OBAMACARE COST: Health Insurance Premiums Rise Nationwide

Published on March 20, 2013 by

When Obamacare became the law of the land, Obama’s promise was that it would reduce premiums for families by an average of $2,500 per year.  In fact, according to Politifact, here are the words that came out of Obama’s mouth:

“I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.”

But, Americans everywhere are watching their premiums skyrocket as Obamacare’s full implementation nears, even in Colorado.  According to a study published by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate Committees on Finance and on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions earlier this month, premiums in Colorado are scheduled to rise a whopping 19% to 41% next year.  Sadly, Colorado is not the worst of the bunch.  Here is the full chart from the report:

While Colorado’s 19-41% increase is far above the rate of inflation, which means families have to make the same income stretch much further, the rates in states like Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri, and more are set to skyrocket.

It’s concerning that premium increases will strike families, some of which are already struggling to make ends meet, but there is another downside to Obamacare’s out-of-control costs.  Jobs.  Earlier this week, the Peak highlighted a survey conducted by Gallup and Wells Fargo that showed 61% of small business owners weren’t hiring because of concerns over rising healthcare costs.

Despite the lack of front page news on the joblessness front, the fact remains that the unemployment rate – nationally and in Colorado – remains quite high and the percentage of the population currently employed is near historic lows.

Families are hurting. Obamacare isn’t the cure-all it was made to be.

 

Ken Salazar Lies to Dodge Concerns of Western Slope Stakeholders

Published on September 24, 2012 by

An email invitation was sent from the office of Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar dated September 11, 2012, announcing a stakeholder’s meeting in Western Colorado:

From: Office of the Secretary
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2012 3:02 PM
To: Office of the Secretary
Subject: Join Secretary Salazar in Grand Junction this Saturday, September 15th

Department of the Interior Home Page  U.S. Department of the Interior

Please join Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar for a stakeholder meeting to discuss the President’s America’s Great Outdoors Initiative and the Administration’s conservation accomplishments and outdoor economic development.  Secretary Salazar will explore how outdoor recreation, travel and tourism are serving as economic engines in the Grand Junction community, provide updates on Colorado America’s Great Outdoors projects and answer questions from the audience.

When: Saturday, September 15, 2012
Time: 12:30pm – 1:00pm (MDT) – Check-In1:00pm – 2:00pm (MDT) – Meeting & Discussion
Where: Colorado National Monument – Saddlehorn Campground Amphitheater(near the Visitor Center Complex – map attached)Grand Junction, Colorado

We look forward to your participation.  RSVP with your contact information toDOI_Events@ios.doi.gov by 12:00pm (MDT), Thursday, September 13, 2012.

 

As it turns out, glaring grammatical errors in the email were not the only problem with this communication.  Secretary Ken Salazar, it appears, didn’t really want to meet with stakeholders on the Western Slope after all.

An email dated September 14, 2012, was sent to the same stakeholders announcing that the meeting had been canceled due to a “scheduling conflict.” Secretary Salazar gave no further details in the notice but did send his apologies.

From: Office of the Secretary [mailto:OfficeoftheSecretary@ios.doi.gov]
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 11:11 AM
To: DOI_Events
Subject: CANCELED: Join Secretary Salazar in Grand Junction this Saturday, September 15th, 2012
Importance: High

 Dear Friend,

 Due to a scheduling conflict, the stakeholder meeting scheduled for Saturday, September 15 in Grand Junction, has been canceled. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Secretary Salazar appreciates your support, and looks forward to discussing these important issues at a future date.

Sincerely,

Office of the Secretary

Grand Junction’s stakeholders include organizations and individuals who have an interest in how decisions by Ken Salazar’s office may impact access to outdoor recreational opportunities, the costs involved in conservation efforts, and the effect such decisions might have on private property adjacent to federal lands in Western Colorado. By and large these stakeholders (specific names withheld) are not happy with the Secretary of the Interior’s office and the negative effects that regulations on energy, access to public lands, and costly EPA mandates have had on the economy of Grand Junction and surrounding towns. Given the less-than-warm feelings between the Secretary of the Interior and stakeholders in Western Colorado, one might theorize that Salazar got cold feet. However…

The few times that Secretary Salazar has visited the Western Slope he has conducted his meetings at the Colorado National Monument, a natural wonder managed by the National Park Service. The Colorado National Monument is a popular biking, hiking, and car-touring destination for tourists as well as locals. One of the stakeholders to whom Ken Salazar’s office sent out the initial meeting invitation and the subsequent cancellation notice, had an associate who was biking  the “Monument” on September 15.  According to this stakeholder, who wishes to remain anonymous:

“(name withheld) was riding bike up there that day and saw the government cars and the guys there to meet with Salazar. Jay Seaton from the (Grand Junction Daily) Sentinel was one of them–Interesting that the Sentinel didn’t cover his visit???”

Colorado’s Western Slope has suffered greatly during Ken Salazar’s tenure as Secretary of the Interior.  It comes as no surprise that he would want to avoid the tough questions and concerns of businesses and organizations who have been harmed by his policies.  It also comes as no surprise that Salazar would meet with Jay Seaton, the publisher of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. Since Seaton’s company purchased the Sentinel in 2009 it has taken a decidedly leftist turn and is infamous among locals for its bias toward Liberals and Democrats and its fawning, kid-glove treatment of the Obama Administration.

What is surprising is that a Secretary in the executive branch of the United States government could be so duplicitous and cowardly when it comes to addressing the problems of the people his department is supposed to protect. Ken Salazar is not up to the job of managing the enormous responsibilities of the Interior Department, but he is up to schmoozing with his buddies in the press while ignoring the fact that his policies are harming real businesses and destroying real lives in Colorado.

 

LIAR, LIAR: Dem Economic Talking Points Denounced by American Banker

Published on September 12, 2012 by

This morning, a loyal reader sent us a post from banking publication American Banker’s editor-in-chief, Neil Weinberg, who wrote a “myth vs. fact” piece on Elizabeth Warren’s talking points on the economy and banking from the Democratic National Convention. While the Peak typically focuses on Colorado issues, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to highlight this article because Warren’s misleading statements have been driving the talking points on the left nationwide, and in Colorado.

Warren, the self-described “mother of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” told a few whoppers at the DNC. Here are her particularly egregious points, plus Weinberg’s attempt to set the record straight.

A few of our favorites from American Banker:

Warren: “The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs—still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.”

Reality check: Demanding favors? Like the labor unions that helped push General Motors and Chrysler over the brink and then got the president to help cut in front of bondholders during a taxpayer-funded bailout? Or the class action lawyers who get rich suing job-creating corporations and then funnel some of the spoils to the Democratic Party?

Warren: “President Obama gets it because he’s spent his life fighting for the middle class. And now he’s fighting to level that playing field.”

Reality check: Obama fighting to level the playing field? With a Fed chairman whose near-zero interest rate policy is hurting retirees and other savers while rewarding the profligate—most notably Uncle Sam? Even Neil Barofsky, the former Tarp Special Inspector General who is quite fond of Liz Warren, has blasted the Obama White House and Treasury Secretary for lying to the American people and disguising a giant-bank bailout as a homeowner rescue.

Warren: “After the financial crisis, President Obama knew that we had to clean up Wall Street.”

Reality Check: Obama’s cleaned up Wall Street? Who’s gone to jail, Ms. Warren? In the wake of the tech bust a decade ago, George W. Bush’s Justice Department went after the deposed bosses at Enron, WorldCom and Tyco and put them in jail. President Obama’s Justice Department has taken a pass on the likes of Jon Corzine of MF Global, Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial and the boatload of cads who ran places like AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Or, as Neil Barofsky said to me recently, given the “trillions and trillions of dollars of value that have been wiped out … it certainly seems like there should have been a rampant area for potential fraud cases.”

 

Campaign for Obama, get college credit

Published on August 31, 2012 by

A public university in Colorado may have violated state law by offering students course credit if they volunteered with President Obama’s re-election campaign. A blog post on the Adams State University website billed the opportunity as a “12 week long organizing internship for the Obama Campaign.”

Both the blog post and the course are now gone. The course was canceled due to lack of interest, according to the university. The blog post was taken down earlier this week after a conservative student blog, Campus Reform, reported on it.

The course may have been in violation of the Colorado Fair Campaign Practices Act, which prohibits the use of public resources toward “campaigns involving the nomination, retention, or election of any person to any public office.” Oliver Darcy, the editor at Campus Reform who first reported the story, said the course struck him as a likely violation of state law.

“They are definitely using a few professors at least to help these students with the campaign process, so I don’t understand how it doesn’t use public resources for campaign purposes,” he said in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.

A spokesperson for the university said the blog post was mistaken about the nature of the course, and that students would have been allowed to volunteer with any campaign.

“This is an independent study course that would be available to any student in any campaign,” said Julie Waechter, a spokesperson for ASU, in an interview with TheDC News Foundation.

Waechter declined to give the name of the employee who authorized the course. Dodie Day, the administrator who posted the blog entry, declined to comment.

According to Waechter, the Obama administration reached out to the university about hosting such an offer.

“The Obama campaign did approach the school. Others campaigns did not,” she said, adding that the school would have considered a similar offer from the Republican campaign of Gov. Mitt Romney.

But Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars and a chronicler of political bias in academia, said universities have no business awarding class credit for political activity at all.

“The principle here is that this sort of stuff does not belong in the classroom, and that also it is not something for which students should be receiving academic credit,” said Wood in an interview with TheDC News Foundation. “The public funding that goes into a university is not there to advance political campaigns.”

Earlier this week, Wood reported on a similar instance of liberal political activity entering the classroom at Ohio State University. Professor Brian McHale wrote an e-mail to colleagues asking them to set aside class time for campaign organizers to pitch students on getting involved with the Obama campaign.

“I’ve been in touch with a couple of campus organizers for the Obama campaign, who have asked me to pass along to all of you a request for access to your classes in the next few weeks,” wrote McHale in the e-mail.

For Wood, incidents like the ones at ASU and OSU fit an extensive pattern of improper cooperation between the Obama campaign and university officials.

“It’s one of those things I add to the documentation of fairly numerous instances in which the Obama campaign has crossed the line,” he said.

Stephanie Freer, a recent graduate of Northern Arizona University and conservative activist in Colorado, was disturbed that ASU would advertise a class that promoted a liberal political agenda.

“This public school is funneling students into working for the Obama campaign,” she said in an interview with TheDC News Foundation. “It isn’t right for a public university to be promoting that type of campaign work for course credit.”


 

STOP SNITCHIN’: Obama to Campaign with “Heroic” Carmelo Anthony

Published on August 23, 2012 by

Last night, in New York City, President Obama fundraising with Denver’s most anticipated trade, Carmelo Anthony, along with other NBA stars such as Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning.  Interestingly, Obama’s spokesperson described the line up as “NBA heroes”.

Given Obama’s love of basketball, this isn’t shocking, but his pairing with Anthony has certainly raised eyebrows.  A couple of years ago, Anthony helped make the pro-drug YouTube video called “Stop Snitchin”.

The DVD shows alleged drug dealers talking about the consequences for people who talk to the police, and Anthony is standing next to one of them, who later in the video says he would “put a hole in [snitches’] head[s]”..  In the DVD, Anthony also claims to have thrown his Olympic bronze medal in a lake.

Coloradans probably also remember Anthony’s pot bust at the Denver International Airport, and his DUI charge in 2008, so his participation in this video shouldn’t be terribly surprising.  It’s just unfortunate that President Obama has chosen to align himself with someone who is so far from heroic.

What’s up with all these stories about Democrats and drug dealers lately?


 

YOU DIDN’T KILL THAT: Seal Team Six Account of Bin Laden Raid a Game Changer?

Published on August 23, 2012 by

UPDATE: Yesterday, Fox News identified the author as Matt Bissonnette, a 36-year-old originally from Alaska, and hours later Defense Department and military officials confirmed his identity.

With the presidential campaign in full swing, Penguin Publishers’ imprint Dutton plans to release “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden”, a “detailed first-person account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden”, on September 11th.  The book was written under a pseudonym by a member the Navy SEALs who was a part of the mission, and was present for bin Laden’s death.

According to the publisher, the book is scheduled to be one of the biggest books of the year, “with the potential to affect the presidential campaign in the final weeks before the election.”  In anticipation, the publisher has planned a print run of 300,000 copies in hardcover.

Penguin officials declined to comment on whether the book was vetted by government agencies. Colonel Tim Nye, the chief spokesman for the military’s Special Operations Command, said, “[he] would reserve comment until he had an opportunity to read the book.”

While the author and his fellow SEAL team members’ identities have been protected in the book, we can pretty much guarantee it’s not written by this guy:


On a more serious note, it should be an interesting read, and given that it has the “potential to affect the presidential election”, we’re very curious….


 

FACT CHECK: Obama’s Record on Medicare

Published on August 20, 2012 by

With the hurricane of attacks that have come Vice Presidential Nominee Paul Ryan's way, we thought we'd take a minute to set the record straight on who actually cut Medicare. Hint: It's not Paul Ryan.

The truth is that President Obama is the only candidate running for president (or vice president, for that matter) who has cut Medicare for seniors.  According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, President Obama cut $716 billion from Medicare to help fund his boondoggle, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

Unfortunately, the Obama campaign has been trying to distract seniors from the cuts that have already happened by threatening cuts to come.  But, here's the skinny:

  • Associated Press reports that the Department of Health and Human Services projected that cuts to Medicare Advantage would cause approximately 50% of its enrollees to leave the program, resulting in higher out-of-pocket costs for those enrollees.
  • While Obama has insisted that "benefits would remain the same", FactCheck.org disputed that claim saying "the promise…is just as fictional as the town of Mayberry when Griffith played that local sheriff."
  • The Center for Medicare and Medicaid has estimated that health care facilities – 15% of facilities by 2019, 25% of facilities by 2030, and 40% of facilities by 2050 – would experience negative margins and "would have to withdraw from providing services to Medicare beneficiaries, merge with other provider groups, or shift substantial portions of Medicare costs to their non-Medicare, non-Medicaid payers."
  • 52% of doctors say Obamacare will compel them to close or significantly restrict their practices to Medicare patients, according to The Physicians Foundation.

It's bad enough that Obamacare will send our healthcare system into a tailspin, but then, the Obama campaign had the audacity to tell Americans that these cuts were a good thing, with Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter saying that Obama had "achieved" over $700 billion in cuts in Medicaid.

In a "Face the Nation" interview just last week, this is what Cutter said about Medicare cuts:

"…You ask the wealthy to pay a little bit more.  Cut waste from the government.  Reform Medicare.  More than $300 billion in savings from Medicare, on top of savings we've already achieved.  …I heard Mitt Romney deride the $700 billion cuts in Medicare tha the president achieved through health care reform."

If reduced access to care and higher out-of-pocket costs for seniors on a fixed income is an achievement, the public ought to take a look at President Obama's other "achievements" with a very skeptical eye.

 


 

MISLEADING NUMBERS: Why Does Obama Want to Victimize Career Women?

Published on August 17, 2012 by

Tomorrow, the Obama campaign plans to fly Lilly Ledbetter, a retired Goodyear executive for whom the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was named, to Adams County along with Debbie Wasserman Schultz for two separate events. 

Peak readers may remember the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which loosened the statute of limitations timeline requirements for filing discrimination suits, “so long as any act of discrimination, including receipt of a paycheck that reflects a past act of discrimination, occurs within a 180-day period of limitations.”  Obama sycophants heralded this as a giant boost for women, but it really was a giant help for trial lawyers.

Then, recently, the White House issued a report that found women earn just 75 cents for every dollar that men make – ladies, are you outraged yet?

Don’t be. 

An article featured on CBS News features career expert and best-selling author, Marty Nemko, who debunks the myth of the gender pay gap, saying: “The data is clear that for the same work men and women are paid roughly the same. The media need to look beyond the claims of feminist organizations.” 

She offers statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor to back up her claims:

Why the Gender Pay Gap is a Complete Myth

1. Men are far more likely to choose careers that are more dangerous, so they naturally pay more. Top 10 most dangerous jobs (from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics): Fishers, loggers, aircraft pilots, farmers and ranchers, roofers, iron and steel workers, refuse and recyclable material collectors, industrial machinery installation and repair, truck drivers, construction laborers. They're all male-dominated jobs.

2. Men are far more likely to work in higher-paying fields and occupations (by choice). According to the White House report, "In 2009, only 7 percent of female professionals were employed in the relatively high paying computer and engineering fields, compared with 38 percent of male professionals." Professional women, on the other hand, are far more prevalent "in the relatively low-paying education and health care occupations."

3. Men are far more likely to take work in uncomfortable, isolated, and undesirable locations that pay more.

4. Men work longer hours than women do. The average fulltime working man works 6 hours per week or 15 percent longer than the average fulltime working woman.

5. Men are more likely to take jobs that require work on weekends and evenings and therefore pay more.

6. Even within the same career category, men are more likely to pursue high-stress and higher-paid areas of specialization. For example, within the medical profession, men gravitate to relatively high-stress and high-paying areas of specialization, like surgery, while women are more likely to pursue relatively lower-paid areas of specialization like pediatrician or dentist.

7. Despite all of the above, unmarried women who've never had a child actually earn more than unmarried men, according to Nemko and data compiled from the Census Bureau.

8. Women business owners make less than half of what male business owners make, which, since they have no boss, means it's independent of discrimination. The reason for the disparity, according to a Rochester Institute of Technology study, is that money is the primary motivator for 76% of men versus only 29% of women. Women place a higher premium on shorter work weeks, proximity to home, fulfillment, autonomy, and safety, according to Nemko.

Of course, with President Obama’s abysmal record of pay equality in his own White House, its not surprising that he would think there’s a pay gap everywhere. 


 

LADIES MAN DEBUNKED: Obama’s “Real” Record on Women’s Issues

Published on August 8, 2012 by

Today, the media went all doe-eyed at the Obama speech and introduction by Sandra Fluke.  They retweeted all of his major points about how Obama is the first female president.  Or maybe we just made that part up.  Nonetheless, his rhetoric was somewhat disingenuous given his record with women.  Obama's not nice to women in his White House and he hurts women across the country with his policies.  Here are just a few examples:

  • Time's "Swampland" blog says that Obama has a "woman problem" and cites the frustration of his female senior advisors:

"Coverage in the Washington Post and a new book by Ron Suskind has focused attention on the frustration of Obama’s female advisers. But the problem has been obvious almost since Obama took office. And while the explanations so far have blamed members of the mostly-departed boys club–Robert Gibbs, Rahm Emanuel–Obama himself is responsible for a work atmosphere that marginalizes and ignores women."

  • Additionally, former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said about the White House, in the expose "Confidence Men", “this place would be in court for a hostile workplace. . . . Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.”
  • Finally, and possibly, the worst, records show that Obama has a history of paying his female staffers 18% less than their male counterparts.  For someone who accuses the other side of not treating women fairly, this is pretty damning.  Hypocrite what?

Even SNL made fun of Romney for his fair treatment of women:

But, Obama’s workplace leadership (of lack thereof) pales in comparison to how his policies have negatively impacted women, particuarly when one looks at jobs and the economy.  Here are a few examples:

  • The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics' job report for July 2012 showed that 214,000 women over the age of 20 have exited the workforce since June.  Why is that?
  • Even worse, when comparing July 2011 to July 2012, we see that over 1.5 million women over the age of 20 have left the workforce.
  • The numbers above don't even account for the 860,000 increase in unemployed women since Obama took office.

With  facts like this, it's no wonder that Gallup shows a decline in Obama’s popularity among women from 70% to 50% since he took office.  And, it's also no wonder that Obama feels like he has to pander and plead with women for their vote. Women aren't fools, Mr. President, they see through your flimsy politicking.


 

DISENCHANTMENT: Clip Parodies Youth Disappointment with Obama

Published on August 8, 2012 by

Obama shouldn't count his spring chickens before they hatch.  A new parody of Gotye's "Somebody I Used to Know" by Just New Productions encapsulates the frustration the under 30 set feels with President Obama's poor economy.An example of the lyrics:

You can get addicted to a certain kind of message
Like this is change we can believe in, yes we can
But college ended, had to pay my rent
At least you're the first gay president
But the change I got was that I moved in with my mother.

But, the real question on everyone’s mind is – will they turn out for Obama?


 
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