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@AdrianS: I have been thinking the same thing. The liberals must think we are stupid to think that layers of bureaucracy will somehow magically lower costs. Also I don’t want my tax dollars used to pay for an abortion. If it is legal in this country, and you are irresponsible and lack the self-control to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, then pay for your own abortion. If you can’t afford it, then you can’t afford to have sex.
Here’s a graphic which explains perfectly why tort reform is off the table:
Obviously Democrats care more about the money than they do about reforming health care and controlling it’s cost.
OLDPUPPYMAX
14 years ago
The left has ALWAYS adhered to the “BABY STEP” philosophy. For example, warning labels on cigarette packs proceeded by baby steps into $50/carton prices and laws against smoking in one’s own living room!! Heathcare is NO DIFFERENT!! And limp-wristed, spineless, “bipartisanship-seeking”, RINO sell-outs will be pleased as punch to betray the American people by signing on to anything which will increase their power and insure their re-election. Or has no one NOTICED that republicans–supposed CONSERVATIVES–have been strangely quiet in their own Townhall meetings!! Why are they not screaming about the Marxist, unConstitutional, freedom-trampling Hussein power grab??? Have I missed the republican-lead outrage at Townhalls nationwide?? NO!! These thugs are just laying low, ready to betray at a moments notice. So we must NOT back down, we must NOT declare victory, we must NOT become pleased with ourselves and we must CERTAINLY NOT fall prey to the democrat/media scam and fraud that the American people have suddenly won the day…and can now go home and be quiet since the battle is over!!! That is the most deadly misrepresentation of all!!!
AdrianS
14 years ago
If we, instead of limiting the size of awards for “malpractice”, limit, or cap, the total amount that attorneys can earn in any lawsuit based on hours invested (being reasonable as to the amount of work done), maybe we might see sudden drops in the sizes of awards and thus a drop in the cost of insurance premiums, and thus a drop in the overall cost of medical care.
But, because Obama is self-blinded and brain-numbed, through the enormous amounts of money contributions to his campaign, this will not happen until Obama is dropped or when there is such an overwhelming outrage on the part of the public that Congress will have no choice but to enforce this limit-lawyer-payment, money-saving idea.
One thing EVERYONE needs to know about: The United States Constitution. In the enumerated powers of the CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS there are NO National Health Care plans, no single-payer, no socialistic health care plans, no nationalized ANYTHING for NATIONAL health care. NONE.
The health care plans the government is currently involved in is in fact UNCONSTITUTIONAL, period. Show anyone the chapter and verse of the USC that reveals ANY “national anything” for health care and off we go…until then? Forget it. It is in fact a STATE issue.
pdill
14 years ago
I agree that there is certainly no cause for celebration, as Obama’s ‘best work’ is always “back door” and always with plenty of “back ups.” In this case, the government end of life language is already in place; got tucked into the ‘Stimulus Bill’ (wow, what a surprise), by Tom Daschel.
What both outlets fail to point out is that the panel already exists.
H.R. 1 (more commonly known as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, even more commonly known as the Stimulus Bill and aptly dubbed the Porkulus Bill) contains a whopping $1.1 billion to fund the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. The Council is the brain child of former Health and Human Services Secretary Nominee Tom Daschle. Before the Porkulus Bill passed, Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant governor of New York, wrote in detail about the Council’s purpose.
Daschle’s stated purpose (and therefore President Obama’s purpose) for creating the Council is to empower an unelected bureaucracy to make the hard decisions about health care rationing that elected politicians are politically unable to make. The end result is to slow costly medical advancement and consumption. Daschle argues that Americans ought to be more like Europeans who passively accept “hopeless diagnoses.”
I took a lot of heat for supporting Palin in her “death panel” statement, and I continue to stand with it/ her. Maybe it takes eyes of faith to see, but common sense alone should send red flags that the entire Obama administration is stacked with radical anti-life thugs that, by their actions and writings, have little to no respect for human life. This isn’t a leap, it’s reality, especially from a party that has already debased human life, more than made obvious, by their abortion policies of which no time was wasted in implementing.
Wittingly or unwittingly, we continue to slide the slippery slope of the culture of death; a culture fertilized from own insensitivity (and silence), of 50 million legalized US abortions. Everything is in place for an unhappy ending. While the oblivious chant “Choice, and it’s my body”, Palin was right, and courageous, to call it for what it really is, evil. In the end, when the question is asked, “How did we get here”, there will only be one answer. By our silence and selfish immorality, we will have done it to ourselves. Like Sarah, I believe in calling a spade a spade. Outside of rape and incest, abortion always was/is about sex, our back up contraceptive in our obsessed disordered sexual culture.
We are Ancient Rome, and we are falling; so far gone that no political agenda at this point is likely to save us.
@OLDPUPPYMAX: I have watched some GOP Town Hall meetings on health care and I plan to attend the one being held in my area this Saturday (I’ll report back).
There hasn’t been a lot of shouting at these meetings because the GOP Congressman already has told his constituents that he plans to vote against Obama’s Hell Care.
And I watched a fascinating presentation by Cong. Kevin Brady (R-TX) on the GOP alternatives. Brady is the guy who first put together the famous chart of how complicated the Dem plan would be.
Our side HAS been fighting vigorously and obviously with some effect. I’ve been posting on this continuously. Have you missed those posts? Should I list them here?
At some point you are going to have to stop beating up on our side and show them some support and some $$$. Either that or get used to another 2 years of HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI!
AdrianS
14 years ago
Interesting, not to be overlooked, fact:
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Could it be that socialist-Obama is getting ahead of himself. Perhaps the whole program of nationalized health care IS IN FACT unconstitutional. There is no directive or reference to this type of take-over by the federal government.
By the way, I was listing to the Rush Limbaugh Show and he played several sound-bites on the Democraps’ weekend speeches. The Dems kept referring to citizens taking back the flag. Like a choreographed publicity stunt, each and every speaker said something to the effect that they needed to take back the FLAG – it doesn’t belong to Rush Limbaugh. Could there be some kind of connection with the snitching on public opposition to the Obama email called flag@whitehouse.gov????
The fight against the socialist attempts at wholesale takeover of healthcare in America is NOT over. Those who OPPOSE an Obama healthcare takeover are in the majority. Obama can NOW bite the dust, go pound sand, and take his defeat.
AdrianS: Obamacare and his cronies are NOT going down without a fight. I would not bet otherwise but we MUST bring forth the Constitutional issues of FEDERAL health care plan…it is unconstitutional.
AdrianS
14 years ago
Three strikes and Obama’s out (almost):
1. Public has forced the Obama administration to back down on the “end-of-life” issue; in no small part thanks to Sarah Palin.
2. Public is forcing the Obama administration to back down on the “public option” for his Hellcare plan.
3. Public outrage has force Obama to shut down his flag@whitehouse.gov snitch website; a most disgusting and unpatriotic effort in an attempt to quell the overwhelming outrage at Obama’s socialist hellplan.
“White House shuts down e-mail address inviting ‘fishy’ health care info as it struggles to contain unsolicited distribution controversy.” – FoxNews headline.
I have never seen such backtracking on the part of a “president’ in such a short time. Obama is falling faster than imaged. But, beware, socialist Obama is a student of the “rules for radicals” and like guerrilla warfare the public would be well advised to be on the alert and yet keep the overwhelming strong opposition to Obama’s insidious health care “reform” in front of the Democraps.
I noticed that my notice to FLAG MYSELF has been returned to me.
bill-tb
14 years ago
When losing the argument, change the words.
Fit fit
14 years ago
Tort reform? I never thought I hear you say “They do it better in Europe!” Funny how states rights only seem to matter to conservatives when it applies to something they don’t like. I don’t have an issue with tort reform, but it will only lower costs by about 2%. Sorry, but that ain’t going to cut it guys.
B. Johnson
14 years ago
With all due respect to Mike, please consider the following. Regardless that we have a bunch of crooks running the federal government, the government per se isn’t the main problem, IMO. The main problem with the government is not corrupt politicians but the people. More specifically, citizens have evidently not been teaching the Constitution and its history to their children for many generations. As a consequence, the people do not understand that since the federal Constitution is silent about programs like Obamacare and the Stimulus Package that the 10th A. automatically reserves government power to regulate and lay taxes for such things to the states, not the Oval Office and Congress.
In fact, Chief Justice Marshall had established the following case precedent, now wrongly ignored, which appropriately limits the power of the feds to lay taxes.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” –Chief Justice Marshall, GIBBONS V. OGDEN (1824) http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/1/case.html
So not only was misguided Obama’s Stimulus Package and proposed healthcare constitutionally unauthorized, but the corrupt feds never had the power to lay taxes to fund such programs in the first place.
What’s going on is that state sovereignty-ignorant voters have been electing lawmakers to both the state legislatures and the federal senate who are as state sovereignty-impaired as the voters are. Consequently, these lawmakers have not been doing their jobs to protect state sovereignty by protecting citizens from the power-hungry, tax-loving, Constitution-ignoring “leaders” running the federal government.
Finally, the following link should give people an idea as to how Constitution-ignorant voters have shot themselves in the foot with big, corrupt federal government.
@ Fit fit
Straight from the Annenberg Center. But Obama uses the same argument against defensive medicine, just without tort reform. He wants to have doctors perform less tests, yet face the same malpractice situations. There are other estimates that put the savings at around 9%. You go low-ball, I go high-ball. The answer may lie somewhere in the middle.
Either way, for a president that says he’s looking for savings anywhere he can find it, 2% of a trillion plus smackers isn’t anything to sneeze at. I’ll take it right now, thank you.
@Mike’s America: I saw the presentation Congressman Brady made on Public Access here in CA. It was terrific and I kept wondering why the other Republicans couldn’t hold such educational forums. If they did, it would be a giant step in getting this thrown out and a start from scratch. There is no reason whatsoever for a radical overhaul.
Personally, I do not want our method of delivery changed at all. However, I would like some sane regulation of insurance. Most of all, simply make the insurance companies keep their reason for being. No denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions, open up the markets to competition and for God’s sake, when you actually use your policy, you can’t be canceled because of that. I don’t know when they started getting away with all this. When I was raising my family, none of these would have applied and it was still quite affordable. On the few occasions I did use my insurance for hospitalization, I had a minimal amount (usually under $100) to pay after the insurance covered doctor and hospital. Easy even for a Mom of two. We have to return to something working people can pay…whether covered partially by employment or not.
BTW, if the Dems back away from this now, it’s only because they plan to return with overwhelming force if he gets a 2nd term…which I pray does not happen. However, I hope all those people who stayed home because they were miffed about McCain/Palin feel just hunky dorey now. McCain wasn’t an ideal candidate for me either but we’d sure as hell be in a better place now than with the donkey. Happy to see Sarah making a difference. Her influence may be best used in just these ways…or certainly from congress. She needs a national forum to show how effective she is.
Madalyn
14 years ago
We all need to be viligant…Obama, the Emanuel brothers, Ms. Pelosi, H. Reid, all of those butt kissing dems are sneaky. Kind of like the criminals who sneak around under the cover of darkness. The are changing words, but the meaning is still the same. Don’t give in to them! The dems swore up and down that the “Death Panel” or words to that effect were not and had never been in the healthcare plan. Now they say they’ve taken it out. How can you take out something that has never been there? OK Dems, fess up! Who’se the a**hole that confessed it was in there all along? You may be sneaky, but we have put up with you long enough. We are on to you and your slimy tactics. Give it up.
Just my opinion
Madalyn
Aqua
14 years ago
@ Mark L Harvey (aka Snooper)
Dude, I hate to tell you this, but the sitting president and the current congress aren’t reading the constitution. It get’s in their way. If you have read any of Mata’s Musing’s on the government takeover of the Auto Industry, or any of the other poster’s information concerning the same subject, you know they pretty much tossed the 5th Amendment under the bus with the bondholders. They’re working their way through the Bill of Rights.
Many of the States have reaffirmed their 10th Amendment sovereignty. The 10th Amendment is just a bunch of pretty words if the States don’t step up and tell the feds to back off.
AdrianS
14 years ago
The same way a vampire cringes when you make the symbol of a cross; the Democrat-liberal-socialists cringe when you use the word … RECALL.
Aqua
14 years ago
@ Fit fit
Have you heard of the Wyden-Bennett plan. I email my Senators a bunch because my representative is a flake. Hank Johnson might as well just phone in his votes for whatever Pelosi wants. Anyway, both Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss have mentioned the resurrection of this bill. You can read the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities review of it here. Basically it turns healthcare over to the states, does away with the employer based system and provides insurance for 99% of Americans. There are some questions in their proposal that would need to be addressed, but turning it over to the States is the best way IMHO.
@AnnMonterey: I imagine that quite a few of our other GOP Congresspersons are holding Town Hall meetings on the same par with that presentation by Rep. Brady. We just don’t hear about them because the news media is fixated on the Democrats.
As I said, I plan to stop by the Town Hall to be held here on Saturday and get a first hand report.
Fit: I don’t have an issue with tort reform, but it will only lower costs by about 2%. Sorry, but that ain’t going to cut it guys.
I’m not sure where you are getting your percentage figure, Fit… nor what it includes. But let me say this:
First, tort reform in not the *only* factor needing reform. It is only one item out of many to address. You are being quite anal to assume that is the only suggestion put forth on FA. I know that I, myself, have mentioned multiple cures in my past posts often. So it’s foul play to play games with that as the lone suggestion.
It is, however, quite notable that for all the babbling that Obama preaches about saving health care dollars or face certain doom, that he never once addresses the effect of malpractice laws on the cost of insurance, treatment, and physicians’ care.
Allow me to broaden your mind. Tort reform in not only the size of malpractice awards (which I assume is where you are deriving your 2% from some DNC talking point source). By eliminating frivolous lawsuits, and reforming malpractice laws, you also eliminate costs of unnecessary tests and procedures that are done while practicing medical litigation prevention. All too often physicians order a battery of tests to cover their E&O butts… not because the patient necessarily needs it.
Add to that, when the physician or facility does not have to perform these battery of “litigation prevention” tests, and pay 50% of their annual operating costs to an E&O insurance premium, they can charge less for their services. I’m quite sure this is not figured into your “2%” quote of savings.
Down side? There will be a lot of E&O insurance salesmen/women and companies that are jobless…. oh well. I doubt that will break any liberal’s heart.
Also the bureaucratic red tape that adds to the administrative costs also needs to be spliced and chopped. I think there is value to medical data bases to streamline records. However I am adamantly opposed to *any* federal agency having carte blanche access to those records. So any electronic database must be carefully scrutinized to see just what data is being fed to the pols in the beltway.
There should also be tax benefits for medical savings accounts. Personally I believe that there should be a medical account set up for the base care of routine doctor visits, vaccines, etc. Insurance should be confined to a couple of tiers for consumers’ options… catastrophic, and another tier for the more expensive, but common, physical events that may cost more… therapy, birthing, broken limbs, etc.
They most certainly should stop treating pregnancy as a disease, or an inconvenient event that needs to occur inbetween surgeries and golf games. In my day, babies came when babies were ready to be delivered… sans those special exceptions. Today late term moms are booked in on specific days to induce labor and deliver in order to meet a schedule of convenience. This entails drugs, surgery and staff not necessarily needed, and thereby racking up additional costs.
Most of this is both convenience (inducing labor for a selective date), and first time moms hitting the hospital for admittance too soon, or being terrified of natural childbirth.
Sutter Health did a study on this back in 2006, when they examined 41,000 births over three years, occurring at 20 hospitals within the not-for-profit network in Northern California. Oddly enough, they did this study because of the increased risk to both mothers and babies… however this is appropriate because, as even the NYTimes was pointing out in 1995 that this “birth by appointment” mentality is costing big bucks compared to natural childbirth.
Another big factor for cost savings would be to allow for federal standards for a base health care package, that allowed for intrastate competiton. This, however, is extremely dicey with states’ rights and their own nanny add-on mandates. Do I like the idea of competiton? Of course. Do I like the further erosion of the 10th Amendment? Hang no… It’s another “tread cautiously” reform.
A MUST, as far as I’m concerned, is to allow anyone in Medicare to opt out for private coverage, and still keep their SS retirement pension checks. If only 1% of Medicare enrollees opted out, it would save the system $1.5 billion annually. That’s almost as much as Obama’s proposed Medicare “death panel”… the IMAC… would save with all their slashing and trashing of Medicare benefits and reimbursements over FOUR years. And I’m quite certain that many more of the wealthier seniors may choose private care, providing further savings.
Then, of course, there is the “co-op” or “exchange” idea… in a more reasonable pathology. ala the increased ability for small business or groups of individuals to bond together to get insurance packages at a better rate.
These are only a few of the ideas to actually save money, without costing the US taxpayer additional money for Obama’s idea of “reform”.
@MataHarley: The other hidden cost from the lack of tort reform is the fact that OB GYN’s are quitting practice. My father would have kept practicing another few years but the malpractice insurance he was required to have cost more than his entire annual salary.
Funny how Obama never mentions reforming malpractice insurance….
I wonder why?
Actually I don’t wonder. I already posted this chart above:
Mike, this malpractice thing came up when Larry W and I were discussing the virtues of French health care… as I pointed out then, they pay their doctors about 60% of what ours are paid, the State pays for their medical tuition, and there are no malpractice laws.
Even at that, their government/public option health care is STILL going bankrupt…
@MataHarley: I missed that discussion with Larry. I would have liked to ask him how much he pays per year for malpractice insurance. I’m willing to bet it isn’t the hundreds of thousands my father paid per year.
If Democrats REALLY wanted a bipartisan bill they would permit Republican amendments that cover tort reform and other subjects. But as we saw in the House committees every idea we put forward got turned down because it would upset one of the Dems big money donor groups.
That’s why I have said this isn’t about health care, it’s about payoffs to Dem donors and a power grab.
Actually, Mike, I’ll take the latter. I think it’s about power…. but of course the payoffs reflect those who recognize they will financially benefit from the power of government run health care. I mean this bill, as “reform” was always a joke, as I’ve said from the beginning. There is no “reform” in there. Just a re’forming of a nation, so to speak. Or, in Obama’speak, “remaking of America”.
I expect them to try to sneak it in a last minute amendment in both houses. This isn’t over by a long-shot, and the Democrats will try every underhanded and obfuscated way they can to get their way, even if it means making the language unclear enough that they can argue it means one thing before passing, then change their interpretation of the meaning of that which was written afterward.
B. Johnson
14 years ago
Regarding the current emphasis on “public option” concerning constitutionally unauthorized Obamacare, weren’t the Constitution-ignoring Democrats claiming a “the sky is falling” healthcare crisis just a few days ago? That’s like global warming alarmists slyly shifting their emphasis to climate change.
Folks, I cannot stress enough that the “public option” is NOT gone.
It’s still there.
They just changed the name to “co-ops”.
Same pile o’dog squeeze, different title.
Now, this morning, I’m reading that Sebelius “mis-spoke” and that the public option IS still alive in its’ original form.
Do not, do not, do not be fooled.
These conniving people WILL get what they are aiming for whatever they title it.
Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer have already told us that they don’t care what it’s called, just get the “public option”.
Again, I cannot stress enough, NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
We the People have not won a victory here, we have not even won a battle in the larger war YET.
Stay vigilant. Stay aware. Keep fighting.
first thing to understand, the Joker lies.
You’re 100% correct in saying that Obama’s Health care plans do not focus primarily on cost reduction. It seems that cost savings is an afterthought.
Consider this:
Tort Reform Can Lower Costs Without Harming Health Care. So Why Isn’t It in Obama’s Plan?
Read details at:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/tort-reform-aids-health-lowers-cost-why-isnt-it-in-obamacare/.
@AdrianS: I have been thinking the same thing. The liberals must think we are stupid to think that layers of bureaucracy will somehow magically lower costs. Also I don’t want my tax dollars used to pay for an abortion. If it is legal in this country, and you are irresponsible and lack the self-control to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, then pay for your own abortion. If you can’t afford it, then you can’t afford to have sex.
@AdrianS: Thanks for that article Adrian.
Here’s a graphic which explains perfectly why tort reform is off the table:
Obviously Democrats care more about the money than they do about reforming health care and controlling it’s cost.
The left has ALWAYS adhered to the “BABY STEP” philosophy. For example, warning labels on cigarette packs proceeded by baby steps into $50/carton prices and laws against smoking in one’s own living room!! Heathcare is NO DIFFERENT!! And limp-wristed, spineless, “bipartisanship-seeking”, RINO sell-outs will be pleased as punch to betray the American people by signing on to anything which will increase their power and insure their re-election. Or has no one NOTICED that republicans–supposed CONSERVATIVES–have been strangely quiet in their own Townhall meetings!! Why are they not screaming about the Marxist, unConstitutional, freedom-trampling Hussein power grab??? Have I missed the republican-lead outrage at Townhalls nationwide?? NO!! These thugs are just laying low, ready to betray at a moments notice. So we must NOT back down, we must NOT declare victory, we must NOT become pleased with ourselves and we must CERTAINLY NOT fall prey to the democrat/media scam and fraud that the American people have suddenly won the day…and can now go home and be quiet since the battle is over!!! That is the most deadly misrepresentation of all!!!
If we, instead of limiting the size of awards for “malpractice”, limit, or cap, the total amount that attorneys can earn in any lawsuit based on hours invested (being reasonable as to the amount of work done), maybe we might see sudden drops in the sizes of awards and thus a drop in the cost of insurance premiums, and thus a drop in the overall cost of medical care.
But, because Obama is self-blinded and brain-numbed, through the enormous amounts of money contributions to his campaign, this will not happen until Obama is dropped or when there is such an overwhelming outrage on the part of the public that Congress will have no choice but to enforce this limit-lawyer-payment, money-saving idea.
One thing EVERYONE needs to know about: The United States Constitution. In the enumerated powers of the CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS there are NO National Health Care plans, no single-payer, no socialistic health care plans, no nationalized ANYTHING for NATIONAL health care. NONE.
The health care plans the government is currently involved in is in fact UNCONSTITUTIONAL, period. Show anyone the chapter and verse of the USC that reveals ANY “national anything” for health care and off we go…until then? Forget it. It is in fact a STATE issue.
I agree that there is certainly no cause for celebration, as Obama’s ‘best work’ is always “back door” and always with plenty of “back ups.” In this case, the government end of life language is already in place; got tucked into the ‘Stimulus Bill’ (wow, what a surprise), by Tom Daschel.
What both outlets fail to point out is that the panel already exists.
I took a lot of heat for supporting Palin in her “death panel” statement, and I continue to stand with it/ her. Maybe it takes eyes of faith to see, but common sense alone should send red flags that the entire Obama administration is stacked with radical anti-life thugs that, by their actions and writings, have little to no respect for human life. This isn’t a leap, it’s reality, especially from a party that has already debased human life, more than made obvious, by their abortion policies of which no time was wasted in implementing.
Wittingly or unwittingly, we continue to slide the slippery slope of the culture of death; a culture fertilized from own insensitivity (and silence), of 50 million legalized US abortions. Everything is in place for an unhappy ending. While the oblivious chant “Choice, and it’s my body”, Palin was right, and courageous, to call it for what it really is, evil. In the end, when the question is asked, “How did we get here”, there will only be one answer. By our silence and selfish immorality, we will have done it to ourselves. Like Sarah, I believe in calling a spade a spade. Outside of rape and incest, abortion always was/is about sex, our back up contraceptive in our obsessed disordered sexual culture.
We are Ancient Rome, and we are falling; so far gone that no political agenda at this point is likely to save us.
#8 went to spam; thanks.
@OLDPUPPYMAX: I have watched some GOP Town Hall meetings on health care and I plan to attend the one being held in my area this Saturday (I’ll report back).
There hasn’t been a lot of shouting at these meetings because the GOP Congressman already has told his constituents that he plans to vote against Obama’s Hell Care.
And I watched a fascinating presentation by Cong. Kevin Brady (R-TX) on the GOP alternatives. Brady is the guy who first put together the famous chart of how complicated the Dem plan would be.
Our side HAS been fighting vigorously and obviously with some effect. I’ve been posting on this continuously. Have you missed those posts? Should I list them here?
At some point you are going to have to stop beating up on our side and show them some support and some $$$. Either that or get used to another 2 years of HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI!
Interesting, not to be overlooked, fact:
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Could it be that socialist-Obama is getting ahead of himself. Perhaps the whole program of nationalized health care IS IN FACT unconstitutional. There is no directive or reference to this type of take-over by the federal government.
By the way, I was listing to the Rush Limbaugh Show and he played several sound-bites on the Democraps’ weekend speeches. The Dems kept referring to citizens taking back the flag. Like a choreographed publicity stunt, each and every speaker said something to the effect that they needed to take back the FLAG – it doesn’t belong to Rush Limbaugh. Could there be some kind of connection with the snitching on public opposition to the Obama email called flag@whitehouse.gov????
The fight against the socialist attempts at wholesale takeover of healthcare in America is NOT over. Those who OPPOSE an Obama healthcare takeover are in the majority. Obama can NOW bite the dust, go pound sand, and take his defeat.
AdrianS: Obamacare and his cronies are NOT going down without a fight. I would not bet otherwise but we MUST bring forth the Constitutional issues of FEDERAL health care plan…it is unconstitutional.
Three strikes and Obama’s out (almost):
1. Public has forced the Obama administration to back down on the “end-of-life” issue; in no small part thanks to Sarah Palin.
2. Public is forcing the Obama administration to back down on the “public option” for his Hellcare plan.
3. Public outrage has force Obama to shut down his flag@whitehouse.gov snitch website; a most disgusting and unpatriotic effort in an attempt to quell the overwhelming outrage at Obama’s socialist hellplan.
“White House shuts down e-mail address inviting ‘fishy’ health care info as it struggles to contain unsolicited distribution controversy.” – FoxNews headline.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/17/white-house-makes-security-changes-web-site-following-complaints-unwanted-e/
I have never seen such backtracking on the part of a “president’ in such a short time. Obama is falling faster than imaged. But, beware, socialist Obama is a student of the “rules for radicals” and like guerrilla warfare the public would be well advised to be on the alert and yet keep the overwhelming strong opposition to Obama’s insidious health care “reform” in front of the Democraps.
Demoncramps, Demorats, Democraps…the whole slew.
I noticed that my notice to FLAG MYSELF has been returned to me.
When losing the argument, change the words.
Tort reform? I never thought I hear you say “They do it better in Europe!” Funny how states rights only seem to matter to conservatives when it applies to something they don’t like. I don’t have an issue with tort reform, but it will only lower costs by about 2%. Sorry, but that ain’t going to cut it guys.
With all due respect to Mike, please consider the following. Regardless that we have a bunch of crooks running the federal government, the government per se isn’t the main problem, IMO. The main problem with the government is not corrupt politicians but the people. More specifically, citizens have evidently not been teaching the Constitution and its history to their children for many generations. As a consequence, the people do not understand that since the federal Constitution is silent about programs like Obamacare and the Stimulus Package that the 10th A. automatically reserves government power to regulate and lay taxes for such things to the states, not the Oval Office and Congress.
In fact, Chief Justice Marshall had established the following case precedent, now wrongly ignored, which appropriately limits the power of the feds to lay taxes.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” –Chief Justice Marshall, GIBBONS V. OGDEN (1824) http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/1/case.html
So not only was misguided Obama’s Stimulus Package and proposed healthcare constitutionally unauthorized, but the corrupt feds never had the power to lay taxes to fund such programs in the first place.
What’s going on is that state sovereignty-ignorant voters have been electing lawmakers to both the state legislatures and the federal senate who are as state sovereignty-impaired as the voters are. Consequently, these lawmakers have not been doing their jobs to protect state sovereignty by protecting citizens from the power-hungry, tax-loving, Constitution-ignoring “leaders” running the federal government.
Finally, the following link should give people an idea as to how Constitution-ignorant voters have shot themselves in the foot with big, corrupt federal government.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=199792
Throw Ron Paul out the window.
Anyway, we MUST get back to the US Constitution.
@ Fit fit
Straight from the Annenberg Center. But Obama uses the same argument against defensive medicine, just without tort reform. He wants to have doctors perform less tests, yet face the same malpractice situations. There are other estimates that put the savings at around 9%. You go low-ball, I go high-ball. The answer may lie somewhere in the middle.
Either way, for a president that says he’s looking for savings anywhere he can find it, 2% of a trillion plus smackers isn’t anything to sneeze at. I’ll take it right now, thank you.
Take anything you want to but is it constitutional?
@Mike’s America: I saw the presentation Congressman Brady made on Public Access here in CA. It was terrific and I kept wondering why the other Republicans couldn’t hold such educational forums. If they did, it would be a giant step in getting this thrown out and a start from scratch. There is no reason whatsoever for a radical overhaul.
Personally, I do not want our method of delivery changed at all. However, I would like some sane regulation of insurance. Most of all, simply make the insurance companies keep their reason for being. No denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions, open up the markets to competition and for God’s sake, when you actually use your policy, you can’t be canceled because of that. I don’t know when they started getting away with all this. When I was raising my family, none of these would have applied and it was still quite affordable. On the few occasions I did use my insurance for hospitalization, I had a minimal amount (usually under $100) to pay after the insurance covered doctor and hospital. Easy even for a Mom of two. We have to return to something working people can pay…whether covered partially by employment or not.
BTW, if the Dems back away from this now, it’s only because they plan to return with overwhelming force if he gets a 2nd term…which I pray does not happen. However, I hope all those people who stayed home because they were miffed about McCain/Palin feel just hunky dorey now. McCain wasn’t an ideal candidate for me either but we’d sure as hell be in a better place now than with the donkey. Happy to see Sarah making a difference. Her influence may be best used in just these ways…or certainly from congress. She needs a national forum to show how effective she is.
We all need to be viligant…Obama, the Emanuel brothers, Ms. Pelosi, H. Reid, all of those butt kissing dems are sneaky. Kind of like the criminals who sneak around under the cover of darkness. The are changing words, but the meaning is still the same. Don’t give in to them! The dems swore up and down that the “Death Panel” or words to that effect were not and had never been in the healthcare plan. Now they say they’ve taken it out. How can you take out something that has never been there? OK Dems, fess up! Who’se the a**hole that confessed it was in there all along? You may be sneaky, but we have put up with you long enough. We are on to you and your slimy tactics. Give it up.
Just my opinion
Madalyn
@ Mark L Harvey (aka Snooper)
Dude, I hate to tell you this, but the sitting president and the current congress aren’t reading the constitution. It get’s in their way. If you have read any of Mata’s Musing’s on the government takeover of the Auto Industry, or any of the other poster’s information concerning the same subject, you know they pretty much tossed the 5th Amendment under the bus with the bondholders. They’re working their way through the Bill of Rights.
Many of the States have reaffirmed their 10th Amendment sovereignty. The 10th Amendment is just a bunch of pretty words if the States don’t step up and tell the feds to back off.
The same way a vampire cringes when you make the symbol of a cross; the Democrat-liberal-socialists cringe when you use the word … RECALL.
@ Fit fit
Have you heard of the Wyden-Bennett plan. I email my Senators a bunch because my representative is a flake. Hank Johnson might as well just phone in his votes for whatever Pelosi wants. Anyway, both Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss have mentioned the resurrection of this bill. You can read the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities review of it here. Basically it turns healthcare over to the states, does away with the employer based system and provides insurance for 99% of Americans. There are some questions in their proposal that would need to be addressed, but turning it over to the States is the best way IMHO.
@AnnMonterey: I imagine that quite a few of our other GOP Congresspersons are holding Town Hall meetings on the same par with that presentation by Rep. Brady. We just don’t hear about them because the news media is fixated on the Democrats.
As I said, I plan to stop by the Town Hall to be held here on Saturday and get a first hand report.
I’m not sure where you are getting your percentage figure, Fit… nor what it includes. But let me say this:
First, tort reform in not the *only* factor needing reform. It is only one item out of many to address. You are being quite anal to assume that is the only suggestion put forth on FA. I know that I, myself, have mentioned multiple cures in my past posts often. So it’s foul play to play games with that as the lone suggestion.
It is, however, quite notable that for all the babbling that Obama preaches about saving health care dollars or face certain doom, that he never once addresses the effect of malpractice laws on the cost of insurance, treatment, and physicians’ care.
Allow me to broaden your mind. Tort reform in not only the size of malpractice awards (which I assume is where you are deriving your 2% from some DNC talking point source). By eliminating frivolous lawsuits, and reforming malpractice laws, you also eliminate costs of unnecessary tests and procedures that are done while practicing medical litigation prevention. All too often physicians order a battery of tests to cover their E&O butts… not because the patient necessarily needs it.
Add to that, when the physician or facility does not have to perform these battery of “litigation prevention” tests, and pay 50% of their annual operating costs to an E&O insurance premium, they can charge less for their services. I’m quite sure this is not figured into your “2%” quote of savings.
Down side? There will be a lot of E&O insurance salesmen/women and companies that are jobless…. oh well. I doubt that will break any liberal’s heart.
Also the bureaucratic red tape that adds to the administrative costs also needs to be spliced and chopped. I think there is value to medical data bases to streamline records. However I am adamantly opposed to *any* federal agency having carte blanche access to those records. So any electronic database must be carefully scrutinized to see just what data is being fed to the pols in the beltway.
There should also be tax benefits for medical savings accounts. Personally I believe that there should be a medical account set up for the base care of routine doctor visits, vaccines, etc. Insurance should be confined to a couple of tiers for consumers’ options… catastrophic, and another tier for the more expensive, but common, physical events that may cost more… therapy, birthing, broken limbs, etc.
They most certainly should stop treating pregnancy as a disease, or an inconvenient event that needs to occur inbetween surgeries and golf games. In my day, babies came when babies were ready to be delivered… sans those special exceptions. Today late term moms are booked in on specific days to induce labor and deliver in order to meet a schedule of convenience. This entails drugs, surgery and staff not necessarily needed, and thereby racking up additional costs.
Another cost factor driving up natal related expenses is this nonsense of caesarean births. Between 1995 and 2005, the total C-section percentage rate of total births in the US rose by 46%. In 2006, almost 30% of all single births were c-section… a 50% rise over a decade. 72% of all twin births were also c-section, and 93% of triplets or more were caesarean births.
Most of this is both convenience (inducing labor for a selective date), and first time moms hitting the hospital for admittance too soon, or being terrified of natural childbirth.
Sutter Health did a study on this back in 2006, when they examined 41,000 births over three years, occurring at 20 hospitals within the not-for-profit network in Northern California. Oddly enough, they did this study because of the increased risk to both mothers and babies… however this is appropriate because, as even the NYTimes was pointing out in 1995 that this “birth by appointment” mentality is costing big bucks compared to natural childbirth.
Another big factor for cost savings would be to allow for federal standards for a base health care package, that allowed for intrastate competiton. This, however, is extremely dicey with states’ rights and their own nanny add-on mandates. Do I like the idea of competiton? Of course. Do I like the further erosion of the 10th Amendment? Hang no… It’s another “tread cautiously” reform.
A MUST, as far as I’m concerned, is to allow anyone in Medicare to opt out for private coverage, and still keep their SS retirement pension checks. If only 1% of Medicare enrollees opted out, it would save the system $1.5 billion annually. That’s almost as much as Obama’s proposed Medicare “death panel”… the IMAC… would save with all their slashing and trashing of Medicare benefits and reimbursements over FOUR years. And I’m quite certain that many more of the wealthier seniors may choose private care, providing further savings.
Then, of course, there is the “co-op” or “exchange” idea… in a more reasonable pathology. ala the increased ability for small business or groups of individuals to bond together to get insurance packages at a better rate.
These are only a few of the ideas to actually save money, without costing the US taxpayer additional money for Obama’s idea of “reform”.
@MataHarley: The other hidden cost from the lack of tort reform is the fact that OB GYN’s are quitting practice. My father would have kept practicing another few years but the malpractice insurance he was required to have cost more than his entire annual salary.
Funny how Obama never mentions reforming malpractice insurance….
I wonder why?
Actually I don’t wonder. I already posted this chart above:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/files/2009/08/Untitled-Image-1.jpg
Mike, this malpractice thing came up when Larry W and I were discussing the virtues of French health care… as I pointed out then, they pay their doctors about 60% of what ours are paid, the State pays for their medical tuition, and there are no malpractice laws.
Even at that, their government/public option health care is STILL going bankrupt…
@MataHarley: I missed that discussion with Larry. I would have liked to ask him how much he pays per year for malpractice insurance. I’m willing to bet it isn’t the hundreds of thousands my father paid per year.
If Democrats REALLY wanted a bipartisan bill they would permit Republican amendments that cover tort reform and other subjects. But as we saw in the House committees every idea we put forward got turned down because it would upset one of the Dems big money donor groups.
That’s why I have said this isn’t about health care, it’s about payoffs to Dem donors and a power grab.
Actually, Mike, I’ll take the latter. I think it’s about power…. but of course the payoffs reflect those who recognize they will financially benefit from the power of government run health care. I mean this bill, as “reform” was always a joke, as I’ve said from the beginning. There is no “reform” in there. Just a re’forming of a nation, so to speak. Or, in Obama’speak, “remaking of America”.
You’ll find the discussions of malpractice and the French on this thread… INRE Obama’s power grab to install the IMAC health czars/”death panel”.
I expect them to try to sneak it in a last minute amendment in both houses. This isn’t over by a long-shot, and the Democrats will try every underhanded and obfuscated way they can to get their way, even if it means making the language unclear enough that they can argue it means one thing before passing, then change their interpretation of the meaning of that which was written afterward.
Regarding the current emphasis on “public option” concerning constitutionally unauthorized Obamacare, weren’t the Constitution-ignoring Democrats claiming a “the sky is falling” healthcare crisis just a few days ago? That’s like global warming alarmists slyly shifting their emphasis to climate change.