AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Some of them dressed for the occasion. Before the speeches started, a man in a death costume grabbed a bullhorn and introduced two protesters dressed up as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Each was bound in chains and their clothes were spattered in blood. Baby dolls hung upside down from their chains. Around each wrist they wore bracelets made of what looked like small plastic fetuses.

So was this the focus of the speeches as well? No...the focus of the speeches was to stop Obamacare.

No doubt abortion activists are engaged in the tea party movement, but you're stereotyping the whole group on the actions of a few.

So was this the focus of the speeches as well? No...the focus of the speeches was to stop Obamacare.

No doubt abortion activists are engaged in the tea party movement, but you're stereotyping the whole group on the actions of a few.

Republicans are looking to make it impossible to get abortion coverage under not only the Public Option but ALL health insurance without taking out a separate rider.

...and you are shameful for sharing in their scare tactics with your approval.

BS....all we are trying to do is prevent Democrats from using Obamacare as a lever for tax dollars to pay for abortions.

cyclo wrote:

Republicans are looking to make it impossible to get abortion coverage under not only the Public Option but ALL health insurance without taking out a separate rider.

BS....all we are trying to do is prevent Democrats from using Obamacare as a lever for tax dollars to pay for abortions.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18643&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
BAUCUS BILL DOES NOT BEND THE COST CURVE
Although the Baucus health care bill (the legislation that recently passed the Senate Finance Committee) is often touted as the most fiscally responsible of all of Congress's reform plans, it relies on certain cost containment approaches that have not worked in the past and therefore does not bend the total health care cost curve downward, according to a new Lewin Group study.

Rather than fundamentally realigning incentives in the health sector to lower the overall cost of care, the Baucus bill imposes top down cuts in payments to medical providers which will only serve to shift costs around the current system, says the Lewin Group.

It adds to the deficit:
• The bill would add to the federal deficit in the first 10 years and beyond if it included a permanent "doc fix" to prevent cuts in Medicare payments to physicians under the Sustainable Growth Rate instead of only a one year temporary fix.
• Every year, Congress defers these reductions in pay to doctors but the bill creates false savings by pretending that Congress would suddenly let these cuts occur.
• More than $404 billion in savings over the first ten years are attributable to these savings -- and reductions in uncompensated care funds for hospitals that treat the uninsured (DSH payments) -- that are unlikely to fully materialize.
It increases total health spending:
• Under the bill, total spending in health care would rise from 17 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010 to 25 percent in 2029.
• Spending by the federal government would rise by $400 billion over the next 10 years and $1.6 trillion over the next 20 years.
And it adds costs and delivers little savings to consumers:
• In the first 10 years, the bill would increase consumer spending in the aggregate by 3 percent, or $254 million.
• After 20 years, consumer spending would increase by 6.4 percent, or roughly $1 trillion.
• Despite President Obama's promise that the typical family would see $2,500 in savings under health reform, the Baucus bill would provide the vast majority of Americans who already have insurance an average of $8 in savings.
Source: Greg D'Angelo and Kathryn Nix, "Baucus Bill Does Not Bend the Cost Curve," Heritage Foundation, November 4, 2009.

For text:
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/11/04/baucus-bill-does-not-bend-the-cost-curve/

For Lewin report:
http://www.lewin.com/content/publications/Peterson_Finance_Report.pdf

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18645&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
THE PUBLIC'S BEST OPTION: LESS GOVERNMENT, MORE CHOICE
Consumers benefit from choice and competition. The key to both is not more government regulation and control, but less. More competition among health insurers is a consummation devoutly to be wished. But there are far better ways to get there than a public option, says columnist Jeff Jacoby.

Tear down the barriers to buying health insurance across state lines:
• Under federal law, states are permitted to regulate "the business of insurance" as they see fit, and most of them have seen fit to allow the sale only of insurance policies licensed by their own state insurance commissions.
• As a consequence, there is no competitive national market for health insurance; there are 50 state markets instead, most of which are dominated by a handful of insurers.
Repeal mandatory benefits that make health insurance needlessly expensive:
• Compounding the lack of interstate competition is the way states drive up the cost of health insurance by making certain types of coverage compulsory.
• Consumers and insurers should be free to work out for themselves just how comprehensive or limited a policy should be.
• But state mandates prevent such flexibility by requiring insurance companies to sell a fixed array of benefits that many customers may not want.
• Individuals seeking plain-vanilla health insurance -- a policy that will cover them, say, in case of major surgery or catastrophic illness -- may find themselves forced to pay for a policy that also covers acupuncture, in vitro fertilization, alcoholism therapy and a dozen additional treatments.
• When compulsion takes the place of competition, the result is invariably less choice at higher cost.
De-link health insurance from employment:
• Nothing distorts America's health insurance market like the tax preference for employer-sponsored health insurance.
• Until that preference is removed, tens of millions of Americans will continue to rely on their employers' health plan instead of buying health insurance for themselves, they way they buy every other type of insurance.
• Fix the tax code, and no longer could insurance companies routinely bypass employees and deal only with their employers.
• Instead there would be intensive competition for individual customers -- and the lower premiums such competition would yield.
Source: Jeff Jacoby, "The public's best option: Less government, more choice," Jewish World Review, November 5, 2009.

For text:
http://jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby110509.php3

Current Republican leadership will be replaced by Conservative leadership prior to the 2010 congressional elections. With that leadership they shall win the 2010 election by a "land slide."