Senator Reid Proposes Restrictions on Self-Governance

Senator Harry Reid has slipped language into the heath care bill, via an amendment that would tie the hands of future Congresses with regard to repealing or amending it. The amendment makes substantial changes to the standing rules of the Senate, a move that normally requires a super-majority vote of at least 67 Senators. When questioned about this by Senator DeMint, The Senate president ruled that the bill changes Senate procedure, but not Senate rules, so the 67 vote threshold did not apply. The unasked question that begs to follow is, “what establishes Senate procedures?” Answer: The rules. 

Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment (page 1020) states that “it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.” The subsection pertains to regulations imposed by the Medicare Advisory Board. The amendment goes on to require a vote of 3/5 the Senate (60 votes) to waive the paragraph. 

This posturing, setting some provisions of the law above others, so as to make them untouchable sets a dangerous precedent. It is the Constitution that is established as the supreme law of the land. The threshold for changing it was set high by the founders. Senator Reid and his cohorts are now attempting to enshrine provisions of their health care bill as above normal laws, and not subject to the normal democratic processes to change or repeal them. 

DeMint observed, “I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this into every bill.” 

Ed Morisey made the point well in his article: “The elected representatives of today should not have greater authority than those who will follow them. Any attempt to pass this into legislation aggrandizes the power of this Congress at the expense of those that follow.” 

The proposed language of this health care amendment would, by simple majority vote, establish a requirement for a super majority to alter or repeal it. If this anti-democracy measure is allowed to stand, the implications for this and all future legislation are dire. Hundreds of years of established Congressional process will be subverted, the future will of the people, expressed by the election of their representatives, thwarted by unreasonable and unprecedented obstacles to our right of self-governance.

From Heritage

by Robert A. Book, Ph.D.

The debate over health-care reform has sparked all sorts of controversy over costs, regulations and choices. But one ‘feature’ seems to have escaped notice: the built-in lack of accountability of our elected leaders for what health care will be like after the plan is implemented.

Proponents claim we need reform now to solve an immediate health care “crisis.” “If we don’t act, 14,000 Americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day,” President Obama claimed on July 22.

Yet the bills he urges us to support will not actually provide any health care until 2013 — by which time, if the president’s claim is correct, an additional 17 million Americans will have lost their insurance.

Why the delay? The best way the people have to hold their elected leaders accountable for results is by threatening to withhold their votes. But this bill seems expressly designed to eliminate that source of accountability. By the time Americans experience the effects of this health care bill (except for the tax increases), not only will President Obama have run for re-election, but so will two-thirds of the senators — and every House member will have been up for re-election twice. Their votes on health care reform will be old news. If it goes very badly, it will be too late to vote those responsible out of office.

Furthermore, the House bill leaves all the knotty details and controversial issues to the newly created “Health Choices Commissioner.”

That’s the person whose job it will be to make a lot of our health care choices for us. The Senate Finance Committee (Baucus) proposal gives that authority to the secretary of Health and Human Services. Issues such as whether to:

• Permit people with Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to retain the high-deductible health plans required by the HSA law.
• Allow low-cost catastrophic plans.
• Permit insurance companies to cover treatment of otherwise terminally ill patients.
• Require (or prohibit) coverage of abortion.
• Cover new cancer drugs or controversial procedures like (as the Center for American Progress has called for) transgender operations.

From Bloomberg News

87 percent of the revenue in the original Baucus proposal to finance Obamacare would come from individuals with incomes of less than $200,000.

The U.S. Senate’s version of Obamacare finally is emerging into broad daylight, and the more people see of it, the less popular it should be.

For all the rhetoric, the plan is quite easy to sketch, thanks in part to an analysis by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

So here goes: Under the health-care plan advanced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, lower- and middle-class people who have insurance today are going to be taxed and squeezed in order to cover people who don’t.

The money to finance the new entitlement comes from two main sources, tax increases and Medicare cuts. Medicare cuts are mostly borne by elderly folks with modest means. That undoubtedly explains why seniors are so concerned.

The tax increases, by contrast, have received little attention. There has been almost no discussion of the simple question: who would pay the tab?

Think about how unusual that is. It is a radical departure from past tax debates. When President George W. Bush was in office, every tax proposal, no matter how minor, seemed to be buried by a blizzard of detailed distributional analyses that went from think-tank Web sites to the front pages of your favorite newspaper instantaneously.

In this debate, the distributional-industrial complex has remained silent.

Such remarkable silence in the noisiest town on earth can only be caused by an uncomfortable truth. And the mother of all uncomfortable truths is lurking below the surface in the health debate. If you are a card-carrying member of the left-wing establishment, you can’t analyze the distributional consequences of the health bill, because if you do, you will catch President Barack Obama in a lie.

Read the rest of the story

From Human Events

Seven Contradictions Worth Considering

By Newt Gingrich – With the Senate Finance Committee poised to pass health care legislation, the final contours of the bill that could come out of Congress are starting to come into focus. The bill will contain new taxes on the middle class. It will add to the deficit. And it will put government bureaucrats between Americans and their doctors, among other things.

So it’s not too early to ask the obvious question: Will President Obama veto health care reform?

It’s worth asking because so many of the costs to taxpayers the President has repeatedly promised won’t be in the legislation are, and so many of the benefits are not.

What follows is a list, in no particular order, of the contradictions between the President’s promises and the reality of Democratic health care reform. Add them up and it’s hard to see how President Obama doesn’t reject the bill Congress seems likely to send him.

Contradiction #1: From a Promise Not to Raise Taxes on the Middle Class to $2 Billion in “Penalties”

As far back as the campaign, President Obama promised he wouldn’t raise taxes on Americans making less than $250,000.

But an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that at least 71 percent of the individual mandate penalties in Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’s (D-MT) bill would be paid by Americans earning less than $250,000. In fact, the nonpartisan analysis found that, of the $2.8 billion in penalties the bill imposes on those who do not purchase health insurance, a full $2 billion will be paid by taxpayers earning less than $120,000 for a family of four.

The Senate Finance bill also levies $215 billion in new taxes on employers and health insurers for offering high-value insurance benefits, which will surely be passed onto all consumers.

Republicans tried to ensure that President Obama’s words would not ring hollow by offering an amendment that said: “This amendment provides that no tax, fee or penalty imposed by this legislation shall be applied to any individual earning less than $200,000 per year or any couple earning less than $250,000 per year.” Democrats defeated it.

Contradiction #2: From a Promise to Reject a Bill That “Adds One Dime to the Deficit” to $239 Billion Added to the Deficit

In his speech to the Joint Session of Congress, the President was adamant: “I will not sign [a bill] if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.”

And yet House bill H.R. 3200 will increase the deficit by an amazing $239 billion over the next decade.

The Baucus bill pretends to be deficit neutral but it’s an accounting gimmick. “It pays for itself” by forcing a new $250-300 billion unfunded mandate on the states. And it doesn’t include nearly $300 billion that will be spent to adjust physician payments in Medicare.

Contradiction #3: From a Promise That “If You Like Your Current Plan You Can Keep It” to Half of Medicare Advantage Benefits Being Cut

In his speech to the Joint Session of Congress last month and elsewhere, the President has reassured nervous Americans that if they like their current coverage, his reform will let them keep it.

Unless you happen to have Medicare Advantage, that is.

Or employer provided insurance.

The director of the nonpartisan CBO testified before the Senate that, under the Senate bill, the benefits of seniors under Medicare Advantage would be cut in half.

And an analysis of the House bill found that 88 million people will lose their current insurance under government health care.

What’s more, both bills would disrupt vision care for more than 100 million Americans.

Read about the other four contridictions

From the Politico

In the most contentious exchange of President Barack Obama’s marathon of five Sunday shows, he said it is “not true” that a requirement for individuals to get health insurance under a key reform plan now being debated amounts to a tax increase. 

But he could look it up — in the bill.

Page 29, sentence one of the bill introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) says: “The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax.” 

And the rest of the bill is clear that the Finance Committee does, in fact, consider it a tax: “The excise tax would be assessed through the tax code and applied as an additional amount of Federal tax owed.”

The bill requires every American, with few exceptions, to carry health insurance. To enforce this individual mandate, the Senate Finance Committee created the excise tax as a penalty for people who don’t have insurance – and it can run as much as $3,800 a year per family. 

Read the rest of the story

Posted from Hot Air

Mark Tapscott discovers a nugget in the analysis provided by the Congressional Research Office on HR3200, the House version of ObamaCare coming to the floor.  While Barack Obama insists that the idea that ObamaCare will cover illegal immigrants is a “myth,” the CRS points out that the bill does nothing to prevent it.  Since HR3200 doesn’t require people to establish citizenship or legal residency before applying to exchanges for health insurance, including the public option, taxpayer money will certainly flow to illegal immigrants:

In what he called the “first myth” being spread by critics of his proposal for a government-run health care system, Obama said they are wrong in claiming illegal immigrants will be covered: “That is not true. Illegal immigrants would not be covered. That idea has not even been on the table.” Obama said.

Well, Mr. President, that idea must have been tucked under a stack of background briefing papers over there in the corner of the table because the Congressional Research Service (CRS) says this about H.R. 3200, the Obamacare bill approved just before the recess by the House Energy and Commerce Committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA:

“Under H.R. 3200, a ‘Health Insurance Exchange’ would begin operation in 2013 and would offer private plans alongside a public option…H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens—whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently—participating in the Exchange.”

CRS reports do not get released to the public.  CRS offers private analysis to members of Congress on request, but rarely do they see the light of day.  However, David Freddoso got his hands on a copy of the 11-page analysis, “Treatment of Non-Citizens in HR3200″ late last night, and confirmed Tapscott’s reading:

In its subsection on health insurance subsidies (known as “affordability credits”), HR 3200 does state, “Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.” That would seem to solve the problem, but it’s more rhetoric than reality. The bill contains no verification requirement or enforcement process for citizenship or legal residency, as exists for other federal benefit programs. The only verification required for the subsidies pertains to family income. Beyond that, as the CRS report notes, everything is left in the hands of the Health Choices Commissioner.

House Democrats defeated all attempts in committee to add an enforcement mechanism that would require proof of citizenship or legal residency for those getting subsidies.

CRS also notes that “undocumented aliens” who have a “substantial presence” in the US would be required to buy health insurance (page 4) through the exchanges in HR3200.  They would also become eligible for “emergency Medicaid,” although not normal Medicaid (page 6) for up to five years.

Read the rest of the column

Contradictions worthy of the Marx Brothers

Posted from the Wall Street Journal

The thing about the bully pulpit is that Presidents can make the most fantastic claims and it takes days to sort the reality from the myths. So as a public service, let’s try to navigate the, er, remarkable Medicare discussion that President Obama delivered on Wednesday. It isn’t easy.

Mr. Obama began by depicting a crisis in the entitlement state, noting that “our health-care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers,” especially Medicare. Unless we find a way to cauterize this fiscal hemorrhage, “we will eventually be spending more on Medicare than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health-care program is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.”

On this score he’s right. Medicare’s unfunded liability—the gap between revenues and promised benefits—is currently some $37 trillion over the next 75 years. Yet the President uses this insolvency as an argument to justify the creation of another health-care entitlement, this time for most everyone under age 65. It’s like a variation on the old Marx Brothers routine: “The soup is terrible and the portions are too small.”

As astonishing, Mr. Obama claimed he can finance universal health care without adding “one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period,” in large part by pumping money out of Medicare. The $880 billion Senate plan he all but blessed this week would cut Medicare by as much as $500 billion, mainly by cutting what Mr. Obama called “waste and abuse.” Perhaps this is related to the “waste and abuse” that Congresses of both parties have targeted dozens of times without ever cutting it.

Read the rest of the column

Posted from Investors Business Daily

Reform: Millions of Americans finally got to hear the Democrats’ pitch on health care reform, made by their top salesman. But they heard nothing new — just a lot of discredited myths recycled as the truth.

For the record, we support improving our health care system. As is, it has too many rules, too much government spending and too few market forces to keep costs low and quality high.

We spend north of $2 trillion every year on health care — 17% of our GDP, the most of any wealthy nation. If that sounds like a lot, remember this: An estimated 47% of that already is spent by the government. And government’s share will grow even without “reform.”

Look closely at the plans so far to emerge from Congress. What the Democrats have proposed, in essence, is a government takeover of nearly one-fifth of our nation’s economy. When brought up in Congress, this idea has been rejected repeatedly. Yet, somehow, the idea never dies.

That’s why the president’s speech Wednesday night was a big disappointment.

Rather than a breakthrough that would remove government’s stranglehold on a once-healthy market and move us toward true reform, we heard a lot of old bromides and myths — things we just can’t let go uncorrected. Too much is at stake.

So following are 15 of the biggest misconceptions — and there are many more, we assure you — that we found in the speech:

• “The uninsured . . . live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. These are not primarily people on welfare.”

Actually, of the 46 million people the census estimates don’t have insurance, some 20 million have incomes above average and could afford to buy it, according to a study by former Congressional Budget Office Director June O’Neill.

Of the remaining 26 million uninsured, an estimated 13.7 million are poor. They are eligible for Medicaid — the state health care programs for the poor. But many, too, are illegals — about 8 million.

Though they’re eligible, research from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association suggests as many as 14 million uninsured Americans qualify for public coverage, but don’t enroll. And as many as 6 million are enrolled, but don’t report it to the government, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis.

That leaves about 5 million people with no care.

By the way, according to the Census Bureau, America now has 37 million people in poverty. But Medicaid enrollment covers 55 million people — at a cost of $350 billion a year.

Based on this, no one should be without care. Which leads us to wonder: Is nationalizing our health care system really necessary to take care of people who already have care available to them?

• “Many other Americans . . . are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or expensive to cover.”

This statement betrays a profound ignorance of what insurance is. If you can buy insurance after you’ve gotten sick, it’s not really insurance, is it? And why have insurance at all? It’s an incentive to simply wait until you get sick, then make someone else pay for it.

To see how absurd this is, let’s take the same concept to auto insurance. Why not let people buy insurance after they get in an accident? One reason, of course, is it leads to fiscal and personal recklessness.

• “There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage . . . every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage.”

As noted above, the bulk of the 30-plus million uninsured actually can get coverage — and in many cases, qualify for existing government programs. But how about 14,000 Americans losing their coverage each day? A little math shows this is just a scare statistic.

Multiply it out, and it comes to 5.1 million people losing coverage in a year. Sound scary? Consider that, according to the census, 46.3 million Americans don’t currently have insurance — 600,000 more than last year. That means that, along with 14,000 Americans losing their coverage each day, another 12,400 Americans are signing up for it — even in the middle of a brutal recession.

Those who lose insurance do so usually because they’ve lost a job. Most are without insurance for a couple of months or so. The best way to boost the number of insured — and one that “costs” nothing — is to cut taxes, ease regulations and slash government spending. Those policies are all proven job creators.

• “We spend one-and-a-half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for it.”

This is a non sequitur. We spend one and a half times more per person, true. But because our health care here is better. That’s right — better. True, our life expectancy of 78.1 years — which is up sharply from just a decade ago — ranks us 30th in the world in longevity. But look a little closer at the data.

The U.S. homicide rate is two to three times higher than in other industrial nations. And we drive a lot more than others, so our auto fatality rate of 14.24 deaths per 100,000 people is higher than in Germany (6.19), France (7.4) or Canada (9.25). Add to this, we eat far more than other countries on average, contributing to higher levels of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer.

When all those factors are figured in, according to a recent study by Robert Ohsfeldt of Texas A&M and John Schneider of the University of Iowa, Americans actually live longer than people in other countries — thanks mainly to our excellent health care.

Read the rest of the column

Posted from OneNewsNow

A conservative media watchdog organization is demanding that the media reports President Obama’s “lies, distortions, and exaggerations” delivered in his speech on healthcare reform Wednesday night.

The Media Research Center says President Barack Obama will not stop committing what it calls “serial dishonesty with the American people until the media expose his false figures and bogus exaggerations for what they are: fraudulent scare tactics.” The group describes the president’s Wednesday night speech about healthcare as “a litany of lies.”

Rich Noyes, director of research at the MRC, says The Associated Press did do a fact check on his speech.
 
“[The AP story suggests] that he uttered ‘a variety of over simplifications and omissions,’” says Noyes. “He talked about how he would not add a single dime to the deficit, when the studies are showing it would add about a trillion dollars to the deficit over the second year of the plan. He talked about not permitting any illegal immigrant to be covered, when in fact it was Democrats who voted down any attempt to verify immigration status.”
 
“The list of things that he talked about [was] very misleading,” the MRC spokesman concludes, “added to the arrogant veneer of him scolding anybody else for taking liberties with the truth as liars, as he did.”
 
Noyes says Obama’s speech was about as “audacious” as one could possibly get. He says while the AP did do its fact check, there has been little coverage from the mainstream media on Obama taking liberty with the facts during his speech. Until that happens, says MRC, it gives the president “a green light to lie and cry wolf about whatever he wants, whenever he wants — and it will aid in the most radical government takeover ever attempted in America.”

Posted from GOP Leader 

By John Boehner, House Republican Minority Leader — Last night during his address to a joint session of Congress on the topic of health care, President Obama again repeated many claims that simply aren’t true. But despite the President’s rhetoric, the Democrats’ health care bills will force millions of Americans out of their current health care plans, add to the federal deficit, and increase Americans’ health care costs. Following are some of the discredited claims the President repeated last night:

FACT: According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the House Democrats’ bill would increase the deficit by $239 billion over 10 years. And a recent study by the Lewin Group found that “[i]n the second 10 years…the proposal would add an estimated $1 trillion to the federal deficit.”

CLAIM: “(I)t will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.”

FACT: As the Associated Press has reported, the Democrats’ plan will increase costs, rather than lower them: “Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf warned lawmakers the legislation that he has seen so far would raise costs, not lower them.”

CLAIM: “If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open.”

FACT: The Hill reported yesterday, that the President has not met with House Republicans since April, and when Republican Leaders asked for a meeting to discuss health care in a May 14 letter, the President ignored the request. The Politico reported on the President’s response on June 5, saying, “he makes no mention of the request to meet in the letter, which he signs off by stating, “Thank you again for sharing your thoughts with me and I look forward to further discussions on this critically important issue.” But those “further discussions” simply didn’t happen. The facts are clear: blame for the lack of bipartisanship in the current health care debate lies squarely at the feet of Washington Democrats.

CLAIM: “I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are.”

FACT: This is an interesting assertion considering the President also said last night: “Our overall efforts have been supported by an unprecedented coalition of doctors and nurses; hospitals, seniors’ groups and even drug companies.” So what special interests is he talking about when the White House seems to have struck back room deals with so many of them?

CLAIM: “We’ve estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system – a system that is currently full of waste and abuse.”

FACT: The massive $1.6 trillion House bill’s cost is NOT mostly “paid for” through savings in the existing health care system – not by a long shot. In fact, the House bill includes more than $800 billion in new tax increases during a severe economic downturn on families and employers to “pay for” most of the massive price tag. And, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that even with these tax increases, coupled with other “pay fors” in the bill such as cuts to Medicare, the House bill still has a revenue shortfall that will add $239 billion to the federal deficit over a ten year period. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote in an open letter to Congress raising concerns about a $534 billion small business tax in July: “Even with some exemptions, this provision will kill many jobs. Market forces and employer autonomy should determine what benefits employers provide, rather than Congress.”

CLAIM: “And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up — under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.”

FACT: During his quest for the presidency, now-President Obama declared that everyone deserves access to reproductive health care that includes abortion, and vowed that this “right” would be at the heart of his health care reform plan if elected president. President Obama has never retracted this vow, and the health care reform bill moving through the House would help him make good on it if enacted into law. As written, it would allow the U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS) to include abortion as a benefit in the government-run health care option. Many Democrats dispute this, pointing to the recent adoption of an amendment sponsored by Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) that would prohibit federal dollars from being used to fund abortion. But under this amendment, the HHS Secretary is explicitly authorized to pay for elective abortions under the government-run insurance plan. Some have also suggested that the government-run plan would not result in government-funded abortions because it will be subject to the “Hyde Amendment,” but this argument is misleading as well. The Hyde Amendment is not a government-wide applied law, but a rather provision included in the annual HHS Appropriations bill, which bans federal funding of elective abortions. According to a memo produced by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, the government-option will not be funded through the appropriations process. For this reason, it will not be subject to the Hyde Amendment. The truth of the matter is that the HHS Secretary will be allowed to include abortion as a benefit in the government-run health care plan under the legislation currently moving through the House. Moreover, FactCheck.Org has stated that “House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans.”

CLAIM: “Now, there are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

FACT: The non-partisan Congressional Research Service confirms in a report that there is no mechanism included in the bill to verify that individuals are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants before they receive government benefits. Furthermore, Republicans offered two amendments in the Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce Committees that were rejected by Democrats. The first would have prevented illegal immigrants from being automatically enrolled into Medicaid and the second would have required better screening for applicants for federally-subsidized health care to ensure they are actually citizens or legal immigrants.

 

Posted from National Review Online

Set aside Joe Wilson’s bad manners — what about the substance of his accusation? 
 
Mr. Wilson claims that various Democratic proposals wending their way through Congress will use U.S. taxpayer dollars to further subsidize health care for illegal immigrants. Democrats say this is not true, and the back-and-forth continues like this: Democrats say that there is nothing in pending legislation that explicitly covers illegal aliens. Republicans say, “Aha! But we offered amendments that would have specifically required more robust measures to keep illegals out of the system and you voted them down, leaving the back door open!” And Democrats respond, “No, we didn’t. We don’t need that, because Medicare and Medicaid and such already require documentation of legal status.” And then the Democrats will point to this report from that solomonic arbiter of fact, the CNN Truth Squad, which concludes: “A new report finds the bill could require illegal immigrants to buy coverage, but it clearly restricts subsidies to U.S. citizens and legal residents.” 

As Sarah Palin, critics of Van Jones, and those who seek to exclude Cass Sunstein from the collective czardom of the Obama administration have pointed out, there’s what the law says and there’s what the administrative apparatus does. When it comes to the question of whether government-run health-care programs will be used to subsidize illegal aliens, we need not confine ourselves to the realm of the hypothetical and the speculative. Helpfully, the government itself has taken a look at the issue from time to time.

Read the rest of the article

From the Weekly Standard

By Fred Barnes — President Obama’s speech to Congress last night can be summed up rather easily. It was 40 minutes of boilerplate followed by a socko, emotional finish exploiting the death of Senator Teddy Kennedy. Which leads to this question: was Obama’s finishing kick sufficient to achieve his goal of “reframing” the national debate on health care that hasn’t been going his way? I don’t think so.

Obama didn’t come close to offering a persuasive explanation of how he’d pay for ObamaCare. And that remains his biggest problem. He promises much, much more in guaranteed health benefits and says it will cost less. Even Obama himself couldn’t really believe that. No one else who can add and subtract does. Cut “waste, fraud, and abuse?” Not a chance.

There was one mild surprise. Instead of scaling back his plan to comply with public sentiment, Obama stuck to every promise and provision on which he’s dwelled in more than two dozen speeches. There was nothing new, except the size of his audience.

From this, it’s clear he’s decided to push a partisan bill through Congress with Democratic votes alone. We could tell this from the pleased expression House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had on her face throughout the speech. She’s belongs to the no-compromise school.

But unless Obama has suddenly transformed public opinion, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won’t be able to find enough Democrats, even among the usually malleable Blue Dogs,

willing to vote for ObamaCare. Defy the public to bail out a president in trouble? Only Democrats in safe seats are likely to do that.

I had five questions that I looked for Obama to answer in his address. I wanted to see if he was serious about achieving moderate, bipartisan health care. It turns out he’s not. Here are the questions.

1) Did he advocate real tort reform to curb health care costs? Nope. He simply talked up a pilot project that he said was President Bush’s idea. This was a trifle.

2) Did he offer anything of significance to Republicans? No.

3) Did he bring up his favorite straw man about those whose alternative to ObamaCare is to do nothing at all to reform the health care system? Yes, more than once.

4) Did he demonize the health care providers he’s actually made deals with? Well, not all of them, but the health insurers took their usual beating.

5) Did he repeat the false claims he’s made repeatedly in earlier speeches? Yes indeed. He brought up nearly all of them, including the ones on no abortion coverage, no loss of one’s current health insurance, and the “savings” that would come from more preventive care.

As a matter of stagecraft, Obama made a big mistake. He spent precious minutes delivering his same old arguments that have left a majority of Americans cold. He should have started with the Kennedy riff.

Posted from National Review Online

By John C. Goodman — Lies and distortions,” said David Axelrod in an e-mail to 13 million of the Obama faithful plus an untold number of others who were spammed. He was referring to criticisms of the Obama health-care-reform plan—criticisms that are hitting the mark, to judge by opinion polls and the near-riotous responses members of Congress have gotten at town-hall meetings.

Chief among the White House’s irritations is Sarah Palin’s accusation that Obama would create “death panels” to decide who lives and who dies. It is true that none of the bills before Congress calls for the creation of such entities, but does Palin’s statement, however hyperbolic, point toward legitimate concerns? Is there something we should be worried about? The answer is: Yes, we should be very worried.

Read the rest of the editorial here.

With the Democrats getting slaughtered — or should I say, “receiving mandatory end-of-life counseling” — in the debate over national health care, the Obama administration has decided to change the subject by indicting CIA interrogators for talking tough to three of the world’s leading Muslim terrorists.

Had I been asked, I would have advised them against reinforcing the idea that Democrats are hysterical bed-wetters who can’t be trusted with national defense while also reminding people of the one thing everyone still admires about President George W. Bush.

But I guess the Democrats really want to change the subject. Thus, here is Part 2 in our series of liberal lies about national health care.

(6) There will be no rationing under national health care.

Anyone who says that is a liar. And all Democrats are saying it. (Hey, look — I have two-thirds of a syllogism!)

Apparently, promising to cut costs by having a panel of Washington bureaucrats (for short, “The Death Panel”) deny medical treatment wasn’t a popular idea with most Americans. So liberals started claiming that they are going to cover an additional 47 million uninsured Americans and cut costs … without ever denying a single medical treatment!

Also on the agenda is a delicious all-you-can-eat chocolate cake that will actually help you lose weight! But first, let’s go over the specs for my perpetual motion machine — and it uses no energy, so it’s totally green!

For you newcomers to planet Earth, everything that does not exist in infinite supply is rationed. In a free society, people are allowed to make their own rationing choices.

Some people get new computers every year; some every five years. Some White House employees get new computers and then vandalize them on the way out the door when their candidate loses. (These are the same people who will be making decisions about your health care.)

Similarly, one person might say, “I want to live it up and spend freely now! No one lives forever.” (That person is a Democrat.) And another might say, “I don’t go to restaurants, I don’t go to the theater, and I don’t buy expensive designer clothes because I’ve decided to pour all my money into my health.”

Under national health care, you’ll have no choice about how to ration your own health care. If your neighbor isn’t entitled to a hip replacement, then neither are you. At least that’s how the plan was explained to me by our next surgeon general, Dr. Conrad Murray.

(7) National health care will reduce costs.

This claim comes from the same government that gave us the $500 hammer, the $1,200 toilet seat and postage stamps that increase in price every three weeks.

The last time liberals decided an industry was so important that the government needed to step in and contain costs was when they set their sights on the oil industry. Liberals in both the U.S. and Canada — presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter and Canadian P.M. Pierre Trudeau — imposed price controls on oil.

As night leads to day, price controls led to reduced oil production, which led to oil shortages, skyrocketing prices for gasoline, rationing schemes and long angry lines at gas stations.

You may recall this era as “the Carter years.”

Then, the white knight Ronald Reagan became president and immediately deregulated oil prices. The magic of the free market — aka the “profit motive” — produced surges in oil exploration and development, causing prices to plummet. Prices collapsed and remained low for the next 20 years, helping to fuel the greatest economic expansion in our nation’s history.

You may recall this era as “the Reagan years.”

Freedom not only allows you to make your own rationing choices, but also produces vastly more products and services at cheap prices, so less rationing is necessary.

(8) National health care won’t cover abortions.

There are three certainties in life: (a) death, (b) taxes, and (C) no health care bill supported by Nita Lowey and Rosa DeLauro and signed by Barack Obama could possibly fail to cover abortions.

I don’t think that requires elaboration, but here it is:

Despite being a thousand pages long, the health care bills passing through Congress are strikingly nonspecific. (Also, in a thousand pages, Democrats weren’t able to squeeze in one paragraph on tort reform. Perhaps they were trying to save paper.)

These are Trojan Horse bills. Of course, they don’t include the words “abortion,” “death panels” or “three-year waits for hip-replacement surgery.”

That proves nothing — the bills set up unaccountable, unelected federal commissions to fill in the horrible details. Notably, the Democrats rejected an amendment to the bill that would specifically deny coverage for abortions.

After the bill is passed, the Federal Health Commission will find that abortion is covered, pro-lifers will sue, and a court will say it’s within the regulatory authority of the health commission to require coverage for abortions.

Then we’ll watch a parade of senators and congressmen indignantly announcing, “Well, I’m pro-life, and if I had had any idea this bill would cover abortions, I never would have voted for it!”

No wonder Democrats want to remind us that they can’t be trusted with foreign policy. They want us to forget that they can’t be trusted with domestic policy.

Read Part 1

The amendment process surrounding the health care ‘reform’ bills in Congress exposes the fact that President Obama and his allies are not being honest with the American people regarding their plans for ObamaCare.  While the supporters of ObamaCare are making statements like “you can keep your plan”, “the plan will be deficit-neutral”, and “there’s no coverage for abortion or illegal aliens”, the actions of Congressional Democrats show this simply is not the case.  The following list of amendments and their associated votes exposes the real truth about ObamaCare (source – FactReal).

OBAMACARE WON’T LET YOU KEEP THE PLAN YOU LIKE

Government will determine what is “acceptable” health insurance coverage and benefits.

Amendments to protect freedom to choose a plan you like: BLOCKED

OBAMACARE WON’T ALLOW YOU TO ENROLL IN PRIVATE INSURANCE

Americans would be prohibited by law from enrolling in a private individual health insurance plan and would be forced by the federal government to buy a different health plan in the national Health Insurance Exchange. The Democrats’ bill says that beginning in 2013 the health plans that provide coverage for Americans enrolled in individual market health plans could no longer enroll new members.

Amendment to allow Americans to choose private coverage: BLOCKED

OBAMACARE TO DENY DOCTORS & HOSPITALS THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE IN WHICH PLANS TO PARTICIPATE

Government could force anyone to offer services in ObamaCare that will underpay doctors and hospitals

Amendment to allow doctors & hospital to choose plans they want: BLOCKED

Presently, all government-subsidized health care plans (SCHIP, DOD, Medicaid, etc.) prohibit abortion coverage. In HR3200 & Senate bills, there are no provisions that would prevent federal officials from mandating that health insurance plans include abortion services. There is nothing to prevent the Secretary of HHS from including abortion coverage since the decisions over benefits are left to the Secretary of HHS and to a newly created Health Care Benefits Advisory Committee. Based on the failure of anti-abortion amendments, taxpayers would end up financing abortion since the federal government could mandate that abortions be covered by health insurance plans available through the national health insurance exchange.

Amendments to prevent taxpayer-financed abortion: BLOCKED

● Amendment from Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) to require at least one insurance plan to cover abortion in each geographical region, to cover ALL abortion services, and allow affordability credits (taxpayer-funded subsidies) to be used for health insurance plans that cover abortions.

OBAMACARE NOT DEFICIT NEUTRAL

ObamaCare will increase the deficit: According to the CBO’s and JCT’s assessment enacting H.R. 3200 would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period.  What’s wrong with high deficits? The CBO director explains: “Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States. Over time, accumulating debt would cause substantial harm to the economy.”

Amendment to keep ObamaCare deficit neutral: BLOCKED
To help Obama keep his promise that his health care reform will not add to the deficit, these Congressmen proposed these amendments:

The House bill has an employer “pay-or-play” mandate, which include a tax on employers of up to 8 percent if they do not offer a federally approved benefits package to their workers. Taxes on employers are generally passed on to employees in reduced wages or other compensation, including job loss.

Amendments to protect jobs: BLOCKED

The House bill calls for increased Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) to gather data & determine which treatments are the most cost-effective. Government officials may be able to use CER to make payment, treatment, and coverage decisions.

Amendment against government making medical decisions; government rationing & control: BLOCKED

Amendment for government to set prices: PASSED  

OBAMACARE = LONG WAITS

 Federal officials may resort to rationing care and controlling access to physicians to save money. Based on the experience of other countries, this process would result in long wait times for patients. The Brady amendment failed on a straight party-line vote.

Amendment to protect Americans from long wait times: BLOCKED

● Amendment from Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) to eliminate the public plan if its enrollees experienced longer wait times than in private health plans. These people would then be able to enroll in private health plans offered on the Health Insurance Exchange.

 OBAMACARE WILL COVER ILLEGALS

The House bill does not offer clear guidelines to ensure that illegal immigrants cannot access taxpayer-funded health care benefits.
It will be unsustainable to give benefit to millions of illegals already in the U.S. and the many millions to come if Obama passes his open-border immigration reform.
The Heller amendment failed on a straight party-line vote.

Amendment to keep illegals out of ObamaCare: BLOCKED 

SENIORS TO FINANCE OBAMACARE

Bill proposes reductions to Medicare Advantage (MA)

Amendment to stop the payment reductions to Medicare Advantage (MA) plans: BLOCKED

 Amendment for government to set prices in Medicare: PASSED   

MEMBERS OF CONGRESS WON’T ENROLL IN OBAMACARE 

If ObamaCare is so good, why members of Congress, Senate & Obama Administration will be exempted from getting ObamaCare?
This Heller amendment failed, with 21 Democrats voting no.

Amendment to require Congress to enroll in ObamaCare: BLOCKED  

Here is how easy it will be for Obamacare to lead to single-payer (a.k.a state-run, government-run health care, universal, co-op….whatever name they give to it, it’s about government control)

Amendment to adopt a state-based system of socialized medicine: PASSED  

Democrats side with trial lawyers instead of lowering health care costs.

Amendment to reduce health costs: BLOCKED

● Amendment from Rep. John Linder (R-GA) to limit participation to states with meaningful medical malpractice reforms to reduce frivolous lawsuits (Democrats defeated it: 26-15)

OTHER REPUBLICAN AMENDMENTS BLOCKED BY DEMOCRATS
Democrats block common-sense changes to Health Care bill

SOURCES – THE HOUSE BILL H.R.3200:

The three House committees (Education and Labor, Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce) which have been working together on health insurance reform, have now each approved health care legislation. H.R.3200 is expected to be considered by the full House in September.
● House Committee on Education and Labor: markup, and here, members (Democrat majority), roll call: passed 26-22
● House Committee on Ways and Means: markup, members (Democrat majority)
● House Committee on Energy and Commerce: markup, and here, members (Democrat majority), roll call: passed 31-28
● Democratic Leaders Block 31 Common-Sense Changes to Health Care Bill
● The House Education and Labor Markup: Making a Bad Bill Worse
● The House Health Bill: The House Ways and Means Amendments
● The House Health Bill: Energy and Commerce Amendments

SOURCES – THE SENATE BILL:

● Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) Committee: passed a health care overhaul along party lines, No transparency
● The Senate Health Bill: Chock-Full of Bad Health Policy