Medicare Payments to Doctors Reduced 21% on 3/1/10 Docs4PatientCare would like to inform you that Medicare payments to physicians are scheduled to be reduced by twenty-one percent (21%) this Monday, March 1st. D4PC is asking doctors to carefully weigh their options. The decision deadline to remain a participating doctor in Medicare for the calendar year 2010 is March 17, 2010. This decision is retroactive for payments back to January 1, 2010.
Medicare is a government program for health care benefits for the elderly and disabled. When originally introduced, Medicare closely paralleled commercial health insurance. Over the years Medicare payments have not kept up with inflation, such that payments now are only one percent (1%) higher than 2001. In the same time frame, overhead expenses for Medical practices have risen twenty to thirty percent. Now, with the reduction of payments by one-fifth on Monday, doctors are faced with tough choices. Many physicians see the impending cuts as a major challenge to the viability of their practice.
Doctors have the choice to participate in Medicare and accept the Medicare fee schedule as payment in full (80% from Medicare, 20% from the patient or secondary insurance.) This is called participating or "PAR".
Doctors may also choose not to participate, "Non-PAR", but they will be restricted on fees they can charge to slightly more than Medicare. In this case, Medicare will pay on a reduced-fee schedule, approximately 76 percent of charges, and patients will still pay a copayment, which may reach 24 percent of charges.
Doctors may also opt to "privately contract" with patients, in which case
Medicare will not pay any of the bill. Instead, the patient will be totally responsible for the bill.
As the federal government continues to give its employees raises and bail out Wall Street bankers for billions of dollars, Congress intends to cut payments to America's lifeline - the doctors - by twenty-one percent. D4PC expresses its concern that this drastic cut in payments may very well limit senior and disabled citizens' choices in seeking care.
If you would like more information on the upcoming Medicare changes from a D4PC member, please contact Amber Christian at (703) 548-1160.
HARRY REID SAYS "PAYING INCOME TAX IN AMERICA IS VOLUNTARY".
The Tea Party Movement, however, is about more than electing new politicians, although that will be one of its consequences. What's happening in the tea parties is that people are actually using the Constitution to ground and form policy choices, and as a constructive means to hold the political establishment accountable. AMERICAN THINKER
Congressman Tom Price Thanks Those Who Came to the 9/12 March on Washington
Adding Insult to Injury Nationalized Health care will cost Illinois 169,000 jobs, $4,418 per person, and shrink the state economy by 5.1 percent. PDF file
Capping Your Prosperity Why Cap and Trade is Bad for Illioisans. PDF file
WASHINGTON -- New estimates from the White House on Friday predict the budget deficit will reach a record $1.47 trillion this year. The government is borrowing 41 cents of every dollar it spends.
That's actually a little better than the administration predicted in February.
The new estimates paint a grim unemployment picture as the economy experiences a relatively jobless recovery. The unemployment rate, presently averaging 9.5 percent, would average 9 percent next year under the new estimates.
The Office of Management and Budget report has ominous news for President Barack Obama should he seek re-election in 2012 - a still-high unemployment rate of 8.1 percent. That would be well above normal, which is closer to a rate of 5.5 percent to 6 percent. Private economists don't think the unemployment rate will drop to those levels until well into this decade.
"The U.S. economy still faces strong headwinds," the OMB report said. They include tight credit markets, a high inventory of unsold housing and retrenchment by state governments bound by balanced budget mandates. The European debt crisis has also had an impact.
"Despite these headwinds, the administration expects economic growth and job creation to continue for the rest of 2010 and to rise in 2011 and beyond," the report said.
The gaping deficits are of increasing concern to voters. But Obama and Democrats controlling Congress are mostly taking a pass on deficit reduction this year as they await possible recommendations from Obama's deficit commission.
While there's a slight improvement in the deficit for the current year compared to the administration's February forecast, next year's predicted $1.42 trillion worth , next year's predicted $1.42 trillion worth of red ink - that's 37 cents of borrowing for every dollar spent - is looking worse. It's about $150 billion more than previously predicted, because of still-slumping tax revenues.
The current record holder is the $1.41 trillion deficit for 2009.
Economists agree that the most important measure of the deficit is against the size of the economy. Opinions vary, but many economists say a deficit of 3 percent of gross domestic product is sustainable since it would stabilize the overall debt when measured relative to the economy.
The report put the deficit at 10 percent of GDP this year and 9.2 percent of GDP next year. It would never reach the 3 percent figure under Obama's predictions - which underestimate war costs and depend on assumptions of tax hikes that may not materialize.
OMB Director Peter Orszag said the numbers represent a "fiscal situation that requires attention."
Obama "has done little to confront this domestic enemy," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind. "Washington desperately needs real leadership. We cannot continue to postpone the hard choices and sacrifices that are necessary to stop this fiscal train wreck."
Deficits have skyrocketed since the recession took hold in 2008 and Congress responded with a massive bailout of the financial system and last year's $862 billion stimulus measure.
"What we should be doing now is putting in place deficit reduction policies that will kick in after the economy has more fully recovered," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota. "It is an unsustainable long-term course."
Today is a sad day for freedom. Today, our most basic right, the right to vote, the right to give consent to those who will govern us, has been trampled upon. People are dying all over the world, dying in Iraq and Afghanistan for the basic right to vote, yet here in America, the voters of Illinois’ 43rd State Senate District have had their right to vote stolen by a handful of Chicago Machine politicians. You see, this is not about me, but about the voters of Illinois’ 43rd State Senate District. I will continue to fight for the voters of the 43rd District to at least have a choice in November, as they deserve to exercise their most basic right to vote for their next State Senator. My team is filing an appeal in circuit court where we are confident that we will prevail.
As evidenced by today’s ruling, the Chicago Machine does not trust the voters of Illinois’ 43rd State Senate District to make the right decision in November. In their flagrant attempt to knock me off the ballot, the Chicago Machine, thugs in suits, brought in Michael Kasper, their top election law attorney who has represented the likes of Richard Daley, Rahm Emanuel, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The Democrat controlled Will County Board of Elections has taken almost 7 weeks to grant me a hearing only after my attorney requested a hearing on his initial motion to strike down the objection to my petition for office.
Other election boards, including Cook County, Chicago and the Illinois State Board of Elections have ruled quickly and rejected the same arguments asserted by Michael Kasper. The Will County Board of Elections has delayed ruling on the motion to strike in an effort to stall my campaign and inhibit my ability to fundraise and get my message out. Where justice is delayed, justice is denied.
The Chicago Machine is not interested in justice or ideas, but whatever they can do to maintain their power. The nation is witnessing Chicago Machine politics in Washington DC and my campaign is ground zero in our battle for freedom from the tyranny of the Chicago Machine.
The Chicago Machine is afraid of me because I am a conservative, black woman, backed by the Tea Party, with a winning message that is winning over typical Democrat constituencies. My opponent is nothing but a tool of the Chicago Democratic Machine and the only way he can “win” is if there is no one challenging him on the November ballot. My opponent has helped to economically destroy Illinois while he voted himself pay raises in the process. My opponent was appointed in 2005, never faced a serious challenge, and expects to coast into another term as State Senator.
I am willing to expose the sham of the Chicago Machine Democrats starting with the election scams they run to disenfranchise voters. While the people of Illinois are losing their jobs and homes and are unsure of their children and grandchildrens’ futures, Chicago Machine politicians are busy running election scams and wasting taxpayer time and money to maintain their power.
Enough is enough. With your help, we will go from one mom, to one nation against the Chicago Machine.
The Senate's tax extenders bill, which includes an extension of unemployment benefits, appears on death's door.
An increasingly frustrated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday said he would make another effort to move the bill, but made it clear he lacks the 60 votes necessary to win a procedual motion.
Reid also blasted Republicans for blocking the legislation and said he had concluded the GOP doesn't want a deal.
"Somewhere along the line, throughout these charades, this job creating, tax cutting, loophole closing bill has become a political football and that is really too bad," Reid said in comments on the Senate floor.
"The debate is focused on winning and losing and not on doing what's right, and that's really too bad."
The next vote on the extenders bill could take place today or on Friday.
The failure by Democratic senators to pass an extender package could be a huge political blow for the party. The package includes several popular tax breaks, aid to states and an extension of unemployment relief. It also delays a cut in Medicare payments to doctors that enables these physicians to keep treating Medicare patients.
The failure would also illustrate the extent to which fears about the deficit are now dominating the legislative process.
Republicans have objected to the tax extenders bill because the package would add to the deficit since not all of its spending provisions are offset with other spending cuts or tax increases. Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) have also raised objections.
During the long recession, Congress repeatedly approved legislation that extended unemployment benefits as "emergency spending" that did not have to be offset. Worries about the record public debt now seem to have overcome the desire in Congress to spur along the economy and help the unemployed.
Two earlier versions of the tax bill have failed to win 60 votes, and the next vote will be on a third iteration of the legislation. In this version of the bill, only the unemployment insurance extension is not offset. Democrats hope Republicans will approve the bill because they will not want to vote against extending unemployment benefits.
Reid previously has made other changes to the legislation to try to accomodate Republicans, but it has not been enough to overcome objections.
"We have changes, we've moved -- 'you like this, we'll give you this'," Reid said about negotiating the bill with Republicans.
The Senate has been debating the bill for over 8 weeks since March, Reid said
Yesterday, the Senate had an opportunity to overturn a tyrannical usurpation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifying carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as harmful pollutants under the terms of the Clean Air Act. Sadly, Senator Lisa Murkowski’s resolution failed by a vote of 47-53, leaving the agency in the command-and-control position to set the nation’s energy policy with arbitrary limits on carbon emissions.
This basically means that the EPA is now free and clear to set as draconian restrictions on energy usage as it wants. Which will mean higher energy prices, lost jobs, lost business, and the blind imposition of a radical, environmentalist agenda upon an unwilling American populace.
In short, the Senate has affirmed the EPA’s singular authority to turn out the lights.
The White House is perfectly comfortable using the threat of unilateral EPA regulation against carbon emissions as an ongoing threat to bully Congress into enacting its own restrictions. That threat was echoed by Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) who said recently, “We need a comprehensive energy plan and if this keeps the fire under these guys to get something major done, I'm all for it.”
Even Senator Murkowski’s very reasonable, if not constitutional, proposition that Congress should retain the option set up carbon limits was rejected. Senate Democrats are cleaving to their back-up plan.
In case Democrats’ punitive carbon energy tax is blocked this session, and Congress does not put the U.S. economy back into Stone Age, then the EPA will.
So much for the consent of the governed.
Instead, Senate Democrats are affirming — not one Republican voted against the Murkowski resolution — that they believe that government derives its powers from the intimidation of the executive. This is an incredibly dangerous proposition.
This is turning the constitutional principles of the separation of powers, the rule of law and limited government on their head, saying that even the most basic limits to the exercise of power — that a law be passed and signed by the President — no longer apply.
Moreover, Congress is basically codifying the controversial, disputed science behind the man-made global warming hypothesis. As outlined in a recent summary by Americans for Limited Government, scientists cannot account for the lack of warming in the past decade despite increased carbon emissions.
Nonetheless, the Senate has now voted to accept — on faith — the EPA’s apocalyptic finding that CO2, a biological gas necessary for the existence of life, actually “threaten[s] the public health and welfare of current and future generations”. The EPA promises extreme hurricanes, floods, sea levels to rise, erosion, heat-waves, droughts, wildfires, reductions in food production, deforestation, population dislocation, and even more pathogens and allergens if carbon emissions are not reduced.
This is a tyrannical rule of the executive by fear, not settled science. Rule by an iron fist. And unless the American people now stand against it, government will get away with it — and more.
Glenn Beck in Chicago - Buy Your Discounted Tickets Now The United Republican Fund is hosting an event on September 18 called Right Nation 2010 that will feature popular political, media and entertainment personalities—including Glenn Beck, possible presidential candidates and a 2012 Presidential Straw Poll. Tea Party Patriots Chicago is partnering with Right Nation 2010 to provide our members with discounted tickets to this unique event:
Before President Barack Obama took over the White House, no United States citizen had ever been forced by the federal government to buy a product against their will. But now, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, Americans, by dint of their mere existence, are now required to purchase Obama administration approved health insurance or face a penalty assessed through the Internal Revenue Code. This is simply unprecedented. The income tax doesn’t kick in until an American earns income. Auto liability insurance doesn’t become mandated until an American chooses to drive (and even then it’s only by the state). And farmers must first grow food before they are subject to the regulations of the Department of Agriculture. But facing federal government sanction for simply breathing? That is a troubling assault on American liberty.
Unfortunately, Obamacare is just the latest example of the growing reach of the federal government into all aspects of our lives. While the final bill passed by Congress specifically made the noncompliance with an IRS individual mandate penalty not a crime, far too often when the spotlight of American attention is not focused on an issue, Congress has gone ahead and criminalized what was once before perfectly normal behavior. Consider, for example, small-time inventor and entrepreneur Krister Evertson, whose story is recounted by Heritage fellows Brian Walsh and Hans von Spakovsky:
In May 2004, FBI agents driving a black Suburban and wearing SWAT gear ran Evertson off the road near his mother’s home in Wasilla, Alaska. When Evertson was face down on the pavement with automatic weapons trained on him, an FBI agent told him he was being arrested because he hadn’t put a federally mandated sticker on a UPS package.
A jury in federal court in Alaska acquitted Evertson, but the feds weren’t finished. They reached into their bag of over 4,500 federal crimes and found another ridiculous crime they could use to prosecute him: supposedly “abandoning” hazardous waste (actually storing, in appropriate containers, valuable materials he was using for the clean-fuel technology he was developing). A second jury convicted him, and he spent 21 months in an Oregon federal prison.
Putting the wrong stamp on a package. Storing your own property own your own land. When did these actions become federal crimes? Why? How can we stop them? A new book launched yesterday and published by The Heritage Foundation answers these questions. One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty documents how over the past 50 years the politicization of American criminal law and practice has created traps for millions of innocent and unwary Americans and threatens to make criminals out of those who are just doing their best to be respectable, law abiding citizens.
In 1998, an American Bar Association task force estimated that there were over 3,000 federal criminal offenses scattered throughout the 50 titles of the United States Code. Just six years later, that number is estimated to be over 4,000 and Columbia law professor John Coffee estimates that the federal government could use the criminal process to enforce as many as 300,000 federal regulations.
Lavrentiy Beria, the chief of the Soviet security and secret police under Stalin reputedly said, “Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime.” Our country is by no means a Soviet police state yet, but a federal government empowered with a sprawling code that makes all of us potential criminals is more than just an existential threat to American Liberty. This overcriminalization trend must end. Become informed. Learn the issues. Buy the book. And fight back
Another day, two new polls showing the American people are strongly against the health care plan President Barack Obama will sign into law today. According to CNN, 59% of Americans oppose President Obama's plan. And according to CBS News, 48% of Americans oppose the plan (with 33% in strong opposition) compared to only 37% who support it (with only 13% in strong support). Digging deeper into the CBS poll, we find that 76% of Americans disapprove of how Congress is handling its job on health care, 46% think Congress has spent too much time on health care, and 49% believe the rules and procedures used in Congress to get the current health care bill passed have been mostly unfair.
But the leftist majorities in Congress just do not care what the American people think. Today, the Senate will press forward with work on the proposed "fix-it" bill through the reconciliation process. You may have thought it was impossible to make the policy and process of Obamacare even worse, but that is exactly what this reconciliation bill does:
Even Higher Deficits: According to the Congressional Budget Office, new entitlement spending in the reconciliation bill would cost $216 billion in 2019 alone and will increase by 8% every year after that. Now, the Democrats will tell you that the CBO has also said their plan raises enough taxes and cuts enough Medicare to pay for this gigantic new entitlement. But the CBO is obligated by law to believe whatever Congress tells them. The American people are not. According to the latest NBC/WSJ poll, 76% of the American people do not trust Congress. That is why, according to the latest CNN poll, 70% of the American people believe Obamacare will cause the federal budget deficit to go up.
New Taxes on Investments: Investment is what creates job growth. One would think at a time of 9.7% unemployment, the government would not want to increase taxes on investment. Not this leftist government. The reconciliation bill slaps a 3.8% tax on investment income.
Cornhusker Kickbacks for All: You may have heard that the reconciliation bill "got rid of" the Cornhusker Kickback. That is not quite true. What it really did is extend the additional Medicaid funding Nebraska got to every state. But to keep the new entitlement spending deficit neutral, the new Medicaid funding creates a fiscal time bomb for states by vastly cutting Medicaid reimbursements in 2015. This reconciliation will only further strain already bankrupt state governments.
A Government Takeover Preview: Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) has already announced he will vote against the reconciliation bill because of the government takeover of the student loan industry that Democrats tacked onto the health care bill in order to help pay for the new entitlement. The student loan debacle is unfortunately just a preview of the direction the left wants to see health care go. The government first justified subsidizing student loans in the Clinton administration by saying it would make college more affordable. The opposite happened. College costs have only skyrocketed, just like health care costs will only sky rocket under this bill. So now this reconciliation bill is completely nationalizing the student loan industry. Unless the direction of health care policy changes, our health care sector will not be far behind.
AUDI 'SCAREY' GREEN CAR COMMERCIAL
Thousands of Protestors Yell "Raise My Taxes!" in Springfield
SPRINGFIELD --- Thousands of protesters bused down by labor unions and social service advocates rallied at the Capitol today in an attempt to pressure state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.
A spokesman for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White estimated the rally crowd at 15,000, with more than 12,000 marching around the building. That would appear to make it the largest Capitol protest since the Equal Rights Amendment crowds a quarter-century ago. Bus after bus pulled up on streets surrounding the Capitol complex and dumped sign-waving protesters clad in purple, green, red and blue shirts that represented a show of strength from a variety of public employee unions and dozens of groups that formed what they named the “Responsible Budget Coalition.” (You can see a photo gallery by clicking here.)
"Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes!" they chanted, lined up shoulder to shoulder for a few hundred yards stretching a street in front of the Capitol.
"These 177 people who have a job don't want to do their job," said Henry Bayer, head of the Illinois chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, referring to the number of lawmakers in the House and Senate. "Yes people are hurting, that's why we need a tax increase....If you try to leave town without doing your job we're going to chase you."
Gov. Pat Quinn is pushing a 33 percent increase in the state income tax rate --- taking it from 3 percent to 4 percent --- to prevent cuts in state spending. Quinn has suggested that education will bear the brunt of the cuts, although that would have to be negotiated with the General Assembly.
Lawmakers, however, are leery about voting to raise taxes during a sluggish economy with an election less than seven months away. At the Capitol, it's thought that the earliest a tax increase vote will come is after the November election.
So organized labor showed up in force at the Capitol today to pressure lawmakers to change their minds.
Among the protesters is Terrie Monaghan, who took a hit last year when her choice was to have no fourth-grade teaching job in Grayslake or share the position with another teacher. She chose the latter, and also works as a substitute teacher and tutors students after school “to make ends meet.
“Half the salary, half the benefits … half of everything,” said Monaghan, 39.
A group of more than 60 teachers, staff and students from downstate Bloomington and Normal wore bright pink shirts and jackets to symbolize the thousands of pink slips circulating statewide. They carried bottled water and signs that read “SOS” that stood for “save our schools.”
Camille Taylor, a guidance counselor nearing retirement, said the district did away with field trips to state parks and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum this year. “We can’t afford to pay for buses,” she said.
She said she hopped on a charter bus this morning to Springfield “to raise hell, basically.”
Jennifer Ritchason, a middle school social students teacher in Bloomington, came armed with hundreds of letters from her students asking legislators for more money for schools. She said she hopes the children’s words will resonate with the governor and House Speaker Michael Madigan, among other legislators the letters are addressed to.
“If you don’t care about your future, I don’t know what you can truly care about,” she said.
