What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[RobDownSouth]

Pennsylvania Republican Governor Caves In, Will Expand Medicaid Under Obamacare

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) will relent and expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, according to a local report, extending health coverage to more than 400,000 people. Corbett had previously balked at accepting federal money to expand the program.

LINK

Another ideologue bites the dust.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Pennsylvania Republican Governor Caves In, Will Expand Medicaid Under Obamacare

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) will relent and expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, according to a local report, extending health coverage to more than 400,000 people. Corbett had previously balked at accepting federal money to expand the program.

LINK

Another ideologue bites the dust.

 

[Busybody]

AFL-CIO Passes Resolution Ripping Obamacare…


Update to this story.


WASHINGTON (AP) — The AFL-CIO on Wednesday approved a resolution critical of parts of President Barack Obama’s health care law in spite of efforts by White House officials to discourage the labor federation from making its concerns so prominent.

The strongly worded resolution says the Affordable Care Act will drive up the costs of union-sponsored health plans to the point that workers and employers are forced to abandon them. Labor unions still support the law’s overall goals of reducing health costs and bringing coverage to all Americans, the resolution says, but adds that the law is being implemented in a way that is “highly disruptive” to union health care plans.

Some individual unions have complained about the law’s impact for months. The resolution marks the first time the nation’s largest labor federation has gone on record embracing that view. Unions were among the most enthusiastic backers of the law when it passed in 2010.

A labor official told The Associated Press that White House officials had been calling labor leaders for days to urge them not to voice their concerns in the form of a resolution. The official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the conversations publicly and requested anonymity, said many union leaders insisted that they wanted to highlight their concerns.

The AFL-CIO, one of the president’s major boosters, approved the resolution just as the administration began rolling out a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to encourage Americans to sign up for health care exchanges starting Oct. 1.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Employers Actually Plan To Hire More Full-Time Workers As Obamacare Rolls Out

BY IGOR VOLSKY ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2013 AT 4:44 PM

A new survey of chief financial officers finds that American companies expect to increase the number of full-time employees by 1.8 percent over the next 12 months as key parts of the Affordable Care Act go into effect, undermining conservative critics who’ve argued that the health care law would hamper business growth and expansion.

“The expected two percent growth in employment is solid, given the context of long-run shifts away from full-time employees largely because of concerns about health care reform and economic uncertainty,” John Graham, Duke Fuqua School of Business finance professor and director of the survey, said. The poll, conducted by Duke University/CFO Magazine, surveyed CFOs at 530 U.S. companies.

The results echo broader indicators showing that companies are hiring more workers.

Payroll figures released last month, for instance, found that job creation at small companies has almost doubled in the last six months, “reaching 82,000 jobs at firms with 49 or fewer employees in July, according to payroll processor ADP.” Small businesses are borrowing more, displaying greater confidence, and are seeing higher “sales of new franchises.”

Though some businesses are claiming that they are hiring more part-time workers to avoid the Affordable Care Act’s employer responsibility requirements, which apply to companies with more than 50 full-time employees, that incentive is limited and research from Moody’s economist Marisa DiNatale indicates that most industries “are actually using fewer part-timers than last year.” The growth in part-time employment, which has been taking place long before the health care law, is rooted in “industries such as restaurants and hospitality that use as much as twice as many part-timers as other companies,” DiNatale concluded.

Some employers in the Duke University survey did cite the health care law as a impediment to growth, though concerns about economic uncertainty, the belief that the stock market is overvalued and will “experience a downward correction,” and rising interest rates were also mentioned.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2607221/employers-obamacare-wont-stop-hiring/

 

[Busybody]

Its OK

The NIGGER will bail you out

Another Union Boss Attacks Obamacare: IBEW President Says Obama Broke His “You Can Keep Your Plan” Promise… I have zero sympathy for them, the unions were Obamacare’s biggest backers when it was being rammed down our throats. IBEW President: Obama Broke His “Keep Your Plan” Promise

 

[koalabear]

1 in 5 Americans struggling to put food on the table

http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_ne...cans-struggling-to-put-food-on-the-table?lite

 

[Busybody]

BFD

the other 4 have BLING

 

[Busybody]

An employee with MNsure, Minnesota’s new health-insurance exchange, e-mailed the names, addresses, and Social Security numbers of thousands of insurance agents to an insurance broker applying to be an Obamacare “navigator,” highlighting concerns many have expressed about the security of the law’s new exchanges.

The Star Tribune reports the employee accidently sent an e-mail containing the information of about 2,400 insurance agents to a local insurance broker. MNsure officials said once they realized the mistake, they called the broker and explained how to delete the information from his computer.

“The more I thought about it, the more troubled I was,” the broker who received the info said. “What if this had fallen into the wrong hands? It’s scary. If this is happening now, how can clients of MNsure be confident their data is safe?”

The broker and the MNsure employee had been e-mailing because the broker was interested in registering as a certified “navigator,” who will help sign up people to the exchanges when it opens October 1. Critics of the law have called on federal and state governments to address potential privacy concerns created by the navigators, who will have access to the personal information of those they’re signing up for the exchanges.

“It’s unsecured, on an Excel spreadsheet — which is using outdated technology to transfer that information in the first place,” the broker said. “They’ve got to realize they have a huge problem.”

MNsure said it is investigating the incident, but believes it was accidental.................RIGHT

 

[Busybody]

Clown Curry assured us

CUNT STUDIES would return big $



Georgetown findings determine college major has significant impact on future income.


To what extent does your college major dictate your future income? Very much so, according to recent research conducted by Anthony P. Carnevale, Jeff Strohl and Michelle Meltonan at Georgetown University.

The team interviewed hundreds of full-time employees holding various bachelor 's degrees and calculated each area of study's median reported earnings.

The range of earnings is staggering. The highest-paid area of study—petroleum engineering—makes $91,000 (134%) more than the lowest-paid area, counseling psychology.

The researchers wrote that income isn't the only thing to consider when selecting a major, but hoped their research would help students make educated financial decisions.

Check out the team's entire findings here.

Top 10 highest-paid college majors

1. Petroleum Engineering: $120,000

2. Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration: $105,000

3. Mathematics and Computer Science: $98,000

4. Aerospace Engineering: $87,000

5. Chemical Engineering: $86,000

6. Electrical Engineering: $85,000

7. Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering: $82,000

8. Mechanical Engineering: $80,000

9. Metallurgical Engineering: $80,000

10. Mining and Mineral Engineering: $80,000

Top 10 lowest-paid college majors

1. Counseling Psychology: $29,000

2. Early Childhood Education: $36,000

3. Theology and Religious Vocations: $38,000

4. Human Services and Community Organization: $38,000

5. Social Work: $39,000

6. Drama and Theater Arts: $40,000

7. Studio Arts: $40,000

8. Communication Disorders Sciences and Service: $40,000

9. Visual and Performing Arts: $40,000

10. Health and Medical Preparatory Programs: $40,000

 

[Busybody]

Obamacare will question your sex life

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Obamacare will question your sex life


Obamacare will question your sex life

Are you active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?”

Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether it’s the dermatologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why you’re seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law.

“This is nasty business,” says New York cardiologist Dr. Adam Budzikowski. He called the sex questions “insensitive, stupid and very intrusive.” He couldn’t think of an occasion when a cardiologist would need such information — but he knows he’ll be pushed to ask for it.

The president’s “reforms” aim to turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they consider inappropriate and unnecessary, and to violate their Hippocratic Oath to keep patients’ records confidential.

Embarrassing though it may be, you confide things to a doctor you wouldn’t tell anyone else. But this is entirely different.

Doctors and hospitals who don’t comply with the federal government’s electronic-health-records requirements forgo incentive payments now; starting in 2015, they’ll face financial penalties from Medicare and Medicaid. The Department of Health and Human Services has already paid out over $12.7 billion for these incentives.

Dr. Richard Amerling, a nephrologist and associate professor at Albert Einstein Medical College, explains that your medical record should be “a story created by you and your doctor solely for your treatment and benefit.” But the new requirements are turning it “into an interrogation, and the data will not be confidential.”

Lack of confidentiality is what concerned the New York Civil Liberties Union in a 2012 report. Electronic medical records have enormous benefits, but with one click of a mouse, every piece of information in a patient’s record, including the social history, is transmitted, disclosing too much.

The social-history questions also include whether you’ve ever used drugs, including IV drugs. As the NYCLU cautioned, revealing a patient’s past drug problem, even if it was a decade ago, risks stigma.

On the other end of the political spectrum is the Goldwater Institute, a free-market think tank. It argues that by requiring everyone to have health insurance and then imposing penalties on insurers, doctors and hospitals who don’t use the one-click electronic system, the law is violating Americans’ medical privacy.

The administration is ignoring these protests from privacy advocates. On Jan. 17, HHS announced patients who want to keep something out of their electronic record should pay cash. That’s impractical for most people.

There’s one question they can’t ask: Thanks to the NRA, Section 2716 of the ObamaCare law bars the federal government from compelling doctors and hospitals to ask you if you own a firearm.

But that’s the only question they can’t be told to ask you.

Where are the women’s rights groups that went to the barricades in the 1980s and 1990s to prevent the federal government from accessing a woman’s health records? Hypocritically, they are silent now.

Patients need to defend their own privacy by refusing to answer the intrusive social-history questions. If you need to confide something pertaining to your treatment, ask your doctor about keeping two sets of books so that your secret stays in the office. Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath seriously and won’t be offended.

Are such precautions paranoid? Hardly. WikiLeaker Bradley Manning showed how incompetent the government is at keeping its own secrets; incidents where various agencies accidentally disclose personal data like Social Security numbers are legion. And that’s not to mention the ways in which commercial databases are prone to hacking and/or exploitation.

Be careful about sharing your medical secrets with Uncle Sam.

 

[RobDownSouth]

An excellent, very thoughtful essay in the New Yorker this morning:

The Republican Plot To Kill Obamacare

LINK

Bottom Line: the Republicans have convinced themselves that "Obamacare is a failure", just like they convinced themselves last year that "Romney is going to win!"

They blow every little hiccup and misstep out of proportion, while completely ignoring the big picture: More Americans are being covered, and health care costs are dropping.

 

[koalabear]

First Thoughts: Health care remains a tough sell

And new numbers from our NBC/WSJ poll show that the law remains unpopular with the American public. Per the poll, 44% call it a bad idea, while 31% believe it’s a good idea, which is virtually unchanged from July’s survey. What’s more, by a 45% to 23% margin, Americans say the law will have a negative impact on the country's health-care system rather than a positive one. And 30% of respondents think it will have a negative impact on their families. Just 12% say it will be positive, and a majority -- 53% -- don't believe it will have an impact one way or another. We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again: Health care’s unpopularity can be traced to the decision by the White House and its allies to allow Republicans to define it AFTER it was signed into law. Just how poorly has the White House messaged health care? Consider that 30% of Democrats say they don’t know enough about the law to have an opinion, and “only” 56% of Democrats call the plan a “good idea” So barely half of the president’s base calls health care a “good idea.” That’s a big problem.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/...re-remains-a-tough-sell?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=1

 

[Busybody]

they don't like it?

must be cause

he is BLACK

 

[Busybody]

Georgia Business Dumps 100 Employees, Cites ObamaCare As Reason


And the sycophants are going down with the ship while giving a handy to their dear leader.

 

[Busybody]

Freedom Works

Lifetouch Dropping Health Coverage For All Part-Time Employees Due to Obamacare

Lifetouch National School Studios, the world’s largest employee-owned photography company, has sent a letter to employees explaining that new provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have forced them to review and make changes to their benefit plans. That review has led the company to announce that health insurance benefits will be discontinued for part-time employees “across Lifetouch.”

Read more at http://iowntheworld.com/blog/#VBlTV3XX4sOUM1Er.99

 

[Busybody]

BUT...................


Obama To Host Third Star-Studded White House Concert Since Sequester Went Into Effect…




Party time!

Via White House Dossier:


President and Mrs. Obama Monday night will host their third “command performance” since the sequester began in March, grooving in the East Room to the sounds of Hispanic music.

Among the stars who will appear to serenade the first couple are Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martin, Raul Malo, Prince Royce, Natalie Cole, Lila Downs, Arturo Sandoval, Romeo Santos, Alejandro Sanz and Marco Antonio Solis.

While workers are being furloughed throughout the government, services are cut, and White House tours remain on ice, private concerts for the Obamas somehow remain beyond the budget axe. The Obamas hosted a “celebration” of Memphis soul music in April and a tribute to Carole King in May.

 

[Busybody]

TYPICAL KNEE GRASS


Mooch: Barack “Will Shake His Groove Thing” At White House Concert…




In other news, as many as 12 people were killed today in a mass shooting at the Washington Naval Yard.


WASHINGTON (AP) — Michelle Obama says the beats and melodies in Latin music are so irresistible that even President Barack Obama “will shake his groove thing” Monday night.

Gloria Estefan, Romeo Santos, Lila Downs, Marco Antonio Solis and other top Latin musicians are joining the Obamas to tape the latest installment of the PBS series, “In Performance at the White House.” It will celebrate the various styles of Latin music during Hispanic Heritage Month, which began Sunday.

Obama is scheduled to make brief remarks.

The first lady spoke during a late-morning workshop for local high school students with some of the artists, including Estefan and her husband, Emilio, of Miami Sound Machine.

 

[Busybody]

Mooch: White House Concerts For “Rich” And “Fancy” People…




Piss off, commoners.

Via Washington Whispers:


The Obamas have taken great pride in starting the White House concert series, “In Performance at the White House.” But first lady Michelle Obama was also fairly frank about who gets to sit in the audience.

Talking to a group of local students Monday morning at the White House, she broke down the demographics: “Whenever we have musicians or artists or movie stars come here to perform — which these folks will be doing this evening for a bunch of rich people and fancy people and all of that, right — the most fun is when we invite young people like all of you here during the day so that you get a chance to talk to these folks and learn from them.”

At Monday morning’s session, previewing Musica Latina night at the White House, were Gloria and Emilio Esteban, Lila Downs, Romeo Santos and Marco Antonio Solis.

 

[Busybody]

So far, published Obamacare regs 8 times longer than the Bible. And they all add up to one commandment: "Thou better not get sick".

 

[mercury14]

So far, published Obamacare regs 8 times longer than the Bible. And they all add up to one commandment: "Thou better not get sick".

And 99% of them are just modifications to existing regulations or they create structure for things like exchanges or tax credits to individuals and small businesses.

According to conservative logic if a street's speed limit is changed from 35 to 45 then a second speed limit is being added, it's not just being changed.

 

[Busybody]

You Are On Iggy

 

[Busybody]

OBAMACARE IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE! Congress’s Exemption from Obamacare: Make Congress get insurance the same way the little people do? Hill denizens howl in fury.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

An excellent, very thoughtful essay in the New Yorker this morning:

The Republican Plot To Kill Obamacare

LINK

Bottom Line: the Republicans have convinced themselves that "Obamacare is a failure", just like they convinced themselves last year that "Romney is going to win!"

They blow every little hiccup and misstep out of proportion, while completely ignoring the big picture: More Americans are being covered, and health care costs are dropping.

Great post. I would have missed it. Thanks.

 

[Busybody]

another ObamaASSkisser turd boi joins the thread

 

[Busybody]

Obamacare’s Useful Idiots

By David Catron on 9.16.13 @ 6:08AM


One by one, the dupes have been double-crossed by Obama and the Democrats.


Remember that March day in 2010 when the President, surrounded by devout supporters, solemnly signed Obamacare into law? It was, as Joe Biden brayed, “a big f——-g deal.” Obama and his army of righteous reformers had finally triumphed over the forces of evil and passed legislation that would drive the moneychangers from the temple of U.S. health care. Many of those beaming down on the President as he wielded his terrible swift pen represented prestigious national organizations and coalitions whose support had made the glorious moment possible. Some of these groups, however, have since seen the error of their ways.

The most recent such coalition to repent of its support for the “Affordable Care Act” (ACA) has been the AFL-CIO. As has been widely reported, that federation of unions approved a resolution during its recent convention declaring that Obamacare will increase health insurance premiums so dramatically that many of its members will have to drop their coverage. In order to avoid this inevitable consequence of their support for the health care law, union goons like Richard Trumka have been putting pressure on the President to honor his backroom promises to provide unions with special dispensations from inconvenient provisions of “reform.”

One of the most controversial union demands, which would have resulted in extra ACA subsidies for union members, was rejected by the Obama administration on Friday: “The Treasury Department issued a letter that confirmed that people in multi-employer healthcare plans could not receive the Obamacare tax credits.” This letter merely reiterated the clear language of the law, but the union bosses are not amused. Terry O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers International Union of North America, has even begun using the “R” word: “If the Affordable Care Act is not fixed… then I believe it needs to be repealed.”

The AFL-CIO was not, of course, the only prominent national organization to get suckered by the Obamacare confidence game. Another of its notable victims was the American Medical Association (AMA). The Democrats desperately wanted their “reform” project to benefit from the public relations advantages that come with the AMA’s stamp of approval. And this Democrat need for the AMA’s support on Obamacare seemed to provide the physician organization with political leverage that it could use to force Congress to fix a problem with the Medicare physician reimbursement system — the sustainable growth rate formula (SGR).

SGR was created by Congress to slow the growth of Medicare spending. It failed because Congress has prevented it from going into effect with a long series of temporary postponements. Thus, the cumulative payment cut mandated by SGR grew every year and hung over the physician community like the Sword of Damocles, hanging by a single hair that Congress could cut at any time. Thus, when the Democrats came to the AMA for its support on Obamacare, the group decided to climb into bed with them in exchange for an implicit promise to repeal and replace SGR with a payment system that tracks medical inflation rather than GDP.

It hardly needs saying that a solution for the SGR problem was conspicuously absent from the law the President signed on that fateful day in March. Even worse, the Obamacare cost estimates promulgated by the Democrats assume that SGR will stay in place. Three years later, the AMA is still waiting for its check to arrive in the mail. As recently as August 29, Healthcare Finance News published an article titled, “AMA President Hopeful on SGR Fix.” The article points out that the cumulative cut in Medicare reimbursement that now hangs over physicians is up to 25 percent, and refers to AMA president Ardis Dee Hoven as an “admitted optimist.”

The AMA and the AFL-CIO are just the most prominent members of the not-very-exclusive society of organizations and individuals duped by the White House into supporting Obamacare. This club’s membership also includes the American Hospital Association (AHA), which ostentatiously supported the reform law and even endorsed the egregious Donald Berwick for the post of CMS administrator. The AHA’s reward for this idiocy has been deeper cuts in hospital payments than it agreed to accept in its deal with the Obama administration and the additional financial burden imposed by the postponement of the employer mandate.

Another member of Obamacare’s guild of gulls is Big Pharma. The Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) spent $150 million on an ACA advertising campaign. The drug industry’s return on this investment? As Keith Speights has pointed out, “For starters, the drugmakers must provide higher rebates to Medicaid for prescription drugs. This expanded rebate program will cost the industry around $20 billion over the next 10 years.… Filling part of the Medicare Part D ‘doughnut hole’ will cost another $30 billion.” The industry has also been hit with an excise tax on branded drugs that will cost yet another $30 billion by 2021.

Not all of the Obamacare double-crosses have been financial. Some have been moral. The Catholic Health Association (CHA) was an extremely important backer of the “Affordable Care Act.” Its CEO, Sr. Carol Keehan, received one of the pens the President used to sign the legislation. CHA’s reward was the HHS contraception mandate. Keehan was horrified by that outrage, but later decided to use Obama’s fraudulent “accommodation” as a veil under which to hide the humiliation to which she had been subjected by the President’s HHS minions. Other Catholic leaders denounced Keehan and CHA for this act of moral cowardice.

The “leaders” of the CHA, Big Pharma, the AMA and the AFL-CIO constitute but a sample of the useful idiots exploited by the President and his congressional accomplices in order to foist Obamacare on the American public. The list of dupes goes on and on. They got presidential pens and photos of themselves grinning at the man who took them in. If they have any capacity for introspection, they also feel shame. Some have publicly repented of their support for Obamacare. Most still pretend they did the right thing. It may be an insult to the intellectually impaired to elevate such people to the level of “idiot.”