December 7-9, 2009
Dec 07 01:27 Marriage Penalty On Steroids Dec 07 04:44 Democrats Slash Medicare Home Care Budget Dec 07 13:59 Will Groupthink Kill Us? Dec 08 03:01 Klobuchar, Franken Vote to Gut Medicare Home Care Dec 08 11:27 John Thune BCC Notes Dec 08 13:24 Steny's Singing From a Worn Out Hymnal Dec 09 02:06 A-Klo Isn't a Moderate Dec 09 11:01 Whistling Past The Graveyard?
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov
Marriage Penalty On Steroids
According a chart compiled by the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee, the House Democrats' Health care bill would create a monstrous marriage penalty.
The chart put together by these committees relates to the "Public Health Insurance Option." According to the chart, 2 people living together, with each making $30,000 a year, would pay $1,320 in insurance premiums. According to the same chart, a married couple making $60,000 would pay $12,000 in insurance premiums, a difference of $10,680.
I couldn't get the chart to format but here's the statistical breakdown by income:
$60,000 -- Married $12,000 Single, living together $1,320I suspect that what's infuriating married couples is that single people making $30,000 each not only are paying less per year than a couple making $60,000 but also that the singles are getting their insurance subsidized by the taxpayers, many of whom are married couples paying $10,000+ more in insurance premiums.
$70,000 -- Married $12,000 Single, living together $1,960
$80,000 -- Married $12,000 Single, living together $2,880
$90,000 -- Married $12,000 Single, living together $12,000
During a debate with Mike Huckabee on FNS, Howard Dean made this comment:
I think small businesses will be helped enormously by health care reform. Small businesses with payrolls of less than half a million dollars don't have to buy health insurance anymore for any of their employees. I think that's a big step forward.That'd obviously be a good deal for small businesses. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be such a good deal for married couples dumped into the public option. This seems to agree with what the Heritage Foundation's Robert Moffitt is quoted as saying :
Adds the Heritage Foundation's Bob Moffit, "if an employer has a health care benefits package that is 12 to 13 percent of payroll, and they can solve their problem by paying an 8 percent payroll tax, I think they're going to do it, and I think they're going to do it significantly."I don't know how many small businesses would dump their employees into the public option but I've got to believe that, given the choice between paying 12 percent or 8 percent of their payroll, most businesses, small, medium or large, would drop them and pocket the 4+ percent.
There's an additional hit that the Democrats haven't talked about, a provision often called the "concrete ceiling" by health care experts. A married couple making $58,000 a year and buying their insurance from the public option would pay $2,088 a year in insurance premiums. If that same married couple earned $59,000 a year, their insurance premiums would jump to $12,000. What's worse is that only half of the $12,000 health insurance premium is tax deductable. That isn't my opinion. That's according to another table put together by the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee.
The public option would cripple most families' budgets if they're making more than $59,000 a year and getting their insurance through their employer.
Posted Monday, December 7, 2009 1:34 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 07-Dec-09 09:02 AM
We still have people laboring under the misconception that the public option doesn't concern them. Do you know, does the Senate bill still say that after 2014 private health insurance IS NOT LEGAL, and the public option becomes the public requirement?
Democrats Slash Medicare Home Care Budget
Sunday, I watched At Issue With Tom Hauser. Hauser's interview of Neil Johnson got my blood boiling. When you read this partial transcript of the interview, you'll understand:
Hauser: We're gonna talk now with someone who has some thoughts on what's being debated in Washington. He is Neil Johnson, the executive director of the Minnesota Home Care Association.The Democrats have accused Republicans of wanting to cut Medicare, hinting that the Republicans don't care about senior citizens. Now the truth is out. This NYTimes article is proof that the only political party that's cutting Medicare are the Democrats:
You know, a lot of people get lost in this debate because so much of it seems so complicated and they don't understand it & it doesn't necessarily hit home but what your folks do is take care of people, some of them near the end of their lives, some are very young, in a home health care setting. But in terms of what's going to happen to Medicare, that generally helps the elderly, of course, they're talking about devastating the funding for that. How might that impact people who right now are enjoying home care in their homes as opposed to being in hospitals or nursing homes?
JOHNSON: Well there's no question and the bill's over 2,000 pages and it's very complex. We're very concerned about the home health care aspects of it. We're looking at, depending on which bill we're talking about, the House bill cuts home health care by $56 billion over 10 years and the Senate bill, it's something like $45 billion over 10 years. That's about a 14.5% cut for home care and we're about 4.5% of Medicare's expenditures, so it's a significant cut.
HAUSER: How many Minnesotans right now have home care?
JOHNSON: Well, we're looking at,the estimates are 68,000-70,0000 people last year, in 2007 excuse me, and 28,000 received Medicare services and another 30-40,000 received medical assistance services.
HAUSER: And what's gonna be the practical impact if these cuts were to go through?
JOHNSON: Well, certainly access is an issue and we're certainly worried about that but the many agencies are hanging on the edge right now. Medicare has been a good payer for most providers in the state of Minnesota & combined with medical assistance and some waiver payments & some private payments and long-term care but Medicare has been a key factor in providing needed skill services to the citizens of Minnesota.
HAUSER: There seems to be a disconnect here because people look at home care as a way to bring down costs that are often associated with hospital stays. I know 60 Minutes just did a segment on this & they said it was a good way for people at the end of their lives of saving spending $5-10,000 a day so why's that being targeted?
JOHNSON: Well, I think it's an easy target because people don't really understand what home care providers do. But, yeah, we think we're the best alternative out there. It's efficient. It's productive and it's where people want to spend the rest of their lives,
By a vote of 53 to 41, the Senate on Saturday rejected a Republican effort to block cutbacks in payments to home health agencies that provide nursing care and therapy to homebound Medicare beneficiaries.There's the proof. Democrats voted to cut Medicare's home health care budget by 13 percent over the next 10 years. The next time that I hear a Democrat say that there won't be a cut in benefits as a result of them cutting Medicare by $467,000,000,000, I'm gonna get in their face and tell them that they're lying through their teeth. Then I'm gonna read them the riot act. THEN I'm gonna get nasty.
Republicans voted against the cuts, saying they would hurt some of the nation's most vulnerable citizens. Most Democrats supported the cutbacks, saying they would eliminate waste and inefficiency in home care.
The Democrats' health care bill would reduce projected Medicare spending on home care by $43 billion , or 13 percent, over the next 10 years. The savings would help offset the cost of subsidizing coverage for the uninsured.
The notion that the Democratic Party is the protector of the elderly, the downtrodden and the people who've fallen through the cracks is BS. They're cutting the most efficient part of Medicare and the part that has the most positive impact on families.
I'll lay this out as succinctly as I know how. Medicare's home care programs save money, lots of it. It also helps people live their last days in dignity. And the Democrats just voted to slash their budgets by 14 percent over the next decade.
What's worse is that the Democrats say the cuts will "eliminate waste and inefficiency in home care." That's BS. The cuts are being made because they're being used to insure the uninsured.
I'd love hearing a Democrat explain how cutting home care budgets, a program that's already saving billions of dollars, will increase efficiency. I'd love hearing it because I don't think it's possible to give a coherent explanation on how these draconian cuts will increase efficiency.
It's time to tell the Democrats that they've gone too far, that they've sacrificed the least able to pay for universal coverage. It's disgusting, possibly more disgusting than cutting the DC scholarships.
The 53 Democrats that voted for these draconian cuts should pay a high political price for abandoning the elderly and those at the end of their lives. What they've done is unconscionable.
Posted Monday, December 7, 2009 10:38 PM
Comment 1 by eric z. at 07-Dec-09 08:30 AM
Both parties should act responsibly to reform Medicare costs, vs. benefits, e.g., end of life care.
Elderly Terry Schiovo types are problematic, and if there's only so much cash to put into medical care it is not the most productive allocation.
But the insurance and HMO profiteering has to be curbed too, since it's cash not going to healthcare, but being diverted from it.
Single payer with the insurance industry allowed to sell extended coverage, and the federal government unleashed to use its bargaining size with the providers and big pharma is the only really sensible way to go.
But neither party has enough guts to do what's right. They are in the same partying bote headed for the waterfalls down river. It is sad. Neither party shows leadership, with gamesmanship the substitute - lobbyists and all.
Comment 2 by eric z. at 07-Dec-09 08:31 AM
boat - not bote. I need another morning cup of coffee.
Will Groupthink Kill Us?
I gave this post a provocative title so I'd get your attention. This isn't a dissertation on death panels. Rather, it's a look at the consequences of upcoming federal restrictions on health care. Thanks to Nat Hentoff's article , we now know that the system being proposed has amajor flaw in it. Hentoff identifies it here:
In this country, bureaucrats keeping tabs on patients, without actually seeing them and their condition, will mean, as Tanner notes, that "every time a doctor decides on a treatment, he or she would have to ask: 'Does the government think I'm doing this too much? Will I be penalized if I order this test?'"By nature, Democrats look at groups. This isn't automatically wrong. It's just an observation. In this instance, that's taking the wrong approach because it potentially obliterates the doctor-patient relationship. This is where statistics will be used to prevent doctors from treating individual patients. It won't prevent them from treating everyone. It'll just impose a quota on how many people will be treated as individuals and how many people will be denied treatment because a bureaucrat said no.
President Obama and his supporters in Congress insist that clinical studies prove how many needless and expensive tests and procedures are so often performed. But these are collective statistics. Individual patients are left out.In health care, groupthink is potentially lethal.
Harvard Medical School faculty members Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband bring the individual back into this crucial debate in "Sorting Fact From Fiction on Health Care" (Wall Street Journal, Aug. 31): "Data from clinical studies provide averages from populations and may not apply to individual patients.That's a disturbing thought. I don't trust bureaucrats as it relates to MY health care. I'll trust doctors with providing my health care.
"Clinical studies routinely exclude patients with more than one medical condition and often the elderly or people on multiple medications. Conclusions about what works and what doesn't work change much too quickly for policy-makers to dictate clinical practice." Everyone, regardless of political party, should keep in mind:
"If doctors and hospitals are rewarded for complying with government-mandated treatment measures or penalized if they do not comply, clearly, federal bureaucrats are directing health decisions," Groopman and Hartzband wrote.
It's time for Senate Republicans to start listening. There's nothing worthwhile about this legislation worth saving. It's time to kill this legislation. If GOP senators don't start listening to their supporters, they'll find their supporters quickly shifting their support to primary challengers who'll listen.
If the TEA Party Movement should've taught everyone, it's that We The People demand that our elected officials listen to us and that we expect them to base their decisions on what's best for the nation, not what will ingratiate them to the Beltway echochamber. People who want to be popular with the Beltway crowd can't represent their constituents because inside the Beltway people don't think anything like real people.
It's time to kill this legislation because Washington dictating what doctors can and can't do is a disaster. Thinking that they know better than a physician is insulting, digusting and potentially lethal. That isn't something we should tolerate.
Posted Monday, December 7, 2009 2:03 PM
No comments.
Klobuchar, Franken Vote to Gut Medicare Home Care
The post's title says it all. According to Open Congress , Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken voted to cut Medicare's home care budget by 14.5 percent :
By a vote of 53 to 41, the Senate on Saturday rejected a Republican effort to block cutbacks in payments to home health agencies that provide nursing care and therapy to homebound Medicare beneficiaries.People, it's time we let Washington know that gutting the budget of one of the most efficient government programs has us seeing red. Saying that the cost difference between paying for home care and staying in a hospital or a nursing facility is substantial is understatement. Saying it's gigantic is getting close.
Republicans voted against the cuts, saying they would hurt some of the nation's most vulnerable citizens. Most Democrats supported the cutbacks, saying they would eliminate waste and inefficiency in home care.
The Democrats' health care bill would reduce projected Medicare spending on home care by $43 billion, or 13 percent, over the next 10 years. The savings would help offset the cost of subsidizing coverage for the uninsured.
It isn't surprising that Sen. Franken voted against this amendment. He's known as a hotheaded idiot and as Harry Reid's puppet. His vote isn't surprising because he isn't known for being particularly compassionate.
Sen. Klobuchar's vote is surprising, though, because this is a stupid vote on her behalf. If she thinks she won't get hurt by this vote in 2012, then she isn't terribly bright. What's her defense of this vote? The cuts start immediately, which means real people will be dramatically hurt before the 2012 election starts.
According to Neil Johnson's interview with Tom Hauser, 70-80,000 people would've been affected by these cuts in 2007:
HAUSER: How many Minnesotans right now have home care?How can Sen. Franken or Sen. Klobuchar justify casting this cold-hearted vote? Ed notes here that Sen. Baucus tries explaining the budget cuts:
JOHNSON: Well, we're looking at,the estimates are 68,000-70,0000 people last year, in 2007 excuse me, & 28,000 received Medicare services & another 30-40,000 received medical assistance services.
"We are reducing overpayments," Mr. Baucus said. "We are rooting out fraud. We are getting the waste out. The savings go back in Medicare and extend the solvency of the trust fund."That type of explanation won't work when Ed's doing the examining:
Baucus is wrong on both counts. The money goes to funding coverage of the uninsured, which comes primarily through Medicaid, not Medicare, and federal subsidies in the exchange program. The money will go out of Medicare and not come back, which should be rather obvious anyway. If the money stayed in Medicare, it wouldn't be cut out of it in an amendment, and be part of almost $500 billion in proposed Medicare cuts in ObamaCare proposals.The money cut from Medicare's home care budget will hurt real people as attested to by Neil Johnson. Sen. Baucus's explanation, aka spin, won't protect Sen. Klobuchar when she faces the voters in 2012. There are votes that get people upset and there are votes that scare people. Sen. Klobuchar's vote to cut Medicare's home care budget scares real people.
As for "reducing overpayments," that's Beltway speak for rationing . Who defines overpayment? It's not the providers. This is just another compensation cut that will force more providers out of the Medicare home health care market. That means fewer choices, or none at all, for invalid seniors who rely on home health care to survive. It's no different than any of the other cuts to provider compensation that already has many of them refusing to take Medicare patients.
Real people have parents who are in nursing facilities or who are nearing that stage in life. These families know that a lengthy stay in one of these facilities can bankrupt a family. In that very real sense, Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Franken just voted to put families in financial peril.
Rest assured, I won't be the only person who will remind voters of Sen. Klobuchar's vote in 2012. If I'd just cast a vote like that, I'd be worried about 2012 already.
Posted Tuesday, December 8, 2009 3:01 AM
Comment 1 by Vern Fischbach at 08-Dec-09 07:53 PM
My wife is in a nursing home.
I saved all my life and soon I will be without money and she will be on medicaid - then you will all have to pay for her care. Don't cut the subsidy to nursing homes. Thank God for the care they get and Thank God for the help that can give her the care she needs.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 08-Dec-09 11:05 PM
Vern, I'm sorry to hear about your plight. Know that I will keep you in my prayers. Know that I want the very best for you & your wife.
John Thune BCC Notes
I just finished participating in a blogger conference call, aka BCC, with John Thune that dealt primarily with health care issues.
One of the bloggers that participated asked why Republicans were offering reasonable amendments to the bill. Specifically, he asked if these amendments might not make the bill more palatable and help with passing the bill. Sen. Thune first pointed out that Harry Reid controls when votes for final passage, etc., will happen. Sen. Thun then pointed out that none of the GOP's amendments has gotten more than 51 votes thus far, with most amendments getting 40-45 votes.
Sen. Thune then said that the strategy isn't to make the bill more palatable. Rather, it's the GOPs strategy to put senators on the record as opposing popular amendments.
After hearing that, I asked if one such amendment was the Johanns amendment that would've stopped the cuts to Medicare's home care budget. I mentioned that there's alot of people are upset and scared about a 14.5 percent cut in one of the most efficient government programs.
Sen. Thune said that that's exactly the type of amendment that he was talking about. He then noted that 4 Democrats voted with Republicans on that amendment before mentioning how much cheaper home care is than a stay in a hospital or a nursing facility. I was astonished to hear that it's 30 times cheaper for home care than hospital care.
In light of that fact, the Senate's decision to cut this efficient program speaks volumes about this Senate's radicalism and its heartlessness. Defeating an amendment that would keep an efficient program running by such a wide margin is the picture of heartlessness.
Following that vote, Democrats that say that they're for "the little guy" in my presence will get an earful like they've never gotten before.
I took the opportunity to tell Sen. Thune that they should pound that vote day after day after day because it's a vote that plays well, whether we're talking about with rural constituents or suburban constituents.
Posted Tuesday, December 8, 2009 11:30 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 08-Dec-09 09:12 PM
Gary:
Did anybody on the conference call mention malpractice and tort reform. The CBO estimated that $100 billion could be saved over ten years with tort reform and that doesn't include the savings for private health insurance.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 08-Dec-09 11:07 PM
Walter, Yes they did.
Steny's Singing From a Worn Out Hymnal
My first reaction to Steny Hoyer's whining presentation was that he should whine from a different hymnal because this speech was from a discredited hymnal:
"One of our two great parties is now an organization committed to an unprecedented level of lockstep opposition to the president," said Hoyer. "A 'Party of No,' whose political strategy is an investment in failure for our country and paralysis for its institutions."HINT TO STENY: The loyal opposition's first responsibility is to oppose irresponsible legislation.
In a 30-minute speech yesterday to the Center for American Progress, Hoyer cited a number of instances in which both parties in the last half-century worked toward compromise on major legislation: civil rights in 1964, Medicare in 1965, Social Security in 1983, tax reform in 1986, No Child Left Behind in 2001. He also included environmental legislation under Richard Nixon, welfare reform under Bill Clinton and the 1956 interstate highway bill.
"No one expects Republicans to roll over for President Obama," said Hoyer. "But the 'Party of No' strategy is so disappointing because the history of Congress is full of loyal oppositions that shared responsibility for governing in trying times and shaped some of the most important legislation of their eras."
Thus far, the GOP has opposed the Democrats' radical agenda. There's nothing mainstream about the Democrats' slashing the Medicare home care budget. There's nothing mainstream about passing a $787,000,000,000 bill that's more about paying off the Democrats' political allies without reading the legislation. There's nothing mainstream about passing a national energy tax that will (a) cripple job creation, (b) "necessarily cause" energy prices to skyrocket and (c) cripple the economies of Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The problem isn't the Republicans' opposition to President Obama's and the Democrats' agenda. The problem is the Democrats' radical agenda. We know it's a radical agenda because Rasmussen's polling consistently shows the American people preferring the GOP's position on the 10 most important issues currently confronting us.
"Republicans again and again have chosen slogans and symbolism over constructive contributions. When President Obama proposed a budget with a detailed focus on education, clean energy, and health care reform, Republicans could have worked to put their stamp on it. Or they could have proposed a substantive alternative. Instead, House Republicans spent most of their energy lambasting Democrats-releasing an 18-page document that famously included more pictures of windmills than charts of numbers.Two months into President Obama's FY2010 budget, the deficit is already almost as big as the Bush administration's biggest deficit. Perhaps Mr. Hoyer would like explaining why Democrats voted for such an irresponsible budget. I know many people living here in America's heartland would like to hear that explanation.
Leader Hoyer says that "Republicans could have worked to put their stamp" on health care reform legislation. That's a bald-faced lie. The bill that passed the House was crafted in Speaker Pelosi's office, an office that was shut to Republicans' suggestions. Is Leader Hoyer suggesting that the House GOP was able to give its input via telepathy? It certainly can't mean that Republicans like Paul Ryan were allowed substantive input into the bill.
Mr. Hoyer whines about the House GOP not going along with Rep. Waxman's national energy tax legislation. Why should they vote for it when that legislation would've driven gas prices higher, caused home heating bills to spike and sent inflationary shock waves through the economy? If Mr. Hoyer is going to whine about this stuff, then I'd like to hear Mr. Hoyer's explanation of the usefulness of any of President Obama's and Speaker Pelosi's agenda.
I know that everything they've done is part of the progressives' wish list for the past 50 years or more. Being part of the progressives' wish list doesn't explain how it helps people. Being part of the progressives' wish list doesn't explain why their legislation is the best solution for the most important problems facing our nation.
We won't get an explanation from Mr. Hoyer (a) because he's Speaker Pelosi's puppet and (b) because explaining the Democrats' agenda is too much like defending the indefensible.
Again, on health care, the Democratic plan faced months of debate before it came up for a House vote; but from the beginning, Republicans made clear to the Democratic leadership and chairmen that they were not interested in participating. What's especially remarkable about Republican obstructionism on health care is that a central plank of the Democratic plan-an individual insurance mandate-was the Republican alternative during the Clinton administration. Since then, millions more Americans have lost their health coverage, and the average premium has more than doubled-and Republicans now argue against the policy they once supported. Similarly, after proposing hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts, Republicans are now protesting our plans to save Medicare money as part of health care reform. That looks to me like a party determined to 'break' Democratic presidents, in the words of Senator DeMint-even as its constituents continue to suffer under a broken system.What a moronic argument. Republicans now oppose something that they supported in 1993. John Meynard Keynes' quote fits here perfectly:
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?Steny's line that Republicans proposed Medicare cuts is BS, too. when Newt Gingrich proposed shrinking the Medicare budget, he did it in the context of changing Medicare policy, too. (In the real world, that's what's thought of as reform.) When the Democrats proposed cutting Medicare by $460,000,000,000, they didn't offer those cuts in the context of changing Medicare reform. They did it within the context of using existing policies. That's why it's considered cutting Medicare.
The Democrats' health care legislation doesn't increase Medicare solvency. The Democrats' health care legislation DOOMS Medicare. The Democrats' health care legislation doesn't first guarantee that it doesn't do any harm. Had that been the Democrats' starting point, their legislation would look dramatically different. It wouldn't look anything like the legislation currently being debated in the Senate.
In the Senate, of course, the minority's obstructive power is even greater. The filibuster has turned from an exceptionally rare tool of passionate opposition, into a routine hurdle. Political scientist Barbara Sinclair found that the last Congress, with a Republican minority in the Senate, set a filibuster record-and that while just 8% of major bills faced filibusters in the 1960s, 70% do today. That goes far beyond the Founders' plan for the Senate's 'cooling' function-that is a recipe for a Senate practically paralyzed.Mr. Hoyer must think he's talking to a bunch of first graders. Theoretically, the Senate has greater obstructive powers. This year, Republicans can't mount a successful filibuster because the Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority. (I'd further add that obstruction is a positive thing if it's used to prevent radical legislation that would hurt our economy and our health care system.)
Steny Hoyer's contrived diatribe is proof that he's a whiner. It also proves that he's trying to shift public opinion to his side. That won't work because he's whining from a tired, discredited, liberal hymnal. Mr. Hoyer knows that the Republicans can't stop anything in the House because they need 41 or more Democrats to side with them to defeat the Democrats' bills or to put one of their bills over the top.
The American people have shown where they are through the TEA Parties, the townhall meetings where the constituents knew more about the legislation than the legislators knew and at the voting booths in New Jersey and Virginia.
What's really happening here is that the Democrats don't have enough Far Left lunatics like Henry Waxman, John Conyers, Maxine Waters and Dennis Kucinich to pass their radical agenda without bribing some of them into abandoning what little's left of their principles.
Mr. Hoyer is a whiney, pathetic man singing a whiney refrain over and over and over again. It's long past old. It's rapidly approaching ancient. It's time for the Democrats to start thinking and putting together appealing policies.
I'm not holding my breath on that.
Posted Tuesday, December 8, 2009 1:34 PM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 08-Dec-09 09:16 PM
I wonder if Steny will help the Republicans sponsor nuclear power. It's clean for the environment and it's used by France so it must be okay.
I wonder if Stenny will help pass drilling for oil in ANWR since that is supported in some polls by 76% plus of the population.
I can go on, but the things that he's whining about are Republicans and some Democrats not supporting what you describe as stupid policies.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Comment 2 by J. Ewing at 09-Dec-09 08:34 AM
What stentorious Steny doesn't understand is that the "Party of No" is a GOOD place to be when "NO" is the right answer.
A-Klo Isn't a Moderate
It's long been my contention that Amy Klobuchar isn't a moderate. Thanks to her voting to slash Medicare's home care budget , not to mention voting for slashing $460,000,000,000 from the overall Medicare bill, we now have proof that she's willing to put a higher priority on partisanship than on good policy.
A-Klo voted for President Obama's stimulus plan. Now she's voted for slashing the budget that funds home care for senior citizens. Her vote will hurt real people. A-Klo's vote will hurt people who want to live out their lives at home instead of a nursing facility or a hospital.
I'm not saying we should stop funding nursing homes or hospitals, especially for end-of-life situations. I'm just suggesting that home care is dramatically cheaper and just as professional as the other options. During my BCC with Sen. Thune, I learned that the difference between being treated at home is 20-30 times less expensive than being treated in a hospital.
QUESTION FOR SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Shouldn't we want to encourage people to use the home option rather than treating them in a hospital? If not, why shouldn't we?
When A-Klo voted for the stimulus bill in February, wasn't that proof that she's fiscally irresponsible? The stimulus bill failed so badly that they're now painted into a corner where they have to put together another stimulus bill to do what their first stimulus didn't accomplish.
Except that the stimulus bill now being put together is almost identical to the first, failed stimulus bill. Yes, this stimulus bill will have a capital gains tax relief. Big deal. It's only relief for one year.
Despite that, it's a certainty that Sen. Klobuchar will vote for it. Six months after that bill is pronounced as a failure, what will Sen. Klobuchar say in defense of her votes? That she thought that spending over $1,000,000,000,000 and putting us deeper in debt the fastest in history seemed like a good thing at the time? That she could've sworn that paying off the Democrats' allies seemd like a smart thing to do?
Sen. Klobuchar's carefully crafted image of being a moderate is nothing more than a carefully choreographed image. The reality is that there isn't any proof in Sen. Klobuchar's voting habits that say Sen. Klobuchar is anything but a far left lefty.
Thus far, Sen. Klobuchar has gotten a pass from the media in terms of whether she's a radical or whether she's a moderate. It's time that the Twin Cities media started reporting on the things she's voted against. If they did that, the moderate facade would quickly disappear.
Posted Wednesday, December 9, 2009 2:06 AM
Comment 1 by Conrad deFiebre at 09-Dec-09 10:53 AM
How can anything be 20-30 times less expensive than anything else? That means home health care would generate as income 19-29 times the expense of hospitalization, a veritable fiscal perpetual motion machine. Perhaps you and Sen. Thune should bone up on basic mathematics.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 09-Dec-09 11:14 AM
Numbers are numbers. Just because you aren't smart enough to understand things doesn't mean they aren't true.
Whistling Past The Graveyard?
It's understandable that a politician facing a difficult election cycle would put on a brave face and pretend that his party will be fine. That's what Steny Hoyer is doing in this interview :
Countering the emerging narrative that next year's midterm elections will be a replay of 1994, when Republicans took back control of Congress, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stressed that '94 doesn't compare with what's happening today.What a bunch of BS. Simply put, many of the things that got Democrats in trouble in 1994 are re-emerging today. In 1993, Democrats tried ramming through a wildly unpopular health care bill. In 1993, President Clinton's budget included an unpopular gas tax. In 1993, Democrats were embroiled in a series of major ethical scandals. In 1993, Democrats couldn't be bothered with listening to their constituents or living up to their campaign promises.
"If it were November of 1993, we would be having this meeting? No, because in November of 1993, people weren't discussing that we were going to have tough races in November of 1994. We were sure that what was would be, as a result we weren't as on guard as we should have been."
Hoyer continued, "That is definitively not the case in 2009. There were issues in 1994, but they were not analogous to the issues of today. The economy was not nearly as stretched as it is today...In the success that we had, which was a major success in 1993, nobody realized its positive impact until three or four years later when the economy really started to reduce deficits...Democrats have been working very hard from the beginning of this year, with the realization that next year would be a significantly contested year."
Sound familiar?
Today, the Democrats' health care bill is as popular as it was in 1993. Today, the Democrats' national energy tax is dramatically less popular than the wildly unpopular gas tax was in 1993. (BTW, this year's national energy tax is tied to a major scandal that the Democrats are pretending doesn't change things.) While there aren't any House Post Office or House Banking scandal-level scandals, there's still tons of corruption happening. Barney Frank's involvement in the Fannie/Freddie scandal still has people angry. On the Senate side, Chris Dodd's Friends of Angelo's sweetheart deal has New England voters hopping mad.
Then as now, Democrats made a habit of talking down to their constituents, suggesting that they didn't need to pay attention, that Democrats would take care of everything. What's different is that today, the TEA Party activists are doing the research into legislation, then telling Congress what's in the bills.
What's also different is that TEA Party activists and other everyday citizens are the experts, not the politicians. They're experts thanks to the internet and thanks to the fact that the unpopular legislation that they're passing worries people.
What's also different is that, in 1993, President Clinton "focused like a laser beam on the economy" from Day One, whereas this president and this Democrat congress focused on everything but putting our financial house in order. The American people, indeed the world's people, see this administration and this majority leader and this Democratic Congress spending like there's no tomorrow.
Mr. Hoyer is spinning the Democrats' election chances this cycle. What he says, though, is irrelevant because the American people don't trust this Congress and they're starting to doubt this president's qualifications to be the leader of the free world.
It's never a good thing to whistle past an ever closer graveyard.
Posted Wednesday, December 9, 2009 12:01 PM
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