Democrats Put Some Teeth into the Revised Health Care Senate Bill by Craig Covello
The Obama White House has been actively working on reforming our system of health care insurance in this country for over a year now, and I am sure we are all worn out by the prolonged conversation. It's been a juggernaut chronicled by procedural missteps, back-room deals, blatant misrepresentations and special tax exemptions for the unions. All this was topped off with the outrageous proclamation that federal control over our American medical system will allow us to add 30 million new enrollees while reducing costs because of "government efficiency". When Nancy Pelosi failed to get the votes she needed, many thought this health care "reform" being pushed by the Obama administration was dead, but as this web site chronicled on February 22, it was resurrected. Obama has personally taken ownership of the new health care proposal and predictably it will even cost more than it might have under Pelosi's efforts. You may already know the details, but let's just point out a few highlights:
• Despite all the rhetoric regarding the bipartisan health-care summit intentions to introduce new ideas, Democrats have simply dusted off the failed Senate health-care bill and made a few changes. It's essentially the same bill without the "public option" but would increase spending significantly while exercising even more control.
• The new bill will control insurance prices using a seven-member panel instead of letting free market forces control costs and drive innovation. It effectively will turn the medical insurance industry into just another heavily regulated utility. What you may not know is that all 50 states already have their own specific laws requiring insurance companies to justify premium increases, so this is an attempt to concentrate power at the federal level which is consistent with the philosophies of this administration. If you don't like the way this panel administers its policies, there is no place left to go.
• The new bill would eliminate favoritism towards Nebraska. You may remember the hundred million dollar "cornhusker kickback" which was a bribe to buy Sen. Ben Nelson's vote. Nebraska will no longer be favored. Instead, this kickback will be applied to every single state by financing all new Medicaid spending through 2017 using 100% federal funding. Previously, states shared some of the funding responsibility with the federal government. The net result, however, is that the money has to come from the taxpayers regardless of how the funds are administered.
The Obama administration is pushing for use of the reconciliation process to force the bill through Congress. As explained earlier in this column, this process would only require 51 votes instead of the normal 60 votes needed under the Senate rules. Reconciliation was introduced in 1974 in order to limit the debate regarding specific dollar amounts in the federal budget. It was never intended to be used as a vehicle for forcing new legislation. This abuse of power was also exercised by George W. Bush when he used reconciliation to push legislation concerning 2003 tax cuts, the tax increase prevention and reconciliation act of 2005 and the deficit reduction act of 2005. At that time, Democrats were incensed, but now Harry Reid was quoted as saying that Republicans "should stop crying about reconciliations as if it has never been done before". Apparently, he and his fellow Democrats did not always feel this way when it didn't serve their interests. Watch this:
It is clear that the differences in ideologies between Democrats and Republicans have never been so clearly demonstrated as with health care reform. What may be less clear is the hypocrisy in thinking that liberals represent enlightenment while conservatives are of lesser intelligence. Case in point. When Republican Congressman Eric Cantor brought the 2400 page Senate bill to the health-care summit in order to reinforce his position, the president criticized him for using it as a "prop". Democratic Congressman Louise Slaughter, however, used a prop of her own in order to tell a story of how one constituent actually wore her dead sister's false teeth because she could not afford her own set of dentures. You guessed it. Slaughter brought the borrowed dentures and waived them around for "show and tell". I'm not kidding.
Obama's healthcare plan may have teeth after all, and will probably bite us (you know where).
Details:
© 2010 by Craig Covello All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Labels: Barack Obama, Congress, Craig Covello, Harry Reid, Health Care, Medicaid, Nancy Pelosi, Senate
posted by Frank T. DeMartini @ 1:26 AM
1 Comments:
We talk an excellent game.
Our tax code is a prima fascia example of volumes of words to cover corrupted intent, easily replaced with a flat tax. The volume of legalese that grows and grows in an attempt to embrace our system of jurisprudence is a remarkable failure to wax wisdom on the Ten Commandments.
The Constitution, a rather simple, short document said in part “ We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
And we are now suffering. We can wrestle and write volumes about our moral code and the government we deserve when all we need is the summary of the Ten Commandments. And I say to you have we not exhausted that wisdom labeled “Prudence” our predisposition to suffer “while evils are sufferable?” And the longer we entertain the present path on governance that we are on, this path of more pain, misery we will suffer, the more our children are going to endure and the more difficult the correction is going to be. Therein lays the ever present, necessary and absolute answer.
Now revert back to our near distraction, it drowns in semantics, hides behind imponderable legalese and is mind numbingly long, purposefully, less we see, understand and object to, the corruption, called ObamaCare. But fear not, move that Trojan Horse within our walls. And history will repeat itself.
“….and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” Please write about this wisdom.
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