If you’re wondering where health care dollars go in this country, the invaluable Phil Klein reminds us:

Raymond Raad, a resident in psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and co-author of a new Cato study, presented evidence showing that the United States leads the world in the development of drugs, medical devices, and other advanced treatments. For instance, between 1969 and 2008, 57 of the 97 Nobel Prizes in medicine and physiology — or nearly 60 percent — were awarded to people who did their research in the U.S., and nine of the top 10 medical innovations between 1975 and 2000 were developed here. But … once these products are developed in the U.S., they become widely available and improve health care outcomes around the world.

Read the whole thing, and remember: that’s the system the Democrats are trying to tear down and replace with one more like the European countries that depend almost as heavily on American medical and pharmaceutical innovations as they do on American military protection. In both cases, the arguments for the superiority of a European model that is unsustainable on its own depend on somebody else assuming the role of America. And nobody’s volunteering for the job.

From the diaries, by Erick. Call 202-224-3121 right now.

People. Today should be a busy day since the Statists have once again scheduled a cowardly, nightime, weekend vote on healthcare.

Contact your Senators today urging them to vote ‘No’ tomorrow night to even begin debate. We can kill this thing tomorrow night if they can’t get 60 votes.

I just sent this to Senator Webb in Virginia, who being a veteran who fought for liberty and freedom I hope would still be open minded about this bill.

Senator Webb,

I am writing you to encourage you to vote ‘No’ on the Senate health care coming up for debate tomorrow night.

Vote ‘No’ so debate cannot proceed.

Vote ‘No’ to end debate should debate proceed.

Vote ‘No’ on the bill should it ever come up for a final vote.

You see, this bill is simply un-Constitutional. Nowhere in the founding document does it empower Congress to mandate the free (for now) citizens of this great country to purchase a product or service. Not the Commerce Clause. Not the ‘general welfare’ language. Nothing.

Not.A.Word.

I would encourage you and the junior Senator from our great Commonwealth to look back in time to 2 1/2 weeks ago, where the people of this great state overwhelmingly voted against the leftist policies of the junior Senator when he was Governor, and Gov. Kaine, and President Obama. The people of this country want MORE freedom not less. MORE opportunity not less and this health care bill robs the people who are the engine of this economy their ability and desire and means to produce and grow our economy. People want to be free and independent. You, of all people being a decorated veteran, should know this since you bravely fought for the very freedoms and liberties this bill would take away.

Resist the urge to vote with your leftist colleagues. Vote with the people you represent. Vote to kill this bill.

The people will not forget a ‘Yes’ vote in 2012.

Thank you.
Stephen Halsey

There is a study out today that is damaging to the Democrats efforts to pass health care in the Senate.

On Saturday, when constituents cannot contact their Senators’ offices because they’ll be closed, the United States Senate will vote on a cloture motion to debate the health care legislation.

This is important — a vote in favor of cloture on the motion to proceed (a parliamentary issue) is, in effect, a vote for the health care legislation. Why? Because Harry Reid has enough votes to pass the health care legislation by a simple majority, but he does not have the 60 votes necessary to proceed to debate, any Senator voting for cloture is voting for the health care plan.

Roll Call reports that according to the Congressional Research Service, “[a] study of Senate voting patterns shows the chamber has approved more than 97 percent of all bills subject to a cloture motion to begin debate — a finding that could undercut Democratic efforts to paint a key health care vote on Saturday as procedural.”

In fact, “since 1999 the Senate has approved 97.6 percent of all bills when lawmakers first voted to begin debate.”

Some Senators, like Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, want the health care legislation to pass, but know politically she would lose if she voted for it. So unless pressure is brought to bear on her and others, she may vote “yes” on cloture for the motion to proceed and then try to hide behind a no vote later.

We cannot let that happen. Call your two Senators all day today and demand they vote no on the motion to proceed. The phone number to call is 202-224-3121.

It is now the House of Representatives’ turn to further enable Obamacare. Later today, the House will vote on a $210 billion “doc fix” that is not paid for and would dramatically add to the deficit. Similar legislation was blocked in the Senate by a vote of 47 to 53 after Redstate readers took to the phones to stop it. 13 Democrats joined with all Republicans in standing with taxpayers.

Here is a refresher. The bill is a payoff to a powerful lobbying group—a $210 billion package for the American Medical Association. The funding is not offset and would dramatically increase the deficit. Democrats are betting that the bill will prove politically impossible for most Congressmen, including Republicans, to oppose as it addresses the number one priority for most doctors over the years—the fact that Medicare doesn’t reimburse them enough. By considering the “doc fix” apart from overall healthcare reform, Democrats remove a major cost to that package. As Senator McConnell said when the bill was before the Senate, “This is so transparent. They’re taking this issue out of health care, suggesting that we spend a quarter of a trillion dollars, not pay for it, so that they can then argue, the very next week potentially, that this trillion-dollar health care bill is paid for.”

The strategy is simple. Payoff the docs, make your bill appear to cost less, and force Republicans to choose between their doctors and the fiscal health of the nation.

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Via Instapundit, HHS Secretary Sebelius is trying to do some damage control on the recent ’suggestion’ that women stop getting routine mammograms before they’re 50:

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, meanwhile, told women to ignore the new advisory recommendations for now.

“The U.S. Preventive Task Force is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations. They do not set federal policy and they don’t determine what services are covered by the federal government,” said Sebelius in a written statement.

“Our policies remain unchanged,” she said of the federal government. ” Indeed, I would be very surprised if any private insurance company changed its mammography coverage decisions as a result of this action.”

A statement that is very comforting… until you remember that the Democratic party’s goal is to establish governmental control over the health care insurance industry.  Who here thinks that an insurance company already grimly aware that they exist on governmental sufferance might feel the need to ‘change its mammography coverage decisions’ to reflect current state medical policy?  Particularly if there are consequences for not being in compliance with all the laws, regulations, rulings, and opinions that bureaucracies generate more or less automatically.  And if the government doesn’t like the idea that people are going to instinctively assume that said bureaucracy is willing to ‘encourage’ ostensibly-private entities to follow bureaucratic dictates, then perhaps the government might like to consider reining in its bureaucrats.  As publicly as it can manage.

I’ll end by noting that this is all an inevitable by-product of the health care rationing bill; it is, in fact, why I call it that.  More people covered, better service, lower costs: in the best-case scenario, pick any two.  In the scenario that we’re going to get, if this passes?  We’ll get the first one, and the current ruling party will muck up the second while flagrantly ignoring the third.  That’s because the first one is easy, and can be done by lazy people.  The other two require work to accomplish.

Moe Lane

PS: Ed Morrissey reports that there are no oncologists on the task force that made the ‘recommendations.’  I really, really hope that this isn’t actually true.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

There is still much to learn about the Senate health care plan, but we know a few things already.

The Senate bill does not have a price tag. The Democrats are touting a cost of $849 billion, but that number is a fabrication.

From Please click here for the rest of the post.Roll Call we learn that “one Senate Democratic leadership staffer acknowledged that the cost estimate did not even represent an official preliminary score from the CBO but was a representation of “preliminary feedback” that Reid has gotten from the nonpartisan Congressional agency.”

In other words, we do not know how much it will actually cost.

We also know that the Senate has severely weakened the pro-life language of the legislation. It comes no where close to the Stupak amendment language.

We also know that the legislation purports to cut the deficit. How? By massive and painful tax increases, including raising the payroll tax on medicare.

Finally, we know that now some Democrats are leaning against a vote on the “motion to proceed.” Any Senator who votes for the motion to proceed is, in effect, voting for the legislation. Harry Reid needs all sixty of the Democrats.

This is significant:

Senate Democrats have abandoned plans to use a fast-track parliamentary strategy to avert a threatened Republican filibuster and pass a health care overhaul — a signal that they are considering major policy concessions to moderates.

The most significant of these could be restructuring or dropping altogether a proposed

government-run insurance plan — the so-called public option — that many liberals consider a necessary part of the overhaul.

One possible fallback is a proposal by Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., to create a government-sanctioned insurance plan that would be available only in states deemed to lack affordable private insurance plans. Under Carper’s plan, the insurance plan would be structured as a private nonprofit entity, run by a board appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate…

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That was Rep. Stupak’s (DEMOCRAT) blunt response to David Axelrod’s assertion that the pro-life language currently in the health care rationing bill would be ‘adjusted.’ Stupak’s having none of it:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) pledged on Tuesday morning to defeat healthcare reform legislation if his abortion amendment is taken out, saying 10 to 20 anti-abortion-rights Democrats would vote against a bill with weaker language.

“They’re not going to take it out,” Stupak said on “Fox and Friends,” referring to Senate Democrats. “If they do, healthcare will not move forward.”

See Hot Air for the video. Stupak claims to have more than enough votes to shut down any final version that removes his amendment, which is both false and true. It’s false because the closeness of the original vote reflected a lot of horse-trading on the individual Member of Congress level; theoretically, the Speaker of the House could simply pressure the Democrats who got to vote ‘no’ last time to vote ‘yes’ this time.  It’s true because one of the reasons that they were able to get a final vote was because while the Stupak amendment was scored by NRLC, the final bill was not.  Strip out Stupak, and a vote for health care rationing becomes a vote for federal funding of abortions.  The NRLC pretty much cannot not score that appropriately.

I close with this observation: this situation for the Democrats is pretty much entirely due to the decision by House Republicans to oppose the health care rationing bill en masse.  They’re doing that because the Congressional Democratic leadership decided to shut out everybody except themselves and various outside lobbyists when it came time to put this monstrosity of a bill together.  And because the President didn’t intervene when it became clear that the process was disrupting his narrative, we’re now at the point where the Democratic party has to decide which side of the abortion debate is safer to infuriate.

But don’t feel bad for them: after all, they didn’t learn a blessed thing from their mistakes over the ’stimulus’ and cap-and-trade.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Under the unique rules of the United States Senate, a member of the body may insist legislation actually be read before a vote is cast on the legislation.

After threatening to do that, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has now confirmed the health care bill must be read. Republicans will also try to filibuster the health care legislation. The Democrats will need 60 votes to proceed, which they will try to get sometime around Friday.

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Ben Nelson (D-NE), and Bill Nelson (D-FL) are key votes on this. If those three Democrats vote to end the filibuster, they are, in effect, voting for passage of the health care legislation — voting to end the filibuster and against final passage is a clever way Democrats up for re-election have found to pass bills they love, but know they cannot support.

They ensure the legislation has enough votes to pass by a simple majority and then vote to end the filibuster, which requires a super majority. Then these erstwhile Democrats vote against the legislation’s actual passage knowing it will pass even if they vote no.

I suspect voters will remember these tricks next year and punish them.

By almost 300 billion.

CMS: House health bill will hike costs $289B

The House-approved healthcare overhaul would raise the costs of healthcare by $289 billion over the next 10 years, according to an analysis by the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

This would be infuriating, if I had taken seriously in the first place the notion that an interventionist, intrusive government program was capable of saving the taxpayer money.

Moe Lane

PS: For extra points, watch as the Democrats suddenly decide that CMS must be ignored.  As opposed to, say, 2004.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

From the diaries by Erick

As you well know, Speaker Pelosi’s version of President Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul passed the House by a razor thin margin of 220-215 late Saturday night.  Seldom have more Americans been more aware of a piece of legislation passing Congress, as news of this historical occasion filled newspapers, blogs, and email and twitter accounts from coast-to-coast over the weekend.  Ironically, final passage was delivered largely by pro-life Democrats, who earlier in the evening got their wish on an up-or-down vote on an amendment that would prohibit federal funds from being used to pay for abortions or to pay part of the cost of any healthcare plan that covered abortions.  The amendment passed easily, by a vote of 240-194.

This vote was the culmination of six straight months – and many would argue years or decades – of negotiations, maneuvers, and secret deals.  Keep in mind, dear reader, that we are talking about a dream come true for most Democrats, and all liberal Democrats.  The House of Representatives actually passed fundamental and even transformational reform of the American healthcare system.  Never mind that H.R. 3962 creates at least 111 new federal boards, commissions, and bureaucracies, or that it raises taxes by $766 billion over 10 years, or represents a federal government takeover of 1/6th of the American economy – these are all considered good things by the Democrat leadership and most rank-and-file Democrat members.  Even better news for liberals, House passage of this bill comes at a time when Democrats fully control the U.S. Senate and have a White House unalterably committed to the same goal.  One would expect House Democrats and liberal sympathizers to be jubilant on their accomplishment. What could possibly stop them from signing healthcare reform into law in mere weeks?

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What do Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the September 11th terrorist attacks, and uninsured 20 year olds have in common?

In Barack Obama’s America, they both go to jail — but the terrorist has to be convicted first.

Consider this an open thread.

I fiddled with cutting down this video…

…of Speaker Pelosi admitting that she’s fine with sending people who don’t want to be insured to jail (H/T: Infidels are Cool); but I’m not all that happy with the results.  Which is interesting, because I’m also not happy with the notion of throwing poor people into jail just because Speaker Pelosi wanted to raid taxpayer wallets and pocketbooks for the benefit of the Democratic Party’s various special interest groups.

Again.

See also Hot Air, AoSHQ - and probably everybody else soon enough.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Watch with some amusement as Missouri Secretary of State (and Senate hopeful) Robin Carnahan (D) refuses to answer two simple questions:

• Does she support the House’s health care rationing bill?

and

• What is her opinion on the Stupak amendment?

(See also: The Conservatives.com)

While Carnahan’s response to the first question might be at least considered a standard attempt at mealy-mouthing, and thus not overly outrageous; I cannot imagine how any progressive watching that could be pleased at her ‘answer’ to the second question. Every credible side in the health care dispute concedes that the Stupak amendment is relevant to the discussion, and people are keeping track of who has what opinion of it. Robin Carnahan’s going to have to choose a side.

Moe Lane

PS: What exactly did the Carnahan family do in Missouri to justify their quasi-hereditary political status in that state? Save St. Louis from a rampaging Mississippi River monster?

*See here and here for the reference.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Editor’s Note: I’ve taken out the top of this post, which responded to Ramesh Ponnuru’s post about my NRLC criticisms. I’ve been saying we should not let this become a debate on abortion or other single issues and therefore don’t think I can justify in my mind continuing that conversation. But, the larger point on the “Stupak Minimum” is worth keeping as it plays to our larger goal — defeat of the health care legislation.

As I wrote the other day,

I think the Stupak Amendment was an instance of the pro-life community not seeing the forest for the trees and it should have been opposed. But I am willing to admit I could be wrong. What I do know is that the House Republican Leadership has been very, very good at combating the Democrats’ legislative agenda. That House GOP Leadership encouraged a vote for Stupak should not be second guessed lightly. It is a lot easier for me to Monday morning quarterback the vote than it was for these men and women on the front lines to make a decision.

I am not going to second guess them and, in fact, as I wrote this morning, I suspect there will be pro-life language in the final bill, but weak enough for pro-choice votes. After all, the Democrats will throw zealous abortion advocates under the bus as fast as lightening if the end result is a federal take over of 1/6th the American economy.

It may, in fact, turn out that Stupak is the undoing of the health care bill. I don’t know and, again, won’t second guess the House GOP Leadership, which firmly believes it made the right call. Our presumption going forward should be that they made the right call, regardless of our personal opinions.

More importantly, what I would suggest is that conservatives not turn the health care fight into a fight over abortion tactics and policy. The bill is two thousand freedom sucking pages of crap and is, with or without Stupak, very clearly not conducive to a culture of life. Abortion is only one aspect.

Let me also suggest one strategy consistent with what I wrote this morning:

After the GOP is done demanding things come out, not be ameliorated or added, there will be no bill left that the left can support. Additionally, the GOP must orchestrate a strategy to put Democrats up for election in difficult positions — offering up amendments that the Democrats cannot say no to, but that take away votes from the overall legislation once agreed to.

The GOP and outside interest groups should now agitate for the “Stupak Minimum,” i.e. the Stupak amendment language must be the baseline for pro-life language in the health care legislation. Anything less should be opposed.

The Democrats will never go for it. But above all else, we must remember the strategy must be to kill the bill, not improve it.

The Democrats have a number of members being investigated for corruption. The FBI is looking into a few. William Jefferson (D-LA) is going to jail. The House Democratic Leadership is blocking other investigations.

Both Murtha and Rangel have issues. But Lynn Woolsey, Chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, that congressional body that takes pride in the Progressive Movement’s eugenics experiments and efforts to sterilize black women and the mentally disabled back at the start of the twentieth century, does not want Charlie Rangel and Jack Murtha investigated.

Instead, Lynn Woolsey — a friend of Speaker Pelosi’s — wants Catholic Bishops investigated.

The role the bishops played in the pushing the Stupak amendment, which unfairly restricts access for low-income women to insurance coverage for abortions, was more than mere advocacy.

They seemed to dictate the finer points of the amendment, and managed to bully members of Congress to vote for added restrictions on a perfectly legal surgical procedure.

And this political effort was subsidized by taxpayers, since the Council enjoys tax-exempt status.

The take away here is not that a leftist who champions killing babies is upset with a group of men opposed to such barbarity, but that the champion of baby killers thinks it is perfectly legitimate to sick the IRS on the opposition. Because the Bishops operate under §501 of the tax code, they should shut up.

The health care legislation carves out new exceptions in the tax code. Once we are all forced under that legislation, will Lynn Woolsey be able to sick the IRS on us if we dissent? Seems likely. Doctors and health care providers are also on notice. Should you disagree with the government that gives you tax breaks, prepare for the government to treat you as an enemy combatant.

It is more and more clear that the House of Representatives will not keep Bart Stupak’s amendment in the health care legislation.

Harry Reid will put something abortion related in the Senate version, but not so strong as to turn off pro-abortion Senators. Likewise, Obama is already saying this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill, and is instructing Congress not to go overboard.

Stupak will go out. National Right to Life, as per its usual operating procedure, will no doubt eek out some sort of minor compromise that undercuts the rest of the conservative movement and other pro-life groups — a compromise that does very little, but from which NRLC can raise some money. Abortions will get funded by the feds if Obamacare passes. You can bank on it.

Let me be clear to the conservative movement and the organizations participating in the health care debate: the fight over health care is about freedom, not your ridiculous little scorecards.

The Democrat strategy is going to be very simple. If the GOP and its outside interest groups raise an issue, the Democrats with a token Republican will hammer out a Grand Compromise ^TM to appear accommodationist and bipartisan.

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In the wake of the House vote for President Obama’s government takeover of health care, some conservative commentators are asking what may have been had House Republicans decided to follow Rep. John Shadegg’s (R-AZ) advice to vote present on the Stupak-Pitts amendment.  The amendment prohibits the federal government from spending any funds to provide abortion under the plan’s public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that covers abortion.

Sixty-four Democrats voted with Republicans in passing Stupak.  The argument says that had Republicans voted “present” or “no” on the amendment, it would have failed.  The theory is that those sixty-four Democrats would have abandoned the final bill without the prohibition included, effectively killing the overall effort to socialize the nation’s health care system.

But that thinking represents the triumph of hope over experience.  It supposes that Nancy Pelosi, who has shown herself to be nothing if not a cold-blooded and ruthless political operative, would not take any other necessary steps to find the votes necessary to pass the bill.  The only reason Stupak was allowed to come to a vote in the first place was because Pelosi was willing to shiv two-thirds of her caucus to get the bill passed.  Pelosi, and Obama, would have moved any obstacle, made any promise, and broken any number of arms to get the White House a “victory” on health care, however hollow that victory may ultimately turn out to be.

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While it was largely lost in the debate over passage of Pelosi-care on Saturday night, it may turn out that the most politically costly vote many Democrats cast was against the Motion to Recommit.

Simply put, the Motion to Recommit gives the minority party one last chance to force a vote on a change to the underlying bill. Here’s a summary sent out by the Republican leadership of the Motion to Recommit on the health care overhaul:

The Republican Motion to Recommit H.R. 3962, Speaker Pelosi’s Government Take-Over of Health Care, would amend the bill to add medical liability reform (savings of $54 billion) and use the savings achieved to create a “Seniors Protection and Medicare Regional Payment Equity Fund.”

The fund would require the Secretary to prioritize funding to protect those seniors hit hardest by the cuts to Medicare under Speaker Pelosi’s bill.  Specifically, the purpose of the fund would be to:

• Preserve seniors’ access to Medicare Advantage,
• Protect seniors’ access to medically-necessary care (including seeing doctors and hospitals without waiting in lines, and preventing coverage determinations based on cost), and
• Address payment inequities and geographic variations in Medicare that hurts seniors who live in areas with high-quality, low-cost services.

The Pelosi Government Take-Over of Health Care cuts more than $500 billion from Medicare, leaving seniors with reduced benefits and fewer choices.  While at the same time, the Pelosi bill protects trial lawyers by not addressing real medical liability reform, a critical reform that would reduce health care costs for all Americans.  The Republican motion to recommit offers Members a choice on who to protect: seniors or trial lawyers.

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Jay Cost (H/T: @MelissaTweets) has written an article on the Democratic party that is impossible to excerpt properly:

How To Divide a Party, In Three Easy Steps!

So, you’ve decided to become the leader of a big political party. Only one problem: it’s too big! What to do?

Well, you’ve come to the right place. Here at the Horse Race Blog, we’ve developed a three-step guide to making that broad party a little more…narrow. Just follow these simple instructions and your majority party will be smaller and a little easier to handle in no time!

…and summarizing said article (the very short version: it’s a bad idea to run a national party as if it were an urban regional one) doesn’t do it justice. Instead, I suggest that you first read it, then take a look at the maps after the fold.

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