at all.

Whenever people talk about the political spectrum shifting right, they seem to always ignore the social issues. Clearly those have shifted left over the years. It's not all one-way.

I always go by this type of grid. This one only has Hillary though. I'm sure there was that has all the past presidents up to Carter on it somewhere.

balanced budgets

Where would this theoretical Thanksgiving take place?

In the freest country in the world Belarus !

In the freest country in the world Belarus !

I always go by this type of grid. This one only has Hillary though. I'm sure there was that has all the past presidents up to Carter on it somewhere.

Aliens flew to earth on peace missions to prevent nuclear war between America and the Soviet Union at the start of the Cold War, according to a former Nasa astronaut.

None has ever been corroborated with independent evidence.

But his status as the sixth man to walk on the moon - during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 - gives his claims a ready audience.

Now he says military top brass saw UFOs visiting Earth during weapons tests in the 1940s at American missile bases and the famous White Sands Proving Ground, in the New Mexico desert, where the world's first nuclear bomb was detonated in 1945.

"White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons - and that's what the extra-terrestrials were interested in," the 84-year-old Texan told Mirror Online.

"They wanted to know about our military capabilities.

"My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth."

He claims other officers manning missile silos or Pacific bases back up his claims with stories of alien spacecraft shooting down test rockets mid-flight.