Michele Bachmann: God will ‘answer our prayers’ to repeal Obamacare

On Tuesday, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann said that God will repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare), thereby answering the prayers of many conservative Christians.

During an interview with the Family Talk host James Dobson, also the founder of Focus on the Family, Rep. Bachmann said, “I think the President will ultimately be forced to repudiate his own signature piece of legislation, because the American people will demand it, and I think before his second term is over, we’re going to see a miracle before our eyes. I believe God is going to answer our prayers, and we’ll be freed from the yoke of Obamacare.”

Bachmann also noted, right before making this remark, that the House or Representatives has voted 37 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Yes, for the 37th time, the House has voted to repeal the P.P.A.C.A., and almost every time it has gone through the House. However, Bachmann also said, “We have two more steps,” meaning that the Senate also has to vote to repeal the act, and then they either need the President’s signature, which President Obama has repeatedly said that he would never repeal his own signature legislation even if it did somehow get to his desk, or a two-thirds majority in both houses overriding a presidential veto.

Assuming this actually does happen, that the Affordable Care Act is somehow repealed (which would never happen in the current makeup of the Congress), why was God choose to spend His time repealing a piece of legislation and not helping those being struck by tornadoes across the Midwest?

Were the prayers of Michele Bachmann and other Republicans in Congress louder or more faithful? Were they in more dire of a need than those who were praying while waiting for an F5 tornado to rip through their towns, destroying their homes and killing their family?

She immediately went on to say, “We serve a mighty God, and I believe it can happen.”

A “mighty God” that cares more about you winning points with your constituents than about His children dying.

This is the kind of arrogance that many Christians have. When God does something good for them, He’s blessing them. When God does something terrible, like sending a tornado through an elementary school, He’s testing us, or we could have been more faithful or prayed harder. They think God’s will is exactly that of their own, and if it doesn’t line up perfectly, well I guess “God works in mysterious ways,” like letting children die.

You can listen to Dobson’s interview with Bachmann here.

Government Competition To Grow Economy?

Government control of all industry is communism. Government control of certain industries but government regulation of others is socialism (I personally adhere to this). Government control of little to no industries is capitalism. Instead of any of these where the government controls, or doesn’t, industries for the benefit of the people/consumer/worker/etc., what about the government being involved in these industries as a form of competition to spur growth and innovation?

Something similar to this was proposed with the public option, where those who could not afford private insurance could opt to have government subsidised health insurance. During the debate surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” the public option was scrapped in place of an individual mandate that required all Americans to have a form or private insurance or face a penalty.

The argument made in favour of the individual mandate, which was proposed by Republicans in place of the public option (I cannot stress that enough), was that private insurers would not be able to compete with a form of insurance that was built to be non-profit. All, if not most, of their clients would go for cheaper healthcare and still get similar results.

So? What is so bad about that?

If Republicans and conservatives think that competition is good, would it not be best to have such harsh competition so that private health insurers have to cut the costs of their plans and improve benefits, thereby benefiting the consumer? Why not have government competition from the auto industry and computers and everything else in between? Government competition will make private industries have to constantly do better than their competition, spurring technological and economical growth and innovation.

Let’s say General Motors all of a sudden becomes Government Motors (some have actually called it that since the auto bailouts),  which is now basically a department of the federal government, and begins researching, designing (with tax-payer money), and eventually putting out cars that are cheap, extremely fuel-efficient (if not hybrids or electric), and built to last; all of which is not profit driven, similar to the public option. That would drive companies like Ford, Toyota, Honda, etc. to make better cars than GM.

The same can be said of any industry. Government starts making computers better than Apple or HP or anyone. Internet service which is faster and more reliable. Food which is organically and ethically grown. Medicine. Furniture. Television. Houses and apartments. Mortgages and loans. Whatever else is out there. This is not to make someone rich. This is to legitimately benefit the people who cannot afford certain things or have a hard time doing it.

These are just ideas that have sprung up from talking to people. What are your thoughts? Should the government get involved in certain industries, not to turn a profit, but to provide goods and services to the people in cost-effective ways so as to improve the quality of life for everyone, not just those who can afford it?

Democrats Respond to GOP Lies About Obamacare

With the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare), saying that the individual mandate is constitutional because of the federal government’s taxing ability, Republicans are saying that the President Obama and Democrats have broken their promise to not raise taxes on the middle class. Democrats have responded with, basically, “We’re doing the same thing Mitt Romney did.”

The Congressional Budget Office says that the individual mandate, which again was proposed by Republicans as an alternative to the much preferred public option, is estimated as affecting a little more than one percent of the entire US population, which is those who can buy healthcare but refuse to, in which case they will be fined for it. According to the Washington Post, “When the individual mandate is fully phased-in, those who can afford coverage — which is defined as insurance costing less than 8 percent of their annual income — but choose to forgo it will have to pay either $695 or 2.5 percent of the annual income, whichever is greater.”

In a 2009 op-ed for the for USA Today, Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney wrote, “Our experience also demonstrates that getting every citizen insured doesn’t have to break the bank. First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others. This doesn’t cost the government a single dollar.” Mitt Romney, the Republican Presidential Candidate, was at the forefront of the idea for an individual mandate.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said during an interview on Meet The Press, “The penalty is on people who have the wherewithal but refuse to buy health insurance, figuring they won’t be sick and if they do, other people will have to cover it. So these free riders — as they were identified by Governor Romney himself, he said that people who have the ability to pay and don’t can’t expect to be free riders. And I think he had it exactly right.”

However, we would not even be fighting over the individual mandate the Republicans hate so much if Republicans had not proposed it and done away with the public option supported by President Obama, and we would not be fighting over people having to pay penalties for not having health insurance if we had a single-payer system where everyone was guaranteed healthcare. That would be socialism though, and we can’t have that. I don’t even know what that is, but Sean Hannity tells me that it’s bad.

Republicans keep spreading lies and misinformation about the Affordable Care Act, because they know that is the only way to get rid of it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Fox News that the Supreme Court has “unearthed the massive deception that was practiced by the president and the Democrats, constantly denying that it was a tax.” They denied it being a tax, because it is not a tax. It is a penalty. Even their own presidential candidate once said that, but of course Mitt Romney will flip-flop and say something else in order to beat President Obama come the Fall.

“Obamacare” Upheld by Supreme Court

I am sure it is of no surprise at this point to anyone that the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” was recently ruled constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote. I actually got the news when I was listening to NPR during work, where they originally had said that it had been struck down. Apparently, CNN and Fox did the same thing, and President Obama was watching both of those.

The Affordable Care Act barely passed through Congress and was eagerly signed by President Obama in March of 2010. Key aspects of the ACA were to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, letting children stay on their parents’ healthcare plans until they turn 26, mandating that everyone in the country obtain healthcare or face a penalty, and much more.

The mandate was the centrepiece that was decided on today. Is it constitutional to mandate that Americans have a form of healthcare in order to prevent emergency room visits that our tax dollars go towards covering? According to Chief Justice Roberts and four other justices, yes.

However, it is not because of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which President Obama and Congressional Democrats used as a justification for the mandate, saying that because healthcare is a business that crosses state lines, the federal government can regulate it. It is because of the Taxing and Spending Clause, of all things. The logic behind Roberts’ decision was that the federal government does have the authority to tax people who do not have health insurance. They essentially replaced the word “penalty” with “tax,” which some conservatives are upset about, saying they are playing political, word tricks and legislating from the bench.

One surpsising thing about the ruling was that Justice Kennedy, who 95% of the time (which is no hyperbole) sides with the majority, was in the minority on this very important decision, along with Justices Thomas (who has ties to health insurance companies that opposed healthcare reform), Scalia (who often complains about politicised judges, even though he is by far the most politicised judge in the Supreme Court), and Alito (not much to say about him).

The left, especially President Obama, is very pleased with Supreme Court’s ruling, obviously, calling it a “victory for all people over this country.” The right is extremely unhappy (which is a severe understatement), and Mitt Romney, John Boehner, and many others in Washington are saying that the only remedy now is to repeal “Obamacare.” Of course, conservatives are crying that the Supreme Court is legislating from the bench or being purely political and not being Constitutional in their rulings, because they did not rule in their favour (even though liberals do the same thing, probably just as much).

Romney only wants parts of it repealed, leaving the parts about staying on a parent’s plan for longer, not denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, and more. At that point, nothing will really have been repealed but the mandate, which conservatives in Congress proposed as a replacement for the president’s original plan of having a public option. Their reasoning was that healthcare companies would be able to make up for the loss in profits with the now 30 million new customers, and companies were fine with having that tradeoff.

Boehner and the Congressional Republicans want all of it repealed, yes, even the parts that are clearly beneficial. They immediately called for a measure to repeal the law once the news broke. That vote will take place in the House in a months time. It may pass the conservative House (most likely), but it may not be able to pass the just barely Democrat controlled Senate, and especially not a presidential veto.

This does not settle the issue of healthcare. This was just one stepping stone on the way to a single-payer system. House Democrats even said, if the Affordable Care Act was ruled unconstitutional, that they would propose a universal healthcare system for the United States, what they called “Medicaid for all.” This would more than likely fail in the Republican controlled House. One can only hope come 2012 that true progressives and liberals are put into office and America can finally put forth real, universal healthcare that will benefit everyone. That may just be wishful thinking by a bleeding heart liberal.