Facts Are Stubborn Things [flag@whitehouse.gov]

YES YOU CAN read S. 1099 here:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-1099
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-1099

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAoqki9BTvA

Note: The following post is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405113/posts

S1099 and Michelle Malkin Event

Posted on December 10, 2009 7:08:32 PM PST by pulaskibush

U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln is pretending that the secretly written, +2,000 page, government takeover, Medicaid robbing, healthcare takeover efforts by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and special interest groups. She is also pretending that if Reidcare is stopped, it will mean no healthcare reform is possible. This is a lie used to justify any and all bad parts of Reidcare, the government takeover plan in the U.S. Senate. To give political cover for herself, Blanche has used the same excuse after every vote to move forward with just different phases. Below are some quotes from Blanche Lincoln after continuing Reidcare:

“Although this isn’t a perfect bill, I believe that opposing all reform is simply not an option” 10/13/09 after the committee vote

” it is more important that we begin this debate to improve our nation’s health-care system for all Americans rather than just simply drop the issue and walk away.” 11/22/09 after the vote to allow debate

The good news is that many Arkansas voters have rejected the government takeover bills and are planning on firing Blanche Lincoln. The bad news is that many people still believe that the government takeover bills are the only way to reform healthcare, because they don’t know about other bills such as S1099, The Patients Choice Act of 2009 (House version HR2520). S1099 allows out of state buying of health insurance, improves health savings accounts, reduces Medicare fraud, & stop junk lawsuits. Blanche Lincoln knows about S1099, but she wants to convince enough people that she did the best she could in the “debate to improve our nation’s health-care system” to keep her job. Here’s a link to video of when she was told about S1099 a few months ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGlqsvMnsow

Here is The Patient’s Choice Act on Thomas Library that Blanche Lincoln & staff was unable to find:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.1099:

Imagine if you told your boss that you had a 2,000 page, government takeover plan to fix a problem but that was only one way to fix the problem. Now image your boss found out that there was a 21 page, cheaper, better way to fix that problem that didn’t involve government takeover. What would happen to you? What should happen to Blanche?

CODE RED’
Senate Rally

Quote:

http://www.highnoonforhealthcare.org/rsvp.php

December 15th, 2009 on Capitol Hill

The fight is on in the U.S. Senate over the future of your health care and the proper role of government. Senator Reid only needs 3 more VOTES to make government-run health care a reality in America.

If that happens, brace yourself for:

Roughly $500 billion in tax INCREASES
Mandates forcing you into government insurance
$464 billion in Medicare CUTS
Higher Insurance Premiums
A cost of $2.5 Trillion that just might break the Treasury.
We can’t let Washington come between you or your child and your doctor! YOU CAN HELP STOP HARRY REID. Join us in Washington DC on December 15 to tell Washington to keep their hands off our health care.

What: Senate Emergency Rally
When: December 15th, at 1:30pm ET
Where: Upper Senate Park, on Constitution Ave. between New Jersey and Delaware St. NE

We are adding more speakers every day. Our confirmed speakers are:

Senator Tom Coburn
Senator Jim DeMint
Laura Ingraham
Rick Scott, Chairman, Conservatives for Patients Rights
Following the Rally we will help you find your Senators office so you can tell Congress what you think.

You don’t need to register unless you would like to ride a bus sponsored by our coalition members. However, it would help helpful if you let us know you’re coming so we know to expect you. This is truly a grassroots effort so many of our busses are asking for an affordable transportation contribution.

Stand up for health care freedom in a way your senators will never forget. This may be our last stand against the Democrats misguided health care agenda.

Can’t make it Washington? Click here to make your voice heard in your district office. If you have any questions or concerns please call us at (877) 318-7226

Bogota, NJ 6:30a ($30)
Egg Harbor Township, NJ 6:30a ($30)
Hamilton, NJ 6:30a ($30)
Kingwood, NJ 6:30a ($30)
Ridgewood, NJ 6:30a ($30)
Sparta, NJ 6:30a ($30)
Rockville Centre, NY 6:30a ($30)
Melville, NY 6:30a ($30)
Doylestown, PA 6:30a ($30)
Huntington, PA 6:30a ($30)
South Philly, PA 6:30a ($30)
Deptford, NJ 6:30a ($30)
Garden State Pkwy, NJ 6:30a ($30)
Havertown, PA 6:30a ($30)
Parsipanny, NJ 6:30a ($30)
Sayerville, NJ 6:30a ($30)
Palisades Mall, NY 6:30a ($30)
Staten Island, NY 6:30a ($30)
Center City, PA 6:30a ($30)
Reading, PA 6:30a ($30)
Goldsboro, NC 6:45a ($25)
Wilmington, NC 5:30a ($25)
Greensboro, NC 6:00a ($25)
Raleigh, NC 7:00a ($25)
Bel Air, MD 7:00a ($5)
Salisbury, MD 7:00a ($5)
Roanoke, VA 9:30a
Louisa, VA 9:45a
Harrisonburg, VA 10:30a
Charlottesville, VA 9:45a
Staunton, VA 9:30a

Note I sent to my elected representatives today:

Dear xxxxxx,

HEALTH CARE “REFORM” IS ABOUT BANKRUPTING OUR ECONOMY.
The future generations will look back and point to Obama’s government and
supporters who did this to them.

Please talk to your fellow Senators and tell them — DON’T PASS OBAMACARE.
DON’T TAKE AMERICA DOWN THE ROAD TO BEING A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.

Please vote NO on the health care bill package President Obama is trying to push on America. We can’t afford it and neither can the future generations.

My husband and I would like to see:

1. tort reform.

2. the ability to purchase insurance in any state.

3. the deductible (high or low) of our choice.

4. medical savings account.

Growing up in a low income home, I do know that there are many options for people who cannot afford health care. There were then; there are now.

Thank you for reading this.

Cindy xxxxx

Hat Tip: Clueless in DC
http://cluelessindc.com/dc/?p=50

Blog - Quote:

http://cluelessindc.com/dc/?p=50

Dec
16
2009

THE MEMO
Clueless in DC - News & Views

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/102xx/doc10243/05-27-HealthInsuranceProposals.pdf

https://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10731/MLR_and_budgetary_treatment.pdf

Hat Tip:

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/12/16/smoking-gun-cbo-memo-exposes-e

THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR: AmSpecBlog
“‘Smoking Gun’ CBO Memo Exposes Effort to Hide Cost of Obamacare”
by Philip Klein
December 16, 2009, 11:36 am

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/12/16/bland-cbo-memo-or-smoking-gun/

CATO@LIBERTY

“Bland CBO Memo, or Smoking Gun?”
Posted by Michael F. Cannon
(December 16, 2009)

SNIPPET: “This weekend, the Congressional Budget Office released “a very strange memo” titled, “Budgetary Treatment of Proposals to Regulate Medical Loss Ratios.” You wouldn’t know it from the title, but that little memo is the smoking gun that shows how congressional Democrats have very carefully hidden more than half the cost of their health care bills.

First, a little history.”

SNIPPET: “If someone sold you a house, or a car, or a mutual fund this way, we would put them in jail.”

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/the_cbo_warns_on_too-high_medi.php

ASYMMETRICAL INFORMATION
by Megan McArdle

“The CBO Warns on Too-High Medical Loss Ratio Requirements”
15 Dec 2009 08:39 am

SNIPPET: “One of the more quixotic amendments to the Senate health care bill has been Jay Rockefeller’s insistence that companies get their medical loss ratio to 90% or higher–i.e., spend 10% or less on administrative costs. I’ve already outlined why I think this is misguided. A number of liberals I know think that this was merely an opening bid to secure, say, 85%. But I doubt it will even go there. Over the weekend, the CBO released a very strange memo indicating a hitch that I, certainly, was not expecting: if you drive the MLR higher than 80%, the CBO is going to stick the health insurers on the federal budget:”

Posted by Mrs. Tea at 14:23

Blog:

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/12/21/cash-for-cloture-demcare-bribe-list-pt-ii/

“Cash for Cloture: Demcare bribe list, Pt. II”
By Michelle Malkin
December 21, 2009 02:48 AM

SNIPPET: “GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell alluded to all this backroom dealing on the floor early this morning before the cloture vote, but lamely refused to name names on the Senate floor.

Screw Senate collegiality. Let the sun shine in.”

Previously...

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/20/the-demcare-bribe-list/

“The Demcare bribe list”
By Michelle Malkin
November 20, 2009 11:17 AM

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.davidlimbaugh.com/mt/archives/2009/12/new_column_obam_31.html

“New Column: Obamacare Hazardous to America’s Health”
by David Limbaugh
December 21, 2009

SNIPPET: “At least common thieves don’t destroy an entire health care system and socialize the American economy when they commit their felonies. Too bad we can’t say the same for our illustrious Democratic senators who sold out the nation.”

SNIPPET: “Everyone knows about Sen. Mary Landrieu’s negotiating $300 million for her state in non-guaranteed Medicaid payouts. She was even cocky about her institutionalized larceny.

Sen. Bernie Sanders finagled $10 billion worth of earmarked greenbacks for the funding of community health centers in his home state, Vermont, to support a bill he vehemently opposed just three days earlier.

Sanders and Sen. Patrick Leahy secured additional Medicaid funding for Vermont, while senators from Pennsylvania, New York and Florida achieved Medicare Advantage protections for their constituents even as benefits from this program are being cut nationwide.

And why not? The end always justifies the means for these liberals. And the end, in this case, is their long-held Utopian Marxist dream of socialized health care. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was not only unapologetic but also defiant about these bribes.”

Quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2413333/posts

Democrats Ensure America Will No Longer Be the Last Best Hope of Earth
TOWNHALL.com - Column by Dennis Prager ^ | December 22, 2009 | by Dennis Prager
Posted on December 22, 2009 2:34:24 PM PST by Cindy

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

“Democrats Ensure America Will No Longer Be the Last Best Hope of Earth” by Dennis Prager

SNIPPET: “As the passage of the bill that will start the process of nationalizing health care in America becomes almost inevitable, so, too, the process of undoing America’s standing as The Last Best Hope of Earth will have begun.”

SNIPPET: “Just as the left has waged war on America’s Judeo-Christian roots, it has waged war on individual liberty and responsibility.”

SNIPPET: “Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are right about one thing — they are indeed making history. But their legacy will not be what they think. They will be known as the people who led to the end of America as the last best hope of earth.”

(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-palin/midnight-votes-backroom-deals-and-a-death-panel/213042303434

Sarah Palin: Midnight Votes, Backroom Deals, and a Death Panel

Sarah Palin’s Notes
Midnight Votes, Backroom Deals, and a Death Panel
Yesterday at 7:52pm

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.

- Sarah Palin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qh7bQ5cocE

“PICK UP THE PHONE BLANCHE [LINCOLN]”
(December 23, 2009)

QUOTE:

http://americayouaskedforit.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/tell-blanche-lincoln-to-pick-up-the-phone/

Tell Blanche Lincoln to “Pick up the phone!”

Today or tomorrow, Arkansas Democrat Senator Blanche Lincoln plans to vote again to move Harry Reid’s Senate health care bill toward passage. This, in spite of the fact that 60% of her constituents oppose the bill.

With a vote looming on such important legislation, legislation that will impact every man, woman, and child in America, one would expect Senator Lincoln to want to hear her constituents’ opinions on the matter. But no!

She won’t even take their calls. Her office phone goes unanswered today. But just in case they’re reading the emails, please click here to email the link for the video below to Senator Lincoln today. If you’re from out of state, use Zip Code “72023“, and city “Cabot“, street address “112 S. First Street” to be sure the system let’s you through. (That’s the address of Democrat Representative Marion Berry’s Cabot office.)

Tell Lincoln to “Pick up the phone!” by copying and pasting the following link in your message: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qh7bQ5cocE

You can also try to call her DC office at 202-224-4843, but good luck getting someone to pick up the phone.

Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies

Quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2414255/posts

The Real Price of the Senate Health Bill
The Wall Street Journal ^ | 12-24-09 | Karl Rove
Posted on December 23, 2009 7:58:16 PM PST by GOP_Lady

Pushing health-care reform through the Senate will hurt Democrats.

By now Majority Leader Harry Reid’s explanation for how he is getting his health-care bill through the Senate has pinged its way across the country. “I don’t know if there is a senator that doesn’t have something in this bill that was important to them,” he said this week. “And if they don’t have something in it important to them, then it doesn’t speak well of them.” But take these comments two steps further and it becomes clear that how Mr. Reid reached unanimity in his caucus could hurt Democrats more than they realize.

First, taking Mr. Reid at his word means every Democratic senator got something. That implies there are even more howlers to discover that will dog Democrats next year.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2414183/posts

Innovation Gets Sick
Investors.com ^ | December 2009 | INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY Staff
Posted on December 23, 2009 5:41:31 PM PST by Kaslin

Reform: There are many problems on the health care road the country is being forced to take. But one not getting as much attention as it should is the harm done to a critically important sector: medical innovation.

The high costs, restricted choices and eventual rationing that will result from the Democrats’ health care plan are being discussed to varying degrees by those who are uncomfortable with what’s being rushed through Congress. But the final legislation’s effect on medical innovation has been somewhat lost with so much attention focused elsewhere. So let us clarify:

The Democrats’ plan will slow innovation of pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

If that failed to set off internal alarms, consider the comments of Robert Reich, secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. The left-wing academic explained it perfectly two years ago when he said that if government used its power “to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs,” it would mean “less innovation.”

And that, he went on, “means less new products and less new drugs on the market, which means you are probably not going to live that much longer than your parents.”

America is the king of medical innovation. When the Cato Institute measured the top 27 innovations from 1975 to 2000, the U.S., with a population of 307 million, had 20; the EU and Switzerland combined (population 499 million) had 14. (The total exceeds 27 because multiple nations sometimes share credit for innovations.)

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2414376/posts

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704304504574610040924143158.html

OPINION
DECEMBER 22, 2009, 8:16 P.M. ET

“Harry Reid Turns Insurance Into a Public Utility
The health bill creates a massive cash crunch and then bankruptcies for many insurers.”

By RICHARD A. EPSTEIN

http://www.medicalprogresstoday.com/pdfs/MI_Health_Care_act.pdf

http://www.pointoflaw.com/columns/archives/2009/12/impermissible-ratemaking-in-he.php

December 18, 2009

“Impermissible Ratemaking in Health-Insurance Reform: Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional”
By Richard A. Epstein

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2415657/posts

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/seniors_are_americas_new_jews.htm

December 27, 2009
“Seniors are America’s new Jews”
By Stuart Schwartz

SNIPPET: “What Sarah Palin termed “dealth panels” are only a small part of a new bureaucracy that will stand between seniors and life. Small wonder The Wall Street Journal characterized Obamacare as an “assault” on seniors, while a British newspaper, surveying events across the pond, starkly stated “the elderly might as well have a bull’s eye painted on their backs.” It continued, “Creepy, right? It’s totalitarian, it’s ugly, and it’s not the American way.”

But it is the American way in a nation governed by Obama, who has a vision that requires some to have less so that others may be given more. And the vast middle class of seniors, almost 40-million strong, a lifetime of working and paying taxes behind them, are the ideal scapegoats to fund a radical Democrat vision.

James Lewis describes the Obama team approach with devastating clarity: they have perfected scapegoating, an “emotional high explosive that you can direct at will.” And not just Will-we’re talking Bernice, Fred, and Gladys, the fifteen percent of the population who have the audacity-an Obama word-to age.

Seniors now find themselves as the official go-to group for a president intent on taking both life and property and giving to those who are younger, more diverse, to illegal immigrants, and Democratic Party allies. Consequently, the Obama-led Democrats, with the help of intellectual and media elites, have declared open season on grandma and grandpa, with Newsweek Evan going so far as to feature a cover detailing “The Case for Killing Granny.””

SNIPPET: “Democrat healthcare is one of many “audacious visions,” a Georgetown University professor wrote, to replace a Judeo-Christian culture with a statist worldview. The founders were wrong, Obama says, when they unashamedly founded a nation based, as Thomas Jefferson put it, upon the belief in the dignity of each individual-regardless of age-who possesses “personal liberty” given “by the Author of nature.”

The president Newsweek editor Evan Thomas called “sort of God” takes issue with the view of seniors dictated by the “Author of nature,” that rock of Judeo-Christian culture who demands in his Word, in Deuteronomy, that humanity “Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be long...”

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob views long life and respect for seniors as a blessing. But the Democratic Party healthcare bill is no Deuteronomy, long life is viewed as a market-driven curse, and for Barack Obama-the god of Harry, Nancy, and Evan-seniors are expendable.”

Today’s STUCK ON STUPID award winner is Senator Sherrod Brown (Democrat - Ohio).

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/59068

“Sen. Brown: Constitution Gives Congress Power to Mandate Health Insurance In ‘Same Place’ As Medicare”
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

SNIPPET: “(CNSNews.com) – Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) did not say specifically where in the Constitution Congress is given the authority to require that every American buy health insurance, as both the Senate and House health care bills mandate. However, Brown did reference the “same part of the Constitution” that allows for Medicare.

At the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Dec. 22, CNSNews.com asked Sen. Brown: “Where in the Constitution does Congress get the authority for an individual health care mandate.””

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