Health Care Bill Watch 2010: Left Frustrated, Right Readies Attack

Email    Print    Share x

RSS Feed
Digg
Facebook
TwitThis
StumbleUpon
Reddit
YahooBuzz
Email
BlinkList
del.icio.us
Fark
Furl
Google
LinkedIn
Mixx
MyShare
NewsVine
Propeller
SphereIt
Technorati
YahooMyWeb

Posted on Mar 18, 2010

whitehouse.gov

President Barack Obama speaks on health care in Ohio on Monday.

Things were getting snippy on both sides of the aisle Thursday as Congress prepared for the next—and oh please, let it be the final—showdown over health care reform. Take, for example, the words of Republican Rep. Mike Pence, who told a tea-party-friendly crowd this week that the Democrats’ plan “tramples on the Constitution.” Uh oh! Another, bigger figure from among the GOP’s ranks, Rep. John Boehner, called the bill a “job killing monstrosity” on his website.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasn’t about to take that kind of talk sitting down, firing back on Thursday: “There is no limit to what the other side will do to protect the insurance companies.” And, as The Washington Post noted that same day, although Rep. Dennis Kucinich decided to back the bill, card-carrying communist Michael Moore (just kidding!) is clearly not impressed with the latest turn of events, as he put it succinctly: “[T]his is not health-care reform; the bill is a joke.”

Well, joke or no, the bill’s backers are currently working the angle that, although the legislation would carry a $940 billion price tag, the plan would do wonders for the federal deficit over the next decade.  —KA

The Washington Post:

The program would be paid for by slicing nearly $500 billion from Medicare and other federal health programs, particularly a privately operated insurance plan known as Medicare Advantage. Democrats also propose taxing, for the first time, the health benefits of some people who receive coverage through employers. That proposal focuses on the most generous policies, which economists say are helping to drive health-care costs skyward.

The bill—unveiled Thursday and likely voted on Sunday in the House—also would increase Medicare payroll taxes for wealthy families, in part by applying the tax for the first time to investment income.

The cost of expanding coverage would exceed $200 billion a year by 2019, the CBO said. But new revenue in the package, combined with savings from program cuts, would outpace the cost of coverage, reducing the federal deficit by $138 billion over the next 10 years. The savings would continue to accumulate in the decade thereafter, the CBO said, eventually slicing around $1.2 trillion from the nation’s budget gap.

Read more

More Below the Ad

Advertisement

TAGS: democrat dennis kucinich health care reform liberal michael moore nancy pelosi public option republican

Related Entries

• February 16, 2012 What’s Really at Stake in 2012
• February 10, 2012 Flock This Way
• January 16, 2012 White House Pushing Big Pharma to Report Payments to MDs
• December 30, 2011 Truthdigger of the Week: Rep. Dennis Kucinich
• December 20, 2011 Dennis Kucinich on the NDAA and ‘War Without End’

Email to a friend

Get truth delivered to
your inbox every week.

.

Previous item: U.S. and Russia Aiming for a New START

Next item: A World Without Tuna

Comments

Are you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.

By Timestyx, September 9, 2010 at 5:34 am Link to this comment

“But new revenue in the package, combined with savings from program cuts, would outpace the cost of coverage, reducing the federal deficit by $138 billion over the next 10 years.”

I’d like to see this happen, Saving money is always difficult, but if the federal government can increase coverage and wipe off $1.2 trillion from the national deficit then I’m all for it.

Report this

By ofersince72, March 19, 2010 at 7:47 pm Link to this comment

And the final shoot to the foot…

The republicans , for all the wrong reasons ,  are right !
This bill stinks and should fail
The republicans after falling into the sewer, (they stay
there)  are going to come out smelling like a ROSE.

Report this

By J_Holden, March 19, 2010 at 7:05 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Currently the major discussion dealing with health care reform is the “magic” number. Will the democratic party be able to trim the cost of the exsiting bill to come under some arbitrary limit…. There are in my mind more pressing questions than cost:
  1) The constitution does not provide the federal government with the power to mandate what serivices you will buy and from whom you will buy them.
  2) We hear daily justification of “rules” infractions by the Democrates, which amount to they, Republicans, did it so we should be able to do it too. Hmmm…That brings to mind a tired phrase two wrongs don’t make a right. The constitutional questions this issue brings forward are very serious… If legislation can self approve why bother voting at all…Food for thought….
  3) Power corrupts…we know this.  After handing the Federal government the healthcare system all manner of taxation can now be levied under the guise of the increased cost of your health care without Congressional votes or Presidential signature…. Do you really want to write the Federal government a blank check with your name on it?
  Please consider this is not a sporting event…it is not us vs them….it is we the people and our future as a nation.

Report this

By Cathy, March 19, 2010 at 7:01 am Link to this comment

Jimnp72:  “Truth is, I am sick and tired of them and fervently wish they would crawl back into the holes from which they emerged.”

I am sick of all of them.  I haven’t been able to stand the sound of Obama’s voice for months now, as he has outright lied time and time again.  People should be screaming about the whoppers he told about the PO that were confirmed in the NYT, but they’re not.  Pelosi screaming that the Repubs are in the pocket of big insurers?  Pot meet kettle.  She used this phrase during the summer and then proceeded to attend a big fundraiser for her by Big Insurance.

Report this

By zeroinfinity, March 18, 2010 at 6:34 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

My thing with the health care bill is really quite simple.  This bill is not a good one because it is a mish-mesh of what both sides want.  Therefore, this bill only goes half-way, leaving all parties concerned dissatisfied.  Of course, there is the mandatory insurance part which I am not sure how this will be enforced, not to mention that fact that technically mandatory insurance goes against the Hippocratic Oath of doctors.  For example, an individual can’t afford health insurance, even the fine if they don’t have it.  What would this mean under the circumstance?  His treatment is denied?

    I have come to the conclusion, even if it’s a false one because I do not care if it is true or false, that the reason why there is mandatory insurance instead of single payer/public option/ universal health care is because the insurance companies would lose money over the latter style of reform.  The USA’s current “reform” is merely a way for insurance and pharmaceutical companies to have an even bigger piece of the pie than what they already have now!  No pre-existing conditions anymore?  Whoop-dee!  Nice compromise between corporation and citizenry Congress…

    Unfortuantely, tea partiers keep saying to the government “hands off of my health care.”  Evidently, tea partiers would much rather have corporations handling their health care instead.  People should be observing and noticing how corporate control of health care is turning out, based on the empirical evidence.  I recommend conservatives look up “empirical evidence” in an encyclopedia because it appears to me that they do not know what this concept means as they seem too dense to notice it.

  Which brings me to the ultimate irony of the whole health care reform issue:  Conservatives should be clamoring for this current bill!  I thought conservatives were all for privatization and corporate control over anything and everything.  After all, they keep saying repeatedly that they do not want government control over aspects of USA society (This makes me wonder why conservatives would even aspire to be politicians with such an attitude).  Fine.  This merely means that corporations will fill the vacuum.

    In short, either the government controls your life or the corporations indirectly controls your life by influencing the government to side with them over the populace.  Unfortunately, tea partiers prefer the latter since they are so anti “big government”.

Report this

By anaman51, March 18, 2010 at 12:43 pm Link to this comment

This doesn’t have a damn thing to do with health care. The content of this, or any bill presented by the Democrats, doesn’t matter. This is about the Republican Machine stopping anything and everything proposed by this Democratic Congress and President. That way, when the lying season starts just before the election, the Machine can call them a “do-nothing” party. The trouble is, the average American voter is just exactly stupid enough to believe them.

Report this

By Jimnp72, March 18, 2010 at 12:24 pm Link to this comment

A few trillion here and there from the military and the prison gulag would indeed
go a long way toward universal overage.the present bill is probably the best our
corpocracy can do right now and at least it is a big step in the right direction.
Also, I am sick of Mitch and Boehmer telling me what I am “sick and tired of.”
Truth is, I am sick and tired of them and fervently wish they would crawl back into
the holes from which they emerged.

Report this

By ohiolibgal, March 18, 2010 at 11:39 am Link to this comment

Here’s an idea - quit dribbling away tens of billions on counter productive foreign wars, tax billionaires at a higher rate than Wendy’s employees and bingo - we can do real health care reform and not this shell game sham, make sure everyone can educate themselves instead of just the well to do (upward mobility, what a concept), and reduce the deficit.

But then that wouldn’t be sensible according to Obama off what he said yesterday.

Report this

Add Your Comment

Posts by unregistered readers are moderated. Posts by members
are published immediately. Why wait? Register today!

Name:

Email: (won't be displayed on the site)

Your Web Site:

Your Comment:

                        Number of characters remaining: 4000

Notify you when others comment on this article?

Are you a human? Retype the word you see here.

     

Please read and abide by our comment policy.
By submitting this comment, you agree to this site's terms and conditions.