Friday, March 12, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 12, 2010


Et tu, Boys and Girls Clubs of America...???

(Read the first newsbite...)
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15 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100312/D9ED2S4G0.html

A group of Republican senators is questioning high salaries and expensive travel bills for executives at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, raising issues that could jeopardize millions in federal funding for the national charity.

The four senators said they were concerned that the chief executive of a charity that has been closing local clubs for lack of funding was compensated nearly $1 million in 2008. They also questioned why in the same year officials spent $4.3 million on travel, $1.6 million on conferences, conventions and meetings, and $544,000 in lobbying fees.

"The question is whether or not a very top-heavy organization might be siphoning off federal dollars that should be going to help kids," said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

* AND THAT'S A DAMNED REASONABLE AND TIMELY QUESTION!

March 12, 2010 at 9:17 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703625304575115540074840182.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

One of the chief complaints about health insurers is that they refuse to provide insurance to everyone at the same price, regardless of an individual's pre-existing medical conditions.

Yet President Obama himself has acknowledged more than once that insurers don't really have a choice. In his Feb. 3 town-hall meeting in Nashua, N.H., he said:

"You can't [demand] insurance companies . . . take somebody who's sick, who's got a pre-existing condition, if you don't have everybody covered, or at least almost everybody covered. And the reason, if you think about it, is simple. If you had a situation where not everybody was covered but an insurance company had to take you because you were sick, what everybody would do is they'd just wait till they got sick and then they'd go buy insurance. Right? And so the potential would be there to game the system."

* RIGHT!

In his Jan. 20 ABC News interview, Mr. Obama noted that if insurance firms accepted all applicants, premiums would skyrocket, an insurance mandate would be necessary, and massive taxpayer subsidies would follow. The president obviously knows it makes no sense to blame insurance companies for paying attention to pre-existing conditions when taking on new customers.

* YET HE'LL DEMOGUE THE ISSUE ALL DAY LONG. (*SMIRK*)

Mr. Obama, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and their Democratic allies have also hammered the insurance industry for making huge profits at the cost of patients' finances and health.

The Democrats' attack is misplaced.

Fortune 500 data show that of the 43 industries that actually made a profit in 2009, health insurance ranked 35th, with profits of only 2.2% of revenues.

* BUT WHY LET FACTS GET IN THE WAY OF A ROLL OF CLASS WARFARE RHETORIC...

More fundamentally, premium increases are driven not by profits but by costs, as WellPoint has made abundantly clear in California. When HHS issued "Insurance Companies Prosper, Families Suffer," its Feb. 18 report on firms that implemented "excessive" premium increases, plenty of nonprofit firms (such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan, Regency Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Oregon, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Rhode Island) made the list.

* OOPS... (*SMIRK*)

Mr. Obama's third theme is that health insurance needs more regulation.

* NONSENSE! INSURANCE IS ALREADY PERHAPS THE MOST OVERREGULATED INDUSTRY IN EXISTENCE! EACH STATE HAS THEIR OWN INSURANCE COMMISSIONER AND INSURANCE REGULATIONS. HERE IN NEW YORK THE STATE DOESN'T ALLOW ME TO SET UP AN HAS/MSA AND PURCHASE TRUE CATASTROPHIC INSURANCE! GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM - NOT THE SOLUTION!

Federal regulation of health insurance premiums makes little sense. Most states already have the power to review and reduce premiums. It hasn't done them much good. Massachusetts, which already has the essence of ObamaCare—no restrictions on pre-existing conditions, an individual mandate, and huge taxpayer subsidies—has the highest premiums in the nation.

The Bay State has the power to cut premiums, but it hasn't figured out how to do that without cutting health care itself. Oregon has had much the same experience, as have others. State insurance regulators quickly pointed out that Mr. Obama's proposal for a federal rate authority wouldn't work and would complicate their essential task of making sure that insurance firms have sufficient funds to cover future health care costs.

(*HEADACHE*)

March 12, 2010 at 11:22 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703976804575114241782001262.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is the latest Democrat to demand a tax increase, this week proposing to raise the state's top marginal individual income tax rate to 4% from 3%. He'd better hope this works out better than it has for Maryland.

We reported in May that after passing a millionaire surtax nearly one-third of Maryland's millionaires had gone missing, thus contributing to a decline in state revenues.

(*SHRUG*)

[Maryland's] state comptroller's office now has the final tax return data for 2008, the first year that the higher tax rates applied. The number of millionaire tax returns fell sharply to 5,529 from 7,898 in 2007, a 30% tumble. The taxes paid by rich filers fell by 22%, and instead of their payments increasing by $106 million, they fell by some $257 million.

A Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysis of federal tax return data on people who migrated from one state to another found that Maryland lost $1 billion of its net tax base in 2008 by residents moving to other states. That's income that's now being taxed and is financing services in Virginia, South Carolina and elsewhere.

Thanks in part to its soak-the-rich theology, Maryland still has a $2 billion deficit and Montgomery County is $760 million in the red.

March 12, 2010 at 11:22 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=527033

[T]he president's words: "The proposal I put forward gives Americans more control over their health insurance and their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable."

Does it really?

At his press conference last week, the president said his proposal gives individual Americans "the same kind of choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves." Well, it's the same kind of choice, but it's not the same choice.

The White House recently confirmed that there will be no national health exchange in the proposal, only individual state exchanges. So you'll only get to choose from within your home state — a choice most Americans already have. Members of Congress, though, can still choose plans offered by insurers from across the nation.

* PLUS... GOOGLE "ATTENDING PHYSCIAN OF THE HOUSE" AND SEE WHAT MEMBERS GET FOR AN "EXTRA" $503 PER YEAR. (OH... AND DON'T FORGET... CONGRESSIONAL BASE SALARY IS $174,000)

The president's plan pays for a trillion dollars in subsidies, new Medicaid benefits and new community grants, in part by cutting benefits from Medicare Advantage, a program designed to give seniors more choice.

(While this may or may not make fiscal sense — critics argue that Medicare Advantage is a giveaway to insurers, supporters counter that health outcomes are better and seniors are more satisfied — millions of elderly Americans will have less personal control over their care than before.)

Even before inauguration, White House budget director Peter Orszag championed a Medicare panel, designed to recommend whether the federal program will cover expensive drugs, devices and treatments, with an eye on saving money. The president's proposal includes such a panel, and it's still charged with cutting billions of dollars in services. Fewer treatment options mean less flexibility for your physician — and surely, less control over your own health care.

* THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS TRANSLATES TO IN REAL LIFE FOLKS... JUST THINK ABOUT IT.

The president's latest proposal explicitly protects state benefit mandates. Not only do mandates limit choice for consumers, but they tend to drive up the cost of coverage. Take Massachusetts, where everyone is required by law to have insurance that includes in vitro fertilization, substance abuse rehabilitation and (depending on who's counting) between 34 and 50 other services. It's one reason health insurance premiums in the state are nearly 50% higher than the national average.

It's as if the law forced every family buying a house to install a hot tub, a swimming pool and a second garage!

If you're a middle-aged Boston mother of two young boys, you shouldn't be forced to pay for in vitro fertilization coverage... Under the president's proposal, you'll pay more, since it adds new federal mandates on top of the state ones — in other words, less personal choice (and control).

March 12, 2010 at 1:07 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=527032

The most disturbing part of the Obama-Care debate is not about where Republicans and Democrats disagree, but where they agree.

(*WILD APPLAUSE*)

* YEP. AUTHOR LARRY ELDER HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD.

Take this issue of those with pre-existing illnesses. Many Republicans actually support government action to prevent insurance companies from refusing to insure them. Ignoring the benefits of cost-lowering free market competition and the role of charity, many Republicans believe it acceptable to force an insurance company — in business to insure against unknown risks — to "insure" someone currently experiencing a known risk.

* YEP. AN UNFUNDED MANDATE IS BASICALLY A "TAKING."

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), supports legislation to "eliminate pre-existing conditions" as a reason for a carrier to deny coverage. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), says government needs "to take care of things like pre-existing conditions so that that doesn't stop (people) from getting insurance." Sen. Chuck Grassley R-IA), supports prohibiting "insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions or charging higher premiums to people who are sick."

But this should not surprise anyone who observes the allegedly "fiscally conservative," "pro-free market," "limited government" party in action. From the acceptance of the New Deal to government bailouts of private industry, Republicans — sooner or later — go along.

* IF GOVERNMENT WANTS TO SUBSIDIZE THOSE WITH PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS THAN THAT'S WHAT THEY SHOULD DO; INSTEAD, THEY FORCE - ULTIMATELY VIA POLICE POWER - PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES TO BEAR THE BURDEN AND IN TURN THE PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES RAISE PREMIUMS ON THOSE OF US WITHOUT PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS IN ORDER TO BALANCE THE BOOKS.

No Child Left Behind ties federal dollars to local schools' performance. Where is the outrage about taxpayers in one state paying for education in another? What gives educrats in Washington, D.C., the skills, wisdom and competence to run schools in all 50 states? More importantly, what clause in the Constitution permits this?

* GOOD QUESTION!

* THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET IS THAT BY AND LARGE REPUBLICAN ELECTED OFFICIALS HAVE AS MUCH CONTEMPT FOR THE CONSTITUTION AS DO DEMOCRAT ELECTED OFFICIALS.

The entire ObamaCare debate starts off in the wrong place — with Republicans agreeing that "reform" is necessary, health care "costs too much" and that government must "make health care more affordable." But it is because of government — laws, regulations and policies — that users pay more for services and drugs than they otherwise would.

Licensing requirements restrict potential caregivers. A non-doctor field medic in Iraq or Afghanistan could not come home, hang up a shingle, and render basic care without facing prosecution. Despite our aging population, trade associations, along with laws and regulations, restrict the number of doctors.

Insurance companies enjoy protected markets because laws restrict carriers from competing across state lines. The Food and Drug Administration increases the cost of drugs while delaying or keeping possibly beneficial drugs off the market.

* ALL OF THIS IS TRUE...!

Republicans ran for the exits when Bush attempted a partial privatization of Social Security.

* JUST AS THEY RAN FOR THE EXITS WHEN JIM BUNNING TRIED TO FIGHT FOR PAYGO ENFORCEMENT... (*SIGH*)

In 1900, government at all levels — federal, state and local — took about 7% of America's income. Today it's almost 40%. And that doesn't include an estimated 10% cost in federal unfunded mandates imposed on states and private business.

A collectivist, whether an active or passive one, is still a collectivist. Having an "R" after the name provides no defense.

March 12, 2010 at 1:08 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/97d2d5aa-2d7f-11df-a262-00144feabdc0.html

Americans reduced their household debt for the first year on record last year as they aggressively cut back on spending to cope with the recession, Federal Reserve figures showed on Thursday.

US household debt contracted by 1.75% in 2009, according to the closely watched “flow of funds” data. It was the first annual decline since the Fed began tracking household borrowing in 1946 and marks a sharp shift from the euphoric borrowing that led to the recession.

* THANK FRIGG'N GOD...! THIS IS GOOD NEWS; NO... THIS IS GREAT NEWS...!!!

* NOW... IF ONLY OBAMA AND THE DEMS WHO CONTROL CONGRESS (HEY... IT'S THE TRUTH - RIGHT?) WOULD EMULATE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

During the last three months of 2009, mortgage debt continued to fall...

* THAT'S GOOD... BUT I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHAT PORTION OF THE FALL IS RELATED TO WRITE-OFFS..

While consumers and homeowners retrenched, US state governments and the Federal government continued to borrow heavily...

* YES. WE KNOW. AND SINCE "GOVERNMENTS" ARE MADE UP OF PEOPLE... THAT PUTS THE ONUS ON US - ON "WE THE PEOPLE."

* YEP. AS WE IN OUR PERSONAL LIVE SACRIFICE SO AS TO GET OUT OF DEBT, GOVERNMENT SPLURGES AND PUTS THE TAB ON... ULTIMATELY.. US, OUR KIDS, AND OUR GRANDKIDS.

Federal borrowing grew at an annual rate of 22.7% last year, while state and local governments upped borrowing by 4.8% cent.

Borrowing by businesses also fell, by 1.8% cent last year...the 1.75% cent decline of non-financial business debt last year was the sharpest since the early 1990s.

(*APPLAUSE*)

March 12, 2010 at 1:09 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703625304575115511402708990.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

[By Senator Jim Inhofe, R-OK]

Earlier this year, President Obama announced a three-year freeze on discretionary spending for all nonsecurity-related agencies. On the surface, that seems like a good idea. But the president's plan would freeze spending at fiscal year 2010 levels, which are 20% higher than spending levels just two years ago. In addition, the $787 billion stimulus package Mr. Obama signed into law last year provided a substantial spending cushion to nearly every federal agency, making the spending freeze largely irrelevant.

I've introduced legislation called the Honest Expenditure Limitation Program (HELP) Act. Instead of locking in the president's 20% spending increase, my plan reduces nonsecurity discretionary spending over a five-year period. Once it reaches the 2008 spending level, my bill then freezes spending there for an additional five years.

Real fiscal restraint requires cutting budgets, not locking in an artificially high spending level and then allowing spending to explode again after three years as the president's proposal does.

* NOW I'M NOT A MATH WIZ... BUT INHOFE'S PROPOSAL - AND REASONING - MAKES SENSE TO ME.

The American people deserve honesty about their government's spending. Repeatedly, Congress has made mostly symbolic gestures toward fiscal responsibility, such as the Democrat's current pay-go process. In theory that requires Congress to pay for any new spending, but in practice it is easily evaded.

For this reason, my spending cap comes with teeth. Typically, the Senate can sidestep spending restraints with a 60-vote majority. But to exceed my spending caps my legislation would require a super majority of 67 votes in the Senate. Furthermore, if Congress passes a spending bill that exceeds my spending caps but fails to win a super majority vote in the Senate, the Office of Management and Budget would automatically impose an across-the-board spending cut of the excess amount at the end of the year.

* FRANKLY... AND I HATE TO SAY IT... BUT FRANKLY I DOUBT THAT THIS WOULD PASS CONSTITUTIONAL MUSTER. STILL... IT WOULDN'T HURT TO TRY IT! (PERHAPS I'M WR... WRO... WRON... WRONG?!) (*WINK*)

March 12, 2010 at 1:09 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/85893-flake-pushes-ethics-panel-on-depth-of-investigation

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is asking the ethics committee to prove it did more than a light review of a pay-to-play earmark scandal under investigation by the FBI.

Flake considers the report, issued in late February, a whitewash of a real corruption scandal involving members of the defense appropriations subcommittee, the earmarks they doled out to PMA Group clients the campaign contributions they received in return.

“I think it is fair to ask what the Standards Committee did regarding this investigation,” Flake said in a remarks on the House floor Tuesday night. “We know the Standards Committee reviewed documents gathered by the Office of Congressional Ethics. What were those documents? We are also told that the Standards Committee interviewed numerous witnesses. Who were they?”

Right now lawmakers must certify that they or their spouses don’t have a personal financial interest in any earmark request. Flake would like the ethics committee to regard campaign contributions as a “financial interest” and bar lawmakers from requesting earmarks from entities, or the lobbyists representing them, that have donated to the lawmaker’s campaign.

Last year, Democrats fended off nine different attempts by Flake to shake the ethics committee into action on the PMA issue. Eventually, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) offered his own resolution calling on the ethics committee to say whether it was already investigating the PMA controversy. In a parliamentary maneuver, that measure was simply submitted to the committee for consideration, but the panel appeared to get the message and shortly after announced that it was investigating the matter.

[t]he panel’s "findings" were just five pages long and included no documentation of any evidence collected or any interviews conducted beyond a statement that the investigation “included extensive document reviews and interviews with numerous witnesses.”

Watchdogs have lambasted the report for papering over a serious corruption problem in Congress. They agree with Flake’s push for more restrictions on earmarks and campaign contributions...

“The widespread perception of dependent relationship between earmarks and campaign contributions carries with it no partisan advantage,” Flake said. “The cloud that hangs over this body rains on Republicans and Democrats alike, and we will all benefit when this cloud is lifted.”

March 12, 2010 at 3:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/85809-bailed-out-companies-start-rebuilding-presence-on-k-st

Big banks and automakers bailed out by the government are now on a K Street shopping spree.

Over the past few months, the biggest beneficiaries of the $700 billion financial bailout have hired a slew of blue-chip lobbyists to boost their presence in Washington.

Congressional lawmakers and consumer advocacy organizations pressured companies to stop lobbying when they took bailout money. But as the companies regain their health, with some banks soaring in the process, they are heavily lobbying the administration and Capitol Hill.

General Motors, which went to Washington in late 2008 in need of emergency aid and then passed through bankruptcy in 2009, has hired three outside lobbying firms already in 2010.

Chrysler Group LLC, which also received a major taxpayer bailout and entered bankruptcy last year, is currently in the hunt for a new head of its Washington office, said spokeswoman Linda Becker. The office now has three registered lobbyists. Chrysler recently retained Patricia Kennedy to lobby on an interim basis. In mid-January, the carmaker also announced that Robert Liberatore, the veteran lobbyist for Chrysler who retired in 2007, would return to provide advice. Liberatore joined Chrysler in 1985 after working on Capitol Hill for 10 years, including four years with Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).

Banks that received tens of billions of dollars from the bailout program have also been hiring a wide range of lobbyists in the last few months.

Goldman Sachs hired the Harold Ford Group in December and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in January to work on financial reform legislation, according to congressional records. Goldman also hired two in-house lobbyists at the end of 2009: Joyce Brayboy, formerly with the Glover Park Group, and Eric Edwards, a former staffer for Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.).

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley hired the Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal law firm to lobby on the overhaul measures in mid-January, according to congressional records.

Bank of America hired the Podesta Group and spent $60,000 with the firm in the fourth quarter.

Bank of New York Mellon added another in-house lobbyist in the last few months, and U.S. Bancorp, one of the country’s largest banks, set up its first in-house lobbying office.

The financial, insurance and real estate industries spent roughly $465 million on lobbying in 2009, the most in a decade, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

March 12, 2010 at 3:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/10/AR2010031003944.html?hpid=topnews

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.... (*SIGH*)

As the government has pledged more and more money to cover the companies' losses, it has assured the public that planning was underway for overhauling the firms so the bailouts would end. As recently as December, the Obama administration said it expected to release a preliminary report on how to remake Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac around Feb. 1.

But no plan was produced, and in response to questions from lawmakers, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner clarified last month that it would be another year before the government proposes how to restructure the firms.

Sixteen months after they were seized to prevent their collapse, the companies remain wards of the state, running a tab that has now exceeded $125 billion in what has become the single costliest component of the federal bailout for the financial system.

The companies now own or back more than half of all U.S. home loans.

The pair have long been lightning rods for criticism by many Republicans, who call them an intrusion into the free market and a Democratic patronage haven. Many Democrats, even as they faulted companies' excesses, have defended the firms' role in fostering home ownership.

Spokesmen for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said their current focus is on keeping funds flowing into the mortgage market and helping distressed borrowers remain in their homes. The companies did not address the question of how they should be restructured.

[K]eeping the companies solvent has been costly. To cover their losses, the firms have both said they will need additional federal money beyond the more than $125 billion already committed. They are ramping up purchases of bad mortgages in an effort to keep borrowers in their homes.

* YES... YOU READ THAT RIGHT.. BUYING UP *BAD* MORTGAGES... (*SIGH*)

When the Bush administration seized the firms, it said it would make $200 billion available to them. The Obama administration a year ago doubled that figure, then decided late last year to offer them unlimited financial assistance as a signal to investors that the companies' solvency was guaranteed.

* BUSH BAD... OBAMA REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD... (*SIGH*)

"This idea of having money laying around that they can spend on whatever they think politically makes sense is certainly consistent with what we've seen from this administration," said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who has called for an investigation into the delay in planning for the companies' future. "This is just one more example of ridiculous government spending and huge losses to the taxpayer."

James Lockhart, a former top regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said the administration is erring by waiting another year to begin the reform process. "The clock is ticking. We need to reinvigorate the private mortgage market and create something new and we know how long Congress takes," Lockhart said. "It's unhealthy to have as much government involvement in the mortgage market as we have in this country."

March 12, 2010 at 3:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://article.nationalreview.com/427689/high-marks/kevin-williamson

Through a change to House rules, Democrats in that chamber of Congress have banned earmarks that deliver funds and contracts to private, for-profit enterprises. Senate Democrats probably will ignore their colleagues’ new policy, but House Republicans have just one-upped it, voting amongst themselves to forgo all earmarks, whether to businesses, local and state governments, or nonprofit institutions. They will do so unilaterally, giving up their earmarks while challenging Democrats to do the same. This is one sign that the GOP is getting serious about rededicating itself to the cause of fiscal restraint...

And it’s worth noting which Republicans voted for the moratorium. “What’s surprising isn’t the holdouts,” said one congressional aide just before the vote. “What’s surprising is who isn’t holding out. The appropriators are usually hesitant about giving these up. But the ones you might expect to hold out, like Rep. Jerry Lewis, are on board.” Lewis is the California Republican who served as chairman of the omnipotent Appropriations Committee before the GOP lost its majority in the House. He remains the ranking Republican on the committee and on all eleven of its subcommittees. In other words, he’s a hardcore appropriator with the PIN for the national ATM card. The fact that he voted the right way, even on a largely symbolic measure such as earmarks, is a good omen for budget hawks.

It’s not surprising that the Democrats targeted earmarks for businesses — under Obama and Pelosi, the party has become ever more brazen in its contempt for private enterprise, whether it’s insurance companies or defense contractors. And like the president’s anti-waste initiative, the Democrats’ anti-earmarks pledge targeted a tiny slice of the pie: Earmarks to for-profits amount to only about 10 percent of such spending.

(*SMIRK*) (*SNORT*)

It is easy to find instances of business-related earmark abuse, but the nonprofit sector is in many ways a worse offender. That’s because the for-profit sector very often is obliged to provide some useful good or service in exchange for federal funds. There are probably better ways to get that done than no-bids and earmarks, but consider some of the things that have been funded by these measures: In Massachusetts, the Boston Globe reports, 16 contractors received just under $30 million in funds in the last defense-appropriations bill, for projects including the development of new rifle optics and high-tech ceramic body armor. Better rifle scopes and better body armor are something that our guys in Iraq and Afghanistan might be interested in.

You know what they’re probably not interested in? The Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York. That vanity project for the scandal-ridden Harlem boss was funded in part by a $2 million earmark secured by none other than Charles B. Rangel, who was at the time also leaning on corporate donors with business before his powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Under the Democrats’ rule, those next-generation rifle scopes and body armor will be excluded from earmarks funding, but non-profit projects such as Goodtime Charlie’s monument to himself will remain fully eligible for targeted infusions of taxpayer schmundo. So will such urgent national priorities as pig-odor research projects in Iowa. That’s Nancy Pelosi’s version of clean government.

March 12, 2010 at 3:30 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://article.nationalreview.com/427715/the-democrats-wont-talk-about-this-provision/mona-charen

In 1966, Medicare cost taxpayers $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that by 1990, we might be spending as much as $12 billion. The actual 1990 figure: $107 billion.

In 1987, Congress estimated that the Medicaid DSH (disproportionate share hospital) costs would be less than $1 billion in 1992. The actual cost: $17 billion.

* BEYOND THE ISSUE OF FINANCIAL COSTS...

Among the specifications of the House bill that passed last November are several sections that mandate racial and ethnic quotas for medical schools and other federal contractors. As Allan Favish reported in The American Thinker, the bill specifies that the Secretary of Health and Human Services, “in awarding grants or contracts under this section . . . shall give preference to entities that have a demonstrated record of . . . training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds.”

This, along with other provisions, is broad enough to cover every medical, nursing, and dental school and teaching hospital in the country and guarantees the institutionalization of racial, sex, and ethnic quotas in perpetuity (though the use of the word “underrepresented” before “minority” ensures that the quotas will not apply to Asians or Jews).

March 12, 2010 at 3:30 PM
William R. Barker said...

* THIS IS ONE HELL OF AN OP-ED. I'M POSTING IT IN TWO PARTS.

(Part 1 of 2)

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/11/obama-family-health-care-fracas/

[By Milton R. Wolf, MD]

"Primum nil nocere." First, do no harm. This guiding principle is a bedrock of medical care. Sadly, those politicians who would rewrite our health care laws do not live in the same universe as do the doctors and health care professionals who must practice it.

Obamacare proponents would have us believe that we will add 30 million patients to the system without adding providers, we will see no decline in the quality of care for the millions of Americans currently happy with the system, and - if you act now! - we will save money in the process.

But why stop there? Why not promise it will no longer rain on weekends and every day will be a great hair day?

America has the finest health care delivery system in the world. Desperate souls across the globe flock to our shores and cross our borders every day to seek our care. Why? Our system provides cures while the government-run systems from which they flee do not.

Compare Europe's common cancer mortality rates to America's: breast cancer - 52% higher in Germany and 88% higher in the United Kingdom; prostate cancer - a staggering 604% higher in the United Kingdom and 457% higher in Norway; colon cancer - 40% higher in the United Kingdom.

Look closer at the United Kingdom. Britain's higher cancer mortality rate results in 25,000 more cancer deaths per year compared to a similar population size in the United States. But because the U.S. population is roughly five times larger than the United Kingdom's, that would translate into 125,000 unnecessary American cancer deaths every year. This is more than all the mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, cousins and children in Topeka, Kanas.

And keep in mind, these numbers are for cancer alone[!]

America also has better survival rates for other major killers, such as heart attacks and strokes. Whatever we do, let us not surrender the great gains we have made. First, do no harm. Lives are at stake.

* To be continued...

March 12, 2010 at 3:52 PM
William R. Barker said...

* WOW... IT'S ACTUALLY GOING TO BE THREE PARTS RATHER THAN TWO...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

The justification for Obamacare has been to control costs, but the problem is there is little in Obamacare that will do that. Instead, there are provisions that will ration care and artificially set price. This is a confusion of costs and price. [C]onsider the implications of Obamacare's financial penalty aimed at your doctor if he seeks the expert care he has determined you need:

If your doctor is in the top 10% of primary care physicians who refer patients to specialists most frequently - no matter how valid the reasons - he will face a 5% penalty on all their Medicare reimbursements for the entire year. This scheme is specifically designed to deny you the chance to see a specialist[!]

Each year, the insidious nature of that arbitrary 10% rule will make things even worse as 100% of doctors try to stay off that list. Many doctors will try to avoid the sickest patients, and others will simply refuse to accept Medicare. Already, 42% of doctors have chosen that route, and it will get worse. Your mother's shiny government-issued Medicare health card is meaningless without doctors who will accept it.

Obamacare will further diminish access to health care by lowering reimbursements for medical care without regard to the costs of that care.

Price controls have failed spectacularly wherever they've been tried. They have turned neighborhoods into slums and have caused supply chains to dry up when producers can no longer profit from providing their goods. Remember the Carter-era gas lines? Medical care is not immune from this economic reality. We cannot hope that our best and brightest will pursue a career in medicine, setting aside years of their lives - for me, 13 years of school and training - to enter a field that might not even pay for the student loans it took to get there.

* To be continued...

March 12, 2010 at 3:54 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUSION (Part 3 of 3)

The problems in the American health care system are not caused by a shortage of government intrusion. They will not be solved by more government intrusion. In fact, our current problems were precisely, though unintentionally, created by government.

World War II-era wage-control measures - a form of price controls - ushered in a perverted system in which we turn to our employers for insurance and the government penalizes us if we choose to purchase insurance for ourselves. You are not given the opportunity to be a wise consumer of health care and compare prices as well as quality in any meaningful way. Worse still, your insurance company is not answerable to you because you are not its customer. It is answerable to your employer, whose interests differ from your own.

Insurance companies have been vilified for following the perverse rules that government has created for them. But it gets worse. The government, always knowing best, deploys insurance commissioners across the land to dictate what the insurance companies must provide, whether you want it or not, and each time, your premiums increase. Obamacare will make all of this worse, not better. We should decouple health insurance from employers and empower patients to be consumers once again. Allow [consumers] to determine the insurance plan that best meets their families' needs and which company will provide it. This will unleash a wave of competition that will drive costs down in a way that price controls never have.

Eliminate the artificial state boundary rules that protect insurance companies from true competition... Innovative companies will drive down costs similar to how Geico and Progressive have worked for automobile insurance. And it won't cost taxpayers a trillion dollars in the process[!]

[The] free-market approach has worked for everything from high-definition TVs to breakfast cereals, but will it work for medicine? It already is. Take Lasik eye surgery, for example. Because patients are allowed to be informed consumers and can shop anywhere, doctors work hard for their business. Services, availability and expertise have all increased, and costs have decreased. Should consumers demand it, insurance companies - now answerable to you rather than your employer - would cover it.

March 12, 2010 at 3:54 PM

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