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Health Care Bill Likely in October

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Anonymous

Guest
Health Care Bill Likely in October

The Democrats made a strategic decision about health care reform this week that has major implications for the elections of 2010 and 2012. The decision was fairly technical--to attach health care reform to the budget reconciliation if agreement has not been reached by October 15--but the political consequences are immense.

Very briefly, budgeting works like this. In February, the President proposes a budget, which President Obama has already done and which Congress has approved. But this is only step 1. Next the Senate and House committees dealing with taxing and spending hack on the President's proposal and come up with their own plans, which merely sets general spending limits for each of 19 broad categories of government expenditures. After much arm wrestling, the committee chairman come up with a single proposal in each chamber, which is then brought to the floor for a vote. Since the Senate and House versions invariably differ, a joint Senate-House conference committee then works out a compromise, called the budget resolution, which both chambers then pass.

If Congress so desires, language can be inserted into the budget resolution directing one or more committees to produce specific legislation by a specific date. The legislation produced by these committees is generally bundled into a single bill called the reconciliation bill. According to Senate rules, budget resolutions and reconciliation bills are subject to straight up-or-down votes. Filibusters are not allowed. The Democrats plan to use this process to get a health care reform bill through this year. In effect, as long as 50 Democratic senators support the bill, it will become law with a little help from Vice President Joe Biden if needed. Up to nine Democrats, such as Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) can oppose the bill and it can still pass.

Poll after poll has shown that Americans are very worried about their health insurance. People are afraid to quit jobs they hate because they are worried they won't be able to get health insurance after their COBRA coverage expires. The core of the problem, of course, is the insurance companies' desire not to insure anyone who is sick or likely to become sick. All other industrialized countries solve this problem through laws saying that health insurance companies must offer a standard policy at a standard price to anyone who asks for one. Cherrypicking good customers is illegal everywhere except the U.S. To prevent young healthy people from going uninsured until they suddenly get sick and then applying for insurance, other countries make carrying health insurance mandatory, the same way most states in the U.S. mandate that car owners have accident insurance on their cars.

The Democrats and Republicans differ hugely on their views about cherrypicking and mandates. Any bill the Democrats came up with containing both of these items would be filibustered to death in the Senate. However, now that Senate Democrats (with Obama's blessing) have decided to make health care reform part of the reconciliation bill, the Republicans will not be able to filibuster it. This will make them absolutely furious--even though George Bush used the reconciliation process himself on a number of occasions.

Now it is not certain that health care will have to go into the reconciliation bill. If Al Franken is ultimately seated in Minnesota, then the Democrats will need only one more vote to pass a health care bill the usual way (which in this session of Congress means invoking cloture). That vote won't come from Arlen Specter due to his tough primary, so the targets will be Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and to a lesser extent, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will undoubtedly spend a lot of time talking to these two women and trying to cajole them into voting for cloture on the health reform bill. However, since they know their votes aren't really essential (because if they vote against cloture health care reform will be dumped into the reconciliation bill which can't be filibustered) they are not in a strong negotiating position and may be content with small changes rather than having the bill go into reconciliation, in which case they get nothing.

If the Democrats manage to ram health insurance through Congress this year, they will be crowing about it in 2010 and 2012 as fulfilling a major campaign promise and Republicans will be dissing it as socialized medicine. But given the public's desire to see the health insurance system fixed, a bill this year is likely to help the Democrats, hence the decision to put health care reform in the reconciliation bill if all else fails.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Sandhusker said:
Who's the rocket scientist that wrote that?

The guy thats been almost 100% on with his predictions of the last several elections....

http://www.electoral-vote.com/
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Be Careful what you wish for!

President Obama's Health Care Plan Could Require Rationing, Warnings Begin

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 27, 2009

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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama and his Congressional allies haven't yet announced a universal health care plan, but warnings are already beginning that it will likely include health care rationing. That's a concern for the pro-life movement because it can lead to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

In a powerful column written in the Washington Post, noted author Charles Krauthammer notes "the math doesn't add up" on covering Americans without cutting back on medical care.

"His universal health-care proposal would increase costs by perhaps $1 trillion," Krauthammer says.

"The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing," he explains.

Krauthammer points out that the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical "comparative effectiveness research," which he calls the "perfect setup for rationing."

"Once you establish what is 'best practice' for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you've laid the premise for funding some and denying others," he says.

England and Canada are often used as the examples of the problems and abuses that show up when nations move to governmental-based health care and rationing what patients can receive.

"Britain's National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective -- and if you're old and infirm, the cost-effectiveness of treating you plummets. In Canada, they ration by queuing. You can wait forever for so-called elective procedures like hip replacements," the columnist says. "A nationalized health insurance system would ration everything from MRIs to intensive care by myriad similar criteria."

Krauthammer says voters have been sold a bill of goods -- with Obama making promises to voters without talking about consequences.

"Obama, the consummate politician, knows to offer the candy (universality) today before serving the spinach (rationing) tomorrow," he writes. "But there is no escaping rationing. In the end, the spinach must be served."

Rationing may not only affect the elderly, as Fred Barnes notes in The Weekly Standard.

He points out that the recent death of actress Natasha Richardson occurred in a Canadian hospital that had neither scanning equipment nor a neurosurgeon. Nor was there a helicopter available to take her there from the popular ski slopes where she was injured. The Canadian government had decided not to pay for these medical services.

While rationing would curtail lifesaving medical treatment and encourage euthanasia, it would promote abortion says Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

"The only way for Obama to pay for his health takeover will be through rationing of health care to the elderly," he says.

"The plan Democrats envision will include a seductively framed 'government option' that will prescribe covered services, including abortion in all likelihood, with low cost and coverage mandates that may draw as many as 130 million Americans to it," Perkins adds.

Buzz up!
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
"The core of the problem, of course, is the insurance companies' desire not to insure anyone who is sick or likely to become sick."

:roll:
 
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