Baby Isaiah and the nature of unalienable right

By Alan Keyes

The headline is arresting. Baby Isaiah given 3 days to live by government. Baby Isaiah's parents want the Canadian government to continue their child on life support. If the government withdraws life support, does this violate the child's unalienable right to life?

Unalienable rights have to do with inherent natural obligations which human beings, as they come from the hand of God, are obliged to respect. What people should do with the work of human hands, e.g., with technologies that improve upon their natural capacities, may involve issues of conscience. But not all such issues have to do respect for with unalienable rights. The requirements of conscience go beyond the minimal requirements of the natural law to encompass those that arise from the law of love. As Christ made clear, (Matthew 5: 40-41) there's a difference between doing what the law requires and going the extra mile simply because that's the kind of help you'd want someone to give you if you were in need of it.

The parents in this case have a natural obligation to do all that they can to preserve the life of their child. Others are obliged to respect actions they take pursuant to this obligation so long as they do not otherwise violate the natural law which is the basis of such obligations. They may not, for example, kill someone else's child to save theirs. But if someone else's child is drowning, and they know how to swim, they will rightly feel obliged by the rule of conscience (do unto others as you would have others do unto you) to use their acquired skill to save the child. But their liberty, which is an unalienable right, means that they may refrain from helping if, in their own judgment, doing so would forfeit their own lives (leaving their own children without care) or otherwise interfere with the fulfillment of their own natural obligations.

What applies to the use of humanly acquired capacities logically also applies to the use of any medium of exchange that represents their value. Individuals may not, therefore, be compelled to use their money in ways that, in their own judgment, will endanger their lives or otherwise interfere with the fulfillment of their own natural obligations. Logically, what they are not obliged to do as individuals, they are not obliged to do when they act in community with other individuals endowed with the same unalienable right to liberty.

All this means that the parents of Baby Isaiah are not entitled to demand that public money be spent to keep their child on mechanical life support. The community acting at some level of government may decide to do so, but that decision is properly subject to legislation and adjudication by the organs of government charged with carrying out those functions on behalf of the community.

Though often confused in public discussion, this case is not substantially the same as that of someone like Terri Schiavo. In that case a judge, claiming to exercise legitimate government power, issued an order that interfered with actions her parents sought to perform pursuant to their natural obligation to preserve the life of their child. The judge's order put the community in the position of killing Terri Schiavo based on the judgment of an individual (her husband) whose authority to exercise that judgment (based on their marital relationship) could not supersede that of the parents. In the natural course of things, all human beings are born in a helpless condition requiring that they be sheltered and fed by others. By the law of nature, the parents are the first ones obliged to provide this care. The fact that Schiavo's husband abrogated his sworn obligation to care for his wife (in sickness and in health) did not in any way relieve her parents of this obligation. Indeed, on account of his abrogation, and their child's helpless condition, they rightly felt the full weight of the obligation (which marriage had, for the most part alleviated) fall once more upon their shoulders. Therefore the court's order did what no human power can have the right to do. It interfered with their performance of the natural duty assigned to them by their Creator. It violated the unalienable right arising from the natural bond that impels parents to care for their children throughout their lives (and vice versa.)

Taken together, the cases of Terri Schiavo and Baby Isaiah illustrate the substance of the natural obligations and rights arising from the fundamental family tie, as well as the nature and limits of the public's obligations in regard to them. The public is obliged to respect the natural right of individuals acting on their familial obligations, as Terri's parents were doing. The judge in her case violated their unalienable right. The Constitutions of Florida and the United States both demanded respect for unalienable rights. All public officials sworn to uphold the provisions of those constitutions were derelict in their sworn duty to defend it. On the other hand, a judge or legislative body does not violate natural right when exercising the community's liberty to give or withdraw its help (or the help made possible by public funds) based on a judgment about how the expenditure involved affects the well being of the whole community for which, as representatives of its sovereign power, they are responsible.

Both these cases offer a clear warning against extending the sphere of government power in ways that conflict with or exclude the possibility of responsible individual choice in response to natural obligation. Pervasive government control of access to health care inevitably does so. It puts in the hands of government officials a power over life and death decisions better left to the conscience of individuals. By avoiding government control (even when it's intended to be helpful) officials will be given less occasion to violate individual natural rights, and individuals will not be encouraged to develop a false sense of entitlement that ignores the sovereign liberty of the people as a whole.

For more from Alan Keyes visit http://loyaltoliberty.com. Once a high-level Reagan-era diplomat, Alan Keyes is a long-time leader in the conservative movement, well-known as a staunch pro-life champion and an eloquent advocate of the Constitutional Republic, including respect for the moral basis of liberty and self-government. He staunchly resists the destruction of the American people's sovereignty by fighting to secure our borders, abolish the federal income tax, end the insurrectionary practices of the federal Judiciary, and build a banking and financial system that halts elite looting of America's wealth and income. He formally severed his Republican Party affiliation in April of 2008 and has since then worked with America's Independent Party to build an effective vehicle for citizen-led grass-roots political action.

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Dick Morris: Pelosi and Reid Plot Secret Plan for Obamacare

By: Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Highly informed sources on Capitol Hill have revealed to me details of the Democratic plan to sneak Obamacare through Congress, despite collapsing public approval for healthcare "reform" and disintegrating congressional support in the wake of Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts.

President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all have agreed to the basic framework of the plan.

Their plan is clever but can be stopped if opponents of radical healthcare reform act quickly and focus on a core group of 23 Democratic Congressman. If just a few of these 23 Democrats are "flipped" and decide to oppose the bill, the whole Obama-Pelosi-Reid stratagem falls apart.

Here's what I learned top Democrats are planning to implement.

Senate Democrats will go to the House with a two-part deal.

First, the House will pass the Senate's Obamacare bill that passed the Senate in December. The House leadership will vote on the Senate bill, and Pelosi will allow no amendments or modifications to the Senate bill.

How will Pelosi's deal fly with rambunctious liberal members of her majority who don't like the Senate bill, especially its failure to include a public option, put heavy fines on those who don't get insurance, and offering no income tax surcharge on the "rich"?

That's where the second part of the Pelosi-deal comes in.

Behind closed doors, Reid and Pelosi have agreed in principle that changes to the Senate bill will be made to satisfy liberal House members — but only after the Senate bill is passed and signed into law by Obama.

This deal will be secured by a pledge from Reid and the Senate's Democratic caucus that they will make "fixes" to the Senate bill after it becomes law with Obama's John Hancock.

But you may ask what about the fact that, without Republican Scott Brown and independent Democrats such as Joe Lieberman, Reid simply doesn't have the 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a Republican filibuster that typically can stop major legislation?

According to my source, Reid will provide to Pelosi a letter signed by 52 Democratic senators indicating they will pass the major changes, or "fixes," the House Democrats are demanding. Again, these fixes will be approved by the Senate only after Obama signs the Senate bill into law.

Reid also has agreed to bypass Senate cloture and filibuster rules and claim that these modifications fall under "reconciliation" and don't require 60 Senate votes.

To pass the fixes, he won't need one Republican; he won't even need Joe Lieberman or wavering Democrats such as Jim Webb of Virginia.

His 52 pledged senators give him a simple majority to pass any changes they want, which will later be rubberstamped by Pelosi's House and signed by Obama.

This plan, of course, is a total subversion of the legislative process.

Typically, the Senate and House pass their own unique legislation and then both bills go to a conference committee. In conference, the leadership of both Democrat-dominated houses wheels and deals and irons out differences.

The final compromise bill is then sent back to the full Senate and full House for a vote and has to pass both to go to the president.

In the House, a simple majority passes the legislation. But under Senate rules, major legislation requires 60 votes to end a filibuster.

As it stands, the House bill and Senate bill have major discrepancies. Reid does not have 60 votes to pass a compromise bill that would no doubt include some of the radical provisions House members have been demanding.

But if the House passes the exact Senate bill that passed by a 60-39 Senate vote last month, there is no need for a conference on the bill. It will go directly to the president's desk.

There is a rub to all of this.

This secret plan being hatched by Pelosi and Reid requires not only a pledge by 52 Democratic senators to vote later for the House modifications. House liberals must actually believe these Senators will live up to their pledge and pass the fixes at some future date.

A Senate source cautions: "Senators more than House members and both more than ordinary people, lie."

Still, my Senate source and others in Washington believe that the liberals in the House, grasping at straws after the stunning Massachusetts defeat, will go along with the Reid-Pelosi plan to bypass a conference bill and ultimately will vote for the Senate version without changes.

Among the key "fixes" House liberals are demanding the Senate pass in reconciliation at some later date include a "carve out" for unions from the "Cadillac policy" insurance tax. The Senate plan funds their healthcare plan by heavy taxes on so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans that provide those insured with exceptionally good coverage including almost unlimited health access with little or no co-payments. The Senate's view was that rich people have such plans and should be taxed for them to pay the less fortunate.

But many unions have Cadillac plans for their members, and they are furious their members will be hit with the Senate tax. The unions have told their minions in the House to oppose the Senate Cadillac plan tax.

House liberals also are requiring a fix that increases fines for those who flout the law and don't buy health insurance (the Pelosi-passed plan includes criminal penalties, including possible jail time if a person doesn't purchase insurance). Another fix will raise subsidies for low-income families seeking to buy insurance.

In the original House bill that passed, healthcare expansion costs would have been paid for by an income tax surcharge on the "rich." House liberals are pushing for that fix as well.

So what is the counter-move? How do opponents of Obamacare stop this?

Opponents cannot rely on liberal Democrats in the House who might balk at passing the Senate bill with just a "pledge" from 52 senators. I have no doubt House liberals, despite their skepticism, will fade under pressure from Pelosi and Obama. They will do their duty and pass the Senate bill, whatever their current posturing.

Instead, the key to stopping the Pelosi-Reid plan lies with conservative or "moderate" Democrats who voted for the healthcare bill the first time.

There are 23 of these conservative-leaning Democratic House members who voted for Pelosi's Obamacare back in November, which passed by just five votes, with 39 Democrats defecting to vote against the bill.

All 23 of these congressmen who did vote for the Pelosi bill are extremely vulnerable.

Opponents of Obamacare need to climb all over these 23 congressmen with TV ads and advocacy campaigns in their districts to get them to change their vote this time, to vote "no" to the Senate bill when it comes before the House.

Voters need to say, "You voted for Obamacare the first time. But your district opposes it by 2 to 1. Now it is coming up for a vote again. Listen to your constituents and vote no. We don’t want Medicare cuts or premium increases or rationing of medical care. Don’t monkey with our healthcare. Vote no this time."

Since the House healthcare bill passed by five votes, much has happened and the political landscape has changed dramatically.

The Massachusetts election of a Republican to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat has sent shock waves through Washington. Every one of these 23 Democrats knows they will face an angry backlash in their districts if they vote for the Senate bill and go along with Pelosi-Reid plan to ram through Obamacare.

I believe now is the time for opponents to act. The truth is that Obamacare is hanging by a thread.

Opponents, if they move now, can drive a stake through its heart.

Once these congressmen hear from their aroused constituents, they won’t be able to back Obamacare.

As I mentioned, the Pelosi health bill passed the House by only 220-215. Nancy Pelosi knows she has no margin for error.

If only a handful of these 23 congressmen change their vote under public pressure, the Pelosi-Reid plan is stopped and Obamacare is dead. Here's the list to target:

• Harry Mitchell of Arizona
• Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona
• Alan Grayson of Florida
• Mark Schauer of Michigan
• Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire
• Mike Arcuri of New York
• Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio
• Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania
• Christopher Carney of Pennsylvania
• Tom Perriello of Virginia
• Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona
• Baron Hill of Indiana
• Dina Titus of Nevada
• John Hall of New York
• Stephen Driehaus of Ohio
• Paul Kanjorsky of Pennsylvania
• Dan Maffei of New York
• Allan Mollohan of West Virginia
• Nick Rahall of West Virginia
• Steve Kagen of Wisconsin
• Marion Berry of Arkansas
• John Spratt of Georgia
• Zack Space of Ohio

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Mom appeals to government: Don't pull plug on my baby

'Every day he does something new, so that helps us to fight,' she says

 

By Drew Zahn

Isaiah James May was born a little after 5 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2009, and was scheduled to die this past week – on Wednesday, Jan. 20 – just short of his three-month birthday.

That was the day chosen by Canada's publicly funded, government health service as the deadline for Isaiah to recover from his traumatic birth or be taken off life-support.

"There is no hope of recovery for Isaiah," reads a letter from Alberta Health Services delivered to Isaiah's parents and dated one week before the health care system intended to pull the plug on the baby it has determined irreparably brain damaged.

"Your treating physicians regretfully have come to the conclusion that withdrawal of active treatment is medically reasonable, ethically responsible and appropriate," the letter states. "We must put the interests of your son foremost, and it is in his best interests to discontinue mechanical ventilation support."

Parents Isaac and Rebecka May, however, immediately appealed to the courts for more time, encouraged by signs that their boy was growing and moving, pointing to instance after instance where Isaiah had already proven the doctors wrong.

"He is doing everything they said that he would not do. Every day he does something new. So that helps us to fight," the baby's 23-year-old mother told CBC News. "His eyes dilate. He opens his eyes. He moves his limbs. He's growing. He's gaining weight. He's living. They told us he would never do any of that."

Then, the day before the hospital planned to allow Isaiah to die, a judge granted Isaiah a few more days of life.

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Michelle Crighton gave Isaiah's parents one week, until Jan. 27, to find an independent expert – to determine if or when the baby should be taken off life-support.

Isaiah was born after a difficult 40 hours of labor, but the umbilical cord had wrapped itself around the baby's neck and deprived the newborn of oxygen. Isaiah was immediately taken by air ambulance to Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton, where he has survived with the help of a ventilator and feedings through an IV tube.

But through his three months of care, his doctors believe Isaiah has suffered irreversible brain damage and have offered his young parents no hope for the boy's recovery.

After Isaac and Rebecka May received the letter informing them life-support would be terminated on their son, they turned to the courts, seeking a 90-day window for continued observation of the progress they believe their son is making in spite of the doctor's predictions.

According to court documents reported by the Calgary Herald, the baby's mother claims doctors said Isaiah wouldn't live past three days, wouldn't grow, wouldn't be able to urinate or move. May says the doctors told her brain death would cause Isaiah's head to shrink and his brain to turn to "mush."

Instead, she says, not only has Isaiah's head grown, but he has also gained more than three pounds, wets his diaper, moves his hands, feet and arms and opens his eyes every day, according to court documents.

"It's pretty cool seeing little changes every day," his 22-year-old father told the Herald. "Of course, it's not easy, being there watching him on the bed like that, but we're just doing everything we can right now to know we've done everything we can do."

The couple's attorney told Edmonton's CTV News, "The family has asked for 90 days in order to see how the child will develop, if the child will grow, if there's any improvement in the child's condition."

Brent Windwick, the lawyer representing Alberta Health Services and the Stollery Children's Hospital, has asked the court to allow no more than 30 days before making its decision.

Alberta Health Services, in turn, released a statement: "The medical and ethical discussions for this family and care providers are the most difficult imaginable. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to the family. Our medical, nursing and allied health teams have and will continue to support this family in every way possible. It is appropriate to turn now to the courts for direction."

The court, however, granted the family only seven days to find an independent expert to evaluate their son and determine a future course of action.

Reported friends of the family have established a Facebook page for prayers and support for the May family. The page includes photos and videos of Isaiah, telephone numbers for complaints registered to Alberta Health Services, a mailing address for the Mays, who are currently staying at an Edmonton Ronald McDonald House, and links for financial donations through PayPal.

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Stop Nationalized Health Care!

Liberal Senator Thomas Dodd (D-CT) has told CNBC that the Obama effort to nationalize our health care system is “hanging by a thread” – with only one or two votes to determine the outcome.

This is good news to TVC and Americans as a whole. Now is not the time to give up on defeating this massive government takeover of 1/6th of our nation’s economy.

The stakes have never been higher. If the federal government becomes the national doctor, our entire health care system will be destroyed. Research will be stifled, patient rights will be violated and seniors will be denied critical care.

In addition, every taxpayer in America will be forced to buy health insurance or pay a fine. Taxpayers will also be forced through various gimmicks to fund abortion on demand. The Obamacare plan will be one of the largest bailouts for the abortion industry this nation has ever seen.

Every vote counts and every Senator and U.S. Representative should be held accountable for his vote this November election cycle.

Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Exposes Costs Of Obamacare

The Department of Health & Human Services CMS office has published a 37-page cost analysis of Obamacare. The report was issued on January 8, 2010.

CMS highlights the following serious cost concerns about Obamacare:

• Fails to bend the cost curve down. Bends the growth curve upward with overall national health spending increasing by an estimated $222 billion between 2010 and 2019. Bends the growth upward for federal health spending as well. Total federal spending on health care would increase by $279 billion during this same period.

• Americans will effectively pay more for less coverage. Employers are likely to reduce the scope of health benefits in response to the excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored insurance coverage. In addition, “[a]n estimated 22 percent of insured workers in 2019—about 35 million people-- would be in employer plans with benefit values in excess of the threshold” and therefore be subject to the excise tax and this percentage would continue to increase.

• Fails to ensure coverage is affordable for low income families. Despite the subsidies, lower income individuals and families would still be subject to substantial out of pocket costs for health care. Lower income individuals enrolled in a silver plan would pay about 47 of out-of-pocket costs before reaching the out-of-pocket maximum. Lower income families would pay about 40 percent before reaching the out-of-pocket max.

• Puts the majority of the uninsured in a broken and bankrupt health system with lower health outcomes. The majority of newly covered under the bill (18 of 34 million) will go to Medicaid.

• If you like what you have, you cannot keep it. The number of people with employer sponsored coverage would go down by about 17 million due in part to small businesses dropping coverage, companies with low average salaries ending their plans, and due to 2 million people with employer coverage who would go to Medicaid.

• Over $70 billion in direct new taxes on American businesses and families. Individuals would pay $34 billion in individual mandate penalties between 2014 and 2019. Employers would pay a total of $37 billion in penalties over the same period.

• Medicare “savings” are double-counting. While cuts in Part A of Medicare and higher tax revenues extend the solvency of the Medicare Trust fund by 10 years (to 2027), in practice, the improved Medicare solvency “cannot simultaneously used to finance other Federal outlays (such as the coverage expansions) and to extend the trust fund, despite the appearance of this result from the respective accounting conventions.

• Yet, the draconian cuts to Medicare will endanger access for seniors. Medicare cuts due to the productivity adjustment “may be unrealistic” and as a result, “providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries).” Furthermore, the Chief Actuary’s analysis found that “roughly 20 percent of Part A providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection period as a result of the productivity adjustments.”

• Empowers an unelected, unaccountable board of bureaucrats to make crucial program decisions. The Secretary of HHS would be required to implement recommendations from the Independent Medicare Advisory Board unless the statutory process was overridden by Congress.

• Established a new unaffordable, unsustainable long term care insurance program, a new kind of Fannie-Med. Regarding the CLASS program, once again the Chief Actuary warns that there is a very serious risk that the problem of adverse selection would make the program unsustainable.

TAKE ACTION: Contact your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative and ask them to vote NO on any Democrat plan that nationalizes our health care, funds abortion, or undermines the finest health care system on the planet.

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Do You Feel "Special?"

By Alan Burkhart

Funny how things work sometimes. The Democrat party has played class warfare politics for decades. They’ve managed to divide the American people into so many fractious special interest groups that not even the powerful leftist political machine can manage them anymore. Everyone is a minority, and all minorities are special interests since they lobby for their own benefit.

Yes, YOU are a member of a special interest group. Even if you didn’t know it. Even if you do not wish to be a member. You’re stuck there, and you cannot escape. As a native-born white male, I belong to the “Native-Born White Male” special interest group simply because I don’t qualify for any other. White males are the only cross-section of society not considered by at least some to be a minority. And that, by definition, makes me a minority and therefore part of a special interest. Senator Ben Nelson even managed to turn the entire state of Nebraska into a special interest group. Insane, isn’t it?

And the insanity is a beautiful thing to watch.

It’s beautiful to watch because as a partisan conservative I love watching the Democrats’ plans blowing up in their pudgy faces. I love hearing even some of the Democrats’ cheering section in the MSM questioning their motives and their competency.  And question they should. The current administration and its partners on Capitol Hill are sending the nation on a one-way trip to financial Armageddon.  Never in our history have we seen the like of what we’re seeing in current times.

The health care boondoggle is a classic example of how special interest politics has backfired on the Democrats. Extreme leftists are decrying the Senate and House bills for giving breaks to “Big Pharma” and the death of the Public Option. Groups on the right see the plan as not giving enough protection to the investment and research Big Pharma engages in to create new products (products, by the way, that save lives). The left objects to supposed sweetheart deals given the insurance companies, while the right (and many of the insurance companies) fear the upcoming legislation will send them into insolvency.

And even though a majority of Americans oppose the legislation (RCP Average: 51% against, 40.7% for), the Democrats are forging ahead, evidently unmindful of the fact they’re committing political suicide. Barack Obama and Congress have attempted to appeal to everyone, but in the process they’ve alienated far too many people. That’s what happens when you stand in the middle of the road: You get run over.

They’ve no one to blame but themselves for their sagging poll numbers. In a frantic scramble to find ways to pay for this latest intrusion upon the rights and privacy of the citizenry, they’ve discovered that while a lot of people claim to want health care reform, few if any want to help pay for it. One of their first intended victims was of course their favorite: The Evil Rich. The Dems assumed they could tax so-called “Cadillac” insurance plans to generate revenue.

But hold the phone, Harry. Seems that the unions, who are of course huge contributors to the Democrats, also have rather lavish and expensive health insurance plans. So in a recent closed-door session the Dems bought off the unions by giving them an exemption from the tax. This of course has the potential to increase union membership (seeking cheaper insurance), thereby further empowering the unions, which by extension would further empower the Democrat party. Perhaps someone should remind them about equal protection under the law?

Unions had objected strongly to the proposed tax on high-value insurance policies, fearing it would hurt their members, and they won several concessions from the administration. Under the deal, if it becomes law, union workers will be shielded from the 40 percent tax for five years -- until 2018. The threshold for the tax also was raised so that it will kick in for plans worth $24,000 instead of $23,000. And dental and vision coverage will not count toward that threshold.

But what about everybody else?

The unions, traditional supporters of the Democratic Party and a major factor in Obama's political infrastructure, got a deal, but Republicans said that non-union workers will still have to pay the tax from the get-go starting in 2013.

"I guess this bill is only good if it doesn't apply to you," GOPAC Chairman Frank Donatelli said.  - Fox News

Religious groups have long been powerful special interests. Even the humble Amish. Turns out that the Amish have religious objections to paying for insurance. So, the Amish will be exempted from being fined (you get fined if you don’t have insurance under the plan) for not having the required insurance if this insanity passes.

However…

…But if the Amish can opt out, then some civil libertarians say they want out, too -- not for religious reasons but because they don't think the underlying health insurance mandate is legal.

"If they can do it for religious objection, well, I have a different type of objection," said Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute said. "I think I'm being coerced into doing something against my will, and so the challenge would be from a different perspective." – Fox News

Back to the pharmaceutical companies…

They’ve been on board with the plan for months since the mandatory coverage provision  would likely mean more paying customers for the bio-tech sector. However, the bio-tech sector’s support hinged on a 12-year minimum period in which competing drug makers could not produce generic versions of expensive new medicines. This is to allow the companies who develop the drugs time to recoup their investments. Still other special interest groups oppose this measure because they feel the public shouldn’t have to wait that long to get cheaper meds.

Any compromise bill, though, will face a nail-biting trip through Congress, where Democrats got barely enough support when they pushed initial versions of the bill through the House and Senate. If the drug industry decided to pour money into advertising opposing the legislation, that could give some lawmakers second thoughts about supporting the bill.

Ken Johnson, a senior vice president of PhRMA, declined to comment on the e-mail. But in a written statement, he said, "Fair data protection of at least 12 years for new, innovative biologic medicines is critically important to the future of medical progress in America."

In a written statement, [Henry] Waxman said the overhaul should be "to help struggling families, not to enrich the drug companies."

Last June, the industry agreed to actively support Obama's health overhaul in an agreement with the White House and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., to limit the cost to drugmakers to $80 billion over next decade.

But as Democrats craft their compromise health bill, they have begun looking for additional sources of revenue to pay for changes they are making. That has included pressing the drugmakers to contribute an additional $10 billion -- another factor that might be part of PhRMA's decision to threaten to withdraw its support. – Fox News

It’s also a good bet that insurance companies would be 100% in favor of shortening the time-line for patent protection, since that would mean they could sooner lower their costs associated with paying for the new drugs.

The list goes on. Abortion rights groups want federally funded abortions. Pro-life groups of course vehemently oppose such a measure. Medical professionals have come down all over the playing field, some for, some against. Pro-Amnesty groups want coverage for illegal aliens while pro-constitutionalists do not.

The problem here is that the Democrats have too long been burning the political candle from both ends. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of divergent special interest groups. Each group was created either to push a particular agenda forward, or to push back against an agenda they do not favor. The Dems have long worked to play one group against the other – blacks against whites, rich against poor, citizen against immigrant, liberal against conservative, religious against atheist. With so many special interests, it is unavoidable that when you favor one, you step on another.

And so President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress are trying to please everyone. Their polling data tells the story of just how badly they’ve failed. If they pass health care reform, the right will slaughter them in the 2010 and 2012 elections. If they do not pass it, the loony left will come unhinged and help vote them out in 2010 and 2012. Either way the very groups they helped to create, either in support or opposition to one boondoggle or another, will be their downfall in the coming months.

Failure, when it’s on the left, is a beautiful thing.

Sources and Related Reading:
Health Care Mandate Applies to All -- Except the Amish
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/16/health-care-mandate-applies-amish/

[Senator Ben] Nelson Asks Senate to Withdraw Nebraska Medicaid Deal
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/15/nelson-asks-senate-withdraw-nebraska-medicaid-deal/

Drug Industry Threatening to End Support for Obama's Health Bill
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/15/drug-industry-threatening-end-support-obamas-health/

Democrats Hammered for 'Back-Room' Deal With Unions on Health Care
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/15/democrats-hammered-room-deal-unions-health-care/

Polling Data: Obama and Democrats' Health Care Plan
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html

Dems Weigh Other Options for Passing Health Care if GOP Wins Kennedy's Seat
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/16/dems-weigh-options-passing-health-care-gop-wins-kennedys-seat/

Final Frantic Run for Health Care
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/16/final-frantic-run-health-care/

PhRMA
http://www.phrma.org/

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Democrats Threaten: Senate Can Pass Health With 51 Votes

By Jonathan D. Salant

Even if Democrats lose the special election to pick a new Massachusetts senator Tuesday, Congress may still pass health-care overhaul through a process called reconciliation, a top House Democrat said.

That procedure requires 51 votes rather than the 60 needed to prevent Republicans from blocking votes on President Barack Obama’s top legislative priorities. That supermajority is at risk as the Massachusetts race has tightened.

"Even before Massachusetts and that race was on the radar screen, we prepared for the process of using reconciliation," Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said.

"Getting health-care reform passed is important," Van Hollen said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s "Political Capital with Al Hunt," airing this weekend. "Reconciliation is an option."

Should Democrats take that route, the legislation would have to be scaled back because of Senate rules.

He also said he expects Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley to win in Massachusetts.

Van Hollen said Republican predictions that the political climate had changed so much that they can capture the 40 seats needed to regain control of the House was "pure hallucination."

‘Into the Ditch’

"Why would you hand the keys to the car back to the same guys whose policies drove the economy into the ditch and then walked away from the scene of the accident?" Van Hollen said. "For the Republicans to say vote for us and bring back the guys who got us into this mess in the first place, I don’t think it’s a winner."

He said Democrats expect to see their majority shrink this year because the party that occupies the White House traditionally loses congressional seats in the first midterm election.

At the end of a week dominated by images of death and destruction after the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, Van Hollen said lawmakers likely will approve whatever relief money the president requests. Obama has already asked for $100 million.

"We want to help people who need relief immediately, and so to that extent I support it," Van Hollen said this afternoon.

Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that Haitian nationals now in the U.S. will be allowed to stay for an additional 18 months because of the quake devastation.

Gasoline Tax

On other domestic issues, Van Hollen said Congress won’t raise the gasoline tax this year to fund a new long-term construction program for roads and mass transit. The current six-year, $286.5 billion transportation legislation is expiring.

Jobs legislation passed by the House includes $50 billion for construction projects, Van Hollen said. Longer-term legislation with a gas-tax increase will require "some kind of bipartisan consensus before you more forward," he said.

On the decision to require Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to testify before the House Financial Services Committee, Van Hollen said that while he didn’t believe Geithner was in political danger, it was appropriate for him to come before Congress.

AIG Payments

Lawmakers want to know why the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which Geithner formerly led, agreed to payments of 100 cents on the dollar to companies that held American International Group Inc. credit-default swaps tied to subprime mortgages.

Van Hollen said the New York Fed’s decision was wrong and the U.S. needed to "understand how that decision was made, because that kind of decision should not be made in the future."

As Democratic congressional leaders worked with the White House to meld House and Senate versions of the health-care overhaul legislation, Van Hollen said there was no deadline for completing the measure.

"Our more important goal is to make sure we get it right," he said.

While polls show opposition to the legislation -- a Quinnipiac University survey found 58 percent of Americans opposing the way Obama was handling the issue -- Van Hollen said the individual components were popular and most people will support the measure once it clears Congress.

"It’s been subject to a lot of demagoguery, a lot of misinformation," Van Hollen said. Once the measure is finished, "people will see the benefits."

Read more >>

Would Health Care Reform Help You?

Barbara O'Brien

Many obstacles and stumbling blocks remain in the way of health care reform. The House and Senate bills will have to be merged, and then the House and Senate both will vote on the final bill. We don't yet know what will be in the final bill, or if the final bill will be passed into law. Passage will be especially difficult in the Senate, where it will need 60 votes to pass. It is still possible that after all this angst, just one grandstanding senator could kill the whole thing.

But just for fun, let's look at what conventional wisdom says will be in the final bill and see if there is anything in it that will be an immediate benefit to people with mesothelioma and other asbestos-related disease.

It is likely that the final bill will provide additional funding for state high-risk insurance pools. Currently more than 30 states run such pools, which are nonprofit, state-sponsored health insurance plans for people who can't buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions. The biggest problem with such pools is that, often, the insurance they offer is too expensive for many who might need it. Both the Senate and House bills provide $5 billion in subsidies for state high-risk pools to make the insurance more affordable.

Under the Senate bill, beginning in 2014, private companies would no longer be able to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions, nor could they charge higher premiums for people with pre-existing conditions. Until then, the state high-risk pools could provide some help.

Closing the Medicare Part D coverage gap - also called the "doughnut hole" - is another potential provision that could help some patients with asbestos-related disease. The "doughnut hole" is the gap between the coverage for yearly out-of-pocket expenses provided by Medicare Part D and Medicare's "catastrophic coverage" threshold.

For example, in 2009 Medicare Part D paid at least 75 percent of what patients paid for prescription drugs up to $2,700. After that, patients must pay for all of their prescription medications until what they have paid exceeds $6,154. At that point, the catastrophic coverage takes over, and Medicare pays for all but 5 percent of the patient's drug bills. The final health care reform bill probably will provide for paying at least 50 percent of out-of-pocket costs in the doughnut hole.

You may have heard the bills include budget cuts to the Medicare program, and this has been a big concern to many people. Proponents of the bill insist that savings can be found to pay for the cuts, and that people who depend on Medicare won't face reduced services. But this is a complex issue that I want to address in a later post.

The long-term provisions probably will include many other provisions that would benefit patients with asbestos-related disease, including increased funding for medical research. Although there are many complaints about the bill coming from all parts of the political spectrum, on the whole it would be a huge benefit to many people.

Read more >>

Transparently NON Transparent

Editors Note: In my humble opinion, the ONLY reason to go to such extreme measures to be NON-TRANSPARENT on the health care legislation is simply they do not want you to know what they are doing until it is TO LATE. If they have NOTHING to HIDE then they simply would NOT BE HIDING things. Simple enough logic, yes?

C-SPAN Challenges Congress to Open Health Care Talks to TV Coverage

The head of C-SPAN has implored Congress to open up the last leg of health care reform negotiations to the public, as top Democrats lay plans to hash out the final product among themselves.

C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate Dec. 30 urging them to open "all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings," to televised coverage on his network.

"The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of the sessions LIVE and in their entirety," he wrote.

In a Tuesday afternoon press conference on health legislation negotiations, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to object to the premise behind the request.

"There has never been a more open process for any legislation in anyone who’s served here’s experience," she said.

However, Republican leaders sided with C-SPAN's calls for transparency.

"As House Republican leader, I can confidently state that all House Republicans strongly endorse your proposal and stand ready to work with you to make it a reality," Minority Leader John Boehner wrote in response to the letter. "Hard-working families won't stand for having the future of their health care decided behind closed doors. These secret deliberations are a breeding ground for more of the kickbacks, shady deals and special-interest provisions that have become business as usual in Washington."

Democratic leaders could bypass the traditional conference committee process, in which lawmakers from both parties and chambers meet to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions of a bill. Top Democrats in the House, Senate and White House were meeting Tuesday evening to figure out the final product in three-way talks before sending it back to both chambers for a final vote.

"We don't even know yet whether there's going to be a conference," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen said responding to a question about the C-SPAN request. "It's not clear whether or not that's going to happen yet."

This format would seem ideal for closed-door meetings, which congressional Democrats have used many times to figure out sensitive provisions in the health care bill -- though President Obama pledged during the campaign to open up health care talks to C-SPAN's cameras.

"That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are," Obama said at a debate against Hillary Clinton in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, 2008.

Asked about the request to Congress, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he hadn't seen the letter.

"I know the president is going to begin discussions today on health care to iron out differences between the House and Senate bills," he said.

Lamb urged Congress in his letter to fling open the doors in the final stretch of the negotiations.

"President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation's editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation's health care system," he wrote. "Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American."

Lamb said his network would use "the latest technology" to be "as unobtrusive as possible" during the talks.

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WHITE HOUSE HAS ALLOWED ONLY 'ONE HOUR' OF HEALTHCARE COVERAGE

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COUNT THE LIES: OBAMA VOWED 8 X TO TELEVISE HEALTHCARE

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Pelosi tells C-SPAN: 'There has never been a more open process'

By Eric Zimmermann and Michael O'Brien

C-SPAN wrote a letter to congressional leaders Tuesday asking that TV cameras be allowed to film negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of healthcare reform legislation.

But Pelosi said Congress has already been transparent throughout the process.

"There has never been a more open process for any legislation," Pelosi said at a press conference.

Pelosi also hinted that holding informal negotiations--likely without TV cameras--might be the most practical way to push the legislation through.

"We will do what is necessary to pass the bill," Pelosi said.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), assistant to the Speaker, said the healthcare bill had been "subjected to unprecedented level of public scrutiny."

Pressed on whether C-SPAN cameras would be allowed in negotiations, Van Hollen hedged.

"We don't even know if there's going to be a conference committee," he said, alluding to the likelihood that Democrats will reconcile the two bills behind closed doors.

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Hiding health bills behind closed doors

Democrats keep government care secrets away from the public

It may be a new year, but congressional Democrats are planning the same old sorts of sleazy tactics in their bid to take over America's health care system. Congressional Republicans, especially in the Senate, should not let them get away with it. Transparency and ethics should be Republican rallying cries, and obstruction on those grounds should be a point of pride.

By now it's almost trite to complain that President Obama repeatedly has broken his campaign pledge to "broadcast [health care] negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are." That doesn't make the complaint invalid. For legislation that could so profoundly and personally affect the daily lives of every American, Congress and the White House should be more transparent and more accessible than ever before. Instead, the process has been secretive and sordid throughout.

The House passed its version of the bill on a Saturday night. The Senate held its key procedural vote at 1 in the morning, and then provided a lump of coal in our stockings by forcing full passage of its bill on Christmas Eve. The House leadership banned consideration of all but one amendment not offered by leadership itself - forbidding debate on more than 150 of them - then provided just 24 hours for members to study the bill's final text. The Senate leadership inserted so many tawdry last-minute items that analysts are still finding jokers in the deck 11 days later.

All these shenanigans have driven approval for the government health care bills even lower in public polls than the strong majorities that already opposed them a month ago. Yet that hasn't fazed congressional leaders. Now comes word from multiple sources that not only will Congress refuse to televise the usual Conference Committee to reconcile the two chambers' versions of the bill, but it won't allow a formal conference at all. Instead, a chosen few negotiators will concoct the final version out of sight, without formal rules governing the process and without a single Republican at the table.

Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, candidly told a Jan. 3 home-state Democratic gathering that the sleight-of-hand is intended to enable his colleagues to avoid any more tough votes until the one on final passage. David Dayen of the liberal Web site Firedoglake reported from the meeting that, "this will not be a traditional conference committee, Waxman said, because the motions to select and instruct conferees in the Senate 'would need 60 votes [in the Senate] all over again.'"

(Corrected paragraph:) Back in October, Rep. Vern Buchanan, Florida Republican, offered this simple resolution: "Resolved, that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that any conference committee or other meetings held to determine the final content of sweeping national health care legislation be held in full public view and not behind closed doors."

If congressional leaders do not abide this simple request, Republicans should bring the whole Senate to a halt. Senate rules provide for so many procedural obstacles, if a determined minority wants to exercise them, that the entire body could be tied up in knots for weeks on end. In the name of open and accountable government, that's what senators should do if the public interest continues to be trampled.

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2006 Flashback: Pelosi Says Dems Will Have Most Honest & Ethical Congress

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Speaker Pelosi’s Government-Run Health Plan Will Require a Monthly Abortion Premium

Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an opportunity to protect human life - not end it.

Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page government takeover of health care does just that.  On line 17, p. 110, section 222 under “Abortions for which Public Funding is Allowed” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run plan.  The Speaker’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions.

What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run plan.  It’s right there on line 16, page 96, section 213, under “Insurance Rating Rules.”  The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account - and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.

Section 213 describes the process in which the Health Benefits Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run plan.  The Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.

A majority of Americans believe that health care plans should not be mandated to provide elective abortion coverage, and a majority of Americans do not believe government health care plans should include abortion coverage. Currently, federal appropriations bills include language known as the Hyde Amendment that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, while another provision, known as the Smith Amendment, prohibits federal funding of abortion under the federal employees’ health benefits plan.

Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page health care monstrosity is an affront to the American people and drastically moves away from current policy.  The American people deserve more from their government than being forced to pay for abortion.

House Republicans are offering a common-sense, responsible solution that would reduce health care costs and expand access while protecting the dignity of all human life. The Republican plan, available at HealthCare.GOP.gov, would codify the Hyde Amendment and prohibit all authorized and appropriated federal funds from being used to pay for abortion. And under the Republican plan, any health plan that includes abortion coverage may not receive federal funds.

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Unhealthy Taxes

Health Care: The giant health care bill that just passed will cost far more than its authors estimated. Which means it'll also require massive new tax hikes on all Americans, rich, middle class and poor alike.

Congress has barely finished blowing the ink dry on its bill, but already its central fiscal premise is being convincingly challenged.

While Democrats have claimed the overhaul will cost $900 billion, the Congressional Budget Office puts the real cost at $1.1 trillion. The Associated Press, citing unnamed Democratic sources, comes up with $1.2 trillion; Republicans say it'll cost $1.3 trillion or more; others say it's more like $1.8 trillion.

In short, the bill will spend far more than now estimated over the next 10 years, and certainly more than $1 trillion — requiring at least that much in subsidies.

This means more taxes, of course. Oh, they say only the rich will be affected. And to be sure, the rich do get taxed in this bill — mainly with a new 5.4% levy on those earning more than $500,000. This will raise the new top rate from 39.6% to 45% — highest since the Carter years.

But remember last year's solemn pledge — actually, it was a promise — that the bottom 95% of taxpayers wouldn't see their taxes rise one dime during the new administration? Well, kiss that one goodbye. In fact, the 1,990-page House bill contains 13 separate tax hikes on Americans, hitting virtually every income class.

Among them: an Employer Mandate Excise Tax, an Individual Mandate Surtax, an Excise Tax on Medical Devices, a Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses, a tax on nonqualified Health Savings Account distributions and a cap on Flexible Savings Account spending.

There's even a Medicine Cabinet Tax. We are not making this up.

If you're shocked by all this, you shouldn't be. This is how Congress works these days: Promise one thing, deliver another, and count on constituents being too distracted and frightened to notice what exactly is going on.

It would be bad enough if this was just about taxes. But it isn't. GOP critics scoured the bill and found it contains the seeds of 111 new bureaucracies. They range from a new Retiree Reserve Trust Fund and Health Insurance Exchange to a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research and an Office of Indian Men's Health (one of 10 new entities just to handle Native American health care).

It even contains — get this — a "program of administrative simplification." This bill has Leviathan written all over it.

If the size and power of the insurance industry scares you — health insurers posted revenues of about $405 billion in 2007 — consider that Democrats want to control a $2.5 trillion chunk of the economy that dwarfs what insurers make. That's why Pelosi & Co. villainize that industry — so you'll let them take over.

If they do, you can be sure of one thing: They won't be as efficient or as responsive to individuals as private insurers are. And once in control, government will grow without bounds — endangering all our liberties, not to mention our economy.

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Republicans have a much better plan

by John Boehner

By now, the American people have made it crystal clear to Washington that what they want out of healthcare reform is a plan focused on reducing costs, not growing government.

Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Democratic leaders ignored Americans' concerns and wrote a bill that would implement a government takeover of healthcare that actually increases costs and adds to our already skyrocketing debt.

Speaker Pelosi's healthcare bill represents 1,990 pages of bureaucracy designed to centralize healthcare decision making in Washington, D.C., at the expense of patients and doctors. It will require tens of thousands of new federal employees.

It will create dozens of boards, bureaus and commissions in charge of coming up with new regulations and red tape that will inevitably make healthcare in this country more expensive.

Indeed, Speaker Pelosi's bill will lead to higher health insurance premiums and impose new burdens on taxpayers from all walks of life and the nation as a whole.

Even though President Obama declared to Congress that the cost of healthcare reform would not exceed $900 billion over the next decade, Speaker Pelosi's bill clocks in at more than $1 trillion -- and counting.

The final price tag is sure to be higher as we continue to discover the bill's hidden costs.

There is nothing secret, however, about the fact that Speaker Pelosi's healthcare bill would raise taxes on working families. This applies even to those making less than $250,000, despite President Obama's repeated pledges to the contrary.

Speaker Pelosi's healthcare bill also delivers a crushing blow to small businesses in the form of burdensome mandates that will kill the jobs needed to get our economy back on track.

If that weren't enough, Speaker Pelosi's healthcare bill also calls for drastic Medicare cuts, leaving seniors with reduced benefits and fewer choices.

This will especially hurt those on Medicare Advantage, a successful program that nearly one million Floridians rely on.

In short, Speaker Pelosi's 1,990-page government takeover of healthcare fails to fix what's broken and undermines what works.

There is a better way. Republicans unveiled a plan in June that makes healthcare more affordable and accessible at a price our nation can afford. These are four smart, fiscally responsible reforms Republicans would implement right now to lower costs:

• Let individuals and families purchase health insurance across state lines;

• Allow individuals and small businesses to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do;

• Give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower healthcare costs.

• End junk lawsuits that contribute to higher healthcare costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.

Visit http://healthcare.gop.gov to learn more about the Republican plan to lower healthcare costs.

We now have a choice.

We can work together to implement smart, fiscally responsible reforms that improve Americans' healthcare or we can recklessly pursue this partisan government takeover that creates far more problems than it solves.

It's clear where the American people stand. They're frustrated and fed up.

The trillion-dollar ``stimulus'' isn't working.

Unemployment is rising.

The debt to be paid by our kids and grandkids is exploding.

And now comes Speaker Pelosi's 1,990-page government takeover of healthcare.

We simply cannot afford another Washington program that overspends and underdelivers.

Republicans will continue to stand on principle and fight for our better solutions to make healthcare more affordable and accessible for American families.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, is the Republican minority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Republican Health Care Plan Offers Alternatives To Nationalized Health Insurance

The Republican Leadership in the House of Representatives is offering alternative legislation to H.R. 3962, Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s 1,990 page monstrosity that nationalizes health care, funds abortion and creates 111 new federal bureaucracies.

The Republican bill is 219 pages long. Read the Republican health care bill here: Republican substitute

The Republicans have issued the following summary of their legislation. We are reprinting the summary below:

Republicans’ Common-Sense Reforms Will LOWER HEALTH CARE COSTS

Americans want a step-by-step, common-sense approach to health care reform, not Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s costly, 1,990-page government takeover of our nation’s health care system. Republicans’ alternative solution focuses on lowering health care premiums for families and small businesses, increasing access to affordable, high-quality care, and promoting healthier lifestyles – without adding to the crushing debt Washington has  placed on our children and grandchildren. Following are the key elements of Republicans’ alternative plan:

• Lowering health care premiums. The GOP plan will lower health care premiums for American families and small businesses, addressing Americans’ number-one priority for health care reform.

• Establishing Universal Access Programs to guarantee access to affordable care for those with pre­existing conditions. The GOP plan creates Universal Access Programs that expand and reform high- risk pools and reinsurance programs to guarantee that all Americans, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses, have access to affordable care – while lowering costs for all Americans.

• Ending junk lawsuits. The GOP plan would help end costly junk lawsuits and curb defensive medicine by enacting medical liability reforms modeled after the successful state laws of California and Texas.

• Prevents insurers from unjustly cancelling a policy or instituting annual of lifetime spending caps. The GOP plan prohibits an insurer from cancelling a policy unless a person commits fraud or conceals material facts about a health condition. It also prohibits insurance plans from instituting annual or lifetime spending limits.

• Encouraging Small Business Health Plans. The GOP plan gives small businesses the power to pool together and offer health care at lower prices, just as corporations and labor unions do.

• Encouraging innovative state programs. The GOP plan rewards innovation by providing incentive payments to states that reduce premiums and the number of uninsured.

• Allowing Americans to buy insurance across state lines. The GOP plan allows Americans to shop for coverage from coast to coast by allowing Americans living in one state to purchase insurance in another.

• Codifying the Hyde Amendment. The GOP plan explicitly prohibits all federal funds, whether they are authorized funds or appropriated funds, from being used to pay for abortion.

• Promoting healthier lifestyles. The GOP plan promotes prevention & wellness by giving employers greater flexibility to financially reward employees who adopt healthier lifestyles.

• Enhancing Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). The GOP plan creates new incentives to save for future and long-term care needs by allowing qualified participants to use HSAs to pay premiums.

• Allowing dependents to remain on their parents’ policies. The GOP plan encourages coverage of young adults on their parents’ insurance through age 25.

Scorecard: Speaker Pelosi’s Government Takeover vs. GOP Common-Sense Solutions

	Speaker Pelosi’s Bill	GOP Alternative
Job Losses	Up to 5.5 million	0
Medicare Cuts	$500 billion	0
Tax Increases	$729.5 billion	0

TAKE ACTION:

1. Urge your Representative to vote YES on the Stupak/Pitts amendment and NO on the passage of PelosiCare, ObamaCare Or HarryCare in the Senate. No legislation must be passed that creates a socialized health care system in America.
2. Call the Capitol Hill Switchboard: 202-224-3121 and ask for your Representative’s office.
3. Please forward this to ten friends!
4. SUPPORT TVC’S IMPORTANT WORK!

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Additional Resources:
Stop The Harry-Kari Of Our Health Care System
Attend A Rally Against ObamaCare (Government-Run Health Care)
Republicans Decloak Health Care Plan
30-46 Million Uninsured? No!

Read more >>

PelosiCare Vote Looms This Weekend!

By TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty

Democrat leaders in the House are rushing through a vote on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s 1,990-page health care bill this Saturday. (Pelosi’s bill nationalizes health care and creates 111 new federal bureaucracies!)

Pelosi dropped her bill (H.R. 3962) just last week and expects legislators to have read, absorbed and understood the 1,990 pages of legalese in it.

Pro-Life legislators have zeroed in on sections in the bill that will be used to mandate abortion coverage as part of a government-run health care program.

Pelosi’s bill currently authorizes federal funding for abortion in the public option and subsidies for private insurance that includes abortion through affordability credits.

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TAKE ACTION:

1. Urge your Representative to vote YES on the Stupak/Pitts amendment and NO on the passage of PelosiCare, ObamaCare Or HarryCare in the Senate. No legislation must be passed that creates a socialized health care system in America.
2. Call the Capitol Hill Switchboard: 202-224-3121 and ask for your Representative’s office.
3. Please forward this to ten friends!
4. SUPPORT TVC’S IMPORTANT WORK!

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Democrat Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) is offering an amendment that will still permit abortion in the government-run program but would force providers to contract out administrative functions related to paying for elective abortions.

TVC Executive Andrea Lafferty delivered a box of petitions against socialized health care to Ellsworth's office on November 4 -- just days before the vote on Pelosi's plan to nationalize health care.

As pro-life New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith has stated: “Today we see yet another phony amendment designed to subsidize and expand the abortion industry cloaked in deceptive language. The new language makes clear that abortion will be included in the public option. Under the new arrangement, instead of an HHS employee issuing blood money checks for elective abortions, HHS will pay a contractor to issue checks for abortion on demand. It is a distinction without a difference. The public should not be fooled nor should any pro-life Democrat.”

According to Smith, the Ellsworth amendment “… amounts to the federal government taking out a ‘contract’ on the unborn. For the first time ever an elaborate government program will be created to pay contractors to pay abortionists for the dismemberment, chemical poisoning, and in utero starvation of innocent unborn children.”

Smith and other pro-life Members of Congress are pushing for a vote on the bipartisan Stupak/Pitts amendment that will permanently prohibit funding for abortions and plans that include abortion coverage.

TVC supports the Stupak/Pitts amendment to H.R. 3962, but still opposes passage of PelosiCare or any other liberal plan to nationalize our health care system.

TAKE ACTION:

1. Urge your Representative to vote YES on the Stupak/Pitts amendment and NO on the passage of PelosiCare, ObamaCare Or HarryCare in the Senate. No legislation must be passed that creates a socialized health care system in America.
2. Call the Capitol Hill Switchboard: 202-224-3121 and ask for your Representative’s office.
3. Please forward this to ten friends!
4. SUPPORT TVC’S IMPORTANT WORK!

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Additional Resources:
Stop The Harry-Kari Of Our Health Care System
Attend A Rally Against ObamaCare (Government-Run Health Care)
Republicans Decloak Health Care Plan
30-46 Million Uninsured? No!

Read more >>

PELOSI WORDPLAY: CALLS IT NEW NAME -- 'COMPETITIVE OPTION'...

Pelosi: Health care 'public option' needs new name

By MATT SEDENSKY

A government-sponsored "public option" for health care lives, though it may be more attractive to skeptics if it goes by a different moniker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday.

In an appearance at a Florida senior center, the Democratic leader referred to the so-called public option as "the consumer option." Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., appeared by Pelosi's side and used the term "competitive option."

Both suggested new terminology might get them past any lingering doubts among the public—or consumers or competitors.

"You'll hear everyone say, 'There's got to be a better name for this,'" Pelosi said. "When people think of the public option, public is being misrepresented, that this is being paid for with their public dollars."

Pelosi said that was a misconception and that any taxpayer money used to start up the public option would be repaid. She also said such an option would ultimately drive down government health care costs.

The speaker said the "competitive option" idea emerged during her closed-door roundtable at the Sunrise Senior Center with advocates of seniors and others who work with older populations. Wasserman Schultz suggested the term might be here to stay.

"I think she's going to go up and test-drive it when she goes back to Washington," Wasserman Schultz said. "It might stick."

As for having the votes to pass such a measure, both women said a public option would survive. They wouldn't get into numbers of congressional supporters, but said it was simply a matter of picking which type of public option to pursue.

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Obama’s ‘Transparency’ Behind Closed Doors?

By Andrea Lafferty

When President Obama was on the campaign trail last year, he repeatedly promised that his legislative actions would be transparent and open. In fact, he promised that legislation would be posted on the Internet for 72 hours before a vote. He also promised that legislative debates on health care reform would be telecast on C-SPAN.

What happened? During the past week, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and a gaggle of other "progressive" legislators have been in secret meetings on Capitol Hill to craft a health care bill that will nationalize our health care system – cost billions – and still leave millions underinsured.

Did Obama renege on his "transparency" pledge? It looks like it. He's reneged because he knows most Americans like their health insurance coverage and don't want to be drafted into a government-run system. They don't want to be punished by Big Brother if they don't get coverage. And, they are deeply concerned about the trillion dollar price tag of this socialist plan to destroy private health insurance in America.

Obama is acting more like a Soviet bureaucrat than a man who believes in the democratic process. His cronies are acting like Chicago union bosses.

House Republicans are outraged by all of the secrecy surrounding the Democrats' operating in secret to take over 1/6th of our economy. They've recently produced a video that very effectively expresses this concern. Take a look it and pass this blog along to your friends and associates.

And, demand that no health care proposal be passed that nationalizes health care or punishes Americans who don't want to purchase health insurance. No plan is better than a bad plan – and every Democrat proposal so far has been bad for Americans, bad for our economy and bad for the finest health system in the world.

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Additional Resources:
Secret No More: Obama's True Health Care Plan Unmasked
Democrat Health Bill Described As 'Incomprehensible'
New Light Shed On Tax-Funded Abortion Hidden In Health Care Bill (H.R. 3200)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky Shows Her Two Faces On Health Care Reform
President Obama Puts Lipstick On A Health Care Pig
Entire Health Care Bill, H.R. 3200 Is THE 'Death Panel'
Co-op/Public Option = Government-Run Health Care
Democrat Health Care Bill Creates 53 New Federal Bureaucracies

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The myth about the high profit margin of the health insurance companies

As the table above of Profit Margins by Industry shows (data here for the most recent quarter), the industry “Health Care Plans” ranks #86 by profit margin (profits/revenue) at 3.3%. Measured by profit margin, there are 85 industries more profitable than Health Care Plans (included here are healthcare plan providers as Cigna, Aetna, WellPoint, HealthSpring, etc.).

It is more profitable to brew beer than to provide health care.

Actually to operate a brewery is the most profitable business ever 25% profit margin!!! Dang!

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FACT CHECK: Health insurer profits not so fat

By CALVIN WOODWARD

Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo? Answer: They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry. In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making "immoral" and "obscene" returns while "the bodies pile up."

Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. This partly explains why the credit ratings of some of the largest insurers were downgraded to negative from stable heading into this year, as investors were warned of a stagnant if not shrinking market for private plans.

Insurers are an expedient target for leaders who want a government-run plan in the marketplace. Such a public option would force private insurers to trim profits and restrain premiums to compete, the argument goes. This would "keep insurance companies honest," says President Barack Obama.

The debate is loaded with intimations that insurers are less than straight, when they are not flatly accused of malfeasance.

They may not have helped their case by commissioning a report that looked primarily at the elements of health care legislation that might drive consumer costs up while ignoring elements aimed at bringing costs down. Few in the debate seem interested in a true balance sheet.

But in pillorying insurers over profits, the critics are on shaky ground. A look at some claims, and the numbers:

THE CLAIMS

_"I'm very pleased that (Democratic leaders) will be talking, too, about the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry and how those profits have increased in the Bush years." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also welcomed the attention being drawn to insurers'"obscene profits."

_"Keeping the status quo may be what the insurance industry wants their premiums have more than doubled in the last decade and their profits have skyrocketed." Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, member of the Democratic leadership.

_"Health insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up as long as their profits are safe." A MoveOn.org ad.

THE NUMBERS:

Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th on the Fortune 500 list of top industries. As is typical, other health sectors did much better - drugs and medical products and services were both in the top 10.

The railroads brought in a 12.6 percent profit margin. Leading the list: network and other communications equipment, at 20.4 percent.

HealthSpring, the best performer in the health insurance industry, posted 5.4 percent. That's a less profitable margin than was achieved by the makers of Tupperware, Clorox bleach and Molson and Coors beers.

The star among the health insurance companies did, however, nose out Jack in the Box restaurants, which only achieved a 4 percent margin.

UnitedHealth Group, reporting third quarter results last week, saw fortunes improve. It managed a 5 percent profit margin on an 8 percent growth in revenue.

Van Hollen is right that premiums have more than doubled in a decade, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study that found a 131 percent increase.

But were the Bush years golden ones for health insurers?

Not judging by profit margins, profit growth or returns to shareholders. The industry's overall profits grew only 8.8 percent from 2003 to 2008, and its margins year to year, from 2005 forward, never cracked 8 percent.

The latest annual profit margins of a selection of products, services and industries: Tupperware Brands, 7.5 percent; Yahoo, 5.9 percent; Hershey, 6.1 percent; Clorox, 8.7 percent; Molson Coors Brewing, 8.1 percent; construction and farm machinery, 5 percent; Yum Brands (think KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), 8.5 percent.

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