Over the course of two years, the annual health insurance premiums at David White's auto shop in Bar Harbor, Maine, more than doubled from $23,000 to $47,000.
"It was platinum coverage," he said of the insurance plan, which covered himself, three employees and their families. "I was happy to do it."
The rising costs eventually proved too much to handle, and he canceled the plan. Now he's hoping that a health care reform plan in Congress will allow him and his employees to enroll in a proposed government-run program.
Mr. White is exactly the kind of small-business owner that Democratic leaders had hoped would support their reform proposals. But the largest lobbying group for small-business owners says the health care bills in Congress would hurt the David Whites of the world and, in a major blow to President Obama and his allies, is complaining publicly about the plans' most important components.
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) says small-business owners should worry about the bills' requirement that employers provide health insurance, and about higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for the proposed benefits.
NFIB, a powerful lobbying group and a traditional friend to conservative causes, also says the House reform bills wouldn't be effective in decreasing insurance costs.
The White House has vigorously courted small-business lobbying groups on the health care issue, hoping to divide the business community. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other organizations that represent larger businesses are opposing the president's health care drive.
But the Obama administration had high hopes of bringing small-business lobbyists into its camp. Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, hosted a question-and-answer session for small-business owners through the networking site LinkedIn on July 29. NFIB made pro-health-care-reform noises for months, encouraging speculation that it might jump aboard the Democrats' legislative campaign.
But those hopes have been dashed. NFIB, which claims 350,000 members, has opposed the major health care reform bills in the House.
An alternative, small-business lobbying group has formed to back Mr. Obama's reform efforts. The Main Street Alliance was organized in 2008 as an alternative to NFIB and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Made up of state chapters, the alliance supports the Democrats' reform proposals. Mr. White is a member.
Provisions in the House plans would mandate all employers with payrolls exceeding $500,000 a year to provide insurance to their employees. That figure was originally $250,000 but increased as part of a deal to win support from conservative Blue Dog Democrats. Employers that don't provide insurance would be fined up to 8 percent of their total payroll costs.
The bills also would cut Medicare and Medicaid funding, as well as levy a tax on the wealthiest Americans, starting with individuals who make more than $280,000 a year or couples with a combined annual income of more than $350,000. Small-business owners, some of whom list their business earnings on their personal income tax forms, have expressed concern that they would get hit with a tax increase.
In the Senate, the Finance Committee is not expected to include an employer mandate, but its health care bill will have incentives to provide insurance, lawmakers say.
You probably already knew Jeanane Garofalo was no fan of conservatives, Republicans or just about anything that could be described as right of center. But the former Air America host and MSNBC regular really has a low regard for conservative activists.
In an appearance at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 21, Garofalo ripped into tea party protesters, or what some of the wizards of smart on the left have deemed "tea baggers" calling them "functionally retarded adults" and "racists."
"Do you remember tea baggers?" Garofalo said. "It was just so much easier when we could just call them racists. I just don't know why we can't call them racists, or functionally retarded adults."
Garofalo has made prior overtures alleging any public display of discontent with the current president is nothing more than racial hatred. Back in April she called tea party protesters "a bunch of tea bagging rednecks" on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." However, she contended the public's frustration expressed over the direction of the country was code for racism.
"The functionally retarded adults, the racists - with their cries of, ‘I want my country back,'" she said. "You know what they're really saying is, ‘I want my white guy back.' They apparently had no problem at all for the last eight years of habeas corpus being suspended, the Constitution being [expletive] on, illegal surveillance, lied to on a war or two, two stolen elections - yes, the John Kerry one was stolen too. That's not tin-foil hat time. That's just..."
According to Garofalo, the media were the reason George W. Bush defeated both former Vice President Al Gore in 2000 and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in 2004 to hold on to the White House for eight years.
"Our media is quite happy to report on any stolen election around the world, any stolen election around the world except ours," Garofalo said. "And it's just unexamined narcissism. It's just, if you were to say this to the average American, ‘You know they steal elections in Uganda.' ‘Yeah.' ‘You know they steal elections in America.' ‘Why do you hate America?' ‘Why didn't you ask me why do you hate Uganda?'"
And throughout Garofalo's stand-up routine, she reiterated her belief that the outrage over President Barack Obama's and the Democratic-controlled Congress' branded of domestic policy is veiled racism.
"This is neuroscience," Garofalo continued. "This is not politics, this is neuroscience. It is purely limbic brain activity - this emotion over being angry that there's a black guy in office, with the people showing up armed to the health care meetings - to whatever, the town halls. But it's just, and these tea baggers. It makes me soul sick."
i stand corrected, jack. however i'm still gonna post things you and your socialist buddies dislike. it's up to you to disprove them. and if you do, it will be my pleasure to remove them, deal?
You are welcome to post anything you want. You have freedom of speech and I have freedom of expression.
However, posting hoaxes, myths and mistruths does little for anyone's credibility. I also think you have an onus to support your conclusions. I do not care where anyone is on the political spectrum as long they engage in critical thinking and constructive discussion.
BTW - I am not really a socialist; more of a social democrat.
Jack
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ISPA Yachtmaster Offshore Instructor
CYA Advanced Cruising Instructor As I sail, I praise God, and care not. (Luke Foxe)
By Jennifer Haberkorn (Contact) | Monday, August 24, 2009
Jack
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ISPA Yachtmaster Offshore Instructor
CYA Advanced Cruising Instructor As I sail, I praise God, and care not. (Luke Foxe)
that's true. that would at least make it easier for you to investigate. glad there is someone out there keeping me on my political toes. you are to be commended.....
Release the Terrorist, Investigate the CIA [Andy McCarthy]
The Wall Street Jounral has a terrific editorial this morning on how valuable the CIA interrogation program was in uncovering life-saving intelligence. My favorite paragraph was this one, which gets into the terrorist the mainstream press doesn't want to talk about, Binyam Mohammed (see my column on him, here):
The most revealing portion of the IG report documents the program's results. The CIA's "detention and interrogation of terrorists has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world." That included the identification of Jose Padilla and Binyam Muhammed, who planned to detonate a dirty bomb, and the arrest of previously unknown members of an al Qaeda cell in Karachi, Pakistan, designated to pilot an aircraft attack in the U.S. The information also made the CIA aware of plots to attack the U.S. consulate in Karachi, hijack aircraft to fly into Heathrow, loosen track spikes to derail a U.S. train, blow up U.S. gas stations, fly an airplane into a California building, and cut the lines of suspension bridges in New York.
Though the Journal does not get into it, Binyam Mohammed was released outright by the Obama administration in February. He is now living freely in England. That's our new counterterrorism approach: Release the terrorist who planned mass-murder attacks against U.S. cities but investigate the CIA agents who prevented mass-murder attacks against U.S. cities. I suppose that's what happens when control of the Justice Department shifts from the lawyers who spent the last eight years going after the terrorists to the lawyers who spent the last eight years representing the terrorists. That certainly is Change.
I thought it would be better to bring part of the discussion over from the market thread to this one.
I totally identify with what you were saying about the impact that a real breakdown in the economy would have on most people in the country, it speaks to the core of the rural point of view, self-reliance. I hope it never comes to the point that urban people have to be self-reliant again, because it would be a real shift in world view for most of them, a dramatic and painful shift.
You asked how many people could feed themselves, etc, if things got too bad, around here people really can and do feed themselves, shelter themselves, etc. In rural America people really are self-reliant, I don't mean in small town Walmart America, I mean out where the pavement ends.
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What are you pretending not to know ?
"In rural America people really are self-reliant, I don't mean in small town Walmart America, I mean out where the pavement ends."
I live in a rural area. "Where the pavement ends" covers very very few people in this country. The other 99% really are interdependent. They may like to think of themselves as frontiersmen but really they arent. Think about all the things they take for granted like enough energy to heat their homes (sure you can cut wood but have any of you ever tried to cut enough for a whole winter?) food at the grocery store, medical services, etc. etc.
I have a deer rifle and a shotgun but I am under no illusions that I could easily provide for my family entirely on our own. We might not starve but it would be very very rough.
Sck5, you'd have to go and read CD's post in the market thread for the context because we are, in fact, talking about "not starving", nobody is saying that people out in rural areas would have it easy if the world went to hell.
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What are you pretending not to know ?
