Within the last few months, people everywhere have been fixating on certain aspects of each candidate for the upcoming presidential election. Many will say, “How can you support that candidate? They did this or they support this!” However, the sad fact is that both candidates have several strong reasons why they should not be president. Here is a condensed version of the considerable list for each candidate, the “top five” reasons why neither candidate is ideal to even step foot into the White House.

Five Reasons Not to Vote for Barack Obama

1) “The president said he’d cut the deficit in half,” Romney said. “Unfortunately, he doubled it — trillion-dollar deficits for the last four years. The president has put in place almost as much debt held by the public as all presidents combined.”

2) Borrowing money from China is forcing America even more in debt and making China that much more powerful.

3) He makes excuses for his shortcomings, perhaps his most prominent being that Bush left this country so far in debt and destruction, so Obama has not been able to make many changes. It is clearly Bush’s fault, even though Obama knew the challenges when he campaigned for president.

4) Other than enacting Obamacare, he has done nothing he has promised within the last four years…but that is Bush’s fault, right?

5) Many connect Obama’s views and policies to socialism and communism.

Five Reasons Not to Vote for Mitt Romney

1) Romney has promised to immediately take away federal funding for Planned Parenthood, ultimately taking away vital resources to women.

2) Since Romney grew up wealthy, he will make changes to support the rich. What will happen to the middle class?

3) According to “I Acknowledge Class Warfare Exists,” 203 Republicans voted to make abortion illegal for rape victims in July 2012. As a Republican, Romney punishes the victims of rape.

4) Romney has Mormon beliefs that heavily influence his policies and treatment of women.

5) He is not for gay marriage and gay rights like Obama.

These are some of the main reasons people are totally against one candidate, but what people forget or disregard is the fact that the candidate they support is not perfect. Both candidates have clear flaws and compelling reasons they should or should not be president. As voters, we should be well aware of both candidates’ flaws so we can make more of an educated, informed choice.

Image Courtesy : Center for American Progress Action Fund from Washington, DC (Barack Obama at Las Vegas Presidential Forum) [CC-BY-SA-2.0

], via Wikimedia Commons

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A new Mitt Romney ad is accusing President Obama of endangering the religious freedom in the nation. The video invokes Pope John Paul II and criticizes that Obama is forcing religious institutions to act against their beliefs because of his contraception coverage rule.

Romney’s ad is not the first or the last time Barack Obama will be accused of threatening religious freedom in the United States, many have already expressed their rejection for Obama’s health-care reform claiming it violates freedom of conscience.

Kathleen Parker, Washington Post opinion columnist, explained that Obama’s health-care reform was forcing the Catholic institutions to pay for an insurance that would cover abortive drugs, which is clearly against the Catholic Church fundamental beliefs.

In this new reform Catholic churches and their direct employees are exempt from the rule, but other Catholic-sponsored entities, among which we can find schools and hospitals that employ non-Catholics are non-exempt from the rule. So they are forced to complain or to pay fines in order to avoid the rule that is against their faith.

Timothy Dolan, Wall Street Journal Opinion columnist, said “Religious freedom is the lifeblood of the American people, the cornerstone of American government.” Dolan quotes many of the nation’s founding fathers defending freedom of conscience; he wrote that George Washington declared: “The conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be extensively accommodated to them,” and added that James Madison also said that “conscience is the most sacred of all property.”

What Dolan criticizes more is the fact that Obama’s administration proposed a religious employer exemption, but this is very narrow because it only applies to religious organizations that mostly serve people of their own religion. Dolan says the Obama administrations has refused to exempt other religious institutions like schools, charities or hospitals, from this rule, which mandates the employers to purchase contraception methods.

Some critics also think the Catholic Church is exaggerating, the L.A. Times editorial states: “Is religious freedom suddenly under attack in America? That’s what the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops and some non-Catholic allies would have you believe. But reports of the demise of this fundamental liberty are greatly exaggerated.”

But the Romney ad has taken advantage of all the criticism Obama has received, a narrator in the video says, “Who shares your values? President Obama used his healthcare plan to declare war on religion,” and adds that “Mitt Romney believes that’s wrong.”

Image Courtesy of  marcn

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While campaigning in Colorado, Barack Obama warned the voters that Mitt Romney was planning to kill his health reform and get rid of Planned Parenthood.

Obama criticized that Romney’s policies were more suitable for the 1950s than the 21st century. To defend his position Obama stated that woman’s health decisions are “not up to politicians, they’re not up to insurance companies, they’re up to you.” The President is making a big effort to insure the female voters support in swing states like Colorado.

President Obama made a direct reference to his wife and his late mother; he said that women issues resonate in him because of them. Obama argued that he wanted his wife to be able to have control over her health care choices, that’s why he is insisting so much in this health-care reform. He defends that it will bring many benefits to women.

Also Obama made a very sentimental statement referring to his late mother to defend the Obama care benefits, he said she would have been 70 this year, if she had not died from cancer almost 20 years ago. He stated: “I often think about what might have happened if a doctor had caught her cancer sooner.”

Obama made a harsh criticism directed to Romney, saying that the next president “could tip the balance in a way that turns back the clock for women in the next decade to come.” It seems the Democrats are making a big effort to confront the Republicans with the female voters, arguing that if Romney wins, women will lose many of the rights they have conquered in recent years.

Sandra Fluke, the famous Georgetown student who has become one of the leading voices supporting Obama’s health reform, was the one that introduced Obama in Colorado to a crowd formed mostly of women. Fluke became popular after being called a slut by talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh said during his radio talk show that Fluke went before a “Congressional Committee and essentially said that she must be paid to have sex.” Limbaugh added that her comments made Fluke a whore because she wanted to be paid to have sex. Fluke demanded before the Congressional Committee that insurance coverage should cover contraception methods. Limbaugh said that Fluke is “having so much sex that she can’t afford the contraception, and she wants you and me, and the tax payers to pay her to have sex.”

During Obama’s introduction, Fluke said that when she was “verbally attacked”, Barack Obama was one of us. She added that Obama defended her right to speak without being verbally insulted, and condemned the criticism she had received. Fluke also had some words saved for Mitt Romney, she said that “if Mr. Romney can’t stand up to extreme voices in his own party, then he will never stand up for us.”

Image Courtesy of  Indiana Public Media

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New York, U.S.A. — August 1 marks an important milestone for the Affordable Care Act and, more importantly, for women across the U.S. New insurance plans will be required to cover eight critical women’s preventive health services with no co-pay. Specifically, the no-co-pay benefits include:

• Screening for gestational diabetes
• Breastfeeding supplies and counseling
• Intimate partner violence screening and counseling
• Sexually transmitted infection counseling
• Human Papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women 30 years and older
• HIV screening and counseling
• Well-woman visits
• FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling

“For many women, costly co-pays stand in the way of essential health care services and contraception,” said Ms. Foundation for Women President and CEO Anika Rahman. “Removing that barrier not only ensures better health outcomes, but also reduces the economic hardship on women and families.”

About the Ms. Foundation for Women
The Ms. Foundation for Women is the leading national social justice foundation committed to building women’s power to ignite change. Every day, it helps over 150 grassroots organizations across the US fight for changes like good paying jobs, reproductive health, ending violence against women and girls, and the inclusion of women at decision-making tables.

By investing in social justice trailblazers—especially women from low-income communities and communities of color most affected by injustice—it works for a nation in which power and possibility are not limited by gender, race, class, or any other factor. The Ms. Foundation delivers funding, builds skills, develops leaders, connects activists with allies, and amplifies the voices of our grantees to create change that benefits women, families and communities. ms.foundation.org

Image Courtesy of   LaDawna’s pics

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Ann Arbor, U.S.A. – The Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation (CHRT) released a policy paper that shows how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014 will streamline eligibility categories and may also help between 400,000 and 500,000 citizens to become newly eligible for Medicaid coverage. Currently, there are at least 40 different ways — each with varying eligibility requirements—to qualify for Medicaid in Michigan.

Whether or not Michigan decides to expand coverage for Medicaid, the paper shows that enrolling in Medicaid and maintaining that coverage should become easier for Michigan residents starting in 2014, when the ACA requires states to eliminate asset tests — a review of an individual’s assets to ensure they do not exceed certain limits—and consolidate existing eligibility categories.

“Many changes were included in the ACA that go beyond the Medicaid expansion. These changes were designed to make enrollment policies and processes simpler for those who have existing Medicaid coverage, and enable those newly eligible to go through an easier enrollment process than exists today. These enrollment changes alone should help ensure that more people have access to the affordable care when they need it,” says Marianne Udow-Phillips, CHRT’s director.

Under current federal rules, the Medicaid program provides coverage to those at or below a certain income level who also fit within certain categories, and states can opt to expand Medicaid eligibility.

In 2014, all existing eligibility categories—mandated or optional—will be simplified and consolidated into three categories:

• Parents and caretaker relatives of dependent children under 19.
• Pregnant women.
• Infants and children under age 19.

Additionally, those who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or qualify as “medically needy” will remain Medicaid eligible to avoid gaps in coverage.

For states that opt to expand Medicaid, all non-elderly citizens and eligible resident immigrants with incomes at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level will become Medicaid eligible, even if they are not categorically eligible.

While the Medicaid expansion is optional for states, streamlining eligibility criteria and simplifying enrollment processes is still required.

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In parts one through four of our series on the Affordable Care Act, we have examined a few of the benefits that are seen as the most desirable provisions of the law, things like no pre-existing condition, no-cost birth control, and the ability for children to remain on their parents’ plans. There are other benefits, like cash subsidies to assist in the purchase of the ACA health care plans that will be examined later in the series. For part five, we will skip ahead and discuss the law as it relates to small business and corporate America.

Who Must Comply with Obamacare?

Under the ACA law, any business with more than 50 full-time employees must offer health insurance to its employees. This health insurance plan must be compliant, meaning the benefits of the plan must meet or exceed the minimum benefit thresholds in the ACA law. If a company does not offer a plan or has a plan that does not meet the minimum standards, then the employer will be assessed a tax fine of $2,000 per employee. This provision is not quite as straightforward, however, because technically the company is only supposed to pay the fine for employees who are eligible to receive subsidized health care costs.

Since everyone is mandated to have coverage, that means the fine would apply to all employees, not just the ones receiving government subsidies. In addition, the first 30 employees are exempted from the fine. For example, a company of 51 workers would pay a $2,000 fine on 21 workers (51-30=21) or $42,000. A good guide for explaining different scenarios can be found at the National Federation of Independent Business website.

If you have fewer than 50 employees, you are not required to provide health insurance. However, if you have up to 25 employees, the government will provide a tax credit if you have employees earning at least $50,000 per year and offer health insurance. In 2013, the tax credit amount is 35% of your annual cost for health insurance premiums and goes up to 50% after 2014.

However, that is only if your average employee salary is $20,000 or less. If the average salary is higher than $20,000, then the tax credit will be reduced by a factor determined by how much the average salary is above $20,000. In addition, if the company has more than 10 employees, regardless of salary average, the tax credit will be reduced. Lastly, there are no tax credits allowed for employees considered “highly compensated.”

For the ACA law, highly compensated is considered anyone making over $80,000 a year. If you noticed how the first sentence in this paragraph contradicts with the numbers in the third sentence, that is not a typo. It is contradictory, but that is what is written in the ACA law. You can find this information at the healthcare.gov and on page 319 of the ACA law.

Implications

The number one implication of the small business and employer provision is the flooding of potential ACA recipients into the system, resulting from employers dropping coverage. Most proponents of the ACA law have dismissed this idea as conservative scaremongering at best and corporate greed at worst. That, however, is because they are not the ones writing the checks. This is a simple math equation. The increase in required ACA benefits increases the costs of the health insurance premiums, because more items are covered.

At current levels, the Kaiser Family Foundation puts the average cost of employee health insurance at $15,073. Only $4,129 of that is paid by the employee, meaning close to 11,000 of the costs is paid by the employer. The ACA coverage mandates will increase those premiums, but even at current levels, paying a $2,000 per person fine is better than $11,000. This is simple math, and as you move into companies that have 5,000 or more employees, you are now talking about saving hundreds of millions of annual costs. Make no mistake, many companies will take this option.

For the companies that bite the bullet and provide health insurance, their costs will increase. This will be because of higher premiums charged by the insurance companies for having to cover more health care benefits and for costs related to keeping up with the regulations that come with the law. There is no definitive way to determine the costs accurately ahead of time, but the Congressional Budget Office projects the costs of ACA to be double what they originally projected.

To be fair, the CBO estimates were for the first 10 years. New projections that go out 11 years have the cost down 0.64%. Why the CBO would go out just one year on their projections is a little strange, especially given the paltry reduction in costs it would show. More telling is that the projection is based on additional revenue provisions that would pay for the law. This is always the problem with the CBO; it only answers questions based on the paper and assumptions put in front of them.

If any of those figures are wrong, if something is left out (like payments to doctors left out by Democrats when the bill was originally submitted), or the revenue gathered is less then projected, then the whole analysis is thrown off. Garbage in, garbage out is the old saying. The primary common sense question to this is simple: When has any government program ever cost less than promised? The answer is never.

The other implication is that the country may see an increase in temporary agency usage. Companies on the cusp of going past 50 employees and either wish to expand or have no choice to can avoid that employee threshold by going through temp agencies. This will alleviate some added costs to them, but only marginally as the temp agencies will also be charging a higher fee per employee supplied.

Lastly, small businesses will not get near the benefit from the tax credit. As discussed above, employers cannot have more than a $20,000 in average salary to receive the full tax credit. If you have higher salaries, the tax credit percentage goes down. Any company that can only afford to pay an average salary of $20,000 or less, in all likelihood, cannot afford to pay for health insurance regardless. Look at the numbers: With an average employer cost of $11,000, an employer could get a $5,500 tax credit, and they pay the other half.

However, $5,500 dollars is a quarter of a $20,000 salaried employee’s pay. A business that small cannot afford to pay that. They cannot afford to risk going under just to satisfy some politician’s belief that paying for health insurance is the right thing to do–no matter the cost. Also, this tax credit does nothing for large employers because they are not eligible. If you have 51 or more employees, you cannot get a tax credit at all. Because of this, there is no incentive.

The primary problem is political and social philosophy intruding on policy and business. Things like health care, time off, vacations, etc., used to be called fringe benefits. They were there to create greater employee loyalty and a way to compete for better employees. They were, in short, extra benefits. Today, they are seen as items that are owed to employees.

The President and the Democrats have determined that health insurance is a right, and if the government cannot get a bill through for single payer, then employers are responsible for paying for that right. Whether this is true (health insurance as a right) is an argument for a different day. The point here is when you approach policy that way, then you end up with bills that have consequences far beyond what is written or intended. Businesses exist to provide a product or service, and make a profit. That is all. They are not smaller surrogates for government to be enlisted in the care and feeding of the population.

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When it comes to solving the problems and challenges of a country or organization, few things are more frustrating than policies or programs designed by ideology. This is an ever present problem in politics, and is often the reason bills and laws are several hundred pages long. You need that much room to put in rules that address whatever political or social world view of the politicians crafting the bill. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is no different, and in installment four of Toonaripost’s Series on the law, we will touch on two provisions written into the law that illustrate this phenomenon.

Equal Premiums for Women

In web advertisements and mailers, the Democratic Party refers to this provision as, “being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition.” The reason for this is that under ACA a woman can no longer be charged a higher premium for health insurance than a man of equivalent age. Two people, male and female, in the same city and town, of the same age, will now have the same or equal monthly premiums.

Implications

There are two implications to this provision. The first, as discussed in Parts One, Two, and Three of our series, is that it is just one in a long list of items that create higher premiums. Why would this be? The reason is simple. Insurance companies do not charge higher premiums to women because they dislike women, they charge higher premiums because women have higher overall health care costs.

Insurance of any type is a service meant to provide money or expenses paid for various types of risk. Companies determine through statistics and probability computations what the company’s risk is for paying out a claim are in a given market; auto insurance, life, or in this case, health care expenses. Premiums are not determined in isolation; there is a reason for them.

According to a study by the Health Services Research center, the per capita lifetime expenditure for a female is $361,200, a third higher than males, at $268,700. Two-fifths of this difference owes to women’s longer life expectancy. Another reason is that women give birth.

If you contrast this with auto insurance, then the roles are reversed. Men pay higher premiums, because men have more accidents, get more speeding tickets, and are more aggressive drivers than women. As a result, women pay lower premiums. That is not unfair or discrimination. That is a function of risk and real costs.

Whether a person agrees with the ACA law is not the issue. This series is about the provisions of the law, and its implications apart from political sides. Nonetheless, this is a provision that has a political viewpoint driving the policy. On the political left is a view that everyone should be treated equal in all things and in all areas.

Those on the right would not disagree, but it can be construed that sometimes the policies from the left, substitute the word equal, with the phrase “the same.” Everyone is equal, but not everyone is the same. And sometimes those differences are significant in financial terms. If politicians continue to make laws based on ideology and not reality, there will be more bills and laws that are long, complicated, expensive, and do not fix the problem they were designed for in the first place.

The 80/20 Law

Even though the most publicized area of contention about ACA was the individual mandate, it is not the only mandate in the ACA law. As we discussed in Part Three, there are mandatory coverage items that must be in each insurance plan. There is also a provision called the Medical Loss Ratio. The health care law generally requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 percent of consumers’ premium dollars on medical care and quality improvement. Insurers can spend the remaining 20 percent on administrative costs, such as salaries, sales, and advertising. Noticeably absent from that list is any mention of a profit ratio.

Implications

The 80/20 law is perhaps the most partisan provision within the ACA law. It has nothing to do with costs, and nothing directly related to health care. What it does is reflect a worldview as it relates to health care.

The view for most Left leaning politicians and individuals is that health care and health care insurance is not something you should be making a profit from. It is seen as profiteering off the misery of sick people. Whether that is right or wrong is immaterial to this series, but that is the view. That opinion is now law, because there is effectively a backdoor price fixing mechanism within ACA.

Insurance companies now have a ceiling to which they can achieve a positive return on their operations. Over the long haul this will turn health insurance into another form of public utility. If you do not agree with profit motive being a part of health care, then this may not bother you. If you want lower prices, then you should be alarmed.

Many may think that this is not a big deal, because it will mean the insurance company may make 250 million instead of 500 million, but that is not how it works. What happens is that smaller companies cannot get to the 250 million. It means that the profit margin, about 2.5% per person now, could be cut in half, making it less attractive for new players to enter the market, or smaller ones to remain in it. Take, for instance, Humana healthcare. They started out as nothing but a single nursing home.

A company in similar circumstances today may look at the margins, the regulations, etc., and just not enter the market. Smaller and regional insurers will find it more difficult to complete and will go out of business or be gobbled up by bigger players. In the end, there will only be a few insurers in the market, making for even less competition than is already available on a state by state basis now. That means higher premiums, and often lower quality. That is the effect of price fixing, regardless of the marketplace you are talking about.

In 10 or 20 years the ultimate implication and consequence of this one, single provision could turn the Conservative boogieman of single payer into a reality.

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Chicago and Springfield, U.S.A. — The Republican led U.S. House of Representatives wasted taxpayer dollars playing a partisan game on Wednesday, when they voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

It represented the 33rd time Congress has attempted to repeal the Act, even though the measure is destined for certain defeat in the U.S. Senate. Keith Kelleher, President of SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana, uniting 91,000 health care and child care workers, issued the following statement in response:

At a time when Congress should put its full attention on the country’s economic recovery, the U.S. House Republicans squandered a day at the office Wednesday when they voted for a politically motivated and legislatively futile repeal of President Obama’s landmark health care reform.

While average Americans need Congress to focus intensely on policies that will create jobs, make college education more affordable, reduce the federal deficit and generally improve our economic fortunes, the House Republicans chose to spend the day on a blatant political stunt. The attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act is considered dead on arrival in the Senate, so Wednesday’s vote was an exercise in empty symbolism, wasting time, energy and public dollars that should have been marshaled to accelerate our economic revitalization.

In response to today’s vote we will be informing our union members of all of Illinois’ Congressional members who voted to deny Illinois citizens quality, affordable health care. In the wake of last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act, the time has come for opponents of the bill to dispense with partisan gamesmanship and move on to the business at hand: putting more Americans to work.

Congress should let the Affordable Care Act continue to work for the people of Illinois.

According to the Campaign for Better Health Care, the law has already generated the following rewards in Illinois:

• More than 3.6 million residents became entitled to preventative medical services, such as mammograms and colonoscopies, without having to pay deductibles or co-pays.
• More than 100,000 uninsured young adults under the age of 26 became eligible for coverage under the parents’ health insurance.
• More than 150,000 seniors with Medicare received a $250 rebate to cover the cost of their prescription drugs once they hit the so-called donut hole.

For all of these reasons, members of Congress who voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act must explain to Illinois voters why they chose to deny health security to their constituents and why they oppose providing quality and affordable health care for all Americans.

Image Courtesy of  Jose Gil / Shutterstock.com

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New York, U.S.A. — In a recent interview for Fox News, Martin Smithmyer, CEO of Americord Registry, one of the industry’s leading cord blood banking companies, said, “Although [Americord] does not pay doctors for making referrals, this is a common practice among some of our competitors, including at least 3 of the top 6 cord blood banks.”

The Obama administration, in January 2012, made it clear that under the new health care law it will require certain healthcare companies to disclose payments they make to doctors – sometimes amounting to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars – for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), recommends doctors disclose such payments and arrangements to patients.

Furthermore, according to Smithmyer, cord blood has certain limitations that parents should know about before they decide to bank their child’s cord blood, since the cost of cord blood banking is not an insignificant consideration when making this decision.

“Although in this field the technology is always changing, the number of stem cells in one unit of cord blood today is only sufficient to treat a child up to about 10 years old,” said Smithmyer. Americord Registry is developing a new technology that will collect up to 10 times more stem cells. This would be enough to use therapeutically for an adult. To learn more, read the full article from Fox contributor: 7 things you should know about cord blood banking.

About Americord Registry

Americord Registry is a company involved in umbilical cord blood, cord tissue and placenta stem cell preservation. Americord collects, processes, and stores newborn stem cells for future medical and therapeutic use, including the treatment of more than 80 diseases such as leukemia.

Founded in 2008, Americord is registered with the Food and Drug Administration. The company’s laboratory is accredited by the AABB and complies with all federal and state regulations, including federal CLIA laboratory standards. Americord is based in New York, NY.

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So far in our series about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), we have provided an overview in Part 1 and reviewed the benefits of Pre-existing conditions and continuing coverage for kids under their parent’s plans. This law is a complicated one, with over 2,700 pages. It is the goal of this series to explain the more common provisions in a simple and logical way, so you do not have to read the entire law. In Part three, we will look at the following provisions: no cap on lifetime benefits, and preventative care benefits.

No Lifetime Limit on Coverage

Most health insurance plans, either private or through employment, have a limit on the amount of coverage for each person. Often, that limit is between one million to two million dollars. This is an average, and can be more or less depending on the health insurance plan. When you reach that limit, you no longer have coverage. If you or your kids have a rare illness like hemophilia, or rare form of cancer, you can reach the limit fast. Once you do, you have to pay for your care out of your own pocket.

Congress set out to end this within the ACA law. Now there will be no limits on coverage. If you have a rare disease or other health care problem that costs five million dollars, then the insurance company must pay it. While there are no official statistics on people that reach and exceed lifetime limits, it takes only a few people with news stories of their plight to make this a popular provision of the law. It is hard to argue against.

Implications

The primary result of this policy is higher premiums. On one hand are the very real costs of paying the additional medical bills of people who would have reached and passed a limit. Not many people do, but that is not the issue. The insurance company must factor in the costs of additional expenses for everyone. That is how they figure out risk and determine appropriate rates: by using actuaries and high level math to determine risks, average costs, etc. When their expenses for payouts go up, their rates must go up as well. It is simple to say, “They should just eat the expense for the good of people over profits,” but without profits there is no company to pay any premiums.

On the patient side, you will no longer have to worry about being wiped out by an illness. If you can afford the premiums for coverage, then you will not have to stress over possible high health care costs.

A more subtle implication is the continuing argument over how much are and should people be responsible for their decisions. As we will discuss in detail in the section on preventative care, no limits are another barrier to people understanding health care costs, and being responsible. Often, insurance plans have riders that allow individuals to purchase a higher limit amount, and people decline to do so.

They see two million dollars, and think “Hey I’ll never have that many doctor visits.” Then, the illness hits and it is too late. Sometimes people are innocent victims of fate, other times they are the victim of their own choices. As laws take more and more responsibility away from individuals in different areas, there is the real effect of people being more irresponsible.

Preventative Care

If you have caught even a slight amount of news about the ACA law, then you have probably heard supporters of the bill tout this benefit. Beginning in section 4,000 of the law, a host of preventative services are now covered under the law at no co-payment.

The number of services covered are too numerous to fully list here, but include things like disease screenings, mental illness screenings, immunizations, and most controversial presently, birth control and sterilization procedures. Many of these services were covered under current plans offered for sale or through employers, but now they must be covered at no co-payment to the insured.

Implications

The primary idea behind covering preventive care in a comprehensive manner is the fact that the best way to keep costs down for serious illnesses is to not get sick. If individuals take better care of themselves, get regular checks-ups, and prevents illness, then over time health care costs will go down, and then premiums will go down. The problem, however, is that you cannot make people go to the doctor. Many insurance plans already cover items of preventative care at no cost, or very low co-pays.

Many offer lower premiums for things like joining a gym, or joining wellness programs. Yet, people still do not take better care of themselves. You cannot make people go to the doctor, get checks-ups, or engage in wellness programs. By making them free, you have just taken any incentive or responsibility out of their hands.

When you divorce people from real costs, they do not worry about costs. When you make something free that they were not planning to do anyway, then all you have done is raise the costs of premiums, because these services must be covered. By making all sorts of preventative services covered, both the practical like immunizations and the esoteric like fully funded wellness centers, you increase costs.

The other implication is that the Obama administration has set up a coming legal war over the issue of birth control. By mandating that religious organizations must cover birth control, they have impended, many feel, on the rights of the religious. Birth control is a personal choice, but the ACA has made it everyone’s business because it requires everyone to pay for it.

The crux of the situation is simple, should you have to pay for your neighbor’s choices? If you are an employer, religious or otherwise, should you have to pay for the choices of your employees? The ACA says yes, and many organizations will be fighting this provision.

The next part of our series will explain provisions requiring equal premiums for women, and mandates dictating how much insurance companies must pay in health care expenses. These are two of the more controversial provisions with wild and inaccurate statements flying in the media. Tune back in to get the real facts on these two provisions of ACA.

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The US Supreme Court announced the much awaited and crucial decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, upholding it with a 5 to 4 decision.

On the other hand, this action by the Supreme Court junked all anti-Obama care outcries raised by Republicans and protestors, because in some sense the Supreme Court favored the proposal on health care reform. Health care reform has been at the core of the Obama administration since he won the elections in 2008. The Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress in 2010.

The Affordable Care Act, generally known as Obamacare, is a new health policy designed under the Obama Administration with the attempt to provide health insurance to 30 million of the poorest of the poor. There has been great controversy and strong opposition from the Republican party over the Affordable Care Act over the years.

More understandably, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is a pivotal health reform legislation of the 111th United States Congress. The law requires every individual, if not covered by any employer or state, to maintain minimum essential health coverage.

Check here for a complete look at Obamacare features.

One of the most controversial components of this act is the shared responsibility requirement, generally known as the Individual Mandate, which requires everybody to purchase minimal health insurance coverage if it is not provided by any organization, government, or other institution. Minimum norms for health insurance policies will be established; annual and life time coverage will be abolished.

The Supreme Court provided a cushion to the highly controversial, bitterly opposed Individual Mandate by saying that it does not violate the US Constitution and therefore cannot be refused by states.

James Morone, specializing in Politics and Health Care at Brown University in Rhode Island, said ‘the decision really helps Obama, and the Democrats will ride that hard.’

The decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the Obamacare health reform might act as a principle theme for the presidential election this November, and in one sense it has boosted the morale among the Democrats in their fight for it.

Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney has been a vehement opponent to the so-called Obamacare health reform and said ‘As you might imagine, I disagree with the Supreme Court Decision and I agree with the dissent,’ and he further said, ‘ What the Court did not do on its last day in session I will do on my first day if elected president of the United States. I will act to repeal Obamacare’.

Earlier, it was a battle between what is constitutional and what is not, but now the Court has favored Obamacare, reshaping the entire political clash between Republicans and Democrats.

Obamacare will be a central element of the struggle for authority between the two parties this November; in fact, it might potentially act as a cornerstone in determining the electoral success.

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Around 10:15 AM today the Supreme Court announced that the Obama Affordable Care Act has been completely upheld, including the individual mandate. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of keeping the new law known as “Obamacare.”

Justice Roberts did announce that the individual mandate could not be justified through the Commerce Clause but instead through the Taxing Clause. Roberts stated, “When a court confronts an unconstitutional statue its endeavor must be to conserve, not destroy the legislation.”

Roberts claimed that allowing the Commerce Clause to be used to justify the individual mandate would “open a new and vast domain” for Congressional Power. Never before has Congress had the power under the Commerce Clause to tell individuals to buy something. What the Supreme Court was worried about under this justification is that there would be no limit to what Congress could tell the American people to buy or not buy.

Justice Roberts also claimed that the required expansion of Medicaid may violate states’ rights. He wrote, “the states are given no choice in this case. They must either accept a basic change in the nature of Medicaid or risk losing all Medicaid funding.” This part of the law is the one part that Roberts states the federal government cannot require of states but is still a limited ruling. Roberts says that the justices have not completely removed this part of the law but have stated that they have included a possible solution to this problem in their ruling.

So far the Physicians for National Health Program have already responded to the ruling claiming they disagree with the Supreme Court ruling because 26 million people will still not be insured. They also advocate for a single-payer option.

The GOP has already started the fight to repeal the ruling, writing on Twitter, “The fight for #FullRepeal begins NOW. The way to get rid of #Obamacare is to defeat Obama in November.” The GOP claims that the Supreme Court has set “the stakes for the November election.”

For continuous updates see the CNN News Blog.

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In the world of politics, there is nothing better than an opponent that shoots themselves in the foot. Hence, President Obama is having a much better time currently, than he should be.

Unemployment is still high and the debt is astronomical. Gas prices are high and rising and many of the President’s foreign policy accomplishments are footnotes because of Syria, Iran, and he’s continued throwing of Israel under the bus. But, none of that matters as much, because for the last three weeks the topic of choice has been the controversy regarding birth control and the President’s healthcare mandates.

If this is new to you, here are the bullet points. The Affordable Care Act that President Obama passed, mandates preventative medical care at no cost to anyone. No co-pays, no deductibles. Included in the preventive care list is coverage for birth control pills, the morning after pill, and elective sterilization procedures. Most company insurance plans already provide coverage for birth control, but now it must be covered for no co-pay.

The morning after pills and the sterilization surgeries would be at no cost as well. However, the Catholic Church does not believe in birth control and want waivers for having to provide coverage to employees of their schools and nonprofit organizations. The President refused, and the Republicans had an issue right up their wheelhouse.

So for the last two weeks, Republicans have been chopping at the bit regarding the infringement on religious rights by the President and the President has not been hurt by the debate because all that Americans hear are Republicans railing against birth control pills.  Except, that is not what they are upset about. The issue is that the government should not be trying to make religious organizations do things against their religious beliefs. The real problem however is that the Republicans have again allowed the Democrats to frame the issue.

Most women in the country, 98%, have used birth control pills. Though it is easy to make people who fight against the mandate sound as though they are against birth control, that is not the real issue. The real issue is one of personal responsibility. If you are a woman reading this, or a man that is discussing this with a woman, you need to ask yourself: “Why I should have to pay for your birth control pills?”

That is the real issue. No one disputes that women should be able to get birth control pills, if she wants them. But, why should they be free? Whether a woman uses them is a personal choice, but at what point did we start thinking that other people are required to pay for your choices?

Food is more important than sex, should others pay for your groceries as well? Sterilization surgeries are elective, so it makes equally little sense to not let the person electing to do it, pay for it. I believe there is no difference between that and a woman getting a breast implant. Should we pay for them as well?

This is not only the more effective line of attack, but it is also the more understandable. Not only should the religious employers not have to pay for a woman’s birth control, but also neither should anyone else.

Republicans have allowed themselves to again get distracted by a social issue that does not win the election or overall opinion polls.  If they focused on the personal responsibility aspect of this issue, they would be winning the debate. Because even women could disagree to pay for the decisions that other women make.

This is a classic case of what is right: arguing against the infringement on religious rights, versus being effective in arguing that it is wrong to make others pay for the elective decisions that individuals make in their own lives. If the Republicans continue to make this mistake, not only will they lose the election, but the U.S. will take an even closer step toward a society in which personal responsibility is absent from all areas of life.

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President Obama unveiled his deficit reduction plan on Monday and his tone was widely different. Gone were the days of Obama holding out an olive branch to the Republicans. Obama, finally, took aim and fired.

In his plan, Obama clearly stated that millionaires and billionaires would have to begin to pay their fair share of taxes. He promised to veto any legislation proposed by the super congress that cut Medicare and did not include raising taxes for the wealthy. “This is not class warfare.

It’s math,” Obama declared, anticipating Republican criticism. He also called out Speaker John Boehner for his approach in earlier Bush tax cut debate. Boehner had stated that Obama would have to make some concessions. After concession after concession, Boehner and his party refused to budge, taking the same approach that they criticized Obama for taking.

The president’s proposal would focus on upper-income taxpayers, called the “Buffet Rule” after billionaire Warren Buffet has vocalized his low tax rate. The plan would also target tax loopholes and subsidies. Most of the cuts in Medicare would hit health care providers and not beneficiaries.

Although some benefit programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, however far less cuts that the GOP proposes. His cuts also include $1 trillion over ten years from the troop withdrawal in the Middle East.

The deficit-reduction plan represents Obama’s longer-term follow-up to the $447 billion in tax cuts and new public works spending that he has proposed as a short-term measure to stimulate the economy. The new proposal also inserts the president’s voice into the legislative discussions of a joint congressional “supercommittee” charged with recommending deficit reductions of up to $1.5 trillion.

Defending his emphasis on new taxes rather than only spending reductions, Obama said: “We can’t just cut our way out of this hole.” Republicans reacted exactly as expected. They used talking points about tax increases destroying jobs, but did not provide any real substance. Boehner said exactly as Obama thought so, calling it “class warfare.”

“Veto threats, a massive tax hike, phantom savings and punting on entitlement reform is not a recipe for economic or job growth or even meaningful deficit reduction,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. “The good news is that the Joint Committee is taking this issue far more seriously than the White House.”

Sounds nice from the right, but it is wrong. There are easy charts and facts that show when we had a higher tax rate; we had a hell of a lot more jobs. So, I am not sure why Republicans keep up with this myth, but so many people believe it. Trust me—in the words of George Bush—read my lips—taxing the rich will NOT cause any job loss.

The rich have had this awesome tax cuts for 10 years, and we have just lost jobs. So, this rationale is illogical.

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Texas Governor Rick Perry’s campaign is barely one week old, but has already seen its share of problems.  He used his book, “FED UP!” to answer a question at a campaign stop on day 2 of his new presidential campaign. However, the book with its radical ideas has plagued the presidential candidate on the campaign trail.

So, now his spokesman states the book is not a look forward to the future, but rather a description of the past. That is some interesting twisting.Last weekend, Perry did some more twisting at a campaign event in South Carolina comparing the Republicans struggle to lower taxes with the civil rights movement. Sigh.

“Listen, America’s gone a long way from the standpoint of civil rights and thank God we have,” Perry said. “We’ve gone from a country that made great strides in issues of civil rights, I think we all can be proud of that.

And as we go forward, America needs to be about freedom. It needs to be about freedom from overtaxation, freedom from over-litigation, freedom from over-regulation.

And Americans, regardless of what their cultural or ethnic background is, they need to know that they can come to America and you got a chance to have any dream come true because the economic climate is gonna be improved.”

Heading back to Texas for the first time since declaring his candidacy for president of the United States, Perry reportedly encouraged Texans to push back against criticism of the Lone Star State. According to the Associated Press, Perry said, “When the liberal pundits start trashing Texas … I want you all to stand up and say that dog won’t hunt.”

Meanwhile the Governor Rick Perry is sort of doing his governor type job by blocking Obamacare from being implemented in his state, a state with the highest percentage of uninsured residents. Now, there is a governor for you! Although Perry has stated that he supports a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, he is less clear about what alternatives he would support.

Texas has received various grants under Obama’s health care law to implement the health plan. But, when Republican state Rep. John Zerwas tried to move legislation to set up an insurance pool required by the national overhaul, Perry threatened to veto the legislation.

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