Analysis: Tens of millions could be forced out of health insurance they had
Published: November 7, 2013 Updated 23 hours ago
By Kevin G. Hall and Anita Kumar — McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Even as President Barack Obama sold a new health care law in part by assuring Americans they would be able to keep their insurance plans, his administration knew that tens of millions of people actually could lose those their policies.
“If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan. Period,” Obama said as he pitched the plan, the unqualified promise he made repeatedly.
Yet advisers did say in 2010 that there were large caveats and that anyone whose insurance plan changed would lose the promised protection of being able to keep existing plans. And a report in 2010 said that as many as 69 percent of certain employer-based insurance plans would lose that protection, meaning as many as 41 million people could lose their plans even if they wanted to keep them and would be forced into other plans. Another 11 million who bought their own insurance also could lose their plans. Combined, as many as 52 million Americans could lose or have lost old insurance plans.
Construction begins on ramp at Graydon Pool in Ridgewood
Thursday November 7, 2013, 5:16 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
A new sloped entryway leading into Graydon Pool will be completed by the end of the month, weather permitting, giving residents with accessibility challenges the opportunity to use Ridgewood’s water park beginning next summer.
Municipal and state officials joined a handful of residents at the village’s historic swimming facility last Friday to commemorate the start of the ramp’s construction. Ground broke on the Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant ramp early last week, and the first drops of concrete were poured Tuesday.
“While I definitely think it took us way too long to get here, I’m glad we’re here. This is an extraordinary moment, a moment that is important to our community,” said Mayor Paul Aronsohn, addressing a small audience that gathered for the ceremony. “Ridgewood is to be one of the most inclusive, welcoming, accepting places. This is going to make us more inclusive and more welcoming.”
After three decades,Route 17 south near Paramus Road to be developed
Thursday November 7, 2013, 5:25 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
A new specialty retail commercial center is coming to Route 17 in Ridgewood, with businesses such as Starbucks and Verizon leading the list of potential tenants.
The Ridgewood Planning Board on Tuesday unanimously approved Malvern Burrough’s plan to build a 15,300-square-foot strip mall on land along Route 17 south near Paramus Road, property that he has owned and has been trying to develop for the past 30 years. According to a preliminary construction schedule discussed last month, Burroughs hopes to finally break ground on the project in early 2014 and allow lessees to move in during the fourth quarter.
Board members granted their approval this week after the developer and his team returned a slightly modified site plan that incorporated the changes and recommendations previously made by Ridgewood’s planning and engineering professionals. The board was also overwhelmingly satisfied with the overall design and aesthetics of the proposed building, which were detailed Tuesday night by project architect Charles Dietz.
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Chris Christie to President Obama on ACA: Don’t be cute, don’t ‘lawyer it’
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has some friendly advice for President Barack Obama on his Affordable Care Act woes: Don’t be cute and don’t be a lawyer.
“Here’s what my suggestion would be to him. Don’t be so cute,” Christie told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “[W]hen you make a mistake, admit it. And, listen, if it was a mistake in 2009, if he was mistaken in 2009, 2010 on his understanding of how the law would operate, then just admit it to people.”
Christie was responding to news of the approximately 3.5 million consumers have received notices from their insurance companies in recent weeks cancelling their current plans, which has called into question the president’s promise that people can keep health care plans that they like.
“I think people would give any leader in that circumstance a lot of credit for just, you know, owning up to it instead of now trying to — like, don’t lawyer it,” Christie said. “People don’t like lawyers. I’m a lawyer.” (DelReal/Politico)
Election Results Mostly Conform to Expectations
By BRYAN PRESTON PJ Media
November 5, 2013 – 7:09 pm
Chris Christie won big, espically big, in New Jersey. He emerges tonight as the GOP favorite for 2016. That’s my objective analysis, not what I want. He did do well with voters the GOP absolutely needs and has a problem attracting. Very well. He captured 21% of the black vote, for instance. That ain’t nothing.
Bill de Blasio, the Sandinista-loving Communist, won and will be mayor of New York as expected. It’s only a matter of time before he wrecks that city and it needs a second Rudy Giuliani to come along and save it again. Why New Yorkers chose to follow Detroit’s and Chicago’s lead is anyone’s guess, but they have, and the consequences will be theirs. But at least Spitzer and Weiner have been rejected and will not wield any political power.
It’s now nearly a given that Virginia will have the most corrupt governor in its history. Terry McAuliffe is a self-dealer who will use the state to build a platform for Hillary 2016 and line his own pockets. That’s what he does. Evidently a majority of Virginians either don’t know that, or they do and don’t have a problem with it. It’s only a matter of time before Gov. Rick Perry shows up in the Old Dominion to poach its non-government businesses. How many gun manufacturers will Virginia have left after four years (unless McAuliffe’s term ends early due to prison) of an extremely anti-Second Amendment governor? It’s too easy to pick up and move now, and Texas is just too inviting.
“Apparatchik” is defined as as unquestioningly loyal subordinate: a subordinate who is unquestioningly loyal to a powerful political leader or organization. You can find a cadre of Obama apparatchiks here. They are known as the Editorial Board of the NY Times. It is claimed that this board operates independently of the regular “news operations” but if no one objects to it, well….
I was going to title this “The Devil Wears Pravda.”
Pravda is the Russian government information outlet, unflinchingly loyal to the leader of the Communist government. The NY Times editorial board has become the US version of Pravda. It has become a pathetic, apologetic, partisan, left wing shadow of itself. It is sodden with democrat bias. It is essentially an arm of the Obama Progressive Movement and the National Democratic Committee.
What it cannot do is tell the truth. The board is an Obama propaganda machine. Yesterday they posted an editorial entitled “Insurance Policies Not Worth Keeping”.
In it, they decide what’s worth keeping and what is not despite a complete absence of facts. But more importantly, they send a very important message- lying is acceptable to get what you want.
“He clearly misspoke.”
“Congressional Republicans have stoked consumer fears and confusion with charges that the health care reform law is causing insurers to cancel existing policies and will force many people to pay substantially higher premiums next year for coverage they don’t want. That, they say, violates President Obama’s pledge that if you like the insurance you have, you can keep it.
“Mr. Obama clearly misspoke when he said that. ”
Misspoke? This is astonishing – it is a lie in itself. Obama didn’t misspeak. He LIED.
It could be argued that Obama misspoke when he claimed that premiums would go down 3000% when he meant to say that premiums would go down an average of $2500 per year (and that was another lie). That’s closer to what one might call misspeaking.
Let’s revisit what Obama said one more time:
“No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”
Obama probably said it hundreds of times and he knew it wasn’t true. He and his aides knew that the truth wouldn’t sell:
More from the NY Times today: “The former official added that in the midst of a hard-fought political debate “if you like your plan, you can probably keep it” isn’t a salable point.
They knew the truth wouldn’t sell. This wasn’t misspeaking. This was wholesale deceit and the point cannot be made too strenuously. The President of the United States and the democrat Congress sold America a lie.
The Times’ apparatchiks then spend the rest of their apologia defending Obama’s big lie:
“But insurers are not allowed to abandon enrollees. They must offer consumers options that do comply with the law, and they are scrambling to retain as many of their customers as possible with new policies that are almost certain to be more comprehensive than their old ones.”
And they spend the rest of the editorial defending the lie.
“Indeed, in all the furor, people forget how terrible many of the soon-to-be-abandoned policies were. Some had deductibles as high as $10,000 or $25,000 and required large co-pays after that, and some didn’t cover hospital care.
“This overblown controversy has also obscured the crux of what health care reform is trying to do, which is to guarantee that everyone can buy insurance without being turned away or charged exorbitant rates for pre-existing conditions and that everyone can receive benefits that really protect them against financial or medical disaster, not illusory benefits that prove inadequate when a crisis strikes.”
“What health care reform is trying to do.”
This is distraction. It is deflection. It is dishonest. What they needed to be was honest, but the Times doesn’t agree.
The NY Post sees Obama going from “Bullsh*t to dishonesty.”
“Obama denounced the individual mandate to purchase health insurance during the primaries to get to Hillary’s left, but his stated reason was that it wouldn’t be fair to force people to buy health insurance if they couldn’t afford it. You could argue he covered himself by including in the law large subsidies — your income can be four times the poverty line ($94,000) and you still qualify for aid.
“He said he would close Guantanamo but that was just campaign blather for suckers — an applause line, not a serious policy proposal. As any student of the matter knew, there wasn’t a better alternative, and nobody really cares about Guantanamo detainees anyway. It was just opportunistic Bush-bashing.
“This week was something new. It was the week Obama was revealed to be a stone-cold liar.”
Obama’s lies are so egregious that even WaPo gave Obama Four Pinocchios.
There are a number of ways one could summarize the NY Times position, but “the end justifies the means” is probably the most accurate.
Obama and the NY Times will decide. They know what’s best for you. You are too stupid to make your own choices.
You don’t even deserve the truth.
No, you can’t keep your plan and you can’t keep your doctor. For one woman, that could be fatal:
“Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive, and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers.
“But in January, United Healthcare sent me a letter announcing that they were pulling out of the individual California market. The company suggested I look to Covered California starting in October.”
Should she lose her battle, would it be fair to say Obama killed her?
The Times go to great lengths to defend what is being done here but the truth remains- Obama lied and they are endorsing his lying so that he and the rest of his Progressives can force upon you what they and they alone decide is best.
Just like Stalin.
Just like Hitler.
Just like Mussolini.
Just like Gaddafi.
Just like Mubarak.
Just like Mugabe.
This is how it always begins. They impose their will on people. They knew what was best for you. Once you get past the need for the truth anything is possible.
Music lovers from many area congregations filled Ridgewood Christian Reformed Church Sunday evening November 3rd
RIDGEWOOD – Music lovers from many area congregations filled Ridgewood Christian Reformed Church Sunday evening [November 3] to celebrate and try out a brand-new hymnal jointly published by two denominations prominent in northern New Jersey, the Christian Reformed Church and Reformed Church in America.
The service moved through major themes in the life of Jesus Christ, sampling a variety of traditional hymns, contemporary music, spirituals, and songs from foreign lands from the new “Lift Up Your Hearts” hymnal.
Featured singers, instrumentalists and speakers came from the Ridgewood congregation and Cedar Hill Christian Reformed Church in Wyckoff, Covenant Christian Reformed Church in North Haledon, Faith Community Christian Reformed Church in Wyckoff, and Midland Park Christian Reformed Church, joined by participants from area Reformed Church in America congregations.
The Ridgewood church, led by the Rev. Mary Stegink since last year, is one of the first in the Northeast to adopt the new hymnal for regular Sunday use.
“Lift Up Your Hearts” has over 800 songs selected by a joint team of Christian Reformed and Reformed Church editors, including Claudia Godoy-Cortes, former Spanish teacher at Eastern Christian High School and co-leader of the worship team at Bridgeway Church in Haledon.
The hymnal is issued by Faith Alive Christian Resources, the publisher that has jointly served both denominations since 2004 in line with an ecumenical agreement “to find ways in which to work collaboratively.”
The “Rejoice in the Lord” hymnal, widely used in the Reformed Church, was published in 1989 and the current edition of the Christian Reformed “Psalter Hymnal” in 1987. Faith Alive explains that though the “gospel message doesn’t change,” the “desire for a new hymnal for a new generation fits with the reality that a hymnal has a lifespan of about 20 years.” In line with worship styles in increasing use, the hymnal is available in digital form for screen projection of the words and music notes.
For further information: The Rev. Mary Stegink, or administrator Joyce Monsma, Ridgewood Christian Reformed Church (201) 445-1832 or [email protected].
Also see: https://liftupyourheartshymnal.org
Affordable Care Act Could Be Further Hamstrung By Shortage Of Doctors
At Current Rate, As Many As 52,000 Primary Care Physicians Needed By 2025
November 4, 2013 6:37 PM
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A doctor shortage is threatening to make the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act even more difficult — and it could create lines for care and services.
New Yorkers are notorious for wanting things immediately, and that includes medical care.
But even doctors who support Obamacare say there could be delays due to more patients and fewer doctors, CBS 2’s Dick Brennan reported Monday.
“It’s like shopping during Christmas time. I mean, you’re going to have a tough time if you have all of these people demanding services at the same time,” said Dr. Steven Lamm of the NYU School of Medicine.
Lamm said the Affordable Care Act could mean an explosion of demand for doctors and services, but will the system be able to handle it?
Christie vs Buono Election Pits School Choice against the NJEA
November 4, 2013
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, One issue playing an very significant role just blow the surface to this gubernatorial election between Gov. Chris Christie and Democratic candidate rival for governor Barbara Buono is education reform .
So far the only people that seem keenly aware of this is the NJEA with its over the top support for Democratic candidate Barbara Buono . While the press has simply ignored the issue Bruono and the teachers union have campaigned vigoriously .
A comparison on educational positions between Republican Governor Christie and Democratic candidate for governor state Sen. Barbara Buono show a stark difference on educational policy.
According to the Bergen record Christie and Buono have nearly opposite views when it comes to education – especially on school funding, vouchers and preschool. Indeed, the governor has long sparred with the state’s largest teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association, while Buono has been warmly supported by it.
Christie: The governor wants to give companies tax credits for helping low-income families pay for private tuitions. He argues children trapped in failing schools deserve better choices and competition will improve traditional district options.
He bolstered total state aid for education to a record $12.4 billion this year. But direct aid to districts, known as formula aid, is $7.85 billion – and some district leaders say they have barely climbed back to prerecession levels of state aid in the wake of cuts Christie imposed in 2010 during the fiscal crisis.
Christie increased funding for free preschool slots for poor urban children slightly this year but did not expand the program to more districts despite previous state plans to do so.
He championed a new law that made it harder for teachers to earn and keep tenure and required more rigorous teacher evaluations.
In higher education, Christie had opposed the so-called Dream Act, which would allow in-state tuition rates at public colleges for students who were brought here illegally as children. He recently said in a debate that he would revisit the issue.
Buono: The state senator is against vouchers (educational choice for the poor) , saying they drain precious resources from traditional public schools (failed Abbott schools) . She has endorsed having some quality charters as labs for innovation but says they have been overemphasized by Christie; she wants local voters to approve any new charters.
As an author of the School Funding Reform Act of 2008 (Abbott Schools) , Buono says she wants to fully fund the formula; the state has not allocated as much as the formula requires for aid to districts. She said accomplishing that goal would need to be phased in. Christie has tried to revise the formula to slightly trim extra aid for at-risk children.
Buono also wants to expand public preschool, full-day kindergarten and after-school enrichment programs.
Buono supports the Dream Act. She has also pledged to reform the system that makes higher-education funding subject to the vagaries of the state budgeting process.
By anyone’s standard out side public education the Abbott School districts has been a very expensive colossal failure , and a prime reason property taxes are out of control making it absolutely essential for those looking to enhance educational opportunities to the poor to defeat the NJEA and Barbra Buono .
the above photo of poets (l to r) James Gwyn (MC for the event), Susanna Rich, and Ed Romond.
42 and 14: A Tribute to Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, and Baseball Held October 26, 2013 Ridgewood Christian Reformed Church Hosts: Jim Gwyn and Emily Rose
Here is a link to poetry event photos by Emily B. Wilson, of Emily Photography.
Maura DeNicola for Bergen County Freeholder with Governor Chris Christie
Christie’s cottails are wild card in whether Democrats retain control of legislature
TRENTON — Outwardly, most Democrats are confident about retaining control of the Legislature tomorrow, when all 120 seats in the state Senate and Assembly are up for grabs
But they can’t ignore the looming threat at the top of the ticket, with polls showing Republican Gov. Chris Christie leading Democrat Barbara Buono from anywhere between 18 and 33 percentage points.
No matter how rosy Democratic legislative candidates’ internal polls look, if their candidate for governor gets blown out by 20 points or more, all bets are off. (Friedman/Star-Ledger)
Photo credit: Boyd A. Loving Electrical fire forces evacuation of Ridgewood High School
November 4,2013
Boyd A. Loving
8:13 AM
Ridgewood NJ, An electrical fire in a second floor classroom forced the temporary evacuation of Ridgewood High School at approximately 7:30 on Monday morning. Ridgewood Fire Department personnel snuffed the blaze out with a hand held dry chemical fire extinguisher.
The fire was contained to a malfunctioning electric heater, however smoke spread beyond the affected classroom requiring firefighters to use high velocity fans to eject it. No injuries were reported and students, faculty, and administrative personnel were able to return to the building 30 minutes after firefighters arrived. Traffic on streets surrounding the school was gridlocked until fire & police personnel cleared the scene.
Bergen Freeholder GOP candidates share views with The Record’s editorial board
Monday October 7, 2013, 9:55 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Bergen County’s three Republican freeholders disagree on some major issues confronting county government, including police consolidation and pay-to-play reform.
Those differences emerged repeatedly during a wide-ranging 90-minute interview Wednesday with The Record’s editorial board.
Critics warn that bill would widen NSA’s reach
Saturday November 2, 2013, 11:49 PM
BY ELLEN NAKASHIMA
THE WASHINGTON POST
The Record
WASHINGTON — Privacy advocates and at least one U.S. senator are expressing concern that legislation introduced Thursday would not only endorse the National Security Agency’s collection of all Americans’ phone records, but would also give the agency permission to collect massive amounts of their email records.
The bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which advanced out of the Senate Intelligence Committee, would codify limits that a special court has placed on NSA’s use of the records.
But if the FISA Improvements Act became law, Congress would be validating expansive powers that have been claimed by the NSA and upheld by a court — but never explicitly written into statute — to harvest the phone and email records of millions of Americans, the advocates say.
“The bill that the intelligence committee voted on this week would expressly authorize this bulk collection for the first time, and that would be a huge step backward for the rights of law-abiding Americans,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., one of four committee members who voted against moving the bill.
