AG McCollum to Fox: Mandate is ‘middle pole’ in Obamacare tent

Florida attorney general Bill McCollum told Fox News on Tuesday the individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is like the “pole in the middle of the tent.” If the mandate falls, the whole tent collapses. McCollum said that’s because “there’s no other funding mechanism.”

McCollum was one of the first to point out the vulnerability of the PPACA (commonly called ObamaCare) because of the lack of a severability clause in the bill.

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Congress should ask Berwick why 3 government agencies got funds to do the same research

President Barack Obama couldn’t get Donald Berwick through the front door into the top position at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Obama slid Berwick in through the back door via a recess appointment. Life News said on Wednesday Berwick will finally testify before the Senate Finance Committee.

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Blog to media: Arizona clinic isn't first Mayo site to stop taking Medicare

Commentary by Kay B. Day

Medicare notice on Mayo Jacksonville page. [Screen snip]Mayo Clinic announced it would stop taking Medicare at an Arizona clinic and media seized this as news. Here’s a blog flash for you: the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville hasn’t accepted Medicare Pt. B for quite some time. And having Medicare Advantage won’t help.

President Barack Obama praised Mayo as a beacon on the healthcare hill.

But hospital systems don’t have the option the federal government has, that of fabricating paper money.

The Wall Street Journal noted: “Mayo says it lost $840 million last year treating Medicare patients, the result of the program's low reimbursement rates. Its hospital and four clinics in Arizona—including the Glendale facility—lost $120 million. Providers like Mayo swallow some of these Medicare losses, while also shifting the cost by charging more to private patients and insurers.”

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Kaiser healthcare poll raises questions about public option responses

by Kay B. Day

Leftists in the Democratic Party want another public option for healthcare despite the fact Medicaid and Medicare are taxpayer sinkholes with a level of oversight similar to a cat watching sparrows scritching beneath the bushes. The Chicago Tribune cited a Kaiser Family Foundation September health care survey that showed “57 percent of Americans support the creation of a public health insurance option similar to Medicare."  Questions and analysis of the poll are posted online. But a review of all data provided raises questions about the questions and the analysis.

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Reid gets favors for his state but other states face burdens from Baucus plan

Whatever’s in America's Healthy Future Act 2009 won’t be official until 24 hours before the bill is made public. Main Street will get 24 hours to read what will probably be a bill of at least 1,000 pages—the same goes for Congressmen who aren’t on the Finance Committee headed by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). Voters shouldn’t bother asking their representatives about it—Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius has a gag order in place. But Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) apparently knows a few things about the bill Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is formulating.

Reid complained about the impact on Medicaid in Nevada. The New York Times said, “Now Mr. Baucus has modified the bill to spare Nevada and three other states, and Mr. Reid, who faces a potentially difficult race for re-election next year, is taking credit for getting a “major increase” in federal money for his state.”

Nothing like the Senate Majority Leader putting party above country, is there?

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Ferrara’s healthcare analysis dispels myth, focuses on facts

Updated on Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 11:58AM by Kay B. Day, Editor

by Kay B. Day

We believe President Lyndon B. Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ agenda created many of the financial and social problems we have today. Starting with 19 million enrollees in the mid-1960s, Medicare is expected to comprise 11 percent of the US economy by 2030, covering 79 million people. Removing such a large consumer group from the private sector is a primary driver of increasing health costs for those of us in private plans. If you have payroll taxes deducted, you are subsidizing Medicare. And if you want your social security, you have to sign up for the plan. Like lending, railroads and the post office, Medicare is a financial quagmire. Those who can buy a private supplemental policy to Medicare because it enables them to receive better healthcare. [Photo from White House website.]Could the healthcare debate get any crazier? Big government fans curse protesters and small government fans give as good as they get. But rarely are facts discussed. Even more rarely are solutions discussed.

What we must admit to ourselves before we can take an Obama step “forward,” is that Congress miserably failed the task at hand. If you haven’t read any of the bills or proposals coming out of House and Senate committees, you should do so if you plan to discuss healthcare reform. I doubt there would be a single Main Street proponent of any of these bills if everyone read them. There is an excellent analysis of all the legislative efforts written by Peter Ferrara and published at The Heartland Institute. The Institute leans conservative, but Ferrara focuses on actual language and figures politicians from both parties use to justify their positions. So if you can’t agree with him politically, you can at least use some of the data he includes to form your own opinion.

Thankfully Ferrara doesn’t veer into Biblical justification. If I hear one more proselytizer tell me how to be a better Christian by giving the government control over another sector of the economy, I will refuse to turn the other cheek. One could celebrate the fact liberals are apparently finding God if one were a right wing evangelical. All I can say is if you’re using God to justify more big government spending and a dramatic increase in the size of government, you’d best re-examine your faith and, whether you’re a right wing evangelical or a left wing socialist, do not tell me how to practice mine regardless of the social issue at hand—yes, healthcare is a social issue. And an economic issue.

One myth Ferrara dispels relates to the uninsured. President Barack Obama talked a lot about that group during the campaigns, often citing the 45 million “uninsured.” Republicans have cited it too. Here are some facts:

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Why the GOP should not cave in to ‘Crat care AKA HR 3200

In the news Tuesday is Sen. Charles Schumer starring in a blog post at USA Today. The paper reported on healthcare remarks by the senator who started a chain reaction in bank failures with a letter about IndyMac (and then washed his hands of the whole affair). Basically Schumer believes a healthcare bill can pass without Republican support, and this of course is not news. Democrats can do whatever they want to—they hold absolute power in the executive and legislative branches of our government. And Schumer, like other misguided liberals, wants Americans to come aboard for what I call ‘Crat care, the Democratic model for healthcare reform.

The Dem push has, with a great deal of help from media and the political class, addressed the need for healthcare reform as a “crisis.” Of course it isn’t. If you are flat busted broke and living under a bridge, you can get treatment at any emergency room. If you are in the country illegally and need care, the same applies. If you’re a gang member in a dustup and 4 or 5 of you decide to shoot each other, you will receive care when public dollars are used to transport you to the nearest trauma center. If you are an unmarried woman with children and no father involved in their lives, rest easy. The government will provide care for as many children as you choose to produce.

And of course all that treatment is courtesy of the US taxpayer.

There’s a telling editorial by Dr. Bernadine Healy at US News and World Report.

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