What is the common denominator of Obama policies? The Destruction of America is the sole theme I can find in Obama’s policies and in his statements for that matter. Let’s check it out.

TAXATION. Obama is for higher taxation. Already some folks pay more than fifty percent of their income, of their productivity, in taxes. The Bush tax cuts will expire next year and Obama will do nothing to extend the cuts. Take a look at developed countries with high tax rates and then take a look at the entrepreneurial opportunities in those countries. It’s bleak and that’s where we’re headed. The CBO predicts only a two percent growth of gross product at best for the foreseeable future which is not quarters, not years, but decades. His drunken spending will provide a platform for him to raise taxes astronomically, further breaking another campaign promise. This is bad for America.

HEALTH CARE. Notwithstanding the socialistic anti-American theme in Obama-care, the cost alone, which is increasing by the week as we, and Washington, gets to understanding the implications, are going to be a wet blanket on our economy. Obama-care also takes away freedom, which last time I checked, is a bad thing. Companies are planning on eliminating their health care programs and turning employees over to the feds which inevitably fails at almost everything. Obama-care will hurt America. It already is.

CAP AND TRADE. This policy will explode bureaucracy and make business drastically more complex. It will increase costs and regulation and will decrease opportunity and productivity. It will grow the government and shrink the private sector. It will lead us closer to global government. Check out how it’s working in Europe. Not well. Bad for America.

IMMIGRATION. Obama is doing nothing about immigration except condemning Arizona, the one state with the fortitude to be responsible for their problems. Obama has lied about the law Arizona passed. Obama’s view on immigration is simply to, when the time is right, provide amnesty for illegals in order to create more left leaning voters who will vote for more redistribution of wealth, more government and therefore, less freedom. He has lied about the Arizona law. Bad for America.

FINANCIAL REFORM. Obama’s plan will burden the free market and again explode the federal bureaucracy. His plan ignores Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, entirely leaves them out of the “reform” and they are the two biggest culprits in our recent financial woes. Why isn’t Obama addressing the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issue? Because they are agents for the government, that’s why. They are his folks. How can you claim to be fixing something when you’re ignoring the biggest cause, the root cause, of the problem? You can’t. And he doesn’t want to fix it. He wants to grow government and the people be damned. Bad for America.

BAIL OUTS. Obama loves a good bail out because it grows government power and influence and it takes care of the Unions in the case of the Auto industry.

GREECE. Obama pushed Europe to bail out Greece. Why? Why when we have trillions of dollars of debt is he borrowing money from China to give to Greece? There are a number of reasons. First, he adores the massive government in Greece. Second, if Greece fails more than it already has, it might reveal the flaws with Obama’s policies. (if they can be any more revealed as being awful). Third, it leads us closer to global government.

UNIONS. Obama is in favor of card check, his biggest ally is the SEIU union chief, he tired to exclude unions from the mandates of Obama-care. Are unions a good thing? Nope, just run down the list of union controlled industries. Auto industry, failed. Post Office, failed. Steel industry, gone. Government, the zenith of inefficiency and waste. Public education, struggling. Government pensions gifted to Unions and driving localities, municipalities, states and the Federal government closer and closer to bankruptcy and yet, Obama loves a union. Unions have proven to be a deadly albatross to so many American principles. Obama’s union policies are bad for America.

THE WARS. Now this is a strange one. Why is Obama breaking his promises regarding the wars on a regular basis, most recently retracting his position on exiting Afghanistan? Why does he continue with apparently no exit strategy in both wars? Here’s why. Wars run up the deficit. They further in debt our nation leading us towards collapse. That’s why. Maybe on the surface he doesn’t like war, but what he likes more is the destruction of America. And wars, especially wars of the ilk we’re in, are good ingredients for an American demise. Bad for America.

ENERGY. He lied about off shore drilling is now, given the gulf crisis, back tracking from his lie during the State of the Union Address. He keeps arguing for “going green” despite the established proof that it costs jobs, hurts the economy, and is a camouflage for more government control, regulation and burden on the economy. If you think “green” is good, check out Spain with its twenty percent unemployment rate. Bad for America.

DEFICITS. Deficits are a looming if not already arrived disaster for America and yet Obama keeps spending, keeps growing government, keeps borrowing. Bad for America.

I could go on with more examples of his policies, i.e. “don’t ask don’t tell, offshore drilling, contempt for profits, contempt for information (he recently said there was too much information and argument on the internet and talk radio which injures emancipation and democracy), his anti-Second Amendment, his belief that the Constitution is incomplete because it doesn’t address redistributive justice, and more. But I’ve said enough. You get my point. Obama doesn’t like America, at least not the America we love and cherish and the one that the world needs so desperately.

So face it folks, the facts of the matter reveal it. He says it. His minions say it. Obama and his minions want to destroy the America that saved Europe from Hitler, the America that is prosperous and generous, the America that has freedom and liberty as its driving force. He said as much when he repeatedly said that he wants to fundamentally change America. I’ve said it before, but fundamental is defined as the origin of existence and that’s what Obama wants to change, our origin of existence which are our god given, not Washington allowed, rights as set forth in our Constitution.

Rush Limbaugh was right when he said he wants Obama to fail. I do too. Any true American should, because his failure means we’ve saved America, the greatest nation in the history of man built on a simple yet exquisite document which our President has contempt, which our President doesn’t even understand. And I have hope and confidence that he will fail, because no man is capable of fighting our fundamentals, they are God given, and regardless of what our main stream media thinks of Obama, he’s nothing compared to God. And there’s nothing wrong with desiring a foe to fail. Just like a sporting event, you want your team to win and the other team to lose and that’s metaphorically what we have here, two competing teams with diametrically opposed philosophies. O.K., I’ll say it another way. I want our side to win. I want it to be a blow out. I want good to prevail over evil but notwithstanding that I believe that our fundamentals are God given and the obvious implication that if you are against our fundamentals you are fighting with God, a bad fight to pick, I’ll save the good versus evil for another blog.

That’s my Reetzality for the day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

An interesting article by Vince Haley.

Obama Removes Jesus from Easter Message

Vince Haley

President Obama literally edited Christ out of his “holiday greeting” today when he excerpted a sermon given by a military chaplain on Iwo Jima on Easter Sunday 1945.

Below is the relevant paragraph from Obama’s holiday greeting today:

The rites of Passover, and the traditions of Easter, have been marked by people in every corner of the planet for thousands of years. They have been marked in times of peace, in times of upheaval, in times of war.

One such war-time service was held on the black sands of Iwo Jima more than sixty years ago. There, in the wake of some of the fiercest fighting of World War II, a chaplain rose to deliver an Easter sermon, consecrating the memory, he said “of American dead – Catholic, Protestant, Jew. Together,” he said, “they huddled in foxholes or crouched in the bloody sands…Together they practiced virtue, patriotism, love of country, love of you and of me.” The chaplain continued, “The heritage they have left us, the vision of a new world, [was] made possible by the common bond that united them…their only hope that this unity will endure.”

Their only hope that this unity will endure.

Now read below the same paragraph again, but this time note the additional bolded language that comes from the original audio of the 1945 sermon and its context, but which President Obama decided not to include:

There, in the wake of some of the fiercest fighting of World War II, a chaplain rose to deliver an Easter sermon, consecrating the memory, he said:

He has risen. With all due reverence, we apply these words to our beloved dead.

There are too many air call wings encrusted with the stain of their owners’ life blood, too many marine trousers upon the graves, too many symbolsof American dead – Catholic, Protestant, Jew. Together,” he said, “they huddled in foxholes or crouched in the bloody sands under the fury of enemy guns here on Iwo Jima. Together they practiced virtue, patriotism, love of country, love of you and of me. Together they stand before the greatest soldier of them all – Jesus Christ, to receive the token of our triumph. For Christ has said: “Greater love than this no man hath then that he lay down his life for his friends.”

And so our beloved dead have gone from the world of hate to the world of eternal love.

The chaplain continued, “The heritage they have left us, the vision of a new world, [was] made possible by the common bond that united them in the drudgery of recruit training or here in the chaos of bursting shouts. Their only hope: that this unity will endure.”

And so our dead have risen to glory.

The American President is president of all the people, believers and non-believers alike. So when presidential messages are delivered to mark the special observances of major religious groups, it is understandable that a president will strive to provide some measure of explanation of how a particular religious observance honors values that all Americans can share.

But there are limits. A president cannot possibly hope to be a grand synthesizer of all religious traditions in the United States. Despite his skills, it is above President Obama’s pay grade to construct some kind of civic religion that stands above traditional religions and which should guide Americans going forward.

Instead of providing separate messages to Jews and Christians on the observance of Passover and Easter, President Obama said in this holiday greeting that “while we worship in different ways, we also remember the shared spirit of humanity that inhabits us all – Jews and Christians, Muslims and Hindus, believers and nonbelievers alike.”

Obama then went on to say that “on this Easter weekend, let us hold fast to those aspirations we hold in common as brothers and sisters, as members of the same family – the family of man.”

The problem is that when you start to water down what people actually believe in an attempt to construct a religion of the “family of man”, you start to misrepresent fundamentally the nature of the hope that is at the center of lives of believers.

In the case of Christians, Christ is our hope. Our hope is in the risen Christ, which we celebrate on Easter Sunday.

But if a president wants to water down religious beliefs in an attempt to find a synthesized religion of the ‘family of man’, you end up removing Christ from Easter, which is, strangely, exactly what President Obama did today in his Easter message.

Is this the first American president to dechristianize Easter?

Now to Reetzality. Come on Mr. President, it’s Easter. Can you please, just for a day, just for Easter, stop bowing to other faiths. And you should get to church too.

That’s my Reetzality for the Day.

Thanks for the read and thank you Vince Haley.

Brett Reetz

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Senators Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.

“It’s the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview. The card, he said, would directly answer concerns that after legislation is signed, another wave of illegal immigrants would arrive. “If you say they can’t get a job when they come here, you’ll stop it.”

The biggest objections to the biometric cards may come from privacy advocates, who fear they would become de facto national ID cards that enable the government to track citizens. “It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people’s privacy,” said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “We’re not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We’re also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification.”

The above is from the Wall Street Journal online. Here’s the Reetzality. No way Washington. A national ID would be a huge invasion our privacy. The use of the national ID card would rapidly expand beyond its alleged “intended” purposes. I can think of hundreds of vile alternative abuses for the card. A person would have to be a fool to think the card will only be used to keep illegal aliens from working in the United States. The first thing government will do is make everybody have one whether your working or not. If they don’t is it the government’s position that they only want to regulate illegal alien workers? So let me get this straight. If I am an illegal alien drug dealer, I don’t need a national ID card? See my point?

Here are ten other applications the government will certainly employ:

1. Government will use it to track gun ownership, just to make sure, they will say, an illegal doesn’t buy a gun.

2. Government will will use it to track travel by requiring its presentation before you get on an airplane, probably buses and trains too.

3. Government will use it for taxation, by monitoring bank deposits and withdrawals.

4. Government will use it to monitor purchases so that it can influence the markets rather than the markets themselves influencing markets. A monitored market is not a free market.

5. Government will use it for statistical analysis to set policies rather than liberty and principles setting the policies.

6. Government will allow the data that is collected to be subject to subpoena so that law enforcement can track a person’s purchases. They’ll want to know what a suspect is spending his or her money on.

7. Government will use it to track an individual’s location. If you are a a suspect, they’ll want to see where you’ve used your card to see where you’ve been, where you are.

8. Government will use the data to identify folks they don’t like. Remember Homeland security put out a warning for those folks with anti-Obama bumper stickers, gun rights bumper stickers, etc. Government will use its computers to develop profiles of folks the government doesn’t particularly like.

9. Government will use it enforce consumption taxes by requiring the use of the card to identify purchases and to tax those folks who buy too much of, let’s see, maybe gasoline, guns, liquor, pick.

10. Government will use the card to track health care, monitoring a person’s consumption of health care and also monitoring a persons life style choices based upon the person’s purchases. The life style choices, computer inferred by a person’s purchases, will affect the person’s health care choices.

I’ve thought of more uses as I wrote the above ten, but ten is enough for now.

In total, the card represents an evil threat of abject control and diminished freedom. And what do you know, there’s a Democrat, Chuck Shumer, and a Republican, Lindsey Graham, pushing it. Come on folks, have you ever known government advances in it’s progressive assault on our liberties to retreat? The only thing I can come up with is a few court cases involving gun rights and tax cuts. The are the only notable shrinkage in government I have ever witnessed.

Once again, Washington is using a problem, illegal immigration and open borders, to execute its agenda of suppression of freedom and liberty. And, once again, they won’t solve the problem. If I’ve got a factory, and I break the law and don’t require a government ID, if I pay my employees in cash, how will they know I’m not following the rules? They won’t. Well unless the following scenario occurs. Check out this radical reetzality:

What if Washington passes the National ID card legislation as proposed with biometric idendification? (“Biometry” is defined by Webster’s as “the calculation of the probably duration of human life.” “Biometric” isn’t in my dictionary.) Now, what if the card has a magnetic strip like a credit card? It will. Of course it will. Now, what if currencies fail? They are predicted to do so, based upon that irritating (to politicians) science called math. Would it be such a stretch to think that governments, not just ours, would end the use of currencies and use the National I.D. as a universal debit card for everything? Oh, but the government wouldn’t take over the banks who provide credit cards would they? Too late, they already are dabbling in this. Think about this. If this scenario occurs, the government will be able to track your movement, your purchases, your life styles, and the payment of taxes would become a direct extraction from your national I.D-debit card. (Maybe there will be a new word Extaxion, meaning “the process by which governments extract your productivity from your nationally controlled and monitored value?”) It could get worse. How long would it be before nations enter treaties and start sharing the national ID information, maybe even globalizing the national ID concept? I would say a few years. Then, governments could, with the stroke a computer key, shift any amount of value from any person-people to any other person-people. Hard to argue or have a tax revolt when your only “money” is in your government National ID-debit card.

Bingo. We’ve got a one world government with a one world pseudo currency. I’m not sold on Bible prophecy, the mark of the devil and all that stuff, but it’s getting less unbelievable lately.

I pray not. Email Lindsey Graham by going to http://lgraham.senate.gov/public/. Email Charles Shumer at http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/contact.cfm. I tried to find their exact email addresses but failed. It seems you have to go through their propaganda to contact them. Do so.

Finally, don’t miss the Washington slight of hand going on here. Washington has us focused on health care with one hand while the other hand nationalizes are individual identity. We must stop them both.

That’s my Reetzality for the day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

Today was the health care summit. I watched most of it. As a practical analysis, there was no significant intellectual intercourse between ideals, principles and values. None. It was nothing more than a talking points event with this exception; the Republicans identified legitimate concerns about the impact of such a proposal, if implimented. Congressman Paul Ryan did a great job. He was articulate, on point, and his concern was righteous. Others did too.

But here’s the telling point. Obama accused Paul Ryan of using a prop. The prop he was accused of using was, and this is amazing, the Senate bill which is Obama’s bill. So let me get this straight, the President accused a representative of using a prop and the prop that he accused him of using was the bill that the President is pushing? Weird! So let’s go through this again; A guy, our president is pushing a bill, a counter-voice reads the bill and questions our President on the bill, and the President calls his own bill a prop? Again, weird.

Not really. Here’s a truth. It’s mostly right. When people accuse, blame, complain, tell you about someone who did something wrong, keep going; let me sum it up. When people bitch, they are oft times talking about themselves. True. Listen to complainers and I swear, more often than not, their complaints actually explain their personal failings. Their complaints reveal. That’s what happened today.

When President Obama accused Paul Ryan of using a prop, the President’s own bill, he was revealing himself. It WAS a prop. But it is Obama’s PROP. It is a PROP couched in faux compassion for folks, couched in taking care of the needy, stuff that is hard to debate. However, and this is a big however, what it really is is a prop for is Obama’s agenda to socialize our nation. It is a prop for more government control and seizure of our freedom. He actually hesitated before he used the term “prop.” Why? Because, in his heart of hearts he realized it was his prop, not Paul Ryans. That’s why.

And it is a PROP! He has hidden his true agenda under a cloak of health care and his true agenda is government control. He could give a rat’s arsh (edited based on relative class) about health care. Disagree? How’s his brother or his aunt doing on their health care? If health care is so important, why isn’t he taking care of his own family. Because he doesn’t care about health care, he cares about government control, and, and this is scary, he cares about destroying our nation. Thus, I’m right. It’s not about health care. If it was, his own family would be cared for; they’re not.

And from his perspective, what a great thing. From his perspective it is great that he can expand government and crush the country he has contempt for in one fell swoop, with health care. Marvelous.

So folks, don’t fall for it. Don’t start crying because some old lady had to borrow her dead sister’s dentures. (This was actually a democratic pitch which I question; Am I supposed to take from my children to buy an old lady dentures?) Fight it. Don’t get seduced by the sob stories, get enlightened by the principles. Freedom. It is imperative, if we want to save this country, that we stick to our principles, our nation, then we have to reject the shallow rhetoric, the illogical talking points spewed by the left. We must. Do it friends.

That’s my Reetzality for the day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

In my career as a lawyer, I have been granted the ultimate back stage pass to the lives of folks. I’ve used this pass to develop my sense of people. I am a good judge of character, not because of any special abilities, but because of experience. And I can smell a con. I can feel it in my gut. And a con is a coming, care of Obama. Where? In “his” health care proposal, that’s where. I’ve read it. You can too on www.whitehouse.gov. It is nothing more than a cheap pitch. Picture a used car salesmen in the fifties. It is not a plan. Read it. Repeat: IT IS NOT A PLAN. It is a list of ideals and impossible to accomplish goals with a complete vacancy of actual plans. It is akin to the Christmas list of a delusional seven year old. It’s akin to me saying this to you: “I’m going to make you a billionaire! You in?” Now, you might ask, “how are you going to do that Brett?” Good question. It is the question that the President’s proposal fails to answer. He doesn’t answer the question, “Hey Pres? How are you going to do that?”

Want proof? Here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to list what the President says he’s going to do. Then, I’m going to list the strategies the President’s Proposal sets forth to accomplish his Christmas list on www.whitehouse.gov.

WHAT THE PRESIDENT’S PROPOSAL WILL DO? (It’s a long list, so feel free to cursor down. There are some redundancies too. This is because there are redundancies in the pitch. Pitchmen so often repeat themselves.) Ready? Here I go:

1. Make health care more affordable.
2. expand health care coverage.
3. Make health systems sustainable.
4. Stabilize family budgets.
5. Stabliize the federal budget.
6. Stabilize the economy.
7. Make insurance more affordable.
8. Provide the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history.
9. Reduce premium costs for tens of millions of families.
10. Reduce premium costs for tens of millions of small business owners.
11. Help over 31 million Americans afford coverage who can’t today.
12. Make health care coverage more affordable for many more.
13. Sets up a new competitive health insurance market.
14. Give Americans the same choices as congressman.
15. Bring greater accountability to health care.
16. Lay out commonsense rules of the road to keep premiums down.
17. Prevents insurance industry abuses.
18. Prevent denial of care.
19. End discrimination against pre-existing conditions.
20. Puts the budget and economy on a more stable path.
21. Reduces the deficit by 100 billion over the next ten years.
22. Reduces the deficit by a trillion over the second decade.
23. Cuts government overspending.
24. Reins in waste.
25. Reins in abuse.
26. Reins in fraud.
27. Bridges differences between the house and senate bill.
28. Incorporates Republican provisions.
29. Provides significant additional federal financing to all states for the expansion of medicaid.
30. Close the drug “donut hole” for seniors.
31. Strengthens the senate bill.
32. Raises the threshold from $23,000 to $27,500 for a family plan which will start in 2018.
33. Improve insurance protection for consumers.
34. Create a new Health Insurance Rate authority.
35. Review and rein in unreasonable rate increases.
36. Review and rein in other unfair practices.
37. Lowers premiums.
38. Increases competition.
39. Increases oversight.
40. Creates new accountability standards.
41. Creates insurance exchanges.
42. Provides tax credits.
43. Provides reduced cost sharing for lower income families.
44. Provides extra assistance to families with income below $55,000.00.
45. Provides additional funding to insurers which will cover between 73% and 94% of health care costs to lower income families.
45. Provides cost sharing assistance to families with incomes between $77,000 and $88,000.
45. Invest in community health centers.
46. Provide 11 billion in funding for community health care centers.
47. Require health insurers to submit their proposed premium increases to State authority.
48. Allows government to determine if a rate increase is unreasonable.
49. Allows government to order health insurers to lower their premiums.
50. Allows government to order health insurers to provide rebates.
51. Allows government to take other actions to make premiums affordable.
52. Provides for a Health Insurance Rate Authority to provide need over sight.
53. Provides for a Health Insurance Rate Authority to help States determine how rate review will be monitored.
54.. Provides for a Health Insurance Rate Authority to monitor insurance market behavior.
55. Provides for “grandfather” clauses to protect existing plans.
56. Requires plans to cover adult dependents up to 26 years old.
57. Prohibits rescissions.
58. Mandates that plans have stronger appeals processes.
59. Requires states insurance authorities to conduct annaul rate reviews, overseen by the HHS Secretary.
60. Provides new protections that prohibit annual and life time limits.
61. Bans pre-existing condition exclusions.
62. Prohibits discrimination in favor of highly compensated individuals.
63. In 2018 requires “grandfathered” plans to cover preventive services with no cost sharing.
64. Provides a “hardship” exemption for people who can’t afford insurance.
65. Protects those who would face premiums of more than 8% of their income.
66. Provides a low cost catastrophic exchange for those whose premiums are greater than 8% of their income.
67. Raises the percent of income assessment that individuals pay if they don’t buy insurance.
68. Provies a $40 billion in tax credits to small business.
69. Exempts businesses with less than 50 employees from employee responsibility policies.
70. Requires employers to help defray the costs if tax payers are paying for their employees health care coverage.
71. Provides an unprecedented array of aggressive new authorities to fight waste, fraud, and abuse.
72. Incorporates a number of additional proposals to fight waste, fraud and abuse.
73. Creates a comprehensive Medicare and Medicaid sanction database.
74. Provides for a central storage location.
75. allows law enforcement access to information related to past sanctions on health care providers, suppliers, and related entities.
76. Will assist in reducing the number of individuals and agencies with a history of fraudulent activities participating in Federal health care programs.
77. Ensures that entities that bill for Medicare on behalf of providers are in good standing.
78. Increases access to health care integrity data.
79. Improve coordination and information sharing in anti-fraud efforts.
80. Broadens access to the data bank to quality control and peer review organizations and private plans that are involved in furnishing items or services reimbursed by Federal Health Care programs.
81. Creates criminal penalties for misuse.
82. Holds Administrative contractors accountable for Federal payment for individuals or entities excluded fromt he Federal programs or itmes or services for which payment is denied.
83. Ensures individuals have access to comprehensive mental health services in the community setting.
84. Strenghtens standards for facilities that seek reimbursement.
85. Ensures that facilities don’t take advantage of the tax payers or Medicare patients.
86. Assists in recovering over payments to providers.
87. Prevents fraudulent health care providers from discharging through bankruptcy.
88. Speeds access to claims data to identify potentially fraudulent payments.
89. Establishes a system for using technology to provide real time data analysis of claim and payment under public programs.
90. Adds strong sanctions, including jail time, for individuals who purchase, sell or distribute Medicare beneficiary identification numbers or billing privileges under Medicare or Medicaid.
91. Requires HHS to study and issue a report to congress that examines costs and benefits of assigning universal product numbers to selected items and services.
92. Requires States to monitor and remediate high risk billing activity.
93. Requires States to monitor high risk billing activity to identify prescribing and utilization patterns that may indicate abuse or excessive prescription drug utilization.
94. Save taxpayer dollars.
95. Requires in statute that the HHS Secretary to extrapolate the error rate found in the risk adjustment data validation (RADV) audits to the entire Medicare Advantage contract payment for a given year when recouping payments.
96. Requires the extrapolation of risk score errors in MA plans.
97. Modifies statutory provisions that currently limit random medical review.
98. Places statutory limitations on the application of Medicare repayment review.
99. Modifies certain medical review limitations.
100. Gives Medicare contractors better and more efficient access to medical records and claims.
101. Authorizes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid to work collaboratively with the IRS to determine which providers have seriously delinquent tax debt.
102. Help identify potentially fraudulent providers sooner.
103. Targets high risk providers types in high vulnerability areas.
104. Enables both the IRS and Medicare to recoup monies owed to the Federal government.
105. Requires the IRS to disclose to CMS those entities that have evaded filing taxes.
106. Matches data against provider billing data.
107. Enable CMS to better detect fraudulent providers billing Medicare programs.
108. Adopts a provision from the bipartisan legislation that gives the FTC enforcement authority to speed up the introduction of generic drugs.
109. Makes anti-competitive and unlawful any agreement in which generic drug manufacturers receive any value for limiting research.
110. Requires chief executive officers of brand name pharmaceutical companies to certify to the accuracy and completeness of any agreements filed with the FTC.
111. Creates a set of benchmarks payments at different perecentages of the current average fee-for-services costs in an area.
112. Provides bonuses for quality and enrollee satisfaction.
113. Adjusts rebates of savings between benchmark payment and actual plan bid to take into account transition.
114. Requires a payment adjustment for unjustified coding patterns in Medicare Advantage plans that have raised payments more rapidly than the evidence of their enrollees’ health status and costs suggest is warranted, based upon actuarial analysis.
115. changes the effective date of the Senate policy from 2013 to 2018 to provide additional transition time for high-cost plans to become more efficient.
116. Raises the amount of premiums that are exempt from the assessment from $8,500 for singles to $10,200 and from $23,000 for families to $27,500 and indexes these amounts for subsequent years at general inflation plus 1 percent.
117. Adjusts the initial threshold upwards automatically.
118. Ensures that the tax affects firms equitably.
119. Includes an adjustment for firms whose health costs are higher due to the age or gender of their workers.
120. No longer counts dental and vision benefits as potentially taxable benefits.
121. Maintains the Senate bill’s permanent adjustment in favor of high-risk occupations such as “first responders.”
122. Adopts the Senate bill approach and adds a 2.9 percent assessment (equal to the combined employer and employee share of the existing HI tax) on income from interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents, other than such income which is derived in the ordinary course of a trade or business which is not a passive activity (e.g., income from active participation in S corporations) on taxpayers with respect to income above $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.
123. Credits to the HI trust fund the revenues from the tax on unearned income to the Supplemental Medical Insurance (SMI) trust fund.
124. Closes the Medicare “donut hole,” ensuring that seniors do not skip or cut back on needed prescriptions.
125. Creates new revenue for the pharmaceutical industry.
126. Increases the revenue from the assessment on this industry which is $23 billion in the Senate bill by $10 billion over 10 years.
127. Delays the implementation of these fees by one year, until 2011, and makes changes to facilitate administration by the IRS.
128. Adopts the House bill’s policy to clarify that they are not eligible for the tax credit.
129. Prevents unjustified tax shelters by clarifying the circumstances under which transactions have “economic substance” (as opposed to being undertaken solely to obtain tax benefits).
130. Raises the penalties for transactions that lack economic substance.
131. Replaces the variable State support in the Senate bill with uniform 100% Federal support for all States for newly eligible individuals from 2014 through 2017, 95% support for 2018 and 2019, and 90% for 2020 and subsequent years.
132. Increases States’ matching rate on certain health care services by 8 percentage points beginning in 2014.
133. Provides additional assistance to the Territories, raising the Medicaid funding cap by 35% rather than the Senate bill’s 30%.
134. Simplifies eligibility rules for various existing programs as well as for the new tax credits.
135. Conform income definitions to make the system simpler for beneficiaries to navigate and States and the Federal government to administer by: changing the definition of income used for assistance from modified gross income to modified adjusted gross income.
136. Creates a 5% income disregard for certain Medicaid eligibility determinations to ease the transition from States’ current use of income disregards.
137. Streamlines the income reconciliation process for determining tax credits and reduced cost sharing.
138. Clarifies the tax treatment of employer contributions for adult dependent coverage.
139. Delays and Reforms Fees on Health Insurance Providers.
140. Delays the senate proposal assessment until 2014 to coincide with broader coverage provisions which will substantially expand the market for health insurance providers.
141. Provides limited exemptions for plans that serve critical purposes for the community, including non-profits that receive more than 80 percent of their income from government programs targeting low-income or elderly populations, or those with disabilities, as well as for voluntary employees’ beneficiary associations (VEBAs) that are not established by employers.
142. Delays and Converts Fees on Medical Device Manufacturers to Excise Tax.
143. Provides the medical device industry expanded health insurance coverage.
144. Replaces the medical device fee with an excise tax (yielding the same revenue) that starts in 2013 to facilitate administration by the IRS.
145. Makes a series of changes to the Senate bill to improve the CLASS program’s financial stability and ensure its long-run solvency.
146. Protects the Social Security Trust Funds.
147. Provides that, if necessary, funds will be transferred to the Social Security Trust Funds to ensure that they are held harmless by the Proposal.
148. Requires careful, effective, deliberate, and transparent implementation.
149. Appropriates $1 billion for the Administration to implement health insurance reform policies.
150. Delays several of the policies to ensure effective implementation and improve transitions.
151. Delays the therapeutic discovery credit.
152. Eliminates the deduction for expenses allocable to the Medicare Part D subsidy, the pharmaceutical and medical device industry fees, and the health insurance industry fee.
153. Puts individuals, families and small business owners in control of their health care.
154. Reduces premium costs for millions of working families and small businesses by providing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax relief.
155. Provides for the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history.
156. Reduces what families will have to pay for health care by capping out-of-pocket expenses.
157. Requires preventive care to be fully covered without any out-of-pocket expense.
158. Provides that Americans with insurance coverage who like what they have, can keep it.
159. Provides that Americans without insurance coverage will be able to choose the insurance coverage that works best for them in a new open, competitive insurance market.
160. The insurance Exchange will pool buying power and give Americans new affordable choices of private insurance plans that have to compete for their business based on cost and quality.
161. Small business owners will not only be able to choose insurance coverage through this exchange, but will receive a new tax credit to help offset the cost of covering their employees.
162. Keeps insurance companies honest by setting clear rules that rein in the worst insurance industry abuses.
163. Bans all insurance companies from denying insurance coverage because of a person’s pre-existing medical conditions.
164. Gives consumers new power to appeal insurance company decisions that deny doctor ordered treatments covered by insurance.
165. Provides that American families and small business owners will begin to experience the benefits of this common-sense reform:
166. Provides that Americans with pre-existing conditions will have the choice of quality, affordable insurance through a new insurance pool.
167. Small business owners will be eligible for billions in tax credits to help offer insurance coverage to employees.
168. Paperwork reduction and simplified forms will reduce costs for doctors, employers and consumers.
169. New plans will have to offer preventive care and immunizations at no cost.
170. New plans will have to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26.
171. Creates a re-insurance program for employers that offer health insurance to their early retirees.
172. Will save as much as $1,200 for every family enrolled.
173. Creates a new website to help consumers compare different insurance coverage options along with state-by-state health care consumer assistance and ombudsman for any of their health insurance questions.
174. Requires Public disclosure by insurance companies of the amounts they spend on administrative expenses including advertising, profits and salaries compared to what they spend for care.
175. Requires clear and easy-to-understand insurance documents to help Americans make decisions when shopping for health insurance.
176. Creates a new independent appeals process so consumers and patients can appeal insurance company decisions.
177. Makes it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage for children because of a pre-existing medical condition.
178. Provides rebates to consumers from insurance companies when they spend a large percentage of consumers’ premiums on advertising, bonuses and other administrative expenses instead of patient care.
179. Reviews unreasonable insurance premium increases and rebates if unjustified.
180. Reviews health insurers with a pattern of excessive rate increases.
181. Removes arbitrary lifetime or yearly limits on coverage
182. Prevents insurance companies from dropping insurance coverage when a person gets sick and needs it most.
183. Imposes common sense reforms in a step by step fashion so that families and small business owners have the information they need to make the choices that work best for them.
184. Creates a new insurance marketplace that lets individuals and families without coverage and small business owners pool their resources and increase their buying power to make insurance more affordable.
185. Requires private insurance companies to compete for business based on cost and quality. 186. Requires private insurance companies to follow common-sense rules of the road that rein in the worst insurance industry abuses.
187. Provides that Americans who lose their jobs, change jobs, move out of state, get divorced or get sick will always have quality affordable health care they can rely on.
188. Provides new choices for Americans who get coverage through their job but can’t afford it.
189. Provides a level playing field with big businesses for small business owners.
190. Lowers the costs for small business owners.
191. Requires every member of Congress to purchase their insurance from the new health insurance exchange.
192. Provides the largest tax cut for health care in American history.
193. Provides millions of families with hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits to help them pay for insurance in the new exchanges.
194. Will make insurance more affordable for those who can’t get it through work or whose employer insurance is too expensive.
195. Provides financial assistance to reduce out-of-pocket costs for moderate and low-income eligible Americans.
196. Provides tens of billions in tax credits for small business owners to make insurance coverage more affordable.
197. Provides small businesses with a new option of purchasing insurance through the exchanges.
198. Provides that small business owners will lower their costs and have the same choices that big corporations and unions enjoy.
199. Requires insurance companies to abide by new consumer protections.
200. Keeps insurance companies honest.
201. Reins in some of the worst abuses of the insurance industry.
202. Bans insurance companies from denying coverage or setting premiums based of your health status.
203. Bans insurance companies from denying coverage or setting premiums based upon medical history.
204. Bans insurance companies from denying coverage or setting premiums based upon genetic information.
205. Bans insurance companies from denying coverage or setting premiums based upon evidence of domestic violence.
206. Bans insurance companies from setting different premiums based on gender.
207. Bans insurance companies from setting different premiums based upon salary.
208. Bans insurance companies from dropping coverage when someone gets sick.
209. Bans insurance companies from refusing to renew someone’s coverage because of an illness.
210. Prevents insurance companies from discriminating against older Americans.
211. Requires insurance companies to limit the amount they can charge based on age.
212. Makes sure that insurance is there when you need it.
213. Requires insurance companies to cover minimum benefits that every American can count on.
214. Prevents an illness from ruining a family financially by limiting out-of-pocket expenses that individuals and families have to pay for treatments they need.
215. Asks everyone to take responsibility for improving America’s health care.
216. Requires all Americans who can afford to purchase insurance to do so.
217. Requires those who can afford insurance to purchase it to cover emergency room care for Americans without insurance.
218. Provides individuals and families eligibility for a waiver from the requirement to purchase health insurance if coverage is unaffordable, if premiums exceed 8 percent of income.
219. Provides exceptions for religious objectors.
220. Provides exceptions for taxpayers with incomes below the tax-filing threshold ($9,350 for a single or $18,700 for a married couple in 2009), and Indian tribe members.
221. Provides that Americans under the age of 30 and other Americans who are exempt from the requirement to purchase insurance eligibility for a low-cost catastrophic plan that covers serious illness and injury.
222. Requires larger companies that offer coverage to automatically enroll any new eligible employees.
223. Requires any company with 50 or more employees that does not offer coverage and whose employees access taxpayer supported health programs to help offset the costs to the American taxpayer.
224. Provides that no small business owner will be required to enroll an employee or to offset health costs to taxpayers.
225. Provides small business owners with incentives to cover employees through tax credits.
226. Provides small business owners the ability to enjoy greater buying power and insurance choices in the exchanges.
227. Extends Medicaid to more working families while treating all States equally.
228. Preserves CHIP, the children’s insurance plan.
229. Simplifies enrollment for individuals and families.
230. Enhances community-based care for Americans with disabilities.
231. Provides States with opportunities to expand home care services to people with long-term care needs.
232. Gives flexibility to States to adopt innovative strategies to improve care.
233. Gives flexibility to States to coordinate services for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.
234. Saves taxpayer money by reducing prescription drug costs and payments to subsidize care for uninsured Americans.
235. Gives more Americans insurance under reform.
236. Allows states to expand Medicaid eligibility to more individuals.
237. Allows all low-income, non-elderly and non-disabled individuals will be eligibility for Medicaid.
238. Provides Medicaid for all unemployed adults and working famlies.
239. Provides Medicaid for all people with income below $29,000 for a family of four (133% of poverty).
240. Requires the Federal Government to support States by providing 100% of the cost of newly eligible people between 2014 and 2017, 95% of the costs between 2018 and 2019, and 90 percent matching for subsequent years.
241. Requires all states to be treated equally.
241. Precludes any special matching rates for Medicaid.
242. Preserves the CHIP program.
243. Requires States to maintain income eligibility levels for CHIP through September 30, 2019 with funding extended through FY2016.
244. Provides states, in FY2016, to receive a 23 percentage point increase to their CHIP matching rate to help them cover children under the program.
245. Provides Individuals streamlined, easy to use, State-by-State websites to participate in Medicaid or CHIPS programs.
245. Coordinates procedures to provide seamless enrollment, save time and lower administrative costs.
246. Provides Medicaid beneficiaries with disabilities who would otherwise require care in a hospital, nursing facility, or intermediate care facility with a new option offered by States for community-based attendant services and supports.
247. Requires the Federal government to offer increased assistance for States who offer these community-based services.
248. Allows States to provide home and community-based services and full Medicaid benefits to people with long-term care needs.
249. Allows States to extend the “Money Follows the Person” rebalancing demonstration.
250. Protects recipients of home- and community-based services against spousal impoverishment.
251. Increases funding for State Aging and Disability Resource Centers.
252. Improves coordination between the Federal and State governments for dual-eligibles who are low-income and have high rates of chronic diseases and disabling conditions.
253. Improves care and saves money.
254. Saves money with increased rebates on prescription drugs furnished under Medicaid.
255. Increases rebates from 15.1 to 23.1 to more accurately reflect market prices and discounts typically provided by drug manufacturers to large volume purchasers.
256. Requires Drug manufacturers to extend these same rebates to new drug formulations and Medicaid managed care organizations.
257. Saves State governments money as their Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments to cover the costs of the uncompensated care will be reduced as more Americans get insurance coverage under the Act.
258. Provides States with the option to undertake a number of reforms to improve the quality of how care is delivered.
259. Provides demonstration projects in each state to help to identify the most innovative care models that can be replicated throughout the country.
260. Protects and preserves Medicare as a commitment to America’s seniors.
261. Saves thousands of dollars in drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries by closing the coverage gap called the “donut hole.”
262. Incentivizes Doctors, nurses and hospitals to improve care and reduce unnecessary errors that harm patients.
263. Enhances access for rural America to health care services in underserved areas.
264. Takes important steps to make sure that we can keep the commitment of Medicare for the next generation of seniors by ending massive overpayments to insurance companies that cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars per year.
265. Saves taxpayer dollars by keeping people healthier before they join the program.
266. Reduces Medicare’s need to pay to hospitals to care for the uninsured.
267. Makes sure that the quality of care for seniors drives all decisions.
268. Requires a group of doctors and health care experts, not Members of Congress, to come up with their best ideas to improve quality and reduce costs for Medicare beneficiaries.
269. Save seniors on Medicare thousands of dollars.
270. Rewards the highest quality of care for America’s seniors.
271, Provides incentives for doctors, and hospitals that improve quality while providing for better coordination that helps to reduce harmful medical errors and healthcare-acquired infections.
272. Provides innovative payment reforms so providers are rewarded for the quality of care they provide.
273. Rewards innovative practices where doctors and nurse practitioners provide more primary care that is coordinated with every doctor or specialist involved with a patient’s care.
274. Allows Doctors, nurses and hospitals throughout the country to learn from innovative practices to improve the quality of care for seniors throughout the Nation.\
275. Strengthens Medicare for seniors in rural areas by enhancing access to health care services and increasing payments to providers in underserved areas.
276. Levels the playing field with doctors in other parts of the country by making sure that rural doctors and hospitals have incentives to provide care in America’s rural communities.
277. Improves the financial health of Medicare.
278. Improves guaranteed benefits and ensures that they will be preserved by ending the 14% average overpayment to private insurance companies under the Medicare Advantage (MA) program.
279. Requires insurance companies to offer Medicare Advantage plans at reasonable rates so that seniors are guaranteed the best benefits at the best price for all Medicare beneficiaries.
280. Rewards insurance companies if enrollee satisfaction and quality of care are high.
281. Prohibits MA plans from charging seniors more than they would pay for services delivered under the traditional Medicare program.
282. Reduces Medicare payments.
283. Improves the financial health of Medicare.
284. Strengthens the Medicare program.
285. Helps Medicare beneficiaries.
286. Makes sure that doctors and health care experts, not members of Congress, have the primary responsibility of finding ways to protect Medicare benefits for America’s seniors.
287. Creates an independent group of doctors and health care experts tasked with presenting their best ideas to improve the quality of Medicare and reduce costs for Medicare beneficiaries.
288. Bans all ideas that ration care.
289. Bans all ideas that raise taxes.
290. Bans all ideas that raise beneficiary premiums.
291. Bans all ideas that change Medicare benefits.
292. Bans all ideas that alter eligibility.
293. Bans all ideas that alter cost-sharing standards.
294. Transitions from a system focused primarily on treating the sick to one that helps keep people well throughout their lives.
295. Promotes prevention, wellness, and the public health.
296. Provides a funding commitment prevention, wellness, and the public health.
297. Directs the creation of a national prevention and health promotion strategy that incorporates the most effective and achievable methods to improve the health status of Americans.
298. Reduces the incidence of preventable illness and disability in the United States.
299. Saves lives and money in the long run for American families, small businesses, and the Nation.
300. Requires small businesses to compete for grants to develop their own workplace wellness programs that promote better health for employees.
301. Requires the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop and conduct an educational campaign and provide technical assistance to promote the benefits of worksite health promotion to employers, including small businesses.
302. Gives local and state governments the flexibility to develop strategies to prevent the onset of chronic diseases, including those associated with obesity and tobacco use.
303. Provides a new competitive grant that allows communities to tailor programs that make sense for them.
304. Saves money for states by allowing them to purchase vaccines under CDC contracts.
305. strengthens our Nation’s ability to respond to infectious diseases and other threats to public health.
306. Supports the delivery of community prevention and wellness services.
307. Establishes a competitive grant program at the CDC to improve surveillance for and responses to infectious diseases and other public health threats at the State, local, and tribal level.
308. Helps put American families in control of their own health decisions with nutrition and prevention information based on the best science.
309. Requires that certain restaurants and vending machines post calorie information.
310. Provides States and health care providers with additional tools and science-based information to help them develop preventive and obesity-related services for Americans on Medicaid.
311. Strengthens America’s capacity to respond to public health emergencies.
312. Empowers families by giving them tools to find the best science-based nutrition information.
313. Makes prevention and screenings a priority by waiving co-payments for America’s seniors on Medicare.
314. Improves health.
315. Saves lives.
316. Avoids costly complications.
317. Increases prevention and wellness services for Medicare beneficiaries by waiving co-payments for most preventive services.
318. Fully covering an annual wellness visit and personalized prevention plans for American seniors on Medicare.
319. Provides incentives for States to enhance prevention and wellness services for Medicaid beneficiaries.
320. Improves people’s health and saves money.
321. Provides funding for innovative demonstration projects to develop comprehensive models for reducing childhood obesity.
322. Improves data collection and analysis.
323. Facilitates better data sharing.
324. Requires the development of standards for the collection of data regarding the nation’s health and the performance of the nation’s health care, including health disparities.
325. Supports and expands our Nation’s health care workforce.
326. Funds scholarships and loan repayment programs.
327. Funds the increased number of primary care physicians.
328. Funds the increased number of nurses.
329. Funds the increased number of physician assistants.
330. Funds the increased number of mental health providers.
331. Funds the increased number of dentists.
332. Increases the areas of the country that need them.
333. Provides a comprehensive approach focusing on retention and enhanced educational opportunities.
334. Combats the critical nursing shortage.
335. Provides through new incentives and recruitment, the increased supply of public health professionals so that the United States is prepared for health emergencies.
336. Invests in grant programs that support the training of primary care providers, including family medicine, pediatrics, general internal medicine, and physician assistantship.
337. Provides payment bonuses to primary care physicians.
338. Provides state and local governments flexibility and resources to develop health workforce recruitment strategies.
339. Expands critical and timely access to care by funding the expansion, construction, and operation of community health centers throughout the United States.
340. Increases the number of primary care providers, including doctors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and dentists in the areas of the country that need them most.
341. Provides, through a National Health Service Corps, significant funding for scholarships and loan repayment for doctors, nurses and other providers who provide medical, dental, and mental health care in urban and rural areas that have a shortage of health professionals.
342. Increases the loan repayment amount and enables additional flexibility for providers to meet their service requirements.
343. Creates a loan repayment program for pediatric, mental and behavioral health specialists who provide services to children and adolescents in underserved areas or with underserved populations.
344. Supports scholarships and loan repayments for disadvantaged students who commit to work in medically underserved areas and who serve as faculty in participating institutions.
345. Increase the number of nurses in the Unites States.
346. Retains nurses.
347. Addresses financial barriers that nurses and nurse faculty face today.
348. Rewards competitive grants to nursing schools to strengthen nurse education and training programs.
349. Improves nurse retention programs throughout the country.
350. Increases the student loan amounts for nursing students.
351. Addresses critical nurse faculty shortages by making nursing faculty eligible for loan repayment and scholarship programs.
352. Addresses critical public health workforce shortages.
353. Supports the training of the public health workforce and physicians specializing in preventive medicine.
354. Establishes a Ready Reserve Corps to respond in times of national emergency.
355. Supports fellowship training in public health.
356. Provides grants to promote the community health workforce.
357. Creates a competitive program that awards grants to States to develop effective and comprehensive health care workforce development strategies at the State and local levels.
358. Increases the pipeline of health professionals by supporting the development and implementation of health sciences programs in public secondary schools so that students can prepare for careers in health professions.
359. Creates education and training grants to meet the critical needs of Americans who require mental and behavioral health care.
360. Increases funding for geriatric education and training.
361. creates scholarships and loan repayment programs for allied health professionals, including radiology technicians and physical therapists.
362. Provides $11 billion in funding for the operation, expansion, and construction of community health centers throughout the Nation.
363. Helps patients take more control of their health care decisions by providing more information to help them make decisions that work for them.
364. Strengthens the doctor and patient relationship by providing doctors access to cutting edge medical research to help them and their patients make the decisions that work best for them.
365. Brings greater transparency to nursing homes to help families find the right place for their loved ones.
366. Enhances training for nursing home staff so that the quality of care continuously improves.
367. Promotes nursing home safety by encouraging self corrections of errors.
368. Requires background checks for employees who provide direct care.
369. Encourages innovative programs that prevent and eliminate elder abuse.
370. Reins in waste, fraud and abuse by imposing tough new disclosure requirements to identify high-risk providers who have defrauded the American taxpayer.
371. Gives states new authority to crack down on providers who have been penalized in one state from setting up in another.
372. Gives states flexibility to propose tort reforms that address several criteria, including reducing health care errors, enhancing patient safety, encouraging efficient resolution of disputes, and improving access to liability insurance.
373. Requires doctors with financial interests in imaging services, like MRI services, to inform the patients in writing that they can obtain the recommended imaging service from a person other than the referring physician, and provide a contact list.
374. Prevents conflicts of interests and insures full transparency and information for patients.
375. Requires all drug companies, device, and medical supply manufacturers to fully disclose and report any gifts they make or financial arrangements they have with doctors, a physician practice or group.
376. Requires all pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) that manage the prescription drug portion of health plans under Medicare or the Exchange to report information regarding any rebates, discounts, or price concessions they negotiate for prescription drugs.
377. Requires all pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) that manage prescription drug portion of health plans under Medicare of the Exchange to report how often they use generic drugs rather than more expensive brand name drugs.
378. Ensures more accurate payments for services and keep health care costs down.
379. Provides doctors and other providers with access to cutting-edge medical research to help them and their patients make the medical decisions that work for them.
380. Precludes findings from this research from being interpreted as a mandate for medical practice guidelines or coverage decisions.
381. Provides patients and doctors with additional control over their medical decisions with important patient safeguards that protect against discriminatory coverage decisions based on age, disability, terminal illness, or an individual’s quality of life preference.
382. Provide Americans with more information so they can make better choices about nursing facilities under the Act.
383. Create a “Nursing Home Compare” Medicare website that will be updated with information about: staffing, links to State internet websites concerning State nursing facility surveys and certification, a model standardized complaint form, a summary of complaints for facilities and the number of instances of criminal violations by a facility or its employee.
384. Require skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) under Medicare and nursing facilities (NFs) under Medicaid to make available all of their information concerning the facilities’ ownership.
385. Require facilities to include dementia management and abuse prevention training as part of pre-employment training for staff.
386. Creates incentives to correct deficiencies and improves independent monitoring.
387. Establishes a demonstration project to test and implement a national independent monitoring program to oversee inter-State and large intra-State nursing home chains.
388. Makes sure that families and residents have the chance to prepare and plan.
389. Requires the administrator of a facility preparing to close to provide written notice to residents, legal representatives of residents and the State in advance of closing the facility.
390. Requires background checks for employees who have direct access to patients of Long Term care facilities.
391. Prevents and eliminates elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
392. Creates a competitive grant program to innovative entities who carry out activities to protect individuals seeking care in facilities that provide long-term services.
393. Requires owners, operators, and employees of long-term care facilities to report suspected crimes committed at a facility.
394. Cracks down on high-risk providers and suppliers who defraud the American taxpayer in the Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP programs.
395. Requires providers and suppliers enrolling or re-enrolling in these programs to be subject to a new compliance program.
396. Subjecting providers and suppliers or re-enrolling in these programs to tougher standards and criminal background checks.
397. Requiring providers and suppliers or re-enrolling in these programs to disclose all affiliations with any provider or supplier that has uncollected debt, has had their payments suspended, has been excluded from participating in a Federal health care program, or has had their billing privileges revoked.
398. Providing that the Inspector General of HHS will oversee a new comprehensive data base including any provider or practitioner who has been sanctioned under Medicare or Medicaid to help law enforcement keep fraudulent providers out of these programs.
399. Provides new authority to deny enrollment in any of these programs if these high-risk affiliations pose an undue risk to the program and the American taxpayer.
400. Creating new sanctions on individuals who purchase, sell, or distribute Medicare beneficiary identification numbers or provider billing numbers, including jail time.
401. Imposes tough new penalties to prevent waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid program.
402. Holds Medicare administrative contractors liable for payments to excluded providers.
403. Precludes health care providers from discharging their debts to Medicare or Medicaid through bankruptcy proceedings.
404. Medicare will adopt new “credit card” technology that provides real time information to determine in advance of payment whether a claim meets program coverage and other requirements.
405. Require the Secretary of HHS to study and report to Congress on the costs and benefits of assigning universal product numbers (UPNs, or bar codes) to items covered under Medicare to more effectively track and evaluate covered drugs, devices, and supplies.
406. Create new conditions of participation in Medicare on community mental health centers to ensure they are providing necessary and high quality care.
407. Create new penalties on any person who makes false statements on applications or contracts to participate in a Federal health care program or who know of an overpayment and did not return the overpayment.
408. Allows payments to be suspended during a fraud investigation of providers or suppliers. 409. Provide that new data will be available on the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) regarding corrective actions taken against health care providers, suppliers, and practitioners.
410. Require information in the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank to be accessible to private plans when they are reviewing provider credentials.
411. Imposes tough new rules for the Medicaid program that will reduce fraud and save money for cash-strapped states.
412. Sets up new rules to prevent individuals or entities that were terminated from Medicare or Medicaid in one state from setting up practice in another state.
413. Requires Medicaid agencies to exclude individuals or entities from participating in Medicaid for a specified period if it (1) has failed to repay overpayments; (2) is suspended, excluded, or terminated from participation in any Medicaid program; or (3) is affiliated with an individual or entity that has been suspended, excluded, or terminated from Medicaid participation.
414. Establishes a competitive grant program for States to develop, implement, and evaluate innovative medical malpractice reforms that help resolve disputes over injuries allegedly caused by health care providers or organizations and promote a reduction in health care errors.
415. Gives states the resources they need to test out reforms, measure the results, and build on what works.
416. Promotes innovation and saves consumers money.
417. Ends anti-competitive behavior by drug companies that keep effective and affordable generic drugs off the market.
418. Extends drug discounts to hospitals and communities that serve low-income patients.
419. Creates a pathway for the creation of generic versions of biological drugs so that doctors and patients have access to effective and lower cost alternatives.
420. Saves money for consumers and taxpayers by ending the collusion between pharmaceutical companies where companies with brand name drugs pay companies who make generic drugs to keep the generic drug off the market.
421. Extends discounts on drugs to hospitals and communities that serve low-income patients.
422. Creates a new pathway to create generic versions of biological products so that Americans have access to effective, lower-cost alternatives.
423. Provides Americans with a new option to finance long-term services and care in the event of a disability.
424. Creates a daily cash benefit in exchange for a premium paid by workers.
425. Precludes taxpayer funds from being used to pay benefits under this provision.
426. Reduces Medicaid spending.
427. Allows people to continue working and living in their homes and not enter nursing homes. 428. Provides safeguards to be put in place to ensure its premiums are enough to cover its costs.
429. Makes health care more affordable for families and small business owners by providing the largest middle class tax cuts for health care in American history.
430. Cuts taxes on families making less than $250,000 by hundreds of billions of dollars.
431. This bill will completely pay for health reform.
432. This bill will reduce the deficit by more than one hundred billion dollars in the next ten years.
433. Improve enforcement and close loopholes in the tax code.
434. Create corporate information reporting requirements.
435. Close the loophole that allows certain byproducts of paper production to be eligible for the cellulosic biofuels producer credit.
436. Help prevent tax shelters by clarifying the definition of when activities have true “economic substance” beyond evading taxes.
437. Imposes an additional 0.9 percentage point Hospital Insurance tax for households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.
438. Adds a 2.9 percent tax for such high-income households to unearned income including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents (excluding income from active participation in S corporations).
439. Imposes an excise tax on insurance companies to help finance the tax credits and other portions of comprehensive health reform.
440. Reduces the long-term cost growth of health care.
441. Helps increase workers’ after-tax wages as insurance companies respond to increased competition by offering more cost-effective insurance plans for employers.
442. Limit the excise tax only to premiums above $27,500 for families and $10,200 for singles in 2018 and would be adjusted at the consumer price index plus one thereafter.
443. Include in the excise tax new permanent reforms that will focus its impact on plans that provide the highest-cost benefits.
444. Provide permanent adjustments based on age, gender and high-risk professions.
445. Impose fees on various sectors of the health industry.
446. Impose a fee on branded prescription drug pharmaceutical companies in proportion to their federal sales.
447. Impose an excise tax on medical devices.
448. Impose an annual fee on health insurance companies.
449. Impose an excise tax on indoor tanning services.
450. Impose an additional 10 percent penalty on non-health withdrawals from HSAs.
451. Impoose an additional 10 percent penalty on Archer MSAs.
452. Limit Flexible Spending Accounts under cafeteria plans to $2,500.
453. Eliminate, starting in 2012, the deduction for employer subsidies for retiree drug coverage under Part D.
454. Raise the floor on the itemized deduction for major medical expenses to 10 percent of AGI for the non-elderly and non-disabled.
455. Limit excessive compensation paid by certain health insurance companies.
456. Establish a number of new tax benefits, beyond the ones for individuals and small businesses contained in Title I.
457. Exclude from income of certain health benefits provided by Indian tribal governments.
458. Establish simple cafeteria benefit plans for small businesses.
458. Establish a qualifying therapeutic discovery project tax credit.
459. Exclude from income of assistance provided to participants in State student loan repayment programs for certain health professionals.
460. Expand the adoption credit and adoption assistance programs.
461. Reauthorizes the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (ICHIA).
462. Modernize the Indian health care system and improve health care for 1.9 million American Indians and Alaska Natives.

WOW! There it is. 462 promises, commitments, claims, call them what you want. It’s a truck load for sure. But gosh, it all sounds so great. So how is he going to accomplish all of this? What is the plan of attack? Let’s go to the plan as set forth on www.whitehouse.gov. Here’s how the President’s plan is going to accomplish all this:

“HEY PRES? HOW YOU GOING TO DO THAT?”

ANSWER PLEASE. DRUM ROLL. READY? ANY TIME NOW?

1. I DO NOT KNOW.
2. Go to answer number one.
3. The end.

THAT’S THE ANSWER. WHY? BECAUSE IT IS NOT IN THERE. Nothing. Nada. Zippo. Butkus. Zero. Nothing. The President’s proposal as set forth on his website is entirely vacant of mechanics with the exception of the tax increases which conveniently are pushed to the end. (There are volumes of hidden tax increases which I will address in subsequent postings) His pitch is nothing more than a shallow attempt to sell us on a government take over of one sixth of our economy. It is insulting. It is unadulterated tripe. His plan reeks of immense bureaucracy, redundancy, rampant inefficiency and government control. It is vile. It is a license to control – everything! It is ridiculous. And it’s all there for you to read. At last, some transparency. Thank you Mr. President. I greatly appreciate your efforts to educate Americans on your unconstitutional un-American agenda. We could not have done it without you.

That’s my Reetzality for the Day.

Thanks for the long read.

Brett Reetz

Obama told CBS News’ anchor Katie Couric in an interview taped before the Super Bowl that “I want to ask them [the Republicans] to put their ideas on the table, and then after the [congressional] recess, which will be a few weeks away, I want to come back and have a large meeting, the Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward.”

The Washington Post reported that Obama had invited Republicans to take part in a half-day summit that would be televised live later this month, just as his meeting last week with House Republicans at their Baltimore retreat was open to cameras.

Obama’s offer reflected both the political reality that health care reform is in jeopardy after the loss of the Democrats’ 60-vote majority in the Senate, which allowed them to shut down filibusters. It also reflected Obama’s sensitivity to the criticism that the shaping of the legislation had not met his promise of transparency, something that he acknowledged at the Republican retreat.

DO NOT FALL FOR IT REPUBLICANS! Summits don’t work. Nor do committees. Summits, committees, panels, pick a name, they serve as nothing but a forum to point fingers, spread blame, and escape responsibility. How many times have we heard as a response to an attack on a political position that “so and so on the panel agrees with me.” Too many. Obama is the president, he’s responsible. Make him so. Let him fail on his own rather than joining him in his failure. I’ve read the bills, they are both a disaster for our nation, for our liberty. They both fail the fundamental American constitutional test, so again, don’t join him in his attack on our liberty.

So do not attend his summit. He will use the attendance to accomplish one of two things. He will either use it to claim he has bi-partisan support or use it to attack Republicans as the “say no” guys.

Obama will not use the summit to accomplish anything other than putting Republicans in a bad light. He will use it to shift the middle ground to the “left.” Don’t fall for it. Don’t go. This guy isn’t into compromise and neither are most Americans. We want our freedom. We demand it. His beliefs are different than ours. Don’t let us down by reaching across the aisle. Reach for American Principles of which both the pending House and Senate bills are vacant. But don’t be uninvolved. Here’s what you should do:

Draft a comprehensive health care proposal that does the following:

1. Allows inter-state competition.
2. Makes health insurance policies portable.
3. Provide tax benefits that subsidize the cost of insurance companies providing coverage for pre-existing conditions.
4. Propose tort reform.
5. Expand medical health care savings accounts. Allow folks to get more than a dollar for dollar tax break on money they put into their medical savings account.
6. Provide liability protection for nurses and physicians’ assistants so that they can increase the supply of medical services without the need for a supervising medical doctor. Increased supply over demand drives prices down. You’ll have to use simple words when explaining this principle to the Obamanomics followers.
7. Provide tax incentives for attending medical schools for doctors and nurses.
8. Provide tax incentives through medical savings accounts that will allow the eventual discontinuance of entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. We can’t afford them, period. They will end one way or the other. Take some responsibility and wean America from them rather than collapsing America with them.
9. Propose that all government workers, including congress, will be placed in the same circumstances as all other Americans.
10. Do the numbers. Provide hard accounting of the facts of your proposal. Have specific numbers based on reality and not fantasy as to how much it will eliminate government bureaucracy and governments costs.

And send it in a memo to Obama. Come on guys, aren’t you a bit embarrassed to be participating in an Obama Summit? You should be so don’t participate, just send a memo. He can send one back so you have his response in writing. Although, he might just send over his teleprompter. What’s the difference?

That’s my Reetzality for the Day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

Captain Obonga, I mean President Obonga, has just completed his State of the Union Address. (He was rambling again and saying crazy things so I’m sticking with the Obonga nick name) I’m relieved. I have nothing to worry about now. Captain Obonga has got it under control. He’s going to fix the economy, government transparency, health care, the environment, the energy crisis, the nuclear power industry, education, bi-partisanship, government secrecy, foreign affairs, terrorism, actual government, the deficit, the Supreme Court decision of last week, ear mark abuses, the American spirit, both parties in congress, HIV, foreign relationships, the nuclear arms race, carbon emissions, the middle class, small business, protect us from the banking industry by punishing Wall Street and has already done so much. How can a person not be in awe of Captain Obonga. Especially when, according to his State of the Union address, he told us little guys, (he called us “they” and called Washington folks “we”) what he had accomplished so far. I didn’t know that he saved us from a second Great Depression? Boy, I am so unappreciative. I didn’t know that he saved millions of jobs. I had no idea that 300,000 teachers were ready to be laid off but for Captain Obonga’s rescue efforts. I had no idea that he hadn’t raised my taxes. Of course I’m one of the “they” and am so naive that I believe that I will never have to pay off the national debt, not a penny of it Captain Obonga, right? And of course, he said “hadn’t” raised my taxes and although us “they” people are naive, we’re not illiterate. We know the difference between “raise” and “raised.” And I’m definitely not not so illiterate to suggest that trying to raise my taxes through the health care bill, the proposed banking fee and Cap and Trade, is actually raising my taxes. You got me there Captain Obonga. You’re right, you didn’t raise my taxes-YET. By the way, can I get Scott Brown’s address to send him a thank you card?

I am so relieved. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Captain Obonga. I had no idea that the government, that failed to prevent a terrorist on the watch list whose father reported him as a radical without a passport from getting on a plane headed to Detroit with a bomb hidden in his underwear, no idea whatsoever that that government could fix everything else. The next thing you know they’ll be joking that the government can’t even keep strangers out of White House dinners? But you set me straight Captain Obonga. Thank you.

O.K., on a more serious note (although the first note was serious, I just utilized humor to demonstrate the seriousness, now I’ll get rid of the humor) was that a speech or what? Shoot, here comes the humor again. Captain Obonga is going to do everything. Pheewww! Say good bye to worries my little friends, I mean you American People. You “they” people.

O.K., O.K. O.K., I took a serious pill, so here goes, firm, fair and frank. The State of the Union address was a rambling cacophony of lies, misrepresentations, false promises, insincerity, rewriting of recent history, bragging, blaming, arrogance, ignorance, condescension, and otherwise consistent with a complete ripper of a marijuana fest. Thus, the “Obonga” nick name. We’ll call it a “BS”-afest instead.

Folks, he’s going to raise our taxes either directly or indirectly and has already done so with his deficit spending. Wait, small correction-maybe. He may have only raised our childrens’ taxes. Folks, he’s not going to endorse nuclear energy or off shore drilling. Folks, he has no desire to assist small business. He doesn’t even respect business for what it does. He said that all student loans would be forgiven in twenty years but in ten years if a graduate goes into public service. That’s right, we need more social workers and bureaucrats in our future than business people because social workers and bureaucrats are just so damn critical. See folks, this is another window into Captain Obonga’s soul. He values government more than the private sector. And he doesn’t understand basic values either; like paying off your debt. What in the world would justify a person to stop paying a debt if it’s not paid off? Shoot, that’s that pesky “keep your word” stuff. God that’s irritating. So what’s the big deal? I cut a deal, borrow some money for a four year degree which I actually spend six getting, drag the payments out for twenty years and then tell the lender that Captain Obonga told me I didn’t have to pay anymore after twenty years. Wait, wait, wait. I thought of something. Why don’t I just grab a public sector job in let’s say year nine, work it for a year, stop paying which is absolutely justified since I’ll be doing something so critical to America, actually serving the public for America, like for example, collecting tolls on a turnpike, and then, when I’m free of my promise to re-pay my student loan, I quit my cherished public sector job and go into the private sector and stick the tax payer with the rest of my debt. So many possibilities.

O.K. Folks, now I’m really going to be serious, actually I have been. I was just using humor to exemplify how much of a joke the State of the Union Address was. Our president has never made a bottom line, hangs out with communists and terrorists, loves Government, big government, is a progressive democrat, wants to socialize medicine, (He said he’s not quitting in his pursuit of his anti-American Agenda (He didn’t say “anti-American” but it is)), has no understanding of the economy, nothing is his fault, and after listening to his speech, wants to run everything.

Prior to his address, it was suggested that the Obama Administration was going to do a “re-set” on its agenda due to the rapidly growing trend against them. The pundits got it half right. Obama did do a reset but not on his agenda. He did a reset on the focus button so that the picture we see is different than before, blurred; but the content, the actual content, is exactly the same.

Beware folks, this guy does not like us “they” people. But he’s afraid of us and that’s why he reached out last night and spun the focus button. He changed the focus to hide. What he didn’t change was the content of his ambitions which are very un-American. Only our ability to see it was changed. But folks, you need not worry. I know this guy and his ambitions will come back into focus sooner than you think, definitely by November.

That’s my Reetzality for the day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

NOTE: I use the “Captain” title to remind folks of the Titanic, you know that unsinkable ocean liner that sank on its first voyage. Of course, America could never be like the Titanic.

Here is a great piece on the constitutionality of the proposed health care bill. Like I advised months ago, it is not about health care, it is about the taking of freedom from the people. It’s an informative read but a scary one at that. Here it is:

The following comment is from Michael Connelly of Carrollton , Texas , a retired attorney and constitutional law instructor who states he has read the entire health care bill and has some comments, not about the bill, but about the impact upon our Constitution. It’s a broader picture than just health care reform.

Looks like something to sit up and pay attention to; once this happens, it will be irreversible.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HEALTHCARE BILLS?

Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House
Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law.. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.

To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.

The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.

However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface.
In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.

The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the
Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.

If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable” to the “Choices
Administrator” appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a “tax” instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law.

So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out of the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn’t stop there though.

The 9th Amendment that provides:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”

The 10th Amendment states:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.

I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to “be bound by oath or affirmation” to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.

For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source. Here is a link to the Constitution:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.

Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton , Texas

That’s my reetzality for the day. Hopefully, it is not our reality for tomorrow.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

Here are two articles that rebuke global warming or climate change, whatever the sales pitch of the day the lefties are using to scare folks in order to give power to those who don’t deserve it and take away power, I mean freedom, from those who do. The first article is from the Houston Chronicle. Skiing in Houston anyone?

HOUSTON BRACES FOR ICY NIGHT AFTER RECORD EARLY SNOWFALL

First the snow, now the chill.

A steady snowfall, the earliest in Houston’s history, continues this afternoon after flakes began falling shortly after dawn this morning. Meanwhile, temperatures have fallen throughout the day and as of 1 p.m. were sitting at 33 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport. Factor in the wind and it felt like 24 degrees.

So far snow wasn’t accumulating widely, but once the ground gets cool enough amounts of two inches or more are still considered possible. Freeways and streets are wet as the snow immediately melts as it hits the pavement, and forecasters are concerned that will turn to ice as the mercury drops.

A 12-hour freeze period is expected to begin after sundown today, continuing into Saturday, which could cause hazardous driving conditions.

A freeze warning has been issued for more than 20 Texas counties, including the coastal counties of Chambers, Galveston, Brazoria, Matagorda and Jackson, extending northward through Harris, Montgomery, Fort Bend, Wharton and Liberty counties, then stretching as far northwest as the cities of Bryan and College Station and as far northeast as Trinity and Polk counties.

There’s a nearly 100 percent chance of precipitation this afternoon, and that almost certainly will be snow because of the air temperature.

Icy roads after dark
Widespread light to moderate snow is forecast through the afternoon, with pockets of heavier snow possible in some areas.

The forecast has caused the National Weather Service to call for a winter storm warning until 8 p.m. for much of southeast Texas, including the immediate eight-county Houston area and areas to the north and northeast.

The snowfall should gradually decrease after 5 p.m. as the storm system moves eastward, setting the stage for icy roads after dark and a freezing night during which temperatures will dip into the upper 20s.

The icy roads and hazardous driving conditions are the most treacherous factors on officials’ minds. The city of Houston, Harris County and Houston Airport System all have sand trucks ready to coat freezing roads and runways.

Harris County Emergency Management Coordinator Mark Sloan said that driving today could be risky.

“We could have bad road conditions in the afternoon just based on wind and snowfall,” Sloan said. “Prepare for a slow drive home and take the appropriate precautions and be patient. Think holidays while you’re driving.”

Could be worse tomorrow
Road conditions could be even worse by the time people wake up Saturday morning after the hard freeze overnight. But by Saturday afternoon, all precipitation should melt away under mostly sunny skies with highs reaching the upper 40s.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said some toll roads may be closed entirely once the freeze begins tonight.

“The toll roads are really our biggest concern in the sense of bridges and overpasses,” Emmett said. “We build these very high, dramatic flyovers in this part of the state, because we know we don’t freeze very often. But when they freeze, it’s really bad.”

The Houston Airport System is also prepared, with sand trucks and chemical trucks on standby to fight the ice. While the inclement weather could delay or cancel some flights, travelers should call 281-230-7000 to use the airport system’s real-time automated service to check the status of their flights. Travelers can also check the airport system’s Web site at www.fly2houston.com.

Airport officials are less worried about runways icing over than they are the roads because the runways are made of very thick concrete, which would require at least three days of subfreezing temperatures for icy conditions to form there, said Frank Haley, the airport system’s interim chief operating officer.

“We’re not expecting that kind of event here in Houston,” Haley said. “We’re looking at very minimal impact, we believe.

“Although it is an unusual event in Houston … we are completely prepared. We are completely ready for this,” Haley added.

Aircraft pilots also will forward their braking reports to officials after they land their planes, which will help the city and air carriers keep tabs on whether hazardous conditions develop.
Continental Airlines said customers scheduled for flights to affected airports today through Sunday will have a one-time option to change their itinerary without penalty as long as they plan to travel no later than Dec. 20. Refunds may be requested for canceled Continental flights.

Houston Independent School District schools held classes today since hazardous road conditions are not expected to be a problem in the morning. HISD officials will monitor weather conditions throughout the day in case school closures become necessary, but said afternoon bus rides home should not be affected if just a light amount of snow falls. However, after-school activities have been canceled.

Here’s Ann Coulter’s right on analysis:

Do Smoking Guns Cause Global Warming, Too?
by Ann Coulter
12/02/2009

As we now know (and by “we” I mean “everyone with access to the Internet”), the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has just been caught ferociously manipulating the data about the Earth’s temperature.

Recently leaked e-mails from the “scientists” at CRU show that, when talking among themselves, they forthrightly admit to using a “trick” to “hide the decline” in the Earth’s temperature since 1960 — as one e-mail says. Still another describes their manipulation of the data thus: “[W]e can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!”

Am I just crazy from the heat or were they trying to deceive us?

Global warming cheerleaders in the media were quick to defend the scandalous e-mails, explaining that, among scientists, the words “trick,” “hide the decline” and “garbage” do not mean “trick,” “hide the decline” and “garbage.” These words actually mean “onion soup,” “sexual submissive” and “Gary, Ind.”

(Boy, it must be great to be able to redefine words right in the middle of a debate.)

Also, of course, the defenders said that the words needed to be placed “in context” — the words’ check was in the mail, and they’d like to spend more time with their families.

I have placed the words in context and it turns out what they mean is: gigantic academic fraud.

The leaked e-mail exchanges also show the vaunted “scientists” engaging in a possibly criminal effort to delete their own smoking-gun e-mails in response to a Freedom of Information request. Next, the fanatics will be telling us that “among scientists,” this behavior does not indicate knowledge of guilt.

If I recall correctly, their next move should be to fire the special prosecutor late Saturday night.

These e-mails aren’t a tempest in a teapot. They are evidence of pervasive fraud by a massively influential institution that has dominated news coverage of global warming.

CRU was regularly cited as the leading authority on “global climate analysis” — including by the very news outlets that are burying the current scandal, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. The CRU alone received more than $23 million in taxpayer funds for its work on global warming.

Having claimed to have collected the most complete data on the Earth’s temperature for the last half century, the CRU’s summary of that data was used by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its 2007 report demanding that we adopt a few modest lifestyle changes, such as abolishing modern technology, reverting to hunter/gatherer status and taxing ourselves into servitude.

But then last weekend — in the middle of the “Let’s Cook the Books!” e-mail scandal — the CRU said that all its data on the Earth’s temperature since 1960 had been irretrievably “lost.” (Although I suspect “overcooked” might be a more apt term.)

The way this episode is unfolding, the environmentalists may be forced to drop their phantom threat of global warming and go back to the phantom threat of global cooling.

Most disturbingly, the CRU-affiliated “scientists” were caught red-handed conspiring to kill the careers and reputations of scientists who dissented from the religion of global warming. Indignant that scientific journals were publishing papers skeptical of global warming, the cult members plotted to get editors ousted and the publications discredited.

This sabotage of global warming dissenters may be more galling than their manipulation of the data. Until now, the global warming cult’s sole argument has been to demand that everyone shut up in response to the “scientific consensus” that human activity was causing global warming.

That’s their idea of a free and open debate.

It’s always the same thing with primitive people — voodoo practitioners, rain dancers and liberals. In lieu of facts, debate and a weighing of the evidence, religious fanatics respond to all counterarguments by invoking a higher authority: the witch doctor, a “scientific consensus,” “the Constitution” or “historians are agreed.”

Liberals won’t tell us why Congress passed a law outlawing incandescent lightbulbs by 2014 — a bill solemnly delivered to the president in a Prius hybrid (making it the slowest-moving bill in U.S. history). Instead, they tell us there’s a “scientific consensus” that we have to use fluorescent lightbulbs or we’ll all die.

They won’t tell us why Ten Commandments monuments must be stripped from every public space in America. Instead, they tell us “the Constitution” says so (according to the high priests who interpret it to mean things the document doesn’t remotely say).

They won’t tell us what Sen. Joe McCarthy lied about. They say: Historians are agreed that McCarthy was a liar. (These are the same historians who also stated as fact that “few American Communists were spies” — until decrypted Soviet cables proved that the Communist Party was awash with Soviet spies.)

This is precisely what liberals accuse Christians of doing, but which Christians never do. We don’t cite the Bible as authority — and then refuse to let anyone read it. We certainly don’t claim to have “lost” it, so you can’t check for yourself. But that’s exactly what the CRU has done with its secret data allegedly showing a warming Earth.

Also, biblical data on the great flood and Noah’s ark have held up remarkably well.

Even if the Earth were warming — which apparently it is not — the idea that humans using energy-efficient lightbulbs would alter the temperature of the globe is approximately as plausible as the Aztecs’ belief that they were required to wrench the beating heart out of living, breathing humans in order to keep the sun on its path.

Sadly, the “human sacrifice deniers” lost the argument to Aztec CRU scientists, who explained that there was a “scientific consensus” on the benefits of ritual murder.

But at least the Aztecs only slaughtered tens of thousands of humans in the name of “climate change.” The global warming cultists want us all dead.

Back to Reetzality. That’s it, that’s my Reetzality for the Day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

I have previously on many occasions set forth numerous Obama’ lies. The list is blatant and vast. Here’s the list, just for refreshment:

1. I’ll have no lobbyists in my administration. He does.
2. I’ll read every bill, line by line, before I sign it. He didn’t read the stimulus bill.
3. I will have no earmarks. there were over eight thousand earmarks on the stimulus bill.
4. I’ll be out of Irac in sixty days. Nope.
5. I’ll close Guantanamo. Nope. (but a good nope)
6. My administration will be transparent. It’s not.
7. I’ll put an end to red-state-blue-state politics. The nation has never been more polarized. Actually it was once, in 1861. I think Lincoln was president)
8. Cap and Trade will not impose a cost on families. Obama covered up an internal report that said it would do just that.
9. My focus will be on Afghanistan. It’s not, it’s on Letterman.
10. I won’t raise taxes on anybody earning less than $250,000.00. Not true if he gets his way on cap and trade and health care.
11. Health care won’t cover illegal aliens. (It did until Wilson called him a liar. He went on to say we should make illegals legal and kill the issue.
12. I’m for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. He betrayed our allies and reversed course.
13. Obama-care won’t include a tax. It does.
14. I didn’t even know ACORN was getting that much federal funding. Either he’s a liar or ignorant, pick.
15. If we pass the stimulus bill, unemployment will not go above 8%. It has.
16. I have no intention of running General Motors. He is.
17. (a new one) Health care won’t fund abortion. Not true in the newest tax, I mean health care bill.

So the guys a liar and a blatant one. Not to worry, his charm will sugar coat the immorality of his dishonesty. But will it? Are you, the liberals, so pathetic, so disrespectful of yourself, that you allow somebody to lie to you?

Apparently so. But here’s the big lie. “I’m going to change the way Washington works.” He campaigned on this issue. CHANGE was his mantra, his theme. But what do you know, he didn’t change anything except this: He has injected steroids into everything that’s bad about Washington. Lobbyist are running rampant in his administration. Transparency is aggressively thwarted. Corruption and special interests are in full force. Spending is out of control. Bi-partisanship is dead.

So liberals, when do you get mad that your guy lied to you about his fundamentals? I can actually sympathize with some of his words. No lobbyists, good. Transparency, good. No new taxes, good. But he isn’t doing any of these things, he’s doing the opposite, bad bad bad president. Liar.

My point is this liberals; have some self respect and for God’s sake (literal), don’t tolerate his lies. I’ll forgive you for making a mistake. I won’t forgive you for not standing up for yourselves, for allowing yourself to be lied to, and mostly for your insistent feigned ignorance of what this guy is about. I know and like a bunch of you liberals, but again, have some self respect so I can like you more.

That’s my Reetzality for the Day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz