Patients First is an Americans for Prosperity project focusing on educating people about the health care proposals currently before Congress and why more government is not the answer. Tomorrow, they are initiating a National Call Congress Day, making it easier than ever for people to contact their representatives and make their voices heard. Just click on the link for the campaign, enter your zip code, and it will bring up your Senators’ contact information. If you “click to call now”, you can enter your phone number, and someone will call you to connect you to your Senator. Unavailable during working hours? No problem — they will connect you to their voicemail where you can give them a piece of your mind.

Thanks to everyday Americans becoming informed and engaging with their representatives, the left’s big-government health care proposals lost steam, despite controlling the White House and both houses of Congress. But the fight’s not over yet. So, I urge everyone to take a few minutes out of their day tomorrow to contact their Senators. With Patients First making it so effortless, what have you got to lose?

The WSJ reports:

“The vice president will present new White House findings that “health insurance premiums in states have gone up between 90-150% over the last decade,” according to speech excerpts released by the White House.

“This new state by state data is astounding and makes the case for nationwide reform. From Alaska — where premiums increased 145% while wages grew just 35% — to Florida, where premiums increased 121% while wages increased 43% — even, to Michigan, where the 37% gap between premiums and wages is actually the smallest — all around the country, we see these gaps widening,” Mr. Biden is expected to say.

Mr. Biden will use the appearance to press for ground rules for all insurance companies “to restore stability and security to our health-care system.” The rules, which Mr. Obama has called for frequently, would ban insurers from refusing to cover people based on gender, pre-existing conditions or dropping the policies of those who become seriously ill. The rules would also expand coverage for young people and ban insurers from charging “exorbitant” out-of-pocket deductibles or co-pays, or placing annual or lifetime caps on coverage.”

So the White House’s answer to rising insurance costs continues to be to extend coverage to more people while at the same time limiting the amount those people pay in to the system. More people, less money coming in, and this is supposed to curb our health care problems. Apparently, Americans’ insistence this summer that this formula doesn’t make sense to them hasn’t resonated with the White House, which is continuing its push for reform with the same old, broken talking points.

In the excerpt from Biden’s speech, he specifically calls out Alaska, Florida and Michigan. What if, rather than using these states as strategic pawns to push their plans for health care, the administration steps back and commits to taking a closer look at those states in an attempt to determine what is contributing to high health care premiums on the ground there?

And, how about instead of just focusing on states with high costs, it also looks at states that are faring well, with low premiums, an abundance of doctors, low liability rates for doctors and multiple insurers competing for business?

Instead, the administration thinks that singling out states with high premiums will automatically convince Americans that we need their health care reforms and we need them now.  Never mind that they are overlooking that the government and its regulations are part of the problem, so simply adding more to the mix will not be a cure-all.

Why not look at states like Texas and Missouri that had serious health care problems, with doctors in short supply, sky-high liability rates for medical professionals and a dwindling number of insurers willing to do business in the state? At one point, this was the case for both Texas and Missouri.

By passing tort reform in the way of limiting non-economic damages and venue shopping, these states were able to turn their situations around. By implementing these reforms, they lowered the number of malpractice suits thereby lowering the costs of medical malpractice insurance. This in turn, gave doctors and insurers a reason to return to their states to practice medicine and compete for business. Insurance premiums decreased, making insurance available to more people.

What better proof is there that the new system worked than an article like this one from the ABA mourning the loss of work for trial lawyers in Texas post-tort reform?

In Texas, the number of lawsuits filed between 2002 and 2005 fell by 55%. In Missouri, lawsuits fell by 91% after enacting reforms. Missouri Gov. Barbour says,

“It’s mysterious to me that the administration and the leadership of Congress talk about health care reform and the goal of reducing costs, and yetrefuse to put tort reform into the legislation,” he said. “I believe $200, $250 billion a year in health care costs is caused by litigation. It may be more than that. But this is the lowest hanging fruit, this ain’t rocket science. If they want a demonstration project, come down to Mississippi, and I’ll show you a demonstration project.”

I won’t hold my breath waiting for the White House to take Barbour up on his offer. But, if they are truly serious about making a dent in our health care problems, they must lay their old talking points to rest and start studying state programs — those that work and don’t work — before they start imposing blanket reforms on the whole country.

*Originally published September 22, 2009 on the American Issues Project Blog, here.

His statement was in regard to the “$900, on average — our families [pay] in higher premiums because of uncompensated care.” The President’s position is to regulate behavior and force everyone to either carry insurance or pay a fine.

“The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore.“

As I wrote last week here on AIP, this assertion that we are all collectively picking up the tab for the uninsured to the tune of $900 to $1100 a year per family, is false. Unfortunately, the media has been slow to fact-check the President’s talking points on health care reform. The WSJ picked up the story about Otto Raddatz just last week when I wrote about it on AIP almost a month ago. Perhaps now that the President has repeated this fallacious claim about the uninsured a few more times, the media will cast some sunlight on the truth.

But, the President’s flawed data isn’t the only issue. It’s the sentiment he expressed in defending his plan, that we’re not going to have some people carry the burden for others. For today only, and only when it comes to this topic of the uninsured and their effect on premiums, the President positioned himself as against pinning the burden on one segment of society for the benefit of another.

But, isn’t this what his Presidency is based on? On all of us being each other’s keepers? How many times has he told reporters that successful people like him should pay more in taxes than the waitress struggling to make ends meet (an example he took a liking to on the campaign trail)?

Yet today, by the President’s logic, he expressed that when people don’t shoulder their responsibilities, when they expect for everyone else to carry them, everyone else pays the price. The collective suffers. And, this time, President Obama finds this unacceptable.

Surprised? Why the change from his normal philosophy of fairness — that is, taking from one group to pay for another because it’s the fair, socially just thing to do? What are we missing? What happened today?

The answer is that this is a good for today only, health-care specific policy he’s carved out. There is no reconciling his statement today with his belief that ‘spreading the wealth around’ is the only way to success.

Charles Krauthammer wrote an excellent article this weekend on President Obama’s shaky relationship with the truth. He writes, “Obama doesn’t lie. He merely elides, gliding from one dubious assertion to another.” When one tactic doesn’t work, he moves on to the next ploy. Krauthammer perfectly sums up Obama’s approach to his health care pitch. If you like your insurance, you can keep it — didn’t work. The public option is just an option — didn’t work. I will not sign a plan that adds a dime to the deficit — didn’t work. Illegal immigrants will not be covered under our plan — didn’t work.

So, our salesperson-in-chief moved on to his next gambit. Is it to obfuscate? To sound conservative? I’m not sure. What I do know is that President Obama’s policies embrace a philosophy that is completely opposed to the one he peddled today. But, with his health care proposals remaining unpopular, I guess he’ll try anything to sell his plan — including throwing a little conservative philosophy in there.  Many including Karl Rove and George Will have pointed out that when the President talks about health care, the poll numbers go down. This week’s numbers will tell whether this new untrustworthy sales tactic worked.

*Originally published September 20, 2009 on the American Issues Project Blog, here.

Given our President’s tendency to distort facts, I looked into the story of this Illinois man, who I found out was Mr. Otto Raddatz. And, it turned out the President’s version of what happened to Mr. Raddatz was untrue. Since then, I’ve been wondering if anyone in the media would pick up on this story, and finally, Scott Harrington did so today in the WSJ.

Below is a reposting of my original piece on the American Issues Project Blog on August 23, 2009.
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Debunking willful misrepresentations in the health care debate: the story of Otto Raddatz.

President Obama used his weekly address yesterday to “debunk[] some of the more outrageous myths circulating on the internet, on cable TV, and repeated at some town halls across this country.” If we’re clearing the air of falsehoods related to health care, then there is one story in particular that the President himself has referred to on a number of occasions that he should have corrected. That is the story of an Illinois businessman named Otto Raddatz.

At a town hall forum in New Hampshire on August 11, referring to Mr. Raddatz, President Obama said:

“Another [man] lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered he had gall stones that he hadn’t known about when he applied for insurance. Now, that is wrong, and that will change when we pass health care reform. That is going to be a priority.”

A few days later at a town hall in Montana, the President repeated this story.

“One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer discovered he hadn’t reported gall stones he didn’t know about. True story. Because his treatment was delayed, he died. “

And on August 15, Obama penned an op-ed in the New York Times titled, “Why We Need Health Care Reform” where he repeated the story for a third time.

“A man lost his health coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered that he had gallstones, which he hadn’t known about when he applied for his policy. Because his treatment was delayed, he died.”

The story the President relates of this innocent person who played by the rules and maintained insurance only to have it fail him in his time of a need is indeed a powerful, persuasive story … except that it’s not entirely true.

Here’s the true story, based on testimony from Mr. Raddatz’s sister at a hearing before the House of Representatives’ on June 16, 2009.

Mr. Raddatz was a restaurant owner in Illinois who purchased an individual insurance policy for himself and his wife in 2003. On the original insurance application, he indicated that he had a history of kidney stones and was a smoker. A year into the policy, at the age of 59, Mr. Raddatz found himself losing weight rapidly and sought medical attention. It was then that he was diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkins type lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system. After undergoing a series of chemotherapy and drug treatments, he was referred to a specialist for high-dose chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.

At that time, he was informed by his insurer that his insurance was being cancelled due to his failure to disclose material information about his medical history – namely that he had a history of gall stones and an aneurysm. As it turns out, Mr. Raddatz was unaware of this diagnosis, having never been given the test results this information came from.

This happened just as Mr. Raddatz was told that he only had a 3-4 week window in which to get the stem cell transplant he needed. With his insurance rescinded, he could not afford to pay for the procedure out-of-pocket. His sister, Peggy Raddatz, reached out to the Illinois Attorney General’s office who reviewed the situation and sent two letters to the insurance company arguing that Mr. Raddatz had not lied to the insurance company since he had been unaware of the test results and had in fact, never received any treatment for either of those issues.

The insurance company reinstated his insurance policy. He went on to receive the stem cell transplant, “which was extremely successfully” and enabled him to live for three and a half more years. He passed away when, while being scheduled to have a second transplant, his donor suddenly died.

Now in President Obama’s version of the story, Mr. Raddatz died because his treatment was delayed. That is a lie. Mr. Raddatz’s story is powerful in terms of illustrating problems with the insurance industry. It is particularly relevant that he was self-insured, given the problems with the individual insurance market, the low numbers and high turnover of participants and the lack of tax benefits which make it less attractive to individuals. All of this makes the pool of participants amongst which claims can be distributed even smaller, resulting in higher costs to individuals and the insurance companies themselves.

But, that wasn’t the President’s point. He didn’t tell this story to promote reforms in the individual insurance market, to make it equitable with employer-based insurance by giving it the same tax benefits or allowing people to purchase insurance from any state they’d like. Instead, this was a story, much like the cases of tonsil-removing, foot-amputating doctors, that was meant to vilify the insurance industry and exploit people’s emotions given the tragic ending Mr. Raddatz faced at the hands of his evil insurance company under President Obama’s made-up version of the story. If, as he said this weekend, President Obama really wants to open a new chapter, “not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortions”, then perhaps he should start leading by example.

A 2008 study by the Urban Institute for the Kaiser Family Foundation looked at the 2005 study and concluded:

“[W]e are highly skeptical that the high and growing cost of private insurance is strongly related, if at all, to the amount of uncompensated care delivered by private providers or to the growing number of uninsured people.

Jack Hadley, the lead researcher on the KFF study, [told Factcheck.org] that to assume that the insured end up paying for all uncompensated care is “clearly an exaggeration.” According to KFF, the amount of uncompensated care that providers could shift to the privately insured is much less, only $8 billion, not the $42.7 billion Families USA said could be passed on to premium payers in 2008. The KFF number is less than 19 percent of Families USA’s, and by [Factcheck.org's] figuring that implies a per-family increase in health insurance premiums of less than $200 a year, not $1,000.“

As for the President’s argument that the uninsured overuse emergency rooms, a study by the University of Michigan found the exact opposite to be true. In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association their team concluded that:

“The uninsured do not make up a disproportionate share of ER patients, because they are the only group that faces the full cost of care…Although it challenges some of the most-repeated mantras about the uninsured and ER care, the study does confirm that solid evidence exists for many of the things that Americans have come to believe about the uninsured and emergency care.

For instance, the study shows, the number of people without insurance visiting American ERs is rising — but less quickly than the numbers of uninsured are rising. Meanwhile, patients with insurance are going to the ER more frequently.

There is also solid evidence that caring for patients — insured and uninsured — in an ER is more expensive than treating the same complaint in a doctor’s office. Uninsured people definitely have a hard time finding primary care doctors who will see them as outpatients, but even insured patients have difficulty finding primary care.

“What we found is that there is a perception that — because one of the roles of the emergency room is a safety net for the uninsured — it is the uninsured who must be causing all the problems in ER care,” says first author and emergency physician Manya Newton, M.D., MPH, M.S., a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the U-M Medical School.

“The crisis in emergency medicine and the problems of the growing uninsured population have been conflated,” she said. “While there’s excellent research out there on both issues, the myths about how the uninsured use the emergency department threaten to interfere with the policy-making process. The rise in ER use has much more to do with the aging of the population, the increase in chronic diseases, and the decrease in available primary care than with the uninsured. Policies based on false assumptions risk diverting energy and money from confronting the true drivers of emergency department crowding.”

At the least, Newton and her co-authors conclude from their review, ER policy solutions will need to address the lack of timely access to primary care by the uninsured and insured alike.”

So much for the uninsured monopolizing emergency rooms and increasing costs for everyone.

But, as it turns out, the President is right in pointing out that those who have private insurance do foot the bill for others who underpay. What the President got wrong is who this culprit is who underpays and leaves others having to pay the bills. Since it happens to be the government when it underpays for Medicare and Medicaid services, this is a hidden tax the President doesn’t want you to know about.

ObamaCare opponents argue that these already existing public programs add to the high cost of private insurance. More specifically, when the government imposes its own fee structure on providers, and thereby underpays them, they find ways to recoup those lost fees. And by now, you can probably guess who bears this expense — taxpaying, insured, private citizens like you and me.

A recent article by Grace-Marie Turner and Joseph Antos in the WSJ explains:

“According to Milliman, an independent actuarial firm, Medicare—and to an even greater extent, Medicaid—underpays doctors and hospitals, shifting costs to private insurers. Milliman estimates that the average family in a private PPO health plan pays an additional $1,788 a year to compensate for underpayments by Medicare and Medicaid, representing a “hidden tax” on commercial payers totaling $89 billion a year.”

Providers could not keep their doors open without the higher payments from private insurers. A recent letter to Congress from 13 leading health-care delivery organizations, including the Mayo Clinic, said “many providers suffer great financial losses associated with treating Medicare patients.” They said that if these rates were expanded to patients who currently have private insurance, the result “will be unsustainable for even the nation’s most efficient, high quality providers, eventually driving them out of the market. “That means we would say goodbye to some of the best health-care systems in the country.

Yet, as he laid out in his speech to Congress this week, President Obama’s goal is to insure everyone under a Medicare/Medicaid type system. So the critical question then becomes, who will pick up these costs if a Medicare-for-all system is implemented?

ObamaCare supporters have not answered that question. Instead, their response to critics who point out that private companies cannot compete with this government-run system is that the public option is just an option. This default response does not address the issue, and their dismissal of such an important question is one reason why they are losing the health care debate. Just last week, former Senate Majority Leader and HHS Nominee Tom Daschle mocked those who are concerned with the public option, laughing at what he sees as the illogical argument that the public option is bad because it would be so popular. Clearly, Mr. Daschle misses the point. Critics of the bill are concerned with the bill’s constraints on individuals and private businesses via mandates and on insurance companies via regulations — all of which will result in 1) increased premiums for private insurance and 2) as many as 88.1 million people being forced into the public option (see The Lewin Group’s study).

President Obama stated this week that his door is open to those with alternative proposals. The 13 health care organizations that wrote that letter to Congress actually support health care reform, just not the President’s version. If he truly cares about health care, he’d do well to start listening to them and to stop using false information, like his claim about the cost of the uninsured visiting emergency rooms, to support his program. Obama often refers to the greater good, the socially just thing to do. Well, in this case, it’s to make sure that health care providers never have to shut their doors, or else it won’t matter how many are or aren’t insured.

*Originally published September 13, 2009 on The American Issues Project Blog, here.

So no matter how good of a presentation he gives, no matter how passionate or charismatic his final pleas to the jury, it has already made up its mind. In my evidence class in law school, I was taught that 90% of people make up their minds about cases during the opening arguments. From the beginning of this debate, the American people have viewed Democrats’ proposals for what they really are — a means of injecting the federal government into the health care system. So long as the President stays the course and continues to support government intervention in health care, he won’t change the jury’s mind.

Adding to the weakness of his case, the President’s colleagues, his co-counsel if you will, continuously hurt his case by making it clear that 1) they aren’t listening to the American people, and 2) they are avoiding the tough work of creating new policies and instead playing word games.

Case in point, Speaker Pelosi. Reuters reported today that:

“Pelosi said she remained committed to the idea of a public insurance option to compete with private insurers. which has scared off Republicans and some centrist Democrats. But she said that overall House Democrats were 85 percent in agreement on the way forward and that these differences would narrow.”We make a distinction between those who want to obstruct the debate and those who have legitimate concerns,” Pelosi said.”

That’s Pelosi code for: bipartisanship has long been dead. Those people that have concerns about the legislation we’ve drafted in the House, they are Astroturfing, un-American obstructionists we can’t be bothered with. So much for civic participation or bipartisanship. She’s too busy working on backroom deals with Democrats she might be able to appease than to worry about what the American people have to say.

Then, Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said this:

“I find it interesting that many of the conservative and Republican opponents to a public option oppose it in large measure because it would be so popular. I mean, that’s their argument. Everybody is going to go to this public plan, even though we guarantee that it’s going to have a level playing field. But their opposition is because it’s going to be so popular, they oppose it.”

When you’re done laughing, maybe you can direct me to a link where a conservative has indicated that their problem with the public option is that it’s going to drive private insurance out of business because of its immense popularity. Is that what Mr. Daschle thinks The Lewin Group concluded when it released its study predicting that 83.4 million people would lose their insurance and be forced into the public option thanks to expensive mandates on businesses and increasing costs of private insurance due to government regulations included in this bill? Clearly, Mr. Daschle is just as confused about that study and about the choices Americans want to preserve for themselves as he was about including his car and driver as a gift on his tax returns.

Finally, President Obama himself said this yesterday at an AFL-CIO picnic.

“We have never been this close. We’ve never had such broad agreement on what needs to be done. And because we’re so close to real reform, suddenly the special interests are doing what they always do, which is just try to scare the heck out of people.”

Why is it that dissent from the left is a ‘legitimate concern’, but when the right dissents, it’s trying to scare the heck out of people? According to a Rasmussen poll, 53% of Americans oppose health care reform, and 68% believe liberals’ reforms will increase the deficit. And, it’s not because they’ve had the heck scared out of them or because they’re afraid of the bill’s popularity. It’s because they’re concerned about the road this is taking us on, about our country’s financial future and about their own health care. Despite how difficult Congress has made it for Americans to read these bills, with the House bill reaching over 1,000 pages and the Senate bill not far behind at a little over 600 pages, Americans did their homework this summer.

The left is losing the case, and it’s not due to a lack of speeches by the President.

“Since the start of June, Obama has given 25 speeches and statements alone on his health care plan, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who keeps a detailed log of presidential activities. And that doesn’t include a battery of interviews on the topic.”

As Jonah Goldberg points out,

“His July 22 press conference was billed as perhaps Obama’s last chance to save health-care reform. It tanked…Afterward, public support for Obamacare dropped significantly. A Pew poll taken that week found that more people opposed the proposals being considered by Congress than supported them, and that Obama’s overall approval had dropped 7 points from the previous month. Other polls showed similar declines.”

America doesn’t need another speech. Unless President Obama gives us something new tomorrow evening, he will lose even more supporters. Americans don’t want a rebranding of the issues. They want narrowly tailored solutions to specific problems – tax benefits for individual insurance, opening up insurance markets across state lines, addressing pre-existing conditions and tort reform. President Obama’s only chance to turn around the jury’s opinion is to change course and address these topics. In law, closing arguments cannot contain new information. Luckily for President Obama, he is not bound by any rules tomorrow night. If he truly cares about health care, he will tear up his old closing argument and start over with a new plan that addresses Americans’ concerns and brings Republicans into the fold. If not, his closing statement will be nothing more than another rhetorical exercise on a jury that made up its mind months ago.

*Originally published September 8, 2009 on The American Issues Project Blog, here.

Not only was Durbin clueless when it came to individual mandates in the House bill (which really, by this time, you don’t even have to have read the bill to know it includes individual mandates), but he continued to spread misinformation about our current system as a way of justifying his government-centric health care goals – namely, that most bankruptcies are caused by medical problems. My stomach hurts at the idea of listening to him closely enough to transcribe where he addresses this, but here goes anyway.

“I’m glad for your experience and that you came out of it without debt, but you are an exception. When you look at the filings for personal bankruptcy in America today, 31% were for medical bills just a few years ago, that’s doubled. And, it turns out that of the 62% who are filing for personal and family bankruptcy because of medical bills, 78% have health insurance. It’s just not good health insurance, and it doesn’t cover them…a lot of people are facing bankruptcy today because they’re not in that good position. And, I’d like to take you back to one sentence you said, the government is going to force us to take an option. Listen to what you said. It’s an option. If you don’t want to choose the government plan, you don’t have to. It’s an option. You can choose private health insurance.”

I’m no math whiz, but Durbin thinks that 62% of individual bankruptcies are because of medical bills that pile up. First of all, even under his own theory, he says that close to 80% of those people have health insurance, but it just doesn’t work for them. That’s false; the controversial study he’s referencing states that nearly 2/3 of personal bankruptcies are due to uninsured medical treatment and loss of coverage. Brett Skinner of AEI’s The American analyzed the study and also compared American and Canadian rates of bankruptcy due to medical reasons, since Canada already has the type of system we’re heading toward.

“Th[is] medical bankruptcy study has been soundly refuted by several researchers. This includes critiques published by David Dranove and Michael Millenson in Health Affairs and a working paper by the American Enterprise Institute’s Aparna Mathur.

The idea that large numbers of Americans are declaring bankruptcy due to medical expenses is a myth. Dranove and Millenson critically analyzed the data from the 2005 edition of the medical bankruptcy study. They found that medical spending was a contributing factor in only 17 percent of U.S. bankruptcies. They also reviewed other research, including studies by the Department of Justice, finding that medical debts accounted for only 12 percent to 13 percent of the total debts among American bankruptcy filers who cited medical debt as one of their reasons for bankruptcy.

As for the notion that greater government involvement in health insurance will reduce bankruptcy, it is helpful to compare personal bankruptcy rates in the United States and Canada. Unlike the United States, Canada has a universal, government-run health insurance system. Following the logic of Himmelstein and colleagues, we should therefore expect to observe a lower rate of personal bankruptcy in Canada compared to the United States.

Yet the evidence shows that in the only comparable years, personal bankruptcy rates were actually higher in Canada. Personal bankruptcy filings as a percentage of the population were 0.20 percent in the United States during 2006 and 0.27 percent in 2007. In Canada, the numbers are 0.30 percent in both 2006 and 2007. The data are from government sources and defined in similar ways for both countries and cover the time period after the legal reforms to U.S. bankruptcy laws in 2005 and before the onset of the 2008 economic recession.The truth is that the majority of debt among bankrupt consumers in both Canada and the United States is comprised of non-medical expenditures and therefore has little to do with health insurance coverage.

On the rare occasion that medical debts do partially contribute to bankruptcy, they likely accumulate from patients’ demands for the kinds of expensive, cutting-edge or end-of-life treatments that would never be covered by government insurance anyway. It is a fact that many of these same types of expensive treatments are increasingly not insured by government healthcare in Canada. Survey research commissioned by the Canadian government found that despite having a government-run health system, medical reasons (including uninsured expenses), were cited as the primary cause of bankruptcy by approximately 15 percent of bankrupt Canadian seniors (55 years of age and older).

There is no objective evidence to indicate that a government-run health care system in the United States will reduce personal bankruptcies. The U.S.-Canada comparative analysis strongly suggests that bankruptcy statistics are being exaggerated and distorted for political reasons.”

The Dranove and Millenson study Skinner cites found that among the 17% whose bankruptcies appear to be linked to an inability to pay their medical bills, most have income within the poverty level. They certainly don’t have private insurance that doesn’t work for them as Durbin suggested.

And it’s no wonder Durbin didn’t want to hold any town hall forums this summer when his strongest argument was, look at the phrase you used, public option. What should he have called it? The public-no-other-option? The step 1 to single-payer public option? I mean, come on, that’s all you’ve got Senator? Your only answer is to play semantics with a man who got up and told you his personal health story of overcoming Hodgkins lymphoma, and you remind him of the label Democrats chose to place on this monstrous transformation of our health care system? Perhaps you raise a good point; perhaps those of us that are anti-ObamaCare ought to stop calling it an ‘option’ altogether since it’s been shown over and over that that term is clearly not based in reality.

Or, here’s another thought Senator. Before you start getting all clever on us with your word games, and before you have another panel discussion about health care, how about you sit down and at the very least, even if you don’t read the House bill since I guess that would be beneath you as a Senator (and you wouldn’t have time for that given all that you’ve been…hey, what exactly have you been working on all summer? This constituent would like to know, but I digress…), why don’t you at least do some research and inform yourself as to what the issues are before you start accusing others of ‘misrepresenting the issues’, ‘sucker-punching their opponents’ and ‘engaging in political theater’?

“Someone once said to me, “This is a Trojan horse for single payer,” and I said, “Well, it’s not a Trojan horse, right? It’s just right there…I’m telling you, we’re going to get there, over time, slowly.’”

Sure enough, that is the approach peddled by Democrats this summer. But, Americans never bought it. Did Democrats lose people because Americans didn’t want the government involved in their health affairs? Because their general anti-government fears were awakened? Or because liberal politicians weren’t successful at selling their second choice?

The answer as to why Democrats failed so enormously on their signature policy after an overwhelmingly successful election cycle: all of the above. It’s clear that the facts weren’t on their side; we’ve seen ObamaCare fail to stand up to substantive analyses time and time again. In short, you cannot provide more coverage at a lesser cost. And, you cannot create competition through government involvement because the government will always have an unfair advantage.

But, from a more superficial, strategic point of view, Democrats not only lost, but were knocked out of the park because they lacked a clear vision of what they wanted. We still don’t know what their single, overarching priority was – to increase coverage? To control costs? To stick it to the evil insurance companies? To bring socialized medicine to America? Democrats thought they could rely on the trusty campaign slogans and idealistic rhetoric that won them the election to pass their agenda through. Ironically, Democrats and specifically the Obama administration, generally held in high esteem as being master communicators, failed to articulate their vision.

And now, the Democrats’ Operation Health Care version 2.0 calls for:

“Convinc[ing] members that nothing is set in stone and that they are more than open to negotiations. And they’re engaging in a softer sell, prioritizing health insurance reforms while pitching the public option as something that’s way, way down the road…Whatever course the negotiations take, Democrats say the key is convincing heartburn-ridden members that they are flexible.”

Flexible? What does this mean? Does it meant they’re prepared to lay the public option to rest? Putting a public option in place now that kicks in in 2013 is bad for everyone – health care opponents and supporters alike. Opponents want no part in a public option, and supporters want it now. What’s the bottom line here? There can be no middle ground between government-run health care and a private system. What are Democrats willing to concede? What aren’t they willing to concede? With Democrats having pursued universal health care for half a century, you’d think they’d have solidified a plan of action by now.

One possibility is that this new strategy is baloney, that Democrats have not learned anything from this summer and that they’re just playing word games. Another is that they have determined that this is the only way for them to save face – to pass some kind of health care reform even if it means putting the public option off while they regroup.

House leaders, realizing the situation is volatile and could be the decisive factor in the 2010 election cycle, are reportedly going to wait until a Senate bill is on its way to the floor before voting on their own health care bill.

“We’re not going to make our guys walk off the cliff without seeing what the hell the Senate does,” said one House Democratic leadership aide.”

Indeed. If ‘walking off a cliff’ is code for ‘voting for a public option’, that is exactly what they’d be doing.

*Originally published September 1, 2009 on the American Issues Project Blog, here.

The article explains:

“On July 15, six weeks ago, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed an amended $1 trillion health-care bill, with acting Chairman Chris Dodd calling it a “historic achievement.” Too bad the committee won’t reveal this history even to other Senators, much less to the public.Three weeks ago Republicans on the committee wrote Mr. Dodd “to reiterate our request for a full copy of the bill as amended, in the four-week mark-up.” Mr. Dodd has refused to comply. The Senate bill that is available on the committee Web site is 790 pages long. While that is some 300 pages shorter than the House health bill, that’s in part because it doesn’t include nearly 200 amendments that passed when the committee redrafted the bill. Amended sections of the bill might as well be written in invisible ink.

We called Mr. Dodd’s committee office last week to ask why the bill isn’t posted, and a spokesman explained that it is still being “worked on.” Will it be ready by October? “Don’t count on it,” the staffer said.”

You might think, doesn’t this violate some kind of public information or access law for a Senator to do this? The answer is no. When Congress passed the Freedom of Information Act, they cleverly wrote themselves out of the bill, exempting themselves from the requirement to disclose. Second, if the bill that came out of HELP is indeed a ‘historic achievement’ as Dodd has lauded, that’s all the more reason to release the bill, isn’t it? With the Obama administration hitting Americans’ anti-government nerves as Steve Chapman put it, who wouldn’t want to be the one to unveil a health care plan of such magnitude, and be seen as the compromiser, the negotiator in chief that united the two sides on this debate? Right?

Seems like something fishy is going on here. I’d imagine Dodd would be all too happy to wrap himself in the mantle of bipartisanship and to be seen as carrying on the torch for the late Sen. Kennedy. So, what’s really going on? What reasons would Dodd have for not releasing the bill? Having witnessed how heated debates over health care have been all across the country, could it be that he’s scared to unveil this ‘historic’ legislation?

Let’s look at what we do know about the bill. Has it dropped the public option? It doesn’t look like it. On July 7, as his committee was beginning to parse the bill, Dodd said that the bill must include a public option. But, then again, he also said that “only through an open and collaborative process [can] we succeed.” All signs point to him staying faithful to the first point, not so much to the latter.

Does the bill impose fines, thereby penalizing individuals who choose to opt out of the public option? This is another topic that has added fuel to the health care debate. Once again, Dodd has stuck to the liberal course, assessing “shared responsibility payments” (what a lovely way to say punishment) on those who choose not to purchase health insurance.

Does the bill similarly penalize employers who aren’t able to provide insurance to employees? You guessed right – it sure does.

Does it give us more information on how health care costs will be reigned in? Or on how costs will be controlled? Not yet; it leaves this to the Senate Finance Committee which is still grappling with the issue.

Ok, ok, well what about purchasing insurance across state lines? Surely it makes some progress on that issue? No, I couldn’t find any mention of this approach or any of the other approaches conservatives have suggested in the way of reforms in the summary of the bill. So much for bipartisanship.

Finally, what about public funding of abortions? That must have been taken out of the bill, right? On the contrary, Sen. Dodd has no problem with public funds going toward abortions; after all, he is all for choice - just not when it comes to you picking your own insurance or your own doctor. When Sen. Hatch offered an amendment prohibiting federal funds from going toward abortion, it was rejected.

The bill passed through committee 13-10, with all 10 Republicans voting against the bill.

“A good bill that is bipartisan obviously has a chance of not only succeeding but also being sustained, so there’s a value in achieving that bipartisanship.”But not at the expense of a good bill. “I will not sacrifice a good bill for that. That’s not the goal here,” Dodd said.”

Finally, we have some honesty. Dodd is all for an “open and collaborative process”, but he refuses to release the actual wording of the bill. He is for individual choices, just not for you to make your own decisions about your health care in an open, transparent market. And, he is all for bipartisanship, as long as it’s the other side making all the concessions.

If the left still hasn’t realized that Americans have their eye on Washington and that now is not the time to be sneaky, they deserve to lose this battle. As a health care opponent myself, I say, as you were Sen. Dodd.

*Originally published August 30, 2009 on the American Issues Project Blog, here.

So, if a federal or state health czar requests any information from your tax returns, the IRS is required to hand it over. There is no requirement for the IRS to contact you or even notify you that this is taking place. And, of course, it would just be too simple and not at all sneaky enough if, in these kinds of situations, the bill laid out a procedure by which any individual who applies for government health benefits could, on their own, follow steps to prove their eligibility – including disclosing their financial information themselves. Basically, why would the government ask you for your information when they can set up a system under which they have access to information that paints them a nice picture of your life – your tax returns, your medical records, etc.

What is extremely distressing, is that in the age of Obama and the bloated government policies that have come along with it, this probably doesn’t phase most people. But, it doesn’t stop there. Under the Senate version of the bill, the health czar can sneak a peak into your bank accounts at their leisure, all justified under the same logic, that the government may need this information to check your eligibility. Wait a minute, those evil insurance companies are criticized left and right for asking questions about your medical history when you apply for insurance. Can you imagine the outcries if they also asked for cart blanche access to your tax returns, bank account information and your health records? For those that find no fault with this policy, may I ask, has the government proven itself so capable, so competent, that you are willing to hand over total control of this information to them? If so, when??? Or, to quote Barney Frank, something I do very rarely, ‘on what planet do YOU spend most of your time?’ Where are all those people that were up in arms over the Patriotic Act? Isn’t this far worse?

Not to mention that as Joe the Plumber found out during the 2008 election cycle, when government bureaucrats have access to your personal information, you don’t want to find yourself on their wrong side.

And, the icing on the cake, the legislation does not allow for a court or administrative review of the provisions in that section. Of course. We wouldn’t want the government to have to answer to the people they represent – better to grant them complete immunity, and if your information winds up in the wrong hands, no redress for you.

But, don’t worry. As Giovanetti points out, we’ve got a politician with conviction, a man of the people, who isn’t swayed by day-to-day politics on our side.

Senator Arlen Specter promised the other day at a town hall meeting that “we’ll do everything we can to stop people from breaking into the files.”

I feel so much better.