Stupid is.. as Stupid does: Barack Insane-Hussein Obuma

[Warph]

MR. CORRUPT COMMIE BARACK OBUMA:


Used "Green Energy Loans" to "Recycle" Money BACK to Rich Democrat Donors, Arrogant Crony-Capitalism Revelation from the Government Accountability Institute.

http://americaswatchtower.com/2012/11/24/barack-obama-used-green-energy-loans-to-recycle-money-to-democrat-donors/

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/23/Peter-Schweizer-Obama-Admin-Uses-Green-Energy-Loans-To-Recycle-Money-Back-To-Donors


Corrupt Team Obuma kickbacks and gift bags funded by American taxpayers and benefiting the Democrat party and wealthy Democrat campaign donors have been exposed by the Government Accountability Institution.  "Welfare for the well-off"... for well-off liberals, that is.

                             


For the lengthy list of Obuma's green energy losers that we, American taxpayers, have funded to the discordant tune of billions upon billions of squandered dollars.  The list keeps growing, and is now estimated to be at least 50 companies.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/30/as-many-as-fifty-obama-backed-green-energy-companies-bankrupt-or-troubled/


This has been suspected for more than a year now, but it looks like corrupt Obuma's crony-rampant "recycling" program did indeed use American taxpayer dollars as his own personal super-duper-big piggy bank to push through his still-escalating failed "green jobs/green bankruptcies" fiasco. 

Oink, Oink... you despicable clown.

Not a word from the MSM or Romney (when running for president), on this.  One of the reasons why he lost... no backbone!

Where the hell is Congress on this ...the American people (who do not seem to give a damn) .... the SOB is supposed to work for us, people!  Oh, I forgot.. they're too busy watching Snooki... Baby Boo Boo... waiting for their freebies from Mr. Corrupt! 

TIME TO IMPEACH THE CORRUPT SON-OF-A-BITCH!!!

Peter Schweizer and Hannity discuss Obama's 'District of Corruption':
This video is a snippet of the complete Sean Hannity broadcast that aired last week (the complete three-part video set is embedded further down).

The whole ball of wax at You Tube:
Part I -   
Part II - 
Part III -

[Warph]

Gitmo North Returns: Obama's Shady Prison Deal

By Michelle Malkin


If you thought President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder had given up on closing Guantanamo Bay and bringing jihadists to American soil, think again. Two troubling developments on the Gitmo front should have every American on edge.

The first White House maneuver took place in October, while much of the public and the media were preoccupied with election news. On Oct. 2, Obama's cash-strapped Illinois pals announced that the federal government bought out the Thomson Correctional Center in western Illinois for $165 million. According to Watchdog.org, a recent appraisal put the value of the facility at $220 million.

Obuma's Gitmo North - Northwestern Illinois.

Democratic Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin led the lobbying campaign for the deal, along with Illinois Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who is overseeing an overall $43 billion state budget deficit and scraping for every available penny. The Thomson campus has been an empty Taj Mahal for more than a decade because profligate state officials had no money for operations. Economic development gurus (using the same phony math of federal stimulus peddlers) claim the newly federalized project will bring in $1 billion.

Durbin told a local Illinois paper that "the decision to move ahead came directly from President Barack Obama" and that he had secured the green light during a discussion on Air Force One earlier in the spring. But this gift to Obama's Illinois homeboys wasn't just a run-of-the-mill campaign favor.

Obama's unilateral and unprecedented decision steamrolled over bipartisan congressional opposition to the purchase. That opposition dates back to 2009, when the White House first floated the idea of using Thomson to house jihadi enemy combatants detained in Cuba. As you may recall, the scheme caused a national uproar. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department's budget, blocked the administration from using unspent DOJ funds for the deal. With bipartisan support, Congress passed a law barring the transfer of Gitmo detainees to Thomson or any other civilian prison.

The message was clear: Taxpayers don't want manipulative Gitmo detainees or their three-ring circuses of transnationalist sympathizers and left-wing lawyers on American soil. Period.

But when this imperial presidency can't get its way in the court of public opinion, it simply circumvents the deliberative process. As Wolf noted: The shady deal "directly violates the clear objection of the House Appropriations Committee and goes against the bipartisan objections of members in the House and Senate, who have noted that approving this request would allow Thomson to take precedence over previously funded prisons in Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia and New Hampshire."

Obama and his Illinois gang insist that Thomson will not become Gitmo North. But denial is more than a river in the Muslim Brotherhood's homeland.

The 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America, which spearheaded the movement against shipping jihadi detainees to the mainland, exposed the fine print of the Obama DOJ's deal with the state of Illinois. The purpose of the Thomson facility acquisition, according to the DOJ notice filed in the D.C. courts, included this clause:

"... as well as to provide humane and secure confinement of individuals held under authority of any Act of Congress, and such other persons as in the opinion of the Attorney General of the United States are proper subjects for confinement in such institutions."

Guess whom that covers? Yup: Gitmo detainees, who are being held under the 2001 congressional act known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Now, bear all this in mind as you consider the second and more recent Gitmo gambit. On Wednesday, in response to a whistleblowing report from Fox News homeland security reporter Catherine Herridge, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., released a General Accounting Office report exploring the feasibility of transferring the Gitmo gang to civilian prisons.

Lo and behold, Feinstein concluded, the report "demonstrates that if the political will exists, we could finally close Guantanamo without imperiling our national security."

The "political will" does not exist now, nor has it ever. But thanks to Obama's sneaky, back-door misappropriation of government funds to buy Thomson, the feds have exactly what they need to fulfill the progressive-in-chief's Gitmo closure promise: a shiny, turnkey palace in crony land tailor-made for union workers, lawyers and terror plotters to call their new home.

[Warph]

Malia Obama's Spring Break Vacation Cost Taxpayers Whopping $115,500... Thanks, Taxpayers!

Last spring, First Daughter Malia Obama, at age 13, went on a spring break vacation to Mexico, the bill of which was footed by taxpayers.

It cost American taxpayers just over $115,500 to fund the young teenager's Mexico trip. Seriously.

So, how much did YOU spend on your child's spring break?

The press was directed by the White House to keep quiet about Malia's expensive spring break trip to Mexico with 12 friends and 25 taxpayer-paid Secret Service agents in tow. Security was one of the issues, of course, but obviously, the outrageous cost during one of the worst economic periods in American history was the other.

The Obama daughter will turn 18 in July 2016 — heaven help us when we pay for Malia's imminent high school graduation vacation.

Good thing California, Hawaii, and New York are about to experience huge tax hikes.


In April, Barack Obama was asked about the family's many expensive vacations that Americans have paid for. He was... amused!

Reported by Judicial Watch, JW Releases Records Detailing Government Funds Expended on First Daughter Malia Obama's Trip to Mexico:

Judicial Watch today released records detailing the government funds expended on First Daughter Malia Obama's March 2012 Spring Break vacation to Mexico. According to the records, obtained from the U.S. Secret Service as a result of a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on September 20, 2012, the total cost of the trip amounted to $115,500.87 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Secret Service (No. 12-cv-01562)).

The following is a breakdown of the costs as detailed in the documents:

Ground transportation: $23,964.81

Lodging: $21,682.92

Airfare: $47,767.34

"Vouchers": $21,636.14 (not itemized)

Support Charges: $449.66 (travel for one from Mexico City to Oaxaca, not itemized)
Malia Obama's spring break trip evoked controversy after the Obama White House reportedly ordered the removal of press reports detailing the trip. On March 19,2012, numerous online press outlets reported that the president's 13-year-old daughter, Malia Obama, was on a Spring Break trip to Mexico accompanied by 25 U.S. Secret Service Agents and as many as 12 of her friends. However, shortly after the press reports surfaced they were quickly removed from the Internet. The trip took place shortly after the Texas Department of Public Safety issued a statement advising students on Spring Break "to avoid Mexico."

But wait, there's more:

"In these economic times, with huge public debt and high unemployment, spending $115,000 in taxpayer funds on a Spring Break trip to Mexico is inappropriate. Is this what Americans are being asked to pay higher taxes for?" stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch has been active in documenting the cost to taxpayers for the Obamas' personal trips. For example, Judicial previously obtained records from the United States Air Force and the United States Secret Service detailing Michelle Obama's February 2012 President's Day weekend ski vacation to Aspen, Colorado, with her two daughters. The records indicate U.S. Secret Service costs, including accommodations at the Fasching Haus deluxe condominium and the Inn at Aspen, were $48,950.38.

Judicial Watch also obtained documents from the United States Air Force and the United States Secret Service detailing costs associated with Michelle Obama's controversial August 2010 vacation to Spain. According to a Judicial Watch analysis, the records indicate a total combined cost of at least $467,585.

Judicial Watch also obtained documents detailing costs a June 21-27, 2011, trip taken by Michelle Obama, her family and her staff to South Africa and Botswana. Judicial Watch received mission expense records and passenger manifests for the Africa trip that described costs of $424,142 for the flight and crew alone. Other expenses, such as off-flight food, transportation, security, etc. were not included.

[Warph]

If it wasn't for the fact that so many people are suffering and being seduced into empty lives of government dependency (symbolized by Julia, the world's most disappointing daughter)....



....I might feel sorry for Obuma.... NOT!

He promised unemployment would never climb above 8 percent if Congress squandered $800 billion on a Keynesian stimulus scheme.

Well, Congress said yes and the results have not been pretty.  And every month we get new numbers to show us that the Administration's policies have failed.  It's like Chinese water torture for the White House.

The numbers released by the Department of Labor (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm)  don't change the narrative.  The Republican and Democratic spin-doctors obviously will spit out their talking points, but here's a visual put together by Political Math that trumps all the political maneuvering. 

If you're wondering where Obuma is, look at the lower left portion of the image.

[Warph]

          


Welcome to the Thugocracy

By Ben Shapiro


"I'm in the top two percent," said Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, this week on CNBC. "Right now, I'm paying 45 percent of my total income in income taxes ... You tell me, what's fair about that when medieval serfs pay 25 percent, I'm paying half? I don't care what the majority voted to do, they don't have a right to steal my money just because they vote for it."

But according to most Americans, they do.

And that's the problem.

As America racks up more debt than God has ever seen on this earth, Barack Obama prepares to right all wrongs by taxing the top 2 percent of income earners in America. What right does he have to their money? Well, says Obama, it's only fair and just -- they make the most money, so they should foot a disproportionate burden of the tax load.

Obama, like all other liberals, thinks in vague terms like "fairness." He doesn't worry about a fair process -- whether or not it's right to allow a majority to discriminate against a minority simply because the minority is rich. He worries instead about a fair outcome. According to President Obama, a fair outcome -- greater income redistribution -- justifies the means. If a majority votes to seize the money of a minority, that's fair, because greater income equality is fair. No Democrat has yet explained convincingly why it wouldn't be most fair for the government to simply seize all wealth in the country and then split it up equally. After all, fair is fair.

But this notion of fairness was anathema to the founding fathers. They rightly recognized that the only real sort of fairness is fair process -- a process that deliberately takes into account minority rights. They knew that a majority giving its stamp of approval to wealth confiscation of a minority was not fair. As James Madison said, "Our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country ... [It] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." Madison wasn't saying this because he was a brutal rich fellow trying to protect his pocketbook. He said this because he didn't want a government in which the majority could oppress the minority. And he also recognized that, in economic terms, wealth confiscation is directly opposed to economic innovation.

Madison wasn't alone in this regard. The founders despised what they termed "faction." They didn't mean political parties -- they meant, as Madison wrote in Federalist #10, "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." The purpose of the Constitutional order was to check faction against faction, to prevent a combination of the majority against the minority.

And yet over the past century, America has moved away from this limited view of government. The majority, which has since time immemorial wanted to rob the richer minority, moved to rewrite the system to allow such wealth confiscation. They did it under the guise of fairness. But once the process is overthrown, the tyranny of the majority is no longer speculative: it is a living, breathing reality. If the majority decides on the purest form of wealth redistribution -- from each according to his ability, to each according to his need -- then that thievery and impediment to human progress is branded with the stamp of legitimacy.

America is no longer a republic. It is a thugocracy. So long as fairness of result trumps fairness of process -- so long as a majority can trample the rights of a minority, then point at a simple majority vote as moral legitimation -- America has lost its way.

[Warph]

           

Obama stated he's sure that if he had been elected 25 years ago he would have received a far better reception and would have been seen as a mainstream conservative Republican.

25 years ago he would never have made it to Senator let alone president.

25 years ago his program of Communism would have been seen for what it was. 

25 years ago he would have been laughed off the stage.

25 years ago there were still Americans around who had never fried their brains with drugs.

Therefore 25 years ago a large number of us actually knew better.

[jarhead]

Grrrrrr !!! Where is our CiC on this ? He damn sure had time to call cops "stuidly" when some POS black teacher rants about his "mistreatment " by the cops---and made time for a beer summit. He had time to get involved because Rush called Sandra Flake a slut. You aint telling me if he told Mexico your several hundreds of  million a year in aid is stopped as long as this Marine is sitting in a cell---he would be released "yesterday". Because of him letting the 2 SEALs to be slaughtered in Libya and now letting this Marine rot in a dirty cell, the lad is not making any friends in our military. I say if Mexico likes Marines so well, lets send in about a Division of them and bring this Cpl home. The whole world knows our CiC is so weak they can do whatever they want.


Letter from Mexican ambassador dampens hope for early release of Jon Hammar
By Joseph J. Kolb

Published December 20, 2012

FoxNews.com

Any hope that Jon Hammar, the Marine imprisoned in Mexico on a disputed gun charge, might be freed in time for Christmas has apparently been dashed by a terse letter a top Mexican diplomat sent to Hammar's congresswoman.
The two-page missive from Mexican Ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhan to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who has been aggressively advocating for Hammar's release, leaves little hope of a diplomatic solution. In it, Sarukhan takes a thinly veiled swipe at the U.S., blaming it for gun proliferation south of the border.


"Mexico has had very stringent gun-control laws in place for many years, and have reinforced their application as a result of the flow of weapons illicitly purchased in the U.S. and then trafficked into Mexico and into the hands of Transnational criminal Organizations."
- Arturo Sarukhan, Mexican ambassador to the U.S.


"As you know well, Mexico has had very stringent gun-control laws in place for many years, and have reinforced their application as a result of the flow of weapons illicitly purchased in the U.S. and then trafficked into Mexico and into the hands of transnational criminal organizations," Sarukhan wrote.

Hammar has been stuck in a notorious, drug cartel-controlled prison just 15 miles south of the U.S. border since Aug. 13, after he crossed into Mexico and declared an antique shotgun to Mexican customs officials.

Sarukhan failed to mention that Tamaulipas, the state which the CEDES prison in Matamoros is located, is controlled by the Los Zetas Cartel, arguably the most vicious of the cartels.

Hammar's father said the letter is fraught with statements at odds with what he knows and what his son has told him.

"There are huge inaccuracies about what is happening in their system," Jon Hammar Sr., said.

Sarukhan said Hammar was arrested for possession of a weapon that, according to Mexican law, is restricted for the exclusive use of the Mexican Armed Forces.

But high-ranking Mexican military officials have told Hammar's attorney, Eddie Varon-Levy, that the gun Hammar tried to declare shortly after crossing into Mexico on his way to Costa Rica is not the type of firearm the laws are meant to block. The gun Hammar claims he also declared to U.S. Customs and border protection is a .410 gauge antique Sears Roebuck shotgun.

But Mexico's top diplomat to the U.S. said the letter of the law must be followed.

"Regardless of what he may have declared or stated to CBP agents and then to Mexican Customs authorities, the sole introduction or possession of this type of weapon (not withstanding its intended use or year of manufacture) in Mexican territory constitutes a federal crime in Mexico and is not subject to any prosecutorial discretion," Sarukhan said.

Varon-Levy disagreed, saying no one can make the argument the antique, small-gauge shotgun is anything resembling a military weapon. He said the prosecutor and his team can't even agree on specifics of the rifle.

Perhaps the biggest bone of contention Hammar's family and legal team have with Sarukhan is the ambassador's pledge that Hammar will be held "in conditions that ensure his well-being and his rights." Already, Hammar, who suffers post-traumatic stress disorder from his service in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been denied an interpreter at court appearances, had his life threatened and has been chained to a steel bed.

Two days after his arrest, Hammar's parents received a midnight extortion attempt by a male caller who said he "owned" the prison, giving credence to speculation that the criminal elements control CEDES prison.

The ambassador also neglected to appreciate the Nov. 23 incident where Hammar was brought to court before the judge -- there are no jury trials in Mexico -- and asked to plea without his lawyer or even the arresting customs agent present.

Sarukhan claims in the letter that, had Hammar pleaded guilty at a Nov. 23 appearance, he would have likely been released. But Varon-Levy said his client was brought before a judge with no attorney present and no way of understanding what was happening. And despite Sarukhan's claim, conviction on the charge carries a potential penalty of 15 years in prison.

In his letter, Sarukhan alluded to the fact there will be no wiggle room for negotiation and that Hammar is going trial.

"This circumstance requires that he remain under detention during the duration of his trial," Sarukhan said.

A trial date is set for Jan. 17.

[Warph]

                 


Barack Obama 'eager' to fall off fiscal cliff, says senior Republican senator

Senator John Barrasso tells Fox News Sunday he thinks the president is 'eager to go off fiscal cliff for political purposes'

Barack Obama, has been accused of 'sensing victory at the bottom of the fiscal cliff' by a senior Republican senator.

President Barack Obama has been accused by a senior Republican of being eager to take the US over the fiscal cliff for political gain, as Washington edges closer to a year-end deadline with no deal in sight.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Senator John Barrasso, the third-highest ranking senator in the GOP, suggested that the president "sensed victory at the bottom of the cliff".

Earlier, Obama called on Congress to "cool off" over the holiday break, amid rising rhetoric on both sides. On Friday, the White House raised the prospect of settling for a stopgap measure to avert the punitive tax rises and swingeing spending cuts which are due to come in effect on 1 January. The president had previously pushed for a grand compromise to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.

But with just nine days to go until the year-end deadline, Democrats and Republicans are seemingly still some way off from any agreement, be it to a comprehensive deal or short-term measures.

Asked if he believed that the US was heading towards missing the deadline, and thus falling off the fiscal cliff, Barrasso said: "I believe we are. I believe the president is eager to go over the cliff for political purposes. He senses a victory at the bottom of the cliff. I think it hurts our county and it hurts our economy."

Speaking on the same show the Democrat senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate budget committee, held out some hope of a comprehensive solution ahead of 1 January, rather than scaled-down package that could merely kick the debate into 2013.

"I would hope we have one last attempt," he said.

Conrad suggested that the two sides could come to a compromise somewhere between the president's last offer and a plan that was put forward by John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives.

Obama had been pushing a plan that would have seen tax revenues rise by $1.6tn over the next decade, with a hike in the rate for those earning upwards of $250,000 a year central to proposals. Boehner has argued that such a move would be a "crippling blow" and that it was not accompanied by a large enough swipe at federal spending.

His "plan B" would have pushed more limited tax increases on those earning in excess of $1m. But even that was not enough to assuage Tea Party-backed Republicans in Congress, who rebelled against the proposal on Thursday.

The White House has indicated that it is willing to move the threshold for those targeted for more tax to $400,000. But with anti-tax House representatives in no mood to compromise it is uncertain if this offer, or even a greater concession by Democrats to move the line to $500,000, will get much traction in the House.

Obama is currently on holiday in Hawaii. Before leaving he urged both sides of the aisle to have a rethink over the consequences of not reaching a deal.

The fiscal cliff represents some $600bn worth of spending cuts and tax increases which will hit all Americans which are due to be automatically triggered on 1 January, in the event of no deal over how to stabilise national debt. Experts have warned that the situation would be catastrophic for the fragile US economic recovery.

"Now is not the time for more self-inflicted wounds, certainly not those coming from Washington," Obama said on Friday. As such he urged Democrats and Republicans to "cool off" over the Christmas break and return to Congress in a mood to compromise.

Aides have said that despite being on vacation in Hawaii, the president will be receiving regular briefings on the state of talks and is prepared to come back to Washington early, if events demand.

[Warph]

Iran State TV Praises Obama's 'anti-Israel' Hagel selection

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
January 6, 2013 4:10 pm

Iran's state-run Press TV praised President Barack Obama for his likely selection of the "anti-Israel" former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to head the Defense Department, according to a report published Saturday.

"All signs indicate that U.S. President Barack Obama is poised to nominate anti-Israel ex-Senator Chuck Hagel as the next defense secretary soon," reported Press TV, a news outlet that is controlled by the Iranian regime.

"Hagel's nomination is expected to spark a row in the Senate," the report continued. "Many pro-Israeli groups and neo-conservatives have spouted diatribe against Hagel over his criticism of Washington's anti-Iran policies and Israel's sway over the U.S. political arena."

Hagel has long advocated for direct, unconditional talks with Iran as well as with the terror group Hamas.

Hagel in 2008 was reported to be "solely responsible" for blocking a bill that would have tightened economic sanctions in Iran, according to the Huffington Post.

He also voted against renewing the Iran Sanctions Libya Act in 2001. The measure would have prevented Iran and Libya from securing funds that would have been used to acquire weapons of mass destruction and support terrorist operations.

Hagel was just one of two Senators to vote against the act.

Multiple Jewish leaders and lawmakers have additionally criticized Hagel for comments they believe are anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.

Hagel has faced sharp criticism from Jewish communal organizations for 2008 comments in which he state that the so-called "Jewish lobby" intimidates lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The Anti-Defamation League's executive director Abraham Foxman and others have termed this language as anti-Semitic.

Hagel also is said to have offended Jewish leaders in 1989 when, as the head of the USO, he campaigned to close down a popular USO port in the Israeli city of Haifa.

"He said to me, 'Let the Jews pay for it'," according to Marsha Halteman, director for military and law enforcement programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which led the battle to keep USO Haifa operational.

The Free Beaon reported Sunday that the newly installed Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has become the latest in a long line of lawmakers to proclaim that they would vote against Hagel should be nominated by the president.

[Warph]

(Brought to you by "We Bury Your Dead for a Small Fee" Funeral Home @ 1600 Penn. Ave. Wash D.C.)

Government-mandated ObamaCare was touted on the Democrat party's and liberal media's groundless, perpetuated lies that the
Non-Affordable Care Act would make health care far better for Americans, would make it cost less for more people, and would save and/or create jobs.

For those who've had the wisdom or skepticism to look behind the power-grabbing, socialism-woven curtain of the slick, fact-deprived left-wing rhetoric, and did some actual research (or took time to read the poorly written gargantuan health bill), they've known since the health bill's passage in 2010 that it was a steaming pile of horse puckies.

Just last week, Americans discovered that they will be paying for morning-after pills for women who engage in unprotected sex and want their post-sex contraceptive options to be funded by taxpayers. We've known for a while that we'll be paying for abortions and Viagra for convicted pedophiles.

Employee hours in non-medical American jobs are already being cut back so as to pay for ObamaCare's increased health care costs to American employers. The ObamaCare tax hike of $1 TRILLION went active on New Year's Day.

The current fallout is only just now beginning with major hospital layoffs across America — and still, the happy-to-be-placated liberal masses believe and parrot the Team Obama lies. While at this point many of the medical-related jobs slashed are for non-patient care employees, it is only a matter of time before many of those patient-related jobs, too, are eliminated.


Reported last month by Orlando Sentinel, Orlando Health to cut record number of jobs to save money:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-11-19/news/os-orlando-health-layoffs-20121116_1_orlando-health-sherrie-sitarik-readmission-rates

In the largest staff reduction in its nearly 100-year history, Orlando Health is cutting up to 400 jobs starting immediately, hospital system officials announced Monday.

The move is part of a broader effort to position the hospital system for the health-care overhaul, CEO Sherrie Sitarik said.

The elimination of jobs will occur in two phases and represents a 2 percent to 3 percent reduction in the system's 16,000-person work force, said Orlando Health spokeswoman Kena Lewis. The cuts affect all departments and all eight of the system's hospitals, including Orlando Regional Medical Center and Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, two of the system's better-known facilities.

Although no staff nursing positions have been eliminated, the hospital has cut nursing management positions. Those workers may apply for lower-level nursing jobs.

The first wave of employees affected received their notices Friday, Lewis said. The next wave of downsizing will occur after the first of the year.

The non-profit health network also will reduce staffing through attrition, she said.

Another part of the system's five-point cost restructuring includes eliminating "admirable but not sustainable" programs, Lewis said. The hospital also will work to standardize certain health-care procedures.

The hospital is cutting supply expenses by consolidating pharmaceutical purchases through one wholesaler and by renegotiating contracts for cardiac pacemakers and implantable defibrillators. Those two measures combined will result in an annual savings of $825,000, Lewis said.

Last month, Louisiana State University announced it would cut 1,495 positions as well as programs across its seven hospitals to trim more than $150 million from its budget.

"It's a challenging time for hospitals," said John Bigalke, senior partner of global health care for Deloitte, one of the nation's largest professional services firms.

Hospitals are looking at an $800 billion to $900 billion reduction in Medicare payments over the next 10 years, along with reductions in Medicaid payments, he said.

Don't get sick, Democrats.