FixHealthCarePolicy

The Democrats’ Tangled Web

In 2009, Democrats chose to proceed with a health-care bill under the regular order – that is, they sought to pass the legislation under normal House and Senate rules. They did not put together a budget reconciliation bill with health care in it, something that could have passed the Senate with a simple majority vote. They conceded that such an approach would likely produce a flawed product, as many non-budgetary provisions in a health-care plan would not survive the reconciliation process. And so they decided to try and pass a bill without resorting to reconciliation, even though they knew they would need sixty votes in the Senate to succeed. It worked. They passed a bill in the House in November, and a somewhat different version in the Senate in December.

Then came Scott Brown. His stunning election to the Senate on January 19 upended the Democrats’ end-game. They were going to work out the differences between the House and Senate-passed bills in January and proceed to pass an agreed-upon version in both chambers as expeditiously as possible. But that plan was contingent on getting sixty votes again in the Senate. With Brown’s election, Senate Republicans increased their numbers from forty to forty-one, thus forcing Democrats to find at least one Republican Senator to support their final bill. (more…)

Tags: catholic bishops, end game, ObamaCare, reconciliation, Sen. Scott Brown

White House Delays Asia Trip: Another Sign Obamacare on Code Blue

In the face of declining polling numbers, daily Democratic defections, and unfavorable rulings from the Senate Parliamentarian, the White House has devolved into all out panic mode. Politico reports:

“President Barack Obama is delaying his trip to Indonesia and Australia by three days in hopes of finalizing a health care deal — and will scrap plans to bring along First Lady Michelle Obama and his two daughters, according to senior administration officials.”
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“By postponing his trip, Obama effectively gives the House some breathing room, preserving the hope that members will be able to depart the Capitol for their Easter break two weeks from today with a deal in their pockets.” (more…)

Tags: Easter break, ObamaCare, President Barack Obama, Senate Health Bill

Morning Bell: Obamacare at Any Cost

Yesterday the White House circulated a memo by pollster Joel Benenson. It was designed to create momentum for Obamacare by convincing wayward House Democrats that support for the President’s plan has been building since the State of the Union. As with everything else that comes out of the White House on health care these days, the memo is nothing but pure fantasy.

This Tuesday, Gallup released its latest poll showing that by a 48%-45% margin Americans would tell their representative in Congress to vote against President Obama’s health plan. Compare that to the last time Gallup asked the question in January, Americans supported the President’s plan 49%-46%. That’s a net six point loss in support for the President’s plan since the State of the Union. That is momentum. Against Obamacare.

And Gallup isn’t alone. The Associated Press released a poll this week showing that 68% of Americans believe the President and Congressional Democrats shouldn’t pass their health care plan without Republican support. “Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats’ current health-care plan,” Democratic pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen add in today’s Washington Post, “A solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan.” (more…)

Tags: Cornhusker Kickback, ObamaCare, President's proposal, Rep. Bart Stupak, start over

Breaking: The Latest Worthless Medical Malpractice “Reforms”

When President Obama held his health care summit at the White House, Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) pointed out that a key part of containing medical costs was completely missing from the debate: medical malpractice legal reform. The cost of defensive medicine alone (without taking into account the direct costs of such claims) “could be as high as $239 billion” according to a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers cited by Camp.

So what was President Obama’s response? He basically interrupted Camp and told him to “finish up.” On March 3, when Obama gave his speech in the East Room on health care reform, his only mention of this issue was about “funding state grants on medical malpractice reform.” Of course, he has said that before – in his address to Congress on health care last fall. Then he offered to fund “pilot” projects even though states like Texas and Mississippi have instituted such reform and we already know what works. (more…)

Tags: medical malpractice reform, ObamaCare, pilot projects

Video of the Week: “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it”

You might have seen this week a stunning demonstration of political condescension on the health care front. In remarks at the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy.”

This revealing comment reinforces a patriarchal (or in Pelosi’s case matriarchal) attitude Congress has taken with the American public: What lurks within the House and Senate health care bills will be revealed in the fullness of time, and it’s really good for us if we only knew better. (more…)

Tags: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, reconciliation, Senate Health Bill, taxes, taxpayer-funded abortions

Congressional Micromanagement of Health Care: Messing Up The FEHBP

While Congressional leaders are feverishly plotting to jam the hugely unpopular Senate health bill through the House of Representatives the moment Speaker Pelosi thinks she has the votes, House liberals are also tinkering around with the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). This is the program that covers federal workers and retirees; it is a consumer-driven program of competing private health plans. Through more regulation, Congressional liberals would like to make it look a lot more like Obamacare.

Historically, the success of the FEHBP as a consumer-driven and competitive system of private health plans has been largely attributable to its wide range of personal choice, relatively light regulation, and the hands-off approach the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in its administration. That can change, of course, depending upon who is running the White House.

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Tags: FEHBP, Medicare, ObamaCare, Office of Personnel Management, Senate Health Bill

Obamacare’s Procedural Fraud on the American People

The Health Care Nuclear Option is still the stated plan to get Obamacare to the President’s desk. The latest wrinkle is designed to allow pro-life Democrats to vote for the Senate’s taxpayer funded abortion language while still claiming they never voted for taxpayer funded abortions. Don’t be fooled.

First, let’s be clear that the Senate bill allows tax dollars to be used for abortions. According to Chuck Donovan of The Heritage Foundation, the Senate passed Obamacare bill funds abortion in several ways, even creating an appropriation for Community Health Centers that contains no restriction on abortion subsidies. If the Senate version of Obamacare is passed by the House and sent to the President, then the House has consented to the federal funding of abortion. (more…)

Tags: community health centers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, nuclear option, ObamaCare, reconciliation, taxpayer-funded abortions

Deja Vu All Over Again

President Barack Obama says he will have his health care bill passed by the House before he leaves for Australia on March 18th. Nobody outside the White House believes that is going to happen. Next week’s blown deadline will join a crowded graveyard of past deadlines including July, August, and September. But blown deadlines are not the only reoccurring storyline from this health care debate. President George Bush economic adviser Keith Hennessey has paired thirteen 2009 health care headlines with thirteen 2010 headlines. See if you can tell which are from this year and which are from last year: (more…)

Tags: end game, final pitch, ObamaCare, President's proposal

Morning Bell: Dead Legislation Walking

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. (more…)

Tags: Cadillac tax, Cornhusker Kickback, ObamaCare, President's proposal, Rep. Bart Stupak, Senate Health Bill, taxpayer-funded abortions

Think Medicaid Expansion is a Good Idea? Think Again.

Most everyone agrees that decreasing the number of the uninsured is an important goal of health care legislation. What is not agreed upon is the best way to achieve that goal. Obama’s health care plan depends on expanding the number of Americans enrolled in Medicaid – the government-run program for the poor and disabled. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the Senate bill would account for about 50 percent of the reduction in the uninsured population at a cost of $395 billion over 10 years.

New research by Heritage’s health fellow Brian Blase presents evidence suggesting that Medicaid expansion would be both costly and do little to improve the health of the uninsured. Blase examines the “TennCare” program, a Tennessee public program enacted in 1994 that dramatically increased the expansion of Medicaid to Tennessee’s uninsured population. The TennCare program quickly added over half a million individuals to Medicaid, enrolling one-fourth of the entire state. And costs also skyrocketed. Per-capita Medicaid spending from 1994-2004 increased by 146 percent in Tennessee, which was over double the national average increase of 71 percent.

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Tags: CBO, Medicaid Expansion, ObamaCare, President's proposal, TennCare