Is the Stimulus Helping Yet?

Add comment July 28th, 2009

According to this report from the ARRA, $187.4 bil. has been made available and $67.4 bil. has been spent as of 7/17/2009.  SO how much stimulus has really been done?   Recovery

So where is the rest and how long will it take to stimulate us more?

Democrat Health Care Plan Would Cost Millions More U.S. Jobs, Reduce Quality of Health Care in America

2 comments July 28th, 2009

Congressman Don Manzullo (R-IL) today said he opposes the Democrat
health care bill because it will surge taxes on America’s small businesses –
stifling their ability to create jobs at a time America desperately needs jobs –
while forcing the government between patients and their doctors and putting the
private health care coverage of 114 million Americans at risk.

Instead, Manzullo supports alternative health care reforms that would reduce the
costs of health care in America and make coverage more available to the 46 million
uninsured. The former Chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Manzullo for
years has been a champion of efforts to make health care more affordable and
accessible for America’s small employers and their employees, who account for more
than 56 percent of our nation’s uninsured. In addition, Manzullo believes Congress
should prohibit denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions and allow children
to stay on their parents’ health care plans until they are 25 years old or
emancipated (this would reduce the uninsured by 7 million).

“America’s health care system is struggling and is in need of reform to reduce costs
and increase coverage to the uninsured. But the Democrat health care bill would do
more harm than good, surging costs on the job creators of our economy, forcing the
government between patients and their doctors, and  putting the private health care
coverage of 114 million Americans at risk,” Manzullo said. “The reforms I support
would reduce the costs of health care in America, make the system more accessible to
the 46 million uninsured, and preserve the strong doctor-patient relationship to
ensure health care decisions are not made by Washington bureaucrats.”

By including a government-managed program, the Democrat plan (H.R. 3200) would:
•        Risk the private health care coverage of 114 million Americans as employers would
reconsider offering the benefit in lieu of government-provided coverage, according
to the Lewin Group.
•        Hike taxes more than $800 billion on struggling employers who can’t afford to
offer insurance to their employees and on the uninsured who don’t purchase health
insurance for themselves (the bill makes health care coverage mandatory for all
Americans and actually slaps a 2.5 percent income tax surcharge on the uninsured who
don’t purchase health insurance.)
•        Surge government spending another $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years. This comes
on top of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and $780 billion stimulus plan that
will take Americans generations to re-pay.
•        Put another 4.7 million Americans out of work as struggling employers go out of
business trying to comply with the new costly mandate that makes them
non-competitive in the global marketplace.
•        Establish new European-style government health bureaucracies to ration health care
services.  The bill creates a new government board, the “Health Benefits Advisory
Committee,” that would empower federal bureaucrats to consider cost as factor when
making coverage decisions.

Instead, Manzullo supports several reform initiatives that would make health care
coverage more affordable and more accessible to Americans, including:

•        Reforming our out-of-control medical liability system – Medical malpractice
insurance continues to surge, skyrocketing health care costs and forcing doctors and
other medical professionals to practice “defensive medicine,” which entails ordering
costly and often unnecessary tests to cover all the bases from lawsuits. Manzullo is
a cosponsor of the HEALTH Act (H.R. 1086) that would fully compensate victims for
medical injuries but place reasonable caps on punitive and non-economic damages that
often inflate the awards and contribute to out-of-control liability and health care
costs.
•        Creating refundable tax credits to help low-income Americans purchase health
insurance – Low-income children are already covered through the federal SCHIP
program, and Manzullo supports refundable tax credits to help low-income adults
purchase health insurance.
•        Allowing the creation of Association Health Plans -- AHPs would allow small
businesses to pool together through national associations to give them the same
purchasing power as large companies and labor unions to buy affordable health
insurance for themselves and their employees. Manzullo is a co-sponsor of the
bipartisan SHOP Act (H.R. 2360) to accomplish this goal.
•        Expanding tax-free availability to Health Savings Accounts -- HSAs allow small
business owners to offer more affordable high-deductible health insurance plans to
their employees and make tax-deductible contributions to employee savings accounts
to allow their employees to build equity and assume personal control of their health
care needs. Congress should increase the tax deductibility for these insurance
plans.
•        Preserving high-quality health care through America’s community health clinics –
Manzullo supports continued funding of our community health clinic system, which
provides high-quality health care to America’s low-income families. Manzullo has
been a strong supporter of Rockford’s Crusader Clinic, which serves more than 40,000
needy patients in northern Illinois each year.
•        Expanding small business tax deductions for health care expenses – Corporations
currently are able to purchase health care coverage for their employees before they
pay their payroll taxes.  Self-employed small business owners – one of the toughest
group of individuals to insure – should have the same opportunity, but do not.
Manzullo is a cosponsor of  the Equity for Our Nation’s Self-Employed Act (H.R.
1470) to allow the self-employed to purchase health care insurance prior to paying
their Social Security and Medicare taxes. This would effectively reduce their health
care costs immediately by more than 15 percent.

Rolls Royce to Build New Plants for Aerospace Technology

Add comment July 28th, 2009

With the Rockford Region’s focus on it’s aerospace manufacturing and engineering, I thought this was interesting.  Rolly is going to spend approx. $460 million on new plants.  COuld they become competitors or partners?    RollsRoyce

Scots Don’t Like Their NHS

2 comments July 28th, 2009

So is this what we are about to embark upon with the current push to put in a government health system?  Looks like the Scots have simply given up and just accept bad service.  One in Three experience bad service. Read on…   NHS

What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

Add comment July 28th, 2009

Finland’s teens score extraordinarily high on an international test. American educators are trying to figure out why.   Read it here…  Finnish