Then you will know

Instead of having an actual government agency run it, they just require the “public option” be adopted by all insurance companies. In essence, it makes insurance companies quasi-government agencies.

Heritage.org are your friends. Read ‘em all, but this is a good summary of the so-called “moderate” Senate bill (it’s only moderate in comparison to the far-left-wing excrescence that is the House bill). Excerpt:

Cause many Americans to lose their current health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that up to 10 million Americans would no longer be covered by their employers. Given the bill’s incentives for employers to discontinue job-based coverage, independent analysts expect the loss of employer-based coverage to be much higher.

Bend the cost curve up. According to independent analysts and government actuaries, the bill would substantially increase total health care spending instead of reducing it as promised. Richard Foster, Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), recently judged the projected savings from the Medicare updates as “doubtful” and estimated that the total national spending on health care would increase.

Impose many new taxes on middle-class Americans. The Senate bill contains over a dozen new taxes, including a 40 percent excise tax on high-priced health plans and special fees and taxes on insurance, drugs, medical devices, and anyone who violates the new mandates.

Reduce many seniors’ access to Medicare benefits and services. The bill would reduce Medicare payments by an estimated $493 billion over 10 years, including payment reductions for Medicare Advantage, hospital care, home health care, and nursing homes.

Provide federal funding for abortion. Contrary to the President’s clear statement to Congress and the nation on health care reform, the Senate bill would provide funding for abortion. The House would prohibit using taxpayers’ dollars to finance abortion, but a similar amendment to the Senate bill was tabled without even a floor vote.

You can play conservatives in the mist somewhere else.

under the exchange, every insurance plan sold must be approved by the process set up, controlled and run by the Secretary of HHS.

The Secretary would control every aspect of every insurance plan.

I’ve never seen the Sen. bill, but the House bill is available online.

There are provisions for “community organizers” (ACORN?) to enter your house w/out a warrant to see that your children are vaccinated and in addition see if you have guns and where they are.

It includes extensive directions on how to handle people who don’t speak English (and they say it isn’t for illegals).

Pages exist on how to handle “end of life” decisions, just in case you don’t think death panels exist.

A constant refrain is limiting access to care as people age (they say they will cut $500 billion from Medicare).

You HAVE to buy gov’t-approved ins., and if your co.’s ins. doesn’t match, you have to give it up.

A million agencies, committees, advisory boards, bureaus, and just endless bureaucrats inform the leg., all of whom will make their own regulations and rules.

Those are a few reasons–the House Bill is 1710 pages long. No one but me has ever read all of it. The Sen. bill is over 2200 pages. Those reasons alone are reason to oppose both. Just think of the DMV as your dr.’s office.

If the House and Sen. go for reconciliation, I think you could see the storming of the Bastille in DC.

…is that it centralizes treatment in an all-powerful bureaucratic agency with the power to veto protocols on the basis of cost effectiveness. This would be determined by the age of the patient and other factors. It would punish physicians who depart from these directives, thus imposing its own will on patients and physicians. These would include life and death decisions–which is why these agencies are properly called death panels. To my mind this is the most horrendous aspect of the bill, apart from its unconstitutional mandates and its taking-over of a major portion of the economy–putting us well on the way to a socialist nanny state in which every aspect of our existence would be directed from above. Talk about loss of freedom!

It is an utterly unnecessary usurpation of free choice. It is a grotesque overreaching by this administration and the sponsors of this bill.

What is necessary is a true Free Market solution rather than the Crony Capitalism model under which we now suffer. This bill is the exact opposite of a Free Market solution.

State Legislatures and Governors are unwilling or unable to allow interstate competition in the markets and this Obamanation does nothing to address that issue. The result is/will be gross distortions in the pricing of everything about Health Care and Health Insurance.

The individual mandate is a huge constitutional reason to oppose this bill. The federal government does not have the right to force all people to be active consumers in a private market simply because we’re mortal and have bodies. This is not like auto insurance. Even many on the left get it: the individual mandate essentially forces everyone to pay into a mostly for-profit cartel, rewarding the very institutions they supposedly hate. (They would tend to be OK with it if there was a public option, however – I think it’s still economic puppeteering, and if it’s legal a government mandate that everyone work to “solve” unemployment would also be legal). And of course it prevents a basic market mechanism from working – if the product has no value, forcing all people to buy it will hardly improve it.

Another pragmatic reason for opposition is that the bill does not achieve the three most basic things that will improve the system: 1) establish a real open, non-monopolistic market anyone can buy into (you can only participate in the “exchange” if you don’t have a corporate/union plan offered) and 2) let people shop nationally rather than having the law enforce state restriction, 3) replace the current tax-break structure which favors only large employers and unions with an individual tax break, possibly refundable.

The Obamacare monstrosity is a heinous, heavy-handed example of the worst possible health “reform” and none of the best ideas out there. It’s a giveaway to crony capitalism and deceitful bureaucratic opportunists – as always, at the expense of the individual’s liberty and cash.

What You Don’t Know About The Budget Conference Report:

http://tinyurl.com/y8fpa33

What You Don’t Know About The Budget Conference Report:

http://tinyurl.com/y8fpa33

a White House planted story to begin to get the liberals to accept that it’s over.

And the only abortion the drones will ever find repugnant is the murder of Obamacare before the Statist could deliver the monstrosity.

It will never be born.

They keep threatening to reconcile, but for how long was Botox grinning at the cameras saying “We’re really close”, or “We’ll DEFINITELY get this done by the SOTU”. Nancy might continue to say they’ll go reconciliation, but who believes her anymore? The Lost President? TOTUS? I know for a fact I don’t.

what happened.

go skiing for a week.

as is. If they make any changes to the Senate bill, it must go back to the Senate where it will face a full cloture vote.

thanx for the clear explanation of this messy situation. Think you
have it absolutely correct.

That helped clear some things up.

I think I was getting caught up with that sense of inevitability the progressives are trying to create regarding this whole thing.

This and Dan’s post helps put things in perspective with reality.

…and I start looking for Dan’s byline…..

Dan’s insights go only so far. The window is still open for this thing…We’re not dealing with people who think realistically about politics. They actually think passage of the bill will improve their election prospects.

Defensive medicine. There is a reason the number of e.g. CT scans ordered has skyrocketed.

There is also the obesity epidemic and taking poor care of one’s self.

how what you are saying is supposed to work? How are medical providers supposed to judge an individuals ability to pay prior to providing treatment. If you roll in the hospital mid heart-attack, and need an emergency open-heart surgery, what exactly is a doctor supposed to do? Deny it becasue you forgot your insurance card?

I agree that third-party payments have distorted the marketplace for SOME medical procedures that are predictable and comparable. But for a lot of health care, free market principles don’t work because its not a logically functioning market.

It simply does not work, and if they try it they will be in front of SCOTUS really quick.

The US Supreme Court is unlikely to get involved in the interpretation of Senate rules.

For example, if Obama-care passes the Senate on a “budget reconciliation” vote of 51 to 50 (with Joe Biden breaking the tie) and someone sues, saying that there are elements in that legislation that have no significant budgetary impact, the US Supreme Court is likely to say, “This court does not rule on the interpretation of Senate Rules. The Constitution gives the US Senate the power to make its own rules and be the judge of its own proceedings.”

This basically means, as far as the US Supreme Court is concerned, a majority of the US Senate can do whatever it wants, so long as it is not violating a provision of the US Constitution. For example, the US Senate can not override a Presidential Veto by a majority vote. It can, however, ignore it’s own standing rules at any time.

US Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd violated the Standing Rules of the Senate on 4 different occasions from 1977 to 1987. The result is that Senate procedure was changed by the Byrd precedents, even though the Standing Rules of the Senate were unchanged.

The most interesting example of this was in March 1980 when Byrd wanted the Senate to consider Carter’s nomination of Robert White as ambassador to El Salvador.

From The Constitional Option To Change Senate Rules and Procedures By Majority Vote by Martin Gold and Dimple Gupta

Page 61-63

c) A Precedent Governing Consideration of Nominations (1980)

On March 5, 1980, Byrd offered a motion:

Mr. President, I move the Senate go into executive session to consider the first nomination on the Executive Calendar.

Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) raised a point of order against the motion:

The Senator can move to go into executive session but he cannot under the rules specify what we shall consider. The Senate determines its order of business in executive session only after going into executive session. It is not in order to determine the order of executive business while in legislative session.

The Presiding Officer immediately sustained Helms’s point of order:

Under the rule, rule XXII, paragraph 1, and precedents thereunder, only a motion to go into executive session is in order.

Byrd appealed the ruling, arguing that there was no logical reason for the Senate to distinguish between a motion to proceed to the first nomination and a motion to proceed to the first treaty. Senator James McClure (R-ID) protested that the proper method for altering Senate procedure was by proposing “amendments of the rules,” “not simply by changing the rules by majority vote to meet a particular situation,” and urged the Senate to affirm the ruling of the Chair.

That same day, the Senate rejected the ruling of the Chair by 38-54, almost completely on party lines. Due to Byrd’s new precedent, motions to proceed to nominations are no longer debatable.

research on constiutional law. There is nothing in the constituion about “reconcilliaton” or filibusters, or anything related to this discussion.

The only thing the constitution says is that the Senate shall make their own rules on how to function. The SCOUTS has no jurisdiction on how the Senate legislates, only whether laws that it passses are constitutional.

research on constiutional law. There is nothing in the constituion about “reconcilliaton” or filibusters, or anything related to this discussion.

The only thing the constitution says is that the Senate shall make their own rules on how to function. The SCOUTS has no jurisdiction on how the Senate legislates, only whether laws that it passses are constitutional.