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Alabama - Blue Cross Blue Shield AL - 83% Marketshare Arkansas - Blue Cross Blue Shield AR - 75% Marketshare Montana - Blue Cross Blue Shield MT - 75% Marketshare Rhode Island - Blue Cross Blue Shield RI - 79% Marketshare Iowa - Wellmark BC and BS - 71% Marketshare Maine - WellPoint Inc. (BCBS) - 78% Marketshare

As the House moved closer to agreement on its health bill, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus announced that a draft of the reform package he is negotiating with three Republican senators would come with a lower-than-expected price tag, less than $900 billion over 10 years. Although the proposal submitted to the Congressional Budget Office is not a finished product, Baucus said early results were promising as lawmakers try to complete their work before the start of the recess on Aug. 7. The preliminary bill would provide coverage to 95 percent of Americans, be fully offset by tax increases and Medicare...

Two Questions: 1) Why must the democrats insist on shoving this giant health care suppository up our hind ends so quickly? 2) Why do they insist on gulping down the entire enchilada all at once as opposed to a piecemeal approach?The first question is easy to answer. It's now or never. Citizens are getting wise to the Washington game, and they don't like it. Support is going down, not up. They may never get this chance again. Lefties squealed like stuck pigs when Bush rammed through the Patriot Act and rushed us to war in Iraq. Although I think they...

In 1964, I was flying with several companions to the Massachusetts Democratic Convention when our small plane crashed and burned short of the runway. My friend and colleague in the Senate, Birch Bayh, risked his life to pull me from the wreckage. Our pilot, Edwin Zimny, and my administrative assistant, Ed Moss, didn't survive. With crushed vertebrae, broken ribs, and a collapsed lung, I spent months in New England Baptist Hospital in Boston. To prevent paralysis, I was strapped into a special bed that immobilizes a patient between two canvas slings. Nurses would regularly turn me over so my lungs...

On Today's Show... July 22, 2009   Obama on Edge as Magic Fades; DeMint Hits Nerve with "Waterloo" This president has never been criticized, and now that he's meeting bipartisan opposition on his health care power grab, he's on the edge of a meltdown. (Rush 24/7 Members:  Listen) » Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC): Five Questions for the President's Health Care Press Conference   Would Obama Tell Ted Kennedy to Forego Surgery for a Painkiller? Government bureaucrats will decide if you're worth treating, or just old and should die. » Hrebic: Closer to Losing Your Right to Health Care » Morris: ...

...having turned itself over to guest editor Steven Colbert, Newsweek used the cover of its latest issue to plug a lengthy personal essay by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, "written with Robert Shrum, Senator Kennedy's friend and longtime speechwriter," about "the cause of my life" -- nationalizing health care. Conservatives also noted the essay's inevitable pickups on the nightly news and the lack of coverage of the anniversary of something else important in Mr. Kennedy's political profile. Wrote Brent Baker of the Media Research Center..."ABC and NBC on Sunday night dutifully championed his cause..."Though this weekend was the 40th anniversary of...

(snip) "He has the great ability to get people together, and negotiate to get a consensus," said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. (snip) Hatch, who has collaborated with Kennedy on major healthcare bills such as the Children’s Health Insurance Program, said that a month ago he had an "extensive, hour-long conversation" by phone with Kennedy. The Massachusetts senator promised to work with him on healthcare, he said, but instead the committee came out with a partisan bill that had “done away with bipartisanship." "If Kennedy had been here," said Hatch, “the first thing he would have done is pick...

Pelosi Won't Give Public a Week to Review Text of Health-Care Bill Before House Votes on It SNIPPET: "At her press briefing on Thursday, Pelosi was asked whether the health-care bill would be handled differently than the stimulus bill, which came up in February. The 1,071-page final text of that bill was posted on the House Appropriations Committee’s Web site late on a Thursday night and then voted on the next day. “When the stimulus bill came out earlier this year, members and citizens had less than two days to review the final version that came out of the conference...

No, you won't be able to keep your insurance if you like it.... Members of Congress "enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country," according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. They "can choose from among consumer-driven and high deductible plans that offer catastrophic risk protection with higher deductibles, health saving/reimbursable accounts and lower premiums, or fee-for-service (FFS) plans, and their preferred provider organizations (PPO), or health maintenance organizations (HMO)." These choices would be nice for all of us, but they're not in the offing. Instead, if you don't enroll in a "qualified" health plan and submit...

Well, now - it's GOOD to be the US Congress, or a federal employee/master, ain't it? We're apparently going to be shoved into the Procrustean Bed of The Democommies' new "health care plan" - after the obligatory infomercial from ABC-StateNews on Thursday. 9 out of 10 will agree! With what, we'll have no idea, but 9 out of 10 will agree! At least, that's what the TeeVee will tell us, on our bran-new HDTV signals. Of course, our money & blood-sucking masters in Congress WON'T be joining the rest of us proletariat - because frankly, they're better than us! Oh,...

President Barack Obama keeps telling us how wonderful that his health care plan will be. "No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people," Obama said Monday, addressing the American Medical Association. "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." He didn't let up."If you like what you're getting, keep it," Obama said. "Nobody is forcing you to shift." Source Sounds...

LAST MONTH, Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. All the major news outlets provided daily updates on Kennedy's medical treatment and prognosis. The media failed to point out an important fact: Unlike average Americans, the senator from Massachusetts didn't have to worry for one minute that he wouldn't get the care he needed for his life-threatening cancer. The president, vice president and members of Congress all enjoy government-financed health care, with few restrictions or prohibitive out-of-pocket co-pays. They are never turned away for pre-existing conditions or denied care for what insurance companies label "experimental treatments" (like the...