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PelosiCare makes it through Date published: 11/10/2009
BY A SHOESTRING margin, House In a 14-hour Saturday marathon marked by a presidential visit, impassioned speeches, and a wrenching compromise, the House passed the 1990-page leviathan 220-215, just two votes over what Mrs. Pelosi needed. All the Republicans but one (Rep. Ahn Cao of Louisiana) and 39 Democrats voted against the bill. The ink had barely dried when President Obama began pressuring the Senate to "take up the baton and bring this effort to the finish line." The House bill, which would cost $1.2 trillion over a decade, mandates that every American carry health insurance, provides subsidies to help pay for it, and creates an insurance exchange where people can buy it. The bill would establish 111 new bureaucracies and would pay for its provisions with a new income tax on millionaires, hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts, and a gutted Medicare Advantage program. Without a hotly debated compromise, Mrs. Pelosi's efforts would have failed: By agreeing to strong language banning coverage for abortion, she lured some pro-life Democrats into the "aye" column. Many Blue Dog Democrats (fiscal conservatives) held the line, still appalled by costs. As well they should be: The Congressional Budget Office's estimate of $1.2 trillion does not include "administrative costs" and other associated items. History repeats: In 1966, the Office of Management and Budget estimated that Medicare would cost $66 million. It actually racked up a tab of $770 million that year; in 2011, the annual tally will be $500 billion. With unfunded liabilities on a course to reach a stratospheric $37 trillion over 75 years, Medicare provides a window into our bankrupt future. The Pelosi bill is being called "dead on arrival" in the Senate, where Democrats have failed to basket the votes to swing its "public option" provision. There, the fiscally responsible--let's hope this describes Virginia's two Democratic senators--can yet slow this runaway train. Sen. Mark Warner, a savvy businessman who styles himself a "radical centrist," and Sen. Jim Webb, a clear-thinking moderate, could either one reach for the brake handle. This train needs a new destination: Reform health care without destroying the future.
I doubt the FLS provides healthcare to its delivery people, even thou they published an editorial a few weeks back praising their dedication. They probably use a legal - but immoral -law that allows them to call those folks 'independent contractors' responsible for their own SS, medicare and insurance, while being for all other intents FLS employees.
So if you have a vested interest in keeping from payng employee base insurance, you of coarse call reform a 'train wrech'. Very self-serving.
I doubt the FLS provides healthcare to its delivery people, even thou they published an editorial a few weeks back praising their dedication. They probably use a legal - but immoral -law that allows them to call those folks 'independent contractors' responsible for their own SS, medicare and insurance, while being for all other intents FLS employees.
So if you have a vested interest in keeping from payng employee base insurance, you of coarse call reform a 'train wrech'. Very self-serving.
to spot a trainwreck even if one was hurtling towards Amelia Street at 100 mph. If they couldn't foresee such disasters as the Iraq War, George Bush, or Sarah Palin, why should we believe them now?
The claim that full medical coverage at the lowest price is avaiIable via a web site is so ludicrous that I would ot risk accessing that site.
Why prolong the agony? The woman is gone next election
anyway just like her minions.
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