EIGHT WAYS TO OPT OUT OF OBAMACARE

With the deadline to sign up for Obamacare having come and gone, many Americans have decided to “opt out” of President Obama’s signature health care reform law, choosing instead to pay the $95 penalty for sidestepping the individual mandate.

“For many Americans opting out of Obamacare is the best decision they can make, but it's important that they do it the right way—just refusing to buy health insurance and not having another way to pay for catastrophic medical expenses is a mistake,” Sean Parnell, author of the newly-released The Self-Pay Patient, told Breitbart News. “People who want to opt out should be looking at alternatives to conventional health insurance, such as joining a health care sharing ministry or purchasing a fixed benefits policy."

Parnell also strongly advises Americans against opting out and simply paying the “list” price for medical visits and prescription drugs without shopping around, or by relying solely on the local hospital emergency room for routine medical care.

“This approach leaves people who opt out vulnerable to sky-high medical expenses at inflated ‘list’ or ‘chargemaster’ rates, and can result in an inability to obtain needed care because of cost,” Parnell writes on his blog, selfpaypatient.com.

Instead, Parnell recommends the following eight options for those who have opted out of ObamaCare:

1. Join a health care sharing ministry, which are voluntary, charitable membership organizations that share medical expenses among the membership.

Parnell states that Samaritan Ministries, Christian Healthcare Ministries, and Christian Care Ministry are open to practicing Christians, while Liberty HealthShare is open to those who are committed to religious liberty.

Healthcare sharing ministries “operate entirely outside of ObamaCare’s regulations, and typically offer benefits for about half the cost of similar health insurance,” says Parnell. “Members are also exempt from having to pay the tax for being uninsured.”

Via: Breitbart

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Liberal Commercial Talk Radio Disappears in NY, LA, SF in 2014

2014 will mark the beginning of a massive change for liberal talk radio across the country. In New York, WWRL 1600 AM will flip to Spanish-language music and talk, throwing Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, and Alan Colmes off the air. In Los Angeles, KTLK 1150 will be dumping Stephanie Miller, Rhodes, Bill Press and David Cruz off the air in favor of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. In San Francisco, KNEW 960 will leave Miller, Hartmann, and Mike Malloy without a radio home in the market.

Thanks to radio consolidation and the secondary status of leftist talk in major markets across the country, the final death knell for liberal talkers could be tolling. Leftist talkers simply don’t have the same radio draw as conservatives; KTLK was ranked #41 in the market in November 2013, with WWRL registering almost no pulse at all. KNEW registered just an 0.4 in the San Francisco market in December 2013, placing it #31 in the market.

The failure of commercial leftist talk means that only government-sponsored NPR remains in many major markets.

Via: Truth Revolt

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Poll: Americans Say 113th Congress is Worst Ever

An overwhelming majority of Americans say the 113th Congress is the worst in their lifetime, according to a new CNN/ORC International poll released Thursday. 

While nearly three quarters of the respondents said this has been a "do-nothing" Congress, two thirds of those surveyed said the current Congress is the worst in their lifetime, with 28 percent disagreeing.

Editor's Note: Should ObamaCare Be Defunded? Vote in Urgent National Poll 

"That sentiment exists among all demographic and political subgroups. Men, women, rich, poor, young old — all think this year's Congress has been the worst they can remember," Keating Holland, CNN polling director, said.

"Older Americans — who have lived through more congresses — hold more negative views of the 113th Congress than younger Americans. Republicans, Democrats and independents also agree that this has been the worst session of Congress in their lifetimes."

The telephone poll of 1,035 adults nationwide showed that 73 percent say Congress has done nothing to solve the country's problems, with roughly 25 percent disagreeing.

Indeed, less than 60 bills have been passed and signed into law during the past year, according to CNN, and there is not much optimism that next year will be much better.

Fifty-two percent believe the policies of Democratic leaders in Congress would move the country in the wrong direction, and 54 percent think the policies of the Republican leaders would do the same, the survey found. The poll, conducted Dec. 16-19, had a sampling error of plus or minus three percent.

One of the first tests of where Congress is headed in 2014 will be the fight over the debt ceiling, and analysts are somewhat divided about the prospects, reports The Washington Times. 

Via: Newsmax
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Tax Dollars at Work: Trooper Catches Dummy in HOV Lane

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
December 20, 2013 1:17 pm

A Seattle man was pulled over and ticketed Wednesday for driving in the HOV lane without a passenger, despite the driver’s use of a human-looking dummy, KCPQ reports.

State Trooper Anatolly Nazariya believed something was fishy and pulled the driver over, seeing that the passenger, dressed in Seattle Seahawks garb, was in fact fake. The driver was cited with an HOV violation, a fine worth $124.

Via: WFB

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Citizens take law into own hands after cash-strapped Ore. county guts sheriff's office

When budget woes reduced the sheriff's department in one rural Oregon county to a bare-bones force, residents decided to take matters into their own hands -- creating armed patrol groups in defiance of local officials. 

Their decision has raised safety concerns with the county government, which would prefer residents instead hike their own taxes to fund the hiring of trained deputies. But despite the risks, the move stands as a unique, some would say innovative, response to one of the country's most severe local budget crunches. 

The government in Josephine County, where nearly 70 percent of the land is owned by the U.S. government, had long relied on federal timber subsidies to pay the bills. When the feds terminated the funds, county officials scrambled to pass a May 2012 tax levy to make up a nearly $7.5 million budget shortfall.

However, the county's residents voted against the levy, and as a result the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office was gutted. The major crimes unit closed, dozens of prisoners were released from the county jail and the department reduced operations to Monday-Friday, eight hours a day.

The Sheriff’s Office then issued a press release announcing their deputies would only be responding to what they deemed “life-threatening situations.”

Ken Selig -- who was the longest-serving law enforcement officer in all three local agencies when he was forced to retire from the department due to cuts -- told FoxNews.com he found the sheriff’s declaration unacceptable. And he felt compelled to guard his community’s vulnerable members.

Vis Fox News Politics

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[CARTOON] Reason for the Season

Via: California Political Review

Lack aid? Many counties have only pricey plans for ObamaCare

More than half of the counties in 34 states using the federal health insurance exchange lack even a bronze plan that's affordable — by the government's own definition — for 40-year-old couples who make just a little too much for financial assistance, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

Many of these counties are in rural, less populous areas that already had limited choice and pricey plans, but many others are heavily populated, such as Bergen County, N.J., and Philadelphia and Milwaukee counties.

More than a third don't offer an affordable plan in the four tiers of coverage known as bronze, silver, gold or platinum for people buying individual plans who are 50 or older and ineligible for subsidies.

Those making more than 400% of the federal poverty limit — $47,780 for an individual or $61,496 for a couple — are ineligible for subsidies to buy insurance.

The USA TODAY analysis looked at whether premiums for the least expensive plan in any of the metal levels was more than 8% of household income. That's similar to the affordability test used by the federal government to determine whether premiums are so expensive consumers aren't required to buy plans under the Affordable Care Act.

The number of people who earn close to the subsidy cutoff and are priced out of affordable coverage may be a small slice of the estimated 4.4 million people buying their own insurance and ineligible for subsidies. But the analysis clearly shows how the sticker shock hitting many in the middle class, including the self-employed and early retirees, isn't just a perception problem. The lack of counties with affordable plans means many middle-class people will either opt out of insurance or pay too much to buy it.

Via: USA Today

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CNN Poll: GOP has edge in early midterm indicator

Washington (CNN) - Democrats have lost their advantage and Republicans now have a slight edge in the battle for control of Congress, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/ORC International survey released Thursday also indicates that President Barack Obama may be dragging down Democratic congressional candidates, and that the 2014 midterm elections are shaping up to be a low-turnout event, with only three in 10 registered voters extremely or very enthusiastic about voting next year.

Two months ago, Democrats held a 50%-42% advantage among registered voters in a generic ballot, which asked respondents to choose between a Democrat or Republican in their congressional district without identifying the candidates. That result came after congressional Republicans appeared to overplay their hand in the bitter fight over the federal government shutdown and the debt ceiling.

But the Democratic lead evaporated, and a CNN poll a month ago indicated the GOP holding a 49%-47% lead. The new survey, conducted in mid-December, indicates Republicans with a 49%-44% edge over the Democrats.

The 13-point swing over the past two months follows a political uproar over Obamacare, which included the botched rollout of HealthCare.gov and controversy over the possiblity of insurance policy cancelations due primarily to the new health law.

"Virtually all the movement toward the GOP has come among men," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "Fifty-four percent of female voters chose the Democratic candidate in October; 53% pick the Dem now. But among male voters, support for Democratic candidates has gone from 46% in October to just 35% now."

Republicans have a 17-seat advantage in the House and Democrats hold a 55-45 majority in the Senate.

Via: CNN

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Target hackers stole encrypted bank PINs, could make fraudulent withdrawls

BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) — The hackers who attacked Target Corp and compromised up to 40 million credit cards and debit cards also managed to steal encrypted personal identification numbers (PINs), according to a senior payments executive familiar with the situation.

One major U.S. bank fears that the thieves would be able to crack the encryption code and make fraudulent withdrawals from consumer bank accounts, said the executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the data breach is still under investigation.

Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said “no unencrypted PIN data was accessed” and there was no evidence that PIN data has been “compromised.” She confirmed that some “encrypted data” was stolen, but declined to say if that included encrypted PINs.

“We continue to have no reason to believe that PIN data, whether encrypted or unencrypted, was compromised. And we have not been made aware of any such issue in communications with financial institutions to date,” Snyder said by email. “We are very early in an ongoing forensic and criminal investigation.”

The No. 3 U.S. retailer said last week that hackers stole data from as many as 40 million cards used at Target stores during the first three weeks of the holiday shopping season, making it the second-largest data breach in U.S. retail history.

Target has not said how its systems were compromised, though it described the operation as “sophisticated.” The U.S. Secret Service and the Justice Department are investigating. Officials with both agencies have declined comment on the investigations.

The attack could end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars, but it is unclear so far who will bear the expense.

While bank customers are typically not liable for losses because of fraudulent activity on their credit and debit cards, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Santander Bank said they have lowered limits on how much cash customers can take out of teller machines and spend at stores.

Via: Daily Caller

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Jesse Jackson: ‘Duck Dynasty’ star is worse than Rosa Parks’ bus driver

Political activist and former presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson ripped suspended Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson in a statement on Wednesday, saying his actions were worse than that of the bus driver who denied service to Rosa Parks, the Chicago Tribune reported.

“At least the bus driver, who ordered Rosa Parks to surrender her seat to a white person, was following state law,” Jackson said in his statement. “Robertson’s statements were uttered freely and openly without cover of the law, within a context of what he seemed to believe was ‘white privilege.’”

Jackson’s remarks effectively serve as a rebuke to Illinois Republican congressional candidate Ian Bayne’s Dec. 20 email to supporters calling Robertson “the Rosa Parks of our generation” for what Bayne portrayed as an attempt to withstand persecution of Christians.

While various Republican figures have tried to defend Robertson’s statements to GQmagazine regarding homosexuality by arguing that he was expressing his religious beliefs,there has been less attention paid to his allegations that Black people he knew were “singing and happy” while living under Louisiana’s Jim Crow laws.

“I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’ — not a word,” Robertson told GQ. “Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

Jackson’s statement also called for executives at A&E Network, which airs Robertson’s show, and Cracker Barrel, which sells Duck Dynasty-related merchandise, to meet with himself and representatives from not only his organization, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, but the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the National Organization for Women.

“It is unacceptable that a personality who has been given such a large platform would benefit from racist and anti-gay comments,” the statement read.

Cracker Barrel reversed course on Sunday and resumed selling the show’s merchandise after fans of the program complained.

Via: The Raw Story

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The doctor won’t see you? Analysts warn ObamaCare plans could resemble Medicaid

Those signing up for private health care coverage on the ObamaCare exchanges may be in for an unpleasant surprise -- they'll have insurance, but they might have trouble getting the doctor to see them. 

As hundreds of thousands enroll for coverage beginning Jan. 1, analysts are warning that the plans are likely to give them access to fewer doctors and hospitals. So much so, they warn, that the system could begin to resemble Medicaid, the health care program for low-income Americans. 

"Indeed, I think this will eventually be like Medicaid," said Merrill Matthews, director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance. 

Matthews said the only way many insurers are going to be able to control costs is by "simply clamping down on the amount they are willing to pay." 

Just as with Medicaid, analysts warn that if payments get too low, many doctors might start refusing to see patients. That will leave more and more patients jockeying to see fewer and fewer doctors. 

They emphasize, then, that having health insurance won't necessarily translate into access to health care. 

"About half of the physicians in many communities refuse to take Medicaid patients because the payment system is just too low," said James Capretta, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. 

Doug Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, suggested some of the plans on the exchanges are going in the same direction. 

Via: Fox News Politics

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[CARTOON] Santa Snooping

Via: California Political Review

Wal-Mart Blamed for Obama Economic Policies and ObamaCare Caused Cuts

Fired By Walmart for Christmas

Written by Michal Rozworski, City Watch LA,  12/24/13

SEASON MEANING-The holidays are meant to be a joyful time. Religion aside, they are a time for family and celebration. For many workers at Walmart, however, the holidays are a source of stress and challenge. Stores become figurative, sometimes even literal, battlefields, making already-taxing work more demanding, even chaotic. At the same time, low wages and inadequate benefits stretch year-end budgets, leaving little room for the joys of the holidays.

On average, US retailers make 20% of their sales during the holiday shopping season. Walmart does not publicize holiday revenue figures, but its fourth-quarter sales are almost a third higher than the rest of the year. With profits similarly higher, Walmart and its shareholders have cause to celebrate during the holidays, especially as the company has been aggressively buying back shares, using its profits to line the pockets of investors with over $15 billion since the summer.

Walmart “associates” (the term Walmart uses for its employees), on the other hand, have fewer reasons for holiday cheer. The last two holiday shopping seasons have kicked off with highly-visible Black Friday protests organized by OUR Walmart, the organization of current and former associates that aims to improve conditions at the retail giant. According to OUR Walmart, problems at the retail giant center on a lack of respect for associates, low pay and benefits as well as haphazard enforcement of policies including scheduling. These grievances are even more evident during the holidays.

Mary Watkines is a 13-year veteran at Walmart in Federal Way, Washington. She describes a fundamental shift in the culture at Walmart that can be traced back less than a decade. For her, a more “family-oriented” approach that saw associates as partners has been replaced with a drive for profit that squeezes workers. And this squeeze is at no time more apparent than during the holidays.

Via: CA Political News

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WaPo Headline Frets About Possible Issa File Releases, Not Insecure HealthCare.gov

Major establishment press outlets ignored Friday's news that "Teresa Fryer, the chief information security officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ... explicitly recommended denial of the website’s Authority to Operate (ATO), but was overruled by her superiors." Fryer also "refused to put her name on a letter recommending a temporary ATO be granted for six months" In other words, HealthCare.gov should not have launched.

Brian Fung at the Washington Post's "The Switch" blog didn't consider the idea that HC.gov shouldn't even have gone live the most important story element. While failing to disclose Fryer's no-go recommendation and refusal to go along, he and his post's headline instead obsessed over whether Republican Congressman and House Oversight Committee chair Darrell Issa might "release files" that "could aid hackers." It wouldn't be a surprise to learn that hackers already have them, or at least have figured out how to work with or around them. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine):

These HealthCare.gov files could aid hackers. And Darrell Issa may release them.

Significant security vulnerabilities are still being uncovered in the Obama administration's health-insurance Web site, nearly three months after the launch of HealthCare.gov.

Officials discovered two such vulnerabilities, known as "high findings," within the last month, including one this week, Teresa Fryer, the chief information security officer for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the House Oversight Committee this week in an interview. Fryer said that both issues were being addressed.

The debate over the security of HealthCare.gov has raised questions about whether similar vulnerabilities exist in systems across the federal government. Because the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration and other agencies communicate with HealthCare.gov, security gaps in those agencies could, if discovered, allow hackers to penetrate their systems and indirectly compromise the functioning of the new health-care law, according to outside security experts.

... While software vulnerabilities in Healthcare.gov have been documented, the potential risk stemming from the site’s interconnection with other federal systems has not. Officials from the White House, the Health and Human Services Department and others did not answer questions posed by The Washington Post about whether serious vulnerabilities exist in other federal IT systems linked to HealthCare.gov.

Via: Newsbusters

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Who’s Been Naughty and Who’s Been Nice? Mediaite’s 2013 Lists

»» 2013 LISTS

Mediaite Readers Pick the Very BEST in Media 2013

by Andrew Kirell | December 24th, 2013

READER POLL

Last week, we announced our picks for the very best and worst in media for 2013; and then we allowed you, the loyal Mediaite readership, to vote on those picks (or add your own suggestion). Let’s take a look at your votes for BEST of the year…

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Mediaite Readers Pick the Very WORST in Media 2013

by Andrew Kirell | December 23rd, 2013

READER POLL

Last week, we announced our picks for the very best and worst in media for 2013; and then we allowed you, the loyal Mediaite readership, to vote on those picks (or add your own suggestion). First we’ll review your picks for WORST of the year. View the results inside…

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Top 20 Filthy Liberals Not Wishing You a ‘Merry Christmas’

by Tommy Christopher | December 23rd, 2013

The War on Christmas™ rages on with no end in sight, but that’s all about to end. Republicans took a good first step this year by simplifying the battlefield, first selling t-shirts that said “‘Happy Holidays’ is What Liberals Say,” then switching them out for ones that said “I’m Not Afraid to Say ‘Merry Christmas.’”…

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2013: The Year in Bloopers, Gaffes, and Other Hot Messes

by Tommy Christopher | December 20th, 2013

Before you look back on the momentous happenings of 2013, come along with us on a tour of this year’s “Bloopers, Gaffes, and Other Hot Messes”…

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The 21 Most Cringe-Worthy TV News Moments of 2013

by Matt Wilstein | December 19th, 2013

VIDEO SLIDESHOW

We probably post something almost everyday on Mediaite that could make its way onto this list, but as a service to you, we’ve combed through the archives and found the absolute most uncomfortable things that happened on TV news this year.

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Mediaite Awards 2013: We Pick the Year’s Very WORST in Media

by Mediaite Staff | December 18th, 2013

MEDIAITE AWARDS!

Goodbye 2013, hello 2014. As we celebrate the end of another long year, sit back and weep for journalism’s future because of Mediaite’s picks for “The Very WORST in 2013 Media”…

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Mediaite Awards 2013: We Pick the Year’s Very BEST in Media

by Mediaite Staff | December 18th, 2013

MEDIAITE AWARDS!

Goodbye 2013, hello 2014. As we celebrate the end of another long year, sit back and bask in the glory that is Mediaite’s picks for “The Very Best in 2013 Media”…

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The Saddest, Goofiest, Facepalmiest Hoaxes of 2013

by Evan McMurry | December 17th, 2013

If there’s an Internet God, 2013 will go down as the year we learned to think before we retweeted.

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The 13 Biggest Media Feuds of 2013

by Matt Wilstein | December 16th, 2013

VIDEO SLIDESHOW

When they really couldn’t find anything substantive to talk about in the outside world this year, the media turned inward, fighting amongst themselves over some genuinely big issues like race, guns and the First Amendment. Here

Via: Mediaite.com

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Williamson: The Government Isn’t Santa

There were three wise men, bearing gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Much has been written about the mystical connotations of those gifts, but it is rarely, if ever, asked: Where did they get them?

Presumably, Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar were not engaged in gold mining, frankincense farming, or myrrh cultivation. They had other things to do, other stars to follow. For Christians, and for men of goodwill categorically, this is an important question: Feed my sheep, saith the Lord — okay: Feed ’em what? Some of the Apostles were said to have the gift of healing through the laying on of hands; those without such gifts still have an obligation to heal the sick (if the ACLU will allow it), which means building hospitals and clinics, equipping doctors and nurses, etc. With what?

If ye had but faith in the measure of a mustard seed . . . and if the mustard-seed approach does not work, and the mountains we command to be uprooted remain stubbornly in place, then we are back to the old-fashioned problems of human existence: scarcity and production. That is what is so maddening about Pope Francis’s recent apostolic exhortation — which is, as much as my fellow Catholics try to explain it away, a problematic document in many ways. The pope’s argument, fundamentally, is that we can have capitalism on the condition that we feed the poor. This is exactly backward: We can feed the poor if we have capitalism. To give away wealth presumes the existence of that wealth, whether it is an annual tithe or Jesus’ more radical stance of giving away all that one owns. Giving away all that you own does not do the poor an iota of good if you don’t have anything. You can’t spread the wealth without wealth.

Via: NRO

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New ObamaCare Fees Coming in 2014

WASHINGTON — Here comes the ObamaCare tax bill.

The cost of President Obama’s massive health-care law will hit Americans in 2014 as new taxes pile up on their insurance premiums and on their income-tax bills.

Most insurers aren’t advertising the ObamaCare taxes that are added on to premiums, opting instead to discretely pass them on to customers while quietly lobbying lawmakers for a break.

But one insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, laid bare the taxes on its bills with a separate line item for “Affordable Care Act Fees and Taxes.”

The new taxes on one customer’s bill added up to $23.14 a month, or $277.68 annually, according to Kaiser Health News. It boosted the monthly premium from $322.26 to $345.40 for that individual.

The new taxes and fees include a 2 percent levy on every health plan, which is expected to net about $8 billion for the government in 2014 and increase to $14.3 billion in 2018.

There’s also a $2 fee per policy that goes into a new medical-research trust fund called the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Insurers pay a 3.5 percent user fee to sell medical plans on the HealthCare.gov Web site.

ObamaCare supporters argue that federal subsidies for many low-income Americans will not only cover the taxes, but pay a big chunk of the premiums

But ObamaCare taxes don’t stop with health-plan premiums.

Via: Fox News

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[CARTOON] Off to Hawaii

Via: California Political Review

Late Surge in Web Buying Blindsides UPS, Retailers

A surge in online shopping this holiday season left stores breaking promises to deliver packages by Christmas, suggesting that retailers and shipping companies still haven't fully figured out consumers' buying patterns in the Internet era.

A surge in online shopping this holiday season left stores breaking promises to deliver packages by Christmas, suggesting that retailers and shipping companies still haven't fully figured out consumers' buying patterns in the Internet era. Shelly Banjo reports.

Companies from Amazon.com Inc.AMZN +0.55% to Kohl's Corp.KSS +0.27% and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.,WMT +0.18% having promised to deliver items before Dec. 25, missed some delivery target dates.

United Parcel Service Inc. UPS -0.10%determined late Tuesday that it wouldn't deliver some goods in time for Christmas, as a spike in last-minute shopping overwhelmed its system. "The volume of air packages in the UPS system did exceed capacity as demand was much greater than our forecast," a UPS spokeswoman said.

Consumers were reporting missing deliveries from FedEx as well, although a FedEx spokesman said the company wasn't experiencing significant delays.

Americans tend to go online for a bigger proportion of their Christmas shopping than for their buying during the rest of the year. This year, the trend's acceleration apparently took some stores and carriers off-guard.

Via: WSJ

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Time to Stock Up on Incandescent Bulbs Before They Go Out Permanently

If your New Year’s resolution is to change your light bulbs, don’t worry—the federal government’s here to help.

Beginning January 1, 2014, the federal government will ban the use of 60-watt and 40-watt incandescent light bulbs. The light bulb has become a symbol in the fight for consumer freedom and against unnecessary governmental interference into the lives of the American people.

In 2007, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law an energy bill that placed stringent efficiency requirements on ordinary incandescent bulbs in an attempt to have them completely eliminated by 2014. The law phased out 100-watt and 75-watt incandescent bulbs last year.

Proponents of government-imposed efficiency standards and regulations will say, “So what? There are still plenty of lighting options on the shelves at Home Depot; we’re saving families money; and we’re reducing harmful climate change emissions.”

The “so what” is that the federal government is taking decisions out of the hands of families and businesses, destroying jobs, and restricting consumer choice in the market. We all have a wide variety of preferences regarding light bulbs. It is not the role of the federal government to override those preferences with what it believes is in our best interest.

Families understand how energy costs impact their lives and make decisions accordingly. Energy efficiency has improved dramatically over the past six decades—long before any national energy efficiency mandates.

Via: The Foundry
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