On January 1, 2011, several new elements of Obamacare came into effect. These measures lay the groundwork for higher premiums and the eventual government takeover of healthcare.

Your HSA and FSA is a lot less valuable

In the past, you could purchase over the counter medical supplies – such as Advil, allergy pills, and cold medicine – using your Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Savings Account (FSA). No income tax was paid on the money that you saved in either of these accounts.

Thanks to Obamacare, you can no longer purchase over the counter medications using these accounts unless you get a doctor’s prescription.

This will have two big effects:

1. Increase the real cost of over the counter drugs because you cannot easily purchase them with pretax dollars

2. Waste doctors’ time and increase the price of health insurance because doctors will be asked to write prescriptions for over the counter drugs just for the tax benefits.

A Provision Now Limits How Insurance Companies Use your Premiums

This one is unbelievable – a game changer in the insurance business. This is a leap towards the government takeover of healthcare.

Insurance companies now are forced to spend at least 80% of the insurance premium on patients. If a company or group purchases a healthcare plan, this number jumps to 85%.

The remaining 15%-20% of your premium may be spent on advertising, sales, administrative salary, profit, etc..

This provision will have numerous effects – some of which are:

1. It will force insurance companies out of states where administrative costs are higher – simply because these states will be unprofitable.

2. It changes the insurance business model – typically your insurance company will take big profits from healthy patients (who consequently, don’t make large insurance claims) and lose money on customers who get sick. Obviously, insurance companies want their customers to stay healthy (fewer claims). Now, they need their customers to get sick to meet this government requirement.

This will drive ‘cadillac’ plans out of existence. Insurance companies have no benefit from high margin plans – the only way to increase profit is to cover more people (you can no longer increase margins). Plans will be designed to fit the needs of large groups of people - individually tailored plans designed to fit your specific needs are a thing of the past.

Claim service and doctor payments will all be affected too. Companies will reduce their administrative staff to the bare minimum (one of the few ways to affect profit margin). Be prepared to sit on hold for several hours only to talk to someone in India when you call your insurance company.

This provision sets up an incredible moral hazard that should be unimaginable in America – the government telling a private company what its profit margin must be. If the company is charging too much, competitors will take advantage of the situation by offering lower prices. Perhaps the government should limit grocery store margins too – we all need food. This is the absurdity of big government.

3. The new model is impossible – companies can only use 15%-20% of their margins on advertising, administration, and profit – so they need as many customers as possible. Yet they need to spend more on advertising and administration to pay for all of the new customers. This will inevitably decrease profits and the number of companies participating in the health insurance market.

Don’t worry – once provisions like these eliminate all of the private insurance companies, I’m confident that President Obama and the Democrats will have a solution – government run healthcare.

If you don’t want the government running healthcare, there is only one option: REPEAL.

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ABC News reports:

President Obama has had two major messages for Congress in recent months: Keep the focus on jobs and the economy, and get serious about runaway spending.

His problem now is that they’re starting to listen to him on the second point — at the expense of the first.

In a major shift in congressional politics, Democrats have developed a severe case of sticker shock, just as many of their colleagues press to prime the pump of the economy in time for the mid-term congressional elections.

Now, even popular initiatives with widespread support — notably an extension in unemployment benefits for those who have been out of work for more than a year, plus $50 billion the White House is asking for to help avert state layoffs of teachers and law enforcement officials  are stalled inside Congress.

Democrats are between Barack and a hard place. On the one hand, the only reason they are ever elected is to loot the treasury and put as many people on the government dole as possible. On the other hand, with a national debt of over $13 trillion, there is no more money to give away.

After Obama put his “laser-like focus” on job creation, unemployment soared to 10%, where it has remained since the passage of the porkulus bill. Since then, Obama has also passed the largest entitlement bill in American history – health care. Democrats are in the fast lane, driving the United States off a debt cliff. For Democrats to start opposing spending bills now is laughable. While the new proposed $50 billion giveaway being bandied about in Washington ought to be stopped, there is no way Democrats can claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in 2010.

In 2006 the Democrats ran against the big spending of George W. Bush and the Republicans. The result of their takeover has been a soaring debt, an unsustainable deficit, and a crippled economy. The Democrats have made it clear that given the power, they will spend the country into ruin. The latest hemming and hawing over spending is cynical political posturing, pure and simple.

Boy was I worried that we might have found the first honest Democrat.

But then, in less than 90 seconds Rep. Hare erased those fears. He stated that he read the entire healthcare bill three times.

Now, how do I know that he is a liar? He claims to have read a 8100 page bill three times in the five day period before it was passed. To put that in perspective, five days has 7200 minutes.

It’s best to end this post like the interviewer in the video: Rep. Hare, it’s time you start looking for another job!

The plan for health care reform was initially something that the Democratic Party had long been campaigning for as a way to ensure that the American people were well-protected. As time went on, it became apparent that this reform was not in the will of the American people at all. However, in pure stubbornness, this administration persisted in pushing the legislation forward.

At a press conference, Nancy Pelosi had a different take on the matter, however:

I don’t really believe that any one person was responsible for this. I said from the start that Americans would only be able to find out what’s in the bill if it passed. And while I was initially skeptical, Barry [Soetoro] made it quite clear that Botox procedures would be covered. It was a no-brainer at that point.

While these statements from Reid and Pelosi are in and of themselves incredible, nothing comes close to the iconic moment in history created when all Members of Congress and their staff (with the exception of Barney Frank and a young page) showed up at a rally with a petition to impeach Obama for a new subsection of the constitution called “Impeachment by Stupidity,” citing that the Stalinist approach to American governance was a trial project, and has failed miserably.

Barack Obama was unavailable for comment, though in an email from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Strictly Right received the following comment:

Andrew, this is nothing more than 8 years of the Bush administration’s bad policies catching up on the American people. President Obama is not worried, though he’s hoping for change.

P.S. Meet me in the Congressional shower in 20 minutes?

Here is rap sheet naming the 11 Congressmen and the price for their vote:

Rep. Jerry Costello of Illinois.: $1,418.7 million ($256.4 million in 2010)

Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Texas: $618 million ($726.1 million in 2010)

Stupak of Michigan: $578.9 million

Rep. Steve Driehaus of Ohio: $332.2 million

Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio: $294 million ($305.7 million in 2010)

Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania: $236.8 million ($54 million in 2010)

Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota.: $207 million ($226 million in 2010)

Rep. Brad Ellsworth of Indiana.: $115.4 million ($82.3 million in 2010)

Rep. Charles Wilson of Ohio: $84 million ($62.3 million in 2010)

Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania.: $67.1 million

Rep. Joseph Donnelly of Indiana: $19.8 million ($11.65 million in 2010)

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.

It follows a tumultuous few months in which public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as the climate scientists’ emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.

I don’t think we’re yet evolved to the point where we’re clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change,” said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. “The inertia of humans is so huge that you can’t really do anything meaningful.”

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is “modern democracy”, he added. “Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.

And there you have it folks. After the health care abomonation passed last week I posted an article in which I provided video and audio of Democrats explaining that the purpose of passing Obamacare was to increase government control over the American people. The hoax of global warming is just another piece in the statist agenda. ‘Global warming’ is being perpetuated by a bunch of anti-American Luddites that want to cut the West down to size. The comments of this ‘scientist’  also serve as a wonderful example of what leftist elites think of regular people – you’re just too stupid to know what’s good for you. George Will had it right when he said “the core of today’s liberalism [is that] the American people are such dopes they can’t be counted upon to buy their own insurance.”

A new Rasmussen poll shows that 52% of voters think the Tea Party movement is more in tune with Americans than the [Democratic] congress is.

52% of U.S. voters believe the average member of the Tea Party movement has a better understanding of the issues facing America today than the average member of Congress. Only 30% believe that those in Congress have a better understanding of the key issues facing the nation.When it comes to those issues, 47% think that their own political views are closer to those of the average Tea Party member than to the views of the average member of Congress. On this point, 26% feel closer to Congress.

Finally, 46% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is more ethical than the average member of Congress. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say that the average member of Congress is more ethical.

This is even more proof that the Tea Party movement isn’t about left-wing politics versus right-wing politics. It’s about individuals demanding more accountability and less intervention from their government. Had the House and Senate not been so adamantly advocating for a Health Care Reform plan that Americans didn’t want, these numbers may have been a bit different. But, that’s not the case. Also remember that 40% of Americans identify themselves as being ‘conservative.’ So, that extra 6% isn’t just there for free juice and cookies.