BREAKING: U.S. House Passes Obamacare 219-212

With SEIU purple being the most-common theme of attire this evening in Washington, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 219-212 a little while ago to pass so-called health care reform.

All Republican lawmakers and 34 Democrat lawmakers voted against "reconciliation" with the Senate version of HCR.

From the Associated Press:

Summoned to success by President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled Congress approved historic legislation Sunday night extending health care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and cracking down on insurance company abuses, a climactic chapter in the century-long quest for near universal coverage.

Widely viewed as dead two months ago, the Senate-passed bill cleared the House on a 219-212 vote, with Republicans unanimous in opposition.

Congressional officials said they expected Obama to sign the bill as early as Tuesday.

As Investor's Business Daily notes:

If ObamaCare becomes permanent, no one will suffer more than U.S. businesses. They'll face higher taxes, more regulations and a higher cost of capital. But don't take our word for it. Go ask Caterpillar.

The heavy-equipment giant reckons its insurance costs will go up 20%, or $100 million, the first year after the health care system is overhauled, and may go even higher. Multiply that by literally tens of thousands of companies nationwide, large and small, and you can see how costs will soar.

"We can ill-afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus our global competitors," said Greg Folley, a Caterpillar vice president. "We are disappointed that efforts at reform have not addressed the cost concerns we've raised throughout the year."

[snip]

Because of these taxes and other faults in the plan, a group of 130 economists last Thursday sent President Obama a letter imploring him not to sign the bill, saying that it would be a job-killer.

"In our view," the economists wrote, "the health care bill contains a number of provisions that will eliminate jobs, reduce hours and wages, and limit future job creation."

Health reform's taxes and huge new costs will lead to semi-permanent stagnation in the U.S. economy, marked by higher unemployment and lower standards of living. [Emphasis added.]

As the bill becomes more widely read in the days ahead, we will bring you consolidated updates, as well as keeping you updated on LaborUnionReport.com.

-------------------"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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After the Uninsured, Union Members Will Get Dumped on the Government Plan Too

As the old saying goes: Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it.

Unions have been pushing for decades to get government-run, single-payer health care while, in the meantime, negotiating "rich" health benefit plans for their members.

While labor chieftains, like AFL-CIO's top boss Richard Trumka have gone 'all in' for the public option, it will be the union members' current health benefits which will be among the first to get negotiated away and dumped into a public plan.

As their leaders like to brag, many union members have some of the richest (read most expensive) health plans available on the quasi-free market.

If the union bosses have their way and a public option is passed, those "rich" plans will become a negotiating point for employers to negotiate away those expensive plans in exchange for the public option.

Union negotiators, having gone on record supporting and fighting so hard to pass such a plan, will be hard pressed with both their members and their employers to come up with an argument that is not hypocritical if they try and fight an employer demands not to utilize the public option.

This will be more the case if an employer is in a competitive market like the grocery industry, where there is tremendous cost pressures from non-union competitors.

Simply put, it all comes down to economics.

If a public option tax is a mere eight percent of an employer's payroll, and the employer is currently paying 15 percent or more for health benefits (as many companies currently do), a savvy negotiator would think nothing of offering a three or four percent increase in exchange for dumping the union members onto the public plan.

Given that the vast majority of union contracts are re-negotiated every three years, we can bet that in the first three years that the public option kicks in, the majority of union members who have their employer plans will get dumped on there rather quickly. After all, it is what the union leaders want, is it not?

It's too bad that union members don't realize that, after the uninsured and the illegal immigrants, they'll be on the list to be dumped.

Oh well. In their case, they'll reap what their leaders have sewn.

INVOKING TEDDY TO PASS A POISONOUS HEALTH CARE BILL

As the saying goes: You can put icing on a turd and call it a cupcake, but it's still a turd. Or, you can put wings on the devil and call him an angel....Well, you get the point.

Democrats, it seems, are hell-bent on passing a health care bill this year (mid-term elections are right around the corner) and their latest strategy is to use the Tuesday death of Ted Kennedy to rally the troops aroud 'KennedyCare.' The problem is, a turd is a turd.

This from ABCNews:

Democrats are hoping that the memory of Sen. Ted Kennedy will revive the Democratic Party's flagging push for health care reform.

"You've heard of 'win one for the Gipper'? There is going to be an atmosphere of 'win one for Teddy,'" Ralph G. Neas, the CEO of the liberal National Coalition on Health Care, told ABC News.

Democrats are hoping that Kennedy's influence in death may be even stronger than it was when he was alive as they push for President Obama's top domestic priority. Democratic officials hope that invoking Kennedy's passion for the issue will counter slippage in support for heatlh care reform.

"Ted Kennedy's dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a statement.

Pelosi's sentiment was echoed by former vice president Al Gore who served with Kennedy in the Senate.

REVEALED! UNION HEALTH PLANS MAY GO BROKE WITHOUT NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE

If one ever wondered why all of the unions are 'astro-turfing' for nationalization of America's health care, the answer is as simple as this: Many unions (especially the United Auto Workers) have negotiated plans that are too rich and too unsustainable, and they want America to pick up the tab.

If there is any doubt, then one should read the article 'Without Aid, Union Health Plans Face Failure' by Gannett News Service coming out this morning:

The health care debate roiling the nation promises an even greater impact in Michigan: It could determine whether the UAW’s gamble that it can insure 850,000 retirees from Detroit’s automakers pays off or goes bust.

Thanks to Detroit’s twin auto bankruptcies and other concessions, the UAW’s voluntary employee benefit association, or VEBA, had to take stock of unknown value for $24 billion in claims, while adding thousands of early retirees to its rolls.

Outside experts estimate the funds have about 30 cents in cash for every dollar of future claims, with no guarantee of what its stock assets will be worth. Lance Wallach, a New York-based VEBA expert, said if the funds “don’t get something, they’re out of business in 12 years.”

That something may be national health care reform.

We blogged about the Hidden Union Bailout in the Health Care Bill on Friday and asked the question:

Did the United Auto Workers know when they negotiated concessions on their VEBA in exchange for ownership in General Motors and Chrysler that the their friends in Congress and the Obama Administration would make it up to them with the health care bill?

The answer may be in Gannett's article.

VEBA-expert Wallach states: “I really think” the UAW “were gambling there would be some health care nationalization.”

The question posed again: Did the UAW know (through inside sources) that their friends in Washington would throw them a second bailout in the health care bill when they negotiated for GM and Chrylser stocks?

Thus, as the saying goes: Follow the money. Especially if one wonder's why the unions are clamoring for nationalized health care wth such fervor.

Read the entire Gannett article here.

THOSE DEATH PANELS WE'RE HEARING ABOUT? THEY'RE ALREADY HERE.

Erick over at Redstate.com posted this earlier. The death panels we're hearing about during the debate over nationalizing America's health care system is already happening...only, right now, it's confined to the state level.

KENNEDY, MISSED IN HEALTH CARE DEBATE, MAY NOT BE COMING BACK

Missing from the Senate for much of the last 15 months, since being diagnosed with brain cancer, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) may not be going back to Washington.

According to Politico, a Democratic insider is quoted as saying, “Nobody seems to have any details. It just seems like [Kennedy] is not coming back.”

This apparently does not bode well for Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid or President Obama as they try to hold their coalition together in order for the federal government to take over health care.

Throughout his career, Kennedy has been known for reaching compromises within his own party and with Republicans, as he did during the Bush years over the “No Child Left Behind Act” and immigration-reform legislation. Without his presence, some Republicans previously seen as key to advancing a bipartisan health deal are keeping their distance from Democrats.

Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton University, said Kennedy could help push health care reform over the hurdles it faces by supplying the public passion on the issue that he said Obama has failed to deliver so far.

Now, Zelizer said, Kennedy could be a critical conduit on Capitol Hill, both to Senate Republicans and the Democratic liberal base, and Kennedy could use his political weight to support Obama in the public debates over the issue.

“I think that’s been very harmful,” Zelizer said of Kennedy’s absence.

While the Kennedy name has for two or more generations symbolized a political dynasty in America, it appears Ted Kennedy's days in the Senate are behind him. However, in the end, this may not be a bad thing if stopping the nationalization of health care and further frustrating the efforts to pass the no-vote unionization bill (otherwise known as the oxymoronically-named Employee Free Choice Act) is the result.

AS AMERICA CONSIDERS A GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER OF HEALTH CARE...

As America is currently embroiled in a debate on whether or not to embrace socialized medicine, her next door neighbor Canada is having troubles with its own socialized medical system.

Dr. Anne Doig, the incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association, said her country’s health care system is “sick” and “imploding,” the Canadian Press reported.

“We know there must be change,” Doig said in a recent interview. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”

Canada’s universal health care system is not giving patients optimal care, Doig added. When her colleagues from across the country gather at the CMA conference in Saskatoon Sunday, they will discuss changes that need to be made, she said.

And this woman discusses how her father was killed by his government health care system:

THIS IS IMPORTANT: HEALTH CARE FIGHT MAY HINGE ON AFL-CIO CONVENTION

Do you want to know "who" is controlling the direction the health care debate is heading? Here's a hint: It's not Barack Obama, Harry Reid, or even Nacy Pelosi.

If you guessed that the unions are the ones controlling the debate, you would have guessed right.

From Workday Minnesota comes this interesting piece indicating who is controlling the current healthcare debate.

With one month to go before September’s national AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, the biggest floor fight there may be over health care. And that floor fight, in turn, could affect the whole health care battle on Capitol Hill and nationally.

That’s because while the federation has supported and actively campaigned for legislation based on the principles of universality, cost controls, choosing your own doctor and a government-run alternative to the insurance companies, 552 labor bodies -- from international unions down to local councils -- want to go in a different direction: A government-run single-payer Medicare-like system.

So if the AFL-CIO yanks its support for legislation being considered in Congress, and backed by Democratic President Barack Obama, that legislation could sink.

As of Aug. 10, four days before the resolutions deadline, single-payer health care coverage advocates had sent 40 draft resolutions backing the bill (HR 676, S 703) to the AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer’s office. One was from the California School Employees Association, a union that sits on the AFL-CIO Executive Council.

While dozens of union groups back single-payer, the Executive Council has not -- so far. That may change, a CSEA council rep previously told Press Associates.

Backers include the Steelworkers, CSEA, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and more than a dozen other AFL-CIO unions. Several, but not
those three, call single-payer one of several alternative roads to health care reform. Other labor bodies sending single-payer resolutions to the AFL-CIO include two central labor councils in the greater Cleveland area (the Dayton-Miami Valley AFL-CIO and the Erie-Crawford Pa., CLC), two in the Iron Range (the Duluth AFL-CIO and the Marquette County, Mich., Labor Council), the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, many California central labor councils and the Wisconsin and South Carolina state feds.

The resolutions are blunt, with a model version, from Troy, N.Y., blasting the health insurance companies. The Troy CLC’s resolution not only supports the single-payer bill by long-time Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., but bars the AFL-CIO from taking a fall-back stand in favor of a “public option” in a wider health care reform plan.

If passed, the single-payer resolutions would put the federation on record as trashing and abolishing the private insurers and their high co-pays, premiums and deductibles, denial of care and resulting 101,000 deaths from refusal to pay for care. [Ephasis added.]

This is noteworthy because, if the AFL-CIO goes along with the single-payer option (aka full socialized medicine), as opposed to the quasi-socialistic "public option", with the newly-annointed (and much more vocal) AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka at the helm, there will be much more heated rhetoric following the federation's convention.

However, if there is no consensus (which is doubtful), then President Obama's push to pass PelosiCare will be ran off the tracks without key union support.

'DISINFORMATION'...(IN THEIR OWN WORDS)

An interesting video from GOP.gov using taped clips of Obama and several Democrats' as they advocate for "single-payor" (also known as socialized medicine)...

Reminds us of that whole argument over depends what "is" is...

THIS CONGRESSWOMAN CARES ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK...REALLY...

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is so moved by her constituents concern over the government takeover of America's health care that she...

...well, see for yourself:

NOTHING FISHY HERE: OBAMA'S PLAN WILL LEAD TO SOCIALIZED MEDICINE

We have been saying since last October that then-candidate Barack Obama's plan would lead to full-blown socialized medicine. In fact, in a blog post on October 15th, we stated:

Here's a prediction: Within five years (if not sooner), the U.S. will have full-blown socialized medicine under President Barack Obama.

Now, like many, you might say: Obama's plan doesn't call for socialized medicine.

Well, in response, we'd like to reply: It doesn't need to. However, here's how Obama's plan will result in total and complete socialized medicine.

Obama has a plan that he likes to brag about. You can check it out here on his website. At first glance, the plan sounds too good to be true. Well, that's because it
is.

Simply put, here's how the plan will work:

Develop the government plan to cover the uninsured. Companies (and individuals), as Obama like to say, will be able to keep their own insurance plan if they choose.

Obama's Plan: Bleed 'Em Until They Change Their Minds

However--and here's the catch--Companies will have to pick up 100% of the tab for their employee's insurance. Now since most companies today have their employees pick up some portion of their health care costs (usually ranging from 10 to 30%), the cost increases to employers will be astronomical......Or, employers can pay 6% of their payroll to "opt in" to the government plan.

Since smaller employers are having a harder and harder time today paying the health care costs for their employees, they'll be the first to opt in to the government plan. Then you'll see larger ones to the same as those larger employers will find the government's plan to be a cheaper alternative (at first), causing them to dump their employees into the government plan.

It really is a simple (and devilish) plan that requires no more reasoning than a child can deduce using simple logic.

Now, Erick at Red State writes that You Won’t Be Able to Keep Your Insurance:

The Heritage Foundation (where I work) last month asked The Lewin Group, a highly respected health care policy and management consulting firm, to examine the impact of H.R. 3200 on private insurance. Lewin reported 88.1 million Americans could be transitioned out of their current plan as employers opt out of continuing their existing coverage. The chart below reveals the consequences for people living in Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

If people had listened (and thought) about what the candidates were stating during last year's campaigns, all of the fiesty town hall meetings might have been a moot point.

ARE AMERICANS PROTESTING PELOSI-CARE NAZIS?...

APPARENTLY, THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE THINKS SO!



So, let's get this straight: If you oppose socialized medicine and dare to show up to a "town hall"...You're a Nazi???

And, then there's Botox Boxer claiming that protestors are only out to "hurt our president..."



Perhaps Ms. Boxer really thinks this...Or, more likely, she is doing spin control over the outrage many Americans have with fact that America is headed toward a socialized state.

10.2 BILLION REASONS WHY UNIONS ARE SPENDING $15 MILLION ON AUGUST ADS FOR SOCIALIZED MEDICINE...

Here's a question: If you could make $10.2 billion by investing $15 million of someone else's money, would you do it?

You'd be a fool not to, right?

Well, this month, pushers of government-run health care will be spending, according to The Hill, between $10 and $20 million to on advertising to twist lawmakers arms to support socialized medicine. Of that, The Hill says that up to $15 million is coming from unions.

Much of the grassroots activity and television ads will be aimed at persuading centrist Democrats and Republicans to support the creation of a robust government-run health insurance program. Many centrists have balked at the cost of pending healthcare proposals and are reluctant to embrace government competition in the insurance markets.

The AFL-CIO and affiliated unions are planning a massive dual offensive on healthcare reform and labor law reform in August, budgeting $10 to $15 million on the effort, according to a senior labor official. The labor unions’ advocacy will consist of mass mailings, running phone banks and distributing policy fliers at worksites. “This is expensive stuff,” said Gerald Shea, Assistant to the President for Governmental Affairs at the AFL-CIO, who provided a rough estimate of the cost of August activities. Shea said the effort would be conducted by the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions and would focus on healthcare reform and the Employee Free Choice Act.

Health Care for America Now, whose members include ACORN, AFL-CIO, Campaign for America’s Future, the Center for American Progress, MoveOn.org, the NAACP, and the Service Employees International Union, will hold national neighborhood canvassing days on Aug. 8 and on Aug. 22.

To date, however, no one has bothered to ask the question: WHY?

What do the unions have to gain from spending money taken from workers (in the form of union dues) and sending ACORN (and allies of their ilk) out canvassing America's neighborhoods to push for government-run health care?

As the saying goes, follow the money.

The answer why unions are spending up to $15 million of their members' is simple: More dues.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

• As the largest industry in 2006, health care provided 14 million jobs—13.6 million jobs for wage and salary workers and about 438,000 jobs for the self-employed.
• 7 of the 20 fastest growing occupations are health care related.
• Health care will generate 3 million new wage and salary jobs between 2006 and 2016, more than any other industry.

Since government workers are the fastest growth area for unions, once health care workers become government workers and, should the private-industry destroying Employee Free Choice Act become law, this lethal combination will mean nearly the entire health care profession will quickly become unionized. (Currently, the industry is less than 20% unionized.)

If you assume union dues will be an average of $50 per month, then multiply it by 17 million workers, you'll find that unions stand to reap an astronomical amount of union dues. In fact, unions stand to rake in around $850,000,000 per month or $10,200,000,000 (that's $10.2 Billion) per year in union dues alone. And that's not even counting the initiation fees many unions will require new health care workers to pay.

So, now you know when that community organizer from ACORN shows up at your doorstep, or you see another union-sponsored sob story ad on your TV trying to convince you socialized medicine is best thing since the atom bomb: Follow the money.

IBD: Congress' New Health Plan Makes Private Insurance Illegal

We have been warning for quite some time that then-candidate Barack Obama's plan to re-engineer Amierca's health care system would lead us into full-blown socialized medicine. Well, we hate to say 'we told you so', but we were right.

Investor's Business Daily has found the page within the 1,018-page Congressional bill that outlaws you from buying private health insurance--and it's right on page 16.

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.

It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

To read the entire piece, go here.

As we've said all along, like it or not, socialized medicine is in the works.