Plunderbund » Health Care

Issue 3 campaign: Tell the federal government, hands off my Medicare!

ModernEsquire — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:58:24 +0000

The Tea Party organizations behind Issue 3, the totally unconstitutional constitutional amendment that outlaws an individual mandate for health insurance, released a video that highlights the signers of their petition and why they signed. They highlighted roughly four individuals.

About two minutes in, they featured this testimonial:

Government-run health care… will… hurt…. MEDICARE?!?

First, even if you put aside that this amendment, if passed, is a unconstitutional nullity. But even if it were, and it somehow passed, the amendment only addresses the individual mandate. It has no affect on the Medicare savings in [...]

GOP Senate leader on Fox News acknowledges anti-health care reform amendment is unconstitutional

ModernEsquire — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:39:50 +0000

Senate President Tom Niehaus was on Fox News to discuss the Tea Party’s proposed state constitutional amendment to ban individual health insurance mandates at the local, State, and federal level (and yet, the State of Ohio would still be able to mandate that all Ohioans carry auto insurance if they wish to drive on a public road in Ohio.)

According to a transcript from Fox News, host Bill Hemmer asked Niehaus to respond to “critics” of the bill who suggests that the proposed amendment is, itself, unconstitutional as it violates the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause. That’s when things went a little [...]

So much for austerity, Governor?

ModernEsquire — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:35:34 +0000

Not even a month after signing his budget into law, and Governor John Kasich is ready to go on a spending spree.

Here’s a headline the Kasich Adminstration cannot be happy with:

Gov. John Kasich spends $2 million off-the-cuff; unexpected cash is for the state’s children’s hospitals to collaborate

Here’s the story from today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Gov. John Kasich on Thursday spent $2 million so calmly and nonchalantly you would have thought he was just handing over $2.

While touring a research laboratory at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus the governor asked the hospital’s CEO Dr. Steve [...]

Tea Party backed amendment to repeal health-care reform may be unconstitutional

Ben — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 23:36:55 +0000

What in God’s name is going on with the amendment to repeal the insurance mandate? To review, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was the health-care reform law signed last year by President Obama that, amongst many other reform measures, requires individuals to purchase insurance starting in 2014. Well, it seems that the Ohio Project, the group responsible for collecting signatures to put the amendment on the ballot, forgot to look into the constitutionality of the amendment. This is from the Dispatch this morning:

Even if the amendment is approved in November, the fight won’t be over. Many believe [...]

Despite Senate’s vote, Tea Party’s anti-health care initiative won’t be on the November ballot

Joseph — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 03:45:27 +0000

For over a year now Ohio’s Tea Partyers at the Ohio Liberty Council have been trying, with limited success, to gather enough signatures for a ballot initiative to “repeal” federal health care reform legislation in Ohio by amending the Ohio constitution.

Despite their best efforts, the Ohio Liberty Council has had a hell of a time getting enough Ohio voters to sign their petitions for the proposed amendment. They’ve been working on it since last spring and I’ve seen them at tons of public events with their crazy “STOP FORCED HEALTH CARE” banners. County fairs. Local festivals. They [...]

Exhibit #1,256 that the Tea Party “movement” is waning in Ohio (if not virtually dead.)

ModernEsquire — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 02:36:21 +0000

Missing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s editorial about the Republican legislators effort in the legislator to put a health care repeal amendment (with the support of conserva-Democrat Senator Jason Wilson, who’s claim to fame was that he jeopardized his dad’s chances to succeed Ted Strickland in Congress by flubbing his dad’s nominating petitions, triggering a write-in primary campaign) on the ballot.

Tim Grendell, who is angling for a judicial appointment from the Kasich Administration and needs to do something to earn their good graces after opposing SB 5, is pushing for SJR 1, which would put on the

John Kasich gets the “death panel” treatment, and he doesn’t like it one bit

ModernEsquire — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:58:13 +0000

The Ohio Health Care Association, a predominately nursing home industry interest group, is presently running this television ad about Kasich’s Medicaid budget. An ad that begins with an image of John Kasich, a bunch of hospitalized elderly patients, and ends with a flatline as someone, literally, pulls the plug. And Governor Kasich is pissed about it, and decrying the influence of campaign dollars in Medicaid policy. Wonder if he has the same take on charter schools? Nah.

Take three? House GOP takes another crack at State budget.

ModernEsquire — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:14:20 +0000

Yesterday, the Columbus Dispatch reported that the House Republicans were set to consider some 200 amendments submitted in response to the Substitute House Bill they introduced for the State’s budget Thursday afternoon. Now the fate of these amendments are far from certain, but among the things the House GOP is being urged to change are:

Their new provision that would give county commissioners authority to privatize county jails. It’s getting to the point where Ohio’s criminals may never actually be punished by the State, but out-of-state corporations hired to mete out punishment for profits. Some Cincinnati-area lawmakers want to [...]

[Exclusive:] John Kasich secretly loves ObamaCare (and claims credit for Medicaid reforms Strickland and Obama enacted)

ModernEsquire — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:32:30 +0000

Stop me if you've heard this before: John Kasich takes credit for something that turns out was not his idea, but something that was a labor of love of the Strickland Administration. On top of that, Kasich is touting the achievement while hiding that it's being entirely funded by "one time" federal stimulus money. Or did you hear the one about how Governor Kasich approached U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown about seeking another extension of a federal stimulus program for Medicaid? Or how John Kasich's budget relies on a Washington bailout that doesn't even appear to be in the works? Or how it also relies on cost savings to the States provided by "ObamaCare?"

Ohio Right to Life claims GOP Senate played abortion politics in denying Gov. Strickland’s appointments to Ohio Pharmacy Board

ModernEsquire — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 19:10:29 +0000

One of the odder areas where the Ohio Senate Republicans decided that Governor Strickland’s appointments should be rejected for no other reason than they were Strickland’s appointments was the Ohio Board of Pharmacy.

Although most Statehouse observers understood the political motivations behind Kasich wanting to have the full slate on the Casino Commission, BWC, and the Board of Education, more obscure entities which are viewed as typically apolitical like the Ohio Pharmacy Board struck people as rather odd.

Now we know why they did it. Remember outgoing Senate President Bill Harris said that the GOP would block any appointment [...]