Archive for March 21st, 2010
How Does The Democratic Bill Save Money? By Taking The Cleaver To Medicare
(This guest post appeared at the Congressman’s website)
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA): “We strengthen Medicare.”
GOP Leader Response: The Democrats’ government takeover of health care cuts more than half-a-trillion dollars from Medicare, including more than $200 billion from Medicare Advantage, which serves nearly 11 million seniors. Various analyses have found – and Democratic lawmakers have stated – these drastic cuts would lead to higher out-of-pocket costs, reduced benefits and fewer health care choices for our seniors.
Dems’ Medicare Cuts By The Numbers:
- $528.5 billion – Total cuts to Medicare included in the bill,
- $206 billion – Total cuts to Medicare Advantage plans in the Senate and reconciliation measures-the latest reconciliation bill (H.R. 4872) adds another $66.1 billion in cuts to the Senate-passed measure.
- $13.3 billion – Amount of future, yet-to-be-determined Medicare cuts chosen by an unelected federal board.
- $65.7 billion – Amount of money taken from seniors in the form of higher premiums and additional cuts to Medicare beneficiaries and providers.
Key Quotes
- Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf: Medicare cuts could “reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.” (Letter, 12/19/09)
- Associated Press: “Democrats are pushing for Medicare cuts on a scale not seen in years to underwrite health care for all. Many seniors now covered under the program don’t like that one bit.” (7/30/09)
- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL): “Some of our critics on the other side of the aisle have said, ‘you know, they’re [Democrats] going to cut hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicare.’ And the simple answer is, yes.” (Floor Remarks, 3/4/10)
- Politifact: “[E]xperts told us it’s conceivable or even likely that those financial changes could lead to reduced benefits, particularly for people in the Advantage program. From that perspective, it’s a stretch for Obama say that Medicare patients won’t see changes in their plans as a result.” (8/14/09)
Better Solutions:
- The Republican health care bill implements common-sense reforms to lower premiums for families and small businesses by up to 10 percent without cutting Medicare.
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Futures Markets Selling Off As Healthcare Vote Draws Near
Here’s the market’s flash verdict (maybe) on healthcare reform.
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Romney Shill Tries To Explain How Romneycare Is Not The Same As Obamacare, But Fails Hilariously
Yesterday we reminded everyone that there’d be no such thing as Obamcare if Mitt Romney had not established universal health insurance in Massachusetts, otherwise known as Romneycare.
Now, it’s no surprise that Mitt Romney wants to run for President in 2012, and there’s no doubt that his GOP foes will seek to use Obamacare as a noose to tie around Romney’s neck.
So already he has his allies out there spinning on his behalf. Brad Jones (R), the Massachusetts House minority leader, writes in the DailyNews that Romneycare is not Obamacare.
How not? Well he lists a couple of things about taxes, Medicare, and Medicaid, and then says:
The final big difference is perhaps most important of all: Ours is a state plan, not a federal plan imposed on the entire country.
We’ve made mistakes. Massachusetts mandates which medical coverage must be included in each insurance policy, including such things as an unlimited number of in vitro fertilization treatments. That inflates costs for everyone. And Massachusetts applies a $295 annual fee on employers for each uninsured employee, which has hurt the business climate in our state. Then-Gov. Mitt Romney‘s objection to both these measures was overridden by Democrats in the legislature.
Regrettably, Obamacare repeats these design errors.
So, basically, the difference comes down to a tautology (State vs. Federal), so big duh on that. And then he notes a couple of ticky tacky design errors about fees and the number of in vitro fertilization treatments.
In otherwords: Romneycare is Obamacare. Don’t worry Mitt, you’ve got at least another year and a half to figure out an explanation!
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You Get What You Pay For?
There is the old adage that, as lawyers go, you get what you pay for. And it follows, therefore, that criminal defendants provided with a free attorney might not get the vigorous defense to which they are constitutionally entitled.
This week, New York’s highest court will hear a case that argues the public defender system is broken. It started with a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of a woman whose public defender convinced her to plead guilty to a felony when what she’d done — attempt to bring her imprisoned boyfriend a small amount of marijuana — was later found not to be a felony at all.
The woman’s case eventually made it to the hands of a team at Paul Weiss, who wondered how many cases there were like the woman’s.
The New York Times has a profile of the woman Kimberly Hurell-Harring and earlier this week ran a thorough article of the New York public defender system and what this case could be mean to it.
Public defenders, of course, are far from all bad — many, in fact, are vey very good. The public defenders we know are amazingly smart and dedicated and were certainly not forced to do the work because they didn’t have other options. They just believe in the right to counsel and spend their lives making sure it happens.
But even the best of the defenders are overworked, with enormous caseloads. There is always a movement by politicians to limit the number of cases they can handle at any one time, but no one has yet come up with a plan for where the extra cases will go exactly.
The New York Court of Appeals is not deciding the case on the merits, but instead whether the arguments raised by the ACLU can be decided by a court. But, for the week at least, the eyes of many states will be on New York’s public defender system.
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See Also:
- Deferred Associates Loving The Public Interest Life Enough To Stay?
- Harvard Starts Venture Fund For Public Service
- If You Are Deferred And In The Class Of 2010, Ready Your Resume
Procedural Vote Passes: 224-206
Updates: A procedural vote allowing the bill to go to general vote passed easily. Almost there…
Original post:It’s begun folks! Congress is in chamber debating healthcare reform.
Passage odds on InTrade are over 95%.
On MSNBC, Pat Buchanan called it a done deal.
There’s chatter that a final deal with the anti-abortion Democrats is in the works. (Update: According to reports there’s still no deal on this front)
The GOP’s opening pitcher is boy wonder congressman Paul Ryan, who is talking about the nonsensical CBO score and the deficit.
There will be several procedural votes today. A final vote may come sometime around midnight.
If you’re not near a TV, you can watch the debate on C-SPAN here.
Update: According to The Hill, the Democrats are definitely still short!
2:57: The White House just blasted out the following to liberal activists. Probably not worth reading into one wary or another
As today’s historic healthcare vote is near, I ask that you do not let up and continue pushing.
Anything you can do in these final hours to promote and publicly call for support is much appreciated and timely.
Do not let up – do not quit.
Keep everyone in positive thoughts – educate your members – make your voices heard.
We are on the verge of history – but it is just the verge – it has not happened yet.
3:28: Stupak to hold press conference at 4:00 PM announcing his vote. The presumption is that it’s a “YES” but there’s nothing official on that.
3:31: For what it’s worth, here’s how we’d characterize the debate right now. The Republicans have been trying to hammer The Democrats on various points: earmarks, rules, the deficit, etc. Democrats are ignoring the claims, and sticking to rhetoric, not engaging the critics.
3:45: Evidently Stupak will announce that he’s a “YES.” POLITICO explains what’s about to go down.
4:00: The Stupak press conference is set to begin any second now.
4:05: Stupak is out on the podium. Marc Ambinder has a text of The President’s executive order which will limit abortion funding.
4:07: Stupak: “We have an agreement.”
4:11: If you think there’s still a chance this could fail, you can make 33x your money over at InTrade, where the odds have hit 97%.
4:22: Stupak Q&A: “We’re well past 216″
6:17: A final-final vote isn’t expected until late tonight, but nothing that’s happened this evening suggests the vote will be suspenseful.
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