From The National Center

President Obama’s new health care plan will all but guarantee the elimination of private insurance and lead to a single payer government-run health care system, says a new report, “White House Health Care Plan Contains Back Door to a Public Option” by policy analyst Matt Patterson of the National Center For Public Policy Research. 

Among the findings:

* The President’s plan would create a new federal agency charged with monitoring health insurers to make sure that proposed premium increases are not “unreasonable” or “unjustified.”  This agency could compel private insurers to lower premiums, offer rebates or “take other actions to make premiums affordable.”

* The President’s plan would also dictate that health insurers cover those with pre-existing conditions and saddle them with billion in new taxes and fees.

* Health insurance is one of the least profitable industries America.  In terms of profit margin, in 2009 it ranked a dismal 87th out of 215 industries; their overall profit margin was a mere 3.4 percent.

* The President’s proposed combination of new taxes and price controls would cause a wave of health insurer bankruptcies, devastating the industry and reducing health insurance options for consumers.

* Eventually, the shrinking pool of private insurers would force the government to enact a single payer system to provide the insurance that Congress mandates that all Americans have.

Patterson calls Obama’s ploy “breathtakingly audacious,” noting, “Far from being able to keep the plan you like, the President’s health care plan seems designed to make sure you end up with only one option for your health care – the government.”

“White House Health Care Plan Contains Back Door to a Public Option,” by Matt Patterson is available on the National Center For Public Policy Research website at http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA603.html.

The National Center For Public Policy Research is a conservative, Constitution-respecting, free-market non-profit think-tank established in 1982.  It is supported by the voluntary gifts of over 100,000 individual recent supporters, and receives less than one percent of its revenue from corporate sources.

Senator Tom Harkin on three separate occassions in the course of a single week basically admits the current health care ‘reform’ bill is nothing more than a stepping stone towards a government takeover of the health care industry.

By David M. Herszenhorn and Robert Pear

After a long day of acid, partisan debate, Senate Democrats held ranks early Monday in a dead-of-night procedural vote that proved they had locked in the decisive margin needed to pass a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

The roll was called shortly after 1 a.m., with Washington still snowbound after a weekend blizzard, and the Senate voted on party lines to cut off a Republican filibuster of a package of changes to the health care bill by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada.

The vote was 60 to 40 — a tally that is expected to be repeated four times as further procedural hurdles are cleared in the days ahead, and then once more in a dramatic, if predictable, finale tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve.

Both parties hailed the vote as seismic.

Democrats said it showed them poised to reshape the health system after decades of failed attempts.

“Health care in America ought to be a right, not a privilege,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut. “Since the time of Harry Truman, every Congress, Republican and Democrat, every president, Democrat and Republican, have at least thought about doing this. Some actually tried.”

Republicans said that the bill was fatally flawed and that voters would retaliate against Democrats at the polls in November.

“It’s obvious why the majority has cooked up this amendment in secret, has introduced it in the middle of a snowstorm, has scheduled the Senate to come in session at midnight, has scheduled a vote for 1 a.m., is insisting that it be passed before Christmas — because they don’t want the American people to know what’s in it,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee.

Mr. Alexander added, “Our friends on the Democratic side seem determined to pursue a political kamikaze mission toward a historic mistake.”

Each side blamed the other for the extraordinary series of votes — at dawn Saturday, after midnight Monday, at dawn again on Tuesday, at 1 p.m. on Wednesday and finally on Christmas Eve, when most Americans will be sequestered for the holiday.

The Democrats charged the Republicans with obstinately throwing every procedural obstacle in their way, including filibusters and the full 30 hours of debate allowed under the rules after each filibuster is broken by a vote of 60 senators.

The Republicans charged the Democrats with recklessly rushing to adopt a dizzyingly complex 2,700-page bill that would affect virtually every American, and would reshape one-sixth of the nation’s economy at a cost of $871 billion over 10 years.

“If the Republicans want to exercise every single right they have under the rules, they can keep us here until Christmas Eve, no doubt about it,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. “But to what end, I ask? To what end? We’re going to have the vote at 1 a.m. that requires 60 votes, and then why stay here until Christmas Eve to do what they know we’re going to do?”

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said he and his colleagues had a duty to fight until the last minute.

“There is nothing inevitable about this,” Mr. Cornyn said. “The only thing I think inevitable about it is in the light of the unpopularity of what is being jammed down the throats of the American people, there will be a day of accounting. We don’t know when that day of accounting will be. Perhaps the first day of accounting will be Election Day 2010.”

Adoption of the legislation is not a certainty.

The Senate bill, once completed, must be reconciled with the bill adopted by the House last month, and there are substantial differences between the two. The House measure, for instance, includes a government-run health insurance plan, or public option, that was dropped from the Senate bill.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has said the House would not just accept the Senate bill. And some Senate Democrats have warned that they could turn against the bill if changes made during negotiations with the House are not to their liking.

Read the rest at New York Times.

From the Washington Examiner

The newest bargain being proposed on health care in the Senate would give liberals a major expansion of Medicare by making more than 30 million Americans between the ages of 55 and 65 eligible for the financially exhausted program, previously just for senior citizens.

But by expanding an existing government-run insurance program (while cutting it by $500 billion?) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hopes to avoid defeat of his bill because of moderate member’s concerns over his plan to create a whole new health entitlement.

Writers Greg Hitt and Janet Adamy tell us that what’s being offered as the alternative to the government plan approved in the House is a non-profit, national private plan regulated by the federal government.

Liberals in the Senate are trying hard not to look too happy. The bill would ultimately make the government responsible for the new health plan and would create a genuine public option if the non-profit/private/public lash-up goes bust.

Reid was crowing again last night, but as Examiner colleague Susan Ferrechio points out, there is still no certainty that a bill will pass.

Read the rest of the column.

From the Washington Times

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday sought to assuage the left wing of his Democratic Party by deciding to include a government-run insurance plan in his health care reform bill, bypassing the lone Republican who supported the effort and ensuring a bruising political battle in pursuit of President Obama’s top legislative priority.

In an attempt to gain pivotal support from moderate Democrats, Mr. Reid also said the bill he sends to the Senate floor will allow states to “opt out” of the insurance plan, also known as a public option. But moderates withheld their backing, waiting to hear more details.

Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, the only Republican to vote for a Democratic reform bill in five congressional committees, said she was “deeply disappointed” with Mr. Reid’s decision and would not support the bill. She favored a plan to hang the threat of a public plan over private insurers to encourage them to lower costs, but not to include it in the initial health reform program.

Mr. Reid, of Nevada, offered few other specifics of his bill and declined to say whether he had the 60 votes required to overcome a Republican fillibuster.

Read the rest of the story

Posted from Wall Street Journal

The Baucus plan would make insurance even more expensive

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus finally unveiled his health-care plan yesterday to a chorus of bipartisan jeers. The reaction is surprising given that President Obama all but endorsed the outlines of the Baucus plan last week. But the hoots are only going to grow louder as more people read what he’s actually proposing.

The headline is that Mr. Baucus has dropped the unpopular “public option,” but this is a political offering without much policy difference. His plan remains a public option by other means, imposing vast new national insurance regulation, huge new subsidies to pay for the higher insurance costs this regulation will require and all financed by new taxes and penalties on businesses, individuals and health-care providers. Other than that, Hippocrates, the plan does no harm.

The centerpiece of the Obama-Baucus plan is a decree that everyone purchase heavily regulated insurance policies or else pay a penalty. This government mandate would require huge subsidies as well as brute force to get anywhere near the goal of universal coverage. The inevitable result would be a vast increase in the government’s share of U.S. health spending, forcing doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and other health providers to serve politics as well as or even over and above patients.

The plan essentially rewrites all insurance contracts, including those offered by businesses to their workers. Benefits and premiums must be tailored to federal specifications. First-dollar coverage would be mandated for many services, and cost-sharing between businesses and employees would be sharply reduced, though this is one policy that might reduce health spending by giving consumers more skin in the game. Nor would insurance be allowed to bear any relation to risk. Inevitably, costs would continue to climb.

Everyone would be forced to buy these government-approved policies, whether or not they suit their needs or budget. Families would face tax penalties as high as $3,800 a year for not complying, singles $950. As one resident of Massachusetts where Mitt Romney imposed an individual mandate in 2006 put it in a Journal story yesterday, this is like taxing the homeless for not buying a mansion.

The political irony here is rich. If liberal health-care reform is going to make people better off, why does it require “a very harsh, stiff penalty” to make everyone buy it? That’s what Senator Obama called it in his Presidential campaign when he opposed the individual mandate supported by Hillary Clinton. He correctly argued then that many people were uninsured not because they didn’t want coverage but because it was too expensive. The nearby mailer to Ohio primary voters gives the flavor of Mr. Obama’s attacks.

And the Baucus-Obama plan will only make insurance even more expensive. Employers will be required to offer “qualified coverage” to their workers (or pay another “free rider” penalty) and workers will be required to accept it, paying for it in lower wages. The vast majority of households already confront the same tradeoff today, except Congress will now declare that there’s only one right answer.

Read the rest at Wall Street Journal.

Posted from Rasmussen Reports

Thirty-two percent (32%) of voters nationwide favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% are opposed to a single-payer plan.

Fifty-two percent (52%) believe such a system would lead to a lower quality of care while 13% believe care would improve. Twenty-seven percent (27%) think that the quality of care would remain about the same.

Forty-five percent (45%) also say a single-payer system would lead to higher health care costs while 24% think lower costs would result. Nineteen percent (19%) think prices would remain about the same.

There’s wide political disagreement over the single-payer issue. Sixty-two percent (62%) of Democrats favor a single-payer system, but 87% of Republicans are opposed to one. As for those not affiliated with either major party, 22% favor a single-payer approach while 63% are opposed.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Investors oppose a single-payer system by a three-to-one margin. However, a narrow plurality of non-investors favor such a plan.

Data released earlier today shows that 51% of voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies when it comes to health care decisions. Forty-one percent (41%) have the opposite fear.

Recent polling has shown that the public is fairly evenly divided about the health insurance proposals being made by the president and congressional leaders of his party, but most remain convinced that the plans will raise costs and hurt the quality of the care they receive. Those who feel strongly about the issue are more likely to oppose the reform effort.

As Congress has debated potential reforms, confidence in U.S. health care system has increased. Just 19% of Americans now rate the overall system as poor while 48% say it’s good or excellent.

Voters are fairly evenly divided in their views of those protesting the health care reform plans at congressional town hall meetings, but 49% believe they are genuinely expressing the views of their neighbors. Thirty-seven percent (37%) believe the protests are phony, encouraged by special interest groups and lobbyists.

Most voters believe that middle class tax cuts are more important than new spending on health care.