"medical liability reform, allowing employees to keep their insurance when they switch jobs, standardizing health information technology, and allowing consumers to purchase insurance across state lines"

All great ideas, but I never hear something like "get government out of health care and let the market work". I think the Republicans are afraid to challenge large entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid (which, face it, ARE socialization of health care.)

We need untaxed Health Savings Accounts and a wide assortment of insurance schemes that include health status insurance to protect one from major health status changes. But most of all, get rid of the government's incentives for employer health plans and put the purchasing back into the hands of individuals. That, and only that, will create a sustainable and efficient health care market because of the competition that would be created.

Well said and you are dead right…..but free markets ? Government will never acquiesce the influence and power that healthcare provides to them.

Now let's have one of those great roast beef sammiches you make !

I am not surprised, everything that these socalist bas$%ds touch they mess up….everything!

The White House, Democrats, and MoveOn liberals are spreading health care sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there’s one health care policy nightmare you won’t hear the Obamas hyping. It’s a tale of poor, minority patient-dumping in Chicago — with First Lady Michelle Obama’s fingerprints all over it.
Both Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democrat Rep. Bobby Rush of Chicago have raised red flags about the outsourcing program, run by the University of Chicago Medical Center. The hospital has non-profit status and receives lucrative tax breaks in exchange for providing charity care. Yet, it spent a measly $10 million on charity care for the poor in fiscal 2007 when Mrs. Obama was employed there—1.3 percent of its total hospital expenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the non-partisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. The figure is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in surrounding Cook County.
Rep. Rush called for a House investigation last week in response to months of patient-dumping complaints, noting: “Congress has a duty to expend its power to mitigate and prevent this despicable practice from continuing in centers that receive federal funds.”
Don’t expect the president to support a probe. While a top executive at the hospital, Mrs. Obama helped engineer the plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs. Under the Orwellian banner of an “Urban Health Initiative,” Mrs. Obama sold the scheme to outsource low-income care to other facilities as a way to “dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents.” The program guaranteed “free” shuttle rides to and from the outside clinics.
In truth, it was old-fashioned cost-cutting and favor-trading repackaged as minority aid. Clearing out the poor freed up room for insured (i.e., more lucrative) patients. If a Republican had proposed the very same program and recruited black civic leaders to front it, Michelle Obama and her grievance-mongering friends would be screaming “RAAAAAAAAACISM!” at the top of their lungs.
Joe Stephens of the Washington Post wrote: “To ensure community support, Michelle Obama and others in late 2006 recommended that the hospital hire the firm of David Axelrod, who a few months later became the chief strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Axelrod’s firm recommended an aggressive promotional effort modeled on a political campaign—appoint a campaign manager, conduct focus groups, target messages to specific constituencies, then recruit religious leaders and other third-party ‘validators.’ They, in turn, would write and submit opinion pieces to Chicago publications.”
Some health care experts saw through Mrs. Obama and her public relations man, David Axelrod—yes, the same David Axelrod who is now Mr. Obama’s senior adviser at the White House. The University of Chicago Medical Center hired Axelrod’s public relations firm, ASK Public Strategies, to promote Mrs. Obama’s Urban Health Initiative. Axelrod had the blessing of Chicago political guru Valerie Jarrett – now White House senior adviser.
Axelrod’s great contribution: Re-branding! His firm recommended re-naming the initiative after “[i]nternal and external respondents expressed the opinion that the word ‘urban’ is code for ‘black’ or ‘black and poor’….Based on the research, consideration should be given to re-branding the initiative.” Axelrod and the Obama campaign refused to disclose how much his firm received for its genius re-branding services.
In February 2009, outrage in the Obamas’ community exploded after a young boy covered by Medicaid was turned away from the University of Chicago Medical Center. Dontae Adams’ mother, Angela, had sought emergency treatment for him after a pit bull tore off his upper lip. Mrs. Obama’s hospital gave the boy a tetanus shot, antibiotics, and Tylenol and shoved him out the door. The mother and son took an hour-long bus ride to another hospital for surgery.
I’ll guarantee you this: You’ll never see the Adams family featured at an Obama policy summit or seated next to the First Lady at a joint session of Congress to illustrate the failures of the health care system.
Following the Adams incident, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) blasted Mrs. Obama and Mr. Axelrod’s grand plan. The group released a statement expressing “grave concerns that the University of Chicago’s policy toward emergency patients is dangerously close to ‘patient dumping,’ a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act (EMTALA)” – signed by President Reagan, by the way – “and reflected an effort to ‘cherry pick’ wealthy patients over poor.”
Rewarding political cronies at the expense of the poor while posing as guardians of the downtrodden? Welcome to Obamacare.

"Even a stupid libturd can figure this one out."

You give them too much credit. If they could, we wouldn't have a Marxist for Pres.

Elizabeth… Conjure up some faith in the American electorate. A TSUNAMI is about to wash these seditious filthy bastards from the political landscape and they fear it ! Most of Europe is rooting for a conservative posturing in Congress. I know its depressing…..and many feel as you do.

Watch closely what unravels over the next six months. Its "good stuff" !

Agreed. And I think the idea of "cooperatives" is a backdoor mechanism to direct government control over "the means of production" if you will. Nothing would be so easy to co-opt as a large cooperative. They would be heavily regulated to begin with and at the first sign of trouble, instead of letting them sink, the government would bail them out. They would be the health sector equivalent of Fannie and Freddie. May as well call this idea the "public options plan".

Thanks for your point of view Governor Pawlenty, you have some good points, sir! Though you seem like a nice guy, …nice guys finish last. If the Republican party expects to win decisively they must be able to coalesce as a true conservative party. They must aggressively attack Barry and his fellow Democrats, and all Washington politicians RINOs more specifically, and expose them for the statist they are. We don’t need liberal light. There is no where in “The Constitution” where healthcare is a right. This accepts the premise of the left and the nanny state in general. Washington is not the answer, but the problem, and needs to get out of the way and allow The Free Market to set the terms. Best of luck to you sir, get to the right.

I feel the warmth now… ooooooops !

You're right.
Some of the folks out there, are pretty blissful………..

Nice satire.

Bah… in case they decide to hunt down my IP and try to sue me – the APA posts are satirical – ie not posted by a representative of the American Psychiatric Associaton. Psych.org!

[...] Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, writes at Big Government: [...]

Governor Pawlenty, you have written a very convincing article, and I thank you for that.

Now, it's time to hit DC hard! We need our governors to be loud, forceful and unrelenting! We need you go ALL go to DC and demand that you be heard by the White House and Congress. This is a devastating bill, and we are asking you to stand up for us, and do everything in your power to make sure that this disaster is not foisted on the states against their will. Please, organize state officials and fight for us!!

Classic example……..Look at the Post Office, Social Security, Medicare, VA! Soon we will see messed up if not already, Banking Industry, Financial Industry, Auto Industry, and Health Care Industry.

CBO figures always look better when you count ten years of income against seven years of expenditures. This is simply another smoke and mirror trickery elected officials in their arrogance and hyprocrisy have implemented way to many times in a effort to deceive the American people. Shame on all of them

These "leaders" are absolutely clueless and what's worse is they think we are the less intelligent than they are. The bulk of revenue generated in this country is by labor. There's no two ways about it. The government and businesses all rely on the average Joe to do the labor from which they can take their cut. It's very much like staffing companies. The employee is hired at a fixed rate, then the staffing company rents them out at a higher price. This is the basic principle behind all business transactions. What happens though is these businesses along with government all get greedy and continue to ask for more either through taxation or price increases under the guise if inflation. The price of products and services increase so the employees have to demand higher wages to "make ends meet". Overhead increases and so the businesses and government seek to raise prices so they can maintain their bottom line. Meanwhile businesses, as a result of higher tax rates, have to pay their employees higher wages making them less competitive so they are forced to relocate their operations in nations with more affordable tax rates. When enough businesses leave the country the government seeks to compensate for their "losses" by increasing taxes thereby causing the cost of everything to go up again. It's a vicious cycle.

In a nutshell. Most of what ales our nation can be traced back to a government that lives beyond it's means at the citizens expense.

Just wait until the CBO gets it's hands on the legislative copy…we'll get to see the real cost and impact. It will either be torpedoed or the Dems will say damn the consequences and go forward. Of course if the dollar collapses and unemployment continues to rise…it won't matter.

[...] Today, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on Senator Max Baucus’ health care overhaul. Like most Americans, I believe that our health care system needs to be reformed. However, this bill is a tax and spending bill Read more [...]

The American people deserve what they get, they elected the scum that is in office. I hope we all have to pay through the nose.
Your vote does have consequences.

WE only have ourselves to blame for electing so many dang Democrats to Congress. They are totally accountable only to one person – Pelosi.

A major part of the real fix is to return responsibility to the people with greater use of health savings accounts. http://www.hsahealthplans.com

Health savings plans allow people to stay in control of their own health care costs with substantially lower premiums and tax benefits too.

Pelosi, Reed, and their cohorts spout off in one sentence they think health care is a "right" not a responsibility then they shove it down our throats with mandated coverage? What kind of "right" is that?

As we are in full debate and discuss mode, the Finance Committee will, as is the custom of late, have no freaking clue what they are voting for or against. You do not need a thick package of powerpoint slides to do a little critical thinking here on the root causes of healthcare issues in America:

1. Economic variability driven by idiot lawyers that produce nothing of value but extract free money from the system when a procedure doesn't turn out well. Humans aren't machines, medicine does not come with a guarantee. Get over it!
2. Regulatory variability introduced by, guess who? Federal mandates that tweak the free market and distort the price that everyone pays: individuals and insurers alike. If it makes you feel better, why wouldn't you want more? Especially when you have little direct understanding of what it costs.
3. Political variability introduced by our latest social experiment with communism (Barry-Oh) and the politicization of individuals that do not carry health insurance. A lot of them A) choose not to buy insurance or B) are illegals and find that emergency room treatment is preferable.

Business rarely appreciates variability (unless your a day trader, but that's not a real business anyway). When uncertainties exist regarding the future, one way to hedge against the variability is to raise price. You got to hand it to the commies, they created the upward cost pressure and now they brilliantly are stepping in to "fix" it.

As we all know, this level of arrogance and vanity will not go unpunished. Problem is we're the ones that take the licks…

PapaSwamp's cost concerns are correct, but the CBO may miss most of them. One of the (many) troubling things that came up in his recent testimony was that his cost estimates only look at the government's costs in a plan – they pay no attention to the costs shifted to private plans (and the the majority of the citizenry). They also apparently assume current utilization and plan design levels – which are obviously going to shift if Congress slaps a 40% tax on "Cadillac" plans. This suggests that (a.) extra costs to the average person aren't a concern for this Administration, and (b.) that Elmendorf's revenue estimates for the Baucus Plan may be overstated by as much as $80 billion is use of "Cadillac" plans drops.

Baucus Bill Passes Senate Finance Committee…

14 to 9 so it’s out of the Senate Finance Committee.
One Republican, Senator Olympia Snowe (RINO-ME) voted in favor of it, but reserves “the right” to vote against it if significant changes are made.  That was obviously a surprise to Senator Chuc…

Another point to consider is this site put a humongous dent in Acorn IMHO!!! I certainly hope this is the case plus I think I heard a lot of booing at Monday Night's football game when Obimbo gave that public announcement about Spanish day or whatever that event was honoring. I also read on this site a article that Obimbo's stuff isn't selling anymore, like T-shirts and stuff!!! So let's not give up hope….also the tea parties are still something to consider and will get stronger and stronger!!!

Tim Pawlenty is a RINO! His link goes to a leftist radio station then he complains that 80% of the insurance industry is controlled by 3 companies and the GOVERNMENT needs to get involved to correct that. ARE YOU KIDDING GOVERNOR? He's Democrat light.

You know that statement PISSES ME OFF
But your RIGHT !!

No one ever said GWB was the Second Coming. He is preferable to a total liquidation of a system, with tweaking would work great, however. What is needed is a true conservative to take the reins and put us back on course. Not a compassionate conservative masquerading as one. Your guy is going to kill this country with his socialistic ideals.

If the statists still control the government after the 2012 election then I'll agree with you. Flip that emotion into the putting your boots on the ground for the next two elections. Our numbers dwarf ACORN et al…

[...] today Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty explained to BigGovernment.com readers how the Baucus health care plan is a prescription for higher taxes and [...]

"……My state is the home of Medtronic, Boston Scientific, 3M, St. Jude Medical and other medical technology makers…. Increasing taxes…would siphon money otherwise spent on research and development. It would also risk the cost of increased taxes being passed on, directly or indirectly, to those who rely on such devices or who cover their cost……."

Thank you, Governor Pawlenty, for pointing that out. Liberals don't seem to understand when I try. I have dual-chamber pacemaker [Guidant (Boston Scientific)] and would very much like to see innovation continue. Competition between the big 3 listed above has caused technology to increase at such a rate that when my first pacemaker failed after five years it's replacement came loaded with newer, safer features and a MUCH longer battery life.
I fear the new regime is, indeed, fascist and only cares about the businesses it can control and will punish those that stand in government's way. Innovation will be stifled, if not seriously maimed, by government's intervention into health care. Now I have to worry if government will even approve future replacements or if I'll be given an aspirin and sent home to die.

This is a Socialist power play and if the republicans cant stick together to derail it then what good is the party. This is a key vote because a victory for Obama will create the momentum to ram through the rest of his agenda.

This the Republicans waterloo. You can bet there will increasing movement to throw encumbents, Republican or Democrat, out of office in next years elections.

Obama knows this and probably plans false flag events, like the financial crisis, to divert or delay the election.

You dumb Republicans are playing with fire and dont even realize the danger the Country is in. The Democrats since Clintons administration have outmaneuvered us on every turn with their propaganda war. That poor benighted Bush was used like cheap whore by the Democrats and set the stage for Obama's election.

I hope and pray that the American people are finally waking up to this massive deception before its too late.

I asked a radiologist once why MRI's cost so much as I had to pay for one out of pocket and it was over 3k. He was shocked as he didn't realize that was what the out of pocket rate was. I asked him how much he thinks one should cost. He thought a minute and said, about $800. Hmmmm, about 1/4 the out of pocket price. What a coincidence. Governement needs to get out of the market completely to let it work properly as you can never get a little bit pregnant as the saying goes. Just totally screwed.

[...] The Baucus Prescription: Higher Taxes and Higher Premiums [...]

[...] (R-MN) clearly shows that the bill being brought forth is strange because there are good ideas for reform being ignored. He also lays to rest the popular misconception that there are no good ideas for healthcare reform [...]

I beleive the stae of Minnesota has 52 or 53 mandates that insurance companies have to provide in order to sell insurance in Minnesota. This does not hold down cost when you can not choose what you want to be covered for.
So much for government not being involved in insurance in Minnesota.

[...] Do? Nice Deb: We Just Don’t Know What’s Good For Us Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), Big Government: The Baucus Prescription: Higher Taxes and Higher Premiums (Updated) Odd Citizen: Stealthy Attack on Health and Liberty Derek Hunter, Big Government: The Party of [...]