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 Sen. Ted Kennedy has released a draft of his health care bill and it is exactly what everyone expected. Sen. Kennedy's bill has been described by The Washington Post as "by far the most liberal approach to health-care reform." Even with Kennedy's 170-page health bill on the table, the details on how Congress and the administration plan to pay for their costly intrusion into the privacy of Americans' health care rights have yet to be disclosed. The House bill is considering financial penalties for individuals who do not purchase health insurance. Responsible advocates are concerned with the massive spending undertaken by the Obama administration. Republican Senators on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee recently authored a letter rejecting the principle of government-run health care. |
AP sources: House Dems favor insurance requirement
David Espo - Associated Press/ The Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- Senior House Democrats drafting health care legislation are considering slapping an unspecified financial penalty on anyone who refuses to purchase affordable health insurance, a key committee chairman said Monday. In addition, officials said Democrats are considering a new tax on certain health insurance benefits as one of numerous options to help pay for expanding coverage to the uninsured. No details on the tax were immediately available, and no final decisions were expected until next week at the earliest.
U.S. House health bill to include government plan
Donna Smith - Reuters/ The Washington Post
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are preparing to unveil a proposal for a sweeping healthcare overhaul that includes a new public insurance plan and would require individuals and businesses to obtain coverage, lawmakers said on Monday.
Obama health reform backs public insurer
Jennifer Haberkorn - The Washington Times
Stirred by President Obama's warnings of rising costs, Congress is shaping sweeping health care reform plans that could create a public health insurance program and a mandate that all Americans carry insurance. Mr. Obama stepped up his role in the health care reform debate last week with a letter to Congress in which he said he "strongly" believes a reform plan should include the creation of a public option, a government-run program similar to Medicare that would provide insurance to those without a private insurance plan.
A few symptoms
Editorial - The Washington Post
THROUGHOUT the first months of his administration, President Obama was resolutely fuzzy about the details of health-care reform. Last week, he modified that strategy, which was designed to avoid a repetition of the dictated-from-on-high approach of the Clinton health-care debacle. In a letter to Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who are leading the legislative process in the Senate, Mr. Obama laid down more specific markers than he had previously about his preferences.
A few symptoms
Editorial - The Washington Post
THROUGHOUT the first months of his administration, President Obama was resolutely fuzzy about the details of health-care reform. Last week, he modified that strategy, which was designed to avoid a repetition of the dictated-from-on-high approach of the Clinton health-care debacle. In a letter to Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who are leading the legislative process in the Senate, Mr. Obama laid down more specific markers than he had previously about his preferences.
Obama's Health Care Plan Arouses Fierce Debate
Xinhaunet - Eviewweek.com
Xinhaunet - Eviewweek.com
Opponents are gearing up for a battle against U.S. President Barack Obama's health care plan. Conservatives for Patients' Rights, an advocacy group, has been running television ads saying Washington wants to create a system similar to that of the United Kingdom and Canada, where, the ads claim, patients are subjected to long waits for care and have difficulty obtaining prescription medicine. Another organization, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, also began a new campaign called Patients United Now, seeking to "educate citizens about the threat of government controlled health care." For its part, the Obama administration sought over the weekend to influence legislation when advisers David Axelrod and Austan Goolsbee appeared on CNN to address the issue.
Kennedy Details Visions on Health Care
Ceci Connolly - The Washington Post
The 170-page bill, still labeled a draft, is by far the most liberal approach to health-care reform being discussed in Washington and potentially is quite expensive. It does not identify how the expansion of health coverage would be paid for, except to require businesses to provide insurance for workers or pay penalties. After spending "scores of hours in the Kennedy workhorse meetings" that assembled a diverse range of stakeholders, Neil Trautwein, a vice president of the National Retail Federation, said he was surprised and disappointed that the team had resorted to a "lot of the same old tired ideas we have fought against for many years."
The Administrations Health Care Plan
Richard Posner - The Becker-Posner Blog
The Administration wants every American to have medical insurance. The details are unclear, but the thrust of the Administration's plan is those who can afford to buy medical insurance, either directly or through their employer, would be required to do so and that those who cannot would have their insurance subsidized. The cost to the government alone of the Administration's program is estimated by the Administration itself to be $120 billion a year. How it will be financed remains up in the air, along with many other crucial details. Probably part of the cost will be defrayed by limiting the tax deductibiliy of employer-provided health insurance. But most of it, at least in the short run, will simply be added to the government's huge budget deficit--so huge that amounts like $120 billion are beginning to seem like small change. I don't think the program makes fiscal sense. If enacted in anything like the form that the Administration is urging on Congress, it would be immensely costly and would thus add significantly to our national debt, which is already growing at a fast clip because of the decline of tax revenues as a result of the current depression and the immense government expenditures on trying to speed economic recovery.
Nowhere else in the world is so much money spent with such poor results. On that point there is rare unanimity among Washington decision makers: The U.S. health system needs a major overhaul. For more than a decade, researchers have documented the inequities, shortcomings, waste and even dangers in the hodgepodge of uncoordinated medical services that consume nearly one-fifth of the nation's economy. Exorbitant medical bills thrust too many families into bankruptcy, hinder the global competitiveness of U.S. companies and threaten the government's long-term solvency.
Obamanomics: How Stupid Do They Think We Are?
Andy McCarthy - National Review Online
Finally, Goolsbee explained that it was unfair to accuse President Obama of a flip-flop just because he is now amenable to taxing employer-provided health benefits despite arguing during the campaign that it was shameful for Senator McCain to suggest taxing employer-provided health benefits. After all, Goolsbee elaborated, the initiative to tax the benefits is not Obama's idea; it is an idea of top Democrats (with whom the White House closely coordinates) to which Obama is listening because he's just that kinda open-minded guy. Uh-huh.
House Dems Favor Insurance Requirement
David Espo - The Associated Press
Equally troublesome politically is the issue of a government insurance option. Critics argue it would render private companies unable to compete, and it has emerged as a key sticking point in the Democratic search for a bipartisan plan in the Senate. All the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee except one wrote Obama recently telling him he was making a mistake if he insisted on a government option. The exception was Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who has been trying to find a compromise that would make a government plan available as a last resort if health insurance remains unaffordable for many families even after Congress overhauls the system.
GOP Senators: Public Health Plan Would Mean Govt' "Takeover"
Patrick Yoest - The Wall Street Journal
Republican members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee criticized proposals to create a public health insurance option to compete with private insurers in a retort to a recent letter by President Barack Obama. The Republican senators on Monday released their own letter to Obama, which was circulated by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and included the signatures of Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. The letter states that the result of a public plan option "would be a federal government takeover of our healthcare system, taking decisions out of the hands of doctors and patients and placing them in the hands of a Washington bureaucracy." Obama's letter, sent last week, signalled strong support for a public health insurance option. Many Democrats support a public plan, arguing that it would force private insurers to lower their costs and become more competitive. A draft health care bill authored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., would create a public plan that would pay Medicare rates to doctors and hospitals, plus an additional 10%. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., is expected to release his own version of health legislation that also includes a public plan option. Republicans are strongly opposed to a public plan, in large part because they say it would undercut private insurers by offering lower payments. "Washington-run programs undermine market-based competition through their ability to impose price controls and shift costs to other purchasers," stated the letter issued by the Republicans on the Senate Finance panel.
Health Reform: Costs, Variations in Care & Public Insurance
Jacob Goldstein - WSJ's Health Blog
The health-reform theme of the day seems to be widespread variations in health-care costs in different areas around the country. If one city spends twice as much as another on health care without any noticeable benefit for patients, the thinking goes, there must be a way to find some savings.This is an old idea among health wonks (see the Health Blog's 2007 interview with Dartmouth's Jack Wennberg, who has been talking about this for decades), but it has gained currency lately amid the big health-reform push in Washington.
Health Reform: Costs, Variations in Care & Public Insurance
Jacob Goldstein - WSJ's Health Blog
The health-reform theme of the day seems to be widespread variations in health-care costs in different areas around the country. If one city spends twice as much as another on health care without any noticeable benefit for patients, the thinking goes, there must be a way to find some savings.This is an old idea among health wonks (see the Health Blog's 2007 interview with Dartmouth's Jack Wennberg, who has been talking about this for decades), but it has gained currency lately amid the big health-reform push in Washington.
Obamacare Poster Contest: Coming to a Hospital Near You
Michelle Malkin - MichelleMalkin.com
Okay, Army of Photoshoppers. Scott G. at Ah, Shoot is fighting the government takeover of the health care industry with all of his artistic power -- and has issued a challenge for an Obamacare poster contest. He has adapted old WWII art to inform the public of the consequences of Obamacare. (The posters are all in the public domain and you can find a huge collection here. Longtime readers will recall the incredible WWII-inspired Pshops readers sent in to counter the NYTimes' blabbermouth reporting.) As I've said before, this battle must be won not just in the halls of Congress, but on the ground, in the airwaves...and in the culture. There's work to be done and a fight to be won.
My Day At An Obama Health Care Meet-Up
Dan Joseph - Falling Panda
Sandra and our other esteemed leader, explained to the group that the primary focus of the administration's efforts to sell the health care plan was going to be in emphasizing "personal stories". So for the next few months expect a steady stream of sob stories about some guy named Raymond who has Lupus and has to subsist on cat food in order to pay his skyrocketing health care bills. The Obama administration knows that the majority of Americans will not be able to grasp the consequences of this complex plan and therefore, as liberals tend to do, they plan on playing on the emotions of the American people in order to sell the massive bureaucracy in which this plan will inevitably result. In keeping with the community organizer code, we eventually broke into groups where we were to "brainstorm" and think of events we could hold that would raise awareness of Obamacare. In my group we sat in a circle and each read one of the talking points as listed in the Obama health care packet. This practice struck me as being similar to grammar school, where we would go around the classroom and each student would read a certain portion of a given text. Why one person couldn't have read the entire paragraph I have no idea. We were then each asked to share our ideas for raising awareness and gaining support for the Obama plan.
Move Over Bo: The Blue Dogs Are Coming
Kathy Kiely - USA Today
In the audience for the president's remarks will be members of the congressional Blue Dog Coalition, an influential group of fiscally conservative House Democrats. Last week, the Blue Dogs issued a statement on health care reform that expressed "concerns about the viability of a 'Medicare-like' public option." That statement came one day after Obama sent a letter to Capitol Hill stating "I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans."