Health Care Reform Pushed Ahead Despite Opposition

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.

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Tags: ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Barack Obama, Cary Smith, federal mandates
Posted Mar 6th 2010 at 4:20 pm in Healthcare, Obama, Politics, Special, State Politics | 85438100 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2010/03/06/health-care-reform-pushed-ahead-despite-opposition/Health+Care+Reform+Pushed+Ahead+Despite+Opposition2010-03-07+00%3A20%3A23Publius

Bailing out British Booze: Charlie Rangel, Max Baucus, and Diageo

The recent ruling of the House Ethics committee against Charlie Rangel has attracted a tremendous amount of attention and has put substantial pressure on House Democrats, especially Nancy Pelosi. The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder even reported one Democratic strategist claiming that it “loses us the House.” The basics of the story are that Rangel and his staff failed to disclose a series of facts about corporate sponsored trips about Caribbean policy.

However, there’s another Caribbean scandal that could burn Democrats. In February, Pro Publica’s Marcus Stern reported that Congress and the Virgin Islands will give British alcohol conglomerate Diageo a $3b subsidy if they shift production from Puerto Rico to the US Virgin Islands. Previously, I had written about this issue, including Rangel’s threats against the Puerto Rican health system.

But now an ad, pictured here, is running in Montana asking Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus why he is putting up with this. That’s turning up the heat a little.

Another rum producer told the Billings Gazette that the subsidy “is so large it’s twice the cost of production.”  That is, if Diageo spends $100 making rum in the Virgin Islands, they get $200 from the federal government. Then Diageo gets to sell the rum too! Diageo’s 2008 operating profit was £2.2 billion and 2009 sales were $20 billion.

Now, I understand — disagree but understand — US taxpayers giving struggling American farmers a subsidy to make ethanol. (rum is also ethanol) I don’t understand why US taxpayers are giving billions to an already highly profitable, publicly traded British booze company.

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Tags: Charlie Rangel, corporate welfare, Diageo, Max Baucus, Rum
Posted Mar 5th 2010 at 1:49 pm in Congress, Pork Report | 8216258 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sdayton/2010/03/05/bailing-out-british-booze-charlie-rangel-max-baucus-and-diageo/Bailing+out+British+Booze%3A+Charlie+Rangel%2C+Max+Baucus%2C+and+Diageo2010-03-05+21%3A49%3A32Soren+Dayton

How to Get Our Democracy Back: If You Want Change, You Have to Change Congress

Editors Note: This post is re-printed with permission from The Nation magazine, where it appears as the February 4, 2010 cover story. You can see a video interview with Professor Lessig about the piece here, or take action on issues raised in the piece by visiting FixCongressFirst.org.

We should remember what it felt like one year ago, as the ability to recall it emotionally will pass and it is an emotional memory as much as anything else. It was a moment rare in a democracy’s history. The feeling was palpable–to supporters and opponents alike–that something important had happened. America had elected, the young candidate promised, a transformational president. And wrapped in a campaign that had produced the biggest influx of new voters and small-dollar contributions in a generation, the claim seemed credible, almost intoxicating, and just in time.

Yet a year into the presidency of Barack Obama, it is already clear that this administration is an opportunity missed. Not because it is too conservative. Not because it is too liberal. But because it is too conventional. Obama has given up the rhetoric of his early campaign–a campaign that promised to “challenge the broken system in Washington” and to “fundamentally change the way Washington works.” Indeed, “fundamental change” is no longer even a hint.

Instead, we are now seeing the consequences of a decision made at the most vulnerable point of Obama’s campaign–just when it seemed that he might really have beaten the party’s presumed nominee. For at that moment, Obama handed the architecture of his new administration over to a team that thought what America needed most was another Bill Clinton. A team chosen by the brother of one of DC’s most powerful lobbyists, and a White House headed by the quintessential DC politician. A team that could envision nothing more than the ordinary politics of Washington–the kind of politics Obama had called “small.” A team whose imagination–politically–is tiny.

These tiny minds–brilliant though they may be in the conventional game of DC–have given up what distinguished Obama’s extraordinary campaign. Not the promise of healthcare reform or global warming legislation–Hillary Clinton had embraced both of those ideas, and every other substantive proposal that Obama advanced. Instead, the passion that Obama inspired grew from the recognition that something fundamental had gone wrong in the way our government functions, and his commitment to reform it.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Nelson, Bill Clinton, bush v gore, cap-and-trade
Posted Feb 5th 2010 at 7:04 am in Congress, Culture, Featured Story, Healthcare, History, Justice/Legal, Obama, Politics, Tea Party | 70270136 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/llessig/2010/02/05/how-to-get-our-democracy-back-if-you-want-change-you-have-to-change-congress/How+to+Get+Our+Democracy+Back%3A+If+You+Want+Change%2C+You+Have+to+Change+Congress2010-02-05+15%3A04%3A13Lawrence+Lessig

America Exports Socialist Ideas to Venezuela

Here’s a concept I never thought we’d be exporting: governments taking over markets to act as the “competition.” 

News is Venezuelan brute Hugo Chavez has created a “new chain of government-run, cut-rate retail stores that will sell everything from food to cars to clothing from places such as China, Argentina and Bolivia,” according to Breitbart.com:

Chavez said the Comerso chain of stores will include “a network of subsidiaries” that will sell new vehicles directly imported from China and Argentina, “without capitalist intermediaries.”

“We’re going to defeat speculation. Private individuals in sales can still sell, but they’ll have to compete with us and with a people who is now fully aware,” Chavez said.

Gee, where have I heard that before?  Oh yeah!  That kind of sounds like the talking points from the Democrats government-option proposal.

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Tags: ACORN, Chuck Shumer, Free Markets, government competition, Harry Reid
Posted Dec 28th 2009 at 8:51 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Congress, News, Politics | 5281064 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2009/12/28/america-exports-socialist-ideas-to-venezuela/America+Exports+Socialist+Ideas+to+Venezuela2009-12-28+16%3A51%3A22Kyle+Olson

Why the Tea-Party Movement Matters: ObamaCare Edition

There is on YouTube an hilarious video, drawn from C-SPAN2, of Max Baucus on the Senate floor denouncing his Republican colleagues and even more emphatically the Republican leadership for squelching attempts at what he piously describes as bipartisan healthcare reform.

The senior Senator from Montana has obviously had a snootful; he is having considerable difficulty in managing the English language; and he is evidently as mad as a wet hen.

I do not blame Baucus – neither for the excessive imbibing nor for being angry. He is now in a pickle. He was the point man for the Democrats’ healthcare initiative in the Senate, and for perfectly predicable reasons his constituents out in Montana are none too happy with him.

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Tags: Chuck Grassley, Max Baucus, Melodee Hanes, Mitch McConnell, ObamaCare
Posted Dec 28th 2009 at 6:01 am in Congress, Featured Story, Healthcare, Politics, Tea Party | 52694130 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/prahe/2009/12/28/why-the-tea-party-movement-matters-obamacare-edition/Why+the+Tea-Party+Movement+Matters%3A+ObamaCare+Edition2009-12-28+14%3A01%3A49Paul+A.++Rahe

Max Baucus’s Friends, Family, and F*!k Buddy Plan

As many readers know by now, on Dec 5^th, Senator Max Baucus( D-MT) , the man entrusted with writing the govt. takeover bill of the American healthcare system, was forced to disclose the embarrassing fact that he had nominated his live-in girlfriend as the next U.S. Attorney for his home state of Montana. Senator Baucus did not disclose this fact out of some good-natured rationale; rather a political watchdog group had discovered the link, and the information was coming public, so he tried to get ahead of the story.

Understandably, the Republican Party among others are calling for an investigation into what seems to be clear conflict of interest in his dealings and a serious lapse of judgment. Considering his current girlfriend Melodee Hanes started working in Senator Baucus’ office as early as 2002, and the divorce to his current wife was not announced until early 2009, it would seem to be more than just a possible legal and political transgression he was making with Ms. Hanes. (more…)

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Tags: government corruption, Kirstein and Young, Max Baucus, Melodee Hanes, nepotism
Posted Dec 11th 2009 at 9:42 am in Congress, Culture, Featured Story, Politics | 4441462 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/ghewson/2009/12/11/max-baucuss-friends-family-and-fk-buddy-plan/Max+Baucus%E2%80%99s+Friends%2C+Family%2C+and+F%2A%21k+Buddy+Plan2009-12-11+17%3A42%3A27Gary+Hewson

Baucus Bill Is a Cure Worse than the Disease

With Democratic support coalescing around Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-Mt.) health care reform proposal, passage of a comprehensive overhaul now appears more likely than ever.  Opponents had their summer of protests.  But, Democrats have shown a renewed sense of energy since discrediting Sarah Palin’s “death panels” and Sen. Charles Grassley’s claim that ObamaCare would “pull the plug on grandma.” Still, while those charges may have been a little overwrought, there is plenty to be concerned about with the Democratic health reform effort.

As I explain in a new Competitive Enterprise Institute paper, “A Cure Worse than the Disease: Obama Care Won’t Cut Costs, But May Cut Quality,” most of the alleged cost-cutting measures in the Baucus bill merely shift costs from the federal government onto the states or private payers, without affecting long-term health care inflation.  The only measures that could reduce the annual rate of growth in health care costs would erect government barriers between patients and their doctors, while jeopardizing long-term medical innovation.

Skeptics have made hay arguing that the so-called Sustainable Growth Rate can’t be counted on to cut $245-billion in Medicare spending. But Senate Finance Committee negotiators have designed a Medicare Commission—what the White House previously called an Independent Medicare Advisory Commission—to make similar cuts in physician and hospital payment rates in a more opaque way.

In an April New York Times interview, President Obama suggested that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost…the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives.”  That’s not exactly a death panel roving the country to pull the plug on innocent grandmas who’ve survived past their sell-by dates, but the effects could be equally pernicious.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Charles Grassley, Competitive Enterprise Institute, death panels, evidence based medicine
Posted Oct 26th 2009 at 11:00 am in Healthcare, Politics | 2014224 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/gconko/2009/10/26/baucus-bill-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/Baucus+Bill+Is+a+Cure+Worse+than+the+Disease2009-10-26+18%3A00%3A20Gregory++Conko

ObamaCare Box Score — Conservatives 1 – Liberals 0

The 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. 

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Tags: American Medical Association, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, Doc Fix, Harry Reid
Posted Oct 23rd 2009 at 7:15 am in Congress, Healthcare, Politics | 1971019 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bdarling/2009/10/23/obamacare-box-score-conservatives-1-liberals-0/ObamaCare+Box+Score+--+Conservatives+1+%E2%80%93+Liberals+02009-10-23+14%3A15%3A04Brian+Darling

Obama votes “present” in health care debate.

Say what you will about the health reform bill introduced by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), and the Left is having a field day attacking it, but at least it is a plan. President Obama has spent months talking about what he wants out of a bill, but when the chips are down and the polls are crashing, all we get from him is a two and half page outline.  Why would he offer such weak leadership?

One possible answer, for you cynics out there (and I may be one), is that he has zero leadership experience and this is simply his way of voting “present” one more time. But that’s too easy and too amateurish for someone so politically savvy.

The only logical answer is he doesn’t want to be pinned down on any specifics.  Sure, he’s talked about what he’d like in a bill, but he’s pretty much disavowed everything he’s said he supports too. He wants a public option one day, but doesn’t need one the next, then explains how it is vital to “real reform.” It literally can’t be both but that hasn’t stopped him from having it both ways.

So at this point, whenever anyone criticizes Obamacare the White House has the perfect defense, “There is no bill.” You can’t win a shadow boxing match, you can’t pick a lock with mashed potatoes, and you can’t pin any unpopular proposals on the President.

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Tags: George Bush, Kanye West, Max Baucus, Medicare, Obama
Posted Sep 18th 2009 at 7:00 am in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 443462 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dhunter/2009/09/18/obama-votes-present-in-health-care-debate/Obama+votes+%22present%22+in+health+care+debate.2009-09-18+14%3A00%3A18Derek+Hunter