Obamacare to Cut Jobs of Artifical Hip, Knee Maker

Stryker, the Kalamazoo-based maker of artificial hips and knees, will cut 5% of its global workforce by the end of next year to reduce costs in the face of new fees on device makers required by the U.S. health care law.

The job cuts will reduce annual pretax operating costs by more than $100 million beginning in 2013, when the medical-device excise tax is scheduled to take effect, Stryker said Thursday in a statement. Stryker had more than 20,000 employees as of Dec. 31, according to Bloomberg News data.

Stryker expects to record $85 million to $95 million of the expense in the fourth quarter of 2011.

"These actions are part of our ongoing focus on quality, innovation and cost, and position the company to continue to provide strong, consistent growth in a changing environment," CEO Stephen MacMillan said.

Reposted from Freep

Harry Reid Complains About New Health Care Law

Nancy Pelosi said they would have to pass the bill so people could learn what is in it. Harry Reid has learned something he doesn't like. Medicare payments to hospitals will be going down.

Pelosi's "Trick" to Pass Heath Care Bill Debacle

For months, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and President Obama held secret meetings in an attempt to pass government-run health care. Then, after losing a Senate seat in Massachusetts and their filibuster-proof majority along with it, the Democrats publicly stated that they would work with Republicans on health care... but we have just learned their true intentions.

President Obama publicly called for a bi-partisan approach, even asking Republicans for an open televised session. But the truth has been exposed through news articles reporting that Speaker Pelosi's top health care aide is telling insiders their real plan.

Their secret plan is to pass two bills, using a procedure called reconciliation to avoid a filibuster in the Senate. One of the bills will be the pro-abortion Senate bill, which includes taxpayer funding for abortion. Then comes the trick...

Pelosi's top health care aide said, "the reconciliation bill would trump the Senate bill... There's a certain skill, there's a trick, but I think we'll get it done." Given the Congressional leadership's commitment to federal funding for abortion, you can be sure the trick will include abortion funding.

Once again we see that the will of the American people doesn't matter, and the Congressional leadership will stop at nothing to pass their bloated "healthcare" bill that will ruin our helathcare system and plunge our country into unsustainable debt! We must keep up the pressure and make sure that they are stopped.

The pro-abortion lobby is salivating at the prospect of federally-funded abortions. According to Planned Parenthood, "we've never had a better chance" for a government takeover of health care and the funds for the largest expansion of abortion in America since Roe v. Wade.

This is outrageous. We all know that Washington politicians have a knack for saying one thing and doing another, but this takes duplicity to new heights. The stakes for protecting innocent life could not be higher and, as this news further demonstrates, the pro-abortion forces will stop at nothing to get taxpayer dollars for their work.

[Life News]

Healthcare Reform Bills: Expensive Ponzi Schemes, says Senators

Calling the Senate health care bill a package that Ponzi schemer "Bernie Madoff would really envy," Republican Sen. Jon Kyl said Sunday that the legislation to be debated in December is long on promises but short on accounting.

"When they claim a savings ... in the first 10 years, that's because they start collecting taxes in 2010 they don't start spending money till 2014," said Kyl, helping to kick off the debate senators voted a day earlier to start on the $848 billion package

"Any private or any publicly traded business that claimed it was making a profit because it booked revenue over 10 years but only booked expenses over six years would wind up in jail. That's what this bill does, that's just many of the frauds and hat tricks in this bill," Kyl said on "Fox News Sunday."

Coburn said he sees three problems with the current bill.

"One, 61 percent of health care in this country is already run by the government. Name one that works well," he said, calling Medicare "highly inefficient" and going broke.

"Number two is, this -- this bill creates 70 new government agencies with thousands of new bureaucrats ... with 1,597 different instances where the secretary's mandated to write rules and regulations. ... The third point that I would say is we can fix all these problems, but we have a government-centered approach that is already failing instead of a patient-centered approach. ...There's 11 studies out as of this morning that said both the House bill and the Senate bill will raise premiums, not lower them," he continued.

[Source: Fox News]

The two more of the biggest concerns about the healthcare bills in the Senate and House are:

Mammograms: A government panel recently changed the recommendations for women to receive cancer-screening mammograms from every year starting at 40 to every other year after 50. It is expected that the government will use this to deny coverage to women needing mammograms before 50. Doctors, health officials, celebrities and women and around the nation are outraged at this blatant action to put political expediency above the lives of thousands of American women. Countless women are coming forward to explain that if they had not had a mammogram in their 40s, they would not be alive today. Read more here...

Abortions: The House was able to pass their version of healthcare reform by inserting an amendment banning the use of taxpayer funds for abortion (except in the cases of rape/incest and endangerment of the life of the mother). Democrat leaders, including Obama himself, are plotting to remove the ban in the final bill. This means that, if passed, Obama-Reid-Pelosicare will pay for abortions on demand with tax money collected by hard-working Americans -- whether they think abortion is great or morally tantamount to murdering innocent children. Read more here...