According to Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA), the reason the moderate blue dogs are opposed to or are working to change the House health care bill is because they are “brain dead,” looking for campaign contributions from insurance companies, and are promoting “a right-wing agenda.”
Stark made the comments during a conference call today with reporters, which was hosted by the ultra-liberal Campaign for America’s Future. According to an Associated Press piece, Stark’s specific words were:
They’re for the most part, I hate to say, brain dead, but they’re just looking to raise money from insurance companies and promote a right-wing agenda that is not really very useful in this whole process.”
Why is medical malpractice reform not in the health care reform bills making their way through Congress? That’s a question many of us have been asking for months. We now have the answer, care of Howard Dean and Congressman Jim Moran.
At a recent townhall meeting, Moran was asked by a constituent about the issue. (That was after Moran forced the gentleman to show him his ID before asking the question.) Howard Dean decided to take a first stab at answering by saying:
This is the answer from a doctor and a politician. … Here’s why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that, the more stuff you put in it the more enemies you make. Right. And the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else… And that is the plain and simple truth.
Congressman Moran followed up by saying, “That’s a very honest answer.”
In other words, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have no problem taking on the American people — the majority of whom are opposed to ObamaCare — but they wouldn’t dare take on their well-funded buddies in the trial bar.
Many Obamacare proponents paint a government-run or single-payer system as some Utopian endgame for health care. It’s not. The same debate that takes place here rages overseas as well.
Tuning in to the Prime Minister’s Question Hour is a good way to appreciate (in addition to the unintended hilarity) how a government-run system doesn’t end the debate, it merely changes it. Instead of asking questions about universal coverage, complaints arise over seniors being denied care because the government offered care to younger patients.
This article from the UK’s Liberal Democratic Party is illustrative:
“When doctors at that hospital have confirmed that they were instructed by their managers to abandon seriously ill patients and to treat people with minor ailments instead in order to meet the Prime Minister’s targets, it is not enough to talk of reviews, inquiries and to blame other people. Will he scrap the mad targets that make hospitals tick boxes rather than look after the desperately ill?”
Full article is here. Remember, putting Uncle Sam in charge typically raises the cost, reduces efficiency, and introduces severe unintended consequences: see Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Cash for Clunkers, AMTRAK, etc., etc…
In an op-ed published in The Washington Post today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele highlighted details of a “Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights.”
Protecting Our Seniors
GOP Principles for Health Care
By Michael S. Steele
Monday, August 24, 2009
Americans are engaged in a critical debate over reforming our health-care system. While Republicans believe that reforms are necessary, President Obama’s plan for a government-run health-care system is the wrong prescription. The Democrats’ plan will hurt American families, small businesses and health-care providers by raising care costs, increasing the deficit, and not allowing patients to keep a doctor or insurance plan of their choice. Furthermore, under the Democrats’ plan, senior citizens will pay a steeper price and will have their treatment options reduced or rationed.
Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors. That is why Republicans support a Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care.
“Rationing is bad policy. It forces individuals with different preferences to accept the same care. It also imposes an arbitrary cap on the future growth of spending instead of letting it evolve in response to changes in technology, tastes and income. In my judgment, rationing would be much worse than excessive care.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, President Obama is trying to reassure his closest allies that the Public Option (government-run health care) is still on the table. As we noted yesterday, dropping the Public Option could mean losing over 100 votes in the House.
From the story:
“The government-run plan does not have the votes to pass in the Senate, and it never has,” said Michael Mahaffey, spokesman for Sen. Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.), a Finance Committee member. “So while Sen. Enzi is pleased to see the White House backing away from its insistence on including a government-run plan, the fact is this doesn’t change the dynamic in the Senate very much.”
The President no doubt has a difficult balancing act to walk in the next few months. The fall of the Public Option could spell the demise of his health care overhaul and even possibly other heavy-handed legislative goals like Cap-and-Tax.
Perhaps most troubling, however, is that government control could be re-branded under new names like co-op or individual mandate. Taxpayers should still be on the lookout for whatever derivation of government control that the White House conjures in the next few weeks.
When it come to health care, Representative Eric Massa (D-NY) says definitively that he will vote against the wishes of his district, which he labels “one of the most right wing Republican districts in the country.” Massa supports a single-payer, government-run system.
According to a new Rasmussen Reports survey, a majority of American voters (54%) believe doing nothing is better than passing the health care reform proposals currently making their way through Congress.
60% of Democrats support the Congressional plans
80% of Republicans say passing nothing is better than passing the plans in Congress
66% would rather the legislators take no action vs. 23% who would like to see the Congressional plans passed
The extreme Left, led by Former Dem Party Chairman Howard Dean, is up in arms over the Administration’s hint that it may willing to forgo a government-run public insurance option in an attempt to strike a deal on health care reform. And it appears the Deaniacs are having an impact.
CNN is reporting that White House Aide Linda Douglass has sent out a written statement making clear the President still supports the “public option.”
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The White House sought to reassure jittery supporters Monday that President Obama is not abandoning the fight for a public health insurance option.
President Obama “believes the public option is the best way” to reform health care, a White House aide says.
The assurance came amid a media firestorm ignited over the weekend by administration officials seeming to indicate a willingness to drop such an option in order to secure congressional approval of a health care reform bill.
“The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans, and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market,” White House aide Linda Douglass said in a written statement.
“He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.”
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made headlines this weekend when she signaled that the Obama Administration is open to dropping the so-called “public option” from legislation to overhaul heath care in an effort to reach a compromise. Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union yesterday, Sebelius said the public option “is not an essential element” of President Obama’s plan for health care reform.
Almost immediately, the media’s attention turned its focus to “insurance cooperatives,” or co-ops, as an alternative to a public option. Don’t be fooled!
As Michael Tanner at the CATO Institute points out, “Government-run health care is government-run health care no matter what you call it.” Tanner writes:
The health care “co-op” approach now embraced by the Obama administration will still give the federal government control over one-sixth of the U.S. economy, with a government-appointed board, taxpayer funding, and with bureaucrats setting premiums, benefits, and operating rules.
As much as the White House would like to claim that they are the sole source of facts about health care, President Obama recently made some comments that have little factual support in the actual House bill.
The White House claims that if you like your health care plan then you can keep it. However, no one agrees. Even non-partisan estimates agree that up to 100 million Americans could lose their health coverage. The White House can’t guarantee everyone will keep their current plan, despite the President’s political posturing.
The White House claims that government control won’t break the budget. False. The Congressional Budget Office even noted that the current version of the bill would increase the federal deficit by at least $239 billion.
President Obama: “I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor.” But, even the current House bill establishes a Health Benefits Advisory Committee to make decisions, including cost sharing and benefits.
The White House might claim that it has a monopoly on the truth, but gap between rhetoric and reality on health care reform is about as large as America’s distrust with government-run health care.
The Associated Press is reporting that the “end of life counseling” provision passed in the HR 3200 will not be included in the Senate bill. According to the article:
Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Thursday that the provision had been dropped from consideration because it could be misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly.
By now, most people have read — or at least heard about — the USA Today column in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer labeled the protesters of Obama’s health care plan “Un-American.” But apparently the Madam Speaker used to be a big fan of those “angry mobs.”
In a January 2006 town hall event, captured in this video being circulated on the web, Pelosi applauded a group of disruptive, anti-war protesters by stating, “your advocacy is very American and very important.” She went further in stating, “There is nothing more articulate, more eloquent to a member of Congress than the voice of his or her own constituents.”
Pelosi closed by saying “I am a fan of disruptors!” I guess she is only “a fan” when it’s convenient for her agenda.
The markets don’t like the odds of President Obama’s health care bill passing by the end of this year. The market gives it just over a 35% chance of success.
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