Weekly Address of Governor Paul LePage: Government Run Health Care; calls IRS the “new Gestapo”
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On July 7, 2012 At 6:01 am
Category : By Andi Parkinson
Tags : About Paul LePage, ACA, Obamacare
Responses : 10 Comments
As millions of Americans celebrated America’s birthday this week, we reflected on our individual liberties and our independence as a Nation. Indeed, it’s always uplifting to remember and honor what our Country is founded upon.
Hello. This is Governor Paul LePage.
For 236 years our constitution has tried to uphold our Founding Fathers intent – to protect Americans rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But what our Founding Fathers, I’m sure, did not have in mind is for our rights to be stripped away by our Federal Government. What our Founding Fathers did not see coming is unfair taxation that burdens the American people.
Obamacare is bad policy and bad law. It raises taxes, cuts Medicare for the elderly, gets between patients and their doctors, costs trillions of taxpayer dollars, and kills jobs.
Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has spoken and its decision carries the law of the land. We have an opinion as to what is constitutional and what isn’t. However, what the Court did not tell us is what states should do next.
I have been asked if Maine will move forward with Medicaid expansion. However, Maine is already a welfare expansion state because of the generous benefits offered. Our welfare costs are among the highest in the Nation as a result of some of the lowest eligibility requirements.
Maine has increased its spending by more than a billion dollars during the last decade because of expanded welfare programs. We cannot afford our current programs, so to require Maine to expand coverage even more is fiscally irresponsible. Before we think about taking on any more debt, we must pay our current bills – nearly $500 million is owed to Maine hospitals.
Furthermore, there are still too many uncertainties for Maine to implement Obamacare. We do not know how federal matches would be paid for and how newly eligible is defined. Meanwhile, the President has proposed $800 million to finance exchanges, money that has not been approved by Congress. With these looming uncertainties circling around this issue, Maine cannot move forward right now with Obamacare.
Perhaps what is most disturbing about this ruling, though, is that the federal mandate is considered a TAX. This tax will add to the $500 billion in tax increases that are already in Obamacare. Now that Congress can use the taxation power of the federal government to compel behavior or lack thereof, what’s next? More taxes if we don’t drive Toyota Priuses or if we eat too much junk food or maybe even pea soup?
This decision has made America less free. We the people have been told there is no choice. You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo – the I.R.S.
Even more disheartening is that reviving the American dream just became nearly impossible to do. We are now a nation in which supports dependency rather than independence. Instead of encouraging self-reliance we are encouraging people to rely on the government.
Demanding freebies in life and living freely are two very different things. There used to be a time when we were proud to get people off government programs. Today, we are promoting entitlement programs that are breaking the bank.
Success should not be measured by what we can get for free, but rather what we do and give back to society when we are independent and productive citizens. Government-run health care is not what the American dream is about.
Democrats are attacking Republicans saying that we are turning down free health care. I have always said it doesn’t matter if the money is taken from the left or right pocket, it’s still my pocket. Make no mistake about it, taxpayers will pay for this.
The debt ceiling has been hiked again – now to $16.4 trillion. How much more can we take? Because right now it’s not only our children and grandchildren who will be paying for it, it will be our unborn great grandchildren who support our lack of responsibility and accountability for this mistake.
America wasn’t born on these sorts of principles and it’s time we get back on track – not only for our future generations, but for the future of our Nation.
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Paul LePage states:
“The debt ceiling has been hiked again – now to $16.4 trillion.”
“This tax will add to the $500 billion in tax increases that are already in Obamacare. ”
In Response:
“Where is the money from the Bush era tax breaks and the Bush / Obama bailouts?
Answer: (from 1990 to 2007)
· The proportion of after-tax income for the top 1% as compared to total after-tax income increased from 11% to 17%.
· The proportion of after-tax income for the remaining 99% as compared to total after-tax income decreased from 89% to 83%.
…
The answer begs further questions:
· Why should someone get a tax-break in the hope they will invest and create jobs?
· Shouldn’t the tax break come after the investment has demonstrated a net increase of jobs? In other words unemployed individuals are now employed.
· Shouldn’t the tax break come if the investment failed in creating jobs in the form of a tax deduction?
· Of the top 1% or even top 20% who calls themselves job creators and whose after-tax income has grown; have they invested in job creation?
· If not what are they waiting for? They’ve been getting tax breaks for years and unemployment is growing.
Tax breaks have contributed negatively to the deficit, tax breaks have not contributed to job creation with respect to reduced unemployment, and tax breaks have not been removed to address the deficit (even on a temporary basis). Rather tax breaks have contributed to the wealth of a small minority at the expense of the majority affecting standard of living, personal health, education, and one’s quality of life. How this has occurred and continues through partisan politics is deceitful, the results immoral.
The Federal Government & Congress are financially broke by over spending. Federal Government needs to shrink! U.S. is broke!
Get rid of the Federal Reserve. These United States of America were founded as a Republic, not a democracy.
Republic for the united States of America. Also get rid of Obamacare we do not need the federal government in all aspects
of our lives. Put a stop to the outsourcing of our jobs.
United States shouldn’t make people dependent on food stamps.
So, falling through the discussion here is whether or not Governor LePage is opting Maine out of ACA.
The Portland Press-Herald’s story on this (mostly on the gross `Gestapo` remark) said that Governor LePage needed more information, but in his address he said that `Maine cannot move forward right now with Obamacare,` and he points out uncertainties. The quote when I heard it in the address, and when I went back and re-read it, made me believe Maine was opting out.
If Governor LePage is uncertain about what to do about ACA, then is anyone concerned about this uncertainty? DHHS is a big state agency, but there have been a number of revelations about its budget since Governor LePage took office — it’s been (charitably) a wild ride — and I can’t say his handle on the budget has inspired a lot of confidence he has a grasp on it.
What about ACA? Is Maine in or out of ACA? Does Governor LePage understand the ramifications for staying in or out?
He said he was waiting ’till after the General Election to make a decision. I assume he’s hoping that his party will take everything and he won’t need to make a decision ‘tall.
He, by the way, makes the late James Longley looked positively good as Governor. And he was terrible but had much less of a potty mouth than LePage does.
Ben Grant, chair of the Maine Dems, had this response to LePage’s weekly address.
I’m sorry, but the US does NOT have a Health Care System. What we have instead is a Health INSURANCE system. The medicare administration does it’s administrative work for 3% of the money it spends for health care. Private insurance takes 23% (or more). You figure it out. We could save 23% just by eliminating Private Health Insurance scams. Why do you think doctors’ offices have so many people working there? To coordinate treatment with various “Health Insurance” schemas. No two are alike, no two pay the same amounts for the same treatments. This is where much of the waste is. In addition, to make up for all the people who have NO insurance, costs are allocated to people who do have insurance, thus making it more expensive for people who do have insurance. Isn’t this nonsense? I think so.
Perhaps someone will tell LePage that the tax credits for purchasing a Prius ended in 2007, but that many 2011 hybrids still qualify.
He’s not going to be happy when he looks at that Prius in the driveway.
For nearly half a century “We The People” have watched healthcare in America slide into a morass of mediocrity while spending more money than any other industrialized nation on earth to sustain the unsustainable.
A proud nation has seen it’s healthcare delivery system founder while the costs of access to even a catastrophic coverage policy have begun to resemble country club dues.
Governor LePage is no more than a drone sounding the same mind-numbing notes that the Tea-Party Pipers have been playing for the past few years. His song is both boring and wrong.
I’m proud that Maine has historically been ahead of the curve in attending to the health of her citizens. It’s one of the things that excites me as Mainer. The Governor is morose about it. He’s resentful that money from either of his pockets (left or right) should go to provide health care for anyone but him. .
Moreover, his take on history is way off the mark. Pooling resources for the common good is exactly what the Founders had in mind: a nation of people who paid their taxes (with full representation) proudly and equitably for the purpose of funding a government dedicated to their protection and well-being.
As for the astonishingly abrasive comparison of the Internal Revenue Service to the Nazi’s secret police, well, what can we expect from a Governor who only opens his mouth to change feet?
Dear Idiot Lepage,
Thank you for being what you are, an uninformed bigot who believes that HE made it On His Own. I wonder where you’d be today had you been raised homeless in oh… let’s say Mexico. Think you’d be governor of Chihuahua? Dream on. You are where you are because of the opportunities afforded you by our ‘welfare’ state. Good roads, good schools, etc ad infinitum. And thank you for trying to assure that my family will continue to pay $1100 a month for three people to have $10,000 per person deductibles and $500 a month medical payments into the foreseeable future. Hope you enjoy your government Cadillac Care. Idiot is too light an epithet.