The Homa Files

Punchline: Reps in swing districts can either vote with their constituents or jump off a cliff. Why is that a difficult decision?

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Excerpted from WSJ: Swing Districts Oppose Health Reform, Mar 15, 2010 

Democratic leaders cite national polls that show support for individual provisions of the bill as a reason to pass this reform. Yet vulnerable politicians should be warned: Responses to questions about individual benefits, particularly when removed from a cost context, are different from those on the whole bill.

Voters in key congressional districts are clear in their opposition to the proposed health-care reform.

That’s one of the findings of a survey that will be released today by the Polling Company on behalf of Independent Women’s Voice. The survey consisted of 1,200 registered voters in 35 districts represented by members who could determine the outcome of the health-care debate.

The survey shows astonishing intensity and sharp opposition to reform, far more than national polls reflect.

• For 82% , the heath-care bill is either the top or one of the top three issues for deciding whom to support for Congress next November.
• 60% want Congress to start from scratch on a bipartisan health-care reform proposal or stop working on it this year.
• Majorities say the legislation will make them and their loved ones, the economy and the U.S. health-care system worse off.
• 70% would vote against a House member who votes for the Senate health-care bill with its special interest provisions.
• 75% disagree that the federal government should mandate that everyone buy a government-approved insurance plan
• 81% say any reform should focus first on reducing costs.
• 75% agree that Americans have the right to choose not to participate in any health-care system or plan without a penalty or fine.
• 60% of the voters surveyed will vote for a candidate who opposes the current legislation and wants to start over.
• Over 1/3 of respondents say they will actively work against a candidate who votes the wrong way or for the candidate who votes the right way.

That translates into specific concerns with the Senate legislation—and none of these objections would be addressed by the proposed fixes.

Over 70%—indeed in several districts over 80%—of respondents, across party lines, said that the following information made them less supportive:

• mandates that individuals purchase insurance or face penalties;
• cuts Medicare Advantage;
• will force potentially millions to lose existing coverage;
• will cost an estimated $2.3 trillion over its first 10 years; and it will grant unprecedented new powers to the Health and Human Services secretary.

These are the constituents of the members whose votes will matter most this week. Perhaps, if this republic is still the people’s, those members should heed those they claim to represent.

Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704416904575121541779736742.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

Back in November, pro-life Rep. Bart Stupak scored what he thought was a victory and the House passed an amendment to its ObamaCare bill limiting the use of tax-payer funds for abortions.

Stupak’s language not only prohibits abortion coverage in the public insurance option included in the House bill. It would also prevent private plans from offering coverage for abortion services if they accept people who are receiving government subsidies.

Abortion-rights supporters called it a “de facto” abortion ban and mounted an intense but unsuccessful lobbying campaign against it.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/66969-senior-dem-confident-stupak-amendment-will-be-stripped

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But, immediately after the vote, pro-choice Dems expressed confidence that “controversial language on abortion would be stripped from a final healthcare bill” via legislative maneuvering.

Excerpted from The Hill: Senior Democrat is ‘confident’ that Stupak amendment will be stripped, 11/09/09

A House Democratic leader said Monday she’s “confident” controversial language on abortion will be stripped from a final healthcare bill.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House, said that she and other pro-abortion rights lawmakers would work to strip the amendment included in the House health bill that bars federal funding from subsidizing abortions.

“It was extremely painful for me to feel compelled to vote for a bill that contained that kind of restriction on a woman’s ability to make her own reproductive choices,” Wasserman Schultz said.

“We’re all going to be working very hard, particularly the pro-choice members, to make sure that’s the case.”

Pelosi Calls Stupak’s Bluff on Abortion:

Anti-choice zealot Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) overplayed his hand. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced today that the House Democrats will move forward without a deal on abortion coverage.

Why are they finally telling Stupak to pound sand after endless rounds of negotiations? First off, Pelosi had the strategic advantage of having very little to offer Stupak and his shadowy band of anti-choice Democrats. Second, Stupak’s alleged coalition is looking more like a paper tiger every day.
http://bigthink.com/ideas/19045

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Bart Stupak — the pro-life Democrat leading the charge in the House against passage of the Senate health insurance reform bill — said Friday that Henry Waxman — a key House committee chairman —  told him that Democrats want abortions to be paid by a federally-funded nationalized health insurance system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yDtPRSBKyM

My bet: yes …

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BTW: Catholic Bishops are OK with the House language, but oppose the Senate language.

“U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said the Senate-passed health care bill fails our moral criteria and must be changed.

The abortion funding problems in the Senate Bill extend well beyond the premium division scheme.

click for details:
http://catholickey.blogspot.com/2010/03/usccb-clarifies-politico-comments-still.html

Nobody should be surprised by this move …

President Barack Obama appears ready to reverse his position and allow unpopular deal-sweetening measures in the hopes of finding Democratic support for legislation.

To clinch support, Obama is backing away from his insistence that senators purge the legislation of a number of lawmakers’ special deals.

Taking a new position, the White House will only object to state-specific arrangements, such as an increase in Medicaid funding for Nebraska, ridiculed as the “Cornhusker Kickback.”  That’s being extended to all states.

The new rule: provisions that could — under prescripted circumstances affect more than one state are OK.

That means deals sought by senators from Montana and Connecticut would be fine — even though last week they were singled out as items Obama wanted removed.

There was resistance, however, from two committee chairman, Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and the White House has apparently backed down.

Excerpted from AP: Obama heads to Ohio looking for health care votes, Mar 15, 2010 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100315/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul

Punchline: At a time the the country is bursting at the economic seams with high debt and unfunded liabilities, the push is on to up spending by another trillion dollars … and up taxes to cover it.  Bad idea.  This excerpt cuts to the chase.

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Excerpted from Forbes: Uncommon Sense – Wrong Bill At The Wrong Time, 03.10.10

Even before President Obama rammed through his trillion-dollar-plus stimulus/bailout packages last year, there was a growing sentiment that the country’s top priority ought to be tackling the entitlement programs whose liabilities are like a swelling aneurysm in the brain of the body politic waiting to rupture.

• The combined unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security–the federal health care and the pension programs for the elderly — are $107 trillion, seven times the current GDP.
• Medicaid, the joint federal-state health insurance program, is consuming on average 21% of state budgets, their single biggest ticket item even before ObamaCare dumps another 16 million people into the program, expanding the Medicaid population by 25%.
• State and local government owe their employees a trillion dollars in pension and other benefits than they have funds to deliver.

There are not enough taxpayers in the country or creditors in China capable of financing all these promises.

* * * * *

Expanding this massive, multifarious entitlement state even more strikes most normal people as sheer lunacy — especially now that it is visibly coming apart at the seams.

• General Motors and Chrysler–the corporate version of the public welfare state in which unions had negotiated the best wage and pension deals in the free world — have already been forced into a taxpayer-financed bankruptcy.
• California, America’s most European state, is technically bankrupt, thanks to the ubiquitous influence on the state budget of its public unions and its entitlement spending.
• The deficits and debt of the so-called European PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) — the social democracies whose cradle-to-grave welfare policies are the inspiration behind Obama’s programs –are on the brink of bankruptcy. Greece, the most vulnerable of the lot, has a deficit of 12.7% of the GDP–not that much higher than America’s 10.6 %.

ObamaCare could well become President Obama’s Iraq.

It will exacerbate the crisis of the entitlement state, requiring someone else to step forward and clean up the fiscal mess he is creating.

Full article:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/09/obamacare-health-democrats-congress-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia.html?boxes=opinionschannellighttop

Interesting factoid from USA Today:

People in their 20s have the highest uninsured rate of any age group in the country

They make up nearly a third of the 46 million uninsured.

Under the health care overhaul bills, about 10 million lower-income young adults would qualify for Medicaid, or for government subsidies to buy private insurance.

About 5 million young adults will have to buy health care insurance or pay a penalty (aka. a ‘fine’, a ‘tax’) of $695, or 2.5% of their annual income, whichever is higher.

Full article:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-03-08-youthhealth08_ST_N.htm

Ken’s Take: I’m a strong proponent of putting all employer paid benefits — health insurance included — on employees taxable W2s and providing a liberal deduction ( say, the lesser of $5,000 per dependent or the taxpayer’s cash outlay.)  Unfortunately, the UAW and SEIU don’t like the idea …

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Excerpted from Washington Post: Obama in the Wilsonian Tradition, March 11, 2010

The bold move that the nation needs is a transition from the irrationality of employer-provided health insurance.

Employer-paid insurance is central to what David Gratzer of the Manhattan Institute calls “the 12 cent problem.”

That is how much of every health care dollar is spent by the person receiving the care.

Hence Americans’ buffet mentality — we paid at the door to the health care feast, so let’s consume all we can.

John McCain had the correct prescription for health care during the 2008 campaign.

He proposed serious change — taxing employer-provided health care as what it indisputably is, compensation, and giving tax credits, including refundable ones, for individuals to purchase insurance.

Instead, ObamaCare will subsidize insurance purchases for families of four earning almost $100,000 a year … a redundant reminder of unseriousness about the nation’s fiscal mismanagement.

Full article:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/11/in_the_wilsonian_tradition_104733.html

Candidate Obama pledged not to use reconciliation for healthcare legislation when he was stumping.  So much for campaign promises.

There’s a greater risk to the Dems if they use the process to pass ObamaCare: if the GOP retakes a majority of the Senate, it can use the same process to repeal the legislation.  After all, an unequivocal precedent will have been set.  Oops.

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Excerpted from WSJ: The Trouble With ‘Reconciliation’, March 11, 2010

Fear not, sayeth Speaker Pelosi, all will be fixed with the magic dust known as “reconciliation” —a  process that allows budget and spending bills to move through the Senate with 51 votes instead of 60.

But, if Democrats use reconciliation to enact health-care reform, this fight isn’t likely to end this year.

Democrats are resorting to reconciliation because that would allow them to avoid a Republican filibuster.

That leaves Republicans free to use the same process to repeal ObamaCare that Democrats are using to enact it.

It means that for the next several election cycles every GOP Senate candidate can campaign on the promise to be that 51st vote for repeal.

House Democrats would be foolish to trust a process that has deeply alienated the American public. There are lots of reasons for Democrats to worry that voters will punish them for passing this reform.

Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703701004575113831577327418.html

Punchline: Most voters believe the current plan will harm the economy, cost more than projected, raise the cost of care, and lead to higher middle-class taxes.

 
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/jobapproval-presobama-health.php?xml=http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/content/xml/USObamaJobPresHealth.xml&choices=Disapprove,Approve&phone=&ivr=&internet=&mail=&smoothing=&from_date=&to_date=&min_pct=&max_pct=&grid=&points=1&lines=1&colors=Disapprove-BF0014,Approve-000000,Undecided-68228B

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Here’s Why …

Excerpted from WSJ: Why Obama Can’t Move the Health-Care Numbers, March 9, 2010

One of the more amazing aspects of the health-care debate is how steady public opinion has remained. Despite repeated and intense sales efforts by the president and his allies in Congress, most Americans consistently oppose the plan that has become the centerpiece of this legislative season.

In 15 consecutive Rasmussen Reports polls conducted over the past four months, for every person who strongly favors it, two are strongly opposed.

The reason President Obama can’t move the numbers and build public support is because the fundamentals are stacked against him. Most voters believe the current plan will harm the economy, cost more than projected, raise the cost of care, and lead to higher middle-class taxes.

• 57% of voters believe that passage of the legislation would hurt the economy, while only 25% believe it would help.
• Voters think reducing spending is more important than reducing the deficit.
• People simply don’t trust the official projections: 81% of voters say it’s likely the plan will end up costing more than projected.
• 66% of voters believe passage of the president’s plan will lead to higher deficits
• 78% say it’s at least somewhat likely to mean higher middle-class taxes.
• Fifty-nine percent of voters say that the biggest problem with the health-care system is the cost: They want reform that will bring down the cost of care.
• Only 17% now believe it will reduce the cost of care.
• For most voters, the notion that you need to spend an additional trillion dollars doesn’t make sense. If the program is supposed to save money, why does it cost anything at all?
• The overwhelming majority of voters have insurance coverage, and 76% rate their own coverage as good or excellent.
• Half of these voters say it’s likely that if the congressional health bill becomes law, they would be forced to switch insurance coverage—a prospect hardly anyone ever relishes.

Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704784904575111993559174212.html

Note that the article is from the Washington Post, not WSJ or IBD.

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Excerpted from Wash Post: Obama is Choosing Liberal Divisiveness, March 10, 2010

Whatever the legislative fate of health reform, the Democratic health reformers have

• Divided Democrats while uniting Republicans,
• Returned American politics to well-worn ideological ruts,
• Employed legislative tactics that smack of corruption,
• Squandered the president’s public standing,
• Lowered public regard for Congress,
• Sucked the oxygen from other agenda items,
• Re-engaged the abortion battle,
• Produced freaks and prodigies of nature such as a Republican senator from Massachusetts,
• Raised questions about the continued governability of America,
• Caused the White House chief of staff to distance himself from the president’s ambitions.

Quite a list of accomplishments.

* * * * *
Early on Obama rejected the one, genuinely bipartisan health reform proposal — made by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Bob Bennett, R-Utah — that would have ended employer-based insurance and given individuals a deduction to buy their own coverage from a menu of private insurance options.

Wyden has turned out to be the ignored prophet of the health debate:

“If you … just pound it through on a partisan vote, you will have people practically as soon as the ink is dry looking to have it repealed.”

Full article:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/10/obama_is_choosing_liberal_divisiveness.html

During the ObamaCare “Summit Meeting”, Senator Dick Durbin (IL), himself a former medical malpractice lawyer, gave a spirited rebuttal to folks arguing that any cost-cutting health reform must address junk lawsuits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKKPgVkfzw4&feature=youtube_gdata

Durbin’s argument revolved around 3 points:

1. Even without new laws capping damages, medical malpractice lawsuits are dropping off dramatically.

He cited a study by the non-profit Kaiser Foundation saying that the number of paid medical malpractice claims has declined by 50 percent over the last two decades.

And between 2003 and 2008, the total amount paid out for medical malpractice claims – across the entire United States – was cut in half, from $8 billion to $4 billion. 

* * * * *

2. The Journal of the American Medical Association says that 100,000 deaths are caused by medical malpractice annually.

Medical malpractice reform will make doctors feel a little bit more insulated from legal liability for their actions and, therefore, will make them a little bit more careless.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the extra careless by doctors will result in additional 4,800 medical malpractice deaths a year. 

* * * * *

3. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Republican plan for medical malpractice reform will save $5.4 billion dollars a year … which is inconsequential in the context of a health care budget that is $2.5 trillion.

http://www.bostonpersonalinjurylawyerblog.com/2010/02/sen-durbin-demolishes-republic.html 

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What Durbin didn’t say …

A Massachusetts Medical Society study showed that “the plague of defensive medicine” leads to about 25 percent of doctor referrals, tests and procedures being done for no medical reason. [Ken’s calc: 25% times $2.5 trillion = $625 billion]
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/05/the_health_care_bill_is_a_failure.html

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A study published in the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Law & Economics showed that a rise in the cost of medical liability insurance led to more reductions of hours of medical service supplied by older doctors than among younger doctors.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/06/alice_in_medical_care_part_iv_104664.html

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In other words, experienced doctors are leaving the profession, rather than putting up with the hassles and risks, and letting debt-burdened younger docs take over
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Ken’s Take: No health care reform can be taken seriously as a cost-cutting initiative unless junk lawsuits are controlled … probably by setting up medical tribunals that protect patient rights while adding sanity to the payouts.

Anthem BC /BS has provided ObamaCare supporters with a talking point: profit-mongering health insurance companies are arbitrarily jacking up premiums to unprecedented and unconscionable levels.  ObamaCare will put a stop to that pronto.

Further the President said that insurance execs can’t come up with any reasonable explanation for the rate changes.

Well, Anthem has penned a letter to Sec. Sebelius explaining the rate changes (link to letter is below)

While the letter is a bit long-winded, here are the key points … which, incidentally, make sense to me.

• In 2009, Anthem’s average premium increase was 2%.
• But the average claims per member — the underlying cost of serving subscribers — increased by 8% in 2009.
• So, Anthem’s individual health insurance business in California lost money in 2009.
• An independent actuarial firm concluded that Anthem’s proposed 2010 rates were actuarially sound, reflecting the expected medical costs associated with the membership in these plans.
• Anthem’s proposed 2010 rates satisfy or exceed the medical loss ratio required by California law i.e. the underlying medical costs are driving the rates
• The 39% increase reported in the media is an isolated case; some premiums went down by as much as 20%.
• After these premium changes are enacted, the average individual market premium in California  will still be about 1/2 the average individual market premium in New York.

Full letter:
http://www.wellpoint.com/pdf/SebeliusLetter02112010.pdf

Thanks to DNF  for feeding the lead.

Liberal pundits tout President Obama’s intellect and grasp of “the details”. 

May be true, but a couple of recent trillion dollar “gaps” gotta make objective observers scratch their heads.

Either he doesn’t know, he’s sloppy, or he’s fibbing.  Pick one.

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First, the CBO says that the national debt will rise by at least $1.2 trillion more than Obama’s White House projects.  Oops.

Excerpted from 247WallSt.com: Mr. Obama’s Missing $1 Trillion,  March 8, 2010 at 5:22 am

The Congressional Budget Office said the national debt will be rise by $9.8 trillion by 2020. The figure is $1.2 trillion higher than White House estimates.

The CBO estimates are lower than the President’s on both the receipt and expense sides of the ledger.

The differences between the White House estimates and those of the CBO are profound when the ten years are added up.

US debt held by the public is 67% of GDP under the President’s forecast, but 90% when the CBO estimates are used as the basis of calculations.

The President’s projections are obviously optimistic. If he is wrong, the price will be high enough that America may not be able to meet its debt obligations with any ease by the end of the decade. That could mean default on US sovereign debt, or austerity  greater than the American public has seen in decades.

http://247wallst.com/2010/03/08/mr-obamas-missing-1-trillion/

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Then yesterday, the President pitched his health care plan to nodding supporters as “reducing most people’s premiums and bringing down our deficit by up to $1 trillion dollars over the next decade”.  Oops, again.  Off by about $1 trillion … 

Excerpted from White House Blog: Obama Overstates Health Care Savings by $868 Billion, March 8, 2010

In what the White House calls the final push for health care reform, President Obama said: “Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people’s premiums and brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion dollars over the next decade because we’re spending our health care dollars more wisely,”

The President was so proud of these cost-saving numbers in the latest version of health care reform, he delved into a bit of Washington-speak to back them up.

“Those aren’t my numbers,” President Obama said to the rising applause of the estimated 1,300 in attendance. “They are the savings determined by the Congressional Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress for what things cost.”

That part is true. The budget office does keep score of what things cost. More precisely, the budget office projects what things cost or save over a given period of time.

But the budget office did not say the Senate health care bill would save $1 trillion over the next decade. Not even close.

It estimated the bill’s tax hikes and MediCare cuts would exceed new spending by $132 billion from 2010 to 2019, leaving President Obama’s “next decade” estimate $868 billion short. [Or, more than $1 trillion if you add back the so-called MediCare “doctor’s fix”.]

That’s some rounding error.

When contacted, a White House official said the President  meant to say the Senate bill would save $1 trillion in its second decade.

But, the CBO has said “Projections for years beyond 2019…would not be meaningful because the uncertainties involved are simply too great.”

http://whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/08/obama-overstates-health-care-savings-by-868-billion/

On the Sunday talk shows, e of Team Obama’s mantras is that under government-run healthcare, payments to doctors will be made based on quality (outcomes) rather than the quantity of procedures being done.

Nice philosophically, but how to make it happen ?

Couple of observations:

• Quality over quantity should be easier in education than healthcare since students can be tested for progress.  But, virtually all merit pay programs for teachers (i.e. outcome-based) have been rejected out of hand or fail.  But, they’ll work in healthcare … hmmm.
• A common method for controlling output quality is to control input quality.  In healthcare, that means rejecting the toughest cases and treating only the sure winners.  For example, when I first investigated corrective eye surgery, the docs rejected me.  My eyes were too bad, and they wanted to tout the percentage of patients that they got to 20/20.
• It’s argued that a key to controlling quality is to make primary care physicians the coordinators of all medical services. That’s silly because:

  (1) there is a shortage of primary care docs (evidence: how quickly can you get an appointment when you’re sick? how about an appointment outside the 9 to 5 work day window?);

  (2) been there, tried that – in the past, most plans required that a patient see a primary care doc to get a referral to a specialist – the referral was almost always given – net impact: a step was added to the process

• The Mayo Clinic  — always cited as the model of outcome based systems — has stopped accepting Medicare in its Arizona facilities.  Hmmm. Guess it didn’t drive costs down low enough …

I guess it’s better to bum’s rush through legislation than to give it serious thought.  Disappointing.

Punch line: ObamaCare’s essential mistake is to choose health-care expansion over health-care reform.

Another insightful column from Peggy Noonan.

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Excerpted from WSJ: What a Disaster Looks Like , Mar 5, 2010

ObamaCare will have been a colossal waste of time—if we’re lucky.

It is now exactly a year since President Obama unveiled his health care push and his decision to devote his inaugural year to it—his branding year, his first, vivid year.

What a disaster it has been.

At best it was a waste of history’s time, a struggle that will not in the end yield something big and helpful but will in fact make future progress more difficult. At worst it may prove to have fatally undermined a new presidency at a time when America desperately needs a successful one.

In terms of policy, his essential mistake was to choose health-care expansion over health-care reform. This at the exact moment voters were growing more anxious about the cost and reach of government.

The practical mistake was handing the bill’s creation over to a Democratic Congress that was becoming a runaway train. This at the exact moment Americans were coming to be concerned that Washington was broken, incapable of progress, frozen in partisanship.

New presidents should never, ever, court any problem that isn’t already banging at the door. They should never summon trouble.

Mr. Obama did, boldly, perhaps even madly. And this is perhaps the oddest thing about No Drama Obama: In his first year as president he created unneeded political drama, and wound up seen by many Americans not as the hero but the villain.

And now here are two growing problems for Mr. Obama.

The first hasn’t become apparent yet, but I suspect will be presenting itself, and soon. In order to sharpen the air of crisis he seems to think he needed to get his health-care legislation passed, in order to continue the air of crisis that might justify expanding government and sustaining its costs, and in order, always, to remind voters of George W. Bush, Mr. Obama has harped on what a horror the economy is. How great our challenges, how wicked our businessmen, how dim our future.

The president can’t be a hope purveyor while he’s a doom merchant, and he appears to believe he has to be a doom merchant to justify ramming through his legislation. This particular legislation is not worth that particular price.

All this contributes to a second problem, which is a growing credibility gap. In his speech Wednesday, demanding an “up or down” vote, the president seemed convinced and committed — but nothing he said sounded true. His bill will “bring down the cost of health care for millions,” it is “fully paid for,” it will lower the long term deficit by a trillion dollars.

Does anyone believe this?

Does anyone who knows the ways of government, the compulsions of Congress, and how history has played out in the past, believe this? Even a little?

It would be a relief to have a president who could weigh in believably and make clear what his own bill says. But he seems to devote more words to obscuring than clarifying.

The only thing that might make his assertions sound believable now is if a group of congressional Republicans were standing next to him on the podium and putting forward a bill right along with him. 

GOP support won’t happen, for three reasons. First, they enjoy Obama’s discomfort. Second, they believe the bill is not worth saving, that at this point no matter what it contains —a nd at this point most people can no longer retain in their heads what it contains — it has been fatally tainted by the past year of mistakes and inadequacies.

And the third reason is that the past decade has taught them what a disaster looks like, and they’ve lost their taste for standing next to one.

Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704187204575101742162779612.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

Well, haven’t seen Buffett at the WH as much as the SEIU president.  In fact, don’t recollect seeing there at all in the past year.  Hmmm.

My bet: Warren probably won’t make the President’s invitation list any time soon, now that he advocates scrappoing the ObamaCare bill and starting over with a sharp focus on reducing healthcare costs.

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Excerpted from Politico: Warren Buffett would scrap health care bill, 3/1/10 

In a CNBC interview,  CEO Warren Buffett said that President Barack Obama should start over on health care …  scrapping the current health care bills and starting over.

Buffett said the current bill does not focus on controlling costs, which he sees as the central problem that must be addressed to reform the system.

“What we have now is untenable over time …  like a tapeworm eating, you know, at our economic body.”

“We have a health system that, in terms of costs, is really out of control.”

While Buffett applauded Obama for taking up the reform effort, he said that “unfortunately, we came up with a bill that really doesn’t attack the cost situation that much.”

Asked if he would be in favor of scrapping the Senate health care bill, Buffett responded: “I would be.”

If the president were to start over, Buffett would advise him to “just  say that one way or another, we’re going to attack costs, costs, costs.”

Buffett urged Obama to say that “we’re going to cut off all the kinds of things like the 800,000 special people in Florida or the Cornhusker kickback, as they called it, or the Louisiana Purchase, and we’re going to — we’re going to get rid of the nonsense. We’re just going to focus on costs and we’re not going to dream up 2,000 pages of other things.”

Buffett would like to expand access to health insurance, but he said he does not “believe in insuring more people till you attack the cost aspect of this.”

Full article:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33693.html

Ken’s Take: Rep. Paul Ryan (or simply “Paul” in Obama protocol) was the star of the ObamaCare infomercial on Thursday.  His pointed, fact-based questions about the “reduced deficit” accounting” went conspicuously unanswered by the President. 

Obama didn’t score them as “legitimate points” and they weren’t summarily dismissed as mere “talking points” … but Obama did say he didn’t want the discussion to get “bogged down in the numbers”. 

Why waste valuable time on facts when you can be hearing “legitimate points” about wingnuts wearing their sister’s dentures?

* * * * *

Excerpted from IBD: Rebuttals To Ryan? We’re Still Waiting, 02/26/2010 

It was the Wisconsin congressman who made the most pointed remarks about Obama’s reform proposal. For example:

• “This bill does not control costs (or) reduce deficits. Instead, (it) adds a new health care entitlement when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have.”

• “The bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending. The true 10-year cost (is) $2.3 trillion.”

• “The $247 billion Medicare “doctor fix” was outboarded from the plan as an unfunded item.”

• “The bill takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that’s really reserved for Social Security. So either we’re double-counting them or we don’t intend on paying those Social Security benefits.”

• “The bill takes $72 billion from the CLASS Act (long-term care insurance) benefit premiums and claims them as offsets.”

• “The bill treats Medicare like a piggy bank, (raiding) half a trillion dollars not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.”

• “The chief actuary of Medicare (says) as much as 20% of Medicare providers will either go out of business or have to stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries.”

• “Millions of seniors who have chosen Medicare Advantage (Medicare through a private insurer) will lose the coverage that they now enjoy.”

Full article:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522446