Health Care Updates
Wondering who the targets are to stop the Reid bill? The RNC has set up “Health Care Flip Floppers” to help stop the seven Senate Democrats who are opposed to the bill but will vote for it to go to the floor.
- Kay Hagan (NC)
- Evan Bayh (IN)
- Ben Nelson (NE)
- Mary Landrieu (LA)
- Mark Blegich (AK)
- Kent Conrad (ND)
- Byron Dorgan (ND)
- Blanche Lincoln (AR)
- Mark Pryor (AR)
The American people simply need more time to debate and read through this version of the bill. It’s even longer than the House version (2,074 pages) and does not protect life. National Right to Life exclaimed that the Reid bill is “unacceptable:”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) has rejected the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts Amendment and has substituted completely unacceptable language that would result in coverage of abortion on demand in two big new federal government programs.
According to Patient’s First (part of Americans for Prosperity), here are just three problems with the bill. They’ve also outlined 10 more problems.
1.”The Reid bill starts hiking taxes and cutting Medicare immediately, while the new spending programs are delayed until January 2014…Without this gimmick, the fully phased in 10-year cost would be not the much-touted $848 billion is about $2.5 trillion.”
2.”The Reid bill pretends Medicare payments to doctors will be cut by 23 percent in 2011 and stay at that low level. That’s totally dishonest, because it would drive most doctors out of Medicare. That raises the real price-tag of the bill another $247 billion.”
3.”The bill includes yet another new entitlement program, a long-term care insurance program called the CLASS Act. This new federal entitlement program will supposedly reduce the deficit. That’s because the CBO counts the program’s 10-year revenues of $72 billion as deficit reduction to help pay for the Reid bill, even though it will cost far more than it raises once benefits start being collected in the future. This is another new entitlement time-bomb, when Social Security and Medicare already have staggering multi-trillion dollar unfunded liabilities.”
Tennesseans, wondering how our senators feel? Thankfully, both issued strong statements against it.
Senator Reid’s bill is appropriate for the season: it’s the same turkey you didn’t like in August, and it’s not going to taste any better on Thanksgiving. Not much has changed. The bill still means higher premiums, it still means higher taxes, and it still cuts Medicare. It’s still 2,000 pages, and it still costs more than $2 trillion when fully implemented — and that doesn’t take into account a quarter-trillion-dollar doctors’ Medicare reimbursement. And it still sends struggling states new Medicaid costs that will force states to raise taxes or damage higher education or both.
“Like most Americans, I want to see responsible health care reform, but paying for it by sending an unfunded mandate to states, taking money from Medicare – which is already insolvent – to fund a new federal entitlement, and passing off costs to future generations does not pass the common sense test,” said Corker. “I actually thought Sen. Reid would try to put something forth that was more sensible, but from what I’ve seen of the 2,074 page bill thus far, it looks even more sinister. This is taking the debate and our country in exactly the wrong direction. We’re literally spending our future away.
Tags: Americans for Prosperity, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Bob Corker, Byron Dorgan, Evan Bayh, healthcare, Kay Hagan, Kent Conrad, Lamar Alexander, Mark Blegich, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, National Right to Life, Patients First, RNC
