Via Carl
Friday, July 27, 2012
Obamacare Rebate Ends Capitalism
Last week I was surprised to receive a check from my insurance company. I hadn’t filed a claim, hadn’t canceled a policy, and couldn’t think of any other reason they might be sending me a check. It wasn’t huge, less than $100. But still, why would they be sending me money? Usually it goes the other way.
When I read the letter that came with it I thought it was a joke. I actually read it twice. Then I showed it to my wife to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. Once I realized that the letter actually said what it said, and recovered from my shock, I was furious.
The letter from my insurance company explained that the new “Affordable Care Act” caps the amount of money insurance companies can make. It explains that the new “80/20 rule” requires insurance companies to use at least 80% of premiums received from their customers for payments to health care providers. In other words the insurance company is prohibited from retaining more than 20% of its income from its customers. Once a year the company has to give its customers back any “extra” money the company has collected.
Understand, the 20% the insurance company retains must pay all corporate costs for running the company, including all employee salaries, sales, advertising, and all other overhead.
Our Federal government has decided that it is illegal to make “too much” profit.
I am not a fan of insurance companies. As an attorney I’ve heard more horror stories than you can imagine about insurance companies treating their customers poorly and committing outright fraud. However, these kinds of behaviors by companies, as well as the act of charging “too much” would be naturally limited if our government would allow the free market to be a free market.
If insurance companies were not regulated and restricted to the degree that they are, there would be MANY more insurance companies in the marketplace. Insurance is a pretty good business to be in, if it actually worked as “insurance” instead of the twisted quasi-governmental welfare program it has been forced to become.
If there were more insurance companies in the market, and they could adjust their prices to compete for customers without having to ask the government “Mother may I?” every time they make a change, then prices would stay at fair market values. This would happen without governmental intervention. Treating customers poorly would also stop because truly free markets naturally maximize benefits to customers.
Which brings me to the main point. This “80/20 rule” is just another aspect of Obamacare that was intentionally designed to force private insurance companies out of business. Why would any reasonable person stay in the insurance business when the government caps revenue at a point where the company can barely pay its own bills?
Before Obamacare it could be argued that governmental destruction of markets was unintentional, or at least it was not the goal. Now we have a Federal government that is actively, intentionally, purposefully trying to destroy a market so that the government can take over that market.
Congress didn’t have enough support for socialized medicine to simply outlaw private insurance. So, they made it impossible for insurance companies to stay in business.
If Obamacare is not stopped the government will quickly become the only provider of “health care.” It will then move on to another industry, and then another, and another. Capitalism has already been effectively outlawed for some sectors of our economy. If we don’t stop this trend, we will become the Soviet Union. Obamacare’s individual mandate proved that as the government takes over the economy, it will inevitably take away non-economic rights as we have seen in the loss of conscience rights for medical providers.
This is what is at stake here. Freedom, or slavery. Capitalism or Soviet Union style socialism.
Liberty Legal Foundation is still fighting to have Obamacare overturned in court. Please help us stop Federal government in its attempt to become our primary oppressor.
For Liberty,
Van Irion, Founder
Tens of thousands protest in Mexico against new president (VIDEO, PHOTOS)
Via Keep It Simple Survival
At least 32,000 protesters marched through Mexico City on Sunday to protest the “imposition” of the new president. They accuse president-elect Enrique Pena Nieto, a member of the old ruling party, of electoral fraud.
Protesters have dubbed the country’s TV giant Televisa a “factory of lies.” Demonstrators marching through to capital claimed that Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won the election by vote-buying and an aggressive PR campaign through major media outlets such as Televisa, which they claim was well paid for positive coverage of Nieto’s presidential campaign.
Enrique Pena Nieto, 46, won the election with 38.2 per cent of the vote against 31.6 per cent for the leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Nieto’s victory brought the Institutional Revolutionary Party back to power after being in the opposition for 12 years.
The ruling President Felipe Calderon of the conservative National Action Party came in third.
Opponents of the victorious candidate demanded urgent domestic reforms.
The PRI in turn accuses the losing leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of "disqualifying the entire electoral process with lies." Televisa has also denied all allegations.
The last presidential election in Mexico in 2006 also ended with the defeat of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who narrowly lost to the ruling conservative president. In 2006 Obrador organized hundreds of thousands of his supporters to rally in downtown Mexico City for weeks. This time, however, Obrador announced that his victory is evident and he has no intention of calling his supporters to the streets.More @ Russia Today
Timing is Everything
They are warming up for the big game, folks, and the hour is getting late…
Armed agencies are out and flexing their muscles right now. Never forget that while today it is drug dealers, tomorrow it will be patriots and other “domestic terrorists”.
Study the actions and tactics of your enemy, and don’t overlook their propaganda – all of these give clues and indicators as to their “rhythm”. Every organization has a rhythm and tempo at which they prefer to work - many FED-GOV agency heads are not even familiar with the rhythms of their own organizations, which is to our benefit – they will work against themselves when hard pressed. Yes, the OPFOR is getting prepared – FREEFOR must be ready to respond keenly, and in kind.
Most importantly, know how to recognize the moment when it is YOU they have in their sights - decidedly avoid the martyrdom of head-to-head combat…better to dodge the attack, and be ready with a swift counter. These are the times which try mens’ souls, yet strength of conviction gives rise to meaningful action. We will prevail.
More @ NC Renegade
Shenanigans
1. Obama comes out against guns.
2. Reid says not enough time to debate it.
3. Congresspersons attach a bill which they believe will fail, but then they can blame the Republicans ad infinitum.
Printing Weapons at Home for Fun and Mayhem
It's now possible to print functional weapons at home. This is going to progress rapidly now.
Think: global file sharing of designs for servicable weapons, from pistols on up to ?, that can be printed at home. What you can print -- from the materials to the size/quality of the object to the completeness (snap together construction) -- is already moving forward quickly. The weapons effort will just be along for the ride.
"HaveBlue" has tested the first "printed" firearm and it works. Here's his site, but it's VERY slow. It didn't blow up in his face.
Granted, he used an older professional grade Stratys 3D printer to do it. Printeres are much better now and handle many new materials.
Haveblue has been testing the "market" for distributing CAD/CAM weapons designs. His post of an earlier design to Thingverse (a site for 3D printing design patterns) led to a change in their policy (although it hasn't been enforced).
Haveblue's work is based on the Solidworks files available for download from the CNCguns site. Here's his earlier project:
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