ALBANY Health care plan met with distaste Panelists give varied arguments against idea BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter
How can you get a socialist in favor of a single-payer health care system and a libertarian who favors people paying for health care themselves to agree? Just ask them whether they support the Affordable Health Care Act of 2009 being debated in Congress. “Just like the Patriot Act wasn’t patriotic, the Affordable Health Care Act won’t make health care more affordable,” said Steven Vasquez, New York coordinator for the Campaign for Liberty. Alice Brody, the chairwoman of the outreach committee for Single Payer NY, said she rejects the argument that the health care reform being debated in the U.S. Senate is better than no reform at all. “I could never live my life if I believed better-than-nothing was good enough,” she said. Saturday, a panel of speakers ranging from Hugo Chavez socialists to pure Adam Smith market capitalists discussed health care reform at an event called “Getting Past the Sound Bites,” a dialogue between the political left and right. The event was held in front of about 100 people inside the WAMC Linda Norris Auditorium on Central Avenue. It was sponsored by organizations across the political spectrum, including MoveOn.org Capital Region Council, We The People, the Campaign for Liberty, the John Birch Society and the Labor Religion Coalition. .....................>>>>.....................>>>>..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01101&AppName=1
December 6, 2009 Senate Clears Way for Home Health Care Cuts By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — Snowflakes swirled around the Capitol on Saturday, whipped by wintry winds, but on the Senate floor inside, a heated debate raged as Democrats and Republicans traded jabs over legislation to achieve President Obama’s goal of near-universal health insurance coverage.
By a vote of 53 to 41, the Senate on Saturday rejected a Republican effort to block cutbacks in payments to home health agencies that provide nursing care and therapy to homebound Medicare beneficiaries.
Republicans voted against the cuts, saying they would hurt some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Most Democrats supported the cutbacks, saying they would eliminate waste and inefficiency in home care.
The Democrats’ health care bill would reduce projected Medicare spending on home care by $43 billion, or 13 percent, over the next 10 years. The savings would help offset the cost of subsidizing coverage for the uninsured.............................>>>>.............................>>>>.................http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/health/policy/06health.html?hpw
Senate Republicans Fiddle While America Burns Posted by hogan Friday, December 4th at 4:11PM EST
Right now in America, the people of this great nation are staring down the loaded barrel of government-run healthcare. If this bill passes, it is no less than the end of America as we know it. You know it. Most Americans knows it.
Yet the people most in a position to do anything about it right now – Senate Republicans – are doing absolutely nothing. If anything, they actually are HELPING Democrats by offering amendments to “highlight problems in the bill,” giving the Democrats the opportunity to produce “cover votes.”
Consider the comments of the number two Senate Republican, Jon Kyl, yesterday on Bill Bennett’s radio show, being hosted by Rick Santorum (hat tip to mayhem in comments of one of Erick’s post, here). In response to the question, “what is your strategy, to the extent you can share it,” Kyl said, “actually, I think we can be fairly upfront about it. Our strategy is not actually to delay and not take votes.” He added, “our strategy is to have a lot of good amendments and highlight the problems in the bill,” and “it is not our strategy to somehow slow things down.”
This is what happens when Senators sit around their offices with overpaid, but largely incompetent staff in fancy rooms scattered about the Capitol – and they listen to pollsters and political strategists talking about how unpopular this bill is, but stressing that Republicans “need to be for something.”
Senator Kyl continued, spending several minutes detailing the GOP strategy to improve the bill with amendments. But, then, the Jon Kyl that we usually applaud conceded that it was simply not possible to improve a bill that at its core allows a government takeover of health care.
On the show, he said, “it is the guts of this bill that’s the problem,” Kyl told Santorum. “These guys [the Democrats] will come back and say, ‘Oh, we fixed this and we fixed that and so on.’ But did you fix the guts of the bill?” “I do not want constituents, wherever they are, to let their senators off the hook on the guts of the bill.”
Right. So, use very tool at your disposal to kill it.
There are two possible strategies to kill this bill. 1. Force a vote as soon as possible to try to deny Democrats the opportunity to build 60 votes. 2. Delay, obstruct and fight – using every parliamentary tactic in the book – such as forcing a reading of the bill, offering strategic amendments, etc… - and try to build up so much public opposition that Democrats cannot get 60 votes. The tools for this strategy were outlined by Senator Judd Gregg, but this is being ignored in favor of “messaging amendments” (code for: we don’t have a plan, so let’s offer “messaging amendments” even though we have no actual message, instead of useful, divisive amendments that might actually be a poison pill).
The current strategy is not a strategy at all. It’s a gutless, foolish exercise in Senate-itis… a deadly disease inflicting many, where people who have been on Capitol Hill for too long begin listening to themselves and their tired, hack staff… drinking their own Koolaid, if I may say it… happy to sit back and enjoy their supposedly improving popularity in the polls as a result of anti-Obama sentiment, and the supposed great forecast for 2010 elections…
As a result, Republicans are playing into Democrat hands – and America will be the big loser.
Government-run healthcare for all – freedom for none.
Have your checkbooks and credit cards ready. There's a price for health care security -- particularly for solid middle-class households, who wouldn't get much help with premiums.
WASHINGTON -- Health care overhaul now looks like it really will happen, with a compromise coming together in the Senate to give uninsured Americans options they've never had before. But it won't be a free ride.
Have your checkbooks and credit cards ready. There's a price for health care security -- particularly for solid middle-class households, who wouldn't get much help with premiums.
President Barack Obama hailed the Senate agreement Wednesday, building expectations that the yearlong fight over revamping health care had finally come down to the bill now emerging.
That measure, like the Medicare prescription drug benefit that passed when Republicans ran Washington, would offer consumers a dizzying lineup of health plan choices -- with different costs and benefits.
"People who need to buy coverage as individuals and small employers are going to have a lot more in the way of attractive health insurance options, and they won't have to worry about whether their medical condition precludes them from being covered," said policy expert Paul Ginsburg, who heads the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change.
The downside: "Sticker shock is going to come to some."
Get ready for a whole new set of trade-offs.
For example, people in their 50s and early 60s, when health problems tend to surface, are likely to pay less than they would now. Those in their 20s and 30s, who get the best deals today, will face higher premiums, though for better coverage.
The tentative deal by Democratic senators would give millions of Americans the option of signing up for private plans sponsored by the federal employee health system, which covers some 8 million, including members of Congress. The compromise, which also offers people age 55 to 64 the option of buying into Medicare, appears to have given Democrats a way around the deal-breaker issue of a new government plan to compete with private carriers. Senators continued to debate for a 10th day, with Democrats pushing to pass the bill by Christmas.
The 2,074-page Senate bill will grow even longer as amendments are considered, but the basic outlines of the legislation most likely to pass are becoming clearer.
The overhaul will be phased in slowly, over the next three to four years. But eventually all Americans will be required to carry coverage or face a tax penalty, except in cases of financial hardship. Insurers won't be able to deny coverage to people with health problems, or charge them more or cut them off.
Most of the uninsured will be covered, but not all. As many as 24 million people would remain uninsured in 2019, many of them otherwise eligible Americans who still can't afford the premiums. Lawmakers propose to spend nearly $1 trillion over 10 years to provide coverage, most of the money going to help lower-income people. But a middle-class family of four making $66,000 would still have to pay about 10 percent of its income in premiums, not counting co-payments and deductibles........................>>>>.............................>>>>.......................http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/09/ready-health-care-sticker-shock/
President Obama: Federal Government 'Will Go Bankrupt' if Health Care Costs Are Not Reined In December 16, 2009 3:01 PM
ABC's Karen Travers reports from Washington:
President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”
The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails.
“If we don't pass it, here's the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they're going to drop your coverage, because they just can't afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “
The president said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an “unsustainable” trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, “the federal government will go bankrupt.”
“This actually provides us the best chance of starting to bend the cost curve on the government expenditures in Medicare and Medicaid,” Obama said.
Obama told Gibson that anybody who says they are concerned about the rising deficit or worried about tax increases in the future has to support this health care bill.
“Because if we don't do this, nobody argues with the fact that health care costs are going to consume the entire federal budget,” the president said.
Obama is facing an increasingly skeptical American public when it comes to his push for health care reform.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that support for the health care reform package, while never robust, is now at a low ebb and opposition has been steadily growing stronger in intensity.
For the first time, a majority of those surveyed disapproved of the president’s work on health care (53 percent) and oppose the health care reform package making its way through Congress (51 percent, compared to 44 percent approval).............................................>>>>................>>>>.................http://blogs.abcnews.com/thewo.....=politics_featureHed
Vote by Christmas in peril By: Carrie Budoff Brown December 16, 2009 08:22 PM EST
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plan to pass the Senate health care reform bill by Christmas looked increasingly in doubt Wednesday, as Republicans launched an offensive to stall the legislation and Democrats had yet to strike a 60-vote compromise.
Senators privately considered one scenario Wednesday that would have them casting a final vote at 7 p.m. Christmas Eve.
Surprising Democrats, Republicans brought the debate to a standstill and forced the Senate clerk to read a 767-page amendment on creating a government-financed health care system. Democrats pulled the measure as the reading entered its third hour, but the move was the start of the GOP’s attempts to use every procedural tool necessary to delay the bill.
Away from the floor, Reid (D-Nev.) continued wrangling with the Congressional Budget Office over a cost estimate, which Democrats had initially hoped to receive by Monday.
Without the analysis, Reid has been unable to lock down votes for the bill. And Democrats on both ends of the political spectrum remained uncommitted, saying they had problems that needed to be addressed.
Senators cornered Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) throughout the day, aiming to sway him. Nelson received draft language from Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) of an amendment to tighten restrictions on federal financing of abortion. The amendment would segregate private funds that cover abortions from public subsidies for health insurance.
“We’re looking at it,” said Nelson, who indicated that he was also waiting on feedback from anti-abortion groups. ................................>>>>......................>>>>..............http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30694.html
Two doctors, two very different views on health care
There are interesting common points between Dr. Roger Malebranche’s Dec 12 opinion [“Public-sector retirees’ health benefits often better than private’s”] and Dr. Arthur Salvatore, Jr.’s Dec. 13 opinion [“Dental Medicaid fraud will be repeated on a grander scale”]. They both understand the need for reform in health care. They both seem to understand that many are without care. The dentist, Dr. Salvatore, seems to think the need should be filled by the kindness of strangers, professionals setting up shop with such equipment and time that they can muster to perchance “ . . . grab the little ruffians . . . throw them in the chair” and do the best they can. Dr. Malebranche thinks a system where everyone is under the same coverage, such as Medicare, might work. Dr. Salvatore believes that there is no better oversight of medical and dental care than the professionals actually servicing the public in those fields Government “control” is socialism, and, by definition, that’s bad. The strange part is that as examples of country-wide fraud, Dr. Salvatore cites practitioners willing to falsify all kinds of services and non-service to extract public money for their purpose. Thus some practitioners at least are highly dishonest. And it is possible that the rest want to practice their art, not oversee and control public health. For myself I would choose medical and health care as a right higher than public education if need be! I’d like to see a public option under scientific research protocols, compared to the current insurance-dominated non-option where essentially a citizen can choose what plan and company they can afford — all under private companies! Of course, they also have no option whatsoever as to paying for neighbors, friends and hordes of strangers who were in public employ at one time — even if they can afford nothing for themselves. For those who believe that the privately insured are best off, a research study on how many Wall Street employees prefer their spouse’s public coverage to their own private coverage would be interesting.
I would like to state that I sincerely believe we have a moral obligation to help those less fortunate than we are. The elderly, the very young and those with physical and mental handicaps, as well as our wounded and disabled veterans, deserve all the assistance we can give them. I also believe it is intolerable that thousands of people in this country cannot afford health insurance. My hope is that the government will abandon its grandiose scheme to reform health care and, working with private insurance companies, institute a program of low-cost or no-cost insurance to cover these individuals. That being said, I am amazed to read letters to the editor which state that people have a right to health insurance. Is that right found in the same section of the Constitution where a woman's right to privacy was found in 1973, or the section on which a 2005 Supreme Court decision was based to give local governments the right to force property owners to sell their homes under the euphemism "urban revitalization?" Franklin Roosevelt once told his fellow Democrats that the more people who relied on the federal government for a portion of their well-being, the longer they (the elected officials) would be perpetuated in office. Since that time, the federal government, through a series of entitlement programs, has created an ever-growing class of dependent people who raise their arms in supplication toward Washington, D.C. and shout, "gimme a job, gimme housing, gimme money," and now have added, "gimme that public option!" Do these people truly believe they have a right to the fruits of someone else's labor with little or no effort on their part? Whatever happened to self-reliance and the personal pride of accomplishment?
Payoffs for states get Reid to 60 By: Chris Frates December 19, 2009 07:56 PM EST
Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” as the GOP is calling it, got all the attention Saturday, but other senators lined up for deals as Majority Leader Harry Reid corralled the last few votes for a health reform package.
Nelson’s might be the most blatant – a deal carved out for a single state, a permanent exemption from the state share of Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, meaning federal taxpayers have to kick in an additional $45 million in the first decade.
But another Democratic holdout, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers, while denying it was a “sweetheart deal.” He was clearly more enthusiastic about a bill he said he couldn’t support just three days ago.
Nelson and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) carved out an exemption for non-profit insurers in their states from a hefty excise tax. Similar insurers in the other 48 states will pay the tax.
Vermont and Massachusetts were given additional Medicaid funding, another plus for Sanders and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Three states – Pennsylvania, New York and Florida – all won protections for their Medicare Advantage beneficiaries at a time when the program is facing cuts nationwide.
All of this came on top of a $300 million increase for Medicaid in Louisiana, designed to win the vote of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu.
Under pressure from the White House to get a deal done by Christmas, Reid was unapologetic. He argued that, by definition, legislating means deal making and defended the special treatment for Nelson’s home state of Nebraska.
“You’ll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That’s what legislating is all about. It's compromise," he said.
It was Nelson who proved that he who plays hardest to get, gets the most.
He forced Reid to redraft the bill’s restrictions on federal funding of abortion. And while most insiders were focused on that deal, Nelson was quietly ensuring that his state would never have to pay for the Medicaid expansion being written into the bill – an agreement that had been in the works for weeks.
Medicaid is usually paid for with a mix of federal and state funding, but Nelson's carve out means that any Medicaid beneficiaries who join the program under the bill will be fully paid for by the federal government.
It's an important deal considering that many governors are worried that the Medicaid expansion will further strain already stressed state budgets – and one that came after Nebraska Gov.Dave Heineman called on Nelson to vote against the bill.
"The State of Nebraska cannot afford an unfunded mandate and uncontrolled spending of this magnitude,” the governor wrote to Nelson.
Nelson deferred all questions on the provision to Reid, saying only that he was “comfortable” the deal took care of Nebraska.
But Nelson’s deal could be a pittance compared to where the Nebraska compromise might ultimately lead – to 49 other states demanding that the feds pick up their share of health reform’s new Medicaid burden when it kicks in during 2017.
"When you look at it, I thought well, God, good, it is going to be the impetus for all the states to stay at 100 percent [federal funding]. So he might have done all of us a favor," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said of Nelson’s dealings.
Nelson and Levin also pushed a provision that exempts non-profit insurers in Nebraska and Michigan from an annual multi-billion dollar excise tax on insurance companies.
Not surprisingly, both states are home to non-profit insurers who control a high-percentage of the industry’s profits. In Michigan, non-profit insurers control 76 percent of the industry’s profits – one of the highest percentages in the nation – while Nebraska non-profits control 46 percent of their state’s profits. ......................>>>>.......................>>>>....................................................http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30815.html
This Congress is full of graft, coruption, and people who have lost their values as to why they ran for election in the first place. We the people need to push for a referendum on term limits and next election we need to throw all these greedy self serving politicians out on their a** and elect people who will follow the best interests of the people.
This Congress is full of graft, coruption, and people who have lost their values as to why they ran for election in the first place. We the people need to push for a referendum on term limits and next election we need to throw all these greedy self serving politicians out on their a** and elect people who will follow the best interests of the people.
And this is one reason why the people polled, nationally, said they would vote for a Tea Party candidate over the dem or gop candidate. November 2010 will be interesting.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
And this is one reason why the people polled, nationally, said they would vote for a Tea Party candidate over the dem or gop candidate. November 2010 will be interesting.
The Tea Party has endorsed a couple of candidates in Illinois. I wonder if any in NYS will be endorsed by them.
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