White House Seems to Have New Policy On “Special Deals” in Health Care Reform Bill

Look deep in the reconciliation bill.
The gifts to the union VEBAs are back. Abortion appears to be funded. The Public Option is back.
There is a sick shell game with the health care bills right now. Why don’t the White House and the dems in congress want the American people to know what is in this bill?

“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.
Pelosi: ‘We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it…’
I’m sorry, but just how damned stupid to do you have to be to be a Democrat?

Democrats declare war on small business
P.22:
Such report shall include any recommendations the Commissioner deems appropriate to ensure that the law does not provide incentives for small and mid-size employers to self-insure

And if Eric Massa supported Obamacare, he’d still be in office. Democrats would have continued to shield him. They threw him under the bus when he decided to vote against this health care monstrosity.

It is entirely un-American to insist that a people accept something as law before they get to learn what it is.
It is anti-American. It is tyrannical. It is Democrat.

BTW, it is reported that this is but a shell bill. The Democrats will gut it, add all the little details behind closed doors, and then “deem” it the same as the Senate bill and try to declare it passed it without a vote.
Democrats could give a rip about the Constitution.

““The president does believe that state-only carve-outs should not be in the bill,” Axelrod said.”
Apparently that Obama statement has expired. Eventually, all Obama pledges expire. It’s amazing that some people never figure it out.

Look at what Democrats have done for the economy! Look what they’ve accomplished with the stimulus package!
NOTHING!
And now you want them to control health care?
JUST SAY NO

Exactly what would you know about the self-employed? I am self-employed and I don’t want government doing for health care what they’ve done for the financial sector of this country.
Posted by: drjohn | Mar 15, 2010 10:41:12 AM
I own a small business and have been self-employed. Many of my friends own small businesses or are self-employed. Several of us have banded together to push for health care reform. Your ilk doesn’t speak for us.

Pelosi: ‘We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it…’
I’m sorry, but just how damned stupid to do you have to be to be a Democrat?
posted by drjohn
You tell it like it is drjohn,Keep up the good work.

Look deep in the reconciliation bill.
The gifts to the union VEBAs are back. Abortion appears to be funded. The Public Option is back.
There is a sick shell game with the health care bills right now. Why don’t the White House and the dems in congress want the American people to know what is in this bill?
Posted by: Robert J Chester | Mar 15, 2010 8:58:42 AM
Would anyone expect anything different? Amazing how one of the main factors Obama talks about is ‘fraud and abuse’, yet that seems to be what the American public has been getting from day one from this Congress regarding the healthcare bill(s). As of now, the people of the US STILL do not understand the wording, meaning, cost, or effectiveness of this bill. You’d think over the course of a YEAR, someone could have carved out television and/or internet time to EXPLAIN, line by line, what is going to happen IF the bill passes.
It’s bad enough that the process of passing the bill is in question at the least, but what’s worse is the fact that people don’t understand. I realize individuals COULD take the time to read it, but that doesn’t answer the questions either. Changes are being made almost everyday, deals are being made everyday… who can keep up with all that? As I’ve said before, this entire deal is political. If the interest of the public was the top priority, the bill would have passed a year ago. The Democrats have told us repeatedly that thousands of people are dying due to lack of insurance, yet, they’ve put off passing a bill that could have ‘saved’ those people (according to their assesment) for over a YEAR. Wonder if they want to explain the reasoning behind that? Politics perhaps? Or maybe they grossly overstated the deaths? We all know that people will be treated regardless of ability to pay, so that doesn’t hold too much water. We also know that people die whether they have insurance or not. Anyway, it seems their political standing has taken the place of thousands of lives-that’s a heavy burden to bear.

Adding on, per Matthew Yglesias:
“One of the real oddities of Bart Stupak’s refusal to get back on board the health reform train is that virtually everyone who looks at the current language thinks it’s close to Stupak’s own language, and basically achieves what Stupak says is his goal—avoiding taxpayer subsidies of abortion. The people who agree with Stupak are overwhelmingly conservative reform opponents, who are casting about for things to object to. People who want to see health coverage expanded, including anti-abortion Catholics, generally don’t see things Stupak’s way. … Obviously both Stupak and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops are entitled to make up their own minds. But Keehan [Sr. Carol Keehan, President and CEO of the Catholic Health Association] is not just a Catholic, her organization—unlike the Bishops—has actually expertise in health care administration and finance.

All bills proposed should end with this..
‘..and they all lived happily ever after.’

The status quo is unsustainable.
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Posted by: progressive mama | Mar 15, 2010 12:06:48 PM
I’m with you P-Mom!
Call your reps and tell them to vote NO on this current health care reform bill.
Like the doctor’s creed says – first, do no harm.
Tell your reps to come back after recess and try again but this time get it right!
Its time to do something right for a change.

Why are free Americans being asked against their will to purchase the products of for-profit corporations?
Symptom management (which passes for health-care in our country) is out of the reach of serfs, yet, no proceeds from the profit ‘trickle’ back into the economy. Where is all this money going?
I mean if insurance is getting filthy rich off of us, what are they doing with that money if not re-investing in America?

Its time to do something right for a change.
Posted by: Noz | Mar 15, 2010 3:21:27 PM
Actually, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good isn’t the brightest idea (think Republican failure to reform oversight of the GSE’s and financial institutions in the 00′s). Meanwhile the Commonwealth Fund blog has a great post up which looks at “The Costs of Failure: Economic Consequences of Failure to Enact Nixon, Carter, and Clinton Health Reforms”– check it out.
How long can we kick the can down the road and let those who value windfall profits over real people derail and deny? Time to pass reform and press for further reforms after intial legislation passes.
The status quo is unsustainable and the obstruction has gotten stale.

Call your elected officials and inform them a vote in favor of health care reform is a vote for humongous new taxes to drive our country into the worst depression in 200+ years. Health care cannot be passed , no new taxes, say NO to the new world order / bilderbergers that one government health care, carbon credits and one world government, and destruction of our sovereignty and constitution !!

Actually, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good isn’t the brightest idea (think Republican failure to reform oversight of the GSE’s and financial institutions in the 00′s).
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Good point. It’s what apparently happened with Fannie and Freddie where nothing was done by the Bush administration due to a failure to achieve the possible rather than the perfect.
“The president spent years pushing . . . to toughen regulation of the companies, but was unwilling to compromise when his former Treasury secretary wanted to cut a deal. And the regulator Mr. Bush chose to oversee them — an old prep school buddy — pronounced the companies sound even as they headed toward insolvency.”
NY Times
We saw some of the terrible results of that failure.

The Senate-Approved Health Care Reform Bill “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (HR 3590 EAS/PP). . .
· Prohibits insurance companies from using federal funds, including federal tax credits and cost-sharing assistance, to pay for abortion services except for those services allowable under the Hyde amendment (pg. 2071)
The Hyde Amendment is legislative provision barring the use of certain federal funds to pay for abortions.

We must remember that Obama is a product of corrupt Chicago politics. “Promise them everything, give them nothing” is how the Chi-Town game is played. And now it’s on a national level. Yep! Those special deals to obtain backing for this health care bill is a great Chicago tactic. This is why ALL incumbents should be voted out of office.

Tierra, why would you quote the NYT on Fannie & Freddie Regulation? You’ve got it bad, woman!

Actually, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good isn’t the brightest idea (think Republican failure to reform oversight of the GSE’s and financial institutions in the 00′s).
__________________________________
Good point. It’s what apparently happened with Fannie and Freddie where nothing was done by the Bush administration due to a failure to achieve the possible rather than the perfect.
“The president spent years pushing . . . to toughen regulation of the companies, but was unwilling to compromise when his former Treasury secretary wanted to cut a deal. And the regulator Mr. Bush chose to oversee them — an old prep school buddy — pronounced the companies sound even as they headed toward insolvency.”
NY Times
We saw some of the terrible results of that failure.

Why does nobody address the bottom line? This bill is either a 1) huge new tax for the middle class or 2) new dictate from our government about what we must purchase. Still think you live in a free country? There is an ongoing battle in America between the Communists and Theocracists over who will get to rob us of the most freedoms in the name of saving us from ourselves.

You people are sick. 10 years of obstruction that most likely would have averted a crisis —
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We at least know the facts. it was in the hands of a Republican president and congress for almost 6 straight years – during which time they prepared for what?
Posted by: tierra | Mar 15, 2010 8:29:17 PM
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LOL. mitch needs to read up and what went down.
Also, I read a review (Steven Pearlstein) of a good new book about the economic crisis called The Big Short by Michael Lewis. I haven’t read the book yet, but I liked this quote from the review:
“There is nothing subtle about the dark portrait Lewis creates of the financial community. Through his lens, all bond salesmen are out to cheat their customers, all top executives are clueless and all ratings analysts are second-raters who could not get jobs in investment banks.”
And this:
“What Lewis writes of two of his characters, young Ledley and Mai, might just as well apply to Lewis himself, or to us:
They “had always sort of assumed that there was some grown-up in charge of the financial system whom they had never met; now they saw there was not.”