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Policy

(Credit: Townhall/Michael Ramirez)

The number of Americans who will lose their health insurance plans, according to the media reports, is wrong. Two articles in Forbes predicted health insurance cancellations for 93 million and 130 million (at least), respectively. People’s Pundit Daily has been predicting big numbers for weeks and, according to our numbers, the current media figures are far too low.

These predictions, though we are happy others have entered our ballpark, were sadly predictable if you actually read ObamaCare, or the so-called Affordable Care Act. PPD has argued the act is designed to throw people with both private individual, non-group health insurance plans and employer-sponsored insurance off of the rolls, and into the collective high risk pool.

The two primary reasons Americans are receiving cancellation notices, which will be detailed shortly, when taken in concert suggests President Obama and the Democrats were not only lying to the American people, but methodically attempting to increase so-called “standards” until insurers were forced to terminate a sufficient number of policies.

The “minimum actuarial value,” or the first reason for the cancellations, was established by ObamaCare at 60 percent. In other words, plans must cover 60 percent of covered expenses for a typical plan member, leaving the rest to be paid out of pocket. But that wasn’t enough for the administration, because too many private plans easily met that threshold, which leads us to the second reason for cancellations.

“Essential Health Benefit Standards” are the minimum categories of health insurance coverage that every qualified health insurance plan must have, beginning January 1 of 2014. Alone, the categories are ludicrous, but the negative impact from these requirements are further exacerbated due to the fact some states may have broader requirements for Essential Health Benefits.

There are 189 million Americans with private health insurance coverage, of which 18.1 million are non-elderly Americans with individual (non-group) coverage and 170.9 million with employer-sponsored insurance, including workers and their dependents. For the purposes of this study, and in the interest of accuracy when determining compliance with the law, we broke up insured Americans in to three groups.

First, we took a look at private individual, non-group health insurance plans. Next, which was vital when determining compliance, we broke employer-sponsored health insurance plans, or group plans, into two separate groups. Small group insurance plans represent employer-sponsored plans offered by firms with under 50 employees, and large group insurance plans are offered by firms with 50 or more employees, including health plans for federal, state and local government workers.

Let’s first examine how we came to the figures we did, then justify our conclusion surrounding how many Americans would actually lose their previous health insurance plans. We will provide data for the amount of Americans who will lose their insurance by the end of 2014, as well as give future predictions for the eventual number of Americans based on the data available. But first, since the numbers are sure to depress, have a bit of humor.

Private Individual Health Insurance Plans (Non-Group)

When reports first surfaced that President Obama knew back in 2010 millions of Americans would lose their health insurance plans, and lied when he said “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” estimates were based off of a Federal Registrar report. At the time HHS changed the regulations for “grandfathered” plans, estimates ranged from “40 to 67 percent,” with sources telling NBC News “50 to 75 percent” would be ineligible to keep their doctors and plans. But those government estimates, too, are inadequate if we look at the actual data.

After taking into account the 1.3 million Americans with overlap in employer-based and non-group coverage, there are approximately 29.3 million individuals with non-group health insurance plans, according to the most recent Current Population Survey Census figures from March 2013. However, roughly 11.2 million are 65+ in age and have Medi-gap policies. While it is certainly true that ObamaCare robbed Medicare in excess of $700 billion, which will no doubt cause quality and coverage loss, Medi-gap coverage is not subject to regulatory provisions mandating Essential Health Benefit Standards, leaving just over 18 million individual, non-group health insurance plans.

Health Policy and Strategy Associates consultant Robert Laszewski, disagreed with the 50 – 75 percent estimates, claiming that 80 percent of those with individual health insurance plans would receive cancellation notices. We at PPD initially thought Laszewski was more on target, though shy, but he has since revised his numbers up to 85 percent.

A study conducted by HealthPocket.com underscores our initial argument, claiming “data shows that there will be a near complete transformation of the individual and family health insurance market starting in 2014.” Due to Essential Health Benefit Standards, in reality, fewer “than 2 percent of the existing health plans in the individual market today provide all the Essential Health Benefits required under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).” For instance, because men’s health coverage needs differ from women’s and visa versa, prenatal, delivery, postnatal and Substance Use Disorder Coverage, all were frequently absent add-ons that were responsible for disqualifying private individual (non-group) health insurance.

The same is true for younger versus older policy holders, therefore, the Democrats’ argument claiming “lousy” or “substandard” coverage is the cause for cancellations, is patently false. As far as minimum actuarial value, a 2012 Health Affairs study showed that 51 percent of private individual health insurance plans (non-group) did not meet the 60 percent standard on actuarial value required by ObamaCare. Thus, we can conclude that cancellation notices in excess of 9 million will immediately be sent out, if they haven’t been already, unless they were “grandfathered” in.

However, we know from Laszewski that 85 percent are not eligible to be grandfathered, thus 15.4 million Americans aren’t compliant regardless. Calculating overlap between the two studies is difficult, but possible, though it matters little, because the Essential Health Benefit Standards will dump most of the policies in the end anyway.

Cancellations By End Of 2014= 15.4 million

Cancellations By Implementation End= 17.74 million

Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Plans (Group)

While much of the recent media coverage has focused on private individual, non-group health insurance plans, no one is highlighting the fact that the employer mandate was delayed in another unconstitutional, unilateral act of cronyism on behalf of the Obama White House. Yet, despite being exempt for a year, ObamaCare has already had an enormous negative impact on employer-sponsored health insurance plans.

Out of the 170.9 million Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance, just 18.3 percent of working Americans are covered by health insurance plans that are not subject to the employer mandate, while just over 31 million receive coverage from small firms. We can only guarantee that just over 31 million out of the 170.9 millions Americans who have employer-sponsored health insurance will be eligible to keep their policy, for now. That said, we were still prudent in our calculations.

We can break up small firms with less than 50 employees and large firms with 50 or more to better understand how and why the number of Americans who will lose their health insurance plans is so horrifying. In fact, it’s almost unbelievable.

In 2011, 62.8 percent of Americans workers in small firms were in grandfathered plans, but just 48.9 percent remained eligible in 2013. However, only 5 percent will meet the eventual regulatory standards, resulting in 29.73 million small health insurance plans being dumped into the ObamaCare exchanges.

While some studies have found smaller totals for this particular category, they failed to consider that some states may have even broader requirements for Essential Health Benefits, because they determine the benchmark “typical employer plan” from several available options.

Nevertheless, in addition to the 16 million that have already been deemed ineligible to remain grandfathered, there is every reason to suggest that the data trend found in the Kaiser Family Foundation/HRET Employer Health Benefits Survey will continue, approximately resulting in an additional 1.6 million health insurance plans becoming ineligible each year.

Cancellations By End Of 2014= 17.6 million

Cancellations By Implementation End= 29.73 million

In large firms, which I have simplified to 50 employees or more, the same attempt to comply with Essential Health Benefit Standards and other ObamaCare regulations has resulted in a dramatic decrease in the share of insured employees who are still in grandfathered plans. From 2011 to 2013, the share of grandfathered employer-sponsored health insurance plans dropped way down from 52.9 percent to 29.8 percent. For all covered workers, those in grandfathered plans fell from 56 percent in 2011 to just 36 percent in 2013.

In total, 16.8 million Americans in large firm plans will be forced to remove their cap on annual benefits — which will result in premium increases by the way — in addition to another 70 percent in plans that are no longer grandfathered, thus are now subject to benefit “enhancements” (and, you guessed it, they will see premium increases). We have eliminated the overlap between these 2 groups, as other studies have done (and this is done by subtracting 70 percent of the 16.8 million, i.e., 16.8million + 139.6 million x 70 percent) – (70 percent x 12 percent x 139.6 million) = 102.7 million), which resulted in 102.7 million. (Note: I am not the only one who came to this confusion, which you can read here.)

Cancellations By End Of 2014= 102.7 million

Cancellations By Implementation End= 116.9 million

As it relates to employer-sponsored health insurance plans, in 2009, the average actuarial value for a typical employer-based HMO was 93 percent, while that for a typical employer-based PPO was between 80 –  84 percent. Ironically, when compared to Medicare’s average actuarial value that was 76 percent, the American free market was already doing a far better job covering Americans. With this data, it is now clear why the Obama administration directed HHS to write further requirements, because they never would have had enough Americans in the high risk pool to ensure ObamaCare wouldn’t fall on its face before the single-payer selling scheme was fully put in place.

For President Obama to claim that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan, period” as he did leading up to both of his elections — and still unbelievably continues to do as he did in Boston — was and still is an irrefutable lie. Though we and many others previously expected this to be the case, we now know that the Obama administration knew millions of Americans would lose their insurance from the beginning, but it is even worse than media outlets are reporting. That is how the Affordable Care Act is written by design. The president’s signature achievement is designed to force insurers of private, non-group and employer-sponsored health insurance plans to cancel all policies, “period.”

[table id=5 /]

[caption id="attachment_18196" align="aligncenter" width="630"] (Credit: Townhall/Michael Ramirez)[/caption] The

Policy

In an unprecedented power grab and with a stroke of a pen, President Obama used executive powers to take control of climate change policy in a supposed effort to streamline “sustainability” initiatives. The power grab is intended by design to bypass legislative oversight, pushing a federal agenda on states without the consent of Congress or the people.

The executive order signed by Obama Friday establishes a task force of state and local officials to advise the administration on how to respond to severe storms, wildfires, droughts and other potential impacts of climate change. The task force includes governors of 7 states — not surprisingly, all Democrats — and the Republican governor of the U.S. territory of Guam. The task force also includes 14 mayors and 2 other local leaders.

Out of the 14 mayors and 2 other “local” leaders, just 3 of those appointments are not Democrats. The task force will also conduct seemingly harmless, or even beneficial duties, such as examining federal money spent on roads, bridges, flood control and other projects. In the end, they will have unprecedented say in how structures must be designed, under the guise of making infrastructure more resilient to the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and warming temperatures.

“We’re going to need to get prepared.  And that’s why this plan will also protect critical sectors of our economy and prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change that we cannot avoid,” Obama said last June, when he first launched a Climate Action Plan.

“States and cities across the country are already taking it upon themselves to get ready… And we’ll partner with communities seeking help to prepare for droughts and floods, reduce the risk of wildfires, protect the dunes and wetlands that pull double duty as green space and as natural storm barriers.”

The White House added in Friday’s statement that even as the United States acts to curb carbon pollution, officials also need to improve how states and communities respond to extreme weather events like last year’s Superstorm Sandy, despite the fact that there is zero evidence to suggest climate change had anything to do with the storm that rocked the Northeast. But government does what it does best, complicate things, and now building codes must be updated to address climate impacts and infrastructure needs to be made more resilient.

Climate change proponents and groups claim that everything from a forest fire to heavy rain is evidence of climate change – despite historical weather patterns and scientific testimony proving otherwise.

Officials in the oppressive EPA released a statement on Friday afternoon praising the order, saying it will be vital in their attempts to help local-level communities “adapt to a changing climate.”

“To meet our mission of protecting public health and the environment, EPA must help communities adapt to a changing climate,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in the statement. “These Implementation Plans offer a roadmap for agency work to meet that responsibility, while carrying out President Obama’s goal of preparing the country for climate-related challenges.”

But critics say the order has the potential to do much more, including:

First, the federal government can and will hold back money to communities unless they meet new federal standards on various unknown, regulated areas in differing mission creep agendas set by the federal government. For example, using new policies that will encourage communities to rebuild to pre-disaster standards rather than stronger ones, because some climate change fanatical bureaucrat thinks the stronger material may harm something somewhere, forget there being to evidence to suggest they are right.

The executive order can easily result in yet another mandate that implements sweeping new changes to land use and resource policies, which will change our fundamental understanding of private property, just as we have seen under Obama in Virginia. In October, the EPA announced another “unprecedented power over private property across the nation.” The Environmental Protection Agency forced through a rule without congressional approval that increased the agency’s regulatory authority over streams, wetlands and other bodies of water under the Clean Water Act.

The power grab also gives the administration almost monopolized control over climate change data, which they can and will use to push a new agenda into every priority of the federal government. The UN climate change report released last month was not adherent to the scientific method, and cherry-picked data favorable to their bias. In the UN report, which was conducted by the IPCC, “the discrepancy between the observed effectiveness of greenhouse gases in warming the earth and this effectiveness calculated by the climate models that the IPCC uses to project future climate change,” said analysts Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger of Cato Institute.

Without widespread proliferating of within the scientific community there will no longer be enough information for others to call so-called facts for what they really are.

Furthermore, the administration will now have the power to create the need for a new internal organization to integrate and coordinate efforts during a government sequestration and other future government shutdowns. Essentially, the move will skirt the power of the purse entrusted to the House of Representatives, which grants the people’s House the ability to reign in executive overreach and tyranny.

Finally, the task force itself is designed to restrict the power and representation of Republican-controlled states, which are the very states that produce most of the nation’s energy and represents most of the nation’s economic growth, while failing liberal states are suffering chronic high unemployment, unrecognized property rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and are overly regulated to the degree they enjoy less prosperity. The task force members are all experts at restricting economic and civil freedom.

Members of this climate change task force include Govs. Jerry Brown of California, Jay Inslee of Washington and Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, as well as Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. The task force also consists of several liberal, big-city mayors, such as Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Houston Mayor Annise Parker. All three are, of course, “progressive” Democrats.

The task force builds on efforts Obama announced for his Climate Action Plan last June, which include the first-ever limits on climate pollution from new and existing power plants. But what is hidden under the hood of these so-called climate chagne efforts, is the agenda formerly known as Agenda 21, or “sustainable development.” The name has been replaced by various others, because the public became aware of these efforts and they were deeply unpopular.

The plan also claims to intend to reduce domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 17 percent from 2005 and 2020, and would boost renewable energy production on federal lands, increase efficiency standards and prepare communities across the nation for higher temperatures.

Climate change skeptics have argued there is no proven link between extreme events and global warming. Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, recently made the compelling case that — heat waves aside — there is little evidence for an increase in extreme events themselves.

A Sept. 2012 editorial in the prestigious journal Nature argued for caution when coming to the conclusion that there is any connection stating, Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming.” If the administration had the power they have now, then the information in the Nature journal may never have available.

In an unprecedented power grab and the

Policy

A Healthy Ho’s registration drive was helping to swell the ranks of Medicaid enrollment and high risk pools, as eligible sex workers flocked for ObamaCare subsidies.

One women, Maxine Holloway, claimed that health care should be a human right, and that she “has been brainwashed into thinking it is a privilege.” So, we are no longer only forced to deal with this woman’s ignorance to Natural Law and our founding philosophies, but we must pay for her irresponsible personal choice to be high risk, because she sleeps with people for money, which naturally, is dangerous to your health.

With a system already seeing such a tremendous amount of Medicaid enrollees and so few young, actual healthy paying customers, the Healthy Ho’s have done their part to blow a whole in the budget and send the program into an insurance death spiral.

Organized by “Siouxsie Q,” a Bay Area sex worker, the event was purposed to persuade other sex workers to enroll in ObamaCare exchanges. Unfortunately, it was a “rousing success,” according to CNN Money, with nearly all of them filing the enrollment paperwork.

I wonder how the tens of millions of Americans — soon to be over a hundred million — who are and will be dropped from an affordable policy for a policy that is unaffordable, feel to learn that one reason for such an increase in their premiums is due to subsidizing sex workers, so that these wonderful, self-serving citizens can have access to treatment for whatever sexually transmitted diseases they contract?

Of course, much of these women cannot claim the true amount of their income, which is typically much higher than working class Americans, because the income is earned through illegal activities. Many, to be sure, will simply get Medicaid, the free health care program that has exploded beyond expectations.

For those who report partial income amounts, the situation will be much the same as it is for another sex worker, named Jolene. Jolene, who attended the Healthy Ho’s for ObamaCare event, will receive a $211 monthly tax credit, which will bring her monthly payments to just $36 a month.

With millions of Americans receiving cancellation notices and having to pay higher premiums in order to subsidize those like Jolene, we have entered a sad phase in American history, in which the law unjustly punishes the productive and honest, while it subsidizes the irresponsible and lawless.

This is simply disgraceful.

A Healthy Ho's registration drive was helping

News, Policy, World

A senior Taliban source has confirmed that a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan killed the head of the Pakistan Taliban Friday.

Intelligence, army and militant sources have all confirmed that Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead, and a senior Taliban source confirmed his death to Reuters. The Taliban source  also said Mehsud’s funeral would be held Saturday.

The fatal drone strike, which has been the latests in a series of U.S. attacks aimed at Islamist extremists, took place in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan.

“We can confirm Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in the drone strike,” one senior security official told Reuters.

Mehsud, who is also believed to be responsible for the failed car bombing in New York’s Times Square in 2010, as well as recent attacks inside of Pakistan, was falsely and widely reported to be dead back in 2010, but those reports were proven false after he popped his head back up in Pakistan.

The strike hit the village of Dande Derpa Khel in North Waziristan and also killed 4 other suspected militants, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. A senior U.S. intelligence official confirmed the strike overnight, saying the U.S. received confirmation of its success Friday morning.

According to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, Mehsud was referred to as “the self-proclaimed emir of the Pakistani Taliban.” Mehsud is on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorist list, with a $5 million dollar reward for information leading to his capture. But that will obviously not happen, neither will the U.S. have the ability or opportunity to question Mehsud to obtain vital intelligence.

Mehsud has been among others on the top of the CIA Counterterrorism Center’s most wanted list for the December 2009 suicide bombing that killed seven Americans — who were CIA officers and their security detail — at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan.

The suicide bomber, who later was determined to be a Jordanian double agent, was brought into the military base to brief CIA officers on al Qaeda, and subsequently detonated an explosive vest when he made it inside of the base.

According to the NCTC site, Mehsud was indicted on charges of “conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens abroad and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives) against US citizens abroad.”

Friday’s strike was a curious time for another US. drone strike, which has been at the top of Pakistani grievances, because the government having been trying to reach a peace deal with the Islamist militants to end years of fighting that has claimed the lives of thousands of Pakistani civilians and security forces.

As far as specific confirmation, two senior intelligence officials in North Waziristan told reporters agents sent to the site of the attack confirmed Mehsud’s identity, and two senior Taliban commanders said they had seen the militant commander’s body.

The Taliban commanders claimed that at least four missiles struck just after a vehicle in which Mehsud was driving entered the compound.

The newly elected Pakistani government headed up by Nawaz Sharif, who was just elected in May in large part due to the anti-U.S. drone strike promises, as well as his promise to end the years of fighting in the country’s northwest through negotiations.

A senior Taliban source has confirmed that

Opinion

WASHINGTON — Every disaster has its moment of clarity. Physicist Richard Feynman dunks an O-ring into ice water and everyone understands instantly why the shuttle Challenger exploded. This week, the Obamacare O-ring froze for all the world to see: Hundreds of thousands of cancelation letters went out to people who had been assured a dozen times by the president that “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan. Period.”

The cancellations lay bare three pillars of Obamacare: (a) mendacity, (b) paternalism and (c) subterfuge.

(a) Those letters are irrefutable evidence that Obama’s repeated you-keep-your-coverage claim was false. Why were they sent out? Because Obamacare renders illegal (with exceedingly narrow “grandfathered” exceptions) the continuation of any insurance plan deemed by Washington regulators not to meet their arbitrary standards for adequacy. Example: No maternity care? You are terminated.

So a law designed to cover the uninsured is now throwing far more people off their insurance than it can possibly be signing up on the nonfunctioning insurance exchanges. Indeed, most of the 19 million people with individual insurance will have to find new and likely more expensive coverage. And that doesn’t even include the additional millions who are sure to lose their employer-provided coverage. That’s a lot of people. That’s a pretty big lie.

But perhaps Obama didn’t know. Maybe the bystander president was as surprised by this as he claims to have been by the IRS scandal, the Associated Press and James Rosen phone logs, the failure of the Obamacare website, the premeditation of the Benghazi attacks, the tapping of Angela Merkel’s phone — i.e., the workings of the federal government of which he is the nominal head.

I’m skeptical. It’s not as if the Obamacare plan-dropping is an obscure regulation. It’s at the heart of Obama’s idea of federally regulated and standardized national health insurance.

Still, how could he imagine getting away with a claim sure to be exposed as  factually false?

The same way he maintained for two weeks that false narrative about Benghazi. He figured he’d get away with it.

And he did. Simple formula: Delay, stonewall and wait for a supine and protective press to turn spectacularly incurious.

Look at how The New York Times covered his “keep your plan” whopper — buried on page 17 with a headline calling the cancellations a “prime target.” As if this is a partisan issue and not a brazen falsehood clear to any outside observer — say, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, who gave the president’s claim four Pinocchios. Noses don’t come any longer.

(b) Beyond mendacity, there is liberal paternalism, of which these forced cancellations are a classic case. We canceled your plan, explained Jay Carney, because it was substandard. We have a better idea.

Translation: Sure, you freely chose the policy, paid for the policy, renewed the policy, liked the policy. But you’re too primitive to know what you need. We do. Your policy is hereby canceled.

Because what you really need is what our experts have determined must be in every plan. So a couple in their 60s must buy maternity care. A teetotaler must buy substance abuse treatment. And a healthy 28-year-old with perfectly appropriate catastrophic insurance must pay for bells and whistles for which he has no use.

It’s Halloween. There is a knock at your door. You hear: “We’re the government and we’re here to help.”

You hide.

(c)  As for subterfuge, these required bells and whistles aren’t just there to  festoon the health care Christmas tree with voter-pleasing freebies. The planners knew all along that if you force insurance buyers to overpay for stuff they don’t need, that money can subsidize other people.

Obamacare is the largest transfer of wealth in recent American history. But you can’t say that openly lest you lose elections. So you do it by subterfuge: hidden taxes, penalties, mandates and coverage requirements that yield a surplus of overpayments.

So that your president can promise to cover 30 million uninsured without costing the government a dime. Which from the beginning was the biggest falsehood of them all. And yet the free lunch is the essence of modern liberalism. Free mammograms, free preventative care, free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke. Come and get it.

And then when you find your policy canceled, your premium raised and your deductible outrageously increased, you’ve learned the real meaning of “free” in the liberal lexicon: something paid for by your neighbor — best, by subterfuge.

Charles Krauthammer’s email address is [email protected].

(c) 2013, The Washington Post Writers Group

Charles Krauthammer on the hundreds of thousands

News

UPDATE: The gunman in a shooting Friday at Los Angeles Airport was wounded and taken into custody after prompting authorities to evacuate a terminal and stop flights headed for the city from taking off from other airports, officials say.

Gunshots were reported at Terminal 3 just around 9:30 a.m., the FBI said. One witness said a person with an AR-15 rifle opened fire after getting through a security checkpoint. Officials tell Fox News that one TSA worker was shot. Police say a total of three people were injured. It is unclear if the suspected gunman was included in their tally. The extent of the injuries were unclear, but the suspected gunman was reportedly shot in the leg.

The Los Angeles Times reports that two or three TSA employees were hit by gunfire. A Witness, Brian Keech, reported he heard “about a dozen gunshots” from inside the security gate at Terminal 3.

Fire officials said they are responding to assist multiple patients with injuries and the city was placed on a tactical alert. First responders are at the scene, and a TSA agent was receiving treatment. There are six LAPD helicopters hovering over LAX and heavily armed emergency response teams could be seen at the airport.

Bill Reiter, who is a writer for FoxSports.com, was at the scene and sent out a tweet:

Soon after, Reiter provided an update via Twitter:

The airlines that use the terminal are Allegiant Air, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit, Virgin America and Virgin Australia. All upper level roadways are temporarily blocked by law enforcement. Outside of arriving flights, all LAX flight operations have been temporary suspended.

DEVELOPING: An unknown incident at Terminal 3 caused officials to conduct a Los Angeles Airport evacuation Friday morning, Los Angeles Airport Police said.

Details surrounding the incident were not immediately clear, but passengers reported being evacuated from the terminal sometime after 9 a.m. There were eyewitness reports of a shooting, but those reports were not immediately confirmed. One witness said a person with a gun opened fire after getting through a security checkpoint.

Los Angeles police have placed the city on tactical alert, MyFoxLA.com reported.

UPDATE: There are reports that one gunmen was taken into custody after being shot in the leg by Los Angeles Police officials.

UPDATE: The gunman in a shooting Friday

Policy

Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint, appeared in a video to introduce the conservative alternative to ObamaCare, finally. We know what the Republican Party doesn’t support, because of fierce GOP opposition to ObamaCare, but we have yet to see the party coalesce behind a central idea.

That isn’t the nature of the party of individuality, which is typically at odds with each other, as you would expect from free thinking pols. However, you cannot just stand against something, you must stand for something, as well. DeMint is correct to point out that there has been past Republican plans, but none have offensively proposed. Republicans are always on the defensive against an ever-expanding entitlement state, and as such finds little priority with offering health care solutions that are specific and draws a clear difference between the parties.

Maybe they won’t coalesce behind the new plan from Heritage, either — that remains to be seen — but at least Heritage has offered one up for the Americans people to contrast. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Republican Party, itself. Perhaps, we would be talking about a completely different law today had that not been the case.

The policy proposal, which can be found below, follows five basic principles:

  • Choose, control, and carry your own health insurance;
  • Let free markets provide the insurance and health care services that people want;
  • Encourage employers to provide a portable health insurance benefit to employees;
  • Assist those who need help through civil society, the free market, and the states; and
  • Protect the right of conscience and unborn children.

Here is the video released by Heritage below, followed the letter from Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint:

With each passing day, it becomes clearer that Obamacare will not reduce premiums for average American families, bring down health care spending, or truly improve health care in this country. Instead, people are receiving notices from their insurance companies that their policies are being canceled or their premiums are skyrocketing.

At The Heritage Foundation, we are envisioning a health care system where you and your family come first.

What if you could choose and control your own health insurance? What if you could buy the insurance and health care services you want and need? What if your health insurance didn’t go away when you changed jobs?

The good news is, all of these things are possible. There can be life after Obamacare—and it doesn’t mean going back to the status quo that we had before. We can move ahead, taking the best health care system in the world and making it even better.

Our experts in the Center for Health Policy Studies have put together a new paper that explains how these conservative ideas work. It includes:

  • How we will help people with pre-existing conditions
  • How we will help you keep your health insurance when you change jobs
  • How we can lower costs and improve health care quality—no matter what your income is
  • How we can honor people’s faith and protect the right of conscience in health care

We are excited to share this set of commonsense solutions with you—not just because they are good public policy solutions, but because they bring hope. We have hope for life after Obamacare, and these policies would give you back control over your own health care.

Now that’s worth working toward. I hope you’ll join us.

demint_signature

Jim DeMint

Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.

Jim Demint introduces the Heritage ObamaCare alternative,

Opinion

“The First Amendment does not permit laws that force speakers to retain a campaign finance attorney, conduct demographic marketing research, or seek declaratory rulings before discussing the most salient political issues of our day.” — U.S. Supreme Court, Citizens United (2010)

Brick by brick, judges are dismantling the wall of separation that legislators have built between political activity and the First Amendment’s protections of free speech and association. The latest examples, from Mississippi and Arizona, reflect the judiciary’s proper engagement in defending citizens from the regulation of political speech, a.k.a. “campaign finance reform.”

In 2011, a few like-minded friends and neighbors in Oxford, Miss., who had been meeting for a few years to discuss politics, decided to work together to support passage of an initiative amending Mississippi’s Constitution. The amendment, restricting the power of the state and local governments to take private property by eminent domain, was provoked by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo ruling that governments could, without violating the Fifth Amendment (“nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”), take property for the “public use” of transferring it to persons who would pay more taxes to the government.

The Mississippi friends and neighbors wanted to pool their funds to purchase posters, fliers and local newspaper advertising. They discovered that if, as a group, they spent more than $200 to do these simple things, they would be required by the state’s campaign finance law to register as a “political committee.” And if, as individuals, any of them spent more than $200 supporting the initiative, they must report this political activity to the state.

Mississippi defines a political committee as any group of persons spending more than $200 to influence voters for or against candidates “or balloted measures.” Supposedly, regulation of political activity is to prevent corruption of a candidate or the appearance thereof. How does one corrupt a “balloted measure”?

Granted, there is some slight informational value in knowing where money supporting a voter initiative comes from. But surely not enough to burden ordinary citizens expending $200 with monthly reporting requirements, concerning which legal advice might be necessary because any violation of the campaign regulations “is punishable by imprisonment in the county jail” for up to a year. As the Supreme Court said in its excellent Citizens United ruling, “Prolix laws chill speech for the same reason that vague laws chill speech: People ‘of common intelligence must necessarily guess at [the law’s] meaning and differ as to its application.’ ”

So, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi held: “Where, as here, potential speakers might well require legal counsel to determine which regulations even apply, above and beyond how to comport with those requirements, the burdens imposed by the state’s regulations are simply too great to be borne by the state’s interest in groups raising or expending as little as $200.” And the same is true regarding “the state’s informational interest in individual speakers” expending $200.

When, in 2011, Dina Galassini of Fountain Hills, Ariz., wanted to oppose her city’s plan to augment its spending with a $29.6 million bond issue, she sent e-mails encouraging 23 friends and acquaintances to write letters of opposition to newspapers and to join her in a demonstration. Six days later, the town clerk sternly admonished her: “I would strongly encourage you to cease any campaign-related activities until the requirements of the law have been met.”

Arizona’s law says that whenever two or more people collaborate, using at least $250, to influence voters about anything, they instantly become a “political committee,” a magical transformation that triggers various requirements — registering with the government, filling out forms, and establishing a bank account for the “committee” even if it has no intention of raising money. All this must be done before members of the “committee” are permitted to speak. Galassini got no response when she wrote to the clerk to find out if she could have permission to e-mail the 23 persons to tell them the demonstrations were canceled.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona supported Galassini. It had to, given that Citizens United said laws requiring official permission to speak “function as the equivalent of prior restraint by giving the [government] power analogous to licensing laws implemented in 16th- and 17th-century England, laws and governmental practices of the sort that the First Amendment was drawn to prohibit.”

Liberals who love the regulatory state loathe Citizens United. You can understand why.

George Will’s email address is [email protected].

(c) 2013, Washington Post Writers Group

Brick by brick, judges are dismantling the

US

Rep. Frank Pallone D-NJ, made a complete fool of himself on “The Kelly File” last night, so for his refusal to acknowledge reality, he is our Daily Dunce.

Megyn Kelly could not believe Rep. Frank Pallone would not acknowledge reality, which is that President Barack Obama broke his promise that all Americans would be able keep their health care plans under Obamacare, a claim that has proven to be false. Rep. Pallone made the lockstep liberal anti-insurance company argument, claiming that insurance companies got “caught” selling “lousy,” “skeletal” plans that offered little coverage at a high cost. With Obamacare, however, the companies will now offer what he claims are better plans at an “affordable price.”

Unfortunately, all of the claims made by Rep. Frank Pallone, are entirely false. He also argued, “The bottom line is, if you are selling a lousy policy at a price that is too high, nobody is going to buy it. And so they are canceling these policies because they know people won’t buy them. It’s a competitive marketplace, that’s the problem,” Pallone said.

As Megyn Kelly correctly stated, “they were buying them. There were 15 million people buying them.” And it gets worse.

First, the plans were not “skeletal” plans at all, they were tailored to the needs of consumers. Men do not need to purchase coverage for prenatal care, and if they did, it wouldn’t mean that they have better than sub-standard coverage, as Pallone and other Democrats are ridiculously arguing. The strategy Pallone and other Democrats are taking is clear. The insurance held by millions of Americans has been deemed “substandard,” because they said so, forget the fact that people can’t afford to pay for coverage they do not need.

Second, any reference to ObamaCare as “capitalism” is absolutely false, and preposterous. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of free market capitalist competition, which is how Republicans proposed to drive the cost of health insurance down, without a government takeover of the entire system.

Free market policy transactions were resulting in standard or above standard care that was tailored to the individual needs of and affordability for consumers, and at a fraction of the cost that ObamaCare plans range. The policies aren’t “lousy,” they were exactly what the consumers needed and could afford, which is why millions of Americans were buying them.

But Frank Pallone refused to concede that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius added regulations that were specifically tailored to force insurers to throw Americans with insurance plans off of their coverage. Again, Pallone outrageously referred to the dropping of Americans from their policies as “capitalism,” and Megyn Kelly did not let it pass.

“The capitalist private market is controlled by laws, including one called Obamacare, which imposed a bunch of regulations on them with which they must now comply, sir,” Kelly said as if she was teaching a first year economics student. But it is actually worse than Kelly explained it to be, because markets in which a government sets the rules, picks the players, and then deems which products are to be sold to who is not even capitalism, it is quasi crony fascism.

Choosing to remain in his alternate reality, Pallone repeated “You can’t sell the policy if nobody is going to buy it because it’s lousy. “But 15 million people did buy it! They bought it, and they were told they can keep it and now they can’t. And I gotta go, period,” Kelly quipped.

She actually had to apologize to the audience and tell them, “I tried.” Indeed, Rep. Frank Pallone is a dunce, to be sure, but we suspect he is one daily.

Rep. Frank Pallone D-NJ, made a complete

Policy, Polls, World

Will Hillary Clinton 2016 be derailed by Benghazi? A CBS “60 Minutes” report by Lara Logan hammered the Obama administration over their serious failure to prevent the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty. Now 43 percent of the voters think that the Benghazi cover up could derail the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential train.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 4 percent of “Likely U.S. Voters” believe the response to the attack inBenghazi, Libya will help Clinton’s candidacy, while 43 perct think it will hurt the former Secretary of State if she runs for the presidency in 2016. Nearly as many — 41 percent — say Benghazi will have no impact and 12 percent are not sure.

Predictably, party affiliation has a good deal of influence on the survey findings, with 58 percent of Democrats saying Benghazi will have no impact on a Hillary Clinton 2016 effort. Still, 65 percent of Republicans believe they will hurt her candidacy, with 47 percent of voters not affiliated with either party agreeing with the vast majority of Republicans.

As media coverage diggs in deeper, 79 of all Americans believe it is still important to find out exactly what happened in the events surrounding the murder of the U.S. ambassador, while just 17 percent disagree. The level of intensity is againt Hillary, with 53 percent who say it is “Very Important” to get to the bottom of the matter versus just 5 percent who view it as “Not At All” important.

To view the latest News on Benghazi watch below

Will Hillary Clinton 2016 be derailed by

People's Pundit Daily
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