Missourians debate the repudiation of Obamacare

Almost three-fourths of Missourians who went to the polls on Tuesday, August 3, voted to repudiate President Obama’s mandate that everyone must buy health insurance.

Although largely symbolic, it send a resounding message to Washington:  ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Get out of our pockets.  Get out of our lives.

That’s the message Americans seem to overwhelmingly be sending to Washington.  Except for those who live in the northeastern seaboard states.  Go figure.

Here’s a link to the article Missouri rejects Obamacare

Healthcare reform made easy

At first thought, you may be thinking: What a monstrosity. But guess what? There’s more.

According to the website of Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex), this chart only summarizes about 1/3 (one-third) of the known bureaucratic rules known to exist! The rest, they couldn’t fit onto a page and make it readable.

If this isn’t a bureaucratic nightmare, I don’t know what is.

According to Rep. Brady’s site:

Brownback, the committee’s ranking member, added, “This updated chart illustrates the overwhelming expansion of government control over health choices and the bewildering complexity facing everyone affected by this law. It doesn’t take long to see how the recently signed health care bill causes a hugely expensive and explosive expansion of federal control over health care. Personal choices that should be between a doctor and a patient will quickly be strangled in a never ending web of bureaucracy.”

Senate Steering Committee Chairman Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) called Obamacare “a bureaucratic nightmare. The Democrats’ takeover of health care creates a byzantine network of 159 new federal programs and bureaucracies to make decisions that should be between just the patient and their doctor. It should concern everyone that at the center of this regulatory web is the new CMS chief, Donald Berwick, who has championed rationing and European socialized medicine. Americans were rightly outraged that this big government bill was rushed through Congress before anyone read or fully understood the bill’s consequences. Republicans will fight to repeal this reckless takeover and to ensure health care freedom to American families.”

In addition to capturing the massive expansion of government and the overwhelming complexity of new regulations and taxes, the chart portrays:

*$569 billion in higher taxes;
*$529 billion in cuts to Medicare;
*swelling of the ranks of Medicaid by 16 million;
*17 major insurance mandates; and
*the creation of two new bureaucracies with powers to impose future rationing: the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the Independent Payments Advisory Board.

Brady admits committee analysts could not fit the entire health care bill on one chart. “This portrays only about one-third of the complexity of the final bill. It’s actually worse than this.”

click here for your own copy of the chart (PDF) – you may need it to follow along at home.

The Heritage Foundation lays it on the line in response to the president claiming that his plan builds on a model of the reform package espoused by the Foundation.

The Obama health-care law “builds” on the Heritage health reform model only in the sense that, say, a double-quarter-pounder with cheese “builds” on the idea of a garden salad. Both have lettuce and tomato and may be called food, but the similarities end there.

This is why we at the Heritage Foundation respectfully ask President Obama and his acolytes to stop misrepresenting our research. We think this massive health law is abominable and should be repealed. And until Congress repeals it, lawmakers should starve this monstrosity of taxpayer funds.

I wonder if he’ll get the message?