Tom Reed: End Congressional Obamacare exemption

CONGRESSMAN REED: GET RID OF SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR CONGRESS

Rep. Tom Reed introduces bill to end special treatment under Obamacare to Congress, President, Congressional staff 

Rep. Tom Reed is taking an additional step to encourage the Senate to avoid a government shutdown. Rep. Reed introduced the End Special Treatment for Congress CR Monday to end the special treatment Members of Congress, congressional staff and the President receive under the President’s health care law.

“If Harry Reid and the President continue to refuse to negotiate to avoid a government shutdown, I present a simple request to them: end the special treatment under Obamacare that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the President support,” Reed said. “Even if the Senate fails to do any work today, like it failed to do over the weekend, I will be here working to find a solution, working to avoid a shutdown. Ending the special treatment for Congress is a basic minimum to ask for.”

While Senate members and the President say they will not negotiate with the House, Rep. Reed says that position makes a government shutdown even more of a reality: “We are here, working to find a solution,” Reed said. “Harry Reid and the President saying they won’t negotiate isn’t helpful and is grossly irresponsible when the country is just hours away from a government shutdown.”

“I did not come to Washington to support the status quo,” Reed continued. “To me, getting rid of special treatment for Congress is a no-brainer. My bill keeps the government open and puts Congress on a level playing field with every other American. We need to clean up this obvious inequality. It is the right thing to do, it is the fair thing to do.” 
The House of Representatives sent an amended continuing resolution to the Senate over the weekend, where the bill now sits. The Senate is expected to convene later this afternoon. 

Idiots

The former Empire State's Schumer, Gillibrand

One Piece At A Time:

Our morally and intellectually superior two-headed monster, Chuck and Kirsten, should have known that voting on Marxist ideological grounds for bills that you haven't actually read has consequences.

Idiots, indeed.

Shinagawa supports Obamacare tax increases

Voters in the Southern Tier's 29th Congressional District will soon choose between incumbent Republican Tom Reed and SEIU-endorsed former Cornell University student/current Tompkins County Legislator Nathan Shinagawa.  Reed is opposed to Obamacare, and particularly the federal takeover of healthcare's massive tax increases.  Shinagawa, on the other hand, wants more of the same.

As representatives headed back to Washington, D.C. this week, U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-Corning, said for the sake of small businesses, the need for overall repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) remains.

On the other hand, Nate Shinagawa of Ithaca, his Democratic opponent in the Congressional race said the act will help small businesses. The tax credit small businesses in New York state get under the act will increase in 2014, he said...

Shinagawa noted the Affordable Care Act doesn’t require small businesses with under 50 employees to get health insurance for their employees. He said he would like more businesses provide healthcare insurance to their employees.

Tom Reed grew up in Corning and is a graduate of Horseheads Central School.  Nathan Shinagwa, son of a tenured professor, touted his urban Los Angeles upbringing when he last ran for office in leftist-dominated Tompkins County.

Dr. Andy: now your meterologist, too!

"After the break, I'll raise Thruway tolls!"

Not only is he now your doctor, Andy Cuomo wants to be your weatherman, too.

Governor Andrew Cuomo is urging New Yorkers to be prepared as severe thunderstorms storms pass through the state today. The storms are forecast to bring heavy rain, high winds and possibly tornadoes, and may cause widespread power outages, his office said in a written release.

Hey Andy, want to help out your fellow New Yorkers?  Leave the weather forecasting to Wayne Mahar and do something to lower our sky-high electricity rates.

Wendy Long statement on Obamacare decision

Earlier today:

“Although I have yet to read fully all the opinions in this complicated ruling, I respectfully disagree that Obamacare’s individual mandate is justified as a tax. But now that the Court majority has called it a ‘tax,’ as New York’s next United States Senator, I will work to repeal this tax and replace it with a sensible plan to improve health insurance coverage for all Americans.”

Economy still stinks

In case you missed this amid all the Obamacare hubub, here's the latest on Obama's Recovery Summer II:

The number of applications for unemployment benefits hovered last week near the highest level of the year, showing little improvement in the U.S. labor market.

Jobless claims decreased by 6,000 to 386,000 in the week ended June 23, in line with the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The prior week’s reading was revised up to 392,000 from 387,000, matching an April figure as the steepest of 2012. 

And if you happen to be, or are the parent of, a recent college graduate, this research from Rutgers University should make you think twice about your "Obama 2012" bumper sticker.

Just half of the college students who graduated during the Great Recession and its aftermath currently have full-time jobs, a new report says.

The survey, called "Chasing the American Dream: Recent College Graduates and the Great Recession" and conducted by Rutgers University’s John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, spoke to 444 people who graduated from college between 2006 and 2011.

Fifty-one percent of respondents had full-time jobs, the survey found, and 20 percent were in graduate school. Part-time workers made up 12 percent, while 11 percent were unemployed.

Bold added.  Our advice to the young:  unemployed college graduates, many of whom are facing a lifetime of student loan debt and fines for not buying health insurance, should refrain from voting for Obama again.

How to enhance your brain power

Who says medical science hasn't come up with any significant discoveries since 1955?

Drinking alcohol may enhance a person’s problem solving skills, according to a new study.

Scientists found that men who either drank two pints of beer or two glasses of wine before solving brain teasers not only got more questions right, they also were quicker in delivering correct answers, compared to men who answered the questions sober.

Pop one open and read the details here.

No mammogram for you!

Too expensive for the proletariat?

As we transition into government run health care, we'll be getting more mainstream media news stories like this:

As many as one-quarter of breast cancers identified through routine mammography are "overdiagnosed," according to a new study that could reignite the debate about screening guidelines.

Overdiagnosis refers to cancers that are too small to be detected by means other than a mammogram and would not become lethal in a woman's lifetime.

"Overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatment of nonfatal cancer creates a substantial ethical and clinical dilemma and may cast doubt on whether mammography screening programs should exist," said lead author Dr. Mette Kalager, a researcher at the Telemark Hospital in Norway and a visiting scientist at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "This dilemma can be reduced only when potentially fatal cancer that requires early detection and treatment can be reliably identified."

Until then, Kalager said, "women eligible for screening need to be comprehensively informed about the risk for overdiagnosis."

You peasants must understand, under Norwegian-style government health care, vulnerable female citizens are spared the risk of "overdiagnosis" by simply substituting no diagnosis at all.  Bends the cost curve down, you see.

At the moment, mammogram technology is still improving, but we doubt progress can continue under federal bureaucratic control.

This machine, the Selenia Dimensions System, is becoming very popular.  It was originally made by the Hologic company in Bedford, Massachusetts but was also being developed at Mass General Hospital.  This device was approved by the Food and Drug Administration this past February and is now found in nine states.  In fact, dozens of hospitals that aided with 3D mammography trials are planning on purchasing these machines.  The most impressive finding radiologists observed is a 7% improvement in discerning the difference between cancerous and noncancerous tissue when using these machines.

Talk about a "war on women."  When will American women wake up to what the Democrats are doing to them?  So far, opposing voices are still out there, although they better watch their backs. 

Hands-only CPR

"Better a cracked rib than 'im kickn' the bucket."

h/t American Digest

Obamamobiles selling like cold cakes

Fired exec Laura Soave with slow selling Fiat 500

As part of Obama's plan to fundamentally restructure American society, bankrupt Detroit automaker Chrysler Corporation's remaining equity was confiscated and given to Italy's Fiat SpA.  The Italian industrial giant was supposed to teach us to love European-style mini cars.

Fiat/Chrysler/Obama's plan to get the masses to embrace the adorable but tiny Fiat 500 is floundering.  Sales are so bad that 29 of Fiat's 130 US dealerships did not sell a single car in October.  As a result, Fiat has fired Laura Soave, head if its US team, and laid off production workers in its unionized Michigan engine plant.

If that's depressing, just wait until  they take over our healthcare system.....  oh, yeah, they already did.

Minoa gets out of ambulance business

The Syracuse area's Village of Minoa has turned over operation of it's municiapl ambulance service to another operator.  Facing a $300,000 operating deficit, trustees faced reality and made what was surely a tough decision.  The operation will now be run by nonprofit WAVES, a nearby service provider.

The change will mean an estimated eight village ambulance employees will be removed from the Village's payroll.  Most of those staff are expected to be hired by WAVES.

Using government to provide any service that could be handled otherwise always results in higher costs and lower efficiency.  Forced to pay taxes that are among the highest in the country, Finger Lakes residents must demand more of these changes from their elected officials, or replace them with representatives who understand the urgency of the problem.

Previous discussions of financial difficulties facing Central New York's municipal emergency services here and here.