How to Protect Yourself From Obamacare

[Conan71]

Looks like another one bites: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/florida-gov-rick-scott-agrees-to-expand-medicaid-coverage-87874.html

Governess Mary is quite contrary. Her splintered Teabagging Obama hating coalition of states leaves her looking like the shrew with no sense by denying Federal funding.

Looking like a dismal period coming up between her refusal and the sequester. Lots of pain being induced by the extremists.

Yep Obama is an extremist, considering the White House devised the sequester trigger.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Failin' is showing just how profoundly stupid she is by fighting this.  Even Florida has figured out the reality....

[Townsend]

Fallin remains firm on rejecting Medicaid expansion

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=504&articleid=20130221_504_0_WithFl414985&r=4516

With Florida Gov. Rick Scott's Wednesday announcement that he is ready to accept "Obamacare" money to expand his state's Medicaid program for at least three years, the majority of the states — representing 96 percent of the nation's population — have either opted into the plan or are leaning that way.

Not Oklahoma.

A spokesman for Gov. Mary Fallin said Scott's decision that Florida couldn't afford to stay out of the Medicaid expansion doesn't change her stance that Oklahoma can't afford to get into it.

"Governor Fallin has made her decision based on what is best for Oklahoma," spokesman Alex Weintz said. "She does not plan on revisiting the issue."

Scott's announcement makes Florida the 25th state apparently headed toward accepting Medicaid expansion, a key element of the Affordable Care Act's scheme for reducing the number of uninsured Americans.

The federal law would allow anyone in a household earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level — currently $31,322 a year for a family of four — to qualify for Medicaid coverage starting in 2014.

The federal government would pick up 100 percent of the costs of new benefits for the first three years. After that a share of the costs would shift to the states, capping at 10 percent in 2020.

Currently in Oklahoma, only members of specific groups — children, pregnant women, the aged, blind and disabled — can qualify for the federal health care program.

Fallin's decision not to accept the Medicaid expansion money means about 180,000 poor, uninsured Oklahomans won't receive health coverage.

She has repeatedly made the point that the federal government would pick up the cost of new benefits but would not pick up additional administrative costs or 100 percent of the benefit costs for people who are already eligible for Medicaid.

Fallin "continues to pursue Oklahoma options for improving health and wellness in the state," Weintz said. "Additionally, she continues to ask the White House to grant states flexibility to expand state-based programs like Insure Oklahoma."

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=504&articleid=20130221_504_0_WithFl414985&r=4516

[heironymouspasparagus]

Even Arkansas is looking pretty good these days....

[guido911]

Bridenstine weighing in, getting propped up by Mark Levin. 

http://bridenstine.house.gov/media-center/blog-posts/letter-from-jim-bridenstine-concerning-the-defunding-of-obamacare

[Conan71]

His grammar is atrocious. 

[heironymouspasparagus]

Bridenstine weighing in, getting propped up by Mark Levin.  

http://bridenstine.house.gov/media-center/blog-posts/letter-from-jim-bridenstine-concerning-the-defunding-of-obamacare

I love the quote about most Americans wanting healthcare to be controlled by patients and doctors - not the government.  And yet...is a huge proponent of interfering precisely where he says we shouldn't...telling women what they can and can't do with their own bodies.  

Telling doctors they cannot use one of the most effective drugs available for treatment of a wide variety of serious/fatal ailments.  I sincerely hope he remains healthy his entire life, but actually endures the nonsense surrounding the interference of treatment of a serious cancer by someone he loves, so maybe he can finally start to understand reality.  But hey, he is special... so, like Gabby Gifford, he will get the best care possible - spare no expense - while the majority of his constituents will remain in Oklahoma's standard healthcare system.  With Oklahoma's 47th in the nation level of healthcare.

Yes, Oklahoma,...protect yourself from Obamacare...you might rise to 46 or even 45 if you don't!!

[Townsend]

Oklahoma Taxpayers Could Help Fund Federal Challenges

http://kwgs.com/post/oklahoma-taxpayers-could-help-fund-federal-challenges

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahomans who support the attorney general's determination to challenge federal statutes may soon have a way to help pay for the effort.

The Oklahoma House voted 80-15 on Tuesday for a bill that would put a line on individual income tax forms to allow a contribution to be made to a new "Constitutional Challenge Litigation Cost Revolving Fund."

Democratic Rep. Joe Dorman of Rush Springs says many Oklahomans support Attorney General Scott Pruitt's effort to challenge federal laws like the Affordable Care Act, and his bill would give them a chance to help pay for those lawsuits.

Pruitt's office currently is challenging the tax penalty provisions of the federal health care law, Environmental Protection Agency regulations and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

[Townsend]

States' Rights Bills Surge In GOP States

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=173549946

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — One bill would make it a felony to enforce the new federal health care law, punishable by up to five years in prison. Another prohibits a physician from asking a patient about firearms. Yet another is designed to curb the possible influence of the United Nations in local government.

While provocative bills aren't particularly unusual in state legislatures, so many have been offered by conservatives in Oklahoma this year that GOP leaders have established a special committee to handle what is now a major category of business: measures to combat the federal government's influence in the states.

"This gives a platform for what I think are issues that are concerning to a lot of Oklahomans, and that's this continual overreach of the federal government," said House Speaker T.W. Shannon.

Similar states' rights panels have been formed in Texas and Utah, which are also controlled by the GOP, and have been proposed in Alaska, Missouri and Tennessee.

President Barack Obama's re-election last year, while a victory for the Democrats, has made the anti-federal cause a growth industry in states dominated by conservative Republicans. When legislatures reconvened this year, a flood of bills came forth to block enforcement of federal laws, deny authority to federal agencies, and circumvent federal policies related to firearms, religion, the environment and, most of all, health care. Across the country, dozens of bills have been introduced to nullify federal firearms laws alone.

Even though many measures are legally questionable and may never come to a floor vote, the special committees are providing more public attention to sovereignty issues that were sidetracked in previous years.

In Oklahoma, "There's going to be healthy debate and discussion about what the limits of the federal government are and also about where state sovereignty begins," said Shannon. "I think that's a worthy discussion to have."

In marble halls normally bustling with suit-and-tie legislators and lobbyists, witnesses wearing camouflage, jeans and ball caps now file into committee rooms for sessions. Usually somnolent hearings are now sometimes raucous.

When the Oklahoma states' rights committee recently passed a bill that prohibits cities and counties from adopting any environmental recommendations in the United Nations' Agenda 21 plan, many of those in attendance burst into applause.

Some Democrats say they don't know whether to be alarmed or amused.

"Where is Jay Leno when you need him?" said Rep. Mike Shelton of Oklahoma City, one of 29 Democrats in the 101-member state House. "If I didn't know this was reality, I would think this committee was something out of a movie."

At a recent hearing, Democratic Rep. Kay Floyd, who was an administrative law judge before winning election to the Legislature, expressed concern that several bills the committee passed appeared to be unconstitutional. Republican Rep. Gus Blackwell, the author of a measure contravening part of the federal health care law, responded: "The Supreme Court may go on and make another decision. I don't care." His comment drew nods of approval from those in attendance.

The crowd of about two dozen spectators at one recent hearing included tea party members and other grassroots activists, some of whom took time away from work and traveled from towns around the state.

Don Spencer, a truck driver for an oil field supply company, hustled to the statehouse after work to hear the panel discuss amending the constitution to make gun possession easier.

Of the others in attendance, "you'll only see them at meetings dealing with constitutional issues," said Spencer, wearing jeans, a flannel shirt and an empty holster that shows he's not allowed to bring his handgun into the Capitol. "People are realizing they can't control the government creeping into their homes, and the more they learn, the scarier it gets."

Also on the committee agenda are measures barring local police from aiding the U.S. military in detaining Oklahoma citizens under the federal War Powers Resolution, prohibiting judges from considering foreign law, and amending the constitution to limit the Legislature's ability to regulate firearms.

Some critics dismiss the sessions as little more than political grandstanding for conservative voters in a state where Obama failed to carry a single county in either of his presidential races. They warn that any measures passed would only run up the state's legal bills in hopeless court challenges.

Under Supreme Court precedent, a state doesn't have the power to block the enforcement of federal law inside its borders, said Joseph Thai, a constitutional law professor at the University of Oklahoma who served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Byron White.

Most such measures "do not merit serious comment — at least, not after the Civil War," Thai said.

But many conservatives insist the panel can help the state find ways to push back against the federal government.

Oklahoma's new Republican Attorney General Scott Pruitt has bolstered the cause by challenging the tax penalty provisions of the federal health care law, filing suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and joining a multi-state challenge to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

"We're a country of citizens and not subjects," said Republican Rep. Lewis Moore, chairman of the committee. "It is our fault for not acting as citizens all the time."

[Teatownclown]

Bunches of haters. The Patriot Movement is anything but that.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Forget protecting yourself from Obamacare - who's gonna protect us from the Oklahoma legislature..??

Yeah, they are really doing everything they can to attract new business....let's present ourselves as a bunch of ignorant "hicks from the sticks"...yeah, that will do it...!

Maybe the Koch brothers....oh, wait,...they already came to town.

[guido911]

Obamacare really starting to hit home...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2523934

[heironymouspasparagus]

Obamacare really starting to hit home...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2523934

Thank God it will be no great loss to stop eating there....  they are already way overpriced for their product, so I will just let them keep it!

[Hoss]

...he could walk this one back.

I see this snippet showing up in campaign videos next year...

[heironymouspasparagus]

...he could walk this one back.

I see this snippet showing up in campaign videos next year...

First honest comment I have heard him make, so yeah, as Representative, he must walk it back just to stay in the game....