Common Sense Obit!

An Obituary printed in the London Times.....Absolutely Brilliant !!

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense , who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;

- Why the early bird gets the worm;

- Life isn't always fair;

- And maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. 

Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual

harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in d eath,-by his parents, Truth and Trust,

-by his wife, Discretion,

-by his daughter, Responsibility,

-and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 5 stepbrothers;

- I Know My Rights

- I Want It Now

- Someone Else Is To Blame

- I'm A Victim

- Pay me for Doing Nothing

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

More.

White House Agrees to Delay Obamacare Individual Mandate

  

• Emily Hulsey
• On October 24, 2013
• http://IJReview.com

Amid news that Democrats are pushing for an extension of the enrollment period for health insurance, the White House has announced that it will delay the enrollment deadline for the law’s individual mandate by up to six weeks, pushing it to March 31.

Facing a public that is growing increasingly frustrated with the technical ineptitude of the Obamacare exchanges, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and several other congressional Democrats urged Obama to give Americans more time to sign up for health insurance. When House Republicans presented a similar idea as a compromise to reopen the government just a few weeks ago, the White House wouldn’t budge. Now that President Obama’s own party is speaking up, however, he appears to be listening.

Obamacare.

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Americans "Ready To Kill" Over Obamacare (Must See Video)

By Money Morning Staff Reports

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Obamacare doesn't officially kick off until January 1st, yet millions of Americans are already at each other's throats over it.

Research from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the country is now more divided than any other time in history since the Civil War era.

In fact, 20 states including Texas, Georgia and Louisiana have threatened to secede.

And despite a recent Supreme Court ruling making Obamacare the law of the land, only 24 states are moving forward with a key aspect of Obamacare- the expansion of Medicaid. Of the rest, 21 are opposed and five are deadlocked in debate.

Editor's Note: Millions of Americans are enraged over government imposed Obamacare. Watch this shocking video to see how one group of furious citizens is getting revenge.

So far, every single southern state from Texas to Virginia has refused to widen Medicaid, a key provision of the Obamacare program.

This will leave millions of Americans without coverage.

That's because they make too much money to qualify for Medicaid as it now stands, but not enough to get the subsidies to buy insurance in the new exchanges.

The South isn't alone in rejecting Obamacare. Liberal states such as Maine have opposed the bill.

Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio have yet to move forward with the expansion.

Even legendary investor Warren Buffett, a one-time Obamacare supporter, said in 2010 he would scrap the healthcare bill and start over.

One of the main architects of the bill, Democratic Senator Max Baucus from Montana said Obamacare is heading for a "train wreck" if it's not implemented properly.

Obamacare Tax Hikes Stoke The Most Outrage

While even Obamacare detractors applaud the requirement that insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions and put a stop to lifetime caps on benefits, they say these laudable benefits don't compensate for the bills high cost - especially in new taxes.

According to most experts, Obamacare will create no fewer than twenty new taxes or tax hikes on the American people.

In fact, the Obama administration has already given the IRS an extra $500 million to enforce the rules and regulations of Obamacare.

The new taxes don't bode well for millions of middle-class Americans. Incomes for the rich have soared this decade but middle class workers have seen their wages stagnate and even drop since the 2008 Great Recession.

Many fear Obamacare with its high insurance costs and new taxes, could provide the middle class a fatal blow.

The 20 new Obamacare taxes are making Americans eyes pop out in disbelief. Take a look.

With January 1 quickly approaching, millions of Americans are asking what they can do to prepare for all the new costs, rules and regulations.

One expert, Dr. Betsy McCaughey, a constitutional scholar with a Ph.D. from Columbia University, recently wrote a best-seller showing Americans how they can not only survive Obamacare, but prosper through it.

McCaughey claims to be one of the only people in the country - including members of Congress - who has actually read the entire 2,572 page law.

Her book, titled Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for Surviving The New Health Care Law, breaks the huge bill down into 168 pages of actionable advice.

The book, written in an easy going, easy to read style, shows some startling facts about Obamacare not seen in the mainstream press.

For example, she points to a little known passage in the bill that shows how you could get slapped with a $2,000 fine for not having health insurance - even if you do actually have it.

She also goes into detail explaining how a third of all U.S. employers could stop offering health insurance to their workers.

In one chapter, she shows how ordinary Americans will get stuck paying for substance abuse coverage - even if they never touched a drink or drug in their life.

According to McCaughey's research, senior citizens will get hit the hardest.

Hip and knee replacements and cataract surgery will be especially hard to get from Medicare in the months ahead thanks to Obamacare, according to McCaughey.

She warns seniors to get those types of procedures done now before Obamacare goes into effect January 1.

Editor's Note: Real facts and figures about the hidden Obamacare taxes and fees and how they will affect everyday Americans and seniors are hard to find. As a courtesy, Money Morning is giving readers a free copy of Betsy McCaughey's new book Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for Surviving The New Health Care Law. But only a limited number of copies are available. Please go here to reserve yours today.

Again.

CBS: White House Faces 'Credibility Death Spiral' Over ObamaCare

• Kyle Becker
• On October 21, 2013
• http://kylenbecker.com

While the HealthCare.gov website is certainly emblematic of the Obama administration’s dysfunction, it is only so damaging from a public relations standpoint because the mainstream media can’t easily hide it or blame Republicans for it.

CBS’ political director John Dickerson called the ObamaCare program a “political black eye” and a “total fiasco” that threatens the Obama administration with a “credibility death spiral.” Dickerson then agreed with conservative critics that many charges about ObamaCare being sold on false promises actually have merit to them.

The Healthcare.gov website represents a very personal interaction between the citizens and ‘their’ government; and unsurprisingly, the manner that is was set up was not only unjustifiably expensive, it is intrusive and unwieldy. The website represents more than what the Democrat Party lets on; it is characteristic of the kind of bureaucratic mess and inefficiency one gets when governments start monopolizing one-sixth of the economy, especially one with over 300 million citizens, and in one of the most sensitive spheres of human life to boot: healthcare.

This is why conservatives opposed the government takeover of healthcare all along: the impersonal bureaucratic middle-man forcibly inserted between patients and doctors will only increase inefficiency and costs, which will have to be cut in non-monetary fashion: in terms of medical treatment, and potentially, human lives as wait times increase and doctors flee the field in frustration.

Furthermore, ObamaCare has been widely reported as being nearly a scratch in terms of adding people to the insurance rolls over the next decade, since 31 million still won’t be insured; making the program at best a destructive exercise in masochistic governance in vain pursuit of attaining the reality-defying aims of the political class.

Health Care again?

The Top 10 Reasons Why Obamacare Will Always Be Controversial

by
BRYAN PRESTON

Bio

October 16, 2013 - 9:22 am

inShare1

 

Supposing that the federal government eventually gets Healthcare.gov to work, many Democrats believe that Obamacare will eventually become popular. While some Americans will come to depend on Obamacare and its subsidies, driving up dependence on government and solidifying more Democrat votes, their signature law will always be a divisive, controversial law.

1. No Republicans or independents voted for it or had any input into it. Obamacare is a Democrat law designed to impose Democrat goals. Republicans and independents have no stake in seeing it succeed, and Democrats respond to their objections with insults — you’re racist for opposing it, or you love X more than you love America for opposing it. That won’t win anyone over. Because Obamacare imposes offensive, wrongheaded and damaging policies, millions of Americans have a stake in seeing it fail. Democrats tend to respond by noting that the conservative Heritage Foundation once supported something similar to Obamacare, and Republican Gov. Mitt Romney enacted something similar to it in Massachusetts. Fair enough, but the Heritage Foundation is an idea factory and has since repudiated its support for Obamacare-style mandates. Romney governed a blue state and got the best deal he could get from its overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. What’s enacted in Massachusetts is not necessarily right for Oklahoma or Florida or Texas. Democrats’ response: It’s the law now, so deal with it. They don’t apply that logic to the Second Amendment, and no one is under any obligation to simply accept Obamacare just because it’s currently the law. Laws are changed and repealed all the time. That’s why we send representatives to Washington and to our state capitals.

2. Democrats crafted it in secret and bought the votes they needed to get it through Congress. Barack Obama promised to deliver the most transparent administration in American history, but on his signature law, he not only failed, he practically demanded that the law was built in secret. The “Louisiana Purchase” of Sen. Mary Landrieu’s vote and the “Cornhusker Kickback” to buy Sen. Ben Nelson’s vote will forever tarnish Obamacare as a corrupt bargain.

3. It doesn’t actually help Americans buy insurance by making it more affordable. It just orders us to buy insurance or face the IRS. It orders employers to provide coverage for their employees or face the IRS. The IRS is the most feared, and one of the least trusted, government agencies, and Obamacare jams it into our most personal decisions. Obamacare’s implementation has also been fundamentally unfair: Democrat allies got exemptions that the rest of us couldn’t get. The math just doesn’t work for Obamacare to make insurance cheaper. By forcing companies to take on new risk and not allowing them to charge more for assuming that risk, Obamacare forces them to charge more — a lot more — to everyone. Many individuals and families will find their work hours cut so their employer can avoid Obamacare’s mandates, while their insurance prices will go up. Less income plus higher costs will condemn many Americans to a poorer standard of living. The government’s answer is to subsidize some of them, but that money has to come from somewhere. Some Americans’ taxes will increase to pay for other Americans’ subsidies. This will drag and distort the economy in ways not even fully understood yet.

4. Abortion is controversial. Obamacare makes Americans who oppose abortion pay for abortions. Millions of abortions.Obamacare sidesteps the Hyde Amendment and subsidizes about 115,000 abortions per year according to some estimates. Forcing Americans who object to abortion to pay for abortion will never stop being controversial. Ever. It just won’t. As a pro-life American myself, I hate Obamacare as much for its social policy as for its economic policy and for its robbing us of our rights. It’s the trifecta of awful policy.

5. The majority of Americans objected to Obamacare when the Democrats passed it, but they passed it anyway. Democrats’ response: Call people names and pass the bill to spite them. They now defend the law partly out of spite, using lines like “if you don’t like Obamacare you must want people to die!” The law is now a talisman on the left and a grave offense in the center and on the right.

6. It imposes blue-state policies on red states that don’t want them and are doing fine without them. Texas leads the nation’s economy and has for years, thanks in no small part to its avoidance of big government policies typical of states like California, Illinois and New York. Obamacare takes Texas’ ability to determine its own health care policies away from it, and imposes California’s and Massachusetts’ policies on it. But Texans didn’t want Obamacare and don’t want to be California. Democrats’ response: Too bad, now shut up and stop complaining. The “I told you so” chorus will only get louder as Obamacare hurts states and jeopardizes state budgets.

7. Even if you like your doctor/health insurance/job, Obamacare may not allow you to keep your doctor/health insurance/job. Doctors are retiring in droves to escape Obamacare. Whole health care providers are shutting down because Obamacare is killing them. Many insurance companies are now notifying policy holders that due to Obamacare’s mandates, those policies are being canceled. Or, they’re going to cost a whole lot more. Employers are reluctant to hire new employees due to Obamacare’s mandates, and are cutting hours to escape its 50 employee, 30 hour mandates. The pain of all this is only now beginning to spread around the country. It won’t make the law any more popular than it currently is.

8. Younger, healthy Americans are being force to buy a very expensive product at the beginning of their careers, when they earn less and can least afford it. People at the beginning of their careers tend to earn less than people in middle age. They’re also healthier and use less medical services than people in middle age. But Obamacare orders younger, healthier Americans, at the point of an IRS gun, to buy health insurance that in most cases they don’t really need. The math of Obamacare is driving policy prices upward. Young people are getting ripped off, and the mandate + price hikes will dent their earning power for as long as Obamacare remains the law. Younger Americans’ right to make their own choices are being taken away from them.

9. It was built to fail and usher in a government-run health care system that Americans have consistently opposed for decades. Sen. Harry Reid let this slip earlier this year, that despite Obamacare being “settled law” as the president puts it, it’s just a way station toward a government-run health care regime. Americans don’t want a government-run health care system, fearing that it would take the world’s most innovative health care system and turn it into the DMV or the post office. Conventional wisdom says that once Obamacare fails as it was designed to do, Democrats will just claim that “hey, we tried” and then impose their preferred government-run system. If they control the government when Obamacare fails, that’s exactly what they will do. Their tactics when they passed Obamacare itself are proof of that. But Obamacare’s failure may discredit the Democrats, who passed Obamacare without a single Republican vote and insulted the law’s opponents all along the way. But the very fact that it’s credible and reasonable to state that Obamacare was built to usher in even more dramatic changes that most Americans oppose ensures that it will remain controversial.

10. It is forcing this ice cream company to shut down.

An iconic Michiana company is closing.

Tuesday, FOX28 talked with owners of the Bonnie Doon plant and downtown Mishawaka location. They tell us there are many reasons for the shutdown such as the declining economy and the rise in production costs. But the number one factor? The anticipated cost of the Affordable Care Act.

Really? We can’t even keep our ice cream companies because of this stupid law? Even though Obamacare basically promised everyone free ice cream in the form of more affordable health insurance for all?

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

Health What?

Canadian Company Receives Only Bid for ObamaCare Website

  

Bubba Atkinson | On 15, Oct 2013

Whether you love or lament ObamaCare, it’s clear that the execution of it has been lackluster to say the least. Consistent reports of Americans having a difficult time signing up on Healthcare.gov have poured in, and even major news media outlets that were attempting to create accounts failed miserably before morphing the story into a ‘Let’s see how long this thing will really take’ type of feature, just like CNN recently did.

But why has the government struggled so much with the implementation and execution of Obama’s beloved signature legislation?

Here’s an idea for starters: According to a senior watchdog reporter at the Washington Examiner, federal officials only considered one firm to design the ObamaCare exchange website instead of putting the task up for competitive bidding.

Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance…

Both USAspending.gov, which tracks federal spending, and the FFATA Subaward Reporting System, which specifically tracks contracts, refer to CGI as the lone bidder for the Obamacare website design award.

But don’t pin this just on Obama’s administration just yet; CGI was qualified in 2007 by HHS during George W. Bush’s presidency to “deliver, without public competition, a variety of hardware, software and communication products and services.”

This isn’t Republican or Democrat – it’s just stupid. If you own a business and need some contract work done for you, you go out and find the best value. But instead of doing that, our government just goes to the first company it sees and hands them a contract worth an estimated $634 million.

This is nothing more than ineptitude on the part of the government. Anything less than a full investigation into how and why this happened is not sufficient. It’s time that our leaders are held accountable by reasonable and rational standards.

CNN was even critical of Healthcare.gov, publishing an article by Steven Bellovin, a professor of computer science at Columbia University, who stated that “the federal government has never had a fantastic track record in dealing with technology products.”

The contractors building HealthCare.gov couldn’t control the budget or the timing for the regulations; those were the product of Washington politics. While there are apparent programming and design errors, it’s quite likely that most are the result of requirement changes rather than incompetence.

Say what you will about ObamaCare – there are both stories of success and failure – in this instance, the government as a whole just looks dumb. So many issues seem so very simple, but Washington’s ‘leaders’ continue to botch what is ultimately achievable. If they were a business, they would not even be taken seriously with the way they make decisions.

Which leads me to my strongest point: Should the size and scope of government really be expanding if they can’t even prove to effectively implement …a website?

SHARE this article if you want an investigation into this bad business practice!