JIMMY KIMMEL vs US SENATOR BILL CASSIDY ROUND 2 ("HE LIED TO MY FACE")

JIMMY KIMMEL vs US SENATOR BILL CASSIDY ROUND TWO ("HE LIED TO MY FACE"):

JIMMY SAYS SENATOR CASSIDY "LIED TO HIS FACE" ABOUT OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT BILL.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF REAL POLITICS.

ALL POLITICIANS LIE, THEY SHOULDN'T BUT THEY DO.


Sources: CNN, Eonline, NBC, Youtube


******* Jimmy Kimmel continues fight with Sen. Cassidy's new health care bill


Jimmy Kimmel was ready for the second round of his fight with U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, saying on Wednesday night that the senator "either doesn't understand his own bill or he lied to me."

"Last night on our show I took a senator from Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, I took him to task for promising to my face that he would oppose any health care plan that allowed insurance companies to turn people with pre-existing conditions away," Kimmel said opening his ABC broadcast on Wednesday night. "He said anything he supported would have to pass what he named the 'Jimmy Kimmel Test,' which was fine... but unfortunately, and puzzlingly, he proposed a bill that would allow states to do all the things he said he would not let them do."

Kimmel then said that Cassidy made "a total about face" and that meant that "he either doesn't understand his own bill, or he lied to me."

The comedian then showed a clip of Cassidy telling CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day" Wednesday morning that Kimmel "does not understand" the bill.

"Oh, I get it. I don't understand because I'm a talk show host, right?" the host said before breaking down the bill in detail. "Could it be, Senator Cassidy, that the problem is that I do understand, and you got caught with your GOPenis out?"

On Tuesday night's broadcast, Kimmel took on the senate's new health care bill and Cassidy, saying he lied "right to my face." The Tuesday night monologue went viral and got around-the-clock coverage on cable news networks.

On Wednesday night's show, Kimmel also used a skit called "Barista Theater" to help explain one of the more arcane parts of the Graham-Cassidy bill: block grants. In the proposed legislation, federal funding for Medicaid expansion and subsidies would be rolled into a block grant program. States would be given a lump sum of money and would have a lot of leeway over how to spend it.

In Kimmel's sketch, he showed a barista accepting money for coffee sold in faulty coffee cups. He used the sketch to critique the bill for allowing states to accept federal money intended to make healthcare more accessible, but then keep the money without making care more available.

Kimmel jokingly said that he didn't "want to turn this into a Kanye and Taylor Swift type situation" while also taking down others, like "Fox & Friends" host Brian Kilmeade, who called Kimmel a "Hollywood elite."

"The reason I found this comment to be particularly annoying is because this is a guy, Brian Kilmeade, who whenever I see him kisses my ass like a little boy meeting Batman," Kimmel said. "He is dying to be a member of the 'Hollywood elite.'"

Kimmel also made fun of Sen. Lindsay Graham, who is a co-sponser of the new health care bill with Cassidy, saying Graham "happens to look a lot like my Grandma Jane, who is now deceased."

Kimmel also called out President Trump, saying that there's "no way" the president read the bill and just wants to get rid of it "because Obama's name is on it."

"The Democrats should just rename it Ivankacare," Kimmel said, referencing the president's daughter. "Guaranteed he gets on board."

Kimmel then ended his ten-minute-long monologue by encouraging Americans to call their senators about the new health care bill.

"Please, stop texting for five seconds and make a phone call," Kimmel said. "It really does make a difference, and who knows maybe you'll meet somebody over the phone and fall in love?"

Representatives for Cassidy, Fox News and the White House could not be reached for comment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


******JIMMY KIMMEL SLAMS NEW HEALTHCARE BILL AND SAYS SEN. BILL CASSIDY "LIED TO MY FACE"

News flash to Jimmy Kimmel: Politicians are politicians.

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host has used his show's monologues to speak out in favor of universal healthcare since he revealed in May in an emotional announcement on his show that his and wife Molly McNearney's second child together, son William "Billy" John Kimmel, had undergone emergency heart surgery to treat a congenital defect soon after he was born. He has also spoken out against President Donald Trump, who wants to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Soon after his announcement about his son's ailment, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who is also a gastroenterologist, told CNN that any healthcare bill should "pass the Jimmy Kimmel Test," meaning it would cover a child with congenital heart disease. He then appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and was asked by Kimmel if he thinks "every American, regardless of income should be able to get regular check-ups, maternity care, all of those things that people who have healthcare get and need?"

"Yep," he said, blinking.

Fast-forward to last week, when Cassidy and fellow Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a new healthcare bill that waives regulations that require insurers to cover certain benefits, would allow states to opt out of Affordable Care Act protections for consumers, give block grants to states to run their own healthcare programs and end an expansion of Medicaid for lower-income patients and the disabled.

"This new bill actually does pass the Jimmy Kimmel Test," Kimmel said on Tuesday's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! "But a different Jimmy Kimmel Test. With this one, your child with a pre-existing condition will get the care he nees if, and only if his father is Jimmy Kimmel. Otherwise, you might be screwed."

Obama Prepares For The Worst If Health Care Law Struck Down: Olympia Snowe & The Uninsured

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Thanks to retiring GOP Senator Olympia Snowe, Pres. Obama's Entire Universal Health Care Law may be struck down because of that Individual Mandate.

In exchange for her Vote Olympia Snowe quietly suggested that Pres. Obama replace a Single Payer or Public Option with an Individual Mandate.

In other words she smiled in his face, while stabbing him in the Back!

Senator Snowe later claimed she did NOT support an Individual Mandate, yet She Voted in Favor of an Individual Mandate.

Pres. Obama’s mistake in this scenario?

He Trusted Olympia Snowe an Experienced, Seasoned Legislator who he thought really Cared More about helping people than about Politics.

He was Wrong!

Olympia Snowe cared more about Politics and about helping her party (GOP) Win.

This is So Sad.

What about the Millions of Uninsured People?

Do GOP Leaders care about those people?

If Pres. Obama's Health Care law is Struck down he should Shout it from the 4 Corners of America about the Good things his Law Offered.

The GOP has NO Replacement at ALL!

Thus Millions of Children & Adults with Pre-Existing Conditions will Suffer.

If I were Pres. Obama I would NOT let the American People forget this harsh reality.

While its true Pres. Obama's Affordable Health Care Law was NOT Perfect, it was most certainly necessary.

An Adverse Ruling by the SCOTUS will most certainly cause Political Implications for the GOP and help to Sink Mitt Romney's Ship come November.

I again ask GOP Leaders, what do you have to Replace the Affordable Health Care Act?

Especially for Millions of Children & Adults with Pre-Existing Medical Conditions??

WHAT??

Senator Snowe if the Affordable Health Care Act is Struck down by the High Court, I hope you can Sleep peacefully at night knowing Millions of Children & Adults with Pre-Existing Medical Conditions will NOT be eligible for Health Insurance.

If Your Political Party (GOP) Wins this battle, was it worth it??

So Sad.

Dear God Help Us!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Putting On a Brave Face, but Preparing for Heartbreak on Health Care

Late on Tuesday, March 27, halfway around the world, President Obama began one of the most suspenseful waits in recent presidential history.

After a blur of nuclear security meetings in South Korea, Mr. Obama settled into the Air Force One conference room to read a summary aides had written of that day’s arguments before the Supreme Court back in Washington. The justices had asked deeply skeptical questions about his health care law.

Mr. Obama’s most profound policy achievement was at much higher risk of defeat than his aides had expected, vulnerable to being erased by the margin of a single justice’s vote.

Since then, Mr. Obama and the White House have put on brave faces, insisting that the law and the mandate at its center will be upheld when the court rules this month. In private conversations, they predict that the bulk of the law will survive even if the mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance does not.

But even if the White House is a fortress of message discipline, it cannot disguise the potential heartbreak for Mr. Obama, who managed to achieve a decades-old Democratic dream despite long odds and at steep cost.

If he loses both his law and re-election, many will conclude “that he bet on his major reform, and the Supreme Court defeated it, and he lost his hold on the presidency,” Robert Dallek, the presidential historian, said in an interview.

On the day the ruling comes out, one Obama adviser joked, “I might have to clean out my sock drawer.”

In grappling with what the court may do, Mr. Obama and his advisers now appear to be far past the denial stage (when they dismissed constitutional challenges) but nowhere near acceptance (they still believe the law will be upheld.) Instead, they have quietly entered a surprising new state that might be called Learning to Live Without Universal Coverage.

Former advisers are emphasizing the many aspects of the bill that are not connected to the mandate, like the subsidies to buy insurance. Some aides even argue privately that losing the mandate could be a political boon, because it would rob Republicans of their core complaint against the law.

But that position has a not-small problem: it directly contradicts the argument the administration so strenuously made to the court, which is that the law cannot work without the mandate.

It is also uncomfortable for a deeper reason, one that goes to the core of who Mr. Obama wanted to be as president. Earlier in his term, he refused every chance to settle for the more limited health care overhaul that the Supreme Court may now effectively deliver, making epic sacrifices to win something far broader.

Before he became president, critics said that Mr. Obama’s greatest achievement was his own rise, that he played it safe — sometimes voting “present” in the Illinois State Senate — rather than taking risks for what he really believed. “What’s he ever done?” Representative Bobby L. Rush, Democrat of Illinois, asked repeatedly in 2000 when he crushed his upstart Congressional challenger, and opponents later echoed the question.

Early in the presidential race, Mr. Obama summoned the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin for a conversation about Abraham Lincoln. He was only an upstart candidate, but he was already talking about leaving a legacy, about accomplishing vast things.

In the White House, many of his top advisers, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, counseled Mr. Obama against a sweeping health care overhaul. By summer 2009, with the country still stunned by economic crisis and Republicans falsely raising the specter of death panels, some aides practically begged the president to scale back, take interim steps and move on to other issues.

Mr. Obama did not relent. He had an economic rationale for stabilizing a dysfunctional health system, but he also “saw what Teddy called the moral issue,” Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s widow, said in an interview, referring to her husband. For those who wondered what Mr. Obama really believed in, universal health coverage seemed to be the answer.

As the brutal fight continued, the president sacrificed more and more in its name: an overhaul of energy and environmental laws, greater focus on economic issues, some of his own popularity and that of House Democrats, who eventually lost their hard-won majority. “Michelle and I are perfectly comfortable if we’re only here one term if we feel like we really accomplished something,” he told aides.

That declaration sounds different today. Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, uses “Obamacare” as an epithet and applause line, promising outright repeal if he wins. A few years ago, the health care law seemed a reason for Mr. Obama to risk losing re-election, former aides said. Now, it is a reason he feels he must win re-election.

As he awaits the decision, Mr. Obama has no more knowledge of or influence on it than any of the other lawyers handicapping the odds in Washington bars and boardrooms.

The former law professor turned president is scathing about the argument that the mandate violates the Constitution, saying it has no merit whatsoever. Sometimes, to the nervousness of advisers, he says as much in public; a few days after oral arguments, he laid down a gauntlet for the Supreme Court, all but saying that striking down the law would be politically motivated judicial activism. (He later softened his statement.)

“To have a voice as profound as the Supreme Court say it’s unconstitutional,” said Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was an adviser on the law, would be “bad news all around.”

But there are clues that Mr. Obama is privately grappling with both the potential loss of universal health care and how much of it he might be able to restore. At a recent fund-raiser in Manhattan, he rattled off a second-term agenda, and along with tax reform and immigration, he mentioned coming back to health care, to work around a negative ruling. His tone was matter-of-fact, one attendee said.

If the court strikes down the mandate and Mr. Obama wins in November, he could face one last version of his perpetual choice on health care: would he settle, learning to live with a sharply edited law? (Given that Republicans see the bill as a signature piece of big-government overreach, he might have no choice.) Or would he expend yet more precious capital on health care?

Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm’s brother and a former health adviser to the president, predicted the second path. “Too much of the president’s legacy — and the good of the country — is tied up with this,” he said.

The final result on health care, then, will help determine whether Mr. Obama is the game-changing president he aspired to be.

“This is his singular policy achievement,” said Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University who wrote a brief supporting the law. “So there’s a palpable pain in having this go down.”

Though the White House continues to maintain official silence on contingency plans, Mr. Obama hinted at his thinking a few weeks ago. “In my first term, we passed health care reform,” he began a joke at the White House Correspondents Dinner in April. “In my second term, I guess I’ll pass it again.”



Olympia Snowe Urges Constituents To Thank Court For Ruling Against The Individual Mandate She Voted For

Politico’s Pulse reports that Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) “is inviting people to send a ‘thank you’ note to the 11th Circuit Court of appeals for deeming the individual mandate unconstitutional.

“I applaud you and your efforts for standing up for the constitution and for defending my individual liberties,’ reads the note on her reelection website, conveniently omitting the fact the Snowe was the only Republican to vote in favor of the mandate when she supported moving the health reform legislation out of the Senate Finance Committee:

In fact, she did not publicly oppose the individual requirement to purchase coverage — which the 11th Circuit found unconstitutional — until October of 2009. Earlier that year, she had indicated that she could support an individual requirement if coverage became more affordable. “I understand the rationality behind the individual mandate,” Snowe said during the committee’s mark-up hearings. “Certainly we shouldn’t pay for those who don’t have health insurance.”

But this isn’t the first time Snowe has attempted to cloud her role in moving forward the health care legislation. In March, Snowe issued a press release announcing that she is co-sponsoring an amendment “to repeal the employer mandate imposed by the new health reform law.” The “mandate” she was referring to, however, is actually a “free rider” compromise provision that she helped broker in her effort to draft a bipartisan health care law.


Sources: MSNBC, NY Times, Think Progress, Youtube

Obama's 2012 Re-election Winning Argument: 3 Questions For Voters (His Campaign Theme)

How Obama Can Win

It's clear enough by now that this election will be a nail-bitingly close one; and that any early triumphalism among the Obamaites is preposterous. Of course he can lose. In that context, John Heilemann's deeply-reported piece on Obama re-election efforts is worth reading in full. Big picture:

[The 2012 campaign] will bear about as much resemblance to 2008 as Romney does to Nicki Minaj. In the campaign prior, any mention of Wright caused a collective coronary in Chicago; this time, it provokes high-fives. In the campaign prior, Team Obama boldly bid to expand the map; this time, it is playing defense.

In the campaign prior, the candidate himself sought support from the widest possible universe of voters; this time, instead of trying to broaden his coalition, he is laboring to deepen it.

Indeed, 2012 is shaping up to be an election that looks more like 2004 than 2008: a race propelled by the mobilization of party fundamentalists rather than the courtship of the center.

The question to me becomes: does the electoral strategy shift the positive message and the unifying brand?

I can see the governing logic: if Obama gets a solid re-election, he is in a much stronger position to negotiate a grand bargain on debt, taxes and spending with the GOP on Bowles-Simpson lines.

A clear victory for him would sober up the GOP. It would recapitalize the president to negotiate our way out of debt and sluggish growth. But if that's the case, it seems to me that that should be the message.

Here's how I'd summarize the argument I think works best for Obama:

"I inherited a financial and economic disaster and two wars that did not end in victory. I have prevented a second Great Depression, restored job growth, saved our auto industry, restored financial stability, ended one war and wound down another, but we need more.

We need investments in infrastructure, reform of immigration, and continuation of my education reforms. And we need a sensible approach to debt elimination.

My policy is to cut entitlements, cut defense and slash tax loopholes and deductions so we can get higher revenues from those who have done extremely well these past three decades.

My opponent refuses to tax the extremely wealthy at the same rates as ordinary folk, and wants to cut the debt solely by cutting entitlements for the old and sick, while increasing defense spending and cutting taxes even further.

We all know we are going to have to retrench. Would you rather do it with me guarding the core of the welfare state or with Romney-Ryan who want to end it with a solution that Newt Gingrich called 'right wing social engineering'"?

I think you have to have this positive contrast to balance the brutal attacks on Romney in advertizing, or risk losing that critical ingredient that made Obama Obama: a sane reminder of the actual policy choices we face, and a reasoned centrist approach to solving them.

Alas, after the heat of a brutal partisan pushback from the GOP from Day One, that positive vision is not so present this time around.

It needs to be brought back.

On the back of an envelope, I'd jot three key arguments a la Carville:


1) Would you rather cut the debt by slashing entitlements alone - or do you favor a balanced approach, with increased taxes on the wealthy, retrenchment of defense and reform of entitlements?


2) Would you rather a president who wants to launch a war against Iran or a president who will do all he can to avoid it?


3) Do you want repeal of a healthcare law that guarantees available private insurance even to those with pre-existing conditions? If you are under 26, and on your parents' health insurance, do you want to lose it?

If those questions dominate the campaign, Obama will win. Waiting for better economic numbers and pummeling Romney's favorables is not, in my view, a superior strategy.


Sources: Barack Obama.com, The Daily Beast, Youtube

Allen West vs House GOP Leaders On "Obamacare", Keeping The Pre-Existing Conditions Provision

Are Republicans Bending On ‘Obamacare’?

As the landmark Supreme Court decision looms next month, Republicans have been privately considering a plan to reinstate some popular provisions of “Obamacare” if it’s struck down.

The report sent conservative advocates — who have demanded nothing less than total repeal — into a tizzy, which forced House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to reaffirm his commitment to “repealing Obamacare in its entirety,” declaring that “[a]nything short of that is unacceptable.”

But more evidence is emerging that Republicans believe that’s not tenable.

Rep. Allen West (R-FL), a tea party darling, told ThinkProgress that he supports preserving three popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act — the same three that his party’s leaders are reportedly considering.

“You’ve got to replace it with something,” West said. “If people want to keep their kid on insurance at 26, fine. We’ve got to make sure no American gets turned back for pre-existing conditions, that’s fine. Keep the doughnut hole closed, that’s fine. But what I just talked to you about, you know, maybe 20, 25 pages of legislation.”

This no-win predicament explains why Republicans have no replacement plan years after promising one. If they successfully gut “Obamacare” and leave it at that, they’ll face the blame for snatching away its popular benefits. But if they push to keep parts of the law, they’ll face the wrath of powerful conservative groups, which have repeatedly proven their clout at purging Republican lawmakers who buck the right’s demands.

“We would be very concerned about bills to resurrect parts of Obamacare,” said Dean Clancy, the top health care advocate for the influential conservative group FreedomWorks.

A Republican health care aide said members of his party recognize the dilemma.

“I do think some Republicans are finally starting to realize they could be the dog that caught the car,” the aide said.

The deeper problem with the GOP’s fall-back plan is that guaranteeing coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions is economically infeasible without a requirement, like the Affordable Care Act’s unpopular individual mandate, to bring young and healthy people into the insurance system. The idea is to spread risk and prevent costs from spiraling upward.

Health policy experts overwhelmingly accept this reality. And laws regarding pre-existing conditions without an individual mandate would infuriate the insurance industry. That’s why some of the policy-savvy Republicans recognize that supporting the pre-existing condition guarantee would not jibe with their promise of repeal.

“It’s a terrible idea,” No. 5 Republican Rep. Tom Price (GA) told Politico recently.

A Supreme Court decision on whether the health care law passes constitutional muster is expected by the end of June. If it’s struck down, President Obama and Democrats will face an enormous setback but can run against an activist conservative court in the November elections. For Republicans, the political reality is far trickier if they get what they want.


View Larger Map


Sources: TPM, Think Progress, Youtube, Google Maps

Health Care Bill 101: Highlights, How New Law Affects You

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Health Care Reconciliation bill combined with the Senate-passed bill would, from 2010-2019:

-Spend $938 billion on expanding insurance coverage, including $464 billion in subsidies to help uninsured people buy coverage.

-Expand Medicaid coverage to 16 million additional people.

-Require many employers to offer coverage for their workers.

-Collect $69 billion in penalties from uninsured individuals and employers for non-coverage.

-Provide coverage through an insurance exchange to 24 million people.

-Reduce the number of uninsured by 32 million people, but leave 23 million (including illegal immigrants) not covered.

-Cut Medicare spending by $455 billion from currently-projected levels.

-Not affect next month’s scheduled 21 percent cut in payment rates to doctors who treat Medicare patients.

-Produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Sources: MSNBC, The Hill

How Obama's Health Care System Changes Will Affect You

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Sources: MSNBC

Michael Moore Slams Obama's HC Bill, Liberals Threaten To Defect

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Liberals Warn Democrats On Health Care


Labor and progressive leaders are threatening House Democrats who oppose health care legislation with potentially destructive third party challenges in November.

The discussions have already taken concrete form in New York State, where a handful of votes hang in the balance. They’re part threat, part an early attempt to channel what liberal leaders expect to be a wave of anger if Congress fails to pass health care.

New York and a handful of other states have “fusion” rules that allow candidates to run on multiple ballot lines, giving minor parties like the Working Families a great deal of political leverage. For wavering Upstate New York moderates like Reps. Michael Arcuri, Scott Murphy, and Bill Owens, the line could mean the margin between victory and defeat.

The first target, however, seems to be Rep. Michael McMahon, a New York City Democrat who has indicated he opposes the bill.

“There’s a lot of voters in Staten Island and Brooklyn who [will] realize that [McMahon] just chose to be on the side of the insurance companies and start seeing their wages go to pay for their health care,” said Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern, a close ally of President Barack Obama and a prime mover in the attempt to ensure the votes of moderate and conservative Democrats.

“It’s a very volatile time, and no one should believe that third party candidates don’t have a chance.”

In districts where Democrats vote “no,” voters “will have the Republican against health and the Democrat against health care, and they’re going to ask themselves, ‘Where’s the candidate that shares my values,’” Stern told POLITICO. “A lot of us would like to run another candidate.”

“I am not the only labor leader looking at [the question of] what is the price of betrayal,” he said, suggesting that Pennsylvania and Illinois could also see liberal third party challenges.

The left has already sponsored a serious primary challenge to Senator Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, but backing third-party candidates – who could easily split the vote and hand a seat to the Republicans – would mark a new level of disgust with Democrats opposed to health care.

Rules for independent candidacies vary by state, and New York’s labor-backed Working Families Party has already taken the first step, with its state committee voting to bar endorsements of any candidate who votes against health care legislation.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“This week’s showdown on health care could be one of the most important votes a Member of Congress make in their entire career,” said Dan Cantor, the party's executive director. “Even if we supported them before, the WFP simply cannot endorse Members of Congress who would waste this once-in-a-generation chance to improve our broken health care system.”

The talk of independent challenges taps into what is already a profound anger on the left at Democratic wavering, and a sense that the House majority is no longer a progressive one.

“There is, for the first time in American history, a real chance for a third party,” said Stern, who argued that the same discontent that has inflamed a new conservative grassroots could drive a liberal outside challenge.

Stern said the union will back the challenges if health care fails, but will leave retribution to local unions if the bill succeeds despite Democratic defections.

“Whether it's through primaries or independent candidates, it's time for a pound of flesh,” said the communications director for MoveOn.org, Ilyse Hogue.

A spokeswoman for McMahon declined to comment on the prospective challenge. There are already objections to the labor strategy, however, from some of McMahon’s Democratic supporters.

Pat Purcell, an official at the United Food and Commercial Workers union who sits on the Working Families Party executive committee, objected to the party’s decision to withdraw support based on a single issue.

Backing a third party would be “as good as handing the district back to the Republicans,” said Purcell. “We have 2500 members and their families. They would not support another Democrat in the primary. A lot of work went into explaining why Mike would be a good congressman.”

Republicans, meanwhile, hope to cast the labor-backed threats as the kind of special-interest pressure that has alienated voters about other aspects of the legislation.

“Of all the shady deals in the health care debate, this could be by far the worst,” said Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee.

“Labor unions and Democrats are engaged in a flagrant pay-for-play scheme that demands legislative votes for political favors. Anyone who ends up on the Working Families line in New York has likely been bought and paid for.”


Sources: Politico, MSNBC, Moveon.org, USA Today, Facebook

Medicare, Medicaid Cuts Hurts Patients, Cost Doctors

With Medicaid Cuts, Doctors & Patients To Drop Out



Carol Y. Vliet’s cancer returned with a fury last summer, the tumors metastasizing to her brain, liver, kidneys and throat.

As she began a punishing regimen of chemotherapy and radiation, Mrs. Vliet found a measure of comfort in her monthly appointments with her primary care physician, Dr. Saed J. Sahouri, who had been monitoring her health for nearly two years.

She was devastated, therefore, when Dr. Sahouri informed her a few months later that he could no longer see her because, like a growing number of doctors, he had stopped taking patients with Medicaid.

Dr. Sahouri said that his reimbursements from Medicaid were so low — often no more than $25 per office visit — that he was losing money every time a patient walked in his exam room.

The final insult, he said, came when Michigan cut those payments by 8 percent last year to help close a gaping budget shortfall.

“My office manager was telling me to do this for a long time, and I resisted,” Dr. Sahouri said. “But after a while you realize that we’re really losing money on seeing those patients, not even breaking even. We were starting to lose more and more money, month after month.”

It has not taken long for communities like Flint to feel the downstream effects of a nationwide torrent of state cuts to Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor and disabled. With states squeezing payments to providers even as the economy fuels explosive growth in enrollment, patients are finding it increasingly difficult to locate doctors and dentists who will accept their coverage. Inevitably, many defer care or wind up in hospital emergency rooms, which are required to take anyone in an urgent condition.

Mrs. Vliet, 53, who lives just outside Flint, has yet to find a replacement for Dr. Sahouri. “When you build a relationship, you want to stay with that doctor,” she said recently, her face gaunt from disease, and her head wrapped in a floral bandanna. “You don’t want to go from doctor to doctor to doctor and have strangers looking at you that don’t have a clue who you are.”

The inadequacy of Medicaid payments is severe enough that it has become a rare point of agreement in the health care debate between President Obama and Congressional Republicans. In a letter to Congress after their February health care meeting, Mr. Obama wrote that rates might need to rise if Democrats achieved their goal of extending Medicaid eligibility to 15 million uninsured Americans.

In 2008, Medicaid reimbursements averaged only 72 percent of the rates paid by Medicare, which are themselves typically well below those of commercial insurers, according to the Urban Institute, a research group. At 63 percent, Michigan had the sixth-lowest rate in the country, even before the recent cuts.

In Flint, Dr. Nita M. Kulkarni, an obstetrician, receives $29.42 from Medicaid for a visit that would bill $69.63 from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. She receives $842.16 from Medicaid for a Caesarean delivery, compared with $1,393.31 from Blue Cross.

If she takes too many Medicaid patients, she said, she cannot afford overhead expenses like staff salaries, the office mortgage and malpractice insurance that will run $42,800 this year. She also said she feared being sued by Medicaid patients because they might be at higher risk for problem pregnancies, because of underlying health problems.

As a result, she takes new Medicaid patients only if they are relatives or friends of existing patients. But her guilt is assuaged somewhat, she said, because her husband, who is also her office mate, Dr. Bobby B. Mukkamala, an ear, nose and throat specialist, is able to take Medicaid. She said he is able to do so because only a modest share of his patients have it.

The states and the federal government share the cost of Medicaid, which saw a record enrollment increase of 3.3 million people last year. The program now benefits 47 million people, primarily children, pregnant women, disabled adults and nursing home residents. It falls to the states to control spending by setting limits on eligibility, benefits and provider payments within broad federal guidelines.

Michigan, like many other states, did just that last year, packaging the 8 percent reimbursement cut with the elimination of dental, vision, podiatry, hearing and chiropractic services for adults.

When Randy C. Smith showed up recently at a Hamilton Community Health Network clinic near Flint, complaining of a throbbing molar, Dr. Miriam L. Parker had to inform him that Medicaid no longer covered the root canal and crown he needed.

A landscaper who has been without work for 15 months, Mr. Smith, 46, said he could not afford the $2,000 cost. “I guess I’ll just take Tylenol or Motrin,” he said before leaving.

This year, Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, has revived a proposal to impose a 3 percent tax on physician revenues. Without the tax, she has warned, the state may have to reduce payments to health care providers by 11 percent.

In Flint, the birthplace of General Motors, the collapse of automobile manufacturing has melded with the recession to drive unemployment to a staggering 27 percent. About one in four non-elderly residents of Genesee County are uninsured, and one in five depends on Medicaid. The county’s Medicaid rolls have grown by 37 percent since 2001, and the program now pays for half of all childbirths.

But surveys show the share of doctors accepting new Medicaid patients is declining. Waits for an appointment at the city’s federally subsidized health clinic, where most patients have Medicaid, have lengthened to four months from six weeks in 2008. Parents like Rebecca and Jeoffrey Curtis, who had brought their 2-year-old son, Brian, to the clinic, say they have struggled to find a pediatrician.

“I called four or five doctors and asked if they accepted our Medicaid plan,” said Ms. Curtis, a 21-year-old waitress. “It would always be, ‘No, I’m sorry.’ It kind of makes us feel like second-class citizens.”

As physicians limit their Medicaid practices, emergency rooms are seeing more patients who do not need acute care.

At Genesys Regional Medical Center, one of three area hospitals, Medicaid volume is up 14 percent over last year. At Hurley Medical Center, the city’s safety net hospital, Dr. Michael Jaggi detects the difference when advising emergency room patients to seek follow-up treatment.

“We get met with the blank stare of ‘Where do I go from here?’ ” said Dr. Jaggi, the chief of emergency medicine.

New doctors, with their mountains of medical school debt, are fleeing the state because of payment cuts and proposed taxes. Dr. Kiet A. Doan, a surgeon in Flint, said that of 72 residents he had trained at local hospitals only two had stayed in the area, and both are natives.

Access to care can be even more challenging in remote parts of the state. The MidMichigan Medical Center in Clare, about 90 miles northwest of Flint, closed its obstetrics unit last year because Medicaid reimbursements covered only 65 percent of actual costs. Two other hospitals in the region might follow suit, potentially leaving 16 contiguous counties without obstetrics.

Medicaid enrollees in Michigan’s midsection have grown accustomed to long journeys for care. This month, Shannon M. Brown of Winn skipped work to drive her 8-year-old son more than two hours for a five-minute consultation with Dr. Mukkamala. Her pediatrician could not find a specialist any closer who would take Medicaid, she said.

Later this month, she will take the predawn drive again so Dr. Mukkamala can remove her son’s tonsils and adenoids. “He’s going to have to sit in the car for three hours after his surgery,” Mrs. Brown said. “I’m not looking forward to that one.”


Sources: NY Times, Youtube

Obama Claims His HC Plan Gives Citizens Control Over Insurance Companies (Weekly Address)

What Health Reform Will Deliver – This Year


In this week’s address, President Obama describes how American families will have more control over their health care this year, after health reform passes.

Here are a few more points about how health insurance reform measures will benefit Americans this year:

Hold Insurance Companies Accountable:

* Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all new plans;
* Prohibit rescissions of health insurance policies in all individual plans;
* Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
* Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs;
* Establish a process for the annual review of unreasonable increases in premiums, requiring State insurance commissioners to work with the HHS Secretary and States.

Protect Consumers:

* Provide grants to States to support health insurance consumer assistance and ombudsman programs to help consumers;
* Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
* Require all insurance plans to use uniform coverage documents so consumers can make easy comparisons when shopping for health insurance;
* Establish an internet portal to assist Americans in identifying coverage options;
* Prohibit insurers from discriminating in favor of highly compensated employees by charging them lower premiums.

Ensure Affordable Choices and Quality Care:

* Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
* Create a temporary re-insurance program for early retirees;
* Require new plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
* Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
* Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
* Facilitate administrative simplification to lower health system costs.

Sources: Whitehouse.gov

(Live) Dems & GOP Expect Compromise & Productivity From Blair Meeting

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Obama's Health Care Summit


President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies are pleading their case for health care overhaul in an extraordinary summit with Republicans, broadcast live to a divided public on daytime TV.

But Democrats are already looking beyond Thursday's meeting at historic Blair House. With GOP lawmakers remaining steadfast in their opposition, the president and his party are preparing to move on alone.

At stake in the high-risk strategy is the Democrats' stalemated legislation to extend coverage to more than 30 million people who are now uninsured. Politically, it's an all-or-nothing gamble in a midterm election year for Democrats bent on achieving a goal that has eluded lawmakers for a half-century.

Polls show Americans want their elected leaders to address the problems of high medical costs, eroding access to coverage and uneven quality. But the public is split over the Democrats' sweeping legislation, with its $1 trillion, 10-year price tag and many complex provisions, including some that wouldn't take effect for another eight years — after Obama has packed up and left the White House.

For Obama, the summit is his chance to make a compelling closing argument to the American people. If he succeeds, Democrats will push ahead to pass the legislation with a package of revisions he's proposed. If Obama falters, another Democratic president will have been humbled by health care. He will have to appeal to both sides to at least give him a modest bill smoothing some of the rough edges from the current system.

Obama's chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said hours in advance of the session that he thinks the talks can be productive if participants "put aside this notion of kabuki theater, put aside this notion of six-hour photo ops."

He said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America" that he understands "why the American people don't think Washington can get anything done."

Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican, said he was hopeful there would be "a productive session."

"We're going in because Republicans do care about improving health care for the American people and their families," the Virginia Republican said on CBS's "The Early Show."

On Wednesday, the statements of two leaders on Capitol Hill illustrated the chasm between the parties, however.

"We'll have that meeting," said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who helped write the Senate bill. "But far more important, after that meeting, you can either join us or get out of the way."

"I think it's nearly impossible to imagine a scenario under which we could reach an agreement," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "Because we don't think we ought to pass a 2,700-page bill that seeks to restructure one-sixth of our economy."

Both men are at the summit, which begins at 10 a.m. EST, and will be carried live from Blair House, the presidential guest quarters. C-SPAN will carry complete coverage. News operations from CNN to public broadcasting are planning to make it the focus of their day.

"Not only are lawmakers polarized, the parties' constituencies are far apart," said Robert Blendon, a Harvard University professor who follows public opinion trends on health care. "The president is going to use it as a launching pad for what will be the last effort to get a big bill passed. He will say that he tried to get a bipartisan compromise and it wasn't possible."

'Coming with open minds'

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who will have a place next to Obama at the talks, said, "I'm hoping that Leader McConnell and his colleagues in the House and Senate are coming with open minds."

She said in a CNN interview shortly before the start of the meeting that the legislation the administration seeks already embraces several GOP proposals, including "going after fraud, creating new marketplaces, assisting small business owners and families to get coverage ... focusing on wellness and prevention."

In an eleventh-hour move, the White House invited Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, one of the few Republican moderates the White House courted throughout last year in hopes of winning her support for the legislation. She declined since she wasn't chosen under the long-standing rules for the event.

Democrats say no decision on legislative strategy will be made until after the summit.

Three dozen lawmakers, plus several administration officials, were to sit at a hollow square table with name placards. Leaders of both parties planned to speak. Topics were to include controlling health care costs and expanding coverage, deficit reduction and insurance reform.

Republicans will focus on six areas: funding high-risk insurance pools for people denied coverage because of medical problems; expanding health savings accounts; allowing consumers to shop out of state for lower-cost plans; capping malpractice judgments to reduce the practice of defensive medicine; helping small businesses afford coverage; and supporting state innovation in trying to control costs.

Like the Democrats' plan, those ideas have their pros and cons. Some undoubtedly would help people now struggling with costs and coverage. But the GOP proposals, even if taken together, probably would not put the nation on a path toward coverage for all. Since health insurance is expensive, that would take a major commitment of federal dollars that Republicans are loath to make.

The Democratic bills would require most Americans to get health insurance, while providing subsidies for many in the form of a new tax credit. They would set up a competitive insurance market for small businesses and people buying coverage on their own. Democrats also would make a host of other changes, which include addressing the coverage gap in the Medicare prescription benefit and setting up a new long-term care insurance program. Their plan would be paid for through a mix of Medicare cuts and tax increases.

Barring an unlikely bipartisan breakthrough, all but a handful of Democrats' votes would be needed to pass the legislation under Senate budget reconciliation rules, which would disallow GOP filibusters.

Sources: MSNBC

Obama Claims He Never Promised Public Option, Not True!...Here's Proof!

Obama Tries To Distance Himself From The Public Option


Now that the Senate has firmly rejected the public option, President Obama is trying his darnedest to distance himself from the controversial, and failed, proposal. But that may be harder than he thought.

In an American Urban Radio interview yesterday, he said, "this is not the most important aspect of this bill." And today he told The Washington Post, "I didn't campaign on the public option."

But that's not true. In a campaign position paper on health care, Obama mentions the public plan eight times. The Obama-Biden campaign wrote:


Through the Exchange, any American will have the opportunity to enroll in the new public plan or an approved private plan, and income-based sliding scale tax credits will be provided for people and families who need it. Insurers would have to issue every applicant a policy and charge fair and stable premiums that will not depend upon health status. The Exchange will require that all the plans offered are at least as generous as the new public plan and meet the same standards for quality and efficiency. Insurers would be required to justify an above-average premium increase to the Exchange. (h/t: Think Progress)

Candidate Obama also signed on to the principles set down by the Progressive group Health Care for America Now, the biggest proponent of a government-run plan. Those principles included support for a Public Option:

Everyone gets a choice of health insurance plans, including the right to keep your current insurance, choose another private plan or to join a public health insurance plan.

And while it's true that reform will include many of the reforms he ran on, it's not accurate for the president to claim he didn't run on passing a Public Option.








Obama Repeatedly Touted Public Option Before Refusing To Push For It In The Final Hours


In recent days, there has been an uproar in the progressive community over the Senate’s decision to drop the public option from its health care bill in order to reach the crucial 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. Given that many liberals backed a single-payer, Medicare-for-all system, the public option was seen as a political compromise.

“I didn’t campaign on the Public Option,” President Obama told the Washington Post. But he touted the public option on his campaign website and spoke frequently in support of it during the first year of his presidency, citing its essential value in holding the private insurance industry accountable and providing competition:

– In the 2008 Obama-Biden health care plan on the campaign’s website, candidate Obama promised that “any American will have the opportunity to enroll in [a] new public plan.” [2008]

– During a speech at the American Medical Association, President Obama told thousands of doctors that one of the plans included in the new health insurance exchanges “needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market.” [6/15/09]

– While speaking to the nation during his weekly address, the President said that “any plan” he signs “must include…a Public Option.” [7/17/09]

– During a conference call with Progressive Bloggers, the President said he continues “to believe that a robust public option would be the best way to go.” [7/20/09]

– Obama told NBC’s David Gregory that a public option “should be a part of this [health care bill],” while rebuking claims that the plan was “dead.” [9/20/09]

Despite all this overt advocacy for the public option, it appears that Obama was reticent to apply the political pressure necessary to get the plan in the final hours of congressional negotiation. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) — who threatened to filibuster the creation of any new public plan or expansion of Medicare — told the Huffington Post that he “didn’t really have direct input from the White House” on the public option and was never specifically asked to support it.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), one of the most ardent backers of public insurance, blamed the demise of the public option on a “lack of support from the administration.” Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) — perhaps the most visible defender of the public option in the entire health care debate — went even further, saying that Obama’s lack of support for congressional progressives amounted to him being “half-pregnant” with the health insurance and drug industries.

Update "All I'll say, I was surprised to hear this because I had assumed all along that the White House was pushing strongly for the public option," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) said. "I just assumed that."

Update In response to a questionnaire from the Washington Post, then-candidate Obama said, “My plan builds on and improves our current insurance system, which most Americans continue to rely upon, and creates a new public health plan for those currently without coverage.”


Sources: Politico, Think Progress, Washington Post, Health Care For American Now, AP, Whitehouse.gov, Youtube

Michael Moore Slams Current Health Care Bill & Wall Street

"This bill is worse than the Status Quo. This is a huge, big wet kiss to the Health Insurance Industry. This is just deplorable that it comes from somebody who calls themselves a Democrat. They are just desperate to get anything on the floor."

"They shouldn't be handing out bonuses. They should he handing out warrants for arrests. ... If you have money in any of these banks that took TARP money, take the money out. Take the money out of those banks. Don't reward them. Don't ever trust your money with these people again. Put it in a bank that didn't take TARP money. Put it in a credit union. Just refuse to participate in this."

"People should be calling Congress (202) 456-1414".

Michael Moore on Morning Joe, Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

View Larger Map


Sources: Michael Moore.com, MSNBC, The Insider, Youtube, Google Maps