By U.S. REP. MIKE ROGERS
Here is one of the secrets that Washington hopes that you don’t notice about the new $2.6 trillion health care law. If you don’t like the law’s slew of new mandates and taxes on families, doctors and employers, you can get an exemption.
If you don’t want the government picking your family’s insurance plan and your doctor, you can opt out. If you don’t want to pay higher premiums and watch your health care costs skyrocket, you can get a free pass.
How do you receive an exemption to the job-killing health care law? It’s simple: all you have to do is become politically connected. Beginning last fall, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius began awarding waivers to unions and corporations that couldn’t comply with one of the law’s countless new mandates.
But if the law is so great, shouldn’t it apply to everyone?
Here’s how it happened. Many employers provide workers with ‘mini-med? health plans, which is low-cost insurance with higher deductibles and smaller annual limits. It’s not full coverage, but for millions of hourly workers it’s better than being uninsured. Companies complained to Sebelius that they would have to drop this coverage because it doesn’t meet the health law’s unreasonable requirement that all plans include comprehensive benefits.
Some of the administration’s closest allies ? including 43 unions ? were quickly told that they didn’t have to comply with the law. The latest count is that 222 unions and corporations have been granted waivers to portions of the health care law by President Obama’s health secretary. The list includes names like the Service Employees International Union and McDonald’s.
More mandates are scheduled to take effect this year that will make it even harder for businesses to afford the coverage that they currently offer. When it’s all said and done, HHS is expected to release more than 30,000 pages of new regulations that will create an impossible compliance task for employers and families alike.
This charade is the clearest indication yet that the health law has failed to live up to the president’s often repeated promise that if you like your health plan, you can keep it. That promise has already been broken for workers with mini-med plans, and millions of other small business health plans will soon be deemed ‘unacceptable coverage? in the eyes of HHS bureaucrats.
I believe every American deserves an exemption from the health care law, not just political friends of the Obama administration and Fortune 500 companies.
That is why I support repealing the law and passing commonsense reforms that lower costs for everyone and put families in charge of their health care, not the government.
Make no mistake, most people won’t be lucky enough to get an exemption from the secretary of HHS.
Families in Michigan are still asking ‘how does the health care law impact me?? Well, the unfortunate truth is that by 2014, every American will be required by law to carry government-designed health insurance plans that will cost at least $2,100 more than current plans. Choice and competition in health insurance will be severely limited. Doctors and hospitals will be handcuffed by new federal mandates. And without a waiver from every new mandate included in the law, most Americans will find that government-run health care is not ‘reform.?
We can and must do better.
U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers is a Republican representing Michigan’s 8th District. Rep. Rogers wrote this for the Jan. 18, 2011 Detroit News edition.

‘The most effective way to sell a deceptive program is to appeal to people’s sense of patriotism.?
Jefferson didn’t say that, Reagan didn’t say it, Ron Paul didn’t either’I said it.
I said it because nothing has angered me more than how the Obama administration uses patriotic references to peddle an outrageous slap in the face to all U.S. military personnel, including reservists and=2 0veterans, who have been wounded in action.
This ignominious episode began with a questionable report on the internet about the President’s staff tossing around ideas on how to save $540 million annual cost to the federal government for treatment of military personnel who were wounded while on active duty. One suggestion was for wounded veterans to get their own health insurance to pay for their injuries suffered in the line of duty.
I called this internet report questionable because the report had President Obama, who did, in fact, discuss the proposal, mouthing such outlandish statements as: ‘Nobody made these guys go to war, Now they whine about paying the cost of their choice.? And ‘I’d have thought that the patriotic thing to do would be to try to help reduce the nation’s deficit. I guess I underestimated the selfishness of some of my fellow Americans.?
These words, however, were not Obama’s. It was a fictional quote written by the writing staff of Jon Stewart, on Comedy Central. Furthermore, although this is not what Obama said, the president did, in fact, consider this proposal a valid one, until the flak he got from veteran’s organizations and some Senators forced him to back-pedal and broom the idea.
Craig Roberts, PR manager for the American Legion, had this to say about that: ‘The President’s avowed purpose in doing that is to, quote, ‘make the insurance companies pay their fair share?. It’s not the Blue Cross that puts soldiers in harm’s way, it’s the federal government.? Plop. The government’s obligation to treat wounded soldiers fell on deaf ears. ‘The president,? said Roberts, ? deflected any discussion when it got into any moral issues.?
Which brings us to the crux of this distasteful fiasco. Whether a soldier or sailor volunteered or was drafted, is immaterial. He is putting his life in the hands of a government at war. And in the name of human decency it is unconscionable for that government to shift the burden of the country’s fiscal problems on the backs of wounded soldiers and sailors who have already sacrificed so much for their country.
For this administration to even ser iously consider such a proposal’and tie it to patriotism’is a moral abomination, a disgusting lack of responsibility, and a gross misuse of political power.
Jim Moore is a WWII vet and political writer from Tallahassee, FL, back in the Clarkston area for a two-month vacation.

We have been so embodied by outside sources rendering news of what appears real. Most often, it’s merely second, third, fourth and who knows how many distortions affected the truth at any given situation.
One of the most obvious contributors of today’s dysfunction is the lack of personal relationships with real life human beings. Socialization brings communication with others; it minimizes internalizing the moment-to-moment surrealism. What the ears hear without clarification may not be all the truth. Without the interaction, we compromise reality. That’s what the television, computers, cell phones and other methods bring.
When TV news comes into our homes, most individuals believe all and take it, as it must be true without a second thought or question. How much un-truth could any one human hold without inner the risk of inner conflict?
The real test to truth is when we can express a viewpoint with another human being who has another view to their version of truth. How does one respond? This is an opportunity to ponder, table the matter, and consider it questionable until further data. Mostly, when a thought seed is planted in the consciousness, it will show itself in full form un-expectedly.
To respect one another’s views, is to be open and accommodating to self and others.
We are a global society; this is reality in today’s life. Technology has definitely merged us as one planet and it is vital to continue to educate ourselves in order to embrace others.
The more we know who we are as humans the better we can tolerate the differences among us. This is our common ground; ‘we are alike in that we are different.?
Before allowing the separation of ‘surreal? to take hold of our reality, let’s get ‘Real?, with one another and ourselves. Open the window of possibility and don’t let the fear of different thoughts be the enemy. There is no enemy out there; it mostly resides within each of us, when we do not trust the process of growth through relationships.
As we welcome this New Year 2009, hopefully we are one step closer to testing reality by communicating with open mind and heart; the good medicine to bring peaceful co-existence on this global community we share. If this concept is too simple, the alternative will continue with the complicated process of separatism. Balance can only be achieved by desiring to know the difference.
Each of us makes a difference. Indifference is like taking a sabbatical from human interaction. Let’s keep on spreading the seeds of relatedness?
Maria Rotondo Mark owns MakeOver Place salon, 5888 Dixie Hwy. Call 248-623-9348.