Freedom Line Blog

Americans who love the IRS are giddy with excitement over the pending Sunday House vote on ObamaCare, because enforcement of its mandates will be delegated to the agency. 

Don’t have government-approved health insurance?  The IRS will help you get some.  Now. 

Not paying your fine for not having government-approved health insurance?  The IRS will take it.  Don’t have it?  Hey, the IRS knows how to seize assets and sell them.  What do you mean you “need your car to get to work?”

Not paying the additional taxes on capital gains imposed by the bill?  Who do you think you are,  Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner?

Can’t understand why you must pay the additional taxes now and only get those awesome promised benefits some years down the road?  Take it up with the President.  Maybe he’ll read your letter on TV.  The IRS is just the new national health care police force.  It just does what it’s told to do, not make policy.  You better do the same.

Think the IRS is not going to have the manpower and money to find you and fine you?  Think again, meathead.  Ten billion dollars in new funding and almost 17,000 in new enforcers will take care of that.

Think you can plead illness and hide out in the hospital?  Well, maybe yours will be one of the very few that can afford to take new patients.

Think it’ll help to take your meds before your visit with the IRS?  Might ought to get your prescription soon, because your doctor is leaving to practice in Indonesia.

In a public relations effort to build even greater support for its new duties, the IRS is considering a national public school contest to help design the imposing new uniforms it will need to make sure its authority is understood.  To simplify the contest, the uniform color has already been chosen:  brown.

Although no final decision has yet been made for the new IRS slogan, we are hearing that “resistance is futile” is the most popular choice at the moment.

San Francisco’s ktvu.com reports that all three Republican challengers to three-term California Democratic U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer are now within striking distance of defeating her, based on results of a new Field Poll.

Former Congressman Tom Campbell – the most moderate of the three Republicans – has a one point lead over Boxer.  Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, a bit more conservative, trails Boxer by a single point.  The most conservative Republican – Assemblyman Chuck Devore – trails Boxer by only four points, about the poll’s margin of error.”

Only months ago, Boxer – one of the most liberal members of the Senate – had double-digit leads over the three.  Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll told ktvu, “there has been a sea change in perceptions,” and attributed Boxer’s precipitous decline to the economy, people fed up with incumbents and the health care debate.

DiCamillo added, “The atmospherics surrounding health care is really – I think – a detriment to Democrats right now.”

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Didn’t Barack Obama promise to magically bring an era of post-partisanship and moral relativism after eight years of supposed moral chauvinism under President Bush?

Apparently, that promise was every bit as ephemeral as his promises to scour the federal budget “line-by-line,” to televise healthcare negotiations on C-Span, to close Gitmo and to abide by public campaign finance rules.  Welcome to the era of Obama as moral arbiter.  Speaking in Strongsville, Ohio to promote ObamaCare for the 6,294th time yesterday, Obama made a statement that would have triggered hysterical shrieks from leftists had President Bush said the same thing:

As long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership.  I don’t know about the politics.  But I know what’s right.”

Never mind that the American public is so broadly and steadfastly opposed to ObamaCare that he managed to get a Republican elected to the Senate…  from Massachusetts.  Never mind that despite possessing overwhelming – albeit temporary, in all likelihood – Democrat majorities in both the House and Senate, he’s had to resort to unconstitutional non-vote “vote” proposals to pass his takeover scheme.

No, Obama “knows what’s right,” so just shut up and bend over, America.

As if Congress needed any more reasons to defeat ObamaCare…

CNSNews.com reports:

Nearly one-third of all practicing physicians may leave the medical profession if President Obama signs current versions of health-care reform legislation into law, according to a survey published in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

“The survey, which was conducted by the Medicus Firm, a leading physician search and consulting firm based in Atlanta and Dallas, found that a majority of physicians said health-care reform would cause the quality of American medical care to ‘deteriorate’ and it could be the ‘final straw’ that sends a sizeable number of doctors out of medicine.

“More than 29 percent (29.2) percent of the nearly 1,200 doctors who responded to the survey said they would quit the profession or retire early if health reform legislation becomes law. If a public option were included in the legislation, as several liberal Senators have indicated they would like, the number would jump to 45.7 percent. “

So much for reducing the nation’s health care costs.

Fewer doctors, greater demand and inferior health care for all.  Is that the “change” you believe in?

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

In these week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino and Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) explain why ObamaCare is an assault on individual freedom.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Regarding all the back room deals and horse trading taking place on ObamaCare, we thought the American people had seen it all.  Apparently not.

President Obama, in his effort to sway key Members of Congress to vote “yes” on reform, invited Rep. Bart Stupak to the Russian opera last week.  As reported by John McCormack of the Weekly Standard:

Asked if he was a big fan of the opera, Stupak, who represents a district encompassing the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, laughed and said: ‘No, I’m not a fan of opera, especially not Russian opera because I wouldn’t understand a thing.’ …

“‘The point I was trying to make’ by relaying the opera story, Stupak said, ‘is that the White House is pulling out all of the stops trying to get members to commit to voting for health care.’”

Gee.  It took approximately $300 million to buy off Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA).  Hundreds of millions more to bribe Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Bill Nelson (D-FL).  All they could offer Stupak, who assures everyone that he has 12 solid pro-life House Democrats who voted “yes” in November but who are now committed to voting “no,” was a ticket to the Russian opera?

Ironically, what the president refuses to realize is that we are all waiting for the fat lady to sing.

One thing about Lyndon Johnson – as Senate Majority Leader and as President.  If he made a deal, he was more than likely to honor it.

Not this new crowd.  President Obama wasn’t in the Senate long enough to make any deals, and Harry Reid has made some of the worst, most odorous in recorded history.

Now, it seems, in his desperation to pass ObamaCare (which only passed the Senate based on the deals Reid made the first time through), President Obama wants to get rid of some of the smelliest, according to politico.com.

Imagine that you are Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson or Florida Senator Bill Nelson. 

Old Ben cut the “Cornhuster Kickback” for his “yes” vote, only to pretty much guarantee the loss of his political future with Nebraska voters, who don’t like the bill and don’t like things done that way.  Will he switch to “no” in an effort to at least salvage his dignity?

Old Bill cut “Gator-aid,” which would protect some Florida seniors from having their Medicare Advantage ripped away.  That one never got the attention it should have, because it was wrapped in some complicated, deceptive language meant to hide the fact that it was only going to really apply in three heavily Democratic Florida counties that are the mainstay of Old Bill’s votes and fund raising.  What’s he going to do when those voters find that he can’t keep the deal?

Strangely, the mother of all the deals, Mary Landrieu’s upwards-of-$300 million “Lousiana Purchase” still seems safe, under the rubric that “it would apply to any state in which all the counties have been declared a disaster zone.”  Even the genius of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is unlikely to pry any loose change out of that bayou babe.

So what does Landrieu have that no one else does?

Someone should ask the President.  Someone should also ask him what new deals he’s going to cut to get through the next round of votes, because he doesn’t have the votes without them, and, as they say on the Hill, “the candy store is open.”

Somewhere up there, Lyndon is laughing at the amateurs.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

As desperation to pass ObamaCare grows, so do the number of peripheral schemes.

Today’s, according to the AP, is an Obama plan to hire bounty hunters, “in this case…private auditors armed with sophisticated computer programs to scan Medicare and Medicaid billing data for patterns of bogus claims.  The auditors would get to keep part of any funds they recover.  The White House said a Medicare pilot program recouped $900 million for taxpayers from 2005-2008.”

Well, we have questions:  Wasn’t 2005-2008 during the Bush administration?  Where’s Obama’s union scam for this one?  Can you picture “Dog” wearing a green eye shade running his “sophisticated computer program?”

The Hill newspaper recently surveyed key House Democrats on where they stand on ObamaCare.

Twelve representatives who voted yes on the House-passed health care bill in November are “Undecided.”  Among others who voted yes in November, Rep. Michael Arcuri (NY) is “Leaning No” and Representatives Russ Carnahan (MO) and Jim Oberstar (MN) are “Leaning Yes.”  Eleven House Members who voted for the Stupak Amendment in November are in the “Firm No” category.

View the full list here.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

John McCormack of The Weekly Standard reported yesterday:

Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he’s obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson’s brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.”

First it was the “Louisiana Purchase.” Then, the “Cornhusker Kickback.”  Is the president now trading federal judgeship’s for health care votes?  Read McCormack’s entire piece, then you decide.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Many political pundits immediately labeled yesterday’s healthcare summit a failure simply because it failed to result in some misplaced compromise.  But that is too narrow a perspective.  For conservatives and libertarians, the conference actually served a positive purpose.

Pardon our cynicism, but Barack Obama’s purpose in convening the conference was not to consider opponents’ legitimate points or data.  Despite Democrats’ baseless “party of ‘no'” broadsides, multiple Republican alternatives to ObamaCare have been readily available for months for all to see.  Rather, Obama’s goal was to once again ascend the stage and provide yet another “last and final” lecture to Americans on the wisdom of ObamaCare.  After all, he revealed his opinion on why his efforts had failed so far when he absurdly stated in his State of the Union address that, “I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people.”

Thus, as liberals almost invariably do, Obama mischaracterized his failure as one of tactics or communication to the plodding American electorate, rather than one of defective policy.

Obama remains under the strange impression that all he needs to do is take the stage once again to cast his magical spell, and the fawning media reflexively praises him every time.  His September healthcare speech to a joint session of Congress, his State of the Union address and his recent appearance before a Republican Congressional gathering are the latest examples.  But if he is such an effective persuader and communicator, why does he keep having to repeat the same tired points?

That brings us to the reason why yesterday’s summit was a success for opponents of the ObamaCare takeover.  Namely, that Obama not only failed to dazzle the assembled opposition, but actually got schooled.  As just one example, Obama attempted to scold Senator Lamar Alexander (R – Tennessee) by saying, “this is an example of where we’ve got to get our facts straight.”  A short time later, Obama was forced to admit that ~he~ was the one whose “facts weren’t straight.”  Moreover, Obama clearly appeared petulant and flustered, and avoided even attempting to battle rising Republican Congressional superstar Paul Ryan (R – Wisconsin) on Ryan’s substantive data and argument.

Meanwhile, the American people were able to witness the avalanche of reasons why ObamaCare is a toxic proposal.  For that reason, yesterday was a victory for conservatives and libertarians who oppose Obama’s healthcare boondoggle, and a loss for those seeking to impose it.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

During today’s health care summit at Blair House, Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso (an orthopedic surgeon by trade) dropped the jaws of Democrats in attendance by declaring that individuals who only have “catastrophic care” health insurance (which Democrats had been spent all day citing as a moral failure) often make better medical decisions than people with more comprehensive plans. Barasso’s reason was simple — these consumers actually have to consider the cost of their treatments.

Though President Obama and Congressman Henry Waxman were quick to ridicule Barasso, he got to a truth that is at the very root of meaningful health care reform: the system can’t work as long as consumers are being insulated from costs.

Two economic maxims suffice to make the point: (1) “If you’re paying, I’ll have the steak” — There is no incentive to keep your spending under control when someone else is footing the bill (2) “No one washes a rental car” — Ownership is the best motivation for vigilance, because if something goes wrong, you’ll be the one eating the costs. Having someone else shield you from health care expenditures only weakens your incentive to be vigilant in regard to your own well-being

Earlier in the day’s proceedings, Obama and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois rained on the tort reform parade by claiming that the $5 billion a year that could be saved by reforming the malpractice system would be a drop in the $2 trillion health care bucket (as an aside, I’ve always thought this is a bizarre rationale — how can anyone expect to realize large savings if they ignore all the incremental savings that will get them there?). Yet if tort reform was too picayune, why are Democrats ignoring Barrasso’s point, which got to the heart of what drives health care costs through the roof?

The problem with modern health care is that is built on a triangular model. In most cases, one person pays for the care (an employer), one person consumes the care (the patient) and one person provides the care (the doctor). This is a recipe for unhappiness and inflation, because the person who consumes is unaccountable to the person that pays, and the person that provides is unaccountable to the person they provide for (Harvard’s Regina Herzlinger has been invaluable on this point).

The Republican talking point is that health care needs to be reformed in small, incremental chunks. That may be a sound legislative strategy, but it’s not true as a matter of policy. The system needs to be fundamentally reformed and placed on a consumer-driven basis (and yes, conservatives, you can learn from Europe — Switzerland has a pretty good model. If you’re really in the mood for right-wing apostasy take a gander at Whole Foods’ ideas too). Subsidies are always going to be necessary for the indigent, but more far-reaching government control is not the answer. Comprehensive reform that makes health care market-driven is.