You want the feds to run our health care system?

They can’t even effectively run a website!

No less than the Old Gray Lady, among the most liberal of left-wing rags, The New York Times reported President Barack “Opaque” Obama’s Office of Management and Budget can’t seem to accurately keep the American public informed of where taxpayers’ money is being spent.

As a Senator, the President “pushed through the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA) setting up a kind of “Google-for-government” website” that was to bring about a new era in transparent government. According to a Government Accountability Office audit, USAspending.gov isn’t what then-Senator Obama promised, even though his own OMB is now tasked with keeping American taxpayers informed.

The GAO audit states that OMB has failed to include subcontractor awards on the website, a requirement of FFATA. Further, GAO found nearly one-third of agencies failed to report information that belongs on the website. “These agencies, which include the Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, stated that they plan to report future awards as required,” according to the audit summary.

But that’s not all. GAO picked 100 federal contracts at random to evaluate compliance with FFATA’s requirements. EVERY contract in the random sample “had at least one required data field that was blank or inconsistent with agency records” on the website.

It’s obvious even the omniscient Obama’s federal bureaucracy can’t effectively administer a website intended to tell us where our money is being spent. Add this to list of pathetically managed federal entities that includes the Post Office, Amtrak, Medicare, and Social Security.

How could anyone entrust their health and well-being to the incompetent fools who can’t even operate a website effectively?

Health Care Transparency and the 61st Vote

The following is an email from Senator John Thune (R-SD)

Dear Friends, Thank you to those of you who’ve signed my petition against the Democrats’ health care bill. I am leading the Republican charge to open health care reform negotiations to public scrutiny and challenging Senate Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to allow C-SPAN to televise the closed-door negotiations going on between Senate and House Democrats and the White House. During the presidential campaign in 2008 President Obama said of health care reform, “… we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.” Yet, that is not what has happened.  Instead, the Democrats are negotiating this 2,000 + page bill among themselves and locking Republicans and the American people out. I’m working to change that.  Read the letter my Republican colleagues and I sent to Senator Harry Reid. Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has called into question the savings Democrats claim would result from their bill and has pointed out that health care costs under the bill will actually increase by more than $200 billion. Of the purported “savings” in the bill, the report uses terms like “unrealistic”, “doubtful”, and “difficult to obtain,” as well as saying that the bill could lead to “price increases, cost-shifting, and/or changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.” That’s why I will continue to oppose the bill and will do all I can to see it defeated, along with all 39 of my Republican colleagues in the Senate. If you want to know what you can do to help, in addition to contacting your elected representatives again, there’s only one additional thing I know of we can do:  help deny the Democrats their 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. One week from today Massachusetts will elect a new Senator in a special election.  Like me, Republican State Senator Scott Brown vehemently opposes the Democrats’ health care legislation and will vote to stop it, work to send it back to the drawing board and try to enact real reform that will lower costs without spending trillions of dollars and raising billions in new taxes we can’t afford. Please help us defeat this bill by visiting Scott Brown’s website and making an online donation to his campaign today.  I have sent a contribution to him, and I hope you will consider doing the same. The polls have shown the race in a dead heat.  The Wall Street Journal says of him, “Mr. Brown … has been running against Washington’s blowout spending and has called for a freeze on the wages of federal employees.”  And, “The mere fact that Democrats have to fight so hard to save Ted Kennedy’s seat shows how badly they have misjudged America by governing so far to the left.” In an editorial the Boston Herald noted, “… if you’re not happy with the status quo, if you think the way business is being conducted on Capitol Hill today is a disgrace and an affront to taxpayers, then you probably agree it’s time for a change.  Scott Brown can single-handedly deliver on that kind of change and the Herald is pleased to endorse his candidacy in the race for U.S. Senate.” I couldn’t agree more, and I hope that you do also. Thank you again for getting involved and helping us make a difference.  I sincerely appreciate your interest and support. Sincerely, John Thune U.S. Senator

Opaquely Transparent Democrats Strike Again!

Apparently some of those anti-socialist, profit-seeking special interest groups got to Democratic Senators in their closed-door meetings and inserted language into Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Obamacare bill that will allow insurance companies to place annual limits on benefits to cover costly medical conditions.

That’s right!  The supposedly compassionate, caring, sympathetic, empathetic Democrats gave ear to insurance company interests who want to make a profit on their policies.  From the AP article, Health care loophole would allow coverage limits.

A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer, prompting a rebuke from patient advocates. The legislation that originally passed the Senate health committee last summer would have banned such limits, but a tweak to that provision weakened it in the bill now moving toward a Senate vote. As currently written, the Senate Democratic health care bill would permit insurance companies to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care, as long as those limits are not “unreasonable.” The bill does not define what level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration officials.

Then of course, in the now commonplace Democratic example of so-called transparency, nobody seems to know who changed the language in the bill! It seems these jackasses aren’t quite clear on the definition of transparent.

Officials of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network said they were taken by surprise when the earlier ban on annual coverage limits was undercut, adding that they have not been able to get a satisfactory explanation. “We don’t know who put it in, or why it was put in,” said Stephen Finan, a policy expert with the cancer society’s advocacy affiliate. Democratic officials of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee would not comment publicly but said the bill contains numerous provisions that will benefit patients with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses, not to mention improvements in preventive care.

And, of course, the ever opaquely transparent Democratic dishonesty continues in the form of a linguistic shell game designed to confuse and confound the American people. It’s as if the Dems’ promise the people an immediate $1000 benefit and simultaneously take away $10000 in benefits next year.

Democrats have touted a series of consumer protections as immediate benefits Americans will secure through the legislation. Both the Senate and House bills, for example, ban lifetime limits on the dollar value of coverage. But Finan said the change in the Senate bill essentially invalidates the legislation’s ban on lifetime limits. “If you can have annual limits, saying there’s no lifetime limits becomes meaningless,” he said. A patient battling aggressive disease in its later stages could conceivably exhaust insurance benefits in the course of a year.

Not to mention the fact that no one lives forever! If you’re 35 and a $100,000 annual limit was placed on your insurance benefits, you’ve certainly got a lifetime limit of less than $10 million because it’s pretty much certain you won’t live to be 135.

And now we’re told a group of 10 Senators has come up with a compromise that strips the bill of its public option, but they won’t let the American people see it!

Kill this bill and make them let us in on what they have planned for OUR health care system!

Help Grade Obama’s First 6 Months!

I received an email from Michael Steele and the RNC with an opportunity to help let the world know just how much Americans hate Obama’s Socialist movement. Rate the President on his performance over the past six months on:

Economy

National Security

Transparency & Ethics

Media Spin

Rewarding Special Interests

Taxes & Spending

Here’s the email from Michael Steele:

Dear John, It’s now been six months in office for our learn-on-the-job Chief Executive. And this is your opportunity to give Barack Obama a six-month report card. How is he doing on the economy? How about national security, health care, and the other crucial issues that America faces? You can assign your own grades to President Obama here, and check out the results from fellow Republicans across the country. Let Barack Obama and his Democrat allies know how YOU rate their handling of the difficult challenges we face. Do it today! Sincerely, Michael Steele Chairman, Republican National Committee P.S. John, you and the Republican Party are all that stand between the Obama Democrats and further erosion of our liberty and security. That’s why I hope you’ll take this opportunity after grading Barack Obama to help support principled, commonsense Republican candidates who will offer America’s voters a better way forward by making an online contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500 or $1,000 to the RNC today. Thank you.

Take the opportunity to give Obama his grade today!

What about transparency Mr. President?

Sometimes I think the President and his cohorts must think the words transparent and opaque are synonyms.  It’s so often they practice the latter and claim the former they must be truly confused.  Another case in point leapt out at me today as I perused the headlines.

We (conservatives) are making progress in our campaign to keep the government’s hands off our health care.  Reuters is reporting public support for Obama’s plan for a government-run system is eroding.  In April, 57% of adults polled supported the President’s reform plan. Today, less than half–49%–believe another government bureaucracy is needed to make our health care system more efficient and less costly.  The number of Americans who disapprove of such a mess has risen from 29% to 44% since April.

For those of us who don’t want to see the health care system run by the same crowd who runs Social Security, Medicare, the Post Office, and the TSA’s airport security, this is great news.  Support is slipping for Obama’s plan to seize control of another 1/6 of the American economy!

What’s the White House response to the faltering support?  I’ll give you a hint.  It’s the opposite of transparency!

An AP story released today with the too benign headline “White House Putting Off Release of Budget Update.”  Buried inside one discovers this report is typically released around the middle of July.  But Obama has decided to delay it’s release until the middle of next month.  Why?

Let’s see, that will be after his deadline for Congress to pass his Socialized Medicine plan.  After Congress leaves for its August recess.

The release of the update — usually scheduled for mid-July — has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.

Unemployment is rising faster than the President predicted, the deficit is rising faster than he said it would, and the economy wasn’t stimulated by his so-called “stimulus” package.  You can bet if this budget report contained good news, the White House would release it as quickly as possible to counter so much bad news.  But instead, it’s being pushed back while Obama continues his propaganda campaign to create another monstrous bureaucracy to distribute health care in America.  Why?

Because it’s bad news and it won’t complement his propaganda on health care reform!  He’s hiding it because he knows it will impede his campaign to have the government decide which sick Americans get to go to the doctor, which surgery will benefit a patient enough to justify its cost, which patients are too old to receive life-saving treatments because some bureaucrat determines the cost-benefit ratio just isn’t there to perform costly treatments on someone who’s old enough they could die anyday from natural causes.

Obama’s idea of transparency is a blacked-out window.  Write and call the White House and tell them we want to see the damned report NOW!

Feel free to copy and paste the text of my written submission to the White House or create your own:

I just read that your administration is delaying release of a budget report that is sure to include worse than your projected figures on the deficit and the state of the economy. I recognize this as a delaying tactic in your propaganda campaign to socialize the health care system of this country. Your strategy in this case is precisely opposite of transparent. In fact it’s downright deceptive. Release the report on time and be honest with the American people!

White House Phone Numbers Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414 FAX: 202-456-2461

Patients First – Vote No on Government Run Health Care — Sign the Petition

John Allison III Cabot, AR US
Visit MyBlogLog and get a signature like this!

Obama Protects Cronies at Taxpayers’ Expense

by David Limbaugh on Townhall.com

The more we learn about the White House’s summary firing of AmeriCorps’ inspector general, Gerald Walpin, the more it smells of lawlessness, cronyism and a flagrant disregard for transparency and government accountability. Remember President Barack Obama’s commitment to oversee the expenditure of taxpayer funds to avoid waste and inefficiency — to the point that he deputized Vice President “Mean” Joe Biden as the executive enforcer? That was then. This is now. As has proved customary with this administration, the walk has not matched the talk. Biden’s casual admissions that the administration “guessed wrong” and that money has been wasted don’t begin to describe the fiscal recklessness and corruption that define this White House. …More

Most transparent admininstration?

Only when transparency benefits the Obama administration…or harms it’s political enemies.

That’s right, it’s becoming more and more apparent that Obama’s release of the classified “torture” memos was done purely for political purposes.  Yesterday, the CIA turned down former VP Cheney’s request to release memos that show valuable intelligence resulted from “enhanced interrogation” techniques.

From Fox News:

The CIA has turned down former Vice President Cheney’s request to release memos he says would show waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” produced valuable information that saved lives. CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano says an executive order signed by former President Bush forbids the agency from declassifying documents that are the subject of pending litigation. The memos Cheney wants released are the subject of two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. “For that reason-and that reason only-CIA did not accept Mr. Cheney’s request,” Gamigliano said. …More

What a crock! Obama could declassify the documents and release them just as he did with the memos he selectively chose to publicize. In fact, releasing them should resolve the FOI litigation. He could kill two birds with one stone.

The simple fact is, the released memos serve Obama’s purpose–to disparage the Bush administration, while those demanded by Cheney would undo the damage the President already inflicted. Therefore, Obama (who until now never met a Bush executive order he didn’t want rescinded), supposedly running the most transparent administration in history, only allows half the story to be told.