Faster horses
Well-known member
Sticker Shock
Brace yourself for sticker shock -- at your insurance agent’s office…The House Energy and Commerce Committee has released a report, based on internal documents from 17 insurance giants, including Aetna, Blue Cross and Kaiser. They estimate that when Obamacare kicks in next year, the average individual health insurance policy will go up in cost by 100 percent. For instance, the cost to a new customer of an individual policy is expected to nearly double, from about $1900 a year to over $3700. But that’s just the average. Some people will see price spikes of over 400 percent. The reason is that millions of uninsured people, many with expensive preexisting conditions, are being added to the insurance pool. At the same time, the government is mandating one-size-fits-all coverage that pays for every condition, from pregnancy to drug rehab, even if the buyer doesn’t want or need it. Gosh, if only someone had been able to predict that when you vastly increase covered medical services, it makes insurance more expensive, not cheaper. Unfortunately, that would require a tiny smidgeon of common sense. And this bill came out of Washington.
IRS Abuse
Pundits on the left are already test-marketing an excuse for the IRS targeting conservative groups. They’re arguing that after the Citizens United decision, shady groups that wanted to influence the election unduly were formed as tax-exempt organizations. Since, in their fantasies, all the suspicious ones were conservative, it makes perfect sense that the IRS would give extra scrutiny to groups with conservative terms like “tea party” in their names. Hey, they’re just trying to keep everyone ethical, right?
Well, how, exactly, were they doing that? The Richmond, Virginia, Tea Party can tell you how it was done unto them. They applied for tax exempt status, filled out a form and provided over 500 pages of documents. Then they sat around waiting for two years. Finally, they received a questionnaire from the IRS with 55 more questions. Just little non-intrusive demands, like: name all of your donors, grantors and volunteers. List how much money they gave. Describe, in detail, exactly what you used the money for. List the names of all your board members. Provide the IRS with copies of the parts of your website that only members can access. There were about 50 more, but you get the idea. Congress has scheduled the first hearing into IRS abuses for Friday. That’s two days away. It’s not soon enough.
NY Times Gets It Wrong Again
A lot of publications look to the New York Times stylebook to settle questions about how to phrase stories. But I hope they don’t use this one for a guide. In reporting the verdict in the Kermit Gosnell trial, the Times referred to the infants he murdered as “fetuses” six times. I understand that they hate to face the ugly truth about abortion, but even by their own standards, that makes no sense. Gosnell was convicted of murder of babies because the jury found that they had already been born. Even if you refuse to believe that a fetus in the womb is a baby, can’t you at least concede that a fetus in the ROOM is a baby?
More People Guilty Than Gosnell
More people feel guilty than just one abortionist…A Philadelphia jury found Dr. Kermit Gosnell guilty on three counts of first degree murder for killing babies born alive during botched abortions. But he’s not the only one who’s guilty. The media are guilty of turning a blind eye because this case didn’t fit their unexamined views on abortion. In fact, when ABC News reported the verdict, it broke a 56-day streak of not mentioning the trial at all. The state health department is guilty of allowing itself to be politicized to the point of not even inspecting abortion clinics, for fear they’d be accused of impeding the “right to choose.” Pundits are guilty of abusing the language: these weren’t botched abortions that resulted in the termination of fetuses. They were induced births that resulted in the murders of babies. And a lot of observers feel guilty after they were forced to realize there’s nothing about the birth process that magically turns a “cluster of cells” into a baby. If it’s a baby when it’s born, then it was a baby five minutes before. Gosnell could face the death penalty. His lawyer might try arguing that all human life is sacred. If so, I hope that makes him feel guilty.
Pro-life activists are hailing the guilty verdicts, which also included an involuntary manslaughter conviction for killing an adult patient. And not just because a jury didn’t buy the argument that killing a late-term baby who’s alive outside the womb is legal abortion. They also say it shines a spotlight on the type of dangerous abuse that they say isn’t isolated to Gosnell’s house of horrors, but runs rampant in abortion clinics nationwide. On the other side, pro-choice activists warned that more restrictive laws would leave to dangerous, unsanitary, back-alley abortion clinics that would kill women. You mean like the ones that the current lack of any restrictive laws on abortionists have already led to?
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Thanks for your continued interest in my efforts. I hope you enjoyed these commentaries. I will send along some more very soon.
Sincerely,
signature
Mike Huckabee
Brace yourself for sticker shock -- at your insurance agent’s office…The House Energy and Commerce Committee has released a report, based on internal documents from 17 insurance giants, including Aetna, Blue Cross and Kaiser. They estimate that when Obamacare kicks in next year, the average individual health insurance policy will go up in cost by 100 percent. For instance, the cost to a new customer of an individual policy is expected to nearly double, from about $1900 a year to over $3700. But that’s just the average. Some people will see price spikes of over 400 percent. The reason is that millions of uninsured people, many with expensive preexisting conditions, are being added to the insurance pool. At the same time, the government is mandating one-size-fits-all coverage that pays for every condition, from pregnancy to drug rehab, even if the buyer doesn’t want or need it. Gosh, if only someone had been able to predict that when you vastly increase covered medical services, it makes insurance more expensive, not cheaper. Unfortunately, that would require a tiny smidgeon of common sense. And this bill came out of Washington.
IRS Abuse
Pundits on the left are already test-marketing an excuse for the IRS targeting conservative groups. They’re arguing that after the Citizens United decision, shady groups that wanted to influence the election unduly were formed as tax-exempt organizations. Since, in their fantasies, all the suspicious ones were conservative, it makes perfect sense that the IRS would give extra scrutiny to groups with conservative terms like “tea party” in their names. Hey, they’re just trying to keep everyone ethical, right?
Well, how, exactly, were they doing that? The Richmond, Virginia, Tea Party can tell you how it was done unto them. They applied for tax exempt status, filled out a form and provided over 500 pages of documents. Then they sat around waiting for two years. Finally, they received a questionnaire from the IRS with 55 more questions. Just little non-intrusive demands, like: name all of your donors, grantors and volunteers. List how much money they gave. Describe, in detail, exactly what you used the money for. List the names of all your board members. Provide the IRS with copies of the parts of your website that only members can access. There were about 50 more, but you get the idea. Congress has scheduled the first hearing into IRS abuses for Friday. That’s two days away. It’s not soon enough.
NY Times Gets It Wrong Again
A lot of publications look to the New York Times stylebook to settle questions about how to phrase stories. But I hope they don’t use this one for a guide. In reporting the verdict in the Kermit Gosnell trial, the Times referred to the infants he murdered as “fetuses” six times. I understand that they hate to face the ugly truth about abortion, but even by their own standards, that makes no sense. Gosnell was convicted of murder of babies because the jury found that they had already been born. Even if you refuse to believe that a fetus in the womb is a baby, can’t you at least concede that a fetus in the ROOM is a baby?
More People Guilty Than Gosnell
More people feel guilty than just one abortionist…A Philadelphia jury found Dr. Kermit Gosnell guilty on three counts of first degree murder for killing babies born alive during botched abortions. But he’s not the only one who’s guilty. The media are guilty of turning a blind eye because this case didn’t fit their unexamined views on abortion. In fact, when ABC News reported the verdict, it broke a 56-day streak of not mentioning the trial at all. The state health department is guilty of allowing itself to be politicized to the point of not even inspecting abortion clinics, for fear they’d be accused of impeding the “right to choose.” Pundits are guilty of abusing the language: these weren’t botched abortions that resulted in the termination of fetuses. They were induced births that resulted in the murders of babies. And a lot of observers feel guilty after they were forced to realize there’s nothing about the birth process that magically turns a “cluster of cells” into a baby. If it’s a baby when it’s born, then it was a baby five minutes before. Gosnell could face the death penalty. His lawyer might try arguing that all human life is sacred. If so, I hope that makes him feel guilty.
Pro-life activists are hailing the guilty verdicts, which also included an involuntary manslaughter conviction for killing an adult patient. And not just because a jury didn’t buy the argument that killing a late-term baby who’s alive outside the womb is legal abortion. They also say it shines a spotlight on the type of dangerous abuse that they say isn’t isolated to Gosnell’s house of horrors, but runs rampant in abortion clinics nationwide. On the other side, pro-choice activists warned that more restrictive laws would leave to dangerous, unsanitary, back-alley abortion clinics that would kill women. You mean like the ones that the current lack of any restrictive laws on abortionists have already led to?
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Thanks for your continued interest in my efforts. I hope you enjoyed these commentaries. I will send along some more very soon.
Sincerely,
signature
Mike Huckabee