In 2012 Preview, Pawlenty Takes Aim at RomneyCare

In today's Washington Post, Tim Pawlenty has an op-ed urging Washington to learn from health care reform experiences at the state level. Not surprisingly, he touts reform efforts in Minnesota, but it's also noteworthy that he takes aim at the Massachusetts overhaul that was led by Mitt Romney (though he doesn't mention Romney by name). Not that Pawlenty is a free market puritan on health care -- he supported SCHIP, for example -- but the disastrous results of Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts could prove a big obstacle for him during the 2012 Republican primaries in which at the moment, he's viewed as the very early frontrunner.

Romney has tried to have it both ways on health care. On the one hand, he points to health care as an example of his ability as an executive to get things done, yet at the same time he blames the Democratic legislature for changing his original plan (even though he signed it with changes, knowing that he wouldn't be around to oversee its implementation and that his successor would likely be a Democrat). He wants to take credit for the fact that his plan expanded coverage, but doesn't want to accept blame for the endless wait times for doctors, skyrocketing costs and the fiscal crisis that went along with that expanded coverage. He claims that his plan is a free market alternative to a government takeover of health care, and yet it's a plan that expanded Medicaid rolls, forced individuals to purchase insurance or pay a tax, and had government provide subsidies to people to purchase a government-run insurance on a government-run exchange. Anybody worried about life under ObamaCare should not be a fan of RomneyCare -- other than the absence of a government plan in the exchange, both plans are structurally very similar.

By Philip Klein on 8.3.09 @ 10:20AM

Replicating Massachusetts’ Health Reform on a National Level

Massachusetts’ innovative approach to health care reform, adopted in 2006, has become the focus of substantial national attention as Congress and the Administration in Washington focus intense attention on health reform. Many federal proposals build on elements that have been implemented in Massachusetts. Two questions are of interest in this regard: can the federal government adopt the Massachusetts approach, and, failing federal reform, can Massachusetts serve as a model for other States?

For background, the key elements of the Massachusetts program can be summarized very generally as follows: An individual mandate requiring most residents to have insurance; assessments on certain employers who do not make adequate insurance available to their employees; a “health care connector” that links individuals and small businesses to insurance products; and State-subsidized insurance for persons who are not eligible for Medicaid with incomes up to 300% of the Federal poverty level (the “CommonwealthCare” program).

The individual mandate is key to achieving near universal coverage, and other components of the reform facilitate access to “affordable” coverage. The reform’s approach is to move uninsured people into insured status, and to reduce reliance by safety net hospitals on disproportionate share and supplemental Medicaid payments by providing them an insured population in lieu of uninsured individuals.

Many of these elements appear in the various federal proposals, including the individual mandate, the connector and imposing some form of assessment on employers. As to other elements of federal proposals, Massachusetts does not include a public plan option, although CommonwealthCare could be viewed as a workable alternative.

However, in creating the coalition that secured passage of the reform, political and policy leaders deliberately chose to address access first and defer dealing with how the program would be paid for. This of course is not an option for the federal government, which is struggling with how reform will be funded.

Massachusetts could defer the cost issue because the amount of new State dollars needed at the outset was relatively small. This was so because of: (a) CMS’ willingness to grant a waiver allowing federal Medicaid matching funds for the CommonwealthCare subsidies; (b) the generous level of State dollars that was already flowing into the health care system through Medicaid and the State’s uncompensated care pool; and (c) the relatively larger number of large and small business that already provided some coverage for their employees.

Of course, the economy and serious budget problems are now affecting CommonwealthCare’s financing. This year for the first time there will be some restrictions on who can enroll, and some adjustments to available benefits. Massachusetts did try to address health care cost through legislation in 2008, but the focus was more on long-term structural changes, such as incentives to promote more primary care physicians (one of the downsides of improving access in Massachusetts was to make worse an already bad situation of too few primary care physicians), supporting the greater use of nurse practitioners and effectively mandating that hospitals and physicians move toward adoption of electronic medical records and CPOE systems. The legislation, however, is not generating immediate cost savings.

In summary, Massachusetts’ program has many elements that could work at the federal level and could be adapted for use in other States. Two critical points need to be kept in mind, however: First, the creation of a coalition that included Government (including a Republican Governor and an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature), consumer advocates, employers and insurers and the willingness of each of the groups to compromise (an individual mandate balanced against some employer assessments, for example) got the reform enacted but is not easy to replicate.

Second, as noted above, financing could be deferred because the marginal dollars needed to fund the reform initially were not so great. (Shortly after enactment of Massachusetts’ reform, a California study concluded that implementing the same program there would cost that State an additional $12 billion.) The key issue for the federal government is how to fund reforms. Massachusetts may be a good model but the particular financial circumstances that existed when its reform was enacted may make the model difficult to replicate elsewhere.

Stephen M. Weiner, Esq serves as President of the national nonprofit HealthWell Foundation (www.healthwellfoundation.org), which provides financial assistance to underinsured patients coping with serious and chronic conditions. He is also Chair of the Health Law practice for Mintz Levin and has over thirty years of health care experience as a policy maker, educator and attorney.

Source: Physician News Digest

There are many better options out there that do not include:

• a public option that will lead to a single payer socialized medicine
• rationing
• duty to die aspects for seniors
• forced mandates for all physicians to perform abortions
• government being involved in what should be doctor-patient decisions
• a national database giving government access to everyone’s health records

What we need is

• regulation and over-sight by the government… of Insurance Companies, Big Pharma, the AMA and no more
• overhaul of Medicare, Medicaid, Veteran’s Health, Indian Reservation Health (government has done a terrible job with these programs… and that should speak for itself)
• tort reform
• allow companies and individuals to go across state lines to purchase insurance
• allow individuals and and small business to form co-ops to purchase insurance.
• portable health insurance
• attention and a stop to fraud in all the government-run programs and by the insurance companies and Big Pharma
• no more exclusion by insurance companies of people who have pre-existing conditions.

Source: True Health Is True Wealth

Related Resources:

• Safeway’s Health Care Program Gets Attention
• Kristol: Kill It, And Start Over

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Copy of ObamaCare Health Plan

Here is a copy of the ObamaCare health plan.
You better read it because you will be forced to live with it!

Members of Congress will be exempt from being forced into this plan. They will have their own. The liberals, Democrats and some Republicans - while forcing you to join the plan - refuse to include themselves. Members of Congress will have a better plan which gives them freedom you will be denied.

You can read an updated and revised overview of HR 3200 compiled by Liberty Counsel.

OR, READ THE FULL HEALTH CARE BILL (HR 3200) ON THE PATRIOT UPDATE WEB SITE!

Your Senators and Representative will soon be home for the August recess of Congress. Get a car load of friends and go meet with your Senators and Representative. Find out where he or she is holding Townhall meetings. Go to those meetings and ask for some answers! Some of them may try to avoid discussing ObamaCare. Don't let them! Find your Senators and Representative local offices here.

Whether Red or Blue, we’re still screwed… like the poor American Indians on Reservations, whose Healthcare the government has been managing for years.

Source: Patriot Update

Minn. Gov. Pawlenty Says He's Focused on GOP, Not 2012

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is a man on the move. Next stop, the Republican National Committee meeting in California. Future stop? Maybe the White House.

The two-term fiscal and social conservative is taking necessary steps toward a possible presidential bid — headlining GOP fundraisers, taking an influential job at the Republican Governors Association, mulling his own political action committee.

But Pawlenty says he's focused on the party, not 2012.

"Anybody who is out focusing on (2012) instead of working toward getting the party moving forward or back in a better position in 2010 is really doing us a disservice," Pawlenty told The Associated Press.

However, his track record of GOP building in Minnesota is less than stellar. Republicans have lost ground in every election since he became governor in 2003. He is the sole statewide GOP officeholder and his party controls its fewest legislative seats since 1992. Pawlenty himself narrowly survived a three-way election contest to win his second term. But the governor said that's not his fault.

Minnesota is "probably one of the most liberal states in the country," he said. "When the pendulum swung back to the left, we were at a tenuous point to begin with."

At age 48, with almost two decades of state government service under his belt, Pawlenty denies looking very far down the national road. But he's getting the early exposure he'll need if he formally joins a GOP field that could include better-known former governors like Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee.

He has assumed the No. 2 post at the Republican Governors Association, a perch that will involve steering assistance to GOP candidates in close races. And he's jumped into the national healthcare debate, criticizing President Barack Obama's plan in a way also seen as a veiled swipe at potential rival Romney. (He labeled a Massachusetts overhaul enacted under Romney an "experiment" with a swelling price tag.)

Pawlenty also told the AP he's considering forming a political action committee — a staple that gives potential presidential candidates a way to raise money and organize travel to election battlegrounds.

Pawlenty's recent travel has taken him to Washington, Arkansas, and Colorado. But he hasn't yet ventured to presidential proving grounds Iowa or New Hampshire and wouldn't say when he would. He visited both while campaigning for 2008 nominee John McCain — who considered him for the running mate slot Palin got — but still has plenty of work to do.

Republican John Finnegan, 50, of Concord, said Wednesday he had heard Pawlenty's name but not much else.

"I don't know anything about the guy," he said.

In Iowa, Sioux City businessman and former state GOP chairman Ray Hoffman rated Pawlenty as merely a possibility. "Would I put him at the top of the list? At this point, no," Hoffman said.

At least one Iowa conservative group, the American Future Fund, has invited him to speak. Organizer Tim Albrecht said Iowa Republicans are eager to hear from their neighboring governor firsthand, but understand why he hasn't come yet.

"The biggest risk in coming to Iowa too early is it can seem overeager or ambitious to talk about 2012," Albrecht said. "It is a delicate balance, a tightrope they need to walk in order to be successful."

But Republican strategist Terry Nelson, who managed McCain's early campaign efforts, said potential candidates' groundwork must be laid to move quickly after the 2010 election.

"Really, candidates have to decide that in the next 18 months because it's not the kind of thing anymore you can decide in June or July of 2011," Nelson said.

Republican national committeewoman Phyllis Woods of New Hampshire plans to ask Pawlenty to visit her state when she sees him in California. Woods said she met Pawlenty during last summer's GOP convention in the Twin Cities and considers him a "feet-on-the-ground, good, solid, conservative Republican."

"I would like to learn more about him," she said.

Woods and representatives from all 50 states will get their chance at Pawlenty's speech Thursday.

Pawlenty tends to stick a formula at the podium: He'll begin with a self-deprecating joke — usually about a comment by his wife or two daughters — and connect the punch line to a broader point of his speech.

The son of a truck driver, he's also fond of talking about "Sam's Club Republicans," potential GOP voters with blue-collar backgrounds who want leaders to apply customer values to government. Lately, Pawlenty has shared a tough-love message with Republican audiences, saying his party will keep "losing market share to our competitors" until it finds a better, more inspiring message.

Whether Pawlenty can break through to sustain a 2012 campaign is hard to say.

Drake University politics professor Dennis Goldford said a northern governor must find a way to appeal to an increasingly southern GOP base. He needs to weave a message attractive both to people who want to make the party more pure and to those seeking centrist remodeling.

"At this point you just don't know the political terrain," Goldford said. "All you can do right now is introduce yourself and put yourself in people's vision and mind and then say 'I'll be back.'"

© 2009 Associated Press

Senate Conservatives Update

Co-ops = Public Option = Single Payer

Knowing that Americans would reject the idea of a "single payer" government health care system, Democrats began calling their plan a "public option." Now that Americans have rejected that idea too, Democrats are peddling another proposal called health care "cooperatives."

Unfortunately, these federally-backed co-ops are nothing more than a public option by another name. Washington will set up and subsidize them so private health plans are squeezed out of the marketplace. Then, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the costs will catch up with these government-sponsored entities and Congress will tell us they are "too big to fail" and must be nationalized.

Some Democrats are willing to admit that co-ops are the same as a public option. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said earlier this month that, "We're going to have some type of public option, call it 'co-op,' call it what you want."
Some Democrats are also willing to admit that the public option is the same as a single payer system. Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA)

said this week that, "I think if we get a good public option it could lead to single payer, and that's the best way to reach single payer."

It's becoming clear that no matter what name Democrats put on it, all of their ideas lead to a government takeover of our health care.

Join the Recess Rally

At noon on Saturday, August 22, 2009, citizen rallies will take place outside congressional offices across the country. If you would like to participate, click

here to find your Congressman's local office and get more information.

The latest government bailout

This week, the Senate moved beyond bailing out industries that it has driven into the ground to bailing out its own programs that it has failed to manage.

Proving once again that the federal government is incapable of managing the federal highway system, the Senate passed $7 billion to shore up the failing program. The bill also provides $7.5 billion to bail out the failing unemployment insurance program and $185 billion to bail out several government-managed home-ownership programs.

Only 17 Republicans had the courage to vote against this rip-off. Click here to see how your Senators voted.

Question: If the government cannot manage these programs, what makes anyone think it can manage our health care?