Mitchell’s laws:
●The more budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
==========================================================================================================================================

Obamacare is now legal. Very few people know what’s in it (See: The facts about “Obamacare,” without all the political BS. What you really need to know), so the vast majority feels quite strongly about it.

Perhaps now that people have made their irrevocable decisions, they probably will start to learn about it, and just possibly will vote on the facts (or am I wishful thinking?)

Anyway, the next real battle has to do with Medicaid, and an unnecessary battle it is:

Mystery After The Health Care Ruling: Which States Will Refuse Medicaid Expansion?
June 28th, 2012
Charles Ornstein

For many people without insurance, a key question raised by the Supreme Court’s decision today to uphold the Affordable Care Act is whether states will decline to participate in the law’s big Medicaid expansion.

Although the court upheld the law’s individual mandate to buy insurance, it found that the act could not force states to extend Medicaid to millions by threatening to withhold federal funding.

Translation: The states, being monetarily non-sovereign, cannot create dollars at will. Most states are struggling financially. Who can blame them for not wanting the additional expense of more Medicaid? So the government tried to force them, but the Supreme Court said, “No, no, boys.”

The act, signed by President Obama in March 2010, required “states to extend Medicaid coverage to non-elderly individuals with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty line, or about $30,700 for a family of four,” according to a March 2012 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. That alone was expected to reach nearly 16 million people by 2019, one of the law’s main ways of reducing the ranks of the uninsured.

Translation: With all the brouhaha about the mandate (which had a comparatively small effect on Americans), we forgot the focus of the new law, to get more people insured. Half of them will come from an expansion of Medicaid.

Under the law, the federal government would cover nearly 93 percent of the costs of the Medicaid expansion from 2014-22, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“Specifically, the federal government will assume 100 percent of the Medicaid costs of covering newly eligible individuals for the first three years that the expansion is in effect (2014-16). Federal support will then phase down slightly over the following several years, and by 2020 (and for all subsequent years), the federal government will pay 90 percent of the costs of covering these individuals. According to CBO, between 2014 and 2022, the federal government will pay $931 billion of the cost of the Medicaid expansion, while states will pay roughly $73 billion, or 7 percent.”

Translation: Each state will have to pay the government $7 million (on average) to get the government to pump $100 million back into the state’s economy. Forget about the morality of providing health care to our poorest people, the economics alone makes sense. $100 in exchange for $7 million — sounds good to me.

According to the Urban Institute analysis, some heavily Republican states account for a large share of uninsured that could benefit from the Medicaid expansion. Expanding eligibility in Texas alone would provide coverage to 1.8 million additional people. Expanding Medicaid in Florida, as planned, would cover another 951,000 people.

After the court’s ruling, Republican governors said they hoped that Mitt Romney would be elected president in November and the law would be repealed.

Translation: We don’t care that it helps our poor people. (We might feel otherwise if it helped rich people.) We don’t care that it will add millions of dollars to our economy. We hate Obama; we hate Obamacare. That’s all that counts.

Bottom line: Our Monetarily Sovereign, federal government should provide free Medicare for every man, woman and child in America. That would make Medicaid unnecessary.

Apparently, this is too much to expect. But they have offered to give each state $100 in return for every $7 the state spends. Some states don’t want the money, because it comes from Obama.

I’m ashamed to admit I live in Illinois, the worst governed, most dishonest state in the union, and Illinois has not yet agreed to accept the government’s money. It’s a Democratic state, so I can’t blame this stupidity on the Republicans (though Texas probably will change that).

But people, think about it: Pay $7 million to receive $100 million. What’s your problem?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

==========================================================================================================================================
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
==========================================================================================================================================

Reader “Bro_Pelini” sent me the best outline of “Obamacare” I ever have seen. Many thanks, Bro.

I urge everyone to click the above link, go to the site, review what he has said, look at the comments, and maybe copy the whole thing onto your computer, so you can refer to it, later.

I’m going to give you just a taste of it here, but do go to the site for a more complete listing of features.:

So what does it do? Well, here is everything, in the order of when it goes into effect (because some of it happens later than other parts of it):

Already in effect:
–It allows the Food and Drug Administration to approve more generic drugs (making for more competition in the market to drive down prices)
–It increases the rebates on drugs people get through Medicare (so drugs cost less)
–It establishes a non-profit group, that the government doesn’t directly control, PCORI, to study different kinds of treatments to see what works better and is the best use of money.

8/1/2012
Any health plans sold after this date must provide preventative care (mammograms, colonoscopies, etc.) without requiring any sort of co-pay or charge.

1/1/2013
–If you make over $200,000 a year, your taxes go up a tiny bit (0.9%).

1/1/2014
–No more “pre-existing conditions”. At all. People will be charged the same regardless of their medical history.
–If you can afford insurance but do not get it, you will be charged a fee. This is the “mandate” that people are talking about. Basically, it’s a trade-off for the “pre-existing conditions” bit, saying that since insurers now have to cover you regardless of what you have, you can’t just wait to buy insurance until you get sick. Otherwise no one would buy insurance until they needed it. You can opt not to get insurance, but you’ll have to pay the fee instead, unless of course you’re not buying insurance because you just can’t afford it.
–Insurers now can’t do annual spending caps. Their customers can get as much health care in a given year as they need.
–Make it so more poor people can get Medicaid by making the low-income cut-off higher.
–Small businesses get some tax credits for two years. ( Citation: Page 138, sec. 1421 )
–Businesses with over 50 employees must offer health insurance to full-time employees, or pay a penalty.
–Limits how high of an annual deductible insurers can charge customers.
–The elimination of the “Medicare gap”

There is lots, lots more. Those of you who already favor the plan will be pleased. Those who think they know why they hate the plan will be amazed.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

P.S. (Added 6/29/12) You also will want to read this: Factbox: Tax provisions in Obama’s 2010 health care law

And this: Healthcare Decision: Winners and Losers

And this: Health-care decision: What happens now?

==========================================================================================================================================
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
==========================================================================================================================================

The decision was 5-4, with Chief Justice Roberts coming over from the dark side. As expected, the other four conservatives continued to vote against anything that would benefit the lower income 99% of Americans.

If history remembers these four at all (doubtful), it will not be in a favorable light.

Amy Howe: “In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional.

“There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power.

“That is all that matters.

“Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.”

[Amy Howe –Goldstein & Russell, P.C. — has served as counsel in over two dozen merits cases at the Supreme Court, including matters involving criminal law, the death penalty, the First Amendment, bankruptcy, and the Americans With Disabilities Act. She also has served as counsel in numerous petitions for certiorari, briefs in opposition, and amicus briefs. She co-teaches the Supreme Court Litigation class at Harvard Law School. She serves as the editor of SCOTUSblog.]

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

==========================================================================================================================================
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
==========================================================================================================================================

In today’s world, where jobs are based less on strong backs and more on strong minds, our nation benefits when Americans receive a college education, just as it used to benefit when Americans received elementary and high school educations.

To compete, America needs educated people. Period. So it makes sense for the federal government to support education at all levels. Unfortunately, it is the cash-poor, monetarily non-sovereign, local governments that are forced to support grades 1-12, and the equally cash-poor citizens who must support college.

The cash-unlimited, Monetarily Sovereign, federal government — the one entity in America that never can run short of dollars — pays relatively little.

Washington Post

Senate deal would freeze student-loan rates for year
By Rosalind S. Helderman, Published: June 26

More than 7 million college students could be spared higher loan rates under a deal reached Tuesday by Senate leaders. The agreement would freeze the interest rate for a year, preventing it from doubling from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1, making college more affordable for students as tuition costs are rising.

Translation: In government-speak, making no change in interest rates, while tuition costs are rising, somehow makes college “more affordable.”

Although leaders in both parties said they favored the rate freeze, they argued about how to cover its $6 billion cost.

Translation: We don’t want the public to realize the federal government has the unlimited ability to create dollars. Next thing you know, these poor fools will demand things like Medicare for all and Social Security that actually provides a living benefit.

So, we put on a fake debate about how to “cover” costs, when we know the government can “cover” any cost.

The House had approved a GOP-backed bill to pay for the rate freeze by eliminating a preventive-care fund created by Obama’s health-care law. That measure did not receive the 60 votes necessary to advance in the Senate. But neither did a competing Democratic proposal to pay for the student loan item by closing a tax loophole that allows some small-business executives to avoid payroll taxes.

Translation: We know this is all slight-of-hand. Eliminating preventive care always costs more in the end, because people get sicker. And whenever people don’t give all their money to the government, we call that a “loophole.”

The extension would be paid for by raising premiums for federal pension insurance, an idea acceptable to businesses because rules on how companies calculate their pension liabilities would be changed. A senior Democratic aide said the pension proposals, which came from Reid, would generate $5.5 billion.

Translation: Here’s the logic: The government pays banks to keep interest rates at 3.7%. However, real rates have dropped so low, banks essentially pay 0% for money. So, banks make more than ever, especially because these loans are risk-free. And by the way, did we mention that some student loans cost as much as 8.5%!! (No one knows why).

To keep interest rates the same, costs many billions more (No one knows why). And, although the federal government can create unlimited dollars, it must increase its income (No one knows why). So we must raise the premiums federal workers pay for pension insurance (No one knows why). There will, however, be no additional cost to Congresspersons (Everyone knows why.)

Meanwhile, students would be limited in how long they could receive a federally subsidized loan to 150 percent of their program length — so, six years for a four-year undergraduate degree — a suggestion from Republicans. The aide said that proposal would raise $1.2 billion.

Translation: As if it already weren’t hard to pay off your loan, your government is going to make it harder. You better get a really good job in a hurry, because “According to figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,(Yahoo News) 37 million Americans hold student loan debt. And:

The total amount of student loan debt in the United States is estimated to be between $867 billion and $1 trillion dollars, and default rates for student loans continue to rise.” And:

The average student loan debt totals between $23 thousand and $27 thousand. Imagine students paying that off (plus interest) in six years or less — in this economy.

Senators said they must decide whether to link the student-loan deal to a two-year measure that would extend highway funding, which also will expire July 1.

Translation: Seems reasonable. Student loans. Highway funding. Same thing, right? Your Congress working for you.
———————————————————————————————
Now I have a couple questions for Congress and the President:

1. Why does our Monetarily Sovereign government need to search for dollars to support college loans? Why the charade about taking dollars from the public, when the government doesn’t need to ask anyone for dollars?

2. Why are monetarily non-sovereign states, counties and cities forced to support grades 1-12? Poor local governments support poor school systems. Why doesn’t the Monetarily Sovereign federal government support all grades 1-12 on a per capita basis, for greater quality and equality among educational opportunities?

3. If it benefits America for elementary and high school education to be free, why isn’t college education also free? See: Government should offer free college education

And at long last, may we please, please stop the lies about our federal government running short of dollars. Please.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

==========================================================================================================================================
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY