The fraud and dishonesty in the Baucus bill

You really have to read this entire piece by Jeffrey Anderson in the New York Post to get a sense of how frighteningly dishonest the gimmicks used by Senator Baucus to get the CBO to sign off on his health care bill.

The first bit of rank dishonesty lies in the fact that the CBO is calculating the bill's cost in the next decade starting next year. The problem is that the bill wouldn't even take effect fully until 2015!

But the CBO exposed the truth by taking the rare step of calculating what the bill would cost in its second 10 years. In its second decade alone, the CBO projects, the bill's costs would triple -- to $2.8 trillion. The taxes and fines it levies would also triple -- to $1.8 trillion. And its cuts to Medicare and related federal health programs would quadruple -- to $1.9 trillion.
In its first two decades combined, the bill would cost $3.6 trillion and would raise taxes by $2.3 trillion.

We're just getting started folks.

Baucus' most elementary trick was to have the bill's "first 10 years" include several years when it hadn't really kicked in. It was scored for 2010 to 2019, yet it wouldn't be in full swing until 2015 -- when its costs would exceed those of its first five years combined.

In fact, the bill wouldn't cost anything in 2010. In its real first decade (2011-20), it would cost more than $1 trillion.

Furthermore, the CBO projects that, by the end of 2030, the Baucus bill would have cut spending on Medicare and other existing health programs by more than $2.6 trillion.

Incredibly, the payments to doctors and hospitals will almost guarantee that no doctor will come within a country mile of a Medicare patient in the future:

Also, Baucus' savings are highly suspect. As the CBO notes, his bill would cut Medicare payments to doctors by 25 percent in 2011, then hold them at that level perpetually. In other words, given inflation, Baucus proposes endless cuts in what the program pays physicians and others.

Assuming 3 percent annual inflation, by 2014 doctors' real incomes from Medicare payments would be cut by a third from 2010. By 2025, they'd be cut in half.

If Baucus' cuts actually go through, physicians' willingness to see Medicare patients would dwindle alongside their pay. But if the cuts don't actually get made, Baucus' plan would explode the federal deficit.

Thankfully, this plan is DOA in the House and whatever compromise is reached in conference committee, very few elements of the Baucus bill will pass muster.

But the important thing about this bill is that getting it through committee moves the process along. What we've seen so far in the health care reform drama is simply the prologue.

The final act will play out behind closed doors as Democrats try to forge a consensus on what a majority of them can vote for.

Rick Moran – American Thinker

Sadly, the entire so-called healthcare reform process is riddled with fraud, deceit, ulterior motives and in the end a major power grab by the progressives and Obama. The end game for Obama, Pelosi, Reid and other Liberals is a single payer system… Beware!! No Trigger, NO government-run Co-op or Consortium and NO Public Option for they will all end up being a single-payer system including govt’ making the decisions about your healthcare, rationing and shortages… which will become death panels of one sort or another! (See Video Below)

DFA “senior adviser” Jacob Hacker (above) is an Obamacare architect who laughed at criticism of the plan being a Trojan Horse for single payer coverage. “It’s not a Trojan Horse, right” he retorted at a far Left Tides Foundation conference on health care. “It’s just right there! I’m telling you. We’re going to get there.”

Related Resources:

Health Care Solutions: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Health_Care_Solutions_072909.pdf
Five Steps to a Better Health Care System.
http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Five_Steps_to_a_Better_Health_Care_System_Web.pdf
Dr. John Goodman's Blog - Current, up-to date information on the debate: www.john-goodman-blog.com
Heartland Institute's Health Care Solutions: http://www.chcchoices.org

Congressman John Campbell Co-Sponsored H.R. 2520 – Patient’s Choice Act

Flexible Spending Accounts

5 Thoughts on the Baucus Bill

Senate Approves Baucus Bill With One GOP Vote: Snowe

Stop Paying the Crooks

The Healing of America

Catastrophe

Source: True Health Is True Wealth

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power – Cross-Posted: the Daily Thought Pad

Senate Committee Approves Baucus Bill With One GOP Vote: Shame On Sen Snowe… Allows WH To Claim Bipartisanship

Health care reform cleared a major hurdle Tuesday, as the Senate Finance Committee voted to send its version of the legislation to the Senate floor after months of closely watched deliberations.

The committee voted 14-9 in favor of the package. One Republican, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, broke with her party to support the bill. All 13 Democrats on the panel voted in favor of it, while the rest of the Republicans opposed it.

The panel was the last of five to act on health legislation, and the vote marked the biggest advance so far toward health care reform, as the committee's legislation is considered the best building block for a compromise plan in the full Senate.

President Obama hailed the vote as a "critical milestone," in brief remarks late Tuesday.

"We are now closer than ever before to passing health care," he said. "But we're not there yet."

Much work still remains on the package, and Senate Republicans made clear after the committee vote that they will continue to fight the bill.

"It's going to cost us an arm and a leg," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said. "The costs of this are astronomical."

The House still needs to bring a unified version to the floor, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will begin working with White House staff, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and others to blend the Finance bill with a more liberal version passed by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee -- before bringing a final product to the Senate floor.

If passed, the legislation would then go to a conference committee to reconcile differences between the House and Senate bills before heading to the president's desk.

The 10-year, $829 billion Finance Committee bill includes consumer protections such as limits on copays and deductibles and relies on federal subsidies to help low-income families purchase coverage. Insurance companies would have to take everyone, and people could shop for insurance within new state marketplaces called exchanges.

Medicaid would be expanded, and though employers wouldn't be required to cover their workers, they'd have to pay a penalty for each employee who sought insurance with government subsidies. The bill is paid for by cuts to Medicare providers and new taxes on insurance companies and others.

Unlike the other health care bills in Congress, Baucus' would not allow the government to sell insurance in competition with private companies, a divisive element sought by liberals.

Last-minute changes made subsidies more generous and softened the penalties for those who don't comply with a proposed new mandate for everyone to buy insurance. The latter change drew the ire of the health insurance industry, which said that without a strong and enforceable requirement not enough people would get insured, and premiums would jump for everyone else.

The road to the Tuesday vote was paved with bickering and complaints. At the start of discussion, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee said that he's still concerned about the potential for more government control over health care.

Sen. Charles Grassley's comments, and those of other Republicans, aired the lingering partisan divisions on the panel, even as Baucus stressed that his bill is a "balanced plan" that should win bipartisan support and eventually pass the full Senate.

"With this markup nearing its conclusion, we can now see clearly that the bill continues its march leftward," Grassley, R-Iowa, said.

But Baucus urged his colleagues to "make history" by sending his comprehensive overhaul to the floor of the Senate and one big step closer to the president's desk.

Snowe's support was the most sought-after Republican vote by Democrats for months. The Maine Republican could be the only member of her party to vote for health care reform, though she cautioned Tuesday that support for the committee bill does not guarantee support for a final product.

"When history calls, history calls," she said, even though she had some criticism of the bill.

She was among several key senators still on the fence over the pivotal package going into deliberations Tuesday, even though leadership aides said they were confident the bill would win enough backers.

But three previously undecided Democrats announced their support Tuesday, bolstering Baucus' majority on the panel.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Tuesday afternoon he would support the bill, despite concerns that it could increase costs for families with mandates to obtain coverage and inadequate subsidies. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., also announced her support, though adding the same warning that her backing is not guaranteed down the road.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., was the last to unveil his support. The liberal Democrat wants nothing short of a government-run insurance plan in the bill, and he thinks the Finance Committee's "co-op" system is not sufficient. He reiterated those views Tuesday.

Now this awful bill will be merged with the Senate Health Committee Bill and then House Bills…

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SNOWE MUST GO IN NEXT ELECTION!! (If Not Before!!!)

Her Vote Allows the White House to Claim (However Thin) That They Have a Bi-Partisan Bill

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=G44NCvNDLfc

Now the real fight begins!!

Just a Few of the Problems With the Promoted Bill(s)...

1. "Age discrimination" in Fees
2. Overall Cost - Not What Is Being Presented
3. 25 Million People Will Still Be Uninsured
4. Public Option in Every Option Except Baucus Bill
5. Big Cuts in Medicare and Medicaid
6. Gov’t Will Have All Your Information With Central Gov’t Electronic Records
7. Many Will Not Be Able to Keep Their Healthcare Plans Because Employers Won't Be Able to Afford Them If There Is a Public Option, Trigger or Gov/t-Run Co-Op
8. Obama Has Cut Deals With Big Pharma, Insurance Companies, AARP, and the Unions... Do the Math: This is a Power Grab, Not HealthCare Reform
9. Gov’t Officials (the Congress Etc) Will Be Exempt From This Plan.
10. There Will Be Shortages
11. There Will Be Rationing
12. This Will Ultimately Add to the Deficit and Cause Tax Increases While Lowering the Quality of U.S. Healthcare Because There Is No: Tort Reform, No Allowance or Inter-State Insurance Sales or Purchases
13. If There Is Enough Fraud and Waste In Medicare, Medicaid, Veteran's Healthcare, and Reservation Healthcare Why Has It Not Been Cleaned Up? Why Would You Choose To Go With the Gov't Who Caused That? And Why Would We Not Demand That They Clean-up Those Programs and Show Us the Savings First?

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO NOW…

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=G44NCvNDLfc

YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS. This is a video of opening comments on the Healthcare Bill. Michael Rogers (R-MI) unleashes a brilliantly succinct and blistering expose of the Bill's impact on us ALL.

Sen Max Baucus’ Senate Finance Committee plans to vote on their version of Pres. Obama’s health control scheme today, Tuesday Oct 13th. It is critical this piece of legislation never sees the light of day. We need a collective, but individual, e-mail effort to give these lawmakers notice that:

(1) WE DO NOT WANT THE HEALTHCARE REFORMS PROPOSED.

(2) THEY MUST STAND UP AND OPPOSE THIS LATEST POWER GRAB. Government intervention in the health care market created this problem. More intervention is guaranteed to only make it much worse.

(3) WE ARE CLOSELY WATCHING THEIR VOTE. If they support this monstrously dishonest bill, WE WILL FIGHT TOOTH & NAIL AGAINST THEIR RE-ELECTION USING OUR BLOCK OF IN-STATE VOTES; and, wherever we may reside, WE WILL FIGHT TOOTH & NAIL THEIR RE-ELECTION THROUGH CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEIR OPPOSITION.

If these lawmakers are afraid of the powerful special interest groups for which the Obama administration seems to be the defender-in-chief, we need to let them know that they should be even more afraid to ignore the will of the MOMS and MR. MOMS of this great country. If we act now, we may be able to stop the Baucus bill from ever reaching the Senate floor.

----------

(paste the following links)

1) Email Olympia Snowe R-ME: http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.Email

2) Email to Blanche Lincoln D-AR at: http://lincoln.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm

3) List of Sen. Finance Committee member contacts and emails: http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3486451:4972263716:m:1:170705800:C70AD97A03DAE31C7BDE8F0FF54D2E22

4) The Committee’s main office number is (202) 224-4515.

AND PLEASE SEND THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU CAN!

Lieberman: “Without public option, health reform would pass” – Americans: “That will have to mean no co-op or “Trigger” that only means a public optio

Lieberman says major bipartisan reform is still possible. Let us make it does not include a “trigger”

U.S. Senator, Joseph Lieberman answers questions from the public over the internet during a live video interview session which was streamed over the Hearst Connecticut Media Group news sites. (Bob Luckey/Staff photographer)

STAMFORD -- U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman made it clear Wednesday that he would not vote for a health care bill that included a government-run option, but said that without it, he and most of Congress would support comprehensive health care reform.

Discussion on health care dominated an informal question-and-answer session with the fourth-term Connecticut senator, who spoke to the editors of The Advocate and Connecticut Post and answered e-mailed questions from readers.

If the public option "is off the table, we have the opportunity to achieve significant reform with bipartisan support," Lieberman said during the nearly two-hour meeting Wednesday afternoon.

The Stamford native touched on his concerns that in the current recession the country could not afford a complete health care overhaul.

"We're trying to do a lot at once," he said. "We're trying to bend down the increasing cost curve of health care, and at the same time, turn and say to people ... it will cost a trillion or a trillion-and-a-half over the next 10 years."

He said the people know who will foot the bill.

Still, comprehensive reform -- "big steps, not baby steps" -- is possible, Lieberman said, predicting that Congress will compromise and adopt 75 percent of what is in the bill.

Reform should also include malpractice reform and health exchanges, which would offer different plans for varying costs and coverage for individuals or small businesses, he said.

Lieberman added that he supports mandating that no one can be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions and that everyone be required to have health insurance.

As to how 47 million uninsured will afford coverage, Lieberman said only 12 million don't have insurance because they cannot afford it.

By allowing citizens who are not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid to buy in for a rate below the private market, the government can extend coverage to more of those who are currently uninsured, he said.

To arrive at his position, Lieberman said he reached out to "every conceivable group" in the state, including residents, providers, doctors and hospitals.

"People in Connecticut want to see health care reform," he said, "but (they) have growing apprehension that the proposed reform would leave them with less coverage than they have today."

The Democratic-turned-independent senator said he knows his opposition to the government-run option will probably foil the Democrats' efforts to pass the bill.

"There will be no shot at 60 votes, because I'm not the only one," he said.

But he added: "If we start this out and three years from now a case can be made that the private market is not working effectively, I would support the public option."

Staff Writer Devon Lash can be reached at 964-2242 or devon.lash@scni.com – Connecticut Post

Posted: Daily Thought Pad – Cross-Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

No Public Option

No Co-Op – Another Name for Public Option

No Trigger – Will Lead to Public Option

No – Duty To Die Lectures or Death Panels

No Centralized Database