Flap's Blog – FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog

This will increase when Medicare rules go into effect and the physicans and hospitals start to bitch and moan.

For the second time this month, 60% of Likely Voters at least somewhat favor repeal of the national health care law, while the number who expect health care costs to increase is at its highest level since August.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 49% Strongly Favor repeal of the plan. Thirty-eight percent (38%) oppose the law’s repeal, including 29% who Strongly Oppose repeal.

Support for repeal has ranged from 50% to 63% in weekly tracking since the bill became law in late March. Last week, support for repeal was at 55%.

But last week also marked the first time a majority of voters believe the measure is likely to be repealed.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of voters now say the law will be bad for the country, the highest level measured since September. Thirty-six percent (36%) say the plan will be good for the country.

Since late March, those who think the law will be bad for the country have ranged from a low of 48% to a high of 57%. Those who think it will be good for America have run from 33% to 41% in the same period.

The GOP House will first hold hearings and the details of ObamaCare will sink public support. President Obama and the Democrats have played “hide the ball” with the American people with regards to their health care and I doubt this will play very well with voters, particularly Seniors.

• A Remedy for Beggar States = Public Pension Reform or Bankruptcy
  The nation's menu of crises caused by governmental malpractice may soon include states coming to Congress as mendicants, seeking relief from the consequences of their choices. Congress should forestall this by passing a bill with a bland title but explosive potential.

  Principal author of the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act is Rep. Devin Nunes, a Republican from California, where about 80 cents of every government dollar goes for government employees' pay and benefits. His bill would define the scale of the problem of underfunded state and local government pensions and would notify states not to approach Congress like Oliver Twists, holding out porridge bowls and asking for more.
  +++++
  The states will go hat in hand to the feds but there is NO money. There needs to be public pension reform and the states must cut their spending.

  (tags: Public_Pensions california)
• ObamaCare: End-of-life Advisory Incentives Return — Through Regulation
  There is, however, something at least vaguely disturbing about a government incentivizing doctors to do so as part of an expansive regulatory program that has, as one of its primary goals, cost reduction. The process used by Obama and Kathleen Sebelius to get this into ObamaCare is more disturbing, and in a very specific way. Congress made it clear that it didn’t want this incentive as part of the new law. However, thanks to the miles and miles of ambiguity in the final version of ObamaCare, with its repetitive the Secretary shall determine language, Congress has more or less passed a blank check for regulatory growth to Obama and Sebelius.

  This is just the opening gambit of a strategy Obama will use throughout the coming year in order to achieve through regulation what a Democrat-run Congress could not deliver through legislation. The new Republican House will have to use its power of the purse to stop this autocratic imposition of regulation,
  ++++
  An Obama end around

  (tags: Obamacare)
• ObamaCare: Obama to Enact End-of-Life Planning for Medicare
  When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1
  Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

  Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.
  ++++++
  Another reason why the GOP should push for repeal of ObamaCare and make Obama own this and other provisions before the 2012 elections

  (tags: Obamacare)

• Now, what about immigration reform?
  Neither Republicans nor Democrats are saying much about the defeat of the DREAM Act. It seems most Democrats would rather not bring up one of the Obama "losses" during the lame-duck session of Congress; Republicans are too busy grousing that START opposition melted like butter. The reactions of both sides suggest that keeping the immigration issue alive rather than solving the problem is uppermost in the minds of politicians.
  ++++++
  E-Verify for Employers

  Secure the border

  No free ride visas for lefty technology companies who don't want to hire Americans who make too much

  An America first immigration policy and hell to the corporations and unions that have screwed the American worker

  (tags: illegal_immigration)
• Democrats push to speed up slow Senate – Change Senate Rules
  Senate Democrats spent the lame-duck session slogging through endless motions to break filibusters, but they’re quietly maneuvering to curtail these Senate stall tactics — even though they’ll have a weaker caucus next year.

  After weeks of closed-door meetings, Democratic reformers are pushing a handful of rules changes, including a simple majority to change Senate rules at the start of a Congress, a requirement for senators to actually filibuster when they’re filibustering and a push to get rid of anonymous holds.

  +++++++

  Please do since the GOP will take back the Senate in 2012 and Dems will be in the minority.

  (tags: GOP democrats US_Senate)
• Lisa Murkowski Goes Rogue – Who Cares?
  Lisa Murkowski isn’t gunning down caribou on national TV like that other famous Alaskan, but the Republican lawmaker is going rogue in the Senate just weeks after staging the most stunning back-from-the-dead political win of the 2010 cycle.

  Murkowski is already showing a fierce independent streak, becoming the only Republican to cast votes on all four items on President Barack Obama’s wish list: a repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a tax-cut compromise, the START deal and cloture for the DREAM Act.

  ++++++

  Murkowski is a Big Government RINO anyway. Shame she was re-elected.

  But, when GOP takes over the Sente in 2012 she should have no plum committee assignments.

  (tags: Lisa_Murkowski)
• Handicapping the Republican National Committee Chair Race
  Uncertainty reigns in the race for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee despite the fact that the election to pick a new head for the party is now less than a month away.

  Conversations with a number of strategists close to the RNC — and its 168 voting members — suggest that none of the six candidates in the running are anywhere close to securing the 85 votes they need to claim the chairmanship in January.

  But, two tiers of candidates have begun to emerge with the top three seen as potential winners and the bottom three regarded as longer shots although, given the number of undecided voters and the unpredictability of the ballot process, it's hard to count anyone totally out at the moment.
  ++++++
  Anybody but Michael Steele is how I see it.

  (tags: RNC michael_steele)