Finance Committee bill has been filed
After days of being huddled away with Rahm Emanual, Senate Finance Committee members have been notified that the committee's health reform bill was filed today. S. 1796 weighs in at 1,502 pages, according to a Senate Republican leadership source. It's still not up yet on the Finance Committee website or Thomas.gov. We'll post a link as soon as we get one.
UPDATED:
Read the entire 1,502 page Finance bill.
Read a document outlining the concerns of Sens. Kerry, Schumer, Menendez, Stabenow and Rockefeller that the tax on high-end plans will hit plans that are not overly generous.
Read Sen. Rockefeller's expanded views on reform.
UPDATE 2: The Senate Finance Committee filed its sweeping health care reform bill Monday and its release served largely to highlight the divisions among Democrats over the direction of reform.
The massive, 1,500 page bill is expected to serve as the backbone for Democratic reform efforts going forward and five senators expressed concerns about one of its main provisions, a 40 percent tax on high-end insurance plans.
The tax is designed to pay for reform and lower costs by making the so-called Cadillac plans less attractive for insurers to offer. Under the bill, a plan that costs an individual more than $8,000 and a family more than $21,000 annually would be subject to the tax.
But Democratic Sens. John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, Robert Menendez, Debbie Stabenow and Jay Rockefeller are concerned that the threshold that defines a Cadillac plan is too low and will whack middle-class people.
“We remain concerned that the thresholds are too low and will impact plans that are not overly generous and that in 2019 far too many plans will be impacted by the excise tax. We plan to continue to work with Chairman Baucus on this issue to ensure that provision bends the cost curve, but not at the expense of middle-income Americans,” the senators wrote in a one-page “additional views” document that was released with the bill.
The document is reminiscent of a dissent that is filed with the majority opinion in a court case.
Rockefeller filed his own 13-page additional views document that spelled out his concerns, many of which he aired during the eight-day mark up of the bill. The West Virginia Democrat remains concerns that the bill does not contain a public option; that it does not uniformly apply insurance market reforms and that state-based exchanges designed to help people buy insurance will not be as effective as a single national one.
UPDATE 3: It's important to remember that the bill won't exist in this form for long. Senate Majority Leader Reid and Sens. Max Baucus and Chris Dodd along with senior White House aides are merging the Finance and Health Committee legislation into one bill that will be considered on the floor of the Senate. The behind-closed-doors dealings have drawn criticism from Republicans, particularly because President Obama had promised a transparent process and pledged to negotiate the health care bill on C-SPAN.
Politico.com
America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009
Rasmussen: Support for Obamacare drops 4 Points in Two Weeks
Only forty-two percent (42%) of voters support the health care reform plans in Congress. Fifty-four percent (54%) are opposed. Forty-two percent (42%) are strongly opposed.
Rasmussen reported:
Now that the Senate Finance Committee has passed its version of health care reform, 42% of voters nationwide favor the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and down four from the week before.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 54% are opposed to the plan.The numbers have been remarkably stable throughout the debate. With the exception of bounces following presidential television appearances, support for the plan has stayed in a very narrow range from 41% to 46%. Currently, 24% Strongly Favor the legislative effort and 42% are Strongly Opposed.
The Problem is that neither the WH or Congress seem to care what the American people think or want.
In case you haven’t seen this or want to take another look at: Congressman Mike Rogers’ opening statement on Healthcare reform in Washington D.C.
THE CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG! YOUNG AMERICANS WILL ALSO BE PUNISHED!
Tonight on FOX NEWS, Dick Morris let the cat out of the bag. He exposed some hidden facts that the Obama Regime does not want YOUNG Americans to know. Here it is:
1. They will be forced to pay 8-12% of their income to cover healthcare.
2. They will be fined if they refuse to purchase healthcare.
Now, as a mom, I understand that for most people % doesn't translate too well. So here is the translation: All YOUNG Americans who earn $44,000 a year, you will cough up approximately $3,000 per year, like it or not.
If you earn $66,000 a year, you'll cough up almost $700 per month to cover your forced healthcare.
Now, I feel sorry for any American who was fooled into voting for hope and change. If this disgusting healthcare bill passes, we are all going to watch the balances in our already beleaguered checkbooks plummet. I believe I heard this correctly, but I welcome your input!
Stop the Takeover! Healthcare Freedom Call to Action!
Calling Patriots and Concerned Citizens!
We must ACT NOW to stop the government takeover of our health care.
On Tuesday, October 20th, Obama’s “Organizing for America” is hosting nationwide “Time to Deliver” call parties. Their plan is to swamp Congress with their calls and also call voters to get them to commit to calling Congress in support of Obamacare. Their goal is to get 100,000 calls to Congress placed or committed in a single day. These OFA calls cannot go unopposed. It is time to fight for our health care freedom!
It is time to put a stop to this insanity. We need to make our voices heard now before it’s too late. That is the only thing that will stop them. Call your Congressman and Senators NOW. Here’s how:
Step 1: To place a call to your Senators, go to FreedomWorks’ Online War Room at www.freedomworks.org/call-congress. Enter your zip code, then your phone number and email address, and Freedomworks will place the call. Your phone will ring and you will be connected. If the system is not too overloaded, a congressional aide will answer, place you on hold, and return a few minutes later to take your call. Not sure what to say? Here are some helpful tips for communicating with your elected representatives: http://www.congress.org/communicate.
Step 2: Go to www.congress.org to send emails and/or letters to your Representative and Senators. Enter your zip + 4 code or address and choose where you would like your letter sent. From the list of officials, select “federal”. Type in your letter and it will be formatted, addressed, and sent to where you direct. For an additional fee, you can opt to have your letter hand-delivered for extra impact.
Be sure to tell them:
• No government-run “public option”
• No insurance mandates
• No tax increases
Let’s start calling Congress NOW!
Good Intentions Aren't Enough with Health Care Reform
Sat at 8:57pm
Now that the Senate Finance Committee has approved its health care bill, it’s a good time to step back and take a look at the long term consequences should its provisions be enacted into law.
The bill prohibits insurance companies from refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and from charging sick people higher premiums. [1] It attempts to offset the costs this will impose on insurance companies by requiring everyone to purchase coverage, which in theory would expand the pool of paying policy holders.
However, the maximum fine for those who refuse to purchase health insurance is $750. [2] Even factoring in government subsidies, the cost of purchasing a plan is much more than $750. The result: many people, especially the young and healthy, will simply not buy coverage, choosing to pay the fine instead. They’ll wait until they’re sick to buy health insurance, confident in the knowledge that insurance companies can’t deny them coverage. Such a scenario is a perfect storm for increasing the cost of health care and creating an unsustainable mandate program.
Those driving this plan no doubt have good intentions, but good intentions aren’t enough. There were good intentions behind the drive to increase home ownership for lower-income Americans, but forcing financial institutions to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them had terrible unintended consequences. We all felt those consequences during the financial collapse last year. Unintended consequences always result from top-down big government plans like the current health care proposals, and we can’t afford to ignore that fact again.
Supposedly the Senate Finance bill will be paid for by cutting Medicare by nearly half a trillion dollars and by taxing the so-called “Cadillac” health care plans enjoyed by many union members. The plan will also impose heavy taxes on insurers, pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, and clinical labs. [3] The result of all of these taxes is clear. As Douglas Holtz-Eakin noted in the Wall Street Journal, these new taxes “will be passed on to consumers by either directly raising insurance premiums, or by fueling higher health-care costs that inevitably lead to higher premiums.” [4] Unfortunately, it will lead to lower wages too, as employees will have to sacrifice a greater percentage of their paychecks to cover these higher premiums. [5] In other words, if the Democrats succeed in overhauling health care, we’ll all bear the costs. The Senate Finance bill is effectively a middle class tax increase, and as Holtz-Eakin points out, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation those making less than $200,000 will be hit hardest. [6]
With our country’s debt and deficits growing at an alarming rate, many of us can’t help but wonder how we can afford a new trillion dollar entitlement program. The president has promised that he won’t sign a health care bill if it “adds even one dime to our deficit over the next decade.” [7] But his administration also promised that his nearly trillion dollar stimulus plan would keep the unemployment rate below 8%. [8] Last month, our unemployment rate was 9.8%, the highest it’s been in 26 years. [9] At first the current administration promised that the stimulus would save or create 3 to 4 million jobs. [10] Then they declared that it created 1 million jobs, but the stimulus reports released this week showed that a mere 30,083 jobs have been created, while nearly 3.4 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus was passed. [11] Should we believe the administration’s claims about health care when their promises have proven so unreliable about the stimulus?
In January 2008, presidential candidate Obama promised not to negotiate behind closed doors with health care lobbyists. In fact, he committed to “broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are. Because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process. And overcoming the special interests and the lobbyists...” [12] However, last February, after serving only a few weeks in office, President Obama met privately at the White House with health care industry executives and lobbyists. [13] Yesterday, POLITICO reported that aides to President Obama and Democrat Senator Max Baucus met with corporate lobbyists in April to help “set in motion a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, primarily financed by industry groups, that has played a key role in bolstering public support for health care reform.” [14] Needless to say, their negotiations were not broadcast on C-SPAN for the American people to see.
Presidential candidate Obama also promised that he would not “sign any nonemergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House Web site for five days.” [15] PolitiFact reports that this promise has already been broken three times by the current administration. [16] We can only hope that it won’t be broken again with health care reform.
All of this certainly gives the appearance of politics-as-usual in Washington with no change in sight.
Americans want health care reform because we want affordable health care. We don’t need subsidies or a public option. We don’t need a nationalized health care industry. We need to reduce health care costs. But the Senate Finance plan will dramatically increase those costs, all the while ignoring common sense cost-saving measures like tort reform. Though a Congressional Budget Office report confirmed that reforming medical malpractice and liability laws could save as much as $54 billion over the next ten years, tort reform is nowhere to be found in the Senate Finance bill. [17]
Here’s a novel idea. Instead of working contrary to the free market, let’s embrace the free market. Instead of going to war with certain private sector companies, let’s embrace real private-sector competition and allow consumers to purchase plans across state lines. Instead of taxing the so-called “Cadillac” plans that people get through their employers, let’s give individuals who purchase their own health care the same tax benefits we currently give employer-provided health care recipients. Instead of crippling Medicare, let’s reform it by providing recipients with vouchers so that they can purchase their own coverage.
Now is the time to make your voices heard before it’s too late. If we don’t fight for the market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven reform plan that we deserve, we’ll be left with the disastrous unintended consequences of the plans currently being cooked up in Washington.
- Sarah Palin
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