ObamaDeathCare = Dead legislation alive.
Posted on 03/11/2010 6:08:30 PM PST by myknowledge
Another day, another stream of health care fantasy from the White House. A quick look at two health care events from yesterday, one in Glenside, Pennsylvania, and the other in Tawas City, Michigan, clearly exposes the yawing gap between the Obama administration’s health care rhetoric and cold hard legislative reality. First in Glenside, President Barack Obama turned up the volume on his already tired “final push” for health care reform. In addition to the usual litany of false claims about the legislation in Congress (in fact, you don’t get to keep your doctor, it isn’t paid for, it doesn’t reduce costs) President Obama also repeated his new line from his doctors-in-lab-coats address last week:
"We have now incorporated almost every single serious idea from across the political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of health care … Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill…"
But, as we pointed out last week, there is one not-so-minor difference between the Senate bill and the President’s new proposal: the Senate bill actually exists. Now, Democrats may be telling their conservative counterparts that they will have reconciliation legislative text in front of the Budget Committee by tomorrow, but don’t hold your breath. The “fixes” that the White House is promising wavering House Democrats they will make all sound easy at first glance: 1) scaling back the tax on high-end health insurance policies; 2) closing the Medicare D loophole; 3) boosting insurance subsidies; 4) increasing Medicaid payments; and 5) fixing the Cornhusker Kickback. But when you take a second look, you see that all of these “fixes” will cost more money. Just look at the Cornhusker Kickback which the President chose to address, not by taking away Nebraska’s special Medicaid payments, but by extending those extra Medicaid payments to every state! Every single item in the President’s proposal either increases spending or reduces new revenues. And he didn’t put forward any way to pay for them. If passing health reform were as easy as giving away free candy, Obamacare would be law already. Finding a way to pay for all these fixes is going to be just as difficult as every earlier effort to pay for this bill. So don’t expect any solutions anytime soon.
And we haven’t even mentioned “abortion” yet, which brings us to Tawas City where Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) hosted his own health care townhall. Now the Associated Press headline may read “Stupak: Health bill abortion fight can be resolved” but then the AP actually reports “Rep. Bart Stupak said he expects to resume talks with House leaders this week…” In other words, there is no agreement yet. And what kind of timeline is Stupak looking at for such an agreement? WJRT reports: “[Stupak]’s confident a bill will pass sometime this year.” “Sometime this year” is a bit longer of a timeframe than the White House deadline of next Thursday. But even more importantly, look at the process Stupak suggests for final passage: “According Stupak, until the House and the Senate bills and the president’s proposals become one piece of legislation, health care will remain in limbo.” Considering that everyone agrees that abortion cannot be fixed in reconciliation, Stupak’s position is a total rejection of the White House’s current plan to have the House pass the Senate bill now on the promise that the Senate might come back and try and fix it sometime in the future. Stupak clearly wants “one piece of legislation,” and the only way to accomplish that is to scrap the current Senate bill and start over.
In the meantime, legislative “limbo” has not been kind to the Senate bill. Every day seems to bring news of yet another yes vote switching to undecided or no vote. Just yesterday, former-yes votes Reps. Michael Arcuri (D-NY), Dan Maffei (D-NY), Bill Owens (D-NY) and Dan Lipinski (D-IL) all confirmed they were either now undecided or would vote no. And Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL), who voted no the first time, said he would suspend his campaign for Governor just so he could come back to Washington to vote against Obamacare again. The President can travel the country talking about an up-or-down vote for “our proposal” all he wants, but the reality is he simply doesn’t have the votes in the House for the only piece of health care legislation that actually exists.
ObamaDeathCare = Dead legislation alive.
With no tort reform doctors will be leaving in droves...No financial incentive to continue practicing...Dumb sh$t Congress. Remember free market???
When the death panel pulls the plug on Obamacare you will see the biggest spike in business activity in 2 years.
You are probably right. They are just waiting to see what happens...
Thanks for this. Didn’t I hear something just yesterday about assigning the job of rooting out waste/fraud/abuse in Medicare and Medicaid programs to private individuals? Another commission? What on earth are government employees for and what have they been doing for the past 40 years?
It’s always been a job that investigative reporters have taken on and managed to embarrass state and federal governments with their findings. States have always jumped on the reports and swore they would get right on it! What happened? Nothing obviously.
Anyone have the skinny on this?
Where do you think they'll relocate to? Every other advanced Western nation already has universal health care insurance. The non-advanced nations don't pay as well and aren't very appealing work environments anyway. So where do you think they would go?
BTW, funny thing is, medical malpractice insurance and lawsuits etc are greatly reduced in countries with universal coverage. Makes sense in a way, since the patient's health coverage, rehab, home nursing, etc are already covered.
I worked for doctors for years and the ones I worked for would rather sell cars than to work under universal health care...We already have a doctor shortage. It will only get worse...
A bit optimistic but as Yogi might say: “it ain’t over until it’s over”. This bill has a way of waking from the dead.
Really? I can’t imagine having all that skill and training and expertise and then voluntarily walking away from it to sell cars or any of the more mundane things the rest of us do for a living. I guess I have a romanticized view of practicing medicine.
Is it possible the dem leadership knows they can’t get the votes but their loon base just isn’t giving them a way to let it die, so they come up with a new cockamamie (can’t believe I spelled that right the first time) scheme every day to placate them?
I know interesting isn’t it. But they were adament about not being in the healthcare system. They could teach or just retire for that matter. But they at one time did belong to the AMA and are no longer in that...They saw it coming a long time ago...
“With no tort reform doctors will be leaving in droves...”
Where will Obama get all the new doctors that will be needed to treat the 30 million new people that will be covered by healthcare? It already takes me 7-8 weeks for an appointment.
I guess he didn’t think that far ahead...Why don’t democrats look at the big picture when they want to change something? They just throw money at it and hope it works...Very short-sighted and stupid...
I am but meanwhile business is relatively good outside the U.S. The world is pretty much passing us by while we are mired in uncertainty, growing debt, increased regulation, socialism, crumbling facilites and roads, increasing welfare and a general decline orchestrated by obozo.
I have not seen or heard a thing about changing liability for the medical profession in this abortion...only changing who pays, how much and what for.
The medical profession is no more protected from liability if an illegal is treated and paid for by us than they are if it is paid for privately. This is part of the injury, insult and insanity. There are lawyers in the emergency waiting rooms with brochures printed in spanish. They stock the magazine racks there and put their advertisements in the covers baiting the illegal bastards with promises of wealth from insurance companies and others who have unrightfully gained a bigger share of the pie than they have.
You’re misguided.
I didn't say anything about changing liability under Obamacare.
I was pointing out that in those countries with single-payer, universal coverage, the malpractice damage awards were much lower because the government (ie, the taxpayers) already pays for medical care that can't be cancelled. Damages are pretty much limited to pain and suffering.
Also, in single-payer countries, those doctors who work for the government usually, but not always, have lower medical malpractice premiums than here in the US.
I'm not saying that if Obamacare passes then we'll no longer need tort reform.
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