Let the LIBERALS toast you first, huh?
"House backers of public insurance option may yield; They say focus is on keeping the costs down" by Calvin Woodward, Associated Press | December 28, 2009
WASHINGTON - Some House Democrats who favor a government insurance plan, a central element of health care legislation passed in their chamber, acknowledged Sunday that it might have to be sacrificed....
Been telling you for months liberals have no spine.
The Senate’s Christmas Eve achievement brought the nation closer than it has been for generations to a new order in health insurance.... Critics say tens of billions of Medicare dollars funneled through private insurers also pay for extras that never reach beneficiaries: multimillion-dollar salaries, foreign retreats for executives, and massive expenditures on marketing....
Then the CRITICS speak the TRUTH!
Wow, bad toast!
At least someone finally had some balls!
A liberal group is urging Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont to stick to his guns, “be a hero,’’ and hold out for a public option government plan in the final version of the health care overhaul.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee said yesterday it is making 10,000 automated phone calls a day to Vermont voters urging them to call Sanders. The calls feature AJ Van Tassel-Sweet of Northfield, Vt., who says he “supported Senator Bernie Sanders in the past because I thought he would fight for us. But now the Senate is planning to pass a health care bill without the public health insurance option that most Americans support. Instead, it just mandates that people buy insurance from big insurance companies. That’s not reform; that’s a corporate giveaway.’’
The committee also said it is running online ads in Vermont and other states and has collected more than 40,000 signatures since last week on an online “we need a hero’’ petition to Sanders.
Sanders, an independent, was one of the 60 votes that Democrats needed to move through the Senate health care bill, which, unlike the House bill, does not include a public option.
Oh, this should be interesting to watch!
But he still supports a full public option as a step toward a single-payer system that the political left wants.
Since France, England, Canada, and Cuba(?) can figure it out, why don't we take a LEAP?
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Of course, Republicans must do the HEAVY LIFTING!
"Fla. attorney general challenges health billFlorida Attorney General Bill McCollum said yesterday he is reviewing whether the health care legislation under debate in Congress is constitutional because it requires that individuals buy health insurance or pay a penalty.
Yeah, where in the Constitution does it tell me I must purchase medical insurance?
“I have grave concerns about the constitutionality of this mandate . . . because it would be levied on a person who does nothing, a person who simply wishes not to be forced to buy health insurance coverage,’’ McCollum, a Republican who is running for governor, said in a statement.
Oh, he's running for governor. So?
He said he has asked other attorneys general to join him in reviewing the legislation, and other Republicans have already expressed interest.
The Senate passed its $871 billion bill on Christmas Eve, voting 60 to 39, with all Democrats and two independents backing it and without any Republican votes. The House passed a $1 trillion bill in November, also requiring that individuals get insurance or pay a penalty. Congressional negotiators will try in January to combine the bills and send it to President Obama.
Critics of the legislation, which is designed to expand coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans, say that Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce and levy taxes does not extend to forcing people to get health insurance or face a penalty. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has not invalidated a federal program of comparable size since striking down much of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s.
“Any challenge to the individual mandate will be difficult because federal courts have been reluctant to enforce constitutional limits on the scope of federal power,’’ Jonathan Adler, a professor who runs the Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve University’s law school in Cleveland, said in an e-mail.
That is why our nation is so f***ed up.
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Message, don't count count on the courts!
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Republican attorneys general in 13 states say congressional leaders must remove Nebraska’s political deal from the federal health care overhaul bill or face legal action, according to a letter provided to the Associated Press yesterday.
“We believe this provision is constitutionally flawed,’’ South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and the 12 other attorneys general wrote in the letter to be sent last night to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid....
The letter was also signed by top prosecutors in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington state. All are Republicans, and McMaster and the attorneys general of Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are running for governor in their respective states....
Ever notice it is only political if Republicans do it?
That sure seems to be the inference in the "liberal" papers!
Last week, McMaster said he was leading several other attorneys general in an inquiry into the constitutionality of the Nelson deal, which he has dubbed the “cornhusker kickback.’’ McMaster said that if the bill goes through to final approval with the benefit to Nebraska, taxpayers in the other 49 states will have to pay for it.
Meanwhile, Nelson is taking his message on health care directly to his constituents. In a television ad beginning during last night’s Nebraska-Arizona Holiday Bowl football game, he says he stuck by his principles throughout the health care debate.
PFFFFFFFFFTTT!!!
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Related: Senator Kerry Really Cares About You
And what is the LAST THING you want to do when considering health care?
WASHINGTON - The public option is gone. Expansion of Medicare is dead. But an intense fight continues over a crucial issue in the proposed health care overhaul: how far Congress should go in emulating the type of insurance marketplace that is at the center of the pioneering Massachusetts insurance program.
Related: The Massachusetts Model: Padding Insurer Profits
Called “exchanges’’ in the federal health bills and modeled on the Massachusetts Health Connector, they would enable people to compare and purchase insurance as easily as they shop for airline tickets at an all-in-one travel website.
I have BEEN THERE, readers, and you JUST END UP MAKING a TELEPHONE CALL ANYWAY!!!
The concept of such comparison shopping is generally backed by insurance firms, but exchanges are also controversial because Democrats in Congress want to use them to impose greater oversight and cost controls on insurance companies, requiring them to provide certain levels of coverage at lower profit margins.
The fight over how much regulatory power to give the exchanges “is at the core of the health care reform package,’’ said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s lobby.
The debate over the exchanges has taken on greater urgency now that the Senate has purged a government insurance plan from its bill and killed the idea of expanding Medicare eligibility. If the Senate approves its health care bill tomorrow morning as expected, how the exchanges will work in the historic insurance coverage expansion will be a central element of negotiations to meld the House and Senate bills next month....
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who has become one of the most vocal opponents of the Senate health care bill, said the exchanges could be “sort of a backwards way of putting the kind of regulation on insurance companies that the public option would have done,’’ while emphasizing the public option would be more effective.
Similarly, Senator Paul Kirk, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in an interview that robust exchanges are the “next best thing’’ to the public option....
How come WE CAN'T HAVE the BEST like YOU, senator?
See: A Healthy Insult For the American People
Yup, and YOU PAY FOR IT ALL, American taxpayers!!
So WHY CAN'T YOU HAVE "THEIR" PLAN?
The discussion about the public option “was much ado about little.... ,’’ said Jonathan Gruber, an MIT professor on the board of the Massachusetts Health Connector.
Oh, so my suspicion of all this "debate" being nothing but a HUGE, STEAMING, STINKING TURD FOOLEY are proved TRUE, huh?
Jon Kingsdale, executive director of Massachusetts Health Connector Authority, estimated that the state’s program has cut the annual premium increase in some insurance plans in half.
Please stop the deceptions.
Related: The Massachusetts Model: Comes At a Premium
Translated to a national level, that would mean a $30 billion savings over 10 years if a similar plan is adopted for all states by Congress, Kingsdale said.
He's talking SAVINGS as our PRICE-GOUGING PROFITEERS charge us TRIPLE!
Nothing like a SELF-SERVING LIAR to make you SICK!
The Massachusetts Connector, with about a half-dozen providers participating, has helped increase the number of Bay State residents with insurance to 97 percent as of last spring, according to the authority.
One of the top worries of health insurance companies is that the bills before Congress would increase regulation of health insurance companies through the exchanges, while simultaneously requiring them to spend 80 to 85 percent of their premium revenue on health care services....
How about spending 97% like the GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS you BILK, s***ters?!!!!
Zirkelbach, of America’s Health Insurance Companies, said forcing insurance companies to spend 80 percent or more of premiums on direct health care is “not viable,’’ saying it would make it difficult for companies to spend on innovative measures.
Yup, "the political realities of health care reform, which depends in large part on tacit support from drug makers and other industry groups"
But it is ALL FOR YOU and YOUR GOOD HEALTH, American!!
Currently, some for-profit companies spend as little as 60 percent of premiums on health care services, with the rest going to administrative costs, a variety of expenses, and profits, according to a report by Families USA, a nonprofit that favors health care reform.
Yeah, MOSTLY PROFITS and it is called LOOTING!!!!!!!!!!
Some nonprofit health plans spend about 90 percent on health care services.....
That is more like it.
“The Senate bill goes a long way toward lowering costs and increasing affordable options,’’ said Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, in an e-mail yesterday. “This was a big damn deal to make national reform honor the best innovations already succeeding in Massachusetts.’’
Won't he just shut up already?
And does HE have to "lower himself" to "my level" by SWEARING?!!!
Insurance companies could be expelled from the exchanges if rate increases are deemed excessive, under both versions of the bill.
In what is known as the EMPTY THREAT!
I mean, who do you think is sending in the campaign loot?
While details remain to be finalized, it is expected that the exchanges would be used mainly by individuals or small businesses that do not have insurance. Those categories of consumers face sky-high premiums in the current insurance market. The exchanges would be open to both lower-income people who are eligible for federal subsidies as well as people of all income levels who are shopping for insurance.
The exchanges would not be created for three or four years, depending on which version of the legislation is adopted.
How come YOU MUST ALWAYS WAIT, America?
Banks, war looters, and Israel never do.
However, White House officials said this week that insurance companies that arbitrarily increase rates before then will be excluded from the exchanges, which they said will provide an incentive to keep rates lower in the meantime.
The Massachusetts exchange program, which was set up in 2006 to expand coverage, has wide support. Mario Motta, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, said the Health Connector program “has worked well. . . . It has helped keep costs down.’’
I'm kind of sick of the self-serving lies, readers, so I'm going to go to bed.
Not feeling too well.
At least I know it is not swine flu:
"Swine flu may be less contagious than feared; Most households with illness keep it to one patient" by Marilynn Marchione, Associated Press | December 31, 2009
NEW YORK - Swine flu is less contagious than the novel viruses that have caused big world outbreaks in the past, new research suggests....
So it was all a scam, huh?
A 3-year-old got an H1N1 shot in San Francisco. Children under 4 are most susceptible. (Associated Press)
Poor kid.
Related: Swine Flu Saviors
Standing in Line at the Swine Flu Clinic
Yeah, they know!
The second wave of cases now seems to have peaked, and health specialists do not know if another surge lies ahead....
In homes where the germ was transmitted, researchers found something unexpected: “People at all ages were just as likely to spread the virus,’’ Lyn Finelli of the CDC's flu division said. “That was surprising, since we always think of kids as super-spreaders.’’
The study was funded by public and private health-related groups in England and the United States.--more--"
"Swine flu on the wane in most states" by Associated Press | January 1, 2010
ATLANTA - Health officials say swine flu was widespread in only four states - Delaware, Maine, New Jersey, and Virginia - last week, indicating the fall wave of illness is still declining....
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the new data yesterday. CDC officials say swine flu vaccine is increasingly easy to get, with more than 118 million doses now available. They say people should still get vaccinated because there could be another wave of infections.
And WE WILL BE ETERNALLY VIGILANT for any signs of the GLOBALIST GENOCIDE PLOT as their agenda-pushers yo-yo use around!!
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Update: 'Premature' to declare pandemic over: WHO
"The pandemic only existed because WHO changed the threshold for declaring one. And note the very last sentence in which the head of the WHO admits she herself never got the vaccine. This was just another "scare 'em and loot 'em" lie by corporations, government, and media. See European Parliament to Investigate WHO and “Pandemic” Scandal"-- Wake the Flock Up