FixHealthCarePolicy

Slaughter Rule Not Defended by President

Yesterday FOX News Special Report interviewed President Barack Obama about the process for passing the President’s controversial and unpopular health care proposal. Fox’s Bret Baier asked some pointed questions to see if the President supported or would even talk about the controversial “Slaughter Rule” being considered by the House to pass Obamacare. The President would not directly answer repeated questions about a potentially unconstitutional Deem and Pass rule, but he seemed to tacitly support the idea.

There is no precedent for legislation of this scale to be jammed through Congress by using a deeming resolution in concert with a reconciliation measure. Liberal leaders in the House argue that because Republicans used this potentially unconstitutional procedure in the past, they should be allowed to do so now on a much larger scale. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution states, “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States.” This procedure, on it’s face, seems to violate the letter of the constitution.

The President was asked by Bret Baier about the Slaughter Rule: (more…)

Tags: becomes law, Bret Baier, deeming, Fox News Special Report, no precedent, President Barack Obama, Slaughter Rule

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.”
…
“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’s Kabuki End Game

The doctors in lab coats surrounding President Barack Obama as he gave his latest health care speech yesterday were not there to give the President a physical; that happened Sunday. No, these doctors were props, dressed to impress for what the White House claims is their “final push” for the President’s government take-over of the health care industry. The President again repeated the same old tired claims he has been making for months: “The proposal I’ve put forward gives Americans more control over their health care,” “our proposal is paid for,” and “my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions.” We, and plenty of others, have refuted all these claims before, but this time they are particularly easy to expose as patently false. President Obama gave away the game when he said:

“Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people’s premiums and brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion over the next two decades. And those aren’t my numbers – they are the savings determined by the CBO, which is the Washington acronym for the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress.”

But there is one huge difference between the Senate bill and what the President kept referring to as my/our proposal: the Senate bill actually exists. For all the talk in Washington about Democrats in the Senate using reconciliation to pass a final version of Obamacare, one key fact has been overlooked: no reconciliation bill exists. Not in the House. Not in the Senate. Nowhere. It simply has not yet been written, and there are plenty of reasons to believe it never will. (more…)

Tags: CBO, final push, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ObamaCare, President Barack Obama, reconciliation, White House speech

VIDEO: You Asked for Health Care Ideas, Mr. President. Here Are Three.

President Barack Obama asked Congress not to “walk away” from health care reform in his State of the Union address and to send him ideas for improving health care.

Heritage’s Bob Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies, says there’s a problem with the Congressional health care plan the President would like to sign – the American people don’t want it. Moffit also has three specific ideas for health care reform that Congress should consider.

Watch the video below, then join the debate in our comments forum:

Tags: Bob Moffit, President Barack Obama, State of the Union address

Lessons from the Recent Past: Rumors of Obamacare’s Death are Premature

Media reports that Obamacare is near death are premature. And, if the past is any guide, flat out wrong. It is possible for the Administration to lose politically in pushing its federal takeover of health care, and yet win the policy battle.

Consider the fate of Clintoncare bill of the 1990s. This similarity is not at all a good thing for conservatives. In fact, President Clinton, on an incremental basis, quietly and effectively beat the tar out of hapless congressional Republicans on health care. Unnoticed by a public hostile to the Clinton bill, and possibly even many members of Congress who should have known better, several provisions of President Bill Clinton’s health care reform package were passed by a Republican Congress. It was proof that on health policy Congressional Republicans often did not know what they were doing in the years following the collapse of the Clinton health bill on the floor of the Senate in the fall of 1994. Likewise, Obamacare policies could still become law through this same incremental approach, buried in different bills or legislative vehicles.

A Heritage Foundation paper(pdf) written by Carrie Gavora, a very perceptive analyst, in 1998 outlined the several ways in which Congress later moved the country closer to President Clinton’s vision of greater federal control over health care: (more…)

Tags: Cintoncare, doctor-patient relationship, federally mandated benefits, ObamaCare, President Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton

If You Like Bureaucracy And Red Tape, Then You’ll Love The Health Care Bill

Time and time again, congressional leaders have denied that the proposed health care legislation would result in a federal takeover of health care. Proponents of Obamacare claim that consumers would retain personal choice in selecting health plans and physicians. For example, consider President Obama’s comments at a Raleigh, NC town-hall meeting on July 29, 2009: “Nobody is talking about some government takeover of health care. I’m tired of hearing that…Under the plan I’ve proposed…if you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan.”

The President and Congressional leaders fail to mention that, under the House and Senate bills, the federal government would determine the kind of health plans Americans get— the kinds of insurance Americans would get, the level of coverage they can receive, and the premiums, co-payments and taxes they would pay. It even mandates that all individuals purchase a government-defined level of health insurance coverage, regardless of their personal wants or needs. (more…)

Tags: bureaucracy, House Bill, ObamaCare, President Barack Obama, Senate Bill, townhall meeting

Morning Bell: Health Care in the Balance as Ground Shifts Under Obama

One year ago, President Barack Obama delivered his inaugural address at the foot of the Capitol, laid out an agenda of “big plans” for his administration, and chided “cynics” who “fail to understand that the ground has shifted beneath them.” One year later, as voters head to the ballot box in Massachusetts, it seems that the ground very well may have shifted under President Obama.

And that ground shift might spell trouble for the President’s health care magnum opus.

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll released yesterday, President Obama’s approval ratings have “plummeted to 50%, down from 64% after he took office,” giving him an average 57% approval rating for the year and placing Obama “nearly last in the ranking of former presidents’ first-year job approval averages.”

Why the dissatisfaction? For President Obama, “big plans” meant a year of “big government” in the form of the nationalization of private corporations, hundreds of billions of dollars in new federal spending and a massive government takeover of health care. Those liberal policies haven’t sat well with a majority of Americans. (more…)

Tags: filibuster, inaugural address, ObamaCare, President Barack Obama

Obamacare Full of Favors for Big Labor

Candidate Obama campaigned as a fierce opponent of special interests that use their clout and connections to secure special favors from the government. As President, Obama has made it clear that he only objected to particular special interests getting handouts. Obama happily gives some liberal special interests loopholes and exemptions from the laws that affect everyone else.

The closed-door negotiations over the health care bill have made this clear. Unions strongly objected to the excise tax on “Cadillac” health plans. By some estimates the tax would hit one in four union members. Union lobbyists pressured the White House to drop that tax. After a high-profile meeting between Obama and union lobbyists on Monday, the unions apparently have gotten what they asked for: the excise tax will not apply to collectively bargained health plans. The tax that unions found so onerous will now apply to everyone but them.

What a deal. Unions want the health care spending, but they do not want to pay for it. Obama gave them just that. It also makes for a great recruiting pitch: join a union, get a tax cut. (more…)

Tags: Big Labor, Cadillac health plans, President Barack Obama, Senate excise tax, unions

Fourth Quarter Blackout

Imagine watching the biggest game of the year—the Super Bowl—only to have the broadcast cut off as the fourth quarter begins.

The same outrage should apply to President Obama’s broken promise to have C-SPAN televise the entirety of health care negotiations. Just as we reach the crucial moment–the final resolution between the House, the Senate and the White House–public access goes black.

(For those who remember, it’s like 1968 when NBC provoked outrage when it broke away from a critical game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders to air a showing of “Heidi.”)

Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs tried to laugh off today’s controversy, telling reporters the President’s broken promise doesn’t matter because we’ve already had a “thorough, robust, two-year debate on health care” as the bill moved through committee and each house of Congress. (more…)

Tags: campaign promises, ping pong, President Barack Obama, Robert Gibbs, Super Bowl, transparency

Let’s Make a Deal: Doctor Support for Government Contracts

So why don’t President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi want to allow CSPAN to televise the final health care negotiations? Why is White House press secretary Robert Gibbs evading questions about transparency in the final crafting of the bill? Just what deals are being made to secure the votes necessary to pass a plan that vast majorities of the American public are against?

It appears that medical groups supporting Obamacare could come away with healthy bottom lines. Dr. Erik Dahl blasted the American Medical Association’s recent support of the Senate health care bill, noting that the physicians group failed to mention the medical billing system it has with the Health and Human Services Department.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Dahl, a Maryland doctor and a former assistant chief at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, posits in a letter to the editor: (more…)

Tags: AMA, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mayo Clinic, President Barack Obama