Why November Matters: Obamacare

In 2010, the Democrats passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) without a single Republican vote. Obamacare mandates that all Americans, except for members of Congress, buy health insurance or pay a fine to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). President Obama and Democrat members of Congress repeated the lie “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan” on multiple occasions in a pitch to promote this law during the 2012 Presidential election.

However, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) admitted that Democrats knew that millions of Americans would lose their health insurance as a result of this law. Former Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) also knew that Obamacare was sold on a lie and is appalled at President Obama for blatantly lying to Americans. Yet Gillibrand, Frank and their colleagues voted to impose Obamacare on us.  65 million Americans could lose their employer sponsored health insurance. The law also contains 21 tax increases, including 12 increases on middle class Americans. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirms that Obamacare is a $1 trillion tax hike that Americans cannot afford.

Obamacare is more unpopular than ever. The Democrats did not seem to receive that memo.

#Obamacare is working. pic.twitter.com/hzW5KVhkMF

— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) July 23, 2014

Forcing Americans to buy health insurance that they do not want or face the wrath of the IRS does not mean that Obamacare is working. Uninsuring the insured to insure the uninsured does not mean that Obamacare is working.

We have seen the effects of this disastrous law: large companies are cutting back on hiring more workers, employers are reducing hours employees may work, employers are sending their employees to the Obamacare exchanges rather than provide them health coverage, young Americans are not signing up for the exchanges and older and sicker Americans are experiencing soaring premiums as a result, people are losing their jobs, insurance premiums are increasing across the board, etc. If this were not bad enough, Americans’ private health and financial records are becoming part of a national database. There is even hidden code in the healthcare.gov site stating that applicants have “no reasonable expectation of privacy.” Make no mistake: Obamacare is not about health care. It is about government expansion and control of its citizens, bringing us one step closer to the fundamental transformation of America. As the communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin said, “Medical care is the keystone in the arch of socialism.” After being instituted, no country has ever reverted from a government-run healthcare system back to a free market healthcare system. The goal of Obamacare is to take away our freedom and give it to the all powerful in Washington, DC.

We have Obamacare because in 2009 Democrats controlled the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Democrats passed Obamacare even though they knew that if we liked our health care plans we could not keep our health care plans. Many conservatives have legitimate issues with Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY). However, McConnell presided over a Senate minority in which every single Republican Senator voted against Obamacare. Obamacare passed because voters stayed home on election day. It is imperative that we rid Democrats of control of the Senate this November. If we let Democrats win just to teach Republicans with whom we are dissatisfied a lesson, then what we are effectively doing is sending the message that voters like Democrats and therefore Republicans need to be more moderate, pushing our country further to the left. Beating those who are fundamentally transforming America is all that matters. Democrats and only Democrats brought us Obamacare. Remember that this November.

 

Never Forget

Thirteen years ago everything changed. May we never forget about those who lost their lives. May we never forget those who helped people get to safety. May we never forget our service men and women who fight every day to protect our freedoms. May we never forget everyone affected by the terrorist attacks that happened that fateful day. May we never forget that we are Americans.

May we never forget the four Americans who lost their lives on this day in 2012 in Benghazi, Libya.

I leave you with this poem that was published on September 23, 2001.

When Needed, Old Glory is Still There by Mitch Albom

That our flag was still there through the gloom and despair hanging on porches, flapping in schoolyards painted on cheeks of young mothers whose husbands are leaving to face the rockets’ red glare, bombs bursting in air and our flag is still there.

Through weeks of despair that flag was still there. When death came on silver wings towers in ruins, bodies in flames, when up from the ashes a dark smoke arose and lingering there, like a child unaware, waiting till mother or father came home but they are never coming home. Hearts everywhere, offered a prayer, and in the midst of that gray rubble square a flag was still there.

Did you even know two weeks ago where your stars were buried? Where your stripes were stowed? Behind boxes and crates? Behind mowers and rakes? So taken for granted this symbol of freedom, tucked behind charcoal and snow boots and rusty old bicycles, but . . . when the call came to show that we care we all did the same our flags were right there.

It has not always been the most respected cloth: Burned in protest mocked and ignored. But when, as a nation the time comes to mourn at half-staff it flies from morning till dawn. And when we are stirred as a people of might it soars high on ships. It says “We are right in this fight, we are right.” It pulls out of port It augurs “Beware” The flag that’s still there.

Those broad stripes and bright stars are now hanging in bars and diners and Kmarts and windows of cars. We’ve even heard stories of seeing Old Glory tattooed on arms, or stitched through the night then purchased on sight. When this war began the first thing we ran out of, in fact, the only thing that this great nation ran short of was flags. Flags everywhere. And the flag is still there.

Oceans of banners now, armies of flags, sea to shining sea’s worth of flags. We wave them at baseball games, during the “stretch,” we wave them at cameras, at airports, at friends. Never before have we seen such array the country bedecked in a single display. It’s like one shirt, one blouse, one pair of shoes red, white and blues. It’s all that you wear the flag, that’s still there.

I never did feel the strength of those words that Mr. Key wrote often sung but not heard “Gave proof through the night” that she was still there what a wonderful, comforting image we share. We cherish it now, it shows that we care that our hearts will repair. And through this despair this much we can swear we bend but don’t break we are united, these states, Look outside — a new dawn’s early light And our flag is still there.

God bless America.