Posted on 12/23/2009 3:56:41 PM PST by wagglebee
LifeNews.com Note: Sarah Palin is the former governor of Alaska and was the 2008 vice-presidential candidate. She is a pro-life stalwart and has won respect as the mother of a special needs child.
Last weekend while you were preparing for the holidays with your family, Harry Reid’s Senate was making shady backroom deals to ram through the Democrat health care take-over. The Senate ended debate on this bill without even reading it.
That and midnight-weekend votes seem to be standard operating procedures in D.C.
No one is certain of what’s in the bill, but Senator Jim DeMint spotted one shocking revelation regarding the section in the bill describing the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (now called the Independent Payment Advisory Board), which is a panel of bureaucrats charged with cutting health care costs on the backs of patients – also known as rationing.
Apparently Reid and friends have changed the rules of the Senate so that the section of the bill dealing with this board can't be repealed or amended without a 2/3 supermajority vote. Senator DeMint said:
“This is a rule change. It’s a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law. I'm not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. I don't see why the majority party wouldn't put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates. I mean, we want to bind future congresses. This goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future congresses.”
In other words, Democrats are protecting this rationing “death panel” from future change with a procedural hurdle. You have to ask why they're so concerned about protecting this particular provision. Could it be because bureaucratic rationing is one important way Democrats want to “bend the cost curve” and keep health care spending down?
The Congressional Budget Office seems to think that such rationing has something to do with cost.
In a letter to Harry Reid last week, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf noted (with a number of caveats) that the bill’s calculations call for a reduction in Medicare’s spending rate by about 2 percent in the next two decades, but then he writes the kicker:
“It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.”
Though Nancy Pelosi and friends have tried to call “death panels” the “lie of the year,” this type of rationing – what the CBO calls “reduc[ed] access to care” and “diminish[ed] quality of care” – is precisely what I meant when I used that metaphor.
This health care bill is one of the most far-reaching and expensive expansions of the role of government into our lives. We're talking about putting one-seventh of our economy under the government’s thumb. We're also talking about something as intimate to our personal well-being as medical care.
This bill is so unpopular that people on the right and the left hate it. So why go through with it? The Senate is planning to vote on this on Christmas Eve. Why the rush? Though we will begin paying for this bill immediately, we will see no benefits for years. (That’s the trick that allowed the CBO to state that the bill won't grow the deficit for the next ten years.)
The administration’s promises of transparency and bipartisanship have been broken one by one. This entire process has been defined by midnight votes on weekends, closed-door meetings with industry lobbyists, and payoffs to politicians willing to sell their principles for sweetheart deals. Is it any wonder that Americans are so disillusioned with their leaders in Washington?
This is about politics, not health care. Americans don't want this bill. Americans don't like this bill. Washington has stopped listening to us. But we're paying attention, and 2010 is coming.
Whenever the left brings up honesty it means they've been caught red-handed.
bkmk
Pro-Life Ping
Freepmail wagglebee or DirtyHarryY2K to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
People used to joke, "The efficiency of the post office with the compassion of the IRS." Well, guess what? They were at least half right.
See http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/UploadedFiles/JCTletter110509.pdf
Waiting for 2010 might be folly. The communist machine has the fix in.
Despite denials by so many of the defenders of this wretched pork-laden bad excuse for a broad extortion from both the Treasury and the next couple of generations of our kids, there ARE death panels mandated in this bill. One of the great services Sarah Palin has done for America is to make this chicanery known, and more importantly, has stung the lame-stream media into giving her revelations the dignity of a response. Which means they know, but are hastily trying to do damage control.
And doing it badly.
“Quality Adjusted Remaining Years” - QARY, an interesting acronym that sums up the fact that older folks and those with long-term disabilities are considered targets, and may be “thinned from the herd”.
For being so dumb, Palin sure makes an easy meal of Democrats.
Dead center shot...
Did we lose the “CONSTITUTION†when obozo took office?
I am sending Sarahpac $20 out of my frozen Soc Sec tomorrow.
Go Sarah!!
JUST VOTE THEM OUT!!
The whole damn bill and its concept is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!
Okay, let’s keep the pressure on - especially Nelson. The governor and people of Nebraska are really giving it to him. Let’s add fuel to the fire! Let him know we are not only sick of the corruption of which he is chief benefactor, but we will also be cheering for the Cornhuskers to lose big to the Arizona Wildcats in their upcoming bowl game!
Nelson
bennelson.senate.gov
Phone: (402) 441-4600
Fax: (202) 228-0012
Webb
http://webb.senate.gov
Phone: 202-224-4024
Fax: 202-228-6363
Landrieu
http://landrieu.senate.gov
Phone: (202)224-5824
Fax:(202) 224-9735
Lincoln
http://lincoln.senate.gov
(202) 224-4843
Fax (202) 228-1371
Bayh
http://bayh.senate.gov
Phone: (202) 224-5623
Fax: (202) 228-1377
Lieberman
http://lieberman.senate.gov
Phone: 202.224.4041
Fax: 202.224.9750
Be in D.C. for a massive protest on the day of the State of the Union Address! We need to ruin their “party” - no more status quo, no more business as usual - WE HAVE A COUNTRY TO SAVE!
And CNN claimed her “death panel” claim was the “lie of the year”. Not only was her claim true, but the real truth is even worse.
"The administration’s promises of transparency and bipartisanship have been broken one by one. This entire process has been defined by midnight votes on weekends, closed-door meetings with industry lobbyists, and payoffs to politicians willing to sell their principles for sweetheart deals."
0blahblah's word is worth nothing. He is a liar first, last and always.
Thank you, Sarah ..... we have just begun to fight.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.