Feds unlikely to launch campaign finance probe anytime soon
For weeks, leading Democrats have castigated pro-Republican special interest groups involved in the current election campaign for what they describe as secretive fundraising practices.
In an effort to call further attention to the activities of groups like American Crossroads GPS, a political fundraising committee which GOP guru Karl Rove helped to set up, some prominent Democrats and non-partisan election watchdogs have written law enforcement agencies demanding official investigations.
But there is little indication that any relevant agency is going to launch an in-depth probe anytime soon.
In early October, the liberal activist group MoveOn.org sent a letter to the Justice Department demanding that it investigate allegations that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had received election-related funds from unspecified foreign sources — something the Chamber emphatically denies. A similar request for an investigation was sent by Senator Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, to the Federal Election Commission.
Around the same time, two political finance watchdog groups, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, sent a letter to the Internal Revenue Service requesting an investigation into whether Crossroads GPS is violating its status as a tax-exempt organization by spending too much of its time and resources on electioneering.
Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, also sent a letter to the IRS requesting that it conduct a broad “survey” of such tax exempt groups to see if they are following the rules or merit further inquiry.
Groups targeted by pro-Democrat and liberal activists for such complaints, including the Chamber of Commerce and Crossroads GPS, insist they are operating entirely within the law and vigorously deny any wrongdoing.
Republican to seniors: “You’re going to die sooner” with healthcare reform
Republican Senator Tom Coburn doesn’t mince words. He was crystal clear about what he thinks of healthcare reform being debated in the Senate, saying to seniors: “I have a message for you: You’re going to die sooner.”
Senators are debating an amendment by Republican Senator John McCain that would send the bill back to the Senate Finance Committee with instructions to strike the Medicare cuts from the bill. Democrats defended the legislation saying the proposed spending cuts would not reduce seniors’ health benefits.
“I’d like to once and for all lay to rest this false claim that the pending bill is going to ‘hurt seniors’ and it is going to hurt providers and it’s going to be this long parade of horribles that the other side likes to mention,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said.
“It is totally, patently untrue, the claims that they are making,” he argued.
The bill calls for more than $400 billion in spending cuts for Medicare over 10 years. A big chunk of the money comes from reducing subsidies for Medicare Advantage, which provides health services for the elderly through private insurers.
Baucus argued that Medicare spending would continue to grow, but at a slightly slower pace. The bill also seeks to achieve Medicare savings by rewarding quality of care instead of the quantity of services and treatments.
The Senate debate is expected to last for at least three weeks and Republicans, who solidly oppose the Democratic-written bill, plan a number of amendments focused on the Medicare spending cuts.
Most of the seniors I know are more worried about how the young will stay healthy and work. They are are disturbed by the staggering number of young people who don’t have health care. How does one sustain an economy capable of providing for the elderly when the working population is sick and unhealthy? More and more of people are becoming disabled at earlier ages. Some are even dying. While the causes are many, access to quality health care will keep people healthy, able to work longer and lead more productive lives. We have money for war, why not for keeping the American people healthy?
Democrats hope to succeed where Teddy Roosevelt failed on healthcare
Democrats hope to succeed where Republican President Theodore Roosevelt failed — provide medical coverage for all Americans.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who played a major role in writing the legislation now being debated in the Senate, in making the modern day case for healthcare reform cited Roosevelt’s unsuccessful 1912 campaign after he broke away from the Republican Party.
“As in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, we seek protection against the hazards of sickness,” Baucus said. “Of necessity, we seek a system uniquely adapted to American use. And recognizing the daunting task still ahead of us, we pledge ourselves to work unceasingly, to get the job done.”
Roosevelt never saw healthcare coverage for everyone enacted into law. But nearly a century later, Congress seems ready to do what Roosevelt sought and enact healthcare reform that extends medical coverage to most people in the United States.
Republicans stand solidly against the healthcare bill that the Senate is expected to debate for at least three weeks. For those watching it on C-Span don’t be confused by the title of the bill flashed at the bottom of the screen.
The Senate is using as a vehicle for the healthcare overhaul a House-passed bill making sure that military members serving overseas do not miss out on the first-time home buyers tax credit that expires in April.
The Constitution requires revenue measures to originate in the House of Representatives so it is not unusual for the Senate to use a House-passed bill as a vehicle for legislation that includes taxes.
Health care may be serious and no one is denying that fact. However, the American people are opposed to the current mess working its way through congress. It isn’t the answer to our health care problems. 54 percent are opposed. 80 percent of the people with insurance are happy with it and don’t want to change. It’s a 2000 page of mumbled jargon that congress and the president have no right making into law.
As for climate change, the facts say otherwise. The information has been manipulated to show things happening that aren’t happening. It is a scam and the governments by way of the UN are trying to force this fiasco on us so we are further indebted to the government. Don’t say there is a problem, when the facts say otherwise. The hackers did the world a favor by exposing the lies the global warming bunch have been telling the world. Al Gore should be in jail rather than flying on his jets to spread his lies.
Those of you who want to force this agenda on us are the one who will make everyone that criticizes you into the enemy. The pharmaceuticals and insurance companies are a case in point. They aren’t the enemies. Never have been.
Clinton hopes for success where his effort failed
Former President Bill Clinton is clearly hoping that Congress succeeds this time around where his administration failed 15 years ago.
And perfection is not required — just get healthcare reform done. That was Clinton’s message to Senate Democrats who are now behind the steering wheel in trying to move legislation forward.
Clinton’s own effort to overhaul the healthcare system in 1994 fizzled long before reaching this far — the House of Representatives approved its version of a bill last weekend.
Clinton told Democratic senators at their weekly lunch that healthcare reform was an economic imperative and they should not let this latest opportunity slip away.
“It is not important to be perfect here, it is important to get it passed,” Clinton told reporters after the meeting. ”The worst thing to do is nothing — that was my message today.”
President Barack Obama wants healthcare legislation passed by the end of this year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is hoping the Senate can do that, but time is running short as he awaits an official cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.
Reid faces a tough task of stitching together one bill from separate bills passed by two Senate committees that will garner the 60 votes needed to move it in the 100-member chamber.
Oh sure trust Clinton he has such high moral standards.
Dust-up over healthcare reform ahead of Senate panel’s vote
The fragile consensus in favor of healthcare reform may be coming apart.
With the Senate Finance Committee due to vote on its reform bill Tuesday, the insurance industry’s trade group released an analysis saying the measure would drive up costs by thousands of dollars over the next decade.
The White House quickly fired back.
“This is a self-serving analysis from the insurance industry, one of the major opponents of health insurance reform,” spokesman Reid Cherlin said.
“It comes on the eve of a vote that will reduce the industry’s profits. It is hard to take it seriously,” he said.
The analysis commissioned by America’s Health Insurance Plans says insurance premiums under the Finance Committee plan would rise even faster than if the United States did nothing to reform its $2.5 trillion healthcare system, the costliest in the world.
The report, produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers, said the average insurance premium for a family of four is $12,300 today and would rise to $21,900 by 2019 if nothing is done.
Will there be deductibles involved in a government single payer system?if not the hospitals will have to compete with the Malls as a venue for the inhabitable none working segment of our community to pass their time.
The First Draft: Public option, Afghan policy under scrutiny
Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee face off Tuesday over whether an overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system should include an optional government-run health insurance plan.
The panel, which is debating changes to Chairman Max Baucus’s healthcare reform bill, is dealing with amendments about the public option Tuesday.
The public insurance option has become a hot button issue. Many Democrats, including President Barack Obama, say it is needed to make sure there is enough competition to drive down prices.
Most Republicans strongly oppose a government-run plan, fearing it will have an unfair competitive advantage that will drive private insurers out of the marketplace.
Baucus, seeking to craft a bill that could win bipartisan support, left the public option out of his healthcare bill. Instead, he proposed creating private healthcare cooperatives as an means of ensuring competition with insurance companies.
Groups on both sides have been airing advertisements, targeting Baucus, insurance companies and others.
A tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation Tuesday found that public support for health reform rose in September after declining during the summer. The poll found 57 percent believe reform is more important than ever.
eric h thanks for the advice,like you this is MY opinion,and incidentally thanks for the stretching,God bless.
Liberal Democrats after Baucus over public insurance option
Senator Max Baucus is taking a bashing from liberal Democrats for leaving public insurance out of the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare reform bill.
With the committee chaired by Baucus headed for a showdown on the issue Tuesday, a new ad taken out by the liberal wing of his own Democratic party notes he took millions in contributions from the health and insurance industries and asks: “Whose side are you on?”
Baucus is a target because he kept a public option out of his healthcare bill in order to try to fashion a measure that could win both Republican and Democratic support.
President Barack Obama favors a public option. Under the system he proposes, people who do not get health insurance through their employer could go to a government-sponsored marketplace to buy insurance.
The marketplace would be comprised mainly of private insurers, but Obama also favors a public option to make sure there is enough competition to push down prices.
Republicans firmly oppose a public insurance option, arguing it will ultimately drive private firms out of business and lead to a government takeover of the $2.5 trillion health system.
The Senate Finance Committee Tuesday will debate amendments that would put a public insurance option into the Baucus bill.
yes it has changed getplaning,now you can have 10votes and even vote when you are dead,thanks to acorn.Only problem,only limited to one choice of party.
Senate healthcare debate: hot time in cold room
It’s been likened to watching paint dry – the long-awaited debate in the Senate Finance Committee over a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system.
The panel, which prides itself as one of a few in Congress that operates in a bipartisan atmosphere, is in its third day of deliberations. But it has dispensed with only a few of the more than 500 amendments proposed to the legislation put forward by Committee Chairman Max Baucus.
After a delay at the start of Thursday’s session as Baucus waited for senators to arrive to present their amendments, things started to heat up in the freezing cold hearing room.
Discussion began over a proposal by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch that would have required a certification that no more than 1 million people would lose their insurance as a condition of implementing the bill. The debate quickly turned into an angry exchange over which party has the better ideas when it comes to fixing a $2.5 trillion system that almost everyone agrees is too costly and leaves too many people without medical coverage.
Tempers flared when Baucus, a Democrat who has remained upbeat about his bill’s prospects despite taking fire from all sides, made a remark about the lack of a plan from the opposition party. That brought howls of protests from Republicans and Senator Jon Kyl shot back: “We don’t believe in a massive government takeover. You will not see a massive Republican bill to do anything like that.”
As the arguments continued, Baucus interrupted Kyl to try to move things along. Kyl said he was not trying to delay and said it was “not courteous” for the chairman to interrupt someone in the middle of a sentence.
Democratic Senator Kent Conrad broke into the dispute, urging senators to “take a deep breath.” The debate over the Hatch amendment continued and when the time came to vote, the measure failed along strict party lines.
The First Draft: Obama scaling back European missile shield
President Barack Obama is abandoning a Bush administration plan to build a big, fixed U.S. missile defense in Eastern Europe.
The president announced the decision Thursday amid reports from Poland and the Czech Republic overnight that officials there had been informed about the final decision.
Instead of a fixed missile shield, the administration plans a more mobile defense aimed at short- and medium-range rockets.
The missile shield plan had angered Moscow and caused a chill in U.S.-Russian relations despite Washington’s insistence the program was aimed at Iran.
The Bush administration, which had been working on the plan for some time, officially signed the deal with Poland last year in a slap at Moscow for its war with Georgia.
Obama’s Republican rival for the White House, Senator John McCain, criticized the decision, saying it called into question the “security and diplomatic commitments the United States has made to Poland and the Czech Republic.”
House Republican Leader John Boehner said the decision “does little more than empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe.”
After much delay, Baucus unveils healthcare plan
After weeks of delay as he negotiated for Republican support, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus Wednesday unveiled a 10-year, $856 billion plan to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.
The measure still has no promise of Republican support, even though Baucus dumped the public insurance option favored by most Democrats and agreed to other Republican changes in hopes of producing a bipartisan plan.
Baucus predicted it would ultimately garner Republican votes.
“This is a good bill. This is a balanced bill. It can pass the Senate,” he said.
“It is fiscally responsible,” he added. “It reduces the deficit in 10 years. And it controls healthcare spending in the long run.”
Early reaction was not great. HuffingtonPost.com headlined it “Baucus Bill Bust” because of the lack of Republican support. Consumer Watchdog charged it would force middle class families to pay 20 percent of their incomes on healthcare.
Julius Hobson, a policy adviser at the Bryan Cave law firm, noted it “not only lacks Republican support but it is not clear if it even has ‘full’ Democratic support.”
W Spring,you hit the nail on the head all the bills and mountain of paper have not been able to tie down what is the problem,and you did with two words WELL REGULATED,that,s it! the vast majority the American people know that with the government that is a total IMPOSSIBILITY.
