While You Were Sleeping: The Democrats Get to Vote Again on Health Care Bill

Surely there must be a few Democrats that may have developed a case of buyer's remorse.

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G.O.P. Forces New House Vote on Package of Health Bill Changes

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ROBERT PEAR
Published: March 25, 2010 NY Times


WASHINGTON — With the Senate working through an all-night session on a package of changes to the Democrats’ sweeping health care legislation, Republicans early Thursday morning identified parliamentary problems with at least two provisions that will require the measure to be sent back to the House for yet another vote, once the Senate adopts it.

Senate Democrats had been hoping to defeat all of the amendments proposed by Republicans and to prevail on parliamentary challenges so that they could approve the measure and send it to President Obama for his signature. But the bill must comply with complex budget reconciliation rules, and Republicans identified some flaws.

Under the reconciliation rules, provisions in the bill must directly affect government spending or revenues.

The successful parliamentary challenge did not appear to endanger the eventual adoption of the changes to the health care legislation. And Mr. Obama on Tuesday already signed the main health care bill into law. Read on or not, you choose.

Former Director of CBO says Healthcare Bill Filled with Gimmicks and Fantasy

The Real Arithmetic of Health Care Reform

By DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, former director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005, is the president of the American Action Forum, a policy institute.

NY Times
Published: March 20, 2010
Arlington, Va.

ON Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that, if enacted, the latest health care reform legislation would, over the next 10 years, cost about $950 billion, but because it would raise some revenues and lower some costs, it would also lower federal deficits by $138 billion. In other words, a bill that would set up two new entitlement spending programs — health insurance subsidies and long-term health care benefits — would actually improve the nation’s bottom line.

Could this really be true? How can the budget office give a green light to a bill that commits the federal government to spending nearly $1 trillion more over the next 10 years?

The answer, unfortunately, is that the budget office is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out.

In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.

Gimmick No. 1 is the way the bill front-loads revenues and backloads spending. That is, the taxes and fees it calls for are set to begin immediately, but its new subsidies would be deferred so that the first 10 years of revenue would be used to pay for only 6 years of spending.

Even worse, some costs are left out entirely. To operate the new programs over the first 10 years, future Congresses would need to vote for $114 billion in additional annual spending. But this so-called discretionary spending is excluded from the Congressional Budget Office’s tabulation.

Consider, too, the fate of the $70 billion in premiums expected to be raised in the first 10 years for the legislation’s new long-term health care insurance program. This money is counted as deficit reduction, but the benefits it is intended to finance are assumed not to materialize in the first 10 years, so they appear nowhere in the cost of the legislation.

Another vivid example of how the legislation manipulates revenues is the provision to have corporations deposit $8 billion in higher estimated tax payments in 2014, thereby meeting fiscal targets for the first five years. But since the corporations’ actual taxes would be unchanged, the money would need to be refunded the next year. The net effect is simply to shift dollars from 2015 to 2014.

In addition to this accounting sleight of hand, the legislation would blithely rob Peter to pay Paul. For example, it would use $53 billion in anticipated higher Social Security taxes to offset health care spending. Social Security revenues are expected to rise as employers shift from paying for health insurance to paying higher wages. But if workers have higher wages, they will also qualify for increased Social Security benefits when they retire. So the extra money raised from payroll taxes is already spoken for. (Indeed, it is unlikely to be enough to keep Social Security solvent.) It cannot be used for lowering the deficit.

A government takeover of all federally financed student loans — which obviously has nothing to do with health care — is rolled into the bill because it is expected to generate $19 billion in deficit reduction.

Finally, in perhaps the most amazing bit of unrealistic accounting, the legislation proposes to trim $463 billion from Medicare spending and use it to finance insurance subsidies. But Medicare is already bleeding red ink, and the health care bill has no reforms that would enable the program to operate more cheaply in the future. Instead, Congress is likely to continue to regularly override scheduled cuts in payments to Medicare doctors and other providers.

Removing the unrealistic annual Medicare savings ($463 billion) and the stolen annual revenues from Social Security and long-term care insurance ($123 billion), and adding in the annual spending that so far is not accounted for ($114 billion) quickly generates additional deficits of $562 billion in the first 10 years. And the nation would be on the hook for two more entitlement programs rapidly expanding as far as the eye can see.

The bottom line is that Congress would spend a lot more; steal funds from education, Social Security and long-term care to cover the gap; and promise that future Congresses will make up for it by taxing more and spending less.

The stakes could not be higher. As documented in another recent budget office analysis, the federal deficit is already expected to exceed at least $700 billion every year over the next decade, doubling the national debt to more than $20 trillion. By 2020, the federal deficit — the amount the government must borrow to meet its expenses — is projected to be $1.2 trillion, $900 billion of which represents interest on previous debt.

The health care legislation would only increase this crushing debt. It is a clear indication that Congress does not realize the urgency of putting America’s fiscal house in order.

Wobbly Democrats

Hat tip: Hugh Hewitt

It is hard to see how the Democrats can win with the health care bill. At 2700 pages there must be one fiasco after another larded into this concoction. If passed, they will be exposed one at a time and the Democrats will be on the defensive until November.

Obama has bet his presidency on this bill and the Democrats in Congress know it.

Discipline or self-preservation will dictate the outcome and certainly no one who pays attention would bet on Congress doing the right thing, but given a choice I'll throw my prediction at self-preservation.

The bill stumbles.

$221 Billion Deficit in one month? One Month?

US budget deficit hits record $221 Billion for one month, February. That is a record and what is the Obama Administration doing about it?


For the record the US deficit for all of 2008 was $459 Billion.

The US government recorded a budget deficit of $221 Billion in February. Since the beginning of the fiscal year in October we are now at a negative $651.6 Billion.

That puts it on track to beat last year's record annual budget deficit of $1.4 Trillion.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called the deficit "unsustainable".

However, he maintained that running the deficit was helping the US continue its recovery from the recession in the short-term.

Analysts called the figures "frightening".

Earlier this year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said it expected the budget deficit to fall this year as the recovery takes hold.

And the Obama Administration and the Democrats are continuing their dash over the cliff to create a massive new entitlement expansion of health care.

BBC

Health Care Bill: The Democrat Martyrdom Operation

We have to pass the Health Care Bill so that we can see what is in it.




Parliamentary Hurdle Could Thwart Latest Health Care Overhaul Strategy

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ROBERT PEAR
Published: March 9, 2010 NY Times

WASHINGTON — The White House and Democratic Congressional leaders said Tuesday that they were bracing for a key procedural ruling that could complicate their effort to approve major health care legislation, by requiring President Obama to sign the bill into law before Congress could revise it through an expedited budget process.

An official determination on the matter could come within days from the House and Senate parliamentarians, and could present yet another hurdle for Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders as they try to lock in support from skittish lawmakers in the House.

Meanwhile, Congressional leaders and top administration officials met in the offices of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, on Tuesday evening trying to resolve outstanding policy differences between the chambers.

House leaders were still navigating potential pitfalls, including a dispute over provisions related to insurance coverage of abortion, while opponents of the legislation, including a leading business group, planned a new onslaught of television advertisements attacking the proposal.

Many rank-and-file House Democrats are reluctant to approve the Senate-passed health care measure without a guarantee that the Senate would follow up with changes in a budget reconciliation bill. The Senate measure included a number of provisions House members dislike, including special deals intended to secure the support of individual senators, like extra Medicaid money for Nebraska.

Democratic leaders had been contemplating an intricate legislative two-step, by which the House would approve the original Senate health care measure and both chambers would adopt a package of changes in a budget reconciliation bill. Both measures would then be sent to Mr. Obama for his signature.

Some officials said House leaders were holding out hope for a favorable ruling by the parliamentarians that would allow them to proceed as planned — or to circumvent the problem.

But Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, said the reconciliation instructions in last year’s budget resolution seemed to require that Mr. Obama sign the Senate bill into law before it could be changed.

“It’s very hard to see how you draft, and hard to see how you score, a reconciliation bill to another bill that has not yet been passed and become law,” Mr. Conrad said. “I just advise you go read the reconciliation instructions and see if you think it has been met if it doesn’t become law.”

The procedural maneuvering highlighted the acute sensitivity around virtually every step in the Democrats’ push to achieve Mr. Obama’s top domestic priority.

As Democrats considered the potential parliamentary maneuvers, a coalition of business groups announced Tuesday that it was beginning a television advertising campaign to stop the health care legislation.

The advertisement says “we thought Washington understood” that jobs and the economy should be the top priority for Congress. But instead, it says, “Congress is trying to use special rules to ram through their same trillion-dollar health care bill,” with “billions in new taxes and more mandates on businesses.”

The executive vice president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, R. Bruce Josten, said the groups were spending $4 million to $10 million on the advertisements. Sponsors include the chamber, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Retail Federation.

Separately, America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobby for insurers, said Tuesday that it was buying more than a million dollars’ worth of television advertising time to explain why insurance premiums had been rising.

Obama administration officials have unleashed a barrage of criticism of insurers, as part of their final push for support of the health legislation. They say the industry is reaping huge profits and overpaying top executives. But insurance companies say premiums have shot up because of soaring medical costs.

“What’s inside the health care cost pie?” the advertisement asks. “Some in Washington say it’s all health insurance. But health insurance is one of the smallest slices. Health insurance companies’ costs are only 4 percent of health care spending. Doctors, hospitals, medicines and tests are the biggest slices.”

The Senate Democratic whip, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, said there was no timetable for a budget reconciliation bill. The budget bill might include a major overhaul of the student loan program, he said, but only if it helped secure health care votes.

The most immediate question seemed to be how parliamentarians would rule on the steps that Democrats must follow. The reconciliation instructions require that committees “report changes in laws” that help meet deficit reduction targets.

Democrats are planning to use budget reconciliation to make the final health care revisions because it circumvents a Republican filibuster in the Senate and can be adopted by a simple majority vote rather than 60-vote supermajority normally required.

Republican leaders have been working to fan distrust of the Senate among House Democrats, warning that Mr. Obama and the Senate would have little reason to pursue the budget reconciliation process once the House approves the Senate-passed bill.

At that point, the Republicans suggest, Mr. Obama might just as well hold a signing ceremony and declare the legislation completed, even though it would include the objectionable provisions that the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, inserted.

“We believe what the president is doing is asking House Democrats to hold hands, jump off a cliff and hope Harry Reid catches them,” Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the No. 3 Republican, said on Tuesday. “And Senator Reid is not going to have any incentive to catch them because by the time the reconciliation bill gets to the Senate, the president will have already signed the health care bill into law and he’ll be well on his way to Indonesia.”

Some Democrats are hoping that the House will vote on the Senate bill by March 18, before Mr. Obama leaves for a weeklong trip to Guam, Indonesia and Australia. Congress also leaves March 26 for a two-week recess.

Stealth Reparations - The Racial Aspect of Health Care

Like it or not and once again, a massive transfer of wealth is going to take place from the productive and responsible part of society to those perpetually at the government's tit.

Why will socialized health care disproportionately help one out of ten whites, two out of ten blacks and three out of ten Latinos? Mostly because of illegitimacy rates and existing government welfare that subsidizes bad behavior, but let's not be judgmental. You pay, don't judge.

Who will pay the freight for this expanded welfare program? Not the recipients.

Who will pay as the programs inevitably expand? You will.

Who will continue to vote for those who support the expansion of the welfare state? The non-payers of course. Rob from Peter to pay Pablo and you will always get Pablo's vote.

Are whites and Asians responsible for black illegitimacy rates close to 70 percent? Less than 40 percent of black children live in two-parent families. Of course they cannot afford health care, or education, or housing or food. That is why society invented the family structure. Who wrecked the family structure with financial rewards?

Who is responsible for that? Has government created that problem and will more government make the problem worse?

Yes and yes, but let's not discuss it less we offend.

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Health reform's true colors

The real racial issue in this debate is not about Obama. It's about inequality. While all 46 million uninsured Americans would benefit from health-care legislation promoting high-quality, affordable health care, twice the share of the African American population and three times the proportion of Latinos would benefit. For people of color, health-care reform is not just important; it's urgent.

By Michael Bader Philly.com

The "tea party" protests that started last spring sparked a debate over whether racism was motivating the opposition to President Obama's health-care reform proposals. The issue was revived by a recent Internet advertisement depicting regular folks who oppose health-care reform saying facetiously, "I guess I'm racist."

While this offers another opportunity to have a national conversation about race and health care, I fear that we are once again going to fail to discuss the most important racial aspect of health care.

Rather than focusing on whether health-care reform opponents are somehow motivated by racism, we should be focusing on the fact that African Americans and Latinos have the most to gain from health-care reform - and the most to lose from its failure.

After the election of the first African American president, we shouldn't be surprised that race enters our national debates more easily. The "guess I'm racist" ad reflects frustration over the fact that criticisms of presidential initiatives are caught in that web. Sometimes legitimate policy criticism can be carelessly linked with the racist motivations of a small minority - such as those who forwarded e-mails depicting the president as an African witch doctor.

But race is part of the health-care debate in a more important way. Health care reveals our racial divide. Almost all of our institutions - including those involved in the delivery and financing of health care today - were built on a legacy that treated people of color as second-class citizens. While we have made great strides to move past this legacy, people of color are still paying the accumulated costs of past discrimination today.

Forty-six million Americans do not have health insurance, according to the most recent census estimates. About one in 10 whites is in that group, compared with two in 10 African Americans and three in 10 Latinos. And these disparities start early in life: While children are covered at higher rates than the U.S. population as a whole, racial inequality occurs in all age groups.

Thus, while all 46 million uninsured Americans would benefit from health-care legislation promoting high-quality, affordable health care, twice the share of the African American population and three times the proportion of Latinos would benefit. For people of color, health-care reform is not just important; it's urgent.

While the nation fretted about the total unemployment rate passing 10 percent last month, African Americans had passed that point more than a year earlier, with current rates reaching close to 16 percent. Latinos, meanwhile, face unemployment rates around 13 percent. The unemployed are, of course, far less likely to have health coverage.

Furthermore, both African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately represented in service-sector jobs that offer less security and fewer benefits, making it likely that any recovery will come later and be less complete for those groups.

Racism in our country has been defined by actions. But racism can also take the form of inaction in the face of inequality. In 1899, W.E.B. DuBois wrote in The Philadelphia Negro that the "most difficult social problem in the matter of Negro health is the peculiar attitude of the nation toward the well-being of the race. There have, for instance, been few other cases in the history of civilized peoples where human suffering has been viewed with such peculiar indifference."

Those fighting health-care reform now are showing the same "peculiar indifference" toward the welfare of blacks and Latinos in this country at the beginning of the 21st century that DuBois identified at the end of the 19th.

I doubt that most critics of health-care reform today are motivated to criticize the president because of his race. But without health-care reform, people of color will suffer the most. Is that outcome an acceptable by-product of inaction? That is the conversation about race and health care that we should be having.

Does an unabashed Liberal Economist, Robert Reich, have a plan?

Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary to Bill Clinton, loves to talk. I find him entertaining and intellectualy honest. He has some interesting views on job creation.

I did say Robert likes to talk and I did say he was intellectualy honest.

Robert is also currently an advisor to Barack Obama. Well guess what Robert had to say about government health care back in 2007:

Chuck Schumer cannot sell 'Public Option.' Obama punts.

Yesterday, a few cautious Democratic senators buried the 'public option,' the government-run health care plan whose supporters assure us will not force out private plans.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chair of the committee, said that the public option would keep the legislation from getting the 60 votes it needs to clear the Senate. He voted against it.

All Republicans and a few Democrats voted against both measures, Rockefeller's went down by a 15-8 vote; Schumer lost 13-10. The White House reacted:

As the President said in his Joint Session address, health insurance reform legislation must provide more choice and competition in the health insurance market in order to drive down costs and provide affordable options to Americans who are uninsured or forced to shop in the expensive private or small group market,” White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said in an email. “He believes making a public option available on the insurance exchange is a good way to achieve those goals. He has said he is open to other constructive ideas of increasing choice and competition. He will work with Congress to ensure that under health insurance reform, Americans who cannot find affordable coverage will always have a choice.”

Who do you believe, Ron Paul or Howard Dean?

She believes in free healthcare.

The Community Organizers testy about community organizers

Pelosi Calls Health Care Protests 'Astroturf'
Politics Daily

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office sent out a fact sheet to reporters Tuesday afternoon, calling recent demonstrations at congressional town hall events "Astroturf," the Washington euphemism for a corporate public relations campaign disguised to look like a grass roots citizen movement.

Pelosi said that while Democrats are putting forth proposals to reform health care, "those not interested in health insurance reform are disrupting public meetings and not allowing concerned constituents to ask questions and express their views. Many of these opponents who are shutting down civil discussion are organized by out-of-district, extremist political groups, and industry-supported lobbying firms."

The statement, citing numerous media reports, linked disruptions of congressional meetings to the insurance industry and conservative organizations like FreedomWorks, which is run by former House Republican leader Dick Armey.

As opposed to Astroturf opponents, "Democratic members of Congress will continue to talk about the benefits" of health insurance reform, Pelosi said. "Successful, informative constituent meetings are being headlined by Democrats across the country."

Democratic House members are traveling through their districts, frequently encountering angry crowds opposing health care reform, energy reform and the growing federal deficit. This week, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) faced a group of protesting constituents, which he called a "mob scene."

Pelosi's words are part of a broader Democratic effort to portray the demonstrations as not reflecting real voter sentiment. The DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out similar communications on Tuesday.

Drudge exposes Obama agenda to eliminate your private health care plan

Redistribution of health care is what this is all about. No surprise.

Health Care Costs

Everyone agrees that health care challenges the US economy and the political process. I have a friend that convinced the VA his diabetes was caused by his tenure at Chu Lai and exposure to agent orange. My friend was an air traffic controller and is 100 lbs over weight. I don't begrudge him taking advantage of the system. He is not alone.

Watch some cable and you will see all sorts of "free" things to be had and paid for by medicare. Congress gets all sorts of free things, as do many others. Lawyers freely advertise that if you ever knew someone who knew someone else who worked around asbestos that you may be entitled to free things.

Do not get me wrong. Everyone should have some form of healthcare protection. Catastrophic care should be universal. Children, regardless of means, should have health care protection and have it available to them. All others should have health care and they should pay for it. How can that be done?

It will have to come down to some combination of tax, insurance and fees.

It is estimated the US spends one trillion dollars annually on health care for overweight Americans. That would point to a logical place to tax. The risk of being fat should be priced into health care costs.

What are your ideas?

Speaking of Chu Lai



Sorry about that:



And never forget your radiomen

Free health care for all. Minorities lining up wish lists.

Minority lawmakers want bill to close health gaps
By BEN EVANS –AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — Black, Latino and Asian lawmakers warned Democratic leaders that any health care overhaul that ignores health gaps between whites and minorities will face stiff opposition.
The lawmakers said they would be hard-pressed to support a bill without a new program providing access to health care for all Americans.

"The public health option has to be there," Rep. Mike Honda, a California Democrat who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said at a news conference. "If we don't have a public option, there's no discussion."
Republicans are resisting a government health insurance program that would compete with private insurance companies, arguing that the companies would be put at a competitive disadvantage.

Members of the Asian caucus, along with the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said they plan to introduce legislation this week that includes their wish list for broadening health care overhaul beyond various plans floated in the House and Senate. The three minority caucuses have a total of 91 members, most of them Democrats and enough to help shape the final legislation.

Citing federal research showing higher rates of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and infant mortality among minorities, they said they would seek more funds for community health centers that provide care in poor neighborhoods.

The lawmakers also called for expanding a National Institutes of Health center that focuses on minority health concerns, works to improve work force diversity in the medical industry and collects more data to better track disparities in health care.

They said the costs of reaching into low-income, minority communities to improve upfront health care would be more than offset in the long run by preventing expensive procedures and hospital stays.

"Believe me, a comprehensive health care reform bill without the aspects that we're discussing today will be set for failure," said Rep. Nydia Velazquez, a New York Democrat who chairs the Hispanic caucus.

Later, at a discussion of minority health issues at the White House, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the Obama administration is committed to addressing the "alarming disparity in the delivery of quality health care."

Doing so, Sebelius told officials, is critical to lowering health care costs.

Sebelius noted that 75 percent of the nation's $2.2 trillion health care expenses go toward treating chronic diseases, referring to far higher rates of such diseases among minorities. She said the rising rates of HIV/AIDS among African-Americans is among "the most troubling" developments in U.S. health care.

"Minority Americans not only are more likely to be uninsured, so they don't have preventative care, don't have early intervention, but are less likely to have quality care when they come to seek the care that they need," she said.

The White House issued a summary report on minority health care showing that African-Americans are seven times more likely as whites to have HIV/AIDS, that blacks and Hispanics have diabetes rates nearly twice as high as whites, and that black men are 50 percent more likely than whites to have prostate cancer.

The report said more than one in three Hispanics and American Indians, and about one in five African-Americans, are uninsured. That compares to one in eight whites lacking coverage.

The Non-crisis of Health Care.

Everyone in the United States, every illegal immigrant, every visitor to the US, every child, and every old person has health care. Everyone of the alleged forty million uninsured will get free medical care if they need it and show up at a hospital. 85% of all Americans have a paid insurance plan. 85% is a big number. Imagine being right in the market 85% of the time, or have an 85% chance of recovering from cancer, or a president with an 85% approval rating.

Many of the uncovered 15% have made the economic decision not to pay for insurance because they do no want to. They know they will be covered in an emergency. I pay for my own insurance and pay 100% of the policy for everyone who works for me. That is my choice. It gives me an advantage to get people who I want to work for me. If the government wants to coerce the remaining 15% to get insurance that is fine with me.

They could start by deducting premium payments from any and all government assistance payments being made to the uncovered individual.

I would wager that many of the uninsured drive without auto insurance. It would take little to put insurance information on a drivers license and have all licenses swiped at the pump at the time of purchase. No insurance on the driver and/or the car, let them pay an extra buck or two or three per gallon, and be insured for the time it takes them to use a tank of gas. They will soon see the value of a private insurance plan.

Other than that let the lying bastards in the government mind their own business and leave the rest of us alone.