Even the unions are against “reforming” health care! September 28, 2009
Posted by vsap in Blogroll, Financial Crisis, US Politics, Uncategorized.Tags: health care reform
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Two things: Let’s look at shrinking support for any health care reform plan and how local unions in Milwaukee are recoiling against it.
From Kent Hoover at Buffalo Business First, published September 25 (bold is mine):
“The patient is still in the operating room, and the prognosis is not good.
That’s where health care reform lies today, according to many business groups that hoped for a better outcome. Their view is shared by most Americans: 54 percent of U.S. adults don’t think Congress will pass health care reform this year, according to a survey conducted this month by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
This is a dramatic turnaround from earlier this year, when most experts inside the Beltway thought health care reform was inevitable, and the concept had overwhelming support among the general public.
Many lobbyists for small businesses and other employers blame Congress for overreaching. It should have focused on insurance market reforms aimed at lowering premiums and ending the ability of insurers to deny or price coverage because of health status.
Instead, Congress embarked on a complete overhaul of the health care system that would give the federal government too much power and cost hundreds of billions dollars more than was necessary, they contend.
“That’s why this whole thing is blowing up,” said James Gelfand, senior manager of health policy for the 
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “They have to start over.”
“We’re kind of disappointed that Congress has wasted so much time with overblown bills that had no hope of enactment,” said Neil Trautwein, senior vice president and employee benefits counsel for the National Retail Federation.
“I think Congress blew it, basically,” said Karen Kerrigan, president/CEO of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council.
Political pressures may drive Congress to pass some modest reforms just to get something to President Barack Obama’s desk, but it’s not clear whether those reforms actually would reduce the cost of health insurance for employers, Kerrigan said.”
Then there’s this from Corinne Hess at the Business Journal of Milwaukee demonstrating how “health care reform” gets down to the local level and unions don’t like it:
“When the U.S. Senate Finance Committee gave the nation a glimpse at what health care reform could look like with the release of a proposed $856 billion, 10-year bill, it alienated a key segment of reform supporters: labor unions.
The bill would call for paying for reform in part by a tax on so-called “luxury” health insurance plans exceeding $21,000 for a family and $8,000 for individuals.
The average cost of a family health insurance plan in Wisconsin is $13,800. Unions, however, typically have richer benefits exceeding the cap set in the Finance Committee bill.
“Unions have been the backbone of the health reform movement,” said Robert Kraig, program director for Citizen Action of Wisconsin, an 89,000-member coalition from across the state. “They have said all along that everyone should have access to the quality, affordable care that they are fortunate to have. To turn around and tax them is a disservice.”
The Senate Finance Committee began debating the draft health care bill Sept. 22. Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, released the bill Sept. 16, and almost immediately amended portions of it after criticism from his fellow Democrats that the measure didn’t do enough to assist moderate-income Americans.
Baucus still wants to impose a tax on high-cost health plans starting in 2013, but has increased the thresholds for plans covering retirees over the age of 55 and those covering people in certain high-risk occupations like law enforcement and construction.
The increase for such plans would be raised by $750 for individual coverage and $2,000 for family coverage.
The amendment does little to help other unions, such as the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA).
The 5,600 members of the union are offered health insurance worth $24,000 per year for family coverage and $10,800 for individual coverage. About 60 percent of members have family plans.
If those plans were taxed, younger, healthier teachers would likely not accept the district insurance and seek less expensive coverage, driving up rates even faster for the people remaining in the plan, said Joan Heithoff, assistant executive director of MTEA.
Teachers have long accepted pay raises well below the consumer price index in exchange for good benefits and should not be penalized now because of it, Heithoff said.
“Our benefits are pretty much in line with surrounding school districts,” she said. “We have to offer this in order to attract quality teachers and remain competitive.”
The luxury health plans targeted in the Senate Finance bill are the type of health insurance plans people in every other industrialized country have and what most Americans enjoyed before health care costs skyrocketed, said David Newby, president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, a federation of more than 1,000 local unions.
“The whole notion of taxing health insurance points out once again the problem of thinking in terms of reforming health insurance rather than the entire health care system,” Newby said.”
Continue to fight against anything other than health insurance reform focused on reducing premiums and keeping insurers from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
No public health option is worth its price September 11, 2009
Posted by vsap in Blogroll, US Politics, Uncategorized.Tags: President Obama, public health care
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The 21st Century has been a rough one for me and health care coverage. For the past three years, everything has been good. No more than the typical squabbles with insurance company customer service reps unable or unwilling to help, but all is resolved as of this moment.
Since 2000, however, I have been without health insurance a total of 2 years, exactly 24 months. I was unemployed for only 6 of those months, the rest, I didn’t have employer-provided health care (they couldn’t afford it) and, since I couldn’t afford it (taking a 20% cut in pay to get any job in the wake of 9/11), I did without. More correctly, me and my family did without.
That being the facts, you could believe I would come out swinging for a government-operated plan. You would believe wrong.
While I believe that government can and should do some things well (e.g., national defense, unemployment benefits, and some measure of social security), I do not believe this extends to “public” health care.
Case in point: my mother. Regrettably, my father wasn’t a saver so when he passed my mother didn’t have much to go on. When she could no longer care for herself at home, and neither I nor my sister had the means to buy private health care in a nursing home, she was thrown into “the public pool”. It took her less than three years to die from a combination of benign neglect and poor hygiene in a place that had a hard time caring for its paying customers much less those on the public roll. You could argue she would have died regardless of care. You may be right, but I don’t believe it.
This, and other encounters with public medicine in its present form, gives me genuine, heartfelt concern about our government’s ability to make health care better on any level.
Unfortunately, the president has decided to be “the last president” to handle this issue without any details of how he’d like to see this happen. He’s good at the rhetoric, hyperbole and pandering to his Democrat colleagues, and poor at giving answers and direction on he says is the primary issue of his presidency.
My belief is there are other paths to fixing (or beginning to fix) what is truly wrong with our health care system. The president has addressed a couple of minor points but nothing substantial.
So, what does a conservative plan look like? Here’s one from US Senator Michael Enzi (R-WY), stated on June 9, 2009:
“First, it would expand health insurance coverage so that every American has access to affordable, high-quality health insurance. Most Republicans and Democrats can agree on basic reforms that will help lower the costs of health insurance and allow patients with pre-existing conditions to be able to buy insurance. There is much data and testimony that tells us that greater affordability and increased access are not mutually exclusive. More than that, the more we learn about the costs driving up our system, the more we recognize that if done correctly, greater access can drive down costs.
Second, the bill would use private plans to deliver the benefit. I believe that most Republicans and Democrats can agree that a patient-focused health care system will provide the highest quality and lowest cost when patients are able to choose among competing private plans. When patients can vote with their feet, insurance companies will be forced to deliver better quality care.
We have heard much debate about a public plan option, and we have heard Democrats recently begin to back away from a government-run plan. I believe that many of my colleagues are beginning to see that increasing the size and scope of government’s role in health care and further squeezing a private marketplace will drive up costs and drive down quality every single time. As the public, the editorial boards, and reasonable people on both sides of the aisle continue to delve deeper into the practicality of a public option, I believe it will continue to recede further into the background.
Third, many Democrats and Republicans can agree to basic reforms that would foster an atmosphere of competition by demanding that insurers compete on price and value rather than providing the ability to pick lower-cost, lower-risk patients.
Fourth, a bipartisan bill would protect consumers by providing them with better information about quality, price, and the nature of coverage provided for in competing plans. One of the most common concerns I hear from people as I travel around my state of Wyoming is that they don’t know what they are getting for their money until after they’ve already purchased it. There is no other private marketplace that works like that, and our health care system shouldn’t either. Buying a car or a house sight and price unseen does not make any sense, so why should you be expected to pay for your health care that way?
Fifth, many Democrats and Republicans support an appropriate level of government oversight of the marketplace to protect individuals against abuses that sometimes occur in today’s market. Such a change would also have a great, positive impact on driving down costs.
Sixth, a bipartisan health reform bill would provide subsidies to low-income Americans to give them the extra help they need to purchase health insurance. Many working Americans need help to purchase health insurance, and we should give them more choices beyond simply expanding unsustainable entitlement programs like Medicaid. Otherwise, we will continue to face the cost burdens of the uninsured showing up for treatment in the emergency room when it is most risky to their health, most difficult to treat, and most costly to the system.
Finally, such a bill must be fully paid for so that we do not increase our national deficit. I have spoken at length in the Senate about America’s fiscal situation. It is my belief that our nation’s credit card has reached its limit. The federal government debt is now more than $11 trillion, and our nation’s deficit stands at $1.84 trillion. And the Obama Administration claims to be ushering in an era of responsibility.
We conservatives believe that the Obama budget has ushered in an era of taxing too much, borrowing too much, and spending too much. The President’s budget sets aside $630 billion over ten years, which, according to the Administration, is “not sufficient to fully fund” health care but is the “first crucial step.” For reform to go anywhere, it is imperative that this step be paid for in full.
So far, the Administration has floated the idea of reducing the amount of tax deduction allowable for charitable giving in the top marginal tax rate. This policy has been roundly criticized by Members on both sides of the aisle and by charities across the country as misguided, ill-timed, and simply a nonstarter. And others have talked about an idea that must clearly be taken off the table in order to reach a bipartisan agreement on health reform. That is, we will not pay for health reform by enacting an onerous cap-and-tax on energy costs for the American people.”
Now, let’s hear the presidential response. The silence will be deafening, I’m sure.
When Newt is right, give him the kudos August 31, 2009
Posted by vsap in 2008 Presidential Election, Blogroll, Financial Crisis, US Politics, Uncategorized.Tags: Democrats, health care reform, Newt Gingrich, public health care
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Newt Gingrich sent this along the other day. He doesn’t need my blog to help, but it is well-said. Here it is:
Facta, non verba.
For those of you who have forgotten your Latin, it means “deeds, not words.”
There’s been a lot of overheated rhetoric about health care reform, but this saying is one that all Americans should return to when considering plans for a government-dominated health system.
In other words, we should judge government, not by its words, but by its deeds.
With this simple principle in mind, what follows are three examples why government can’t – and shouldn’t – run our health care system (at least not any health care system you or I would want to be dependent on).
Every family knows about making a budget and living within its means. Government, to put it bluntly, does not.
What if your husband had come home last Friday night and announced that he had racked up almost 30 percent more debt on the family credit card – including the mortgage and car loans – than he had told you about just a month ago?
Would you trust him to go out and start spending money to remodel the kitchen? And do you think he could get a loan to do it?
But that’s exactly what the Obama Administration did with their weekend news dump. They announced late Friday that the amount of money they don’t have but are nonetheless planning on spending over the next ten years isn’t the astonishing $7 trillion they estimated in May but is instead an astounding $9 trillion.
Add this to the fact that, after the administration sold its health care reform proposal on the grounds that it will reduce costs to the Treasury, the independent Congressional Budget Office determined that the House plan will actually cost an astounding $1 trillion-$1.5 trillion in the next ten years, which will be added directly to the federal debt. The director of the CBO testified before Congress last month that “[i]n the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.”
Which do you have more faith in, the government’s happy talk of “bending the cost curve” or its record of out-of-control spending?
Deeds, not words.
As the inimitable Andy McCarthy of National Review put it, “Compared to the infinite complexity of healthcare and health-insurance, cash-for-clunkers is kindergarten stuff. You trade in your old car for a new one that gets (slightly) better mileage and the government gives you money – between $3,500 and $4,500. How hard is that?”
Too hard for government bureaucrats, it turns out.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has boasted that the cash-for-clunkers program provided “a lifeline to the automobile industry, jump starting a major sector of the economy and putting people back to work.”
But look at the deeds, not the words.
Last week, cash-for-clunkers ended in a bureaucratic morass of red tape, failed promises and unanticipated costs.
Only a government bureaucracy could mess up a program designed to give away free money.
The government wizards who set up cash-for-clunkers initially budgeted to sell 250,000 cars in three months.
The program sold that many in four days.
And because the central planners who think they can provide government “competition” to the private health insurance market failed to accurately estimate how many government workers it would take to administer cash-for-clunkers, they had to take employees from the FAA – air traffic controllers, no less – to help manage the demand.
And what about the car dealerships the program was supposed to help in the first place? Even though the rebates were supposed to be paid within 10 days, only 7 percent of federal promises under cash-for-clunkers have been paid so far, leaving dealers with millions of dollars in unfunded government promises.
But there’s more to the cautionary tale of cash-for-clunkers than just bureaucratic incompetence.
This is a case study in what happens when politicians get involved in the marketplace.
Despite all the rhetoric of jump starting the auto industry, politicians’ priorities are to give free goodies to their constituents. So as far as they’re concerned, cash-for-clunkers has been a resounding success.
Forget the fact that they’re spending money they don’t have, or that car dealerships are left holding millions of dollars in empty government promises. They’re not concerned with the long-term, just the next election.
So tell us again why should we think bureaucrats and politicians will perform any better with our health care?
There’s been a lot of worrying about the inevitability of government rationing health care under the Democratic reform bills in Congress.
Economists have known about this inevitability for a long time. Well, Americans can stop worrying. Government is rationing care already – and doing it in a particularly stupid way.
Studies have shown that early use of home health care after hospitalization – allowing patients to go home and be visited by a nurse to manage their care – saves Medicare billions of dollars.
So here is a case where an innovative government program actually saves the government money. Home health care is both more compassionate and more efficient. It reduces the likelihood a patient will be readmitted to a hospital by allowing her to heal in a more familiar setting.
So naturally bureaucrats at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services cut $34 billion from this compassionate, efficient program last week.
And if the House health care reform bill becomes law, an additional $56.8 billion will be cut from the program – an amount equal to almost the entire federal budget for home health care services in 2007.
What makes rationing care to the homebound all the more immoral is the fact that there is a much bigger pot of savings available to Washington if it only had the political will to look.
As a new book by the Center for Health Transformation’s Jim Frogue details, criminals rip off the taxpayers to the tune of $80 billion to $120 billion each year in the current Medicare and Medicaid programs.
We’re not talking about inadvertent bill errors but outright fraud. Government health programs are currently paying men maternity benefits, giving taxpayer dollars to pizza parlors that are supposed to be HIV transfusion centers, and even paying dead patients federal health care benefits.
If ever there was a reason not to turn our entire health care system over to government it is this: Government can’t run the health care programs it already has. It would rather ration compassionate, effective programs than do the hard work of rooting out and punishing the crooks who are stealing our taxpayer dollars.
Americans have already heard a lot of rhetoric about health care reform, and we can expect to hear a lot more.
But as Ronald Reagan used to say, facts are stubborn things. And the facts of government’s track record in managing our money and delivering on its promises speak louder than any televised presidential speech or stage-managed town hall ever could.
So as the summer winds down and the debate rages on, let this be our mantra:
Facta, non verba.
Make a bumper sticker out of it.
Put it on a tee-shirt and wear it to a town hall.
And when someone asked you what it means, tell them that before we hand over more of our lives to government, we should consider how they’ve treated us so far.
Can I get an amen for Newt? Amen!
Change you are forced to believe in August 24, 2009
Posted by vsap in 2008 Presidential Election, Blogroll, Financial Crisis, US Politics, Uncategorized.Tags: Barack Obama, Economic Policy, new office reality, Baltimore Business Journal
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Baltimore Business Journal – by Julekha Dash
“These are lean times at businesses throughout Greater Baltimore and the rest of the country. More than 40 percent of business leaders say they will employ fewer staff in three to five years compared with the number they employed prior to the recession, according to a Watson Wyatt Worldwide survey released this month.
All this change — and the threat of more to come if the economy does not rebound soon — has created an awkward vibe in office buildings from Howard to Harford and all spots in between. Employee morale has suffered. Managers are stressed to meet their bosses’ bottom-line demands. Some employees are afraid to voice their concerns or weigh in with feedback for fear of retribution. Meanwhile, just about everyone is working more hours these days, as layoffs and new responsibilities lead to an increased workload. Perhaps now more than ever employees are living for the weekends — unless they have to work Saturday and Sunday, too.”
Welcome to the world of change, delivered by Barack Hussein Obama. The story continues:
“About one-third of U.S. companies reacted to the recession by cutting staff, according to Watson Wyatt Worldwide. Another two-thirds have frozen hiring and salaries in the past year. One in 10 employers shortened their workweek to cut costs.”
And just when you thought it was getting better, because PresBO and his band of tax cheats and miscreants said so, there’s this:
“No group has been affected more by the recession than the employees of companies of all shapes, sizes and industries. In Maryland, more than 66,000 of them have been laid off since December 2007.
For the more than 2.5 million remaining in the state’s work force, the rules of engagement have changed. Many of them — regardless of tenure or job title — are looking over their shoulders, wondering if they are going to be the next to be handed a pink slip. Others are so focused on preserving their employment, they rarely say a word unless it’s at the urging of a manager.”
This is exactly what the liberals want: passive censorship for the sake of self-preservation. You stay quiet on the job front, they can get away with what they want on the political front because, frankly, you are too tired to fight them. At least until the health care issue bit them on their flabby butts.
On last bit of enlightenment about PresBOs America:
“Facing the threat of losing their jobs, employees are not speaking up as readily as they used to, said John McDermott, who was laid off last year from the Web design firm E.magination Network LLC.
“Now is not the time to put yourself out there,” he said. McDermott is now a self-employed technology consultant who sees the fear among many employees in his industry.
Employees do what they are told to do and “as they are told to do it,” he said. A director at a finance company, at a company McDermott declined to name, said he didn’t like the company’s strategic direction but refused to share it with his managers for fear of losing his job like others have in the industry.”
PresBO is trying to box you in, using your employers, using your health care plan, using any fear tactic available, to bring you to submission to his way.
This is the way of the socialist. This is the way of the fascist. This is your president.
PresBO racism, collapsing health care “reform”: Patriot Post July 25, 2009
Posted by vsap in Blogroll, Financial Crisis, US Politics, Uncategorized.Tags: health care reform, Henry Louis Gates, Patriot Post, Racism
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Take the “How will Obamacare be paid for?” poll here:
The Patriot Post gets it right 99.9% of the time. Visit them at www.patriotpost.us. Need a reason to visit? Check out a couple of excerpts:
From the Left: Acute Victimitis
“A white police sergeant accused of racism after he arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home insisted Wednesday he won’t apologize for his treatment of the Harvard professor,” Fox News reports. Gates was arrested after a neighbor phoned police about a possible burglary at Gates’ house. As it turns out, Gates was the “burglar” — he claims he had to force the door open because it was jammed. Police say that Gates became belligerent and accused them of racism (“This is what happens to black men in America!” he shouted), prompting the officers to arrest him.
Barack Obama jumped into the fray Wednesday night during his prime-time news conference (about health care), saying, “[T]he Cambridge police acted stupidly” in arresting Gates. He added, “[T]here is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that’s just a fact.” Perhaps that’s because blacks and Latinos commit crimes at a disproportionate rate to their percentage of the population.
Obama, who has a difficult time hiding his own racism and resentment, then declared that federal officials should work with local law enforcement “to improve policing techniques so that we’re eliminating potential bias.” Ah, yes. Maybe the ATF Waco planners could help out. Or maybe we could all stand in long lines so the TSA could search grandmothers in order to not offend jihadis.
In the end, Obama later “clarified” through his mouthpiece Robert Gibbs. “He was not calling the officer stupid, okay?” Gibbs scolded. Not that the president regretted the remarks, Gibbs added. Too little, too late. In light of the fact that Sgt. James Crowley, the arresting officer, is the police academy expert on racial profiling and was hand-picked by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, the Fraternal Order of Police issued a rebuke of the president Thursday. See, now Obama has just made a union mad.”
On Health Care “Reform”:
The president absurdly claimed that nationalizing health care “will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you’re happy with it.” Even the Associated Press couldn’t swallow that whopper: “In [the] House legislation, a commission appointed by the government would determine what is and isn’t covered by insurance plans offered in a new purchasing pool, including a plan sponsored by the government. The bill also holds out the possibility that, over time, those standards could be imposed on all private insurance plans, not just the ones in the pool.”
Furthermore, according to The Wall Street Journal, “[W]hen Mr. Obama says that ‘If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what,’ he’s wrong. Period. What he’s not telling the American people is that the government will so dramatically change the rules of the insurance market that employers will find it impossible to maintain their current coverage, and many will drop it altogether.” But pay no attention to the man behind the curtain — Obama “will keep government out of health care decisions.”
Perhaps columnist Ann Coulter put it best when she quipped, “All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats’ idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink.”
The BIG Lie
“[H]ealth insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it. … I am very worried about federal spending.” –Barack Obama
Oh, well, in that case…
On Cross-Examination
“The last time the president made grand promises and demanded passage of a bill before it could be reviewed, we ended up with the colossal stimulus failure and unemployment near 10 percent. Now the president wants Americans to trust him again, but he can’t back up the utopian promises he’s making about a government takeover of health care. He insists his health care plan won’t add to our nation’s deficit despite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office saying exactly the opposite.” –Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)”
Subscribe to the Patriot Post or visit regularly for a reality check. PresBO won’t like it, but you’ll be doing yourself a great service!
