Freedom Line Blog

New Orleans Times-Picayune:  “With help from [Senate Majority Leader] Reid, the health care bill provides Louisiana with between $100 million and $300 million in Medicaid financing for fiscal 2011.”

Must have been one of those rounding errors that caused the rest of the mainstream media to report only the lower number.

Harry Reid will get a little back, for himself, not taxpayers, when Landrieu and James Carville host a New Orleans fundraiser for him on December 12 at $4800 a pop.

h/t:  Martin Kady II, politico.com

It’s a well known fact that Majority Leader Harry Reid is scrambling to find the 60 votes necessary to move his government-run health care bill to the Senate floor.  Indeed, Reid is doing everything in his power to “encourage” the three or four Democrats supposedly on the fence to vote “yea” tomorrow night on the motion to proceed on the legislation.

And when we say everything, we mean E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reports:

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.” 

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.” 

I am told the section applies to exactly one state:  Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing [what] could be written with a single world:  Louisiana.

The price tag for this provision?  Karl writes, “According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.”

Read the full story, complete with the actual bill language, here.

Late last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released the newest iteration of health care “reform.”  Seeking to outdo Speaker Pelosi’s 1,990 page bill, Reid’s version measures in at 2,074 pages, longer than War and Peace.  You can read and search through the full version here.

The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have released cost estimates of the bill.  Don’t let Senate Democrats fool you, however.  The actual cost of the bill is not $849 billion, mainly because federal subsidies don’t even kick in until 2014.

When fully implemented, the actual cost of Harry Reid’s bill is over $2.5 trillion, from 2014 to 2023.

If you like tax increases, you’ll love the new bill.  It contains over $500 billion in new taxes.  The bill taxes health insurance, Botox, Health Savings Accounts, drug devices, and some employers and employees.  No one escapes Uncle Sam’s scalpel in Harry Reid’s version of “reform.”  Click here for a full list of tax hikes.

More analysis later.

With pressure coming from the White House and not to be outdone by Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated earlier today that the Senate could begin debate on his health care “reform” bill as early as next week.  Reid believes a final vote on the legislation could happen by Christmas.

That’s an ambitious schedule considering that Reid’s bill hasn’t even been presented to his Senate colleagues yet, much less to the American people.   The Majority Leader has been waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to finish its cost estimates on various versions of his “reform” proposal prior to deciding what the final product will look like and releasing it for review.

Moreover, Reid has his hands full trying to find the 60 votes necessary to proceed to a vote on health care “reform” in the Senate as liberals and so-called moderates in his caucus are divided on issues such as taxpayer funding for abortion and a government-run “public option.”

UPDATE:

The Hill reports:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) late Tuesday laid the groundwork for the Senate’s healthcare reform debate to start next Tuesday.

Reid filed a motion to introduce the bill on Monday, Nov. 16. Anticipating a Republican objection, the bill would be pushed onto the Senate calendar.

“A motion to proceed to the bill would be in order the next legislative day,” said Reid spokesman Jim Manley.

Some people have a knack for recognizing a decisive moment before it occurs. Even fewer have the insight to choose (or guess) which way is best when it happens. Count Martin Heinrich, freshman Democrat from New Mexico, as one of the folks who didn’t migrate from column A to column B. When discussing his support for comprehensive health care “reform” over the weekend, Congressman Heinrich said:

This is an opportunity to do something as big Social Security,” he added. “And me, personally, I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history.”

Regrettably, far too many liberal politicians think being first (or biggest) is the same as being right. With this in mind, replicating the biggest social welfare boondoggle in American history becomes not only historic, but right, and voting for it ensures supporters of their implied inclusion in whatever laudatory blurb finds its way into next decade’s high school civics books.

However, there is another way to interpret the “historic” moment facing the nation and the Democratic Party. In the aftermath of World War II, England voted for a weaker presence abroad, and a much enhanced social safety net at home. The plan came to be known as the “post war consensus” and can be characterized as:

…a belief in Keynesian economics, a mixed economy with the nationalization of major industries, the establishment of the National Health Service and the creation of the modern welfare state in Britain. The policies were instituted by all governments (both Labour and Conservative) during the post-war period.” (Emphasis added)

Sound familiar? Much like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the leader of the consensus, Clement Attlee, was an unremarkable politician except for the fact he helped create the National Health Service. This put Britain on the path of unsustainable spending and deficits all in the name of a health program that expands coverage while castrating care.

Welcome to infamy, Rep. Heinrich. Here you’ll find no end to self-indulgent paternalism and the undying belief that free people need “free” services from government.

House Democrats announced today that a vote on Speaker Pelosi’s version of health care “reform” will be held on Saturday night at 6:00, likely when few people are watching.  It is, after all, still college football season.

If the vote succeeds, the House will recess next week and then the ball will be in Senator Harry Reid’s court to pass the Senate’s version of reform. If Reid succeeds, the House and the Senate would meet in conference to reconcile the different provisions in each bill.

During the vote this weekend, the House will also likely vote on a new Republican alternative to ObamaCare.  The Republican bill, 971 pages shorter than ObamaCare, contains provisions that allow consumers to shop across state lines for health insurance.  The Republican alternative also allows small businesses to pool their health plans with other businesses, in an effort to drive down costs.  You can read the alternative to ObamaCare here.

Make sure to call your representative this week at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote “No” on H.R. 3962, Speaker Pelosi’s government-takeover of our health care system.

According to intrade.com, the online prediction market, Harry Reid’s (D-NV) announcement of a modified public option put the chances of ObamaCare’s passage on the ropes.

Earlier this month, markets gave the public option a 30 percent chance of passing before December 31, 2009.  After Reid’s announcement of a “compromise” bill, the odds are now just 7.1 percent, according to intrade.

Let’s hope the market is right, as it usually is in all aspects of life.  Call your Senator at 202-224-3121 and tell them to oppose Senator Reid’s pathetic attempt at health care “reform.”

In the past two weeks, Senators Harry Reid and Max Baucus, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other higher-ups in the administration have been behind closed doors crafting a government takeover of health care.

Senator Reid has been the chief architect of a plan to “meld” bills from the Health Education and Labor Committee and the Finance Committee.  Today, Reid emerged from his smoke-filled room with legislation that includes a so-called public option and a health care co-op.

This compromise between liberal Democrats and uber-liberal Democrats now heads to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which will attempt to put a price tag on the rag-tag, budget-busting piece of … legislation. The White House hopes this version of ObamaCare will be enough to garner at least 60 votes in the Senate.

Call Congress at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote “No” on Senator Reid’s health care “compromise.” Click here for more details on the legislation.  Click here for CFIF’s coverage of the health care debate.

Proponents of ObamaCare have couched their language in terms familiar to conservatives and libertarians: choice, option and freedom.  We’ve been told that a ‘Public Option’ will be available to compete with private health care companies.  White House officials want Americans to forget that more than 88 million patients could lose their private health care and be forced into the government option.

Peering into Harry Reid’s newest health care incarnation, which you can read here (with our commentary here), the new Senate health care bill is all about force, not choice.  In the first 100 pages alone, there are dozens of examples of “requirements” on doctors, patients, states and the federal government.

Here is a brief snippet of what to expect.  Of course, this represents just over 6% of the new mandates and regulations contained in the 1,502 page bill.  Unfortunately, most of the language below is completely unintelligible.

1) Requiring that all new health benefits plans offered to individuals and employees in the individual and small group markets be qualified health benefits plans.

2) SEC. 2201. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS: New plans must be qualified health benefits plans. Each State shall provide that each health benefits plan which is offered in the individual or small group market within the State shall be a qualified health benefits plan.

3) An offeror of a plan shall not be treated as meeting the requirements of this subsection unless the plan also accepts, renews, or continues in force coverage of an individual who is eligible for enrollment in the plan by reason of their relationship to the named insured under the plan.

4) Each offeror of a health benefits plan shall establish annual and special enrollment periods meeting the requirements of section 2236(d)(2).

5) Each State shall establish 1 or more rating areas within that State for purposes of applying the requirements of this title.

6) The contribution amount for any plan year may be based on the percentage of revenue of each offeror or on a specified amount per enrollee and may be required to be paid in advance or periodically throughout the plan year.

7) An employment based plan meets the requirements of this paragraph if the plan—provides benefits appropriate for individuals between the ages described in subsection (a)(2)(C) and that are certified as so appropriate by the Secretary; implements programs and procedures to generate cost-savings with respect to participants with chronic and high-cost conditions; and provides documentation of the actual cost of medical claims involved and for which reimbursement is sought under this section.

8 ) Each State shall phase in the application of the insurance reform requirements under subpart 1 to grandfathered health benefits plans offered in the small group market within the State.

9) SPECIAL RULE FOR RATING REQUIREMENTS — A State law shall not be treated as offering more protection to consumers than the protection offered by such requirements if the State law imposes ratios that are greater than the ratios specified in section 2204(b).

10) Each State shall — require each offeror of a qualified health benefits plans offered through an exchange — to provide an internal claims appeal process; to provide notice in clear language and in the enrollee’s primary language of available internal and external appeals processes and the availability of the ombudsman established under section 2229(a) to assist them with the appeals processes.

11) PLAN REQUIREMENTS — An offeror meets the requirements of this subsection with respect to a qualified health benefits plan if the plan offers a benefits package that is uniform in each State in which the plan is offered and meets the requirements set forth in paragraph (3) the offeror is licensed in each State; the offeror meets all requirements of this title with respect to a qualified health benefits plan, including the requirement to offer the silver and gold levels of the plan in each exchange in the State for the market in which the plan is offered; and the offeror determines the premiums for the plan in any State on the basis of the ratings rules in effect in that State for the ratings areas in which it is offered.

12) The State provides that the amount of the monthly premium an eligible individual is required to pay for coverage under the standard health plan for the individual and the individual’s dependents.

13) The amount of the monthly premium an individual is required to pay under either the standard health plan or the applicable second lowest cost silver plan shall be determined after reduction for any premium credits and premium subsidies allowable with respect to either plan.

14) The Secretary shall each year conduct a review of each State program to ensure compliance with the requirements of this section.

15) INFORMATION REQUIRED TO BE PROVIDED BY APPLICANTS: An applicant for enrollment in a qualified health benefits plan offered through an exchange shall provide the information required by any of the following paragraphs that is applicable to an enrollee.

The Baucus Bill, passed by the Senate Finance Committee last week, has been written and filed… all 1,502 pages of it.  The public posting of the bill is, of course, after the Committee passed it without reading it.  After the absolute certainty that it isn’t going to be the bill on which the entire Senate votes.

You can read it here, but we wouldn’t recommend wasting your time.  Harry Reid and other members of “the most open and transparent Congress in history” are presently working behind closed doors with senior aides of “the most open and transparent Administration in history” to draft yet another version of ObamaCare that will ultimately be considered by the full Senate.   News reports indicate that a floor debate on the new, secret “reform” legislation could begin as early as next week.  But that all depends on whether the White House and Senate negotiators are able to buy off the docs and finish their other back-room wheelings and dealings by week’s end.  

Didn’t President Obama promise to air all health care reform negotiations on C-SPAN?

For all you policy junkies out there who just can’t resist, we must warn you that reading the Baucus Bill can cause severe anxiety, eye strain, sudden spikes in blood pressure, heart palpitations and chronic disgust in your government.  If you decide to proceed, it’s best you read it online rather than printing it off and carrying it over to that comfy Lazy Boy.  It’s still unclear whether hernia operations will be included on the final list of government-approved procedures covered by what is likely to be your new government-approved insurance plan.

Last week, CFIF ran a commentary piece discussing the budget-busting effects that an expansion of Medicaid, as called for in the health care reform bills making their way through Congress, will have on state budgets.

With many state budgets deep in the red and governors scrambling to find more places to cut due to the economic downturn, we warned:

The principal (but far from only) problem for the states [with health care reform] is forced expansion of Medicaid, a shared expense with the federal government, but already coming apart at the seams in many states, which must, on average, pay about 43 percent of Medicaid costs.”

Shailagh Murray of The Washington Post has a piece today with the sub-title “Governors Fear For Their Budgets” that addresses the issue, and which reads in part:

Whether Medicaid can absorb a huge influx of beneficiaries is a matter of grave concern to many governors, who have cut low-income health benefits — along with school funding, prison construction, state jobs and just about everything else — to cope with the most severe economic downturn in decades.”

The issue is getting some attention in Congress, particularly by Majority Leader Harry Reid who cut a sweetheart deal with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus to, as Murray notes, “ensure that the federal government would pay the full cost of expanding Medicaid in Reid’s state, Nevada.” 

Some governors, notably Rick Perry (R-TX), Phil Bredesen (D-TN) and Mitch Daniels (R-IN), are already speaking out on this issue.  Is yours?

Despite the Senate Finance Committee voting twice this week to reject a government-run public health insurance option, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today on a phone call with constituents:

We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president’s desk.”

This, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

When we posted commentary this morning regarding the imposition of ginormous new Medicaid mandates on the states if “health care reform” passes, we briefly alluded to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in an attempt to ease his dismal re-election chances, getting 100% reimbursement for Nevada, while sticking other states with their share and part of his also.

Our point was to motivate governors (who well understand the problem) to oppose this travesty.

Manu Raju of politico.com wrote on another aspect of Reid’s sweetheart deal – the grumbling of other Senate Democrats – and the piece is priceless.

Note how the other Democrats oh so seriously want their states to be treated “fairly,” not once acknowledging that they are about to screw all of them, in varying degrees.

Note how Reid uses the argument to make his campaign speech to Nevadans, which seems to say, “I’m going to pass this bill that screws you, but less than others.  Don’t you want to keep me?”

Note how none of these worthies recognize how ridiculous they sound.

The common refrain in the Senate is that a bill needs 60 votes (3/5 of the Senate) to pass.   Otherwise, a dedicated cadre of 41 Senators can continue debate on a bill forever, thus killing its legislative prospects.

However, during a process known as budget reconciliation, the Senate is allowed to pass legislation directly related to taxing and spending with only a majority (51 votes) needed.  Thus, as Harry Reid has already pledged, a government-takeover of health care could pass, even with unanimous GOP objection and with several Democratic defectors.

Opponents of a government takeover do have several arrows in their quiver.  Under the “Byrd Rule,” a Senator can make a budget point of order and rule that a certain piece of legislation is not germane to the budget reconciliation process.  It takes 60 votes to overcome a budget point of order.  Thus, any health care bill passed during the reconciliation process would likely emerge from the Senate as a smelly piece of Swiss Cheese, not pie-in-the-sky universal health care.

In case you wanted to know more, MSNBC’s First Read has a great primer on reconciliation.

In his weekly descent into leftist frivolousness today, Wall Street Journal token columnist Thomas Frank argues that Democrats have remained far too…  get this…  “civil” in contemporary political debate.  Frank absurdly claims that in response to conservative activism, Democrats “pine for civility, pretending that the argument comes down to the scary rhetoric issuing from the right.”

On what planet is he living?  As noted by Tony Blankley in his most recent commentary, Democrats have met citizen activism by labeling them “evil” (Senator Harry Reid), “un-American” (House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer), “racist” (Jimmy Carter)  and accusing them of employing “Nazi” tactics (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi).  In contrast, Republican leaders have maintained a professional, restrained, rational tone, as illustrated by Senators Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl, and Representatives Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor.  Frank proceeds to unfurl his usual litany of anti-capitalist tirades and bogeymen, but that’s nothing new.  Asserting that Democrat leaders have somehow taken the rhetorical high road, however, is remarkably silly even for him.

The desire of some in Congress to shut down conservative talk radio through the re-imposition of the “Fairness Doctrine” or by other regulatory means is fairly well documented. But did you know that the Majority Leader of the United States Senate wishes his state’s largest newspaper “out of business?”

Sherman Frederick, publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, discussed the incident during which Harry Reid made his hopes known in a column published this weekend:

On Wednesday, before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Reid joined the chamber’s board members for a meet-‘n’-greet and a photo. One of the last in line was the Review-Journal’s director of advertising, Bob Brown, a hard-working Nevadan who toils every day on behalf of advertisers. He has nothing to do with news coverage or the opinion pages of the Review-Journal.

Yet, as Bob shook hands with our senior U.S. senator in what should have been nothing but a gracious business setting, Reid said: ‘I hope you go out of business.’

Later, in his public speech, Reid said he wanted to let everyone know that he wants the Review-Journal to continue selling advertising because the Las Vegas Sun is delivered inside the Review-Journal.

Read Frederick’s full column and response to the incident here.

At a luncheon meeting this week with Harry Reid and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, the Majority Leader suggested that the Senate would not be voting on the the dubiously-named “Employee Free Choice Act” any time soon.  According to Reid:

We have too many other things on our plate.

The news spread quickly throughout the policy community yesterday.  And despite some having done so already, it is way too premature to start claiming victory on this issue.

Make no mistake… Card Check will rear its ugly head once again.