health care – Page 19

‘Public option’ on the table?

(Via Hot Air Headlines) I could be cruel about this, but if it turns out that the title here (“Party leaders prepare liberals to accept a health care reform deal“) is accurate then I see no particular reason to gloat over the fact that the quote-unquote ‘public option’ will be sacrificed for the sake of ‘conservative’ Democrat, Republican, and popular opinion. We’re all one country and we’re all Americans, after all, so I’d just be glad that we’ll be able to move on from having health care hung up on this particular controversy. That being said, once we remove the public option from consideration we will have to move on to discussing why on earth we’re talking about revising health care without first discussing the blatantly obvious need for tort reform.

This is not really negotiable, I’m sorry to say.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

‘Shared responsibility payment’ imposing the poor on health care.

At least, that’s the Senate version of the Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions committee bill on health care rationing: the House version has the elementary decency to call it a ‘tax.’

Legal Insurrection walks through the procedure: the short version is that both versions of the bill require that employers give the IRS information on who they’re insuring, during what periods, and… some-things-to-be-determined later. If that last clause doesn’t worry you, then why they want that information should:

The House bill provides for a tax on people who do not have acceptable coverage at “any time” during the tax year. House bill section 401 provides for a new section 59B (at pp. 167-168) of the Internal Revenue Code:

(a) TAX IMPOSED.—In the case of any individual who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of—
(1) the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income for the taxable year, over
(2) the amount of gross income specified in section 6012(a)(1) with respect to the taxpayer.

The Senate version is similar, although the tax is called a “shared responsibility payment” not a tax.

Continue reading ‘Shared responsibility payment’ imposing the poor on health care.

Organizing for America up to the task… of running potlucks. #teaparty

Via RS Reader izoneguy comes this heartwarming story of lowered expectations in the health care rationing wars. Yesterday, it was a nascent national movement dedicated to bringing The Audacity Of Hope And Change That You Can Believe In to the huddle masses; today, they’re trying to get enough people together for a decent potluck. And how is it working out for them?

“We had 10 people. Not a huge number, but good,” said Ms. Adkins, 55, who has been an Obama volunteer since the first day she saw him during a stop here on March 11, 2007.

Not that there’s anything wrong with potlucks; in fact, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the Tea Party folks to start planning to have them after the town halls. Save some money on takeout that way. Of course, given the number of people who show up to the town halls it’d probably make sense to split them up into multiple potlucks, but that’s a logistical issue. Continue reading Organizing for America up to the task… of running potlucks. #teaparty

Where it went wrong: Obama and Congress.

For the benefit of any hypothetical researcher from, say, the 2050s or so – hey, how are you folks doing, up there? Have the Cubs won a World Series yet? – let me just note the two major mistakes that the current administration made that seem to have seriously complicated the passage of their health care rationing bill.

Choosing Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s approach on the ‘stimulus’ over that of Rep Walter Minnick’s;
Allowing Speaker Pelosi to replace John Dingell on Energy with Henry Waxman.

Continue reading Where it went wrong: Obama and Congress.

Sen. Grassley: ‘Death Panels’ are out.

Palin, 1: Left, 0.

Mind you, this is just from one version of the multiple health care rationing bills that the Democrats tried – and failed – to rush through Congress, but one step at a time.

The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.

The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after it was derided by conservatives as “death panels” to encourage euthanasia.

Also, note the use of the term ‘conservatives.’ A rather odd term of art there, but if the article were to use the name ‘Sarah Palin’ it might suggest that a portion of the Democrats’ health care rationing scheme could have been neatly derailed by two Facebook posts by that woman. Which can’t be allowed to happen at all, at all: why, the very idea is absurd! Everybody knows that you have to graduate from an Ivy League school in order to be permitted to have any influence at all in public domestic policy debates.

Seriously. It’s in the Constitution somewhere. Look it up.

Moe Lane

PS: To answer Allahpundit; it’d be a potential win for the President if Gibbs had only kept his mouth shut. In other words: no, it’s not a win for the President, too.

Crossposted to RedState.

I wonder whether PhRMA cut those ad checks yet?

I do have to wonder whether they have or not, given that the President is apparently changing the deal that the pharmaceutical companies made with the government (cap the pharma industry’s costs from health care rationing at 80 billion over ten years, get 150 million contributed to pro-rationing ad blitzes), presumably on the grounds that of course the administration knew nothing about this ahead of time. The relevant passage:

“In terms of savings for you as a Medicare recipient,” President Obama told a town hall attendee yesterday, “the biggest (change) is on prescription drugs, because the prescription drug companies have already said that they would be willing to put up $80 billion in rebates for prescription drugs as part of a health care reform package.”

Then the president said, “Now, we may be able to get even more than that.”

That sentence — seemingly an aside — could be significant. Because it may indicate that President Obama does not consider himself bound by an agreement upon which the pharmaceutical industry thinks the White House has signed off.

Continue reading I wonder whether PhRMA cut those ad checks yet?

Why there’s no ‘There’ll be no rationing.’

Mickey Kaus wants to know:

I still don’t quite understand why Obama can’t bring hmself to say some variation of a) “There won’t be rationing” or b) there won’t be rationing under the Kinsley definition–“Any treatment that I, the President, would get you will get,” or c) “Medicare doesn’t ration now and won’t ration in the future, period. There will be no change in how Medicare decides what treatments to pay for. The goal is to get it to pay for more, not less.” Read My Lipitor!** No New Rationing.

Because the President doesn’t dare lie about something like that? The ads for 2012 would write themselves.

Ask me a hard one, next time.

Crossposted to RedState.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D, TX-18) just loves town halls.

It’s just that she loves talking on her cell phone more.

The clip is from a longer one made by a 9/11 Truther, by the way. Which is very funny, because if the Democrats are losing that subset of their party over health care rationing then they’re in real trouble.

Moe Lane

Camille Paglia has no buyer’s remorse.

But the day is young.

Which should relieve the administration, given what she might have written if she did:

…I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, and hope it’s a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.

Case in point: the administration’s grotesque mishandling of healthcare reform, one of the most vital issues facing the nation. Ever since Hillary Clinton’s megalomaniacal annihilation of our last best chance at reform in 1993 (all of which was suppressed by the mainstream media when she was running for president), Democrats have been longing for that happy day when this issue would once again be front and center.

But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises — or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens.

Continue reading Camille Paglia has no buyer’s remorse.

Rep. Bishop, Boswell having health care meetings allllll the way over there.

[UPDATE] Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers.

Tim Bishop (D, NY-01) is having something called a “health care reform rally” on Thursday, at (of all things) SEIU’s Hicksville NY offices (1199 Duffy Ave, starts at 1 PM). This is otherwise known as “over twenty miles outside the borders of NY-01.” Bishop is of course one of the first Democrats holding down a Red district (NY-01 is a R+0) to discover that his constituents are paying attention to his votes: he rather famously canceled his future in-district meetings. Presumably he assumes that his constituents won’t drive twenty miles to complain.

Meanwhile, Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03) has at least decided to stay in-district for his “health care listening post” – barely. Although his district includes Des Moines, Boswell has instead decided to travel 80 miles east this week to the Sigourney Public Library (Thursday, 2 PM). He won’t be actually having any meetings on the subject in the Des Moine area (where the vast majority of his constituents live) for another two weeks. Still, at least he’s having them; apparently being D+1 can make the difference between in and out of district.

Neither one of these two Congressmen are freshmen, and neither were considered to be hardline liberals before this Congress. And both of them are clearly not interested in facing their constituents just quite yet. Very interesting, that.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.