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Government Study Shows Cap-and-Trade Will Raise Energy Prices

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I’m amazed at the confusion of the current health care debate. I just don’t understood why any middle class American would want to accept the status quo of health care. The conservative arguments about why they would not want a government public option are the same arguments you could apply to the current health care system. What confuses me, this should not be a conservative or liberal debate. It should be a debate about what is best for Americans v.s. profit orientated decisions made by insurance companies looking out for their bottom line.
Rationing - health insurance companies do that now. If you have coverage and your level of sickness is beyond the expense they are willing to cover, they will drop you in a heart beat. It happens to thousands of middle class families after years of paying their premiums. They find themselves with a serious illness that is beyond the threshold of what an insurance company is willing to pay and they drop you. To stay alive your only option is to go bankrupt. Lets not create false facts for a bill that does not even exists. Instead, lets stick to the facts that are now part of insurance companies’ decisions to ration health care based on profit and greed so insurance CEO’s can afford their million dollar mortgages and million dollar expenditures to buy out politicians. Just think of how many lives those millions could save if their insurance policy would of not been dropped by greedy CEOs and conservatives who live off of middle class premium payments that turn out be nothing but donated money to insurance companies to do with what they want (reminds me of how wall street handled my 401K money). Yes, insurance companies want to maintain the status quo and is willing to spend millions of your premium dollars to do so, but if your degree of sickness is beyond their threshold of expenses, they won’t spend another dime to take care of your health needs.
I had a friend who had a very serious illness that required his leg to be amputated. The insurance company said they would not cover him because when he was a young boy he had broken that same leg. Yep, they got him on some pre-condition clause in his contract. After years of paying his insurance premiums, he lost his leg and had to foot the bill. Maybe you screamers should spend more time reading your insurance policy fine print and be asking Insurance Companies CEOS the same tough questions you are asking Obama. But then again, insurance companies are going to tell you what you want to hear until the time comes when you need coverage and they say “we never said that”. Remember, they have the best lawyers money can buy. Meaning, you will always lose any argument with an insurance company.
Death Panels - Why are middle class Americans listening to Insurance company mouth pieces like Fox news, Shaun Hannity, Bill O’Reilly who are millionaires (or at least far from being considered middle class) with the best health insurance money can buy. You really think they are facing the same problems middle class families face? Besides, Fox news is a PR dream for conservative and insurance CEO’s agenda of maintaining the status quo. As long as this PR propaganda machine is supporting their million dollar scams over middle class families, do you really think insurance companies are not going to take care of their golden boys’ health needs. If anything, insurance company CEOs are smart business people (or crooks depending on how you look at it) and they are going to take care of the health needs of their PR promoters so they can continue to make millions off the backs and suffering of middle class Americans. For you, Mr and Mrs middle class, your only worth is as good as your premium payments until the insurance company’s death panel decides your life is not worth paying for when your expense for health care is beyond their boundary of coverage. In other words, Ms Palin, we now have death panels who decide what illness they will and will not cover and we even get the privilege of paying premiums for years before they decide our fate. These death panels are called insurance companies.
Status Quo - If the screamers at town hall meetings want to continue the status quo of paying their insurance premiums to make insurance company CEOs millions by rationing what illness they will and will not cover, my hope is that the screamers’ fate is not placed in the hands of the death panel boards at health insurance companies. If that is what conservative screamers want, than keep listening to the lies and distortion of Fox news and the paid mouth pieces of Insurance Companies. Your dream, or should we say nightmare, may come true. I have one question to conservative screamers. Why would you put your life in the hands of million dollar corporations whose decisions are profit driven over the government? Why would you trust them, over a non-profit public option? With so much evidence of how the status quo is killing Americans for profit (not even reasonable profit, but outlandish greed), I don’t get why middle class, Republicans and Democrats, would not demand health care reform. This is not a Party problem, not a well to do American problem, but a middle class problem that is being taken advantage of by Corporate CEOs whose bathroom is probably bigger than most middle class American homes. Besides, remember the last time we listen to conservative Karl Rove scare tactics of lies and distortion. It got us in an Iraq war based on lies that cost millions of tax payer dollars. Yep, conservative tactics are pretty obvious or did we all forget. I’m not ready to put my trust in whatever agenda the party of do nothing but complain without solutions may have in mind other than keeping the rich, richer so they can continue getting lucrative campaign donations to maintain the status quo. I spent 23 years in the military. Had the best health care money could buy. Guess who ran it? The government, not some profit orientated health insurance company who decides if my health needs are too expensive for their bottom line

steve of FL 7:17PM August 13, 2009

Global warming will always be debateable but Energy Independence is not. Energy efficiency in the US along with a move to Nuclear and Renewables will only be possible if you put price pressures in place that promote investment. Whether Cap and Trade or Carbon Tax, we as a country will not invest in the alternatives including Nuclear if price pressures aren't demanding it. A Nuclear Plant is a $7 bil investment. Why build a Nuclear plant when a coal fired plant is much cheaper to build and maintain. There is no demand for nuclear power today. A Nuclear mandate will never work given the "not in my backyard" attitude of local politicans and constituents. There was a reason Nuclear Plants grew in the 1970's. Oil prices were too high, our enemies were getting richer, thus there was a true market need for alternatives. This is the same reason this is up for discussion again. $100+ oil stifles the American economy while our enemies grow rich. Put in the price pressues and you will see America change for the better.

LIChris of PA 12:52PM August 10, 2009

Government should study and think about helping poverty stricken unemployed with startup money. It would take several months to get furniture and a down payment for a vehicle. Not 1500 dollars but vouchers? Government should study why furniture companys spend 70 dollars on supplys. Then companys put a price tag of near 300 dollars!! Thats crazy. Software and tech companys purposely engraving or placing bad menu words to confuse patron or buyer. Such as acid pro music software. That company is guilty. Anyone can put a box with correct words or helpful termnology. Such as add instrument words and add instrument sound box and equalize instument box. And more troubleshooting or problem solving information. Also in hollywood. Why is film co always producing boring or clowny comedy films? Very little rambo or non pornography martial art films. They know now about what they create. It is ignorant because they are saying no to millions of dollars. I will chose karate kid over jet li a bunch. Also a low amount of fitted cotton jackets vs polyester. Cotton is way more comfortable. Hipness is being targeted and no conspiracy law to stop it. These groups are caught.A minority group would be only responsible for this much hatefulness!!!! Woe to you business men. psa99:9-outside pray. Be careful. 1 corinth 14:26. Col 3:11. Choose righteousness especially when in doubt. Not selfcentered or self righteous.

andrew tuck of IN 1:45PM August 07, 2009

The average American is going to be stuck footing the bill here while the rich (including your local congressman) continue to lounge in their mansions and fly their private planes. According to this study by Princeton University...
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/princeton_university_report_of.html
...the wealthiest 7% of individuals account for half of global emissions?? Unreal...Things like this http://tinyurl.com/lqzy92 better take off or things are going to get ugly

Tom D. of NJ 1:02PM August 07, 2009

We don't need a government study to tell us that Cap and Trade will raise energy prices. Just look at Europe.
Europe uses about 30% lower energy per person than the US does. And their prices for gasoline, diesel, and electricity are two to three times what ours are. This data indicates it will take very large increases in the price of hydrocarbon based fuels to achieve even a medium size reduction in consumption.
Last year when gasoline prices in the US rose from two to four dollars a gallon, consumption dropped about 5%. This equates to approximately a 1% reduction national in CO2 output. The Cap and Trade bill requires a 17% reduction in CO2 by 2020 and an 83% reduction by 2050.
Prices will rise by a lot more than any of the Democrats claim.

Bob of TX 1:47PM August 06, 2009

I hope this shameful Waxman-Markey bill gets hosed, it's nothing more than more Big Government bureaucracy and those two clowns need to be ousted in 2010. They should focus on more important issues at hand, tax reform and the War! I am certainly curious about HR 1207 with having 282 co-sponsors and Cap and Trade only had one, why is this bill not in a vote yet?

Mr. Big of FL 9:38AM August 06, 2009

Of course, us tax payers will be the losers again. Other countries already abandoned this for it did not work. Now the USA wants to get in it. What is their goal, to raise more money! I don't see how more taxes make a better environment, the air cleaner, etc. Idiotic to charge the farmer for their cows' emission. If I was the farmer I just say well, then do without meat and see how the public likes it then. Global warming is stupid. There are other ways we can clean up our act! Just look at the trash on the highways and see how people are serious about cleaning up their act?

Viola Perry of TX 8:27AM August 06, 2009

One point left out of R.L's analysis is the market positioning of the the religious leaders of the Global Warming hysteria.
They are in-place to make the millions that the every-day citizens of this country will pay in increased energy costs.

R.Koch of TX 12:09AM August 06, 2009

Daily I read editorials, comments and letters-to-the-editor from all over the nation. Whereas when the House passed the bill it was maybe 2-to-1 against cap and trade, opinion now seems to be at least 6-to-1 against.
If instead of a complex and risky cap-and-trade system the United States had a national mandate to replace coal generation plants with natural gas and nuclear energy, plus if we replaced our commuter cars with battery-powered electric cars, we would drastically reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce CO2 emissions faster and beyond the proposed cap and trade targets.
-- Robert Moen, www.energyplanUSA.com

Rmoen of NV 12:18PM August 05, 2009

There have been many alternating periods of cooling and warming throughout the Earth’s past. The most recent period began with with the Pleistocene Ice Age starting 110,000 years ago and giving way, 14,700 years ago, to the Bolling warm period for 800 years. This in turn gave way to the Older Dryas cooling for 300 years, then the Allerod warming for 700 years, and so on, until the cooling of the Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1850. Since 1850, we have generally had a period known as the "Modern Warming". Although there was a period from 1945 -1984 (period of massive industrial expansion) when global temperatures dropped enough to cause many scientists to predict an imminent Ice Age. However, in general, the period from 1850 to present has been one of the most stable climate periods in the earth’s history. Many astronomers and climatologists predict we are headed for a new cooling period as our current interglacial period comes to an end.
Human-caused climate change is being promoted with religious zeal and there are eco-fundamentalist organizations which will do anything to silence critics. They have their holy books, dogma and their prophet, Al Gore. These modern day Druids are promoting a story which is frightening us witless, using guilt and urging penance for our carbon footprint sins. They’d like to burn me (and othere like me) at the stake - but then there’s that non-eco friendly, wood burning and smoke thing...
Further, it is obvious that solar cycles are responsible for much of the Earth’s climatic variation over time. Also, in view of the fact that there have been dozens of periods of warming and cooling, stretching back tens of millions of years, it should be apparent that these cycles were not anthropogenic in origin.
It is difficult for nonscientists to understand or engage in the debate over what causes climate change, and whether or not it can be stopped by new taxes, regulations, lifestyle restrictions, and slower growth, because dissenting voices are shouted down by true believers in the scientific community - who claim they alone have the authority to speak for the civilization they despise.
The debate on Global Warming would indeed be over if the religious hysteria in support of it were to subside, and the true facts and the motives of its proponents made known to the public.

R.L. Schaefer of CA 12:00PM August 05, 2009