Obama's big idea: Digital health records

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Betsy McCaughey Exposes Obama Healthcare Lies

Fred Thompson Radio Program ^ | July 17, 2009 | Betsy McCaughey/Fred Thompson

Betsy McCaughey exposes several horrors in Obamacare bill, and Obama's lies about "keeping your health insurance," etc. Elderly will be FORCED to undergo "counseling" designed to pressure them to DIE.

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Lies, Damn Lies, and Health Care

By: Tait Trussell
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, July 17, 2009

If priorities are to be believed, the priority the Obama administration has placed at the top could become a flop. Political pollster Daniel Yankelovich says that Americans are slowly leaving the “wishful stage” of the health care debate, when polling data showed broad support for a larger government role in medicine. Yankelovich predicts “in the next few weeks, when voters discover what national health care will cost and how it could affect their own care, romance will give way to reality.”

Studies already show the legislation's eroding popularity, as citizens find out the problems inherent in socialized medicine, the tax increases necessary to finance it, and the deception politicians use to inflate the number of uninsured Americans. A few months ago, Americans believed the nation’s health care system was in need of a major fix, according to a CBS poll. Nine out of ten said fundamental changes were called for, although most said they were satisfied with their own health care. Some 34 percent said that health care for the uninsured still was important.

But the polls were taken well before the public education campaign had begun, and Congress was stunned and flummoxed by estimates of the cost of health care legislation being drafted in the Senate. The impartial Congressional Budget Office calculated the legislation could cost $1 trillion or $1.6 trillion, depending on its legislative components.

Little comfort was given to the public when they realized that just taxing the top tax bracket, the despised “rich,” would not provide enough money to pay for universal health care—that the tax collector would undoubted have to delve down to the middle-class taxpayer to finance a giant health plan. Kaiser Health News has reported dollars would have to be extracted from the “top-earning 40 percent of the population,” to pay for universal health care. When people learn ObamaCare means a massive tax increase for nearly half of all Americans, a revolt could ensue.

Still another major concern began to dampen public enthusiasm for nationalized medicine. It was in the proposed powers of a national health czar, known as the Health Choices commissioner, reported Kaiser Health News. The commissioner and the health choices agency would oversee a health insurance exchange, according to a draft bill in the House. The Health Choices Administrator would be the bureaucrat who would deliver Obama’s extravagant promise of affordable health for all.

A health insurance exchange would be created, a national purchasing pool from which individuals and small businesses would pick from private plans or a government-run alternative.

The Commissioner’s authority would be all-encompassing. He would determine who would qualify for federal subsidies to aid in buying coverage, set standards for handling grievances for claims denied, govern insurance marketing campaigns, and set other standards normally controlled by the states.

Many citizens are seeing ads on their TV sets telling of the horrors of socialized medicine in Europe, Britain and Canada, where interminable waits for treatments are customary, and rationing of medical care is commonplace, especially for the aging. The largest threat for the aging is whether The Obama Administration’s National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, already encompassed in the Stimulus law, limits care for seniors only to what is “cost effective.” This is done in countries where health care is rationed to exclude treatment for many seniors, because they are judged to be near life’s end; why “waste” the expense?

Finally, no clear picture is given of even how many Americans are uninsured. Figures such as 46 million, 47 million, even 50 million are tossed about by politicians. The U.S. Census Bureau has tucked away in scores of pages of tables intriguing figures on the number of types and characteristics of people who do not have health insurance. The total latest figure, based on information gathered in 2008 is 45,657,000 uninsured. But this is deceiving. That figure represents the total of Americans who were without health insurance at any time during the year—even for a few weeks.

The figure also includes 9,737,000 who were not U.S. citizens.

The Congressional Budget office said in a 2003 study, “The uninsured group is constantly changing.” It analyzed data from “several federally sponsored national surveys.” Its findings: only between 21 and 31 percent were uninsured for the whole year. Between 56 and 59 percent were uninsured at any time during the year. Of those, ten percent said they didn’t need inurance. Seventy-one percent said it cost too much, but half of these bought it anyway in four months or less.

Demographics also come into play. Americans age 18-to-24 years old who were uninsured at least some part of the year totaled 7,991,000. Many of them, of course, were healthy and had uses for their money other than health insurance. Those age 25-to-34 numbered 10,329,000. Some 7,717,000 Americans age 35-to-44 were uninsured for some period during the year. Uninsured people 45 to 64 totaled 10,754,000. And those 65 and older numbered only 686,000. They may well have not yet signed up for Medicare or didn’t want it.

The total number of citizens who were covered by private insurance in 2007 was 202,991,000, according to the Census Bureau figures.

Millions more were enrolled in government programs. The total number insured by the government was put at 83,031,000. According to the government, 43 million people were enrolled in Medicare in 2006, 36 million of whom were 65 or older. The balance was disabled. Fifty-three million people are enrolled in Medicaid, the program for low-income Americans. Others are covered by military or state health plans.
A number of middle-income people who probably could afford health insurance were uninsured for some portion of the year. Those in this category with household incomes of from $50,000 to $74,900 totaled 8,848,000. Americans with household incomes of $75,000 or more, numbered 9,115,000. They told Census surveyors they were uninsured at some point during the year, so the Census Bureau tables showed.

Uninsured Americans under 18 were said to total 8,149,000. But because the latest Census figures, gathered in 2008, were for 2007, they didn’t include the effects of a law President Obama signed this past February 4. It reauthorized and expanded SCHIP, which added 4 million children to government health care. Children in families with incomes up to three times the federal poverty level qualified for the program.

Children at even higher income levels in New York and New Jersey were allowed to qualify for SCHIP benefits, which now include dental care and mental problems. Proven citizenship is not required. The law provided coverage for an added 4 million children by 2013. So, in fact, there are far fewer than 45.6 million uninsured Americans.

When these facts sink in, the American people may rise up against ObamaCare. It wouldn’t be the first time such plans backfired on Congress. In 1988, Congress passed a bill to protect the elderly against the cost of catastrophic illness. But the cost to seniors—who would have been charged a big surtax to pay for it—was comparable to a slap in the face. The elderly were boiling over. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-IL, then chairman of the Ways and Means Committee who was most responsible for the bill, was vilified. At one point, a large group of seniors chased the lawmaker’s car down the street shouting and waving their canes at him.

The bill was repealed some months later. (Rostenkowski later went to jail for mail fraud.) Now, with broad health care changes being drafted on the Hill, a repeat of the uprising in 1988 is not impossible.

When Obama signed the bill into law, he said, that “providing coverage to 11 million children through SCHIP is a down payment on my commitment to cover every single American.” That “commitment” may well end up as another Obama broken promise.

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Glenn Beck - YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS,IT WILL MAKE YOU MAD AS HELL

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Who Will President Obama Drum Up Hate Against Next?

We have all watched this scene in numerous Western movies. The sheriff says his prisoner will receive a fair trial when the judge arrives in the morning. But, one loud mouth stands on the steps of the jail house and works the crowd into a frenzy. The enraged mob breaks down the door, brutalizes the sheriff, drags out the prisoner and hangs him. It is later discovered that the prisoner was innocent. As a child watching these movies, I was amazed how people sheepishly followed one loud mouth.


I am amazed that the President of the United States uses the same technique as the loud mouth guy in the movies. To pass his stimulus package, President Obama, from his bully pulpit, has created an angry mob against corporations, executives, Wall Street and the auto industry. Thus, when he outrageously overreached his authority by firing the CEO of GM, his angry mob replied, "Yeah, yeah, get them! Let's string them up!"


Now, to pass his health care, Obama is back on the jail house steps yelling, "Let's drag out those dirty low down doctors! They perform unnecessary surgery on kids! And those insurance companies, they only care about profits! Are you gonna stand for that?"


The crowd, "No! No!"


Obama, "Well, what are you gonna do about it?"


The latest on President Obama's hit list are America's policemen. "Let's get those stupid racist profilers!" Without knowing the details of the Gate's case, president Obama said the police acted stupidly. He obviously spoke from his belief that black men are usually abused by the police.


While the officer in the Gates case, according to the police report, performed professionally and by the book, there are bad apples in every profession. Shamefully, race profiteers such as Al Sharpton relish every isolated incident of unprofessional behavior, viewing it as a golden opportunity to portray all police as racists. I have a few incidents of police behavior and profiling to share.


In the late 60s, a black relative had a nervous breakdown. He had his two young sons held hostage locked in the basement of their home threatening to kill himself and the kids. I was there attempting to calm his hysterical wife. Two white police officers arrived first at the scene; a young fit man and a veteran whose physique would lead you to believe the stereotype about cops and donuts could be true.


The wife of my relative feared for the life of her husband and kids. Not at the hands of her whacked out husband, but by the white police. She thought their attitude would be, "Let's just shoot this black n*****r"!


The older cop waddled to the basement door, "Come on son, I know life gets hard, but you don't want to do this....." He skillfully connected with my relative. Within what felt like no time at all, my relative tearfully surrendered to the veteran policeman. By the time several police cars had arrived, the veteran had my relative cuffed and gently secured into his police car. My relative received mental treatment and later returned to his family.


Years ago, my wife and I, a black/white interracial couple, were stopped at a traffic light. Police demanded we get out of our car. A robbery had just taken place and we fit the description even down to the make and color of our car. After checking us out, driver licenses and etc, the polite officers apologized for the inconvenience and went on their way. We were not manhandled or abused in any way.


I remember another incident in an upscale neighborhood in Maryland. Neighbors saw two young black men dressed in gangster attire, walking around. Though they looked out of place, no one checked them out because they feared being called racist. These men hijacked a woman's car dragging her and threw her baby out of the back seat.


I was raised in an all black community. When preppy white boys cruised around our community, 90% of the time they were there to buy drugs.


My point is this. It is absurd to ignore common sense and life experiences for fear of being accused of profiling.


Who will President Obama attack next on the jail house steps demanding America drag the low down varmints out and teach them a lesson?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/...bama_drum.html

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Nancy Pelosi in coverup to hide fact that House bill WILL give free medical care to millions of Illegal Aliens

Now Nancy Pelosi's set to make this travesty permanent by a law she calls "reform!"

Am I the only one upset by this?

The House version of the health reform bill MUST BE CHANGED OR STOPPED! In our judgment, this Pelosi-backed bill WILL put millions of Illegal Aliens on the government health insurance rolls.

Did you see Roy's blog of the web site on Monday? You need to read it, because he explains the whole thing. But in short, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week. They told her that they were satisfied that the House health care bill already covers Illegal Aliens. (This is a very, very complicated matter. Please read Roy's blog for all the important details.)

Here are some important action items to do to make sure that any health care reform bill does not stick taxpayers with paying for subsidized healthcare for Illegal Aliens:1) Fax your U.S. Representative. Demand that the health care bill NOT pay for Illegal Aliens.

2) Please make this phone call to your Representative's office! Today or in the morning! Before the Reps get out of town and their staffs scatter for several weeks. Members of Congress are on the fence on this whole health bill. They need to hear this week that Illegal Aliens must not be covered. Did you know that phoning Congress carries much more weight than faxing alone? It's true. If you've never done one of our phone calls, or haven't lately, pick up the phone! It's really very easy. We give you all the talking points. (If you make your first call to Congress this week, write me and tell me how it went at JimRobb@NumbersUSA.com.)

3) Keep checking back at the NumbersUSA home page every day this week and into August to follow the latest news on this crisis. Hey, I know that some of you send your faxes, but you do not go to the home page, where we publish the latest immigration news and Roy's blogs. Do yourself a big favor and go there now.

4) If you can afford it, consider making a donation. As I've said many times before, we only ask those who can afford it to help pay for this work. If you're on a small fixed income, or are sick, or are unemployed, volunteering your time is all we expect of you. But for the rest of you, it's important that we receive about 2,000 more donations in the next ten days. We're only two-thirds of the way toward our monthly minimum goal.

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Blue Dogs preparing to cave on health care.

Deal with 'Blue Dogs' sets up health care vote

Jul 29, 6:08 PM (ET)

By DAVID ESPO

WASHINGTON (AP) - After weeks of turmoil, House Democrats reached a shaky peace with the party's rebellious rank-and-file conservatives Wednesday and cleared the way for a vote in September on sweeping health care legislation. Bipartisan Senate negotiators reported progress, too, on a bill said to extend coverage to 95 percent of all Americans without raising federal deficits.

"We're on the edge, we're almost there," said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican involved in the secretive talks, although a fellow GOP participant, Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, dissented strongly.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, said preliminary estimates from congressional budget experts showed the cost of the emerging Senate plan was below $900 billion and would result in an increase in employer-sponsored insurance - conclusions that may reassure critics who fear a bloated bill that prompts businesses to abandon the coverage they currently provide.

Across the Capitol, House Democratic leaders gave in - at least temporarily - to numerous demands from rank-and-file rebels, so-called Blue Dogs from the conservative wing of the party who had been blocking the bill's passage in the last of three committees.

The House changes, which drew immediate opposition from liberals in the chamber, would reduce the federal subsidies designed to help lower-income families afford insurance, exempt additional businesses from a requirement to offer insurance to their workers and change the terms of a government insurance option.

At their core, both the House bill and the plan under negotiation in the Senate are designed to meet President Barack Obama's goals of spreading health coverage to millions who now lack it, while slowing the skyrocketing growth in health care costs nationally.

Obama has placed the issue atop his domestic agenda, and as recently as two weeks ago was pressing the House and Senate insistently to pass separate bills by the end of July or early August.

The White House issued a statement praising the development in the House, and with appearances in North Carolina and Virginia, the president sought to minimize the significance of the slippage in his timetable.
"We did give them a deadline, and sort of we missed that deadline. But that's OK," Obama said. "We don't want to just do it quickly, we want to do it right." In his appearances, Obama stressed that any legislation he signs will include numerous consumer protections, including a ban on insurance company denials of coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions.

Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, a leader of conservative and moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats, said the changes agreed to by the leadership would cut the cost of the House bill by about $100 billion over 10 years.

While Baucus reported the Senate Finance measure carried a price tag of under $1 trillion, congressional officials said it included only the cost of the first year of a 10-year, $245 billion program to increase doctor fees under Medicare. House Democrats used a similar sleight of hand, excluding the entire $245 billion when claiming their measure wouldn't add to the deficit.
The House deal was worked out over hours of talks that involved not only Democratic leaders but also White House officials eager to advance the bill. Senior congressional aides cast it as a temporary deal, saying leaders had not committed to support it once the bill advances to the floor of the House in the fall.

As word of the agreement spread, liberals fired back. "We do not support this," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., co-chair of the Progressive Caucus. "I think they have no idea how many people are against this. They can't possibly be taking us seriously if they're going to bring this forward."

Whatever the longer-term ramifications, Democrats said the way was now clear for the Energy and Commerce Committee to approve its portion of the legislation, the last step before it comes to the floor for a vote.
"We're hoping to get a bill out before we leave ... this week," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, the panel's chairman.

In the Senate, Baucus, Grassley and two other senators from each party have been negotiating for weeks in hopes of agreeing on compromise legislation. Both men face considerable pressure from their respective parties - Baucus not to stray too far from Democratic objectives, Grassley not to hand the president a political victory.

Republican Sen. Enzi dissented strongly from any impression that a deal was imminent. "There are big issues that haven't been resolved. We haven't even gotten to the little issues," he told reporters. He also minimized the importance of Baucus' claim, saying the Congressional Budget Office has yet to provide a cost estimate "because no precise bill language is available yet."

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has given Baucus months to see compromise across party lines is possible, and he told reporters during the day he expects a bipartisan plan to emerge.

The pace of decisions appears to have accelerated in recent days, with negotiators all but settling on a tax on high-cost insurance plans to help pay for the bill, as well as a new mechanism designed to curtail the growth of Medicare over the next 10 years and beyond.

More problematic from the Democrats' point of view is a tentative agreement to omit a provision in which the government would sell insurance in competition with private industry. In its place, the group is expected to recommend non-profit cooperatives that could operate at the state, regional or even national level.

Nor is any bipartisan recommendation likely to include a requirement for large businesses to offer insurance to their workers. Instead, they would have a choice between offering coverage or paying a portion of any government subsidy that non-insured employees would receive.
Like the House bill, the bipartisan proposal under discussion would expand eligibility for Medicaid to 133 percent of the federal poverty level.

It provides for federal subsidies for individuals and families up to 300 percent of poverty, less than the 400 percent in the House measure.
Even if the negotiations succeed before the Senate's vacation, it is not clear when the Finance Committee would vote.

The proposal would have to be blended with a more liberal measure that was approved last month by the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee. It would then go to the Senate floor, where Democrats have 60-40 majority rather than the 3-3 lineup that Baucus and Grassley have led for months.

House Republican conservatives, relegated to the sidelines of the debate, unveiled a $700 billion health care plan with tax credits to help defray the cost of insurance. Unlike Democratic plans, it would not set up new federally regulated purchasing pools for individuals and small businesses. Instead, it would allow individuals to use the Internet to purchase lower-cost coverage if available anywhere in the country. It would provide grants to states to help set up high-risk pools for people with medical problems who are denied coverage by commercial insurers.

The GOP bill also would limit jury awards for pain and suffering, and create new courts with specially trained judges to decide medical malpractice claims.

---__ Associated Press Writers Liz Sidoti, Alan Fram, Erica Werner and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this story.

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Video: Oregon says no to chemotherapy, offers assisted suicide instead

posted at 8:50 am on August 3, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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We knew it would come to this when Oregon insisted on passing its assisted-suicide laws. It doesn’t take much for assisted suicide to go from a humane option to a cost-saving device, especially when the state pays for the medical care. One patient in Oregon got a letter that made this all too clear, when in the same letter rejecting her request for life-extending chemotherapy, Oregon offered her “physician-aid-in-dying”. In other words, Oregon offered their customer a heapin’ helping of death:

The doctor interviewed by the news station seems offended at the suggestion that Oregon would decide to save a few bucks by denying expensive health care and offering a case of hemlock in its place.

However, saving money was the raison d’etre of single-payer systems, and the incentives all drive towards that decision. Single-payer systems have to handle medical services as a shortage market, rationing them by using “comparative effectiveness” paradigms to determine who gets medical attention, and who gets “physician-aid-in-dying” instead of it.

The woman who drew the short end of the stick in this case wonders who these people think they are. They think they know better than us who needs to live and die. Has that lesson still not been made clear?

Update: I got this link yesterday and the KATU page is undated, but this story is from 2008, which I didn’t realize until I got an e-mail about it. I wrote about this last June, and I simply didn’t recall it.

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Pelosi calls healthcare opponents NAZIS

[American Patriot]

You people need to start making notes here.

BARACK OBAMA... Community "organizer".

Sol Alinski.... COMMUNITY "Organizer" (see my other thread about this bullshit).

What exactly IS a "community organizer" anyway?

It's someone who is radical. Someone who wants to "change" things. Well, you all got your change.

I'm mad has hell and won't take this bull shit any more.

STAND UP AGAINST CHANGE NOW!

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OBAMA: We Are God's Partners in Life and Death

August 19, 2009
Categories: Healthcare

'We are God's partners in matters of life and death'

A reader points out that President Obama's call with the rabbis today — as recorded in Rabbi Jack Moline's and other clerics' Twitter feeds — freights health care reform with a great deal of religious meaning, and veers into the blend of policy and faith that outraged liberals in the last administration.

"We are God's partners in matters of life and death," Obama said, according to Moline (paging Sarah Palin...), quoting from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that says that in the holiday period, it is decided "who shall live and who shall die."

The president ended the call by wishing the rabbis "shanah tovah," or happy new year — in reference to the High Holidays a month from now.
By Ben Smith 04:25 PM

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Pelosi and Reid Tell President: We Have the Votes; President Wants Bill Passed Soon




While White House spokesman Robert Gibbs today refrained from telling reporters whether President Obama in his speech Wednesday night will set a deadline for passing health care reform, sources tell ABC News that in his private meeting with Democratic congressional leaders this afternoon the key word was urgency.

The president told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that it is important for them to pass health care reform bills soon, the sources said.

Both leaders told the president that despite the difficult rough and tumble of the legislative process in the last few weeks, they are optimistic that both the House and Senate can pass health care reform legislation.

What will be in the bill remains an open question, though after the meeting, Reid told reporters that “we're going to do our very best to have a public option or something like a public option before we finish this work.”

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Fines proposed for going without health insurance

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press Writer – Tue Sep 8, 7:35 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Americans would be fined up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance under a plan that circulated in Congress on Tuesday as divisions among Democrats undercut President Barack Obama's effort to regain traction on his health care overhaul.

As Obama talked strategy with Democratic leaders at the White House, the one idea that most appeals to his party's liberal base lost ground in Congress. Prospects for a government-run plan to compete with private insurers sank as a leading moderate Democrat, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, said he could no longer support the idea.

The fast-moving developments put Obama in a box. As a candidate, he opposed fines to force individuals to buy health insurance, and he supported setting up a public insurance plan. On Tuesday, fellow Democrats publicly begged to differ on both ideas.

Democratic congressional leaders put on a bold front as they left the White House after their meeting with the president.

"We're re-energized; we're ready to do health care reform," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., insisted the public plan is still politically viable. "I believe that a public option will be essential to our passing a bill in the House of Representatives," she said.

After a month of contentious forums, Americans were seeking specifics from the president in his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. So were his fellow Democrats, divided on how best to solve the problem of the nation's nearly 50 million uninsured.

The latest proposal: a ten-year, $900-billion bipartisan compromise that Baucus, who heads the influential Finance Committee, was trying to broker. It would guarantee coverage for nearly all Americans, regardless of medical problems.

But the Baucus plan also includes the fines that Obama has rejected. In what appeared to be a sign of tension, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs pointedly noted that the administration had not received a copy of the plan before it leaked to lobbyists and news media Tuesday.

The Baucus plan would require insurers to take all applicants, regardless of age or health. But smokers could be charged higher premiums. And 60-year-olds could be charged five times as much for a policy as 20-year-olds.

Baucus said Tuesday he's trying to get agreement from a small group of bipartisan negotiators in advance of Obama's speech. "Time is running out very quickly," he said. "I made that very clear to the group."

Some experts consider the $900-billion price tag a relative bargain because the country now spends about $2.5 trillion a year on health care. But it would require hefty fees on insurers, drug companies and others in the health care industry to help pay for it.

Just as auto coverage is now mandatory in nearly all states, Baucus would require that all Americans get health insurance once the system is overhauled to make premiums more stable and affordable. Penalties for failing to do so would start at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level — about $66,000 for a family of four — would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950.

Baucus would offer tax credits to help pay premiums for households making up to three times the poverty level, and for small employers. Upper middle-class households making between three and four times the poverty level would not have to pay more than 13 percent of their income for health insurance. People working for companies that offer coverage could avoid the fines by signing up.

Nonetheless, the fines pose a dilemma for Obama. As a candidate, the president campaigned hard against making health insurance a requirement, and fining people for not getting it.

"Punishing families who can't afford health care to begin with just doesn't make sense," he said during his party's primaries. At the time, he proposed mandatory insurance only for children.

White House officials have since backed away somewhat from Obama's opposition to mandated coverage for all, but there's no indication that Obama would support fines.

One idea that Obama championed during and since the campaign — a government insurance option — appeared to be sinking fast.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters a Medicare-like plan for middle-class Americans and their families isn't an essential part of legislation for him. Hoyer's comments came shortly after a key Democratic moderate said he could no longer back a bill that includes a new government plan.

That left liberals in a quandary. They've drawn a line, saying they won't vote for legislation if it doesn't include a public plan to compete with private insurance companies and force them to lower costs.

Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., who once supported a public option, said Tuesday that after hearing from constituents during the August recess, he's changed his mind.

"If House leadership presents a final bill that contains a government-run public option, I will oppose it," Ross said.

Democrats are considering a fallback: using the public plan as a last resort if after a few years the insurance industry has failed to curb costs. That approach is also being pushed by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a moderate whose support could be critical to any health legislation.

Snowe said Tuesday that Obama's been open to her fallback idea.

"He's been receptive, recognizing that there's difficulties with the public option," Snowe said. Republicans have cast it as a government take-over.

Baucus is calling for nonprofit co-ops to compete in the marketplace instead of a public plan.

An 18-page summary of the Baucus proposal was obtained by The Associated Press. The complex plan would make dozens of changes in the health care system, many of them contentious. For example, it includes new fees on insurers, drug companies, medical device manufacturers and clinical labs.

People working for major employers would probably not see big changes. The plan is geared to helping those who now have the hardest time getting and keeping coverage: the self-employed and small business owners.

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September 21, 2009
'Killing Granny'

By Cliff Thier

A virulent moral blindness has seized hold of a substantial slice of America's educated elite. Convinced they know better, they argue for a shallow, illogical, and horrifying vision of people as disposable.



I was wrong last week when I declared that Newsweek's cover showing a baby next to a headline declaring that we're all born racist was evidence that the mainstream media had hit bottom and destroyed itself. It was intellectual arrogance on my part that led me to underestimate the determination of Newsweek's editors to find new deeper bottoms to hit.

This week's Newsweek cover exceeds the sheer breathtaking ugliness of last week's cover: "The Case for Killing Granny." Alongside a photo of an electrical plug. The cover story is penned by Evan Thomas, (Andover, Harvard, Virginia Law), currently teaching at Princeton, alongside Peter Singer, who believes newborn infants can be killed because they lack "rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness" and thus don't qualify for personhood.



There is also an opinion piece declaring that America's "character" is less than the "character" of those countries that have government-provided ("universal") health care. It's by Washington Post columnist T.R. Reid (classics, Princeton, who coincidentally is the author of a new book pushing for "fairer" health care).

A third "thumb-sucker" piece titled "I Was a Teenage Death Panelist" (yuk, yuk) argues that we all need to be "more comfortable" with death. It also attacks "right-wing opponents" of ObamaCare for the "lie" that ObamaCare will include "death panels." The author Jon Meacham, Newsweek's editor (summa cum laude, English, University of the South), doesn't explain why that is a "lie," and is content to only say that the idea of death panels arose from the "sensible and humane" idea that families should discuss end-of-life options.

The central idea behind each of these three pieces is that we spend too much money on people during their last six months of life. We all should be more willing to die, say these writers. And, we should all be more willing to "let" other people die (by withholding medical treatment, water, food, air, etc.)

Newsweek seeks to make us more comfortable with the idea of killing our parents and grandparents. The ObamaCare deal they want us buy is that only if more old people die, will there be better medical treatment for everyone else. That is, you and me.

It's a sucker's deal. Because not only will more "old" people die with ObamaCare, but more of everyone else will die too. Because the quality of care for everyone will deteriorate for a long list of behavioral and economic reasons. Clearly, all of us would be at the end-of-life way station much, much earlier in life if we didn't get medical care we need. The same is as true for a person over 65 as it is for a person who is 25 -- only more so. Not just rationing for Granny and Gramps, but rationing for Mommy and Daddy and Dick and Jane, too.

The dishonesty of the we-spend-too-much-money-on-the-last-six-months crowd is a result of their inability to think clearly. In the course of their elite educations, they came to think of themselves as a lot smarter than they really are. They mistake verbal and written analytical skills with wisdom. Surrounding themselves with like-minded people, they don't question their own choice of perspectives and premises.

Consider the 65-year-old individual who needs an expensive medicine. If the government decides that a person over 65 shouldn't get that medicine, then almost every one of those people are in their last six months of life.

If, however, they get that medicine, their lives may be extended another 10 years.

Which category do we count such people in?

T. R. Reid, while saying that the US is morally inferior to countries with socialized medicine, doesn't get around to postulating what it says about the "character" of those countries deprive older citizens of life-extending medicines and treatments.

I'll take a crack at it, though. I think that we (society, you, me, us) owe the oldest among us the most. The world we live in, our affluence, our civil rights, our drugs and life-extending technology, all exist because of their work. The America that we (and the entire world) benefit from would not exist but for the work and sacrifices of those people over 65, over 75, over 85.

All the medicines and all the health care technology that we have we owe to them. They already "bought" them by making their discovery and invention possible.

What kind of country would we be if we withheld the fruits of their labors so we can have them all for ourselves?

I am nauseated by the arrogance and moral blindness I see on display here. When elites start regarding certain classes of people an inconvenience worth eliminating, a terrifying slippery slope is in prospect.
142 Comments on "'Killing Granny'"

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OCTOBER 13, 2009, 3:24 P.M. ET
Senate Finance Panel Approves Health Bill, 14-9


Getty Images

Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe smiles at Democratic Sen. Max Baucus (left) moments before she announced her support for the Finance Committee's health-care bill.

WASHINGTON – The Senate Finance Committee Tuesday approved its health-overhaul measure, pushing a revamp of the U.S.'s health-care system closer to reality than it has been in decades.

The vote was 14-9, with Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine the only Republican to join the 13 Democrats on the panel. Ms. Snowe indicated earlier in the day that she would support the measure.

The Senate Finance panel, led by Chairman Max Baucus, becomes the last of five congressional panels to act on a health-overhaul bill, and it marks the biggest step forward yet for President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. The Baucus-proposed 10-year, $829 billion plan would require all Americans to purchase insurance and aims to hold down spiraling medical costs over the long term.

The legislation that passed the other House and Senate committees did so without a single Republican vote.

The Finance Committee bill is designed to extend coverage to tens of millions of Americans now without insurance. Among other things, the measure would expand eligibility for Medicaid, the health program for the poor, and it would create new tax subsidies to help individuals and families comply with a mandate that nearly every American carry insurance.

Senate Democratic leaders must now merge the Finance bill with a more liberal measure approved by the Senate health committee.

Among the issues on the table: whether the legislation should include a government-run health plan. As it stands, the Finance bill doesn't include one. Instead, the measure would create a network of nonprofit health cooperatives to compete with private insurers.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), said Monday that the merger "process will hopefully only take a couple days." But he added that the blended bill would then "be carefully vetted" with all Senate Democrats and analyzed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, steps that would push back debate in the full Senate until the week of Oct. 26.

In the House, Democratic leaders must nail down details of legislation, bridging differences between the party's liberals and moderates on issues including whether to create a government health plan. A bill isn't expected on the House floor until late October. Once both the House and Senate act, a final bill must be forged and pushed through both chambers again.

Clinching the vote of Ms. Snowe was a huge victory for Democrats, who spent months trying to win bipartisan support for the bill. "Is this bill all that I would want?" she asked the panel earlier Tuesday. "Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls."


Associated Press Democratic Sen. Max Baucus (left) speaks while Republican Sens. Charles Grassley (center) and Orrin Hatch listen during the Senate Finance Committee's hearing Tuesday on the health-care bill.

More

• Medical-Device Makers Weigh In on Bill
• Wash Wire: Democrats Attack Insurers
• Health Blog: Will Bill Cut Medicare Payments?
• Opinion: When Insurers Appease Congress
• Complete Coverage: Health-Care Overhaul

The committee's morning session consisted of the senators on the panel giving statements and asking occasional questions of Douglas Elmendorf, the Congressional Budget Office director, and Thomas Barthold, chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation.

On Monday, insurers ratcheted up concerns about the sweeping Finance Commitee bill. A report released Monday by America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, said the Finance bill would impose stiff costs on consumers. Among other things, the report said a family health-insurance policy that costs $12,300 today would increase to $25,900 on average by 2019 under the bill, more than under current law.

During Tuesday's committee session, Democrats pounced on the AHIP report. "The insurance industry ought to be ashamed," Sen. John Kerry told the panel. "It's a powerful argument for why we ought to have a public plan."

Meanwhile, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the panel's ranking Republican, complimented Mr. Baucus, a Montana Democrat, for his efforts to find bipartisan agreement on the bill. But the Republican said the bill bore an increasingly partisan imprint.

"I don't blame anyone on this committee, but I do blame people outside this committee for that process not working," Mr. Grassley said. "We can now see clearly that the bill continues its march leftward."

Write to Greg Hitt at greg.hitt@wsj.com and Janet Adamy at janet.adamy@wsj.com

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The Real Winners in Health Care Reform

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

By Glenn Beck

If you have access to YouTube:
Glenn Beck -- Six Degrees of Barack Obama -- FOX News [1/3]
Glenn Beck -- Six Degrees of Barack Obama -- FOX News [2/3]
Glenn Beck -- Six Degrees of Barack Obama -- FOX News [3/3]


FNC
What a bunch of warmongers we have — I mean, oh, they're in the White House. America is fighting the war in Iraq. They're fighting Afghanistan, Usama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and now, these people have taken on another enemy: Fox News.

I want to show you exactly where the enemy is located according to the White House. Are you ready? So you have a map of New York City, and the enemy is right — got to go down Sixth Avenue. There's Times Square. The enemy is in this building right here. That is the enemy. Look out America. I want to make sure that we have the location of the enemy.

So, what the White House would like to do is — you know, forget about our own borders down south. Forget about that. Let's just — hey, you know those guys who are risking their lives right now in Afghanistan? Yes, they can wait. What we need are troops and maybe a plane — of course, I don't want to fly a plane. Didn't our government learn not to fly a plane around Manhattan. You know what, in case you didn't learn the first time, you should not fly the plane. We'll leave the plane over here.

By the way, didn't that guy, when he got in trouble, he went over to John Podesta's place — what is that, the Center for American Progress, which is the same place that Van Jones went after he left in the cover of darkness. Wow, there must be something going on with the White House and John Podesta. Why would anybody in the press ask that?


Anyway, I'm showing where the enemy is. So, we got, we got the missiles pointed right at Fox. And let's make sure that everybody understands — this is the enemy, America! Everything that's going wrong in the country happening right here!

Let me tell you something — write this day down in your journal, because this is a new thing. We haven't seen anything like this. OK, yes, JFK, he did cancel the newspaper one time when he got really upset, but then he re-subscribed. And there was that enemy list with Nixon, but I think the enemy list, I believe that whole thing, that was just who's not coming to state dinners. I could be wrong. I don't think that they've used White House resources, your tax dollars, to target the media before. But why would anybody who believes, like Van Jones, that Marxism is the way to go? You know, Karl Marx said that about 20 percent of the population should be eliminated?

Column Archive

• The Real Winners in Health Care Reform
• Why Obama Took Control of the Census
• H1N1: Who Do You Trust?
• Americans Fight to Win
• The Demise of the Dollar

Full-page The One Thing Archive

Video

• Watch Beck's 'The One Thing'

Anyway, I digress. Why would you bother? Free speech is under attack. In the coming days, I'm going to show you exactly how this administration is consolidating power, and how your right to speak out and your right to hear, simply opposing voices, people who are asking legitimate questions, are all under assault. I'm going to show you the tangled web that there is, and it all really goes down to one thing: a sound bite that I have been playing over and over again. And I think this is one of the most important things that Obama has said that you need to understand, because it reveals so much:

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

THEN-ILLINOIS STATE SENATOR BARACK OBAMA (2001): The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and, sort of, more basic issues of political and economic justice in the society. One of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

Wow! I didn't know we wanted to bring about redistributive change, did you? I was thinking this whole free-market thing was OK, where you can dream and make a better mousetrap and make money. No, no. No, no. Let's look at the words again, "redistributive change." Again, key words, "was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing" — that was happening on the ground — "that could put together the actual, actual coalitions of power which would bring about the redistributive change."

Hmm, the coalitions of power. Wow. That's kind of spooky sounding, huh? Let's just stick to some of the big ones, and the way to bring about redistributive change with coalitions of power. Remember that, coalitions of power, because what our government is supposed to do is protect you from those coalitions of power. That's what it's supposed to do, protect you so you can live your dream and pursue your dream.

But let's start with the protection coming on the new health care plan. It's for you, remember. Are you sick? Do you cough and have a temperature? We're the government. We're here to help. You know we have a crisis in this country. We can't go another second without government health care because there are a bazillion people right now dying in the streets!

I wish I had a phone I could call Anita at the White House. She works, by the way, we think — we're not sure — we think she works downstairs in the basement down there, but we're not sure. But she's watching right now, so I apologize. Did I say bajillion or did I say gazillion? I don't know. She's got to look at the record and then she has to say, "How do I spell that? Gazillion, is it G-O-Z, G-A-J?" I don't know.

And I'm not the guy to come to for spelling, Anita. I can't help you, either. But relax, because I know that there really aren't a bajillion or a gazillion people dying in the streets, kind of like America knows that when your boss says, "Hey, free health care," you don't really mean that either, because it's not free.

The question is: What is it actually going to cost? No, no, no, better question, one that Fox News is asking: Why do they hate America so much? The question is: Who really benefits? Who's actually being helped here? Because remember, it's all about you. Oh, they love you so much.

Well, let's look at this. Right now, if you'll say you get prostrate cancer, OK? That's kind of bad. One out of every six men watching right now, one out of six, are going to get prostrate cancer. Here in America, you have a 90 percent chance of survival, 90 percent. Only 10 percent are going to die — 10 percent in America. Now, where they have that great universal health coverage in the U.K., well, it shoots up a little bit by — no, not 60, but 604 percent. But that, just that, that's it. Your chance of dying in Norway is only 457 percent.

Oh, yes! So, don't worry about it. If you're in Canada — remember, this is all about you — if you're in Canada or Great Britain and somebody has cancer or needs to have a hip replaced, or maybe mom has cancer and she needs radiation -- do you know anybody that needs radiation treatments? Don't worry. We're from the government, and we're here to help you. I hope it's not that quick-acting cancer — because if you had that quick-acting cancer, you're going to wait only for a hip replacement, radiation, two times longer. In fact, in some cases, up to a year you could be waiting.

Yes. So, it doesn't benefit you, because you stink, you don't really understand. It must benefit the doctors, right? Well, what do they think about it? I mean, besides the grassroots of white coats who visited the White House, you know, that wasn't staged or funded by the liberal progressives Tides Corporation at all — no, it wasn't. You go to college. You want to be a doctor. Do you remember when mom used to say, "Well, maybe you can marry a doctor or maybe he'll become a doctor?" Well, not anymore, because people going to school now to be doctors are coming out with a mountain of debt — 41 percent of the students have an excess of $150,000 and a significant minority has higher than $350,000 in debt. Experts predict it could be $750,000 by 2033.

Wow, that's great! Imagine doing all of that work and having that debt and not being able to make money. You combine that with increasing popular view that doctors are just ripping out tonsils out of kids that don't need their tonsils ripped out or cutting people's feet off just because the doctor wants to make a few extra bucks. Do you really think that you're going to see an increase in medical students? I don't think so — and especially consider that the percentage of doctors who say they'll quit if this is passed is only 45 percent.

No worries. You're going to be able to find a good doctor. Really, you will. So, it doesn't help the doctors.

Well, where else? Who else? Oh! I love this. Who is everybody else that could be helped?

How about pharmaceutical companies? Do you know the pharmaceutical companies pledged $80 billion in reductions? In return, President Obama said, "Hey, don't worry about us negotiating lower drug prices. I mean, we're not going to — we won't do that." Oh, well, that's fantastic! No worries! Big pill is helped out.

How about places like AARP? President Obama is cutting $500 million, is that what it is, from Medicare, with — yes, $500 million from Medicare with a big chunk of it, about $160 million coming from Medicare Advantage. A hundred sixty million, that's — by the way, Medicare Advantage is gap insurance. What the government doesn't cover, this insurance from AARP covers. But if they do that, wow, people are going to need more gap insurance, and guess who sells gap insurance? It's — hmm.

And, of course, the unions — they open the door eventually getting all of their health care expenses off the books. The unions can't make it with all these promises that they've made to people, and they get it all shoved on to the government rolls. Unions like SEIU.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Billion not million — $160 billion!

BECK: Thank you — $160 billion. Sorry, that was $160 billion. It's only better for them. Did we get a call from Anita or is that just on our own?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was on our own.

BECK: OK. See, we're doing your job for you, Anita. OK. So, we're back to SEIU. Remember, they have 1.1 million members in health care, 1.1.

They're the giant union. They're the ones who have the health care town hall meetings. They were the ones beating up anybody who disagreed. Do you are remember that? That's SEIU. Yes, beating up a black preacher. That was pretty cool. They're also that happens to be the largest health care union in America. Yes, yes. That includes the nurses and the LPNs and the doctors and the, you know, the lab techs and the nursing home workers and everybody else. How closely tied to Obama SEIU?

Well, here's one. In 2009, just this last August 20, Andy Stern, the head of SEIU, was bragging on his blog about, "Yes, I get Obama on the phone all the time." He also meets with the president in the Oval Office once a week. Oh, and May 11, 2009, SEIU had a meeting with big pharmaceuticals just to work out some details there on how to make this work. By the way, I want to play some things. How closely tied in is Obama to SEIU? I want to play something that we got from Breitbart TV, a clip that you haven't seen before:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Your agenda has been my agenda in the United States Senate. Before debating health care, I talked to Andy Stern and SEIU members. Before immigration debates took place in Washington, I talked with Eliseo Medina and SEIU members.

(END VIDEO CLIP)


Now, you got it, he consults SEIU before making decisions. But here's a clip we haven't played yet. It is Obama talking to SEIU just a few days before the election:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Also, we love — we love SEIU! But the question you got to ask yourself is: Do they have it in their guts?

CROWD: Yes.

OBAMA: Do they have any track records of standing alongside you in picket lines? Do they have a track record of going after the companies that aren't letting you organize? Do they have a track record of voting the right way, but also helping you organize to build more and more power?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Did you hear that? Politicians say they love SEIU, but does he really? I mean, how do you know? His goal isn't to help the average American. It isn't to turn the economy around. It isn't to protect and defend the Constitution! No, no, no! It is to build power for SEIU. This man is no "Johnny come lately" to SEIU. He has been working before he was elected to anything with SEIU. You now know where his loyalties are. Not with you, but with SEIU.

And what did all that hard work at SEIU achieve? Social justice?

No. Political power in Chicago.

So, we're going to take what they're doing in Chicago, which is building political power for SEIU, and now, do it all across the country. He says later in this clip, "Paint it purple, paint the nation purple."

By the way, did I mention that these people -- you could trust the doctors because they're in white coats. You shouldn't have put them in white coats. I don't know why they did, because many of them should have been wearing purple coats. There were 20 of these guys that should have been wearing purple, because they were representing SEIU. I don't know about you, but I don't want to paint the nation purple. Barney, the purple dinosaur, is the only thing purple and I hate Barney.

I'm a recovering alcoholic, which, by the way, the recovery part -- I am rethinking more and more lately just to have things make sense, because maybe if I'm drunk, things make sense more. You, me and the doctors. We're a family. And our family is dealing with raging alcoholics.

You, the doctors, me. OK? We're the family. We've got somebody who is abusive. We have somebody who is abusing power. That's what they are. We're getting hurt by the abusers: the drug companies, the unions, AARP — all of them. They're the enablers. They're giving a bottle of Jack Daniels every night. Obama and SEIU are the alcoholics.

I'm sorry, Anita, I don't mean to make your job anymore difficult. I don't mean to imply that the president at war with Fox News and apparently is an alcoholic. That is called an analogy. But the worst part is, all of this is happening in the cover of darkness.

We know there is a plan coming, sure. We don't know all of the details, and when we do get them, it will be so filled with legalese, it will be too darn difficult to read the plan. Who is there representing you?

This is the Fox building here. I contend these are the people that are standing up for the republic and the Constitution, and asking the questions that need to be asked. We're the ones standing up! Don't get me wrong, you are, too! God bless you! The minute you sit down, we're done. We don't represent you, however. We're no different than you. We're moms and dads. We're people that care. We care about our children. We care about our future. We care about our country. And we're willing to ask the questions, like, here's a question: What role has SEIU played in this health care bill? Who has written this bill? Who does it benefit exactly? Why can't we read the health care bill in advance? Will Congress promise that they will follow the Constitution to pass this bill, or are they going to find some loophole to pass it?

I'm sorry if those questions make us the enemy of the state at the end of the day, but somebody has to ask these questions, because freedom of speech is at stake. President Obama, Anita, and the White House, welcome to the place that George Washington called the "battlefield of ideas"! This is the way it's done in America. I'll meet you on the battlefield here every day at 5:00 p.m. In the meantime, you make your changes in the cover of darkness.

— Watch "Glenn Beck" weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on FOX News Channel

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Next Step As Obamacare Goes Nuclear

by Connie Hair

10/16/2009

Obama - New Orleans 10-15-09
"We are going to pass health care reform by the end of this year..... Change is hard. And big change is harder. I don't quit. We get this stuff done. We keep on going until we get it done."

They believe we have already lost the republic to their Marxist coup and now run the country. I challenge anyone reading this to measure their resolve by watching this video.

The House of Representatives yesterday set into motion the nuclear option for H.R. 3200 that would make it possible for the Senate to pass government-run health care with only 51 votes.

House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) held the mandatory hearing yesterday to pass the formal notification in the form of a letter to the Budget Committee saying H.R. 3200 -- the main House Obamacare bill which was the subject of all the town hall rage in August -- has met all requirements to pass as a “budget reconciliation” measure.'

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the top Republican on the House Ways & Means Committee, spoke with HUMAN EVENTS yesterday about events at the hearing and maneuvers by House Democrats to give their Senate comrades the opportunity to shut down debate on the bill in the Senate with 51 votes instead of the required 60.

“Under the rules, they had to have a hearing in committee in order to be able to position themselves to move through a process called reconciliation,” Camp said. “They had to send the bill to the Budget Committee to do that.”

The notification is in the form of a letter certifying that the Ways & Means Committee has met the requirements set forth in the budget bill.

“Attached to the letter would be the bill,” Camp said. “So this sends the bill to the Budget Committee to vote it out. They’re setting up the nuclear option, not having any Republican votes for this bill. They’re setting up that process.”

“That is an amendable document,” Camp continued. “It’s an amendable process. There’s an opportunity to have amendments and have debate. They shut that completely down.”

The notification letter passed out of the Ways & Means Committee on a straight party line vote. No debate was allowed, and no amendments. Rangel told Camp that he would not have preferred to do it this way, but leadership -- i.e., Speaker Pelosi -- forced his hand.

“We had let them know we were offering amendments and we had heard no problem with that until we got there today,” Camp said. “Chairman Rangel said leadership made him do it, but he did it, not the leadership.”

This was the final opportunity for debate and amendments to the bill on a committee level. The Budget Committee will simply vote to pass the bill out with an up or down vote that would certify that the bill has met the reconciliation requirements.

“It’s supposed to only be bills that impact the deficit,” Camp added. “And what they’ve done is said this bill will save a billion dollars. That’s what we were ordered under the budget resolution to do. They’ll fulfill that marker, but they’ll use that obviously to spend a lot more.”

The bill being certified for “reconciliation” is the Ways & Means version of H.R. 3200 that was passed out of committee before the August break, and before it was read aloud at town hall meetings across the country and blasted by voters across the country.

It contains all of the horrors previously exposed: federal funding of abortion, coverage for illegal aliens, comparative effectiveness, healthcare rationing, deep cuts to Medicare. Everything the American people overwhelmingly reject.

“Since the time we voted on this bill until today, we’ve had new issues develop, we’ve had new scores from the Congressional Budget Office which is the non-partisan expert agency that reviews our legislation,” Camp said. “We felt it was important to talk about the issues. We’ve had some new developments, new information.”

“Let’s have 72 hours to read the bill and have the bill available,” Camp continued. “That didn’t get any certain discussion today. Let’s make sure members of Congress are part of any health care bill that passes. That didn’t get any debate today. Let’s make sure that we do not have non-citizens here illegally getting government funded healthcare. Let’s make sure we don’t use tax dollars to fund and pay for abortion. We didn’t get to vote on that today.”

Reconciliation is a parliamentary process that was created for use solely on the reduction of spending bills in order to reduce the deficit. Spending bills must originate in the House, and when passing the budget, the full House can include language in the budget bill to a specific committee instructing them to reduce spending by a specific amount in order to reduce the deficit.

Having learned from the 1993 Hillarycare debacle when the American people utterly rejected the notion of the government takeover of health care, House Democrats placed reconciliation language into the 2010 budget to facilitate passage of the government takeover of health care with Obamacare through budget reconciliation. In the case of H.R. 3200, the reconciliation instruction was to reduce the cost of the health care bill by $1 billion -- a bill that by some estimates will cost taxpayers a minimum of $1.6 trillion.

“This is after August when the American people clearly weighed in and said, ‘Hey, hold up. We want to be part of this. We want to have some more openness,’” Camp said. “I think they feel the less people know the better; that they, the majority, are better off because they don’t have to explain. People don’t know what it is they’re really doing. We won’t find out until it’s actually done.”

Since it has now cleared the Ways and Means Committee (fulfilling the $1 billion reconciliation requirement), H.R. 3200 will go to the Budget Committee where they will do the same thing that was done today in Ways & Means. They will agree on a straight party line vote that the bill has met the reconciliation requirements.

The bill then goes to Pelosi and the Rules Committee where Pelosi will do the same thing Sen. Harry Reid is doing with the two Senate bills right now: Pelosi will merge the three House versions of H.R. 3200 together into whatever she wants it to be, then she will schedule it for a floor vote.

H.R. 3200 could see a floor vote in the next two weeks, likely no later than the first week of November if Democrats believe they have the votes for passage. If the bill does pass a full House vote, and that’s a big “if” given the deep divides over the issues among Democrats, the bill would then be sent over to the Senate.

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Obama Economics Advisor Robert Reich Blasted for Promoting Death Panels

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin got pilloried for suggesting that the government-run health care system set up under the bills in Congress would lead to "death panels." But, now, a video has surfaced showing Obama economics advisor Robert Reich essentially admitting Palin was right.

Reich, the former Clinton administration Labor Secretary has been caught on tape making a death panel confession.

In a 2007 speech at the University of California at Berkeley, Reich began his address by saying he was going to deliver a refreshingly honest talk about health care from the vantage point of an insider who would never run for president.

“In other words, this is what the truth is," he said.

Reich admitted: "If you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life. It’s too expensive...so we're going to let you die."

“Also, I'm going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government … to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs," he admitted. "What that means, less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market which means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents.”

Gary Bauer, a pro-life former presidential candidate who is the head of American Values, calls Reich's words "pretty shocking stuff."

"The media just couldn't believe it when Sarah Palin suggested that government-run, socialized healthcare would lead to 'we're going to let you die' death panels," he said in response. "But that’s exactly what Reich said."

"To the bean counting bureaucrats, your life is a burden, not a blessing," Bauer continued. "So Big Government is going to dictate what healthcare you can and cannot receive."

"Need critical surgery? Maybe not. Suffering from serious pain? Sorry. Need cancer treatment? Too bad," he said in an email to LifeNews.com.

"How could anyone possibly call that reform? Sadly, many politicians do," he concluded. "Reich essentially admitted that Palin was right."

Related web sites:
See the video of Reich's comments -
http://www.breitbart.tv/uncovered-au...re-convictions

Robert Reich: What An Honest President Would Say About Health Reform

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Obama pick: Doctors should grill you on guns

'Once you've put information in a computer, then it's anybody's game'

Published: 2 days ago

Greg Corombos About | Email | Archive Greg Corombos is news director for Radio America.



A Senate confirmation showdown is looming for President Obama’s choice to be U.S. surgeon general, largely as a result of the nominee’s ardent gun-control advocacy.
Thirty-seven-year-old Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy is lauded for his leadership abilities and for his ability to promote healthy lifestyles in a dynamic manner. He is also the co-founder of Doctors for America, an organization that advocates gun control and urges physicians to ask detailed questions of their patients about gun ownership and usage.
Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt says that alone ought to disqualify Dr. Murthy.

“His urging that particular policy shows that he does not understand medical ethics. That is a question so far outside of anything to do with medicine. It shows that he is a willing tool of the state, even as German doctors and Soviet doctors would send to the regime information about the people that were in their care. This is an extremely alarming attitude. This guy clearly looks at himself as a government functionary before he considers anything about medicine,” Pratt said.

So how exactly could a conversation with a doctor about guns in the home lead to an erosion of Americans’ Second Amendment rights? Pratt believes once the data exists, those rights are endangered.

“Once you’ve put information in a computer, then it’s anybody’s game. I would say a 14-year-old would be able to obtain that data. The Canadians had a registry for long guns for several years, and they found the thing was being hacked, typically by younger people because they’re so good at computers. They finally took the registry down,” Pratt said.

“So if the Canadians have learned that you can’t put this kind of sensitive information in some central pot, then hopefully we’ll learn from them,” he said.

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt:

The U.S. Surgeon General’s office provides a platform to speak out on various issues, but Pratt admits Murthy would have no power to compel doctors to discuss firearms with their patients. Still, he said the wrong person in that job can still do damage, and the nomination continues what he considers a disturbing trend from this administration.

“The only thing he can really do is push money out the door to anti-Second Amendment organizations that would do ‘medical research,’ do studies about how guns are epidemic in our country and things of that sort. That’s been done before in years past and has largely been disregarded,” Pratt said.

“But it’s clear they are looking for any way they can find to try to put their finger on the scale and change the debate. It’s the same thing they were doing when they intentionally got people murdered in ‘Fast and Furious,’ hoping that would change the gun-control debate,” he said.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., vows to stop the Murthy nomination over his Second Amendment views. However, Democrats hold a 10-seat majority in the Senate and recently relaxed the rules for approving presidential nominations. However, Pratt said the recent rejection of Debo Adegbile to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Right Division shows Democratic senators might not want to stick their necks out too far for President Obama right now.

“We’ve already seen one nominee fail because there are a number of Democrats running in Republicans states this November,” Pratt said, “and they decided they really like their job a whole lot more than just pleasing a lame-duck president.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/03/obama-pic...u5QAG4eP8vz.99