Posted on 08/16/2013 7:18:08 PM PDT by JSDude1
Obama's approval numbers are now hitting record lows, yet his critics are often written off as simple- minded "Obama haters." It doesn't wash. The problem is a pattern of presidential lawlessness.
Last time we checked, the Constitution requires the president to "faithfully execute the law." That's no editorial opinion, but Article 2, Section 3, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "(The President) shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
Our founders conceived and established in that document three co-equal branches of government to preserve our individual liberty and restrain the unlimited power of government. But this president and his administration have routinely ignored the divisions of power between the presidency, the Congress and its legislation, and the Supreme Court and its rulings. Constitutionally, the president has the authority to check the legislative branch by recommending legislation to be passed by Congress or through the presidential veto.
But he cannot legislate through executive fiat and he can't pick and choose which parts of the law he will comply with or decline. Nor can he defy judicial rulings from the highest court in the land. But that's what he's done. In just the latest example, President Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder has directed federal prosecutors to conceal the amount of drugs seized during an arrest to circumvent mandatory minimum sentences set by Congress in 1986.
Whether one agrees with that law or not, its legal authority lies within the constitutional powers of Congress, not the executive branch. And that's the issue. It's part of a growing litany of presidential lawlessness:
• Aug. 14, 2013: The Obama administration delayed the provision in ObamaCare to cap out-of-pocket health care costs, picking and choosing parts of the law to enforce, which is to exceed its authority. (Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
No more legislation protected pettifogger parasites running up cost as a result of "defensive-medicine"-over-testing and exorbitant malpractice awards and insurance.
No health insurance parasites. Employer-matching-tax was waived by government in WWII wage and price controls to induce employers to provide health insurance in lieu of salary. Insurance collects benefits, holds the "float", pushes pencils, grudgingly distributes some benefits. Get rid of most health insurance (except perhaps catastrophic), give the employees the difference in salary and allow them to decide appropriate utilization --- and stop the building of insurance skyscrapers.
Return competition and market forces to the cost of medical care.
It seems that health insurance, and its predictable failure, was a part of the progressive grand scheme to nationalize medical care and the resultant power that would flow then to the progressives.
• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Here is a link to one of the FR post about the plan: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2313920/posts
Here’s TWO options:
1. Repeal the damn thing and leave things as they were - it ALREADY worked.
2. Repeal the damn thing, and tweak the existing system so that it CAN be more affordable only where it NEEDS to be.
It’s not rocket science...
That might be true of some individual doctors.
However, doctors who work for large hospitals or clinics have very little discretion - or no discretion at all - in pricing.
It's also very hard for me to imagine that surgeons cut their fees “50% to 60%” for a self-pay.
And, I have never heard of a hospital that cuts room costs for a self-pay.
“Maine doctor cuts prices in half by refusing health insurance”
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jan/22/cutting-insurers-out/ (Nevada)
“When Dr. Kevin Petersen began offering cash-pay surgeries to uninsured patients, his friends told him he was crazy. Now, four years later, he wouldn’t work any other way”
There was another story, I believe on FR, about a doctor in the midwest doing the same.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/09/17/doctors-offering-discounts-for-cash.html
” At one doctor’s office, they received a discount of 40 percent for paying cash instead of using Thompson’s high-deductible plan. Thompson said she was told the discount was a reward for saving the practice the hassle of trying to get reimbursement from an insurance company.”
What they need to do is get some "thinkers" who can think like socialists, leftists, communists, community organizers, progressives, or what have you.
Maybe some people who used to be one of these but saw the light.
Have then think out a number of years to see what the left's steps toward their goals are. Then come up with responses that can be made instantly when needed.
Unfortunately, this should have been done about 60+ years ago. Even 15 years ago would have helped.
I think were are at the turning point where the left has been slowly grinding us down since we have poor responses to their actions. With obama, they have put the pedal to the floor and are throwing everything at us since they know we can't react to one or two things, let alone 10 or 20.
Immigration, drugs, homosexuality/marriage, voter registration, education, religion in society, military downgrade, entertainment, guns, economy, budget, taxes, wild spending, environment, global warming, unions, occupywallstreet, green energy, islam, sharia law, black racism, housing, unions, and I am sure we can thing of 10-20 more.
We have either NO response to these issues or a very weak response. (And as you said, if we DO manage to foil one of their agendas, they just keep bringing it up until people just agree with them just to make them shut up.) Often our spokespersons are well-meaning, but usually end up saying something stupid because they are acting on their own without thinking things through. They end up being a 5-minute monologue on some comedy show watch by millions of kids and adults.
We have not been doing our homework. We have not been teaching the people what America is. We have let the leftists take over the teaching profession and they are teaching the kids what is wrong about America. They have been filling their heads with the WRONG responses to the issues I listed above.
Then the kids go home and convince their low information parents the "left" way to think since we have failed to educate the parents. We have just assumed that all our culture would be passed on. We ignored the influence of the educational and entertainment industries on the way kids think. They have changed the way our kids view our "old school" culture. They laugh at us because they have been taught the "new" culture. They are now voting and starting to run for office.
In other words, we are in a DEEP hole caused by complacency. How do we turn it around? Anything we try to do, they have the words and the media/education/political voices to turn it against us.
Suggestions other than quitting or civil war?
Another related thing that people need to recognize is that some people want to be among the first to have fancy new technologies, and are willing to pay dearly for the privilege. Such people supply the money that drives much of today's technological innovation. Deny those people the reward for their investment, and they'll have no reason to continue such funding. Many technologies people take for granted today (flush toilets, electric lights, automatic heating, telephones, etc.) would have in 1900 been considered luxury playthings for the wealthy elite, but are today considered necessities. Were it not for the wealthy elite who could afford those things in 1900, they wouldn't be available to anyone today.
I wish some conservatives could openly challenge the leftist economic philosophy which encourages hatred toward the "1%". Anyone who believes that they should be unhappy because someone else is wealthier is going to be unhappy, and it's not going to be the fault of the wealthy person. Fundamentally, leftists operate by convincing people that they're supposed to be miserable but blame their misery on something other than the leftists. Since the people are blind to the cause of their misery, they'll be unable to cure it. Instead, their misery will fester and the people will become more and more desperate to take action against its imagined causes.
Not happening. Seems like that ship sailed and sunk last year.
Oh the House may pass another 20 or so repeat repeals but they will never become law, even if they pass 100 of them.
I would like to see some results for a change.
Besides, if liberals want Obama-care in their own states then who are we to stop them from that?
I often argue to Dems that it was very arrogant for Obama to force O-care on states that voted against him and against Dems.
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