The obvious question is why?  Why would the Obama administration who boasted open and transparent discussions of such a sensitive subject as healthcare close the door to the opportunity to present its factual case to the American people?  Messaging anyone?  Nope.

Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee “would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking” and could “implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests,” White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.

Before the Democrats rammed through the Obamacare bill (and don’t think for one little ol’ minute that our narcissistic President doesn’t love that branding), Obama and WH officials met with several high-profile insurance executives as the WaPo lists:

The list included George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans; Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association; Kenneth Kies, a Washington lobbyist representing Blue Cross/Blue Shield, among other clients; Billy Tauzin, then head of PhRMA, the drug industry lobby; Richard Umbdenstock, chief of the American Hospital Association; and numerous others.

The most concerning is George Halvorson as he was the only executive to meet with Obama.  And here is why:

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Now that elections are around the corner members of Congress who voted for the healthcare reform bill are spending a lot of time back-peddling, avoiding the topic all together or digging themselves in a deeper hole by claiming that Americans will have better healthcare with choice of doctors, and expanded coverage at an affordable price.

Let’s look at the facts:

• The bill was written by and for Big Pharma and the medical insurance industry. Senator Max Baucus a member of the congressional brain trust who brought us the healthcare reform bill admitted he never fully read it and has no idea what is even in it. Now he admits to having no clue what was in the bill he helped shove down our throats…. Unbelievable? Surprising? No just business as usual.

• Those on Medicare were told that they would see no change in their benefits and would be able to keep their physician. In fact, 11 million senior citizens will see premiums go up because of cost cutting including the removal of Medicare advantage. Furthermore, since there has been a decline in the number of physicians who currently are accepting new Medicare patients or who take Medicare at all, it is likely that seniors will not be able to keep their doctor and will pay more for less.

• The nomination of Donald Berwick to head CMS means a philosophical shift of our healthcare system to the British model of medicine that puts a premium on cost and not the needs of the individual. An example of this is the decision by the FDA remove Avastin from the medication available to treat advanced cancer because it is deemed that the good of extension of life is outweighed by the cost of the medication. Medicare has already stopped covering the use for Avastin to treat  ovarian cancer in Colorado.

It is clear that the relentless drive to reform the health care system was a cynical political push for a win at all costs. We were told what we wanted to hear and there was no attention paid to the consequences. Every single card was played – from the class card to the race card, and getting us to fight among ourselves achieved the goal of distraction. Now that the smoke has cleared it is pretty obvious that in the name of expanding healthcare to approximately 30 million more people, we have sacrificed what is best about our healthcare system – individualized patient care, the doctor patient relationship, and the drive towards innovation. However, the costs have not changed.

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Over the last several days, old friends and family around the country have contacted me with the same questions: ‘Do they have the votes? What is going to happen?’ Maybe they think that, living inside the Beltway, I get some secret newsletter that can divine what Congress will do. To all of them and you, let me be clear: I have no idea what is going to happen tonight. We have slipped well beyond any rational political thought or calculation. By any traditional analysis, this bill would have been buried long ago. So, while I don’t know what is going to happen, it is worth thinking a bit about what is going on. On that I have something to say.

The Democrats and the White House are lost in a legislative “fog of war” right now. They are focused on twisting enough arms, offering jobs and negotiating specific “deals” (bribes) to get them to 216 votes. Their attention and energy is focused exclusively on a final vote in the House tonight. No one is looking even one minute beyond that horizon. They are like a general who pours all his reserves into taking a symbolic bridge, never realizing that his lines have already collapsed and his flanks have been turned. They may take the bridge and get to 216 votes. (I’ve learned to never bet against Congressional leadership and an Administration united for a single legislative victory. ) But, they have already lost the war. They have deluded themselves that if they can…just…get…this…bill…passed, the public’s anger and attention will subside, they can put health care ‘behind them’ and they can focus on other ‘popular’ measures that will shore up their election prospects in November.

What they don’t realize is that today’s vote isn’t the end, but just a new beginning in the debate over health care. Buckle up, because if they manage to cobble together enough votes to pass the Senate Health Bill today, we’re set for weeks and perhaps months of a constitutional and political crisis the likes of which we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.

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If you tried to buy a homeowners’ insurance policy for much more than the actual value of your home, no one would sell it to you.  The reason is that having such a policy would enable one to prosper financially were the home somehow to be destroyed.  This creates for you, what is called a “moral hazard“.   You have a significant financial incentive to do something wrong.  It is anathema for the insurance industry designed to protect against risk to enable such a risk.

So what if you were a government bureaucrat in possession of the power to help a business to prosper financially by doing something wrong?  Imagine if you had the power to wave your pen and deliver one million new clients to a purveyor of a particular product.  Some might say you have a moral hazard.   Just as insurance companies have a duty not to create that risk, so do those in charge of taxpayer funds.

In New York, some public employees concerned about side effects, and their civil liberties, are protesting because Dr. Richard Daines, New York State health commissioner has mandated that they receive the h1n1 vaccines or be fired.   Did the Governor order this?  No, an unelected bureaucrat essentially placed the order with the vaccine manufacturers.

In Missouri, prior to 2002, all mandated vaccines were voted into law by Legislators.  In that year, the appointed Director of the Department of Health added to the list of mandated vaccines, a compound against Chicken Pox.  With one stroke of the pen, a single bureaucrat created a demand for fresh orders for hundreds of thousands of doses of the vaccine, annually.  One can speculate about the profit in those orders.

In Texas, Governor Perry, usually a solid conservative got loopy over the Gardasil fervor and mandated that girls in his State receive the controversial vaccine against a sexually transmitted disease.   Girls as young as nine years old now have the State forcing upon them conversations about promiscuity and sexually transmitted disease.

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