ObamaCare Medicine Cabinet Tax : Just Forced Insanity

There seems to be no end to the disaster that is the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare! Never does a day that passes that we don't find something else that is in this nightmare health care brought to us by progressive democrats, and democrats alone!!!

Oh wait a minute, who voted for these people that gave them the power to kill our health care system and drive millions into poverty??

Repeal the Medicine Cabinet Tax on OTC Drugs
Source:  Devon Herrick, "Patient, Heal Thyself:  Why Congress Should Repeal the Medicine Cabinet Tax on Over-the-Counter Drugs," National Center for Policy Analysis, November 21, 2014.

November 21, 2014

When Americans think about medical care, they generally think about hospitals, doctors and prescription drugs. But in a new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis, Senior Fellow Devon Herrick says that many overlook the importance of inexpensive, over-the-counter (OTC) drug therapy; just 1 percent of health spending goes toward OTC drugs, despite that Americans first reach for a nonprescription drug 80 percent of the time when they have a health ailment.
How much cheaper are OTC drugs than their prescription drug counterparts?

• The average price for a name-brand prescription was $268 in 2011, compared to only $33 for a prescription filled with a generic drug.
• OTC drug products are available in numerous package sizes; many OTC drugs are $10 or less and will last for months.
• Americans save themselves (and the health care system) $6 to $7 for every $1 spent on a nonprescription drug. 

Still, they could be cheaper, says Herrick. When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, it included what was essentially a tax on OTC drugs, because it made OTC medicines ineligible for reimbursement through health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs). These accounts allow the Americans who have them to deposit pretax dollars into their accounts, which can then be used for medical expenses. Prior to the ACA, account holders could use those pretax dollars to purchase OTC drugs, resulting in a significant savings on medication. For example:

• A middle-income family may face a marginal tax rate of 25 percent, a payroll tax of 15.3 percent, and possibly a state and local tax of 5 percent.
• Thus, if an individual can use his pretax income to purchase OTC medication, he escapes that 45.3 percent tax.
• This so-called Medicine Cabinet Tax is equal to a price hike of more than 40 percent for many consumers buying drugs over the counter.

OTC drugs can still be purchased through a tax-preferred account if they are prescribed by a physician. However, Herrick says the effort of obtaining a prescription for an OTC drug would negate any savings from choosing the OTC drug. Herrick encourages the new Congress to repeal the Medicine Cabinet Tax. Over-the-counter drugs reduce doctors' office visits and cost less than prescriptions, saving Americans, and the health system, money.
 

War On Poverty Destroyed the Family : Third Rail Politics?

What was once a good idea turned into a disaster for the family of those that needed support to establish good relationships between husband and wife, raising the children, has now become a detriment, causing millions of women raising children alone and the children and mothers becoming wards of the state.

If there is one system in this country that needs reform it's the welfare system. As this article points out, the war on poverty, that started by president Johnson, is now become one of America's worst enemies cause untold problems now and for the future.

The War on Poverty Has Waged a War on Marriage
Source:  Robert Rector, "How the War on Poverty Has Hurt American Marriage Rates," Daily Signal, November 18, 2014.

November 20, 2014

When did marriage in America begin to decline? According to Senior Research Fellow Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, marriage rates began to fall as welfare programs grew in number and scope -- a result that he calls "no accident."

At the outset of the war on poverty in 1964, there was one program -- Aid to Families with Dependent Children -- that provided aid to single parents. At that point, out of wedlock birth rates were less than 10 percent.

But today, there are more than 80 means-tested welfare programs that allow single parents to access government aid, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Women, Infants and Children food program, public housing and Medicaid. While both married and single-parent families qualify for these programs, Rector writes that most assistance goes to single-parent families.

What's the connection between these programs and single parenthood? According to Rector, by providing aid to single-parent families, these programs enable a single parent to more easily raise children without another parent in the home providing support. Moreover, the programs effectively hurt the parents who do choose to marry, because benefits are reduced -- and cut off -- when household earnings increase.

A single mother who chooses to marry the father of her child may lose a significant amount of welfare benefits, but, by remaining single, she can retain those benefits. He offers the example of a single mother earning $20,000 annually -- if she marries a man with the same level of earnings, they will lose $12,000 per year in welfare benefits.
 

Steyer Spends $Millions On Election : Democrats Easily Bought

Given the $millions that Steyer spent, wasted, on the democrats this election cycle, will the press still trot out the old horse of 'Republicans are for the rich fat cats and the democrats are the party of the people''. In every sector to of the country the democrats out spent the republicans.

 

Where did all the money come from that the democrats say they don't have? How did Obama raise so much money from people that don't have any money to spend? Why do so many people still believe this crap coming from the media about the Republicans? Shouldn't the people that voted for the democrats, believing they were electing someone that really cared for them like they said during the campaigns be angry?

 

The reality is those that voted for the progressive democrats and got kicked in the teeth, are just happy that they have another chance to be kicked again like in years past. It appears they like to be abused.

 

The Tom Steyer Democrats - The Keystone XL filibuster reveals the new liberal coalition.

 (WSJ)

 

 

Tom Steyer promoting a clean energy project at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles in October. Associated Press

 

Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu wanted a vote on the Keystone XL pipeline to show her clout before a runoff election against Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy on Dec. 6. Majority Leader Harry Reid gave her the vote after months of refusing, only to join most other Democrats and filibuster Ms. Landrieu’s bill.

 

Only 13 Democrats supported their comrade and 45 Republicans to approve Keystone, and four of those have lost their seats. Ms. Landrieu is now contemplating the undercarriage of her party’s bus, while Mr. Cassidy can credibly tell Louisiana voters he’ll deliver the votes if he joins 53 other GOP Senators next year.

 

Ms. Landrieu will no doubt prosper as a former Senator, so the vote is more important for what it says about the Democratic Party. The party of the private union working class is gone. Green money rules.

Opinion Journal Video

Assistant Editorial Page Editor James Freeman explains why the lame duck, Democrat-controlled Senate voted down the Keystone pipeline, 59-41. Photo credit: Associated Press.

 

Mr. Steyer made that clear when he refused to support any Democrat who backed the Keystone XL. This also explains why some of us have been wrong in thinking that President Obama would eventually support Keystone. How could he give up on an $8 billion investment and so many jobs in a weak economy? The reason is that the church of climate change carries a bigger check book. Now Mr. Obama is promising to veto a Keystone XL bill even if it does pass Congress.

Note the bitter reaction from Terry O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers’ International Union, who said Tuesday’s vote “took food off the table of our members.” He added that “the majority of Democrats in the Senate and the White House just don’t get it, even though the recent election results surely should have sunk in by now. They have lost their way, their purpose and their base.”
Sorry, Terry. They do get it. You’re simply not part of the “base” that matters to the new liberal “coalition of the ascendant.” That coalition is composed of minorities, single women who look to government for economic security, public unions and what political writer Michael Barone calls “gentry liberals.” Pipelayers aren’t gentrified enough.

 

For these liberals, climate change has become a totemic cultural issue, like abortion rights and gay marriage. It therefore doesn’t matter if the oil from Alberta will still be developed even if Keystone is never built, or that the oil will be transported by trains that are more dangerous and more carbon-intensive. What matters is that they are on the right side of the cultural and political symbolism.

 

With a few exceptions, the Democrats who will remain in the Senate next year are either gentry liberals themselves or are too afraid to risk losing the green cash on which they have become dependent. Either way, Tom Steyer owns them.

 

Urbanization As A Tool for Population Control : People Moving Out

This is interesting in that the progressive socialists, that seems to be in control of most city governments, believes that to control the population they have to group them in ever small areas, eliminating the need for cars with high rise condensed living construction and rail transportation that will make the citizens ability for movement limited. 

The control ideology is to limit the options that are available for the population and thereby dictating outcomes for everyone. But as this article points out there is push back as it seems personal freedom to chose is more important then allow a select few to make decisions for the many.

Despite Federal Policy, America Becoming More Suburban
Source:  Joel Kotkin, "The Progressives' War on Suburbia," New Geography, November 17, 2014.
November 20, 2014

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has pushed urbanization policies that promote urban living by issuing dense development grants and promoting high-speed rail. But according to Joel Kotkin, executive editor of NewGeography.com, such policies are out of tune with Americans' preferences. In fact, Americans are not flocking to cities, but to the suburbs:

• According to the most recent census data, 90 percent of all metropolitan population increases were due to suburban growth.
• From 2000 to 2010, "core cities" (areas within two miles of a city's downtown) gained over 250,000 net residents, while areas 10 to 20 miles from the city center gained 15 million net residents.
• Since 2010, suburbs have seen an increase of 4.4 million people, while "core cities" have seen an increase of less than 2 million.
• According to Wendell Cox, over 80 percent of residents in metropolitan residents have suburban lifestyles.

This trend, writes Kotkin, makes the suburban vote critical to electoral success, noting that the most recent Republican Senate victories by Joni Ernst in Iowa, Corey Gardner in Colorado and Thom Tillis in North Carolina were largely due to large numbers of suburban support.

 

Rent Control Brings Scarcity : Free Markets The Solution

Here is another reason that anytime one denies the power of the free market to bring prosperity will find only chaos. Rent control is just one of the many situations that demands the "invisible hand" to find it's own level in the open and free market.

What's Wrong with Rent Control?
Source: Robert P. Murphy, "The Case Against Rent Control," Foundation for Economic Education, November 12, 2014.

November 20, 2014
scarcity

Price ceilings on rent for apartments in large cities have dangerous economic consequences, asserts Robert Murphy, research fellow at the Independent Institute.

Rent control is a policy whereby a city sets a ceiling price on the rent that a landlord can charge a tenant. Many people think the policy sounds great, because it keeps prices low, making housing more affordable. But Murphy explains the laws have a series of unintended consequences:

• They create apartment shortages. If prices are lowered, the demand for rental housing will rise, and tenant demand will not match up with apartment supply. In the long run, rent control tends to keep developers from constructing new apartment buildings because other projects -- those without price ceilings -- are likely to be more profitable.
• They reduce housing quality. Because rent control increases housing demand, landlords are disincentivized to maintain their properties (replacing broken appliances or light bulbs, for example) or update them, because they have a steady supply of potential tenants.

While many promote rent control as a way to provide cheaper housing for low-income residents, Murphy says the policy only reduces the supply and quality of housing, reducing the profitability of the real estate industry and creating a more dangerous environment for consumers.
 

Women(Mothers) Under Attack From Democrats : Regulaions On Womens Pay

WOW - who knew? A war on working mothers by the progressive democrats. But then we all knew the democrats were always the party that sought to inflict as much damage to women as the could through regulation and law, and then use their dissatisfaction with their circumstances to blame the Republicans.

What good reason to not vote for Republicans, they believed it was reasonable for women to buy their own contraception. Is this a catastrophic attack on their freedoms? $20 a month? Are women that easily coopted? Apparently they were.

In the election of 2012, the election brought out the 18 to 29 year old women to vote for democrats that were told those terrible Republicans wanted to destroy them. The sad part is so many didn't have the ability to understand they were being used and abused.

In reality, it always been the democrats that use women, minorities and seniors as tools for political gain along with media that are all to willing to accept their abuse by covering democrat advances on all fronts.

War on Women? Overtime Pay Regulations
Source: Diana Furchtgott-Roth, "Obama's War On Working Women," Real Clear Markets, November 18, 2014.

November 20, 2014

The Obama administration is proposing to change the regulations surrounding overtime pay.  While hourly workers can expect overtime pay for any work over 40 hours in one week, as can salaried workers earning less than $23,660 per year, salaried workers earning above that amount are not entitled to receive overtime pay.

A new regulation from the Obama administration, however, would require overtime pay for those who make less than $50,000. What's the problem? It could significantly reduce flexibility. According to Diana Furchtgott Roth, director of Economics21 at the Manhattan Institute, employees -- especially working parents -- should think twice before applauding the proposed rules. She explains:

• Many of the affected salaried workers would prefer to be able to take time off in exchange for their extra hours worked. Instead, those hours will be subject to overtime pay requirements.
• Employers will have to keep close track of workers' hours for fear of lawsuits. This could lead many employers to quit allowing employees to work from home, a benefit that many working parents rely on.

Furchtgott-Roth explains that many working mothers need to be able to balance work and home priorities -- if their child becomes sick, they could exchange extra hours of work for time off. Mandating overtime pay, on the other hand, reduces that flexibility and limits mothers' ability to ask for needed time off.

Furchtgott-Roth suggests a different solution to the administration's overtime pay proposal: allowing employers to provide employees with 1.5 hours of time off for every hour of overtime worked.
 

Doctors Opting Out of Medicare and Medicaid : ObamaCare ; Health Care Imploding

Welcome to the real world of progressive socialism brought to us by the American voter that couldn't stay awake long enough to understand they were committing themselves to perpetual dependency and poverty.

Is Gruber right - the typical American voter is stupid? Two election in the midst of living the nightmare of progressive socialism brought to us all by the liberal democrats and still more the 40% believe Mr Obama is the "One". The mid term election does give us some hope, but the question that still remains is can American be saved? The jury is out.

How Obamacare Is Ruining Access to Doctors
Source:  Scott Atlas, "If you like choice in health care, look to Republicans," CNN.com, November 18, 2014.

November 20, 2014

Dependence on government health care, both Medicare and Medicaid, is only growing. Over the last 10 years, the number of Americans over the age of 65 has risen by 6 million. Of the 8.5 million who enrolled in the exchanges during 2014, over 6 million enrolled in Medicaid. Scott Atlas, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, says that 140 million Americans will have government health insurance by 2020.

What does the rise in the number of Americans on Medicare and Medicaid mean for health care? Reduced access to care. Already, a majority of American doctors refuse to treat Medicaid patients, and more than 20 percent of primary care doctors refuse to accept new Medicare patients -- five times larger than those who refuse to accept new patients with private insurance. And the number of those refusing to accept Medicare is growing: 10,000 doctors chose not to participate in Medicare in 2012, three times larger than those who opted out in 2009.

America is also facing a doctor shortage of 124,000 physicians by 2025, two-thirds of which will be in specialist care. This is significant, because seniors (who are on Medicare) rely heavily on specialists. Unfortunately, writes Atlas, fewer doctors are going to want to enter the profession due to cuts, noting that the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has recommended cuts to specialists that, after adjusting for inflation, will amount to a 50 percent drop in payments after a decade.

Not only will there be fewer doctors to choose from, but insurance plans are limiting access to those doctors who are available in order to keep premium costs down, offering insurance plans that offer relatively few health care providers. According to a report from McKinsey, the vast majority (68 percent) of Obamacare insurance plans provide enrollees with access to narrow or "very narrow" networks, and most of America's best cancer care hospitals are not included in state exchange plans.

As Atlas explains, government policy is reducing the attractiveness of becoming a doctor and limiting patients' ability to access specialists and seek care at the nation's best hospitals.

 

Teachers Evaluate Peers : 13% As D's or F's

What a good way to start the evaluation process of teachers, for the long run, and that's by using peer evaluation as an asset. Who knows teachers better then those that work side by side with each other.

And like Wisconsin that has Act 10 in play, teachers don't have to worry about retribution from the unions for speaking up on the evolution process and tenure.

Teachers Grade 13 Percent of their Peers as Ds or Fs
Source: Paul E. Peterson, "Do Teachers Support the Vergara Decision?" EducationNext, November 18, 2014.

November 19, 2014

How do teachers themselves feel about tenure? Paul E. Peterson relates the results of EducationNext's most recent survey of teachers and parents:

• When teachers were asked to grade their fellow teachers in their local school district on a standard grading scale, they ranked 69 percent of teachers as earning an A or a B. Eight percent, however, were given a D, and 5 percent were given an F.
• Parents gave 56 percent of teachers an A or a B, 11 percent a D and 10 percent an F.
• Just 41 percent of teachers reported being in favor of tenure and believing that it should be unrelated to students' academic performance.

Peterson notes that teacher tenure has been under scrutiny ever since a court in California ruled the scheme unconstitutional. He notes how critical good teachers are to student achievement: according to a study by Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, replacing the bottom 5 to 7 percent of teachers with merely "average" teachers would increase economic grow by up to 1 percent annually.
 

Gruberism From Energy Department for Taxpayers : 'We Made a Profit'

Let's see now, the department of energy, a wholly controlled agency by progressive socialist from the White House, they are expecting us to believe they are making a profit even after 24 out of 26 'green energy' programs, that the energy department has funded, have failed?

If we are to believe anything that is associated with Mr Obama and his progressive liberal friend have to say, then Gruber is, we are stupid.

Department of Energy Falsely Claims Loan Profits
Source: Donald Marron, "Spin Alert: DOE loans are losing money, not making profits," Urban Institute, November 17, 2014

November 19, 2014

The Department of Energy has just released a report that seems to indicate that its clean energy loans have been profitable. But that's not at all true, writes Donald Marron, director of economic policy initiatives at the Urban Institute. According to Marron, the Department of Energy (DOE) is ignoring borrowing costs in order to show inflated figures.

The report shows the DOE as having earned $810 million in interest while losing $780 million on the loans -- a $30 million profit. The problem, says Marron, is that the $810 million in interest does not take into account the Treasury's borrowing costs, as the Treasury first borrowed money (with interest) in order to make loans to the energy companies at very low interest rates. Taking into account those borrowing costs, Marron says that taxpayer losses on the loans are likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Similarly, the report says that the loan program is expecting $5 billion in interest payments. But that $5 billion is not a profit, says Marron -- it is only interest payments, without accounting for borrowing costs or possible defaults on the loans.
 

Wisconsin Long Term Care Needs Review : Will Lead the Nation

Wisconsin is leading the nation for funding public employees retirement programs and now it seems they have to fix their long term care programs to lead in all aspects of citizen care.

And with Scott Walker  success in the election for his second term as governor and his signature legislation, Act 10, that brought  the teachers union into the free market, the reform of long term care should be in the mix over the next two years.

Improving Long-Term Care in Wisconsin
Source: Pamela Villarreal, "Improving Long-Term Care in Wisconsin," National Center for Policy Analysis and the MacIver Institute, November 19, 2014.

November 19, 2014

Wisconsin's population is aging quickly -- while the amount of 85-year-olds in the United States will grow by 2 percent annually over the next few years, it will grow by more than 3 percent annually in Wisconsin. As a result, explains Senior Fellow Pam Villarreal in a report for the National Center for Policy Analysis and the MacIver Institute, more Wisconsinites will need long-term care, and the state will have to find ways to fund it.

Already, 80,000 Wisconsin residents are receiving long-term care in some form, and 15 percent of Wisconsin residents over the age of 65 are in a nursing home -- two percentage points higher than the national average of 13 percent. This is a significant issue for the state, because the federal/state Medicaid program spends a significant amount of money funding long-term care services.

Villarreal explains that while just 7 percent of Wisconsin Medicaid enrollees were receiving long-term care services, 40 percent of state Medicaid expenditures were spent on long-term care.

With Wisconsin's growing elderly population, the state has taken several steps to reduce long-term care costs while offering residents options outside of typical nursing home care, such as encouraging the purchase of long-term care insurance and creating programs that allow residents to use Medicaid funds for home care. Villarreal offers a few more suggestions:

• Currently, the federal government sets limits on home values in order for a person to qualify for Medicaid, which states can increase as they see fit. Villarreal encourages the federal government to allow states to set their own home equity limits or do away with them altogether.
• Wisconsin has a public-private partnership program that encourages the purchase of long-term care insurance and was meant to help low-income residents. In reality, it has been used by higher income households. Villarreal suggests doing away with the program and instead providing those who purchase long-term care insurance with a tax credit.
• Currently, federal law requires states to recover assets from a deceased person if it is cost effective to do so in order to repay Medicaid costs. However, asset recovery tends to be very small. Villarreal instead suggests allowing Medicaid to require reverse mortgages (which allow homeowners to borrow against their home equity) in order to pay for long-term care.
• Home-based care is significantly less expensive than institutional care. Villarreal encourages the state to increase home care opportunities for Wisconsin residents.

If Wisconsin takes steps to tackle long-term care costs, it could serve as a model for other states, says Villarreal.