The Blog of the Rhode Island Republican Assembly
During the White House Summit on health care on Thursday, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, and President Obama disagreed as to whether the Democratic health care bill would cause premiums to rise. Fox News’ Jim Angle found Senator Alexander was right.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ad-fqqjFhI[/youtube]
Less than one hour into the President Obama’s health care summit the Senate’s most powerful Democrat reminded Republicans they can jam through a takeover of the health care system no matter what’s said during the next few hours of the meeting.
In his opening statement Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat said, “reconciliation isn’t something that’s never been done before.”
By saying this, Leader Reid has shown the irreconcilable difference between the Democrats and the American people who have already rejected their plans.
Americans have said loud and clear they do not want this bill. They don’t believe trillion dollar government takeovers will lower costs, they know it will explode our debt and reduce their freedom. They don’t want government bureaucrats making decisions for them in the most personal part of their lives.
But the Democrats continue to show they aren’t listening. They have been be planning to pass their health care takeover using a complicated Senate maneuver, called reconciliation. This procedure was originally created to resolve budget matters, not to push through a new complex entitlement program.
The summit was held under the pretense that the President would seriously listen to Republican ideas that enjoy popular support (solutions like buying insurance across state lines, tort reform, and tax equity for those who don’t get health coverage from their employer). But by refusing to take reconciliation off the table, President Obama and Democrats are turning a deaf ear to Americans.
A CNN poll released Wednesday found 73 percent of Americans want Washington to start over and begin working on an entirely new bill or stop work all together on health care reform…
Read More: Senator Jim DeMint’s Blog
The Democrats are already setting us up for the possibility of an upset victory by Scott Brown in Massachusetts.
It looks like the fix is in on national health-care reform – and it all may unfold on Beacon Hill…
But if Brown wins, the entire national health-care reform debate may hinge on when he takes over as senator. Brown has vowed to be the crucial 41st vote in the Senate that would block the bill…
…Today, a spokesman for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who is overseeing the election but did not respond to a call seeking comment, said certification of the Jan. 19 election by the Governor’s Council would take a while.
“Because it’s a federal election,” spokesman Brian McNiff said. “We’d have to wait 10 days for absentee and military ballots to come in.”…
…In contrast, Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Lowell) was sworn in at the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 18, 2007, just two days after winning a special election to replace Martin Meehan. In that case, Tsongas made it to Capitol Hill in time to override a presidential veto of the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Yesterday, Brown, who has been closing the gap with Coakley in polls and fund raising, blasted the political double standard…
Read More: The Boston Herald
(Told You So.)
Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together, under the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress.
The built-in “marriage penalty” in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say “I do.”
The disparity comes about in part because subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the plan from congressional Democrats are pegged to federal poverty guidelines. That has the effect of limiting subsidies for married couples with a combined income, compared to if the individuals are single…
Read More: The Wall Street Journal
This might ring a little hollow coming from a liberal like Jack Cafferty on CNN, who said “President Obama hasn’t even made a token effort” to keep his repeated campaign promises of openness about health care reform transparency. Gee, ya think?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pO1oJPps1I[/youtube]
This is a pretty good web ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee, pointing out the complete lack of transparency by the House Democrats in crafting health care “reform” legislation behind closed doors, in violation of the president’s own repeated promises.
A Government takeover of Healthcare is knocking on America’s door. Unfortunately for Americans, Nancy Pelosi and her Liberals allies aren’t opening up their door to let anyone in on the process.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7_TsP7_ivo[/youtube]
As good as it is, the appearance of what certainly looks to be an iPhone in the ad probably will mean that it won’t be up too long after the ‘cease and desist’ order is received from Apple. However, the point will have certainly been made by then.
Washington (CNN) – The top Republican in the House of Representatives is backing a move by C-SPAN to allow television coverage of House-Senate health care reform negotiations.
In a December 30 letter to Democratic and Republican congressional leadership, C-SPAN Chairman Brian Lamb requested that they “open all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings, to electronic media coverage.”
C-SPAN is a non-profit cable entity largely devoted to coverage of Congress.
House Minority Leader John Boehner supports C-SPAN’s move, saying “hard-working families won’t stand for having the future of their health care decided behind closed doors.”
“Secret deliberations are a breeding ground for more of the kickbacks, shady deals and special-interest provisions that have become business as usual in Washington. Too much is at stake to have a final bill built on payoffs and pork-barrel spending,” added Boehner, in a letter to Lamb that was released Tuesday.
Democrats say it’s impossible to predict what kind of media coverage might be possible, given that it is unclear at best if there will be any formal negotiations between the House and Senate to merge the two chambers’ health care reform bills into one piece of legislation.
“We will continue to keep the American people informed,” said Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a member of the House Democratic leadership.
“There has never been a more open process for any legislation,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But “we will do what is necessary to pass the bill.”
Pelosi and Van Hollen spoke to reporters Tuesday, after huddling with other House Democratic leaders.
Top Democrats are prepared to short-circuit the traditional legislative process and exclude their GOP counterparts during final congressional health care deliberations, senior Democratic sources have told CNN. Democrats are trying to prevent the Republicans from using Senate rules to slow the push for final passage of a comprehensive reform bill, the sources added.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to weigh in on Lamb’s request, saying he had not read the letter.
Source: House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH)
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.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acc6Wn_BWlk[/youtube]
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
