What is the big deal about isolationism? Seems that Ron Paul raised attention to it as his philosphy and many people believe him.

I got into a discussion with someone on the Founding Fathers and “foreign entanglements”.

This someone is an isolationist. I believe in participation of peace, harmony, commerce, and honest relationship. I don’t believe in spreading our values to other countries but I believe in war against those countries that pose threats against our country.

To me, “Foreign entanglements” are spats between children, iow, spats between countries. We can trade with both but we don’t take sides.

And I think that is what our Founding Fathers meant.

If that is the case, then that’s a whole lotta different from invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What do you think?

The Republicans had better NOT vote on vapor bills.

RedState seems to think that the Republicans are capitulating to Obamacare.

The vote on Baucus’ bill is tomorrow?

The internet is alive with the sound of people analyzing the CBO’s “scoring” of the Max Baucus aka Senate Finance Committee Health Care Bill. Before everyone gets too deeply into their thoughts, please keep in mind the following (get ready, all CAPS, bold, indented signifies a really important concept):

THERE IS NO BAUCUS BILL.

The CBO scored the concepts described by the Baucus Committee. There is no legislative text. None. Baucus and his Democratic colleagues refused to reduce their concepts to actual legislation prior to a vote. Here is the CBO’s disclaimer:

CBO and JCT’s analysis is preliminary in large part because the Chairman’s mark, as amended, has not yet been embodied in legislative language.

The actual legislation will be drafted in secret by Harry Reid and a few other people, including staffers whose names and political connections you never will know, and the resulting legislation will be rammed through the Senate and House before anyone gets to read and analyze it.

Months of debate mean nothing. It’s all smoke and mirrors by people who think you are too stupid to realize what is going on.

Read the full article:
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/10/there-is-no-baucus-bill.html

For young people those plans are good, they really are. And so are Health Savings Accounts.

Not all states let you buy that kind of insurance, that is part of the problem. My understanding is that under Obamacare, there will be no high deductible plans. They want specific kinds of plans. So much for the promise, that you can keep your insurance if you like it.

Yesterday, the CBO scored the Baucus “concept” and gave a preliminary analysis that it would reduce the deficit by $81 billion over 10 years. However, the CBO insisted that this was only a conceptual analysis, as none of the Baucus plan has been translated into legislative language as of yet. Until the legislative language exists, the CBO cannot properly score its impact.

The CBO relied on a couple of flawed assumptions in making that conceptual analysis. It took at face value Baucus’ notion that an excise tax on insurers offering “Cadillac plans” would raise over $201 billion in revenue, although it did shorten that by over $50 billion in the ten year period. As I have written before, that tax will push insurers to drop those plans to avoid the excise tax — and even if they didn’t, the insurers would have to hike premiums so high to cover that cost that no one would buy the plans. The House has insisted that they will not vote for this tax in any case, which leaves Baucus two different ways to not get that revenue.

However, Baucus has also included a little sleight-of-hand in this scenario. While the program itself would not start until 2013, the taxes start in 2010. That means the CBO compared seven years of expenses to ten years of revenue, which hardly makes for an apples-to-apples comparison, and will likely mean that the real analysis — which will contain a projection for the second decade as well as the first — will look much less positive for Baucus.

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the government will receive the following revenues in the three years preceding the implementation of his plan:

* 2010 – $8 billion
* 2011 – $10.3 billion
* 2012 – $10.9 billion

That comprises almost $30 billion of the so-called savings from the CBO conceptual analysis. (Big thanks to Keith Hennessey for the link to the Senate document.) If that revenue fails to meet expectations, it will impact the entire ten-year scope of the project, not just the $30 billion head start it gets in the first three years. Plus, it’s worth noting that these taxes will get paid not by the insurers, but by consumers in higher premium prices as the costs spiral out of sight. This does not reduce the costs in the system, but increases them and shifts them around to keep them opaque to the taxpayer — which is the actual problem we face with health-care costs.

Yesterday I did some research on what it would cost to Medically insure a couple, nonsmoking, healthy. A PPO, with a $7500 deductible was $97.00 a month. It had a $7 million ceiling, offered 3 doctor visits a year for each, co-pay $30.00 and other wellness benefits. This insurance is cheaper then my house insurance, then my property tax, a little more then insuring 2 cars, is cheaper then my supplemental medicare insurance. Yes it doesn’t cover everything, but it is very affordable……..what is the problem?

They also ignored the fact that the benefits do not kick in until 2013, but the taxes start right away…that means that for their ten year projection, they had 3 years with money coming and none going out..the next 10 years will be a different story.

What will this bill cost in years 11-20? How are they going to cut medicare by $404 billion without a cutting services? Death panels anyone?

Kathie is right: there is a $6 billion tax increase on health insurance providers. There is a $4 billion tax increase on Medical Device manufacturers. No wonder Medtronic has come out against ObamaCare.

How do you reduce the deficit by $81 billion when you spend $829 billion? Answer: you raise taxes by $910 billion. Like kathie said above: you tax insurance companies. You tax people who don’t have insurance. You tax anything that moves.

$910 billion tax increase in the middle of the great recession!!! What are these people thinking???? Will that be great for the recovery???????