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Obama offers plan to revive healthcare push

Do you support this new effort healthcare reform?


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Chappy

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Excerpted from “Obama offers plan to revive healthcare push,” By John Whitesides and Patricia Zengerle, Reuters, Mon Feb 22, 2010 1:43pm EST
[SIZE="+2"]P[/SIZE]resident Barack Obama tried to rejuvenate his stalled healthcare overhaul on Monday with a plan to make insurance coverage more affordable and to bolster government authority to regulate premium hikes.

Obama will push the proposal at a bipartisan White House healthcare summit on Thursday in a last-ditch bid to break an impasse in the Congress and rally support for a sweeping overhaul that would tighten regulations on insurers and expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans. …

[SIZE="+2"]T[/SIZE]he new proposal, based on the Senate bill, would cost $950 billion over 10 years -- up from the Senate bill's $871 billion price tag -- and reduce the deficit by about $100 billion over the same period, White House officials estimated.

The plan offered several changes to the Senate bill to attract support from wavering Democrats but did not incorporate Republican ideas to limit medical malpractice lawsuits, an item of major emphasis for Republicans.

Obama's revised plan would expand tax credits for middle-class workers to make insurance more affordable, and would extend taxes for Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, to unearned income.

It provides U.S. government authority to block insurance premium hikes.

It also eliminates a controversial Senate deal exempting the state of Nebraska from paying for Medicaid expansion costs, closes a "doughnut hole" gap in prescription drug coverage, and incorporates a January deal raising the income threshold for a tax on high-cost "Cadillac" health insurance plans.

The proposal provides more tax credits to small businesses than in either the Senate or House bills and provides all states full federal funding for an expansion of Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, for four years, the White House said.

The Obama proposal would close the "doughnut hole" in prescription drug coverage under Medicare by imposing $10 billion more in fees on drugmakers.

Like the Senate bill, the proposal would not include a mandate on employers to offer insurance and would extend coverage to about 31 million uninsured Americans, the White House said. …

D e v e l o p i n g …
 
beating_a_dead_horse.jpg
 
Republicans will attend the healthcare summit later this week and my expectation is that they will offer a set of proposals many of which are in one form or another already in the plan offered today.
 
The new proposal, based on the Senate bill, would cost $950 billion over 10 years -- up from the Senate bill's $871 billion price tag -- and reduce the deficit by about $100 billion over the same period, White House officials estimated.

Cost of Obamacare? $950 billion

Reduction in the deficit? $100 billion

The stupidity of that idea? Priceless
 
Republicans will attend the healthcare summit later this week and my expectation is that they will offer a set of proposals many of which are in one form or another already in the plan offered today.

The question isn't what the Republicans will do, it's what the Democrats will do. Will they treat this meeting as if they're throwing the Republicans a bone, or will they adopt the big stuff the Republicans want in order to pull their votes in and thereby passing health care without reconciliation? I'm hoping that they are doing the latter as this would be seen as a political win for both sides but mostly it will give Obama the victory he needs. Were I to give council to Republicans, I'd ask for the top 10 items on our list and demand all 10 get in while cutting Democrat items. Settle for 6-8 of the top 10 and turn the bill into a 50/50 split, but only if those provisions stay in. Otherwise, fall back and force Obama to use reconciliation and pound the hell out of them in 2010 and again in 2012. The Democrats are on defense and sweating.
 
The question isn't what the Republicans will do, it's what the Democrats will do. Will they treat this meeting as if they're throwing the Republicans a bone, or will they adopt the big stuff the Republicans want in order to pull their votes in and thereby passing health care without reconciliation? I'm hoping that they are doing the latter as this would be seen as a political win for both sides but mostly it will give Obama the victory he needs. …

It would seem you and the Obama administration both agree then …

Excerpted from “The Obama plan” By Carrie Budoff Brown, Politico, February 22, 2010 10:01 AM EST
[SIZE="+2"]W[/SIZE]e view this as the opening bid for the health meeting,” said White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer. “We took our best shot at bridging the differences. We think this makes some strong steps to improving the final product. Our hope is Republicans will come together around their plan and post it online.”

Pfeiffer said the plan is the White House’s proposal. Despite statements by the White House aides that they expected a reconciled bill from the House and Senate ahead of the meeting, neither chamber has signed off on the proposal.

“The president is coming to the meeting with an open mind,” Pfeiffer said. “We hope there will be a few strong ideas from both Republicans and Democrats throughout this conversation that can be incorporated.” …
 
The question isn't what the Republicans will do, it's what the Democrats will do. Will they treat this meeting as if they're throwing the Republicans a bone, or will they adopt the big stuff the Republicans want in order to pull their votes in and thereby passing health care without reconciliation? I'm hoping that they are doing the latter as this would be seen as a political win for both sides but mostly it will give Obama the victory he needs. Were I to give council to Republicans, I'd ask for the top 10 items on our list and demand all 10 get in while cutting Democrat items. Settle for 6-8 of the top 10 and turn the bill into a 50/50 split, but only if those provisions stay in. Otherwise, fall back and force Obama to use reconciliation and pound the hell out of them in 2010 and again in 2012. The Democrats are on defense and sweating.

I'm fairly certain this is posturing for the summit. "Hey, jerkoffs, this is your last chance to pony up some votes and actually get what you want, otherwise we do it without you." It's a calling out of the GOP to put something up that is substantive. Saying "tort reform!" does not create a bill. You need specifics. Reforming what and how? Has anybody on this board got any idea of what specifically Republicans want to do with that? I'm honestly interested to read their ideas.


Cost of Obamacare? $950 billion

Reduction in the deficit? $100 billion

The stupidity of that idea? Priceless

I'm not really sure what's so funny about all of that.
 
A prom dress on the pig doesn't change the fact it's still a pig.

This BS plan and all of them do nothing to address the real issues. Obama has lied from the get go at every turn about the false benefits. He has attacked the insurance Companies for profits that are less than 25% as much as many other industries, and he lied about doctors amputating limbs for fun and profit.

This is going to cost people much more than anyone believes and will help Obama drive the economy into the toilet where he want's it.

This has no more to do with Health Reform then the Cap and Trade BS does to address the HOAX of Global Warming.

The biggest HOAX so far is that Obama gives a damn about anything WE THE PEOPLE want or care about.
 
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