I'LL PASS ON 'OPTING OUT'

Senator Harry Reid’s deceptive course of action in expediting his own version of a health care reform plan is disgusting. SHOW US THE BILL before any votes are taken! Reid’s underhanded tactic eliminates the opportunity for public debate and scrutiny, which flies in the face of our legislative process.

Whether you call it a public option, an opt-out, a trigger, or a co-op, the fact is they all put us on the road to government run health care. It's deceptive to camouflage it with euphemisms, but let Ann Coulter do what she does best -- write about it. From World Net Daily:


I'll Pass On 'Opting Out'
by Ann Coulter. October 28, 2009

The Democrats' all-new "opt out" idea for health-care reform is the latest fig leaf for a total government takeover of the health-care system.

Democrats tell us they've been trying to nationalize health care for 65 years, but the first anyone heard of the "opt out" provision was about a week ago. They keep changing the language so people can't figure out what's going on.

The most important fact about the "opt out" scheme allegedly allowing states to decline government health insurance is that a state can't "opt out" of paying for it. All 50 states will pay for it. A state legislature can only opt out of allowing its own citizens to receive the benefits of a federal program they're paying for.

It's like a movie theater offering a "money back guarantee" and then explaining, you don't get your money back, but you don't have to stay and watch the movie if you don't like it. That's not what most people are thinking when they hear the words "opt out." The term more likely to come to mind is "scam."

While congressional Democrats act indignant that Republicans would intransigently oppose a national health care plan that now magnanimously allows states to "opt out," other liberals are being cockily honest about the "opt out" scheme.

Andrew Sullivan gloats on his blog, "Imagine Republicans in state legislatures having to argue and posture against an affordable health insurance plan for the folks, as O'Reilly calls them, while evil liberals provide it elsewhere."

But the only reason government health insurance will be more "affordable" than private health insurance is that taxpayers will be footing the bill. That's something that can't be opted out of under the "opt out" plan.

Which brings us right back to the question of whether the government or the free market provides better services at better prices. There are roughly 1 million examples of the free market doing a better job and the government doing a worse job. In fact, there is only one essential service the government does better: Keeping Dennis Kucinich off the streets.

So, naturally, liberals aren't sure. In Democratic circles, the jury's still out on free-market economics. It's not settled science like global warming or Darwinian evolution. But in the meantime, they'd like to spend trillions of dollars to remake our entire health-care system on a European socialist model.

Sometimes the evidence for the superiority of the free market is hidden in liberals' own obtuse reporting.

In the past few years, the New York Times has indignantly reported that doctors' appointments for Botox can be obtained much faster than appointments to check on possibly cancerous moles. The paper's entire editorial staff was enraged by this preferential treatment for Botox patients, with the exception of a strangely silent Maureen Dowd.

As the Times reported: "In some dermatologists' offices, freer-spending cosmetic patients are given appointments more quickly than medical patients for whom health insurance pays fixed reimbursement fees."

As the kids say: Duh.

This is the problem with all third-party payor systems – which is already the main problem with health care in America and will become inescapable under universal health care.

Not only do the free-market segments of medicine produce faster appointments and shorter waiting lines, but they also produce more innovation and price drops. Blindly pursuing profits, other companies are working overtime to produce cheaper, better alternatives to Botox. The war on wrinkles is proceeding faster than the war on cancer, declared by President Nixon in 1971.

In 1960, 50 percent of all health-care spending was paid out of pocket directly by the consumer. By 1999, only 15 percent of health-care spending was paid for by the consumer. The government's share had gone from 24 percent to 46 percent. At the same time, IRS regulations made it a nightmare to obtain private health insurance.

The reason you can't buy health insurance as easily and cheaply as you can buy car insurance – or a million other products and services available on the free market – is that during World War II, FDR imposed wage and price controls. Employers couldn't bid for employees with higher wages, so they bid for them by adding health insurance to the overall compensation package.

Although employees were paying for their own health insurance in lower wages and salaries, their health insurance premiums never passed through their bank accounts, so it seemed like employer-provided health insurance was free.

Employers were writing off their employee insurance plans as a business expense, but when the IRS caught on to what employers were doing, they tried to tax employer-provided health insurance as wages. But, by then, workers liked their "free" health insurance, voters rebelled, and the IRS backed down.

So now, employer-provided health insurance is subsidized not only by the employees themselves through lower wages and salaries, but also by all taxpayers who have to make up the difference for this massive tax deduction.

How many people are stuck in jobs they hate and aren't good at, rather than going out and doing something useful, because they need the health insurance from their employers? I'm not just talking about MSNBC anchors – I mean throughout the entire economy.

Almost everything wrong with our health care system comes from government interference with the free market. If the health care system is broken, then fix it. Don't try to invent a new one premised on all the bad ideas that are causing problems in the first place.

Ann Coulter, well-known for her TV appearances as a political analyst, is an attorney and author.
Get Ann's new book GUILTY: LIBERAL 'VICTIMS' AND THEIR ASSAULT ON AMERICA here

Gigantic, Unintelligible, Unaffordable, Over-regulatory, Federal Legislation

Harry Reid's new scheme using the disguised 'opt out' for States has more loopholes than a swiss cheese sandwich. Two things to consider: 1. You cannot compete with the governement, and 2. Since the government has bankrupt Medicare, they clearly cannot be trusted to run health care, which is 1/6 of our economy.

The Heritage Foundation breaks it down:


Gigantic, Unintelligible, Unaffordable, Over-regulatory, Federal Legislation
by Amanda Reinecker, October 28, 2009

After 13 days of secret, closed-door negotiations on health care legislation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced Monday that he had reached an agreement with Senators Chris Dodd (D-MT) and Max Baucus (D-CT), and three top administration officials. Unfortunately, Senator Reid did not tell the American people much else.

Even many lawmakers remain in the dark regarding the outcome of this "secret deal that Senator Reid wants to get passed and signed into law 'this year,'" writes Heritage Senate Relations expert Brian Darling. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, summed it up: "It will be a thousand-page, trillion-dollar bill that raises premiums, raises taxes and slashes Medicare for our seniors to create new government spending programs. That's not reform."

Even as some of the final details of the bill do go public, it is likely that lawmakers won't know in advance entirely what it is they are voting on. This is because the legislation the Senate Finance Committee "agreed" to -- all 1,502 pages of it -- is the most massive piece of legislation ever introduced by Congress.

But length isn't the only record the "America's Healthy Future Act of 2009" claims, as Heritage health policy analyst Ed Haislmaier notes. "For the first time in fifteen years, [Congress] has set a new all-time division record for gigantic, unintelligible, unaffordable, over-regulatory, federal legislation."

What we do know about Reid's 'secret deal'

Although Senator Reid did not go into great detail about the health care "reform" legislation, he did mention that bill includes a government-run health insurance "option" that would "compete" against private health plans.

In an attempt to gain much-needed support from skeptical moderates in both parties, liberals have added a new twist to the "public option": a provision allowing states to opt out of the program. This would require states to pass legislation by 2014 rejecting participation in the federal government run plan.

But this new wrinkle is really more of the same, warns Heritage health policy analyst Nina Owcharenko. "This latest Senate ploy creates the illusion of an 'option' rather than making any fundamental changes to the controversial proposal."

Owcharenko explains why this "opt-out" model is just another government-run plan that is guaranteed to fail:

1. States can only opt-out of the government-run plan, not the entire bill. But the rest of the bill contains hundreds of provisions, such as the expansion of Medicaid, which will place major financial burdens on the states.
2. It is still a government-run plan because the government will require non-participating states to meet federal conditions. These government-determined conditions could include the creation of state-level public options that mirror the federal plan.
3. States will likely select the public "option" because of the bureaucracy and enormous administrative complexity required for a state opt-out. Federal conditions will limit states' ability to create alternatives.
4. State innovation will suffer under the massive health care proposal's employer and individual mandates, and government micromanagement of an industry that represents one-sixth of our economy.

So even though the states would be able to "opt out" of the government-run health insurance program, the federal government will make it very difficult to do so. And for the few states that do succeed in withdrawing, the government will still dominate their health care systems.

A true state "opt-out" provision would allow states to opt out of the bill in its entirety, argues Owcharenko. "Any other opt-out is just another shell game that is intended to appear as a concession but in reality provides for greater federal control and blocks much needed structural changes."

No Matter What You Call It, It’s Still Just Government-Run Health Care

In a report from the AP, "A government-sponsored public option for health care lives, though it may be more attractive to skeptics if it goes by a different moniker", House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday. The speaker said the "competitive option" idea emerged during her closed-door roundtable at the Sunrise Senior Center with advocates of seniors and others who work with older populations. Wasserman Schultz suggested the term might be here to stay.

The Libs really have contempt for the American people, especially for Seniors lately. Does she really think people are that stupid, they they will accept government takeover of 1/6 of our economy by euphemistically changing the name, and then admitting it? Holy crap!

Congress phone/fax here. The Heritage Foundation writes:


No Matter What You Call It, It’s Still Just Government-Run Health Care
October 27, 2009

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that the health care legislation he is drafting will include a government-run health insurance plan, or as many on the left like to call it “the public option.” The new wrinkle that Reid has thrown into the proposal is an “opt out” clause which would require states to pass legislation by 2014 rejecting participation in the federal government run plan. None of the committees in the House or Senate ever even voted on this new opt out scheme. But that does not really matter. Whether it is first implemented through a co-op, or a trigger, or an opt out, the end goal is the same: government-run health care for all Americans.

Hotel Harry Reid: Reid provided very few details for his “opt out” proposal, but here is what we do know: the government run plan would be available on the first day that major provisions of Obamacare would take effect in 2013, and states would have until 2014 to pass legislation declining participation in the program. This means that a one-vote majority of obstructionists in one chamber of a state legislature, by refusing to act, can consign a state’s residents to an eternity of government-run health care. In 17 states Democrats control both houses of the legislature and the state house. In another 24, Democrats control at least one legislative chamber or the governor’s mansion. That leaves a total of only 9 states where Republicans run the entire show — Texas, Utah, South Carolina, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Idaho, Florida, and Georgia. That means Americans in 41 states are all but guaranteed to have no choice but to endure the government run health plan. What opt out really means is: You’re already checked in, and if you don’t do so by 2014, you can never leave.

The Co-op Co-opt: Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) have both pushed slightly different plans they both call co-ops. However, they both share the same fundamental flaws: advantageous federal funding and regulation designed to tilt the playing field in their direction. Heritage fellows Edmund Haislmaier, Dennis Smith, and Nina Owcharenko have explained why this model is guaranteed to fail: “Simply calling some form of a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) a “cooperative,” for instance, would be only another type of public plan in disguise. … One need look no further than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to see how GSEs can distort the market and leave taxpayers with huge liabilities. Decades of market distortions generated by their implicit government backing, compounded by the effects of repeated political meddling by Congress, put those GSEs at the very epicenter of the mortgage market collapse that triggered the current financial crisis and recession.”

The Trigger Trap: A trigger is a legislative tool that would put in place automatic benchmarks that if not met, would immediately unleash the government-run system into the market. For example, if 95% of Americans as defined by the bill, don’t have adequate health coverage by a certain date, the public option would be “triggered.” What a trigger does is hold off the tough decision until future, uncertain circumstances. The public option would essentially become law today, but not go into effect until an undetermined time when economic conditions could be even worse. Had Congress enacted a trigger to save Clintoncare, the trigger would have forced states to implement HMOs at exactly the time everyone was moving away from that overly rigid version of managed care. We don’t want to repeat that mistake. It is a travesty of democracy because it allows legislators to vote for a plan now, but passes the blame for the catastrophic consequences onto their successors.

Throughout the legislative process the White House has coyly denied that the establishment of a government run health plan was essential to their health care plan. But in 2003, President Barack Obama told the AFL-CIO: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. … And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately.” Opt out, the trigger, and co ops will not get to government run health care immediately. They will all take time to develop. But no matter what road they try and bring Americans down, the destination is always the same: everybody in, nobody out; that is, was, and always will be Obama’s ultimate goal.


QUICK HITS

Political uncertainty on health care, taxes, energy, and transportation is putting a freeze on small business hiring.

In July, Obama administration officials said companies could make 80 million to 120 million flu vaccine doses by mid-October, but only about 16.5 million doses have become available so far.

According to federal tax records, the AARP stands to reap millions in royalties should Obamacare become law.

House Democrats are using an annual spending bill to exempt home state interests from new environmental rules which the party typically supports.

Britain’s climate chief Lord Stern says a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

WHAT THE BAUCUS BILL WILL COST YOU

In the infamous healthcare speech before the Joint Session of Congress, Obama proclaimed that we can keep our current insurance plan, his (yet to be provided) 'Plan' does not cover illegal aliens nor abortions, and -- oh, yes -- no public option. How dare Congressman Joe Wilson shout "you lie!"

No public option must be true because Bill O'Reilly, in his puffed up usual self, said so -- because, he said, Obama said so. Most Americans against governement run healthcare, knew better. And voilà, on the floor of the Senate today is an amendment to add the public option to the Baucus bill.

Fax or phone Congress here.

The Heritage Foundation writes:

What The Baucus Bill Will Cost You
September 29, 2009

This morning the Senate Finance Committee will resume their markup of Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) health care bill. Thanks to Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) the focus today will be on whether or not the Democrats on the committee can find enough votes to include a government-run insurance program. Just like Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) preferred public plan, Rockefeller’s plan would set price controls for health reimbursements at 5% above Medicare reimbursement rates. If the public plan was opened to all individuals and families, 103.4 million Americans would end up on the public plan, 88.1 million of whom would first lose their existing private coverage.

It is unclear at this point if centrist Democrats in Congress are really ready to force this many people out of their existing private care and into government-run health care. But even if the public option is not included, there are still plenty of regressive job killing taxes and invasions of privacy in the Baucus plan that makes it terrible public policy:

Taxes Families - Under the plan, everyone will have to have health insurance by 2013. The mandate will apply to all adults and their dependents under age 18. Those who failed to buy insurance would be forced to pay an annual tax between $750 and $3,800 per year. Those who fail to pay the tax could be jailed for up to one year. Worse, 7.7 million households would face a 35% excise tax on their health insurance. 94% of these households would be paying a higher tax rate on their health insurance than they would be paying on their income.

Taxes Businesses - Employers with more than 50 employees that don’t offer health coverage would have to pay a penalty for each employee who qualifies for new federal subsidizes under the bill. To stay in business employers will be forced to cut jobs and cut wages.

Taxes the Sick - The Baucus bill imposes higher taxes on manufacturers and importers of medical devices, health insurance companies, clinical laboratories, manufacturers and importers of drugs. In effect, the Baucus proposal would tax the sick to subsidize insurance for the healthy, and many of the taxes would be imposed on the same people “helped” by the subsidies.

Invades Your Privacy - The Baucus bill enforces both its individual and employer mandates by deputizing the Internal Revenue Service. To enforce these provisions, the bill would therefore require individuals, health insurers, employers, and government health agencies to report detailed health insurance information on all Americans to the IRS, adding significant administrative costs and reducing privacy protections. The IRS would also be required to report personal income data to state exchanges, insurance companies, and employers because premium credits and out-of-pocket limits would depend on income.

How The Public Option Became The Core Of Obamacare

While the White House continues to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people, they are tripping over their tongue in a rash of contraditions. It's amusing to watch, as they continue to say one thing one day, and the complete opposite the other, while telling people "it must have been a slow news day", cause you didn't really hear what I really said.

Really?


The Heritage Foundation
How The Public Option Became The Core Of Obamacare
August 19, 2009

In their front page story “Debate’s Path Caught Obama by Surprise: Public Option Wasn’t Intended as Major Focus”, The Washington Post reports that the White House was “unprepared for the intraparty rift” that occurred after the Obama administration seemed to back away from the public option this past weekend. The Post goes on to quote a senior White House adviser: “We’ve gotten to this point where health care on the left is determined by the breadth of the public option. I don’t understand how that has become the measure of whether what we achieve is health-care reform. It’s a mystifying thing.”

If this “senior White House adviser” is speaking the truth, and the Obama administration had no idea that the public option was the whole point of Obamacare for the base of the Democratic party, then “unprepared” is too kind a description for the White House’s recent failings on health reform. As executive editor of the liberal American Prospect Mark Schmitt details, from the very beginning “the public option was part of a carefully thought out and deliberately funded effort to put all the pieces in place for health reform before the 2008 election.” Schmitt then quotes a November 2007 speech from Roger Hickey of the Campaign for America’s Future:

"The hard reality, from the point of view of all of us who understand the efficiency and simplicity of a single-payer system, is that our pollsters unanimously tell us that large numbers of Americans are not willing to give up the good private insurance they now have in order to be put into one big health plan run by the government.

Pollster Celinda Lake looked at public backing for a single-payer plan - and then compared it with an approach that offers a choice between highly regulated private insurance and a public plan like Medicare. This alternative, called “guaranteed choice” wins 64 percent support to 22 percent for single-payer. … Starting in January, we began to take Jacob Hacker to see the presidential candidates. We started with John Edwards and his advisers — who quickly understood the value of Hacker’s public plan, and when he announced his health proposal on “Meet The Press,” he was very clear that his public plan could become the dominant part of his new health care program, if enough people choose it."

Schmitt then recounts:

"The rest is history. Following Edwards’ lead, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton picked up on the public option compromise. … It was a real high-wire act — to convince the single-payer advocates, who were the only engaged health care constituency on the left, that they could live with the public option as a kind of stealth single-payer, thus transferring their energy and enthusiasm to this alternative."

For those of you that have been following the health care debate through this blog, the fact that a well respected liberal like Schmitt is ready to admit that the public option was always “a kind of stealth single-payer” should be no surprise. We have already extensively detailed how Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, and Noble Prize winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman have all been caught on video explaining to single-payer advocates that the public option is nothing more than a Trojan Horse for single payer health care. And just to add another to the list, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) also admitted as much on MSNBC yesterday.

The White House still seems to be clinging to the idea that they can fool the American people into believing that the public option is about “choice and competition” and not the road to government-run health care that it really is. Witness Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius using the phrase “choice and competition” once every 16.7 seconds in this CNN interview, or White House spokesman Robert Gibbs uttering the same phrase once every 8.7 seconds on CBS.

Fortunately, the American people are not falling for this deception. A new poll out today by NBC News shows that 47% of Americans — a plurality — oppose the public plan, versus 43% who support it. A shift from last month’s NBC poll when 46% said they backed it and 44% were opposed. The truth about President Obama’s public option is slowly sinking in with the American people, and they don’t like what they are learning.

PUBLIC OPTION IS NOT DEAD YET

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Caving to popular opinion, and appeasing to what is now the majority of American citizens, Obama continues the deception in his staged Townhall pep rallys.

Across the nation, the neighborhood "Townhallers" are engaged and passionate about their health care, and are making their voices heard. The polls indicate, the 'hope and change' mantra is wearing thin as reality sets in.

The Heritage Foundation explains:

Public Option Is Not Dead Yet
August 17, 2009

The headlines are encouraging: The AP reports, “White House appears ready to drop ‘public option’.” Politico reads, “White House backs away from public health care option.” And the front page of USA Today says, “Obama may drop public option in health care.” These headers all stem from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ comment on CNN Sunday Morning that the public option “is not the essential element” of President Barack Obama’s health care plan. But by Sunday night the White House was already walking back Sebelius’ statement.

An anonymous administration official told The Atlantic that Sebelius “misspoke” and White House health reform communications director Linda Douglass released a statement explaining: “Nothing has changed. The president has always said that what is essential is that health-insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health-insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.”

Obama’s allies on the left are equally emphatic about the non-death of the public option. Democracy for America head Howard Dean told the Washington Post, “I don’t think this bill is worth passing without a public option.” And Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CNN, “It would be very, very difficult [to pass Obama's plan] without the public option.” But Democrats in the Senate are singing a slightly different story. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) told Fox News Sunday that “there never have been” enough votes for a public option in the Senate, and that continuing to fight for it would be “just a wasted effort.”

But that does not mean that Americans fighting against government-run health care are out of the woods yet. Conrad insists that the Senate could pass health reform that includes health insurance co-operatives. Co-operatives do have a long and proud tradition in many sectors of the U.S. economy, but details matter. Conrad says these health co-ops will not be “government-run and government-controlled” but instead “membership-run and membership controlled.” But others in Conrad’s caucus have a starkly different co-op goal. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is pushing a vision of co-ops that are: 1) run by the government, preferably the federal government; 2) funded or subsidized by the government; or 3) includes plans chosen by the government.

If the language that comes out of the Senate looks anything like what Schumer is proposing, then there is no real difference between co-ops and the public plan. If, on the other hand, the Senate produces something that; 1) is not funded by the federal government 2) is not “government-run and government-controlled”; but instead 3) is “membership-run and membership controlled” then co-ops would be acceptable.

Of course, the public plan is just one of the more objectionable parts of Obama’s health care plan. The individual and employer mandates, the expansion and federalization of Medicaid, the creation of a new health czar, not to mention the trillion dollar cost of the new plan, are all still intact. If, as Sebelius insists, the White House wants health reform to increase “choice and competition” than there are a number of conservative alternatives in the House and Senate that do just that by pursuing health reform through a “patient-centered” approach. The White House’s rhetoric is rapidly moving away from an expert/government-centered approach to health care and towards a more market/consumer model. Let’s hope their actions start matching their words.