The Blog of the Rhode Island Republican Assembly
Here is video called “Obama Promised” produced by a liberal group called “Yes We Still Can,” which hammers President Obama for going back on his word to insist that a “Public Option” be in the Democrats’ Health Care Bill. Those on the Left are not pleased with the Senate bill which omits a so-called “Public Option.” One can only hope that their pressure during the bill reconciliation process between the House and Senate can keep the bill from becoming law.
No one is certain of what’s in the bill, but Senator Jim DeMint spotted one shocking revelation regarding the section in the bill describing the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (now called the Independent Payment Advisory Board), which is a panel of bureaucrats charged with cutting health care costs on the backs of patients – also known as rationing. Apparently Reid and friends have changed the rules of the Senate so that the section of the bill dealing with this board can’t be repealed or amended without a 2/3 supermajority vote. Senator DeMint said:
“This is a rule change. It’s a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law. I’m not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates. I mean, we want to bind future congresses. This goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future congresses.”
In other words, Democrats are protecting this rationing “death panel” from future change with a procedural hurdle. You have to ask why they’re so concerned about protecting this particular provision. Could it be because bureaucratic rationing is one important way Democrats want to “bend the cost curve” and keep health care spending down?
The Congressional Budget Office seems to think that such rationing has something to do with cost. In a letter to Harry Reid last week, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf noted (with a number of caveats) that the bill’s calculations call for a reduction in Medicare’s spending rate by about 2 percent in the next two decades, but then he writes the kicker:
“It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.”
Though Nancy Pelosi and friends have tried to call “death panels” the “lie of the year,” this type of rationing – what the CBO calls “reduc[ed] access to care” and “diminish[ed] quality of care” – is precisely what I meant when I used that metaphor.
Source: Sarah Palin on Facebook
All year long, the more the American people learn about Washington Democrats’ costly government takeover of health care, the more they oppose it. Indeed a new Quinnipiac survey shows continued disapproval for the Democrats’ government-run approach. Only 36 percent support Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) bill, while a majority (53 percent) oppose. Opposition among Independents, at 58 percent, is even higher. And that anger is growing as Americans find out more about Sen. Reid’s unseemly payoffs, kickbacks, and sweetheart deals that were included to buy the votes of Democratic senators. Here’s a sampling of the reaction to these payoffs, kickbacks, and sweetheart deals in today’s papers:
“If it could be proved that the chief executive officer of a major American corporation — a pharmaceutical firm, say, or an insurance outfit — had delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to the governors of two of the 50 states in exchange for two U.S. senators from those states changing their votes and defeating the proposed federal takeover of America’s medical industry, it’s not too hard to imagine the results: the perpetrator led out of his office in handcuffs by the FBI, front-page indictments and trials, commentators reviling the worst case of public corruption to be seen at such a high level in generations. Yet when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised to deliver those sums to Nebraska and Louisiana (and not to the other 48, no credible claim of ‘the general welfare’ here) in recent weeks to buy off Sens. Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson in order to line up the 59th and 60th votes needed to pass the biggest new federal boondoggle in half a century — the Nebraska payoff coming early Saturday morning — he didn’t even try to keep it a secret.” – “Health Care Deal Looks A Lot Like a Bribe,” Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial, December 23, 2009
“Blanche Lincoln and Evan Bayh must feel like saps. The Arkansas and Indiana Democrats spent months caterwauling about this or that provision in the Senate health-care bill, then at 1 a.m. Monday they voted to speed its passage without getting so much as a lousy T-shirt. In Harry Reid’s Senate, this qualifies as dereliction of duty, as the Majority Leader said himself on Monday in defense of his frantic deal-making to get 60 votes.” – “The Price of ‘History,’” Wall Street Journal editorial, December 23, 2009
“In the wee hours of Monday morning, Senate Democrats passed their version of health reform in a strictly partisan 60-40 procedural vote. It was accomplished with political payoffs that should die in conference committee but probably won’t. The tawdry use of earmarks to bury the doubts of recalcitrant moderate Democrats was a cynical display of ends-justifies-the-means horse-trading that President Barack Obama campaigned against as a senator and candidate.” – “Harry Reid Sells His Political Soul,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial, December 23, 2009
“Among the most distasteful elements were essentially the payoffs used to secure votes from senators in Nebraska, Florida, and Louisiana. The shakedowns, er, side deals provide extra funding for Medicaid and Medicare just in these states, and limits on abortion coverage demanded by Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.)” – “A Health Deal is at Hand,” Philadelphia Inquirer editorial, December 23, 2009
“New Yorkers better be ready to dig deeper into their pockets to pay off all the bribes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., offered senators of other states to win their support for the $871 billion health reform bill.” – “Reid Payoffs,” Watertown Daily Times editorial, December 23, 2009
“America’s overused credit card, issued by the Bank of China, may have to be used one more time to pay for Reid’s deals. The majority leader traded to help ensure the votes of Sens. Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Chris Dodd, Bernie Sanders and others representing 11 states by giving them special perks for staying on the health care bus that’s about to drive us all over the financial cliff. They may argue they weren’t bribed, but they certainly were rewarded. The price was enormous.” – “Harry Reid Playing Santa With Your Money,” CNN column, December 23, 2009
“With the approval rating of Congress sinking in the polls and public opinion of their health care plan going down along with it, Democrats may have done themselves one favor too many this week when they riddled the bill with special deals for individual lawmakers. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., struggled to pull together his 60 Democratic-controlled votes needed to pass the bill, certain holdout lawmakers were able to carve out extra money, benefits or exemptions that senators from other states didn’t get.” – “Big Payoffs to Senators on Health Bill Stokes Public Anger,” Washington Examiner, December 23, 2009
“Sometimes there is a fine ethical line between legislative maneuvering and bribery. At other times, that line is crossed by a speeding, honking tractor-trailer, with outlines of shapely women on mud flaps bouncing as it rumbles past. Such was the case in the final hours of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s successful attempt to get cloture on health-care reform. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the last Democratic holdout, was offered and accepted a permanent exemption from his state’s share of Medicaid expansion, amounting to $100 million over 10 years.” – “For Sale: One Senator (D-Neb.) No Principles, Low Price,” Washington Post column, December 23, 2009
Republicans are standing up for American taxpayers by exposing these payoffs, kickbacks, and sweetheart deals and offering better solutions to lower health care costs. The Republican health care plan would lower premiums by up to 10 percent, cut the deficit, and consistently reduce federal spending on health care over the next two decades. That’s the type of common-sense solutions the American people want and deserve out of health care reform.
Source: House Republican Leader John Boehner
You may have noticed that we have not made any updates to the website for nearly a week now. We had been experiencing a serious technical problem having to do with a script error, which caused a temporary inability for us to comment and edit our posts. It appears to have finally been resolved!
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