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The real arithmetic of health care reform

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that, if enacted, the latest health care reform legislation would, over the next 10 years, cost about $950 billion, but because it would raise some revenues and lower some costs, it would also lower federal deficits by $138 billion.

In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion...

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[click to enlarge]
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[If we're foolish enough to buy a diamond for a dime...]

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Health Care Bill, CBO Estimates Based on 'Nefarious' Assumptions

Subject: txt 1st hcare = Economist Morici:

That critic was University of Maryland economist Peter Morici, who expressed skepticism of the assumptions built into the health care reform bill, projected that it would raise costs for many average families and it would add "substantially" the federal deficit.

"There's a lot of assumptions in this bill that are kind of nefarious, uh, and I believe that the typical American family will pay $1,000 to $2,000 more for coverage for a family of four,"

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What America Will Look Like If The White House Gets Its Way

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America stands on the precipice of sweeping liberal health care reform that will radically reshape one-sixth of the U.S. economy, and a 153-page House bill is all that stands between us and a fundamentally changed America.

What will that change look like? Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” and President Barack Obama said, “By the time the vote has taken place, not only will I know what’s in it, you’ll know what’s in it.”

In other words, here’s a ticket to ride, get on board, we can’t tell you where it’s going, but you’ll like it once you get there. We promise.

A picture of America’s future under Obamacare can be revealed, though, after peeling away the pages and digging through the dirt. Here’s 10 things you can expect:

• 1. A Massively Engorged Government, to the tune of $2.5 trillion in new entitlement spending. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), new entitlement spending in the plan would cost $216 billion by 2019, then increase by 8 percent every year thereafter.
• 2. A Cornhusker Kickback for All. No, special deals aren’t removed from Obamacare this time around. Instead, the House bill extends new federal funding for Medicaid to all states. Incidentally, you’re paying for it.
• 3. A Freight train of taxes, slamming the American people in 2018. You’ve heard of the “Cadillac” tax on high-cost insurance plans? It will be pushed back to 2018, and given the way “high-cost” plans will be defined, a large segment of the middle class would get hit with the tax over time.
• 4. Beware the shape-shifting tax monster. New taxes will take many forms, including taxes on prescription drugs, medical devices (like wheel chairs), and health insurance.
• 5. Unconstitutional mandates, courtesy of Congress. Don’t want to buy health insurance? Congress will penalize you if you don’t, regardless of income.
• 6. Higher health care costs will be sneaking in. The plan gives subsidies to low-to-moderate wage families, but the subsidies will increase at a lower rate than the rate at which premiums increase. In other words, those families will pay more every year.
• 7. Lights out for small businesses. Companies that hire certain low-income Americans will have to pay $3,000 per employee, per year, even if the company offers insurance.Oh, and if a company employs 50 or more workers, they’ll face higher tax penalties to the tune of $2,000 per full-time employee.
• 8. Abortions. You will pay for them, like it or not. The House bill includes major funding for community health centers with no restrictions on federal taxpayer funding of abortions.
• 9. Let's dampen investment while we're at it. The House bill slaps a 3.8% tax on investment income.
• 10. It’s not a federal system, after all. States will have less power. They’ll no longer have authority to regulate health care premiums. Instead, the federal government will take on the job. States and local governments won’t be able to control their own employee health plans; they’ll have to abide by new federal regulations.

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Health Overhaul's Assault On Business

Subject: txt 1st hcare sclm bbro mny -
Taxes: If ObamaCare becomes permanent, no one will suffer more than U.S. businesses. They'll face higher taxes, more regulations and a higher cost of capital. But don't take our word for it. Go ask Caterpillar.

The heavy-equipment giant reckons its insurance costs will go up 20%, or $100 million, the first year after the health care system is overhauled, and may go even higher. Multiply that by literally tens of thousands of companies nationwide, large and small, and ask yourself what effect it will have toward the goal of "jobs, jobs, jobs" the White House so recently assured us was Job 1...

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[It's never been about health 'care'.]

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Obama Supporter: ‘What’s Wrong With A Little Bit Of Socialism?’

Subject: txt 1st hcare sclm -
Yesterday, we attended an impromptu Tea Party outside the Evanston, IL office of Democrat Rep. Jan Schakowsky. Below are some photos and our in-depth video report documenting the event. Very few people turned out, but that didn’t prevent the scene from turning dramatic as a couple of Obama supporters tossed around accusations of racism, called everyone idiots, and asked the absurd question: “What’s wrong with a little bit of Socialism?”

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Barbarians at the Gates

Subject: txt hcare -
If you're not overly concerned with the government takeover of a sixth of our nation's economy {and all the individual liberty it will obliterate in the process}, I have a video recommendation: The Barbarian Invasions.

Set in Canada with French dialogue and English subtitles, it won last year's Academy Award for best foreign film, and Americans should view it if only to see how much worse being sick is when government controls health care.

The Barbarian Invasions documents the mediocrity, rationing, mindless bureaucracy, corruption, and elitism that inevitably follows government involvement in anything...

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Socialism Vs. Capitalism: Illustrated on Film

Subject: txt sclm bdd vals bbro -
Although he probably didn’t mean to say this, director Godfrey Reggio’s excellent 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi has a sequence that beautifully illustrates the failure of large socialized programs vs free market capitalism. This illustration reveals why if government spending often results in poor services and bankrupt results over time.

Here’s the clip. We start with scenes of New York majesty followed by a street slum, followed by rows of project apartment buildings as urban blight. Then, at the end, we’re shown gleaming glass towers which are the product of free market capitalism. The project buildings were products of President Johnson’s war on poverty which spent billions and did exactly what you’d expect billions of tax dollars thrown at an abstract problem like poverty would do. Those apartment buildings would have gone up in the 60s. The film was shot around 1979. Less than 20 years. Think on that when you watch the clip above.

That’s government in action right there. Some of those buildings were barely 20 years old, if that. And they want to take over 1/6th of our economy, the health care business, and manage it the way they do everything else. You know, as effectively as Medicare, Social Security, The Post Office, Amtrak which are all about to go under. Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae? Failing badly. Hey, why not just show the government debt while we’re at it to see how well they run things. They’ve created trillions in debt based on promises they made. Promises made by politicians that you and your descendants would be footing these bills. They didn’t ask for your consent. Just as they are ignoring the public’s will with the health care bills.

Governments don’t produce, they consume. They take from the people who create things and convert some of those resources into “benefits”. These benefits are, more often than not, bribes to ease us into letting them keep spending our money like mad. At some point, a long time ago, they stopped caring about wanted and started telling us what was good for us. They began taking more and more tax dollars and bribing the least productive citizens so they’d have voters who can override the productive citizens if they complained too much.
They used a divide and conquer strategy. They promised every splinter group what they wanted, but what they got is something else.

Nothing the government does is created out of thin air. It’s made from the wealth it has taken from others. While the free market has created many wonders on its own, most of the government’s great works are in the distant past and they’re falling apart from neglect. Or they’re maintained local governments or free enterprise. Most of the great towers of Manhattan and other cities were built by companies who earned their own wealth to build them. The rotting projects that have fallen into disarray were neglected by a government that promised those people they’d be lifted from poverty. Instead it segregated then into a decaying hell and trapped them into a cycle of dependence.

Tax dollars don’t solve problems. Neither does government.

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ObamaCare: a social justice nightmare for the whole world

Subject: txt intl hcar - sclm -
According to AP reports, “Catholic nuns are urging Congress to pass President Barack Obama’s health care plan, in an unusual public break with bishops who say it would subsidize abortion.”

Reportedly, 60 leaders of religious orders sent lawmakers a letter pleading with them to pass the Senate healthcare bill. The AP clearly has not noticed the virtual ongoing war within the Catholic Church, especially with regards to government responsibility as opposed to private/church responsibility.

In no sphere is this internal war more evident than when it comes to matters involving the Church’s Doctrine on Social Justice...

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Is President Obama At War With America?

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If a frontal assault on the foundational principals and values of American life can qualify as being “at war” - then yes, Barack Obama is in combat with our country... [snip]

Yet at the epicenter of all of this – all the bribes, manipulations, and heavy-handed mandates – is the narrow, political self-interest of one man: Barack Obama. America’s cultural “right” decries the loss of freedom and the rise of abusive government, while the “left” decries a government that lines the pockets of for-profit corporations (companies that are presumed to be “greedy”), all for the benefit of one self-serving politician.

This is the assault on America’s foundational principals and values. It is the assault of governmental cronyism, on our basic understandings of what is right, and fair...

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Democrats Post Health Care Bill Online, Starting 72-Hour Clock

Subject: txt 1st hcare -

The updated health care reform bill has been posted online, starting the clock on a 72-hour window before the House can vote on it. Click here to see the proposed changes to the bill, as well as the original Senate package.

President Obama pledged in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday that the final provisions of the health care plan would be ''posted for many days before this thing passes'' to give the public a chance to review it.

The earliest the House could vote on the latest health bill is Sunday...

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Keep Trying to Call If It's Busy - they'll still see the volume.
• Dial: 877-762-8762 or 202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121
• Code Red: NRCC's List of Targeted Congressmen
• Focus: Wilson (D-OH) | Cao (R-LA) | Altmire (D-PA)

And as always:


"OPPOSE OBAMACARE "


YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

and pass it on...

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Pelosi Has $18.4 BILLION in Bribe Money For Health Care Votes

Subject: txt 1st hcare crpt libs -
Just when you thought the Democrats had exhausted all their budget gimmicks, they surprise you. (Well, no, not really, but you do have to scratch your head in wonder.)

Under budget rules, any reconciliation bill must reduce the deficit by at least $1 billion. According to the CBO, the reconciliation bill reduces deficits by $19.8 billion over 10 years.

However, as the final page of the CBO report notes, higher education spending changes — student loan subsidies — account for $19.4 billion. Which means that the reconciliation changes related to health care only reduce the deficit by $0.4 billion.

Thus, including student loans was necessary not only to draw more member support for the health care overhaul, but to make the budget math work.

[How proud a symbol of democracy we've become.]

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Dems defeat GOP resolution to force a VOTE on the Senate bill

Subject: txt 1st hcare =
House Democrats turned back an effort by Republicans Thursday to prevent them from using the so-called Slaughter Solution to enact the Senate's health care bill. Democrats defeated a resolution, 222-203, that Republicans had offered in an attempt to block the majority from approving the Senate's bill without directly voting on it. The afternoon roll call served as something of a test vote for fence-sitting Democrats.

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What Bias? Re: CNN's Roberts: Why Is a 'Mandate for Having Health Insurance a Bad Thing? There's a Mandate for Having Car Insurance'

Subject: txt 1st hcare msm =
On CNN's American Morning today, anchor John Roberts pressed one of President Barack Obama's talking points on the Democratic health care plan. Roberts talked with former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who opposes ObamaCare. Currently the chairman of FreedomWorks, Armey criticized "the audacity of the government mandating to the American people: you must all buy a product that I define for you." Then Roberts went to work:

ROBERTS: But why is it mandate for having health insurance a bad thing? There's a mandate for having car insurance.

ARMEY: Well, first of all, you have to understand, America is a nation that was founded on the concept of personal liberty, that liberty is a gift given to mankind by the Lord God Almighty and it's the duty of governments to protect your liberty.

ROBERTS: Do you have car insurance?

ARMEY: Not to trespass against your liberty.

ROBERTS: Do you have car insurance?

ARMEY: Do I have car insurance? Of course, I have car insurance.

ROBERTS: You have to have car insurance.

[But you don't have to drive.]

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Keep Trying to Call If It's Busy - they'll still see the volume.
• Dial: 877-762-8762 or 202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121
• Code Red: NRCC's List of Targeted Congressmen
• Focus: Wilson (D-OH) | Cao (R-LA) | Altmire (D-PA)

And as always:


"OPPOSE OBAMACARE "


YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

and pass it on...

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16,500 more IRS agents needed to enforce Obamacare

Subject: txt 1st hcare mny lbrty -
New tax mandates and penalties included in Obamacare will cause the greatest expansion of the Internal Revenue Service since World War II, according to a release from Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas. A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the ‘reconciliation’ bill being taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend...

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‘Deem and Pass’ Shows Democrats’ Healthcare Arrogance Problem

Subject: txt 1st hcare libs -
This, from the party that claims to be all about transparency, in today's Washington Post: "It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday about the reconciliation package. "But I like it," she said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill." So Speaker Pelosi will "deem" the $875 billion Senate healthcare reform bill to have already passed the House, a process the Post's editorial page says "threatens to turn into something unseemly." Threatens? It turned unseemly a long time ago...

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CBO: Health Bill Would Force Families to Buy Insurance Costing a Minimum of $12,000 Per Year--Whether Government or Employer Helps Them or Not

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
If Congress passes the Senate health-care plan, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, American families will be required by federal law to buy a federally approved health insurance plan that will cost a minimum of $12,000 per year--and, on average, will cost $15,000 per year -- whether their employer or the government helps them with the premium or not.

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CBO: Obamacare Would Cost Over $2 Trillion

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
The CBO’s most recent analysis is out, and it’s not likely to convince wavering House Democrats to jump to the Obamacare side of the fence. Even the Democrats are granting that the latest version of their proposed health care overhaul would cost $69 billion more than the previous version. According to the CBO, this version would siphon even more money out of Medicare, make even further cuts to Medicare Advantage, and levy even higher taxes and fines on the American people...

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The CBO Score, As Reported by Steny Hoyer

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
House Budget Committee Ranking Republican Paul Ryan responds to an NRO query about the news this morning: “The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that there is currently no official cost estimate. Yet House Democrats are touting to the press — and spinning for partisan gain — numbers that have not been released and are impossible to confirm. Rep. James Clyburn stated he was 'giddy' about these unsubstantiated numbers. This is the latest outrageous exploitation by the Majority — in this case abusing the confidentiality of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office —

"This CBO reporting this morning really is remarkable to me — the news is simply what Steny Hoyer says it is..."

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TO REPEAT: DOCTORS WOULD HANG IT UP

Subject: txt 1st hcare =

Last September an Investor's Business Daily (IBD)/TIPP Poll showed 45 percent of doctors would consider leaving medicine if a health care takeover passed. A new second poll has verified those findings:

The TIPP questionnaire went out Aug. 28 to some 25,600 doctors nationwide:

• Of the physicians queried, 45 percent said they'd consider closing their practice or retiring early if the overhaul then being considered were enacted.
• Also, 65 percent said they opposed the government's attempts at taking over the health care system.
• Of the 800,000 physicians practicing in the United States in 2006, as many as 360,000 might leave the profession.
• So with the proposed overhaul, we'd be trying to cover 31 million more patients with up to 45 percent fewer doctors.

Impossible.

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What Bias? Re: NBC Poll Finds ObamaCare Seen as ‘Bad Idea’ by 12 Point Margin, Squelched by Nightly News

Subject: txt 1st msm hcare -
By a 12 point margin, those asked, in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, called “Barack Obama’s health care plan” a bad idea” (48 percent) over a “good idea” (36 percent.)

Yet, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Tuesday evening skipped that verdict as instead declared “people are evenly split” on “the President’s health care reform plan”...

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Keep Trying to Call If It's Busy - they'll still see the volume.
• Dial: 877-762-8762 or 202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121
• Code Red: NRCC's List of Targeted Congressmen
• Focus: Wilson (D-OH) | Cao (R-LA) | Altmire (D-PA)

And as always:


"OPPOSE OBAMACARE "


YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

and pass it on...

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MSNBC: ObamaCare Will Enact Largest Tax Increase Ever

[Yes you read that right.]
ObamaCare constitutes the largest tax increase in American history and shatters the previous record, admitted self-described socialist and MSNBC political analyst Lawrence O’Donnell yesterday.

When MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough asked O’Donnell about the overhaul bill on his radio show, O’Donnell said ObamaCare raises taxes by almost $500 billion.

Obama’s historic tax increase nearly doubles the previous record-setting tax that O’Donnell helped craft as Democratic Chief of Staff to the Senate Finance Committee during the Clinton administration.

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Shocking AP Fact Check: Premiums Will Rise Under ObamaCare

[Yes you read that right]
It's no shock to rational, thinking people that healthcare legislation currently before Congress will do nothing to halt rising insurance premiums, but that the folks at the Associated Press would come to such a conclusion AND write about it is quite surprising.

There it was in a piece published Wednesday called, "FACT CHECK: Premiums would rise under Obama plan."

Readers are strongly encouraged to fasten seatbelts tightly, for they're about to enter what has to be an alternate universe...

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What Bias? Re: CBS Charged Anti-ObamaCare Protesters Acted in 'Ugly' Manner, But Politico Found Them 'Polite' and 'Boring'

Subject: txt 1st hcare msm bias -

“Based on some mild and indiscernible shouts by people in a hallway outside the office of a House member,” CBS's Chip Reid tried to discredit anti-ObamaCare protesters, claiming the Tea Party activists “tried to lobby undecided Democrats. At times, it got ugly.” (Watch the video to assess the commotion Reid characterized as “ugly.”)

But in today's Politico newspaper, Marin Cogan relayed how “staff members for Democrats reported orderly, even polite conversations with protesters.” In her article, “Dems play nice with tea partiers,” Marin not only did not cite any ugliness, she discovered the protesters were so calm that they were actually bored by them: “'It was like a high school classroom,' an aide to one lawmaker who hosted tea partiers noted glumly. 'It was so boring.'”

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Competitors See FNC's Baier as 'Contentious' with Obama While ABC Devotes Full Story to Obama's NCAA Picks

Subject: txt 1st hcare gdd msm bias fnn -
CBS and NBC, which have delivered very friendly interviews with President Barack Obama (link below the jump to examples), on Wednesday night characterized Bret Baier's sit-down with Obama for the Fox News Channel as “contentious,” while ABC decided to devote nearly two minutes of World News (1:50) to Obama's college basketball tournament choices.

Anchor Diane Sawyer teased at the start of the March 17 newscast, “Top picks: Stream of consciousness as the Fan-in-Chief completes his college basketball bracket.”

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OBAMACARE INCREASES UNEMPLOYMENT, INSURANCE PREMIUMS, DEFICIT AND DEBT

[Other than that it's a swell idea.]

• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows deficit neutrality for the Senate bill -- however, this is based on static analysis which ignores the effects new taxes and an individual and employer mandate would have on economic growth.
• These provisions would decrease investment in the economy, resulting in lower wages and salaries; this means less taxable income, lowering federal revenues and growing the debt.
• Increased borrowing puts upward pressure on interest rates causing some private sector productive investment opportunities to be foregone.
• This also increases the interest owed on the national debt, such that the government would pay, on average, $20 billion more in interest between 2010 and 2020; by the end of the decade, the publicly held debt would be $755 billion dollars more than under current law.

Increases insurance premiums:

• Mandates in the Senate bill would require health plans to offer more generous coverage, increasing the cost of insurance.
• Increased spending on premiums, accompanied by increased medical spending, would create upward pressure on prices.
• This would further increase government spending, since offering the current levels of care covered by Medicaid and the proposed subsidies would cost significantly more.
• The only other option would be to ration provider payments even more severely.

Increases unemployment:

• Dynamic analysis of the bill shows that an average 690,000 jobs per year would be lost due to the effects described above.

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OBAMACARE'S WORST TAX HIKE

Subject: txt 1st hcare mny =
Under ObamaCare, payroll levies will hit investment income for the first time ever

President Obama's 11th-hour decision to apply the 2.9 percent Medicare payroll tax to "unearned income" -- that's what savings and investment income are called in Washington -- would be extended beyond wages to interest, dividends, capital gains, annuities, royalties and rents.

According to the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation:

• This investment tax would depress GDP by about 1.3 percent and reduce capital formation by 3.4 percent.
• Labor productivity and wages would fall across the board, while the lost government revenues from the more-sluggish economy would offset the expected receipts.

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POLL: 50% Less Likely To Vote For Congress Member Who Supports Health Care Plan

Subject: txt 1st hcare 2010 -
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken Wednesday night finds that 34% are more likely to vote for their Congress member’s reelection if he or she supports the president’s health care plan. Eight percent (8%) say the health care vote will have no impact on how they vote this November, and another seven percent (7%) are not sure.

But perhaps more significantly, 51% of voters not affiliated with either major party are less likely to support someone who votes for the legislation. Just 32% of unaffiliateds are more likely to vote for someone who supports the bill.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters now think it would be better for the country if most incumbents in Congress were defeated this November. Just 27% of voters say their representative in Congress is the best possible person for the job.

[So why would the Democrats do it anyway?

Again: this IS the holy grail of progressivism: socialized health 'care' -- once in place it's only a matter of time before government can control virtually everything by tying it to your 'benefits' {example: how will a majority of the populace ever support any future tax cut when they're told, has they routinely are in Canada, that the first thing cut will be health care benefits???]

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Keep Trying to Call If It's Busy - they'll still see the volume.
• Dial: 877-762-8762 or 202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121
• Code Red: NRCC's List of Targeted Congressmen
• Focus: Wilson (D-OH) | Cao (R-LA) | Altmire (D-PA)

And as always:


"OPPOSE OBAMACARE "


YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

and pass it on...

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