By Tom McGillvray, Cary Smith, and Gary MacLaren

As state legislators, we are used to the federal government treating the states like its red-headed stepchild. Washington dictates, and we are expected to follow. Whether it’s transportation, health care, or education, federal money comes with federal strings—and more often than not, the strings outlast the money and the states end up picking up the tab. And the current debate over health care reform is no exception.

We were willing to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt when he called for more discussion and debate. He certainly seemed willing to reach across the aisle to include his political opponents in his recent health care summit. But, given just how much of any health care reform bill is bound to fall on the shoulders of the states to implement and fund, he should have included us—a point which House Minority Leader John Boehner made in a letter to Rahm Emanuel.

But this new era of “bipartisanship” was short lived indeed. Just ask Congressional leaders like Jon Tester and Max Baucus if they support the so-called nuclear option of passing a health care bill Americans don’t want through a questionable legislative maneuver. If Congress does manage to pass the President’s health care reform proposal it is sure to include a mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance.

However, being forced to buy health insurance, or being forced to buy a particular health plan, just doesn’t sit right with independent-minded Montanans, or the rest of Americans judging by recent polls. This is why we plan to introduce the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, a state constitutional amendment that protects individuals, employers, and health care providers from being forced to participate in any health care system and preserves individuals’ right to pay directly for care.

(more…)

Last Thursday, February 25th, the Obama Administration staged a ‘Health Care Summit’ at Blair House. It was to be the President’s President “Moses Moment,” when e would part the seas and bring the Republicans, Democrats and Our country together and get everyone on board his “much maligned” Federally Run Health Care Program. (ObamaCare 2.0). His approach would be to “Listen,” particularly to The Republicans and Independents, and then part the Seas of Conflict and pass through to the Promised Land of a compromise. Well, it was over, finally over, after 7 hours of heavy winds. The event showed Obama less like a Moses parting the Red Sea, and more like a deadly tsunami poised to wreak havoc on American shores.

On his walk from The White House to The Blair House earlier in the morning, Mr. Obama declared he was going “to listen.” He listened, but not so much. When the meeting was over it turned out that his soliloquy lasted over 122 minutes, The Democrats spoke 135 minutes, and The Republicans were “allowed” to speak for 111 minutes (30% of the entire meeting). So it is official, he is not The Listener in Chief. When asked about his lack of listening ability and his penchant for wanting to listen to his own voice, Mr. Obama responded, “I don’t count my time because I am…The President.” This is the official 2010 version of “Let Them Eat Cake.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Obama, the week’s health care rollout did not start off well, when on Monday he posted a new ObamaCare 2.0 on The White House website. This Plan was eerily similar to a “worst of” compilation of excerpts from the House and Senate Health Care Plans. This Plan did not have any input from Republicans or Independents. Isn’t it odd that ObamaCare 2.0 was posted on the site — without a Press Conference? This Administration has a Press Conference when he sneezes, but no such fanfare for what the Administration claims is the most important domestic issue. The teleprompter must have developed Swine Flu, or maybe Mr. Obama held off on the press event because he would have to answer questions on HIS health care plan from that pesky press.

(more…)

“Hot For The Up Do”

This week we wether the storm as conditions on the east coast play havoc with Mark Steyn’s power and Peter Robinson’s Skype. But we persevere as guest Andrew Breitbart creates his own storm with Media Matters and liberals in general. We talk about the health care summit, play “Who’s Your Favorite Lefty,” and Andrew and Rob reveal their secret admiration for the filmmaker John Waters. (more…)

Last week, with eyes glazed to the tube and hands filled with overflowing tubs of popcorn, the nation watched as the most powerful man in the world temporarily stepped down from his post to serve as a mere committee chairman of the bipartisan health care summit.

The Chairman-in-Chief spoke condescendingly, counted everyone’s minutes except his own, and ultimately watched his team get thoroughly embarrassed on national television in a political Stupor Bowl.

For nearly the past year, Congressional Democrats have run around like chickens with their heads cut off, ignoring the opposition to the president’s legacy-making initiative, and feverishly making deals which each other so enough support could be garnered to get a bill passed—any bill.

In their haste to make history, it’s unfortunate that the manufactured-crisis of health-care reform has unnecessarily dominated the national debate while a real, alive-and-well, housing crisis has continued to manifest itself.

Last year, the president’s signature housing program, Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), was supposed to stem the tide of foreclosures. In the words of his Treasury Secretary, the initiative would “show results quickly”, but homeowners, mortgage companies, and legislators all questioned its effectiveness. For a few months, foreclosures were down, until December, when filings had its first month to month increase since July.

Was the increase a sign of things to come?

(more…)

After the conclusion of yesterday’s nationally-televised health care “summit” hosted by President Obama, in a video for YouTube’s Citizen Tube I answered five health care questions submitted and voted on by the You Tube community.  The questions posed on You Tube are the same questions and concerns I hear from Americans across the country.  They want to us scrap the current bill and start over with common-sense, step-by-step measures that lower health care costs.  And they want to know why Congress insists on passing massive bills that no one in America has time to read or understand.  My Republican colleagues and I agree a different approach is needed – not just to health care reform, but to the way Congress works on every issue.

In the video, I respond to citizens’ questions about health care reform.  On one question, for example, about whether I believe that health care is a right, I said that, “I believe that freedom is a right, and that any health care bill that takes away Americans’ freedom is wrong.” I also answered questions about my support for health care reforms aimed at lowering Americans’ health care costs, such as medical liability reform and allowing Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines, and pledged I will insist on smaller, simpler bills and implement a mandatory 72-hour online reading period for all bills if Republicans are entrusted with the majority.

Over the past year, Republicans have used new media tools to interact directly with the American people.  Whether on Twitter, where House Republicans outnumber their Democratic counterparts two-to-one, or YouTube, where eight of the top 10 most-viewed and most-subscribed YouTube channels in Congress are from the GOP, House Republicans are listening to and learning from the American people.  Below is full text of my answers to You Tube:

(more…)

It’s time for your weekly dose of markets and politics with Coffee and Markets, featuring The New Ledger’s Francis Cianfrocca, a podcast brought to you by the fine folks at Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com and LibertyPundits.com, your new home for conservative podcasts. In this week’s edition, we’re recording on-site from the president’s Blair House summit by the White House, and we’re talking about the bond market, the targeting of Toyota, and the future of health care reform (note: the quality on this one is a bit below our normal episodes, since we had to record remotely).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

TNL: The White House vs. Toyota?
Daily Caller: Summit of Broken Promises
Health Care News: Obamacare’s Last Stand
Gergen: Best Day in Years for GOP
Protein Wisdom: Full Speed off the Cliff
TNL: Paul Ryan’s Moment

If the goal of the President’s proposal was to drive doctors into hospital based practices or community health centers, or if it was to break the spirit of providers and bend them to the will of the government that holds the threat of criminal prosecution over their heads if they are found to be Medicare cheats, or if the goal was to dumb down the practice of medicine by ramping up the power of the HHS secretary and the evidence-based medicine posse, then the President’s proposal for health care reform was successful.

However, we as physicians are individuals. There are approximately 890,000 doctors currently practicing in the US. Those of us who want the autonomy to practice medicine the way we were trained, those of us who run a private practice who are entrepreneurs at heart, those who are tired of being pitted against our patients and other physicians (the specialist vs. primary care physician meme), and those who are just sick and tired are NOT going to take this. Those of us who can will retire or leave medicine all together. Those within the system will simply opt out.

The President’s summit on Thursday amounts to nothing more than six hours of theater. Not one physician in Congress has been invited to attend. The physicians for single payer have also not been invited. It is his chance to hear from the people on the front line, and it is obvious this bill is NOT about the health of our people. It is about raising revenue, controlling the medical industrial complex completely. How else can you explain the proposal for the government to a) take over control of the cost of insurance premiums; b) limit provider medical decisions based on cost, and c) control what is medically covered for the patient. Under the proposed health care reformed, the government will control how much an insurance company can charge, decide what is covered medically, and sanction the provider for deviating from the norm.

These are some of the proposal highlights that concerned me the most:

(more…)

Republicans ought politely to decline President Barack Obama’s invitation to a summit on health care reform. It’s not just a potential “trap,” as House Minority Leader John Boehner suspects, aimed at fast-forwarding a modified health care reform bill through Congress under a smokescreen of superficial “bipartisanship.” It’s also a violation of the spirit of our Constitution’s separation of powers.

The President has no legislative authority. He can propose laws—indeed, we expect him to do so—that are then introduced by legislators in Congress. He can sign a bill or veto it once it has been passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. He can mediate disputes among legislators to broker agreements. But the President cannot intervene directly in the legislative process until it is over.

The discussion that President Obama has proposed with Republicans for February 25th was, no doubt, inspired by his success at a question-and-answer session with the GOP last month. However, the new event is beginning to assume the trappings of a formal legislative session. Republicans will be asked to propose changes to the Senate version of the health care bill, and the President will offer compromises.

(more…)