Friday, March 28, 2014
Walker Todd - Power of Coalitions
Anti-Gunners, Hypocrites, or BOTH?
These are both prime examples of anti-gun politicians who believe that gun control should apply to everyone else except themselves.
And Democrats wonder why responsible gun owners cringe at even small concessions to their freedoms. After all, if the lawmakers don't follow the law, why should anyone else?
When it comes down to it, it's not about being a Democrat or a Republican or a Senator. I don't care who you are or what you do. If you say you hate guns, but then you're caught carrying one or using them to make money, you ARE a hypocrite.
And responsibly armed Americans like you and me simply can't stand for it.
The last time I checked, the definition of integrity was as follows: "The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles."
And now, the definition of hypocrisy: "Behavior that does not agree with what someone claims to believe or feel; dishonesty."
The reason I mention both of these words is that in many ways, they are opposites. If someone has integrity, they do what they say they'll do. If they don't...well, you get the picture.
A perfect example of this behavior came to light just this week when—you guessed it—an anti-gun politician from the Democratic Party went against his so-called "stance" on firearms to use them for his own personal gain.
The hypocrite? California Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco).
The crime? Trafficking firearms.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
"The gun charges go against Yee's stand as a gun control advocate.
In 2006, Yee was named to the Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll by the Brady Campaign for his efforts that included co-authoring a first-in-the-nation bill to require new semiautomatic handguns be equipped with ballistics identification technology known as micro-stamping.
In 2013, he stood with law enforcement officials and then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to propose a bill that would regulate assault weapons."
Are you shaking your head yet?
This case reminded me of another situation ripe with hypocrisy involving Illinois State Senator Donne Trotter (D-Chicago), who was busted trying to bring a loaded firearm through a security checkpoint at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in late 2012. The pistol was found in Trotter's carry on, loaded with seven rounds.
Up to that point, Trotter had been an extremely vocal advocate of gun control, co-sponsoring over 30 bills in favor of tighter gun laws.
The "bad guys" come in many forms. Liars and hypocrites ARE the bad guys here. And as the "good guys," you and I must continue to strive to be honest, responsibly armed citizens. The kind who do what we say and say what we mean.
How else can we ensure that integrity will always prevail over hypocrisy?
Take Care and Stay Safe,
Tim Schmidt
Publisher - Concealed Carry Report
USCCA Founder
And Democrats wonder why responsible gun owners cringe at even small concessions to their freedoms. After all, if the lawmakers don't follow the law, why should anyone else?
When it comes down to it, it's not about being a Democrat or a Republican or a Senator. I don't care who you are or what you do. If you say you hate guns, but then you're caught carrying one or using them to make money, you ARE a hypocrite.
And responsibly armed Americans like you and me simply can't stand for it.
The last time I checked, the definition of integrity was as follows: "The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles."
And now, the definition of hypocrisy: "Behavior that does not agree with what someone claims to believe or feel; dishonesty."
The reason I mention both of these words is that in many ways, they are opposites. If someone has integrity, they do what they say they'll do. If they don't...well, you get the picture.
A perfect example of this behavior came to light just this week when—you guessed it—an anti-gun politician from the Democratic Party went against his so-called "stance" on firearms to use them for his own personal gain.
The hypocrite? California Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco).
The crime? Trafficking firearms.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
"The gun charges go against Yee's stand as a gun control advocate.
In 2006, Yee was named to the Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll by the Brady Campaign for his efforts that included co-authoring a first-in-the-nation bill to require new semiautomatic handguns be equipped with ballistics identification technology known as micro-stamping.
In 2013, he stood with law enforcement officials and then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to propose a bill that would regulate assault weapons."
Are you shaking your head yet?
This case reminded me of another situation ripe with hypocrisy involving Illinois State Senator Donne Trotter (D-Chicago), who was busted trying to bring a loaded firearm through a security checkpoint at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in late 2012. The pistol was found in Trotter's carry on, loaded with seven rounds.
Up to that point, Trotter had been an extremely vocal advocate of gun control, co-sponsoring over 30 bills in favor of tighter gun laws.
The "bad guys" come in many forms. Liars and hypocrites ARE the bad guys here. And as the "good guys," you and I must continue to strive to be honest, responsibly armed citizens. The kind who do what we say and say what we mean.
How else can we ensure that integrity will always prevail over hypocrisy?
Take Care and Stay Safe,
Tim Schmidt
Publisher - Concealed Carry Report
USCCA Founder
Sunday, March 23, 2014
ObamaCare Horror Stories Are Not Lies
Add to the story below the stories of ObamaCare being EXPENSIVE and NOT affordable (like mine) and you can see that the ONLY lies that are being told is by Obama and his crew themselves.
For instance...I went to the ObamaCare healthcare management website and gave my info to check out the available "affordable" health plans. Now, I make approximately $40,000 a year. When I put my info in, and checked out the LOWEST health plan available, it is this.
The Anthem Bronze Plan...$447.43 monthly payment with a $5,750 deductible and a maximum out of pocket expense of $6,350 (so much for the $5,750 deductible!) and a $40/10% co-pay for a regular doctor, 10% co-pay for a specialist, and 10% co-pay for GENERIC drugs.
YET...Mr. Obama, who makes 10X the amount I do yearly (on just his presidential salary, not including speaking fees, book sales, investments and other incomes!) of $400,000, on the same BRONZE plan only has to pay $400! Now, I have 2 questions...
1) How is it that Obama who makes 10X the amount I do gets a LOWER monthly fee for the same bronze plan; and
2) How is MY bronze plan considered an AFFORDABLE plan for only a $40,000 yearly salary?
It may be affordable for Mr. Obama on $400,000...but it sure isn't on Ms. Reagan's $40,000! This plan, if I bought it, would be approximately 1/7th of my monthly pay. Where Obama's plan would be only 1/83rd of his monthly presidential salary.
Now...here's my last question...
Can SOMEONE please explain to me how this ObamaCare is fair across the board and considered AFFORDABLE for us average Joes/Janes....HMMMMM????
*****************************
By BETSY McCAUGHEY
Sunday, March 23, 2014
“Lies,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calls the TV ads that feature people complaining about ObamaCare. Sorry: The people in those ads are sick, but their new health policies don’t let them see the specialists or get the medications they need.
These patients aren’t liars; they’re people President Obama claimed he would help, who instead are being harmed.
They had insurance, but their plans got canceled because of the Affordable Care Act, forcing them into ObamaCare. Now they’re discovering that ObamaCare plans aren’t for sick people. They offer “free” mammograms, “free” colonoscopies and “free” contraceptives — meaning you don’t have a copay. But if you have cancer, MS or Parkinson’s, you’re in trouble: Most ObamaCare plans skimp on specialists and life-saving drugs.
Dr. Jeffrey English, a Georgia neurologist who treats patients with advanced MS, worries that such patients forced into exchange plans will deteriorate rapidly. Some plans don’t cover six out of the 10 drugs that can treat MS, including the ones most effective at staving off irreversible paralysis.
“Obamacare is a throwback to the old HMO model of the 1990s, which promised a broad package of coverage for primary-care benefits like vaccines and routine doctor visits. But to pay for these benefits, the ObamaCare plans skimp on other things, principally the number of doctors you’ll have access to and also the number of costlier branded drugs,” explains Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a practicing physician and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
It’s like a car with leather seats and Bose speakers, but a lousy engine. Another aspect of this approach: Most exchange plans exclude the academic medical centers that cancer patients look to when their local hospital runs out of answers.
Dr. Katherine Albrecht developed stage 3 breast cancer (which had spread to her lymph nodes) in 2011. Doctors at her local hospital in Nashua, N.H., told her to get her affairs in order. But her Anthem PPO health insurance allowed her to go to Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston, where she was successfully treated, and afterward to Cornell Breast Cancer Center.
Her Anthem policy was canceled late last year because it didn’t meet ObamaCare mandates such as maternity coverage. Yet ObamaCare-compliant policies in New Hampshire won’t cover care at 10 of the 26 hospitals in the state, and none outside the state — so if she’d been on ObamaCare when she got cancer, she couldn’t have gone to Boston for care. Albrecht says, “Under ObamaCare, I’d be dead.”
Recently, the President urged Organizing for Action volunteers to enroll as many people as possible in ObamaCare before the March 31 deadline, calling it “God’s work.” Really? Maybe helping the uninsured is God’s work. But not convincing people with health problems to move into plans that won’t provide the care they need to stay alive. In the private sector, that would be fraud. It takes politics to a new low.
In February 2013, the Obama administration whacked people with pre-existing conditions even harder by suspending the cap on out-of-pocket expenses under an ObamaCare policy, which was originally set to kick in Jan. 1 at $6,350 for an individual. Theodore M. Thompson, a vice president of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, said “The promise of out-of-pocket limits was one of the main reasons we supported health-care reform.”
Without the cap, an MS patient on Copaxone, which costs $6,000 a month, will have to spend about $1,500 to $2,000 every month for the copay on that one drug alone. That’s unaffordable for many.
Before the Affordable Care Act, nine out of every 10 Americans with pre-existing conditions had coverage. They got it through an employer-provided plan, Medicare or Medicaid without discrimination. Only the individual-policy market let insurers charge sick people more or turn them away — and even in that market most got covered. Nationwide, only 2 million to 4 million people with health problems couldn’t get coverage. That’s about 1 percent of the population — a small, fixable problem.
But ObamaCare doesn’t fix the problem, it makes it far worse. As millions lose on-the-job coverage this year or next and get pushed into ObamaCare, those with pre-existing illnesses will have the same difficulty getting care as the patients in the TV ads. It’s no lie.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York. She is author of the new book, “Beating ObamaCare: 2014.” Her website is www.BetsyMcCaughey.com.
For instance...I went to the ObamaCare healthcare management website and gave my info to check out the available "affordable" health plans. Now, I make approximately $40,000 a year. When I put my info in, and checked out the LOWEST health plan available, it is this.
The Anthem Bronze Plan...$447.43 monthly payment with a $5,750 deductible and a maximum out of pocket expense of $6,350 (so much for the $5,750 deductible!) and a $40/10% co-pay for a regular doctor, 10% co-pay for a specialist, and 10% co-pay for GENERIC drugs.
YET...Mr. Obama, who makes 10X the amount I do yearly (on just his presidential salary, not including speaking fees, book sales, investments and other incomes!) of $400,000, on the same BRONZE plan only has to pay $400! Now, I have 2 questions...
1) How is it that Obama who makes 10X the amount I do gets a LOWER monthly fee for the same bronze plan; and
2) How is MY bronze plan considered an AFFORDABLE plan for only a $40,000 yearly salary?
It may be affordable for Mr. Obama on $400,000...but it sure isn't on Ms. Reagan's $40,000! This plan, if I bought it, would be approximately 1/7th of my monthly pay. Where Obama's plan would be only 1/83rd of his monthly presidential salary.
Now...here's my last question...
Can SOMEONE please explain to me how this ObamaCare is fair across the board and considered AFFORDABLE for us average Joes/Janes....HMMMMM????
*****************************
By BETSY McCAUGHEY
Sunday, March 23, 2014
“Lies,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calls the TV ads that feature people complaining about ObamaCare. Sorry: The people in those ads are sick, but their new health policies don’t let them see the specialists or get the medications they need.
These patients aren’t liars; they’re people President Obama claimed he would help, who instead are being harmed.
They had insurance, but their plans got canceled because of the Affordable Care Act, forcing them into ObamaCare. Now they’re discovering that ObamaCare plans aren’t for sick people. They offer “free” mammograms, “free” colonoscopies and “free” contraceptives — meaning you don’t have a copay. But if you have cancer, MS or Parkinson’s, you’re in trouble: Most ObamaCare plans skimp on specialists and life-saving drugs.
Dr. Jeffrey English, a Georgia neurologist who treats patients with advanced MS, worries that such patients forced into exchange plans will deteriorate rapidly. Some plans don’t cover six out of the 10 drugs that can treat MS, including the ones most effective at staving off irreversible paralysis.
“Obamacare is a throwback to the old HMO model of the 1990s, which promised a broad package of coverage for primary-care benefits like vaccines and routine doctor visits. But to pay for these benefits, the ObamaCare plans skimp on other things, principally the number of doctors you’ll have access to and also the number of costlier branded drugs,” explains Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a practicing physician and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
It’s like a car with leather seats and Bose speakers, but a lousy engine. Another aspect of this approach: Most exchange plans exclude the academic medical centers that cancer patients look to when their local hospital runs out of answers.
Dr. Katherine Albrecht developed stage 3 breast cancer (which had spread to her lymph nodes) in 2011. Doctors at her local hospital in Nashua, N.H., told her to get her affairs in order. But her Anthem PPO health insurance allowed her to go to Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston, where she was successfully treated, and afterward to Cornell Breast Cancer Center.
Her Anthem policy was canceled late last year because it didn’t meet ObamaCare mandates such as maternity coverage. Yet ObamaCare-compliant policies in New Hampshire won’t cover care at 10 of the 26 hospitals in the state, and none outside the state — so if she’d been on ObamaCare when she got cancer, she couldn’t have gone to Boston for care. Albrecht says, “Under ObamaCare, I’d be dead.”
Recently, the President urged Organizing for Action volunteers to enroll as many people as possible in ObamaCare before the March 31 deadline, calling it “God’s work.” Really? Maybe helping the uninsured is God’s work. But not convincing people with health problems to move into plans that won’t provide the care they need to stay alive. In the private sector, that would be fraud. It takes politics to a new low.
In February 2013, the Obama administration whacked people with pre-existing conditions even harder by suspending the cap on out-of-pocket expenses under an ObamaCare policy, which was originally set to kick in Jan. 1 at $6,350 for an individual. Theodore M. Thompson, a vice president of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, said “The promise of out-of-pocket limits was one of the main reasons we supported health-care reform.”
Without the cap, an MS patient on Copaxone, which costs $6,000 a month, will have to spend about $1,500 to $2,000 every month for the copay on that one drug alone. That’s unaffordable for many.
Before the Affordable Care Act, nine out of every 10 Americans with pre-existing conditions had coverage. They got it through an employer-provided plan, Medicare or Medicaid without discrimination. Only the individual-policy market let insurers charge sick people more or turn them away — and even in that market most got covered. Nationwide, only 2 million to 4 million people with health problems couldn’t get coverage. That’s about 1 percent of the population — a small, fixable problem.
But ObamaCare doesn’t fix the problem, it makes it far worse. As millions lose on-the-job coverage this year or next and get pushed into ObamaCare, those with pre-existing illnesses will have the same difficulty getting care as the patients in the TV ads. It’s no lie.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York. She is author of the new book, “Beating ObamaCare: 2014.” Her website is www.BetsyMcCaughey.com.
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