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Health Care Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 23, 2009 9 Comments

Yesterday I posted on Jane Hamsher's appearance on Fox News to demand defeat of the Senate bill.Today, Hamsher and Grover Norquist, who runs the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, have issued a joint letter demanding the resignation of Rahm Emanuel, and an investigation into Emanuel's...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 23, 2009 13 Comments

HotAir via Politico is reporting that the Obama administration has learned that there is sufficient resistence in the House to the Senate plan that the push to pass final legislation, after conference, will be delayed until after Obama's January State of the Union address.I'd like...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 22, 2009 13 Comments

Forget the junior Congressman from Alabama who is defecting to the Republicans. The big defection of the day was the decision by Jane Hamsher, proprietor of the left-wing Firedoglake group blog and organizer of the Hadassah Lieberman boycott, to appear on Fox News to call...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 22, 2009 15 Comments

I have been warning since early June about the danger of the Independent Medicare Advisory Board.IMAB is a board appointed by the President with congressional approval, to submit recommendations on Medicare payments and costs. IMAB is modeled, somewhat, on the Base Closing Commission which made...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 21, 2009 6 Comments

What did the tanning industry ever do to deserve being singled out for a new 10% surtax on all indoor tanning services in Harry Reid's Manager's Amendment?The tanning tax was a substitute for the cosmetic surgery tax (a/k/a Botax) in the prior bill.This may seem...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 21, 2009 20 Comments

Sheldon Whitehouse, my Democratic Senator from Rhode Island, has joined the Alan Grayson wing of the Democratic party with a speech so over the top that it is an infuriating embarrassment. I wasn't going to post on this. But then I listened to the speech, in...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 20, 2009 9 Comments

The meme circulating today is that Republicans made a tactical error by failing to cooperate more with Democrats early on in the health care debate, pushing so-called moderate Democrats like Evan Bayh into the arms of Harry Reid and Barack Obama.That meme is a bunch...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 20, 2009 10 Comments

In order to get large pharmaceutical companies behind Obamacare, including getting the drug companies to advertise, the Obama administration cut a deal, among other things, that the re-importation of drugs would not generally be permitted.Unlike some issues, there are legitimate points on each side of...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 20, 2009 10 Comments

I wonder how Nebraskans will feel waking up this morning knowing that their Senator Ben Nelson sold out the rest of the nation on Medicaid reimbursement in order to secure a deal for Nebraska.While Nebraskans will get new Medicaid mandates covered by the federal government,...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 19, 2009 63 Comments

I was in the car most of the day, so I haven't had a chance to post on the Ben Nelson sellout. So here are some initial thoughts:Yes, it is that bad. The Democrats are about to put in place the legislative, regulatory and bureaucratic...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 19, 2009 3 Comments

Saturday morning Harry Reid unveils, we think, The Real Bill. They're even wheeling snowmobiling in Robert Byrd for the votes on procedural issues so that Reid can move The Real Bill forward as an amendment to the current version. Since the amendment will have to...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 18, 2009 3 Comments

Not Sarah Palin, Not Republicans in Congress. Nat Hentoff: I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had. An example is ObamaCare, which is now embattled in the Senate. If that goes through...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 16, 2009 8 Comments

Michael Moore is calling for a boycott of Connecticut because of Joe Lieberman. Yes, the whole state is persona non grata because Independent Joe acted like Independent Joe:"People of Connecticut: What have u done 2 this country? We hold u responsible. Start recall of Lieberman...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 16, 2009 2 Comments

As a follow up to my prior post, Read It Out Loud, note that today the clerk of the Senate is reading a version of the health care monstrosity out loud on the Senate floor, at the request of Tom Coburn, in response to an...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 16, 2009 1 Comment

The headline in USA Today/Gallup's latest health care poll is that the public, by a 48-46% margin, is against or leaning against the current health care proposal:Forty-six percent of Americans say they would advise their member of Congress to vote for healthcare legislation (or lean...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 16, 2009 1 Comment

Obama yesterday:"From the discussions we had, it's clear we are on the precipice of achievement that's eluded Congresses, presidents for generations -- an achievement that will touch the lives of nearly every American." It appears, from the context, Obama was intending to use the word...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 16, 2009 2 Comments

Has anyone seen Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana)? He has gone missing on the health care debate.The almost VP-nominee has flown so far under the radar that a Google News search for "Evan Bayh health care" for the past month turns up very little as to...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 15, 2009 2 Comments

Steve Benen, at Washington Monthly, suggests that the enthusiastic and open embrace by some single-payer advocates of the "Medicare buy-in" idea floated by Harry Reid, as a device to obtain a single-payer system, may have scared Joe Lieberman away from the idea.Benen laments that such...

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