ObamaCare Box Score — Conservatives 1 – Liberals 0
by Brian DarlingThe first game in a long series of Obamacare battles is complete and the liberals lost Game 1 by 13 votes. The Senate voted against a procedural motion to debate the so-called “Doc Fix” bill Wednesday. Just as Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers has taken a beating in the media for leaving Game 5 of the National League Championship Series early to take a shower and hitting a mere .250 for the series, Senator Harry Reid has taken a beating in the press for marching the Democrat Caucus into a losing vote in the first battle over Obamacare.
A bipartisan coalition of senators concerned about spending stopped Senators Reid from bringing “Doc Fix” to a vote with 13 Democrats siding with the entire Republican Caucus. Democrat Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bill Nelson of Florida, Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virgina, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Independent Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut all opposed the motion to start debate on the bill.
The strategy to pass the “Doc Fix” outside of Obamacare in an attempt to buy off doctors groups’ support for Obamacare was documented in the media. The Hill reported earlier this week that “the White House and Democratic leaders are offering doctors a deal: They’ll freeze cuts in Medicare payments to doctors in exchange for doctors’ support of healthcare reform.” Clearly the majority of senators would not go along with this strategy because the $247 billion price tag for the bill was too high to buy Obamacare.
The secret negotiations in the Capitol on Obamacare held by Senators Reid, Max Baucus of Montana, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag and Health Care Czar Nancy-Ann DeParle ordered the Senate to take up “Doc Fix” and Senate Leaders failed to win the first proxy fight on Obamacare. This vote clearly shows that Democrats have a long way to go before their caucus is ready to vote for expensive health care bills that add billions in new debt to an already massive $1.4 trillion debt from this year. Obamacare is one step closer to hitting the showers, but this first loss will send the Obamacare coaching staff into a frenzy to figure out a new strategy to win passage of President Obama’s health care reform bill.
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20 Comments
When will "they" realize that WE do not want it. WE can no longer trust the Government, to do anything right.
This was a step in the right direction. Democrats are now faced with the realization, that if they vote for this, if they pass it, and Rahm it down our throats, that they are signing their death warrants when it comes to the next election.
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I would recommend calling those democrats who sided with the republicans and thanking them for doing the right thing. Sometimes some positive feedback goes a long way and if they get some positive feedback for doing the right thing they may continue to do the right thing.
Somewhat encouraged by McCaskill's vote. She may actually be paying a little attention.
And if I may, might I suggest that we let our representatives know when they get one right. Granted there was some safety in numbers here, but I'm sure there was some pressure exerted. Next time it will be worse for them. As much as we need to let them know when they betray us, we also need to let them know that we appreciate their support.
We need to amputate the Dems that want to wreck havoc in healthcare. it is gangreenous and will spread.
If one of the democratic senators from your state voted with the republicans to block this debate, be sure to call them and thank them for their true bipartisan effort and their courage to buck the administration on a bill this country cannot afford. Encourage them to keep up the fight while representing the will of the people that put them in office.
STAY ENGAGED! When you THINK that liberals are done, they AIN'T!
http://noliberalspin.blogtownhall.com/
The Anti Liberal Zone
The bogus death statistic that won’t die
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009
Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida has found his calling: Death demagogue. First, he accused Republicans of wanting sick patients to “DIE QUICKLY.” Next, he likened health insurance problems to a “Holocaust in America.” Now, he’s unveiled a new website entitled “namesofthedead.com” in memory of the “more than 44,000 Americans [who] die simply because they have no health insurance.”
Just one problem: The statistic is a phantom number. Grayson’s memorial, like the Democrats’ government health care takeover plan itself, is full of vapor. It comes from a study published last December in the American Journal of Public Health. But the science is infused with left-wing politics.
Two of the co-authors, Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, are avowed government-run health care activists. Himmelstein co-founded Physicians for a National Health Program, which bills itself as the “the only national physician organization in the United States dedicated exclusively to implementing a single-payer national health program.” Woolhandler is a co-founder and served as secretary of the group.
Sounding more like a MoveOn.org organizer than a disinterested scientist, Dr. Woolhandler assailed the current health reform legislation in Congress for not going far enough: “Politicians are protecting insurance industry profits by sacrificing American lives.”
So, how did these political doctors come up with the 44,000 figure? They used data from a health survey conducted between 1988 and 1994. The questionnaires asked a sample of 9,000 participants if they were insured and how they rated their own health. The federal Centers for Disease Control tracked the deaths of people in the sample group through the year 2000. Drs. Himmelstein, Woolhandler, and company then crunched the numbers and attributed deaths to lack of health insurance for all the participants who initially self-reported that they had no insurance and then died for any reason over the 12-year tracking period.
At no time did the original researchers or the single-payer activists who piggy-backed off their data ever verify whether the supposed casualties of America’s callous health care system had insurance or not. In fact, here is what the report actually says:
“Our study has several limitations,” the authors concede. The survey data they used “assessed health insurance at a single point in time and did not validate self-reported insurance status. We were unable to measure the effect of gaining or losing coverage after the interview.” Himmelstein et al. simply assumed that point-in-time uninsurance translates into perpetual uninsurance – and that any health calamities that result can and must be blamed on being uninsured.
Another caveat you won’t see on Rep. Grayson’s memorial to the dubious dead: The single-payer advocate-authors also conceded in their study limitations section that “earlier population-based surveys that did validate insurance status found that between 7% and 11% of those initially recorded as being uninsured were misclassified. If present, such misclassification might dilute the true effect of uninsurance in our sample.”
To boil it all down in plain English: The single-payer scientists had no way of assessing whether the survey participants received insurance coverage between the time they answered the questionnaires and the time they died. They had no way of assessing whether the deaths could have been averted with health insurance coverage. A significant portion of those classified as “uninsured” may not have even been uninsured, based on past studies that actually did verify insurance status. But the Himmelstein team just took the rate of uninsurance from the original study (3.3 percent), applied it to census data, and voila: more than 44,000 Americans are dying from lack of insurance.
Next, the political doctors cooked up scary-specific death tolls for all 50 states (California – 5,302 Texas – 4,675!) Newspapers dutifully cited the fear-mongering factoids. The single-payer lobbying group co-founded by Drs. Himmelstein and Woolhandler took it from there. Last month, the group set up its own memorial on the National Mall for the phantom 44,000 casualties of uninsurance.
Dr. Himmelstein (who was also the driving force behind another flawed study tying medical debt to personal bankruptcies) eschewed scientific nuance and caveats to take to the airwaves and declare starkly that an American “dies every 12 minutes” because of lack of insurance. And now, Democrat Rep. Grayson has taken the monumentally dishonest concept online to solicit sob stories and put flesh on the weak bones of these dubious death numbers.
Where’s the White House health care “reality check” squad when you need it?
Whenever I have noted illegal alien mortgage fraud over the years, I’ve been smacked with the RAAAAACIST card.
Wonder if the Inspector General for Tax Administration is going to get mau-mau-ed by the open borders lobby, too.
Shhhhhh:
The rush to implement a tax credit for first-time home buyers opened the program up to potential fraud by people who hadn’t bought a home or already owned one, Congress was told Thursday.
J. Russell George, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, questioned the eligibility of some 100,000 claims out of the 1.5 million who have sought to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit incorporated in the economic stimulus package enacted last February.
He said claimants include those who could possibly be illegal immigrants and that 580 people seeking $4 million from the first-time home buyer credit were under the age of 18. The youngest taxpayers receiving the credit were 4 years old, his office said.
George and an Internal Revenue Service official testifying before a House Ways and Means Committee subcommittee stressed that many of the questioned claims may eventually be found to be legitimate after further examination.
But the hearing raised a yellow flag as Congress considers whether to extend, or even expand, the popular program that is set to expire at the end of November.
The top Republican on the panel, Rep. Charles Boustany, Jr., of Louisiana, said that while the issue of extending the credit was not the purpose of the hearing, “every time Congress creates a new refundable credit … the incentive for fraud is magnified.”
I'm not sure if it was just "spending concerns" as to why those 13 Democrats didn't tow the party line and vote in favor of it but I'm sure glad they didn't. We don't want it, we don't need it and we definitely can't afford it.
Well, how about that? Obama really is a uniter! Finally, some bi-partisanship in DC.
Good idea, I just did!
I think they need to be more worried then paying off the doctors. Under this horrible healthcare bill, WAGES for all healthcare professionals will have to be contained or cut. Graduate highschool students won’t be entering the healthcare profession, only to make an exsistance. Healthcare professionals are required by law to get continuing educational credits-usually not covered by the employer to keep their licensure. Only exception that I know of is nursing assistants. Added to the fact that the healthcare profession has a “higher rate,”of bodily injury than construction workers. Catholic hospitals will close their doors in the event abortion is just considered a medical procedure.
The AMA is a poor mouthpiece for the average doc. It is also a poor negotiator. A playground schoolboy could see that support for Obamacare places docs' incomes in serious peril. The automatic Medicare reimbursement decreases, although a serious problem, will look sweet compared to what we can anticipate from the medical Leftists. Claiming the AMA represents all of medicine is like claiming NOW represents all women.
Common enemy spotted!
Any reasonable mind would see that such a buyoff will come out of taxpayers' pockets, and those who must pay off these deficits long into the future. A tactic to hide the costs of Obamacare. This smacks of those off-balance-sheet obligations that brought down Enron. Where is Sarbanes-Oxley when we really need it??
No doubt the MSM won't be enlightening the public about this. Thanks.
Well, just speaking from personal experience and observation, I don't find it hard to believe at all that many peoples health suffers greatly, including dying, from lack of health insurance. Health care can be insanely expensive and if you are self-employed as many of my friends are it can wipe you out or lead you to avoid getting treatment you need.
I really like your blog. I have been researching the topic and will add you to my reader to continue reading. Keep up the good work! Others need to know about your site.
Dr. Himmelstein is an complete plant and fraud. As one of the framers for Obamacare, he argues that insurance companies are responsible for our current "dilemma" (even though they only have an average profit margin of 2.2%, which is abismal) – he is angered that "so much" money and power will go to these companies. Obviously, the greedy pig was hoping Mr. Obama would shovel the taxpayers' hard-earned money to HIM so that he could buy another mansion and Mercedes to roll in.
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