Hoystory

UPDATED and BUMPED

For those of you who don’t have employer-provided insurance and who have decided to insure your kids instead of yourselves – if this bill becomes law drop the coverage for your kids and get it for yourself.

Why? Because as soon as the bill becomes law, it will be illegal to deny coverage to kids because of a pre-existing condition, so, if they get sick, you can buy the “insurance” coverage afterwards.

Adults, on the other hand, can still be denied because of a pre-existing condition for the next four years until the real coverage kicks in.

Why the discrepancy? Because Democrats had to make the numbers work out and delaying coverage for adults was a convenient method.

UPDATE!

It turns out the you really did have to wait until the health care reform bill was passed to find out what’s in it. I took President Obama’s word for it when he said that the bill would prohibit denying children coverage for pre-existing conditions immediately upon passage. It turns out that this is inaccurate.

Hours after President Barack Obama signed historic health care legislation, a potential problem emerged. Administration officials are now scrambling to fix a gap in highly touted benefits for children.

Obama made better coverage for children a centerpiece of his health care remake, but it turns out the letter of the law provided a less-than-complete guarantee that kids with health problems would not be shut out of coverage.

Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill Obama signed into law Tuesday.

So, please ignore my practical advice for the time being. Maybe President Obama would’ve benefited from allowing the bill to be posted on the White House Web site for 5 days before signing like he promised.

A few thoughts as it appears that the Democrats have finally managed to bribe, cajole and lie their way to a “victory” on health care “reform” later tonight.

• Bart Stupak is either not pro-life or stupid. He’s not stupid.
• Stupak apparently knew this day would come, and accurately predicted that he’s a sell-out.

• You can find the text of the executive order that bought Stupak’s soul here.
• Andy McCarthy notes the world class hypocrisy of President Barack Obama, Stupak and every other Democrat that acquiesces to this abomination.

I know we tire of the hypocrisy, but I really think this is remarkable. We spent the eight years through January 19, 2009, listening to Democrats complain that President Bush had purportedly caused a constitutional crisis by issuing signing statements when he signed bills into law. Democrats and Arlen Specter (now a Democrat) complained that these unenforceable, non-binding expressions of the executive’s interpretation of the laws Bush was signing were a usurpation Congress’s power to enact legislation.

But now Democrats are going to abide not a mere signing statement but an executive order that purports to have the effect of legislation — in fact, has the effect of nullifying legislation that Congress is simultaneously enacting?

• Has anyone heard the pro-choice caucus or NARAL or NOW screaming bloody murder about the Obama-Stupak deal? No? Well, that gives you an idea of what that deal is worth.
• Stupak is running for re-election against Dr. Dan Benishek. Benishek needs to get a merchant account to take donations post haste.
• Democrats seem to think that once they pass this, the American people will get used to it. I hope they’re wrong. The previous examples they point to (Social Security, Medicare) were passed on a bipartisan basis with strong public support. This legislation has neither.
• I know some people who are of the opinion that Barack Obama must be a successful president, otherwise the American people will never elect another minority to be President of the United States. I don’t think Obama is seen by most of America as a black man. He’s seen by most of America as an arrogant socialist.
• I’d vote for Thomas Sowell for president in a heartbeat.

Fox News’ Bret Baier today did the best interview of President Obama any journalist has done since he first began running for president when he was in college. Unlike the sycophants in the rest of the mainstream media, Baier repeatedly returned to questions that Obama failed to answer the first time as he went off on tangents and filibustered.

At the so-called “Health Care Summit,” Rep. Paul Ryan challenged President Obama on the double-counting of a $500 million cut from Medicare that the president claimed both would be used for other programs and helped the long-run fiscal solvency of that program. In response, Obama avoided the question.

Today, Baier wouldn’t be so easily turned aside.

BAIER: Mr. President, you said Monday that you praised the Congressional Budget Office numerous times. You also said this, this proposal makes Medicare stronger — and you just said it to me here —

OBAMA: Right.

BAIER: — it makes coverage better, it makes its finances more secure, and anyone who says otherwise is misinformed or is trying to misinform you.

OBAMA: Right.

BAIER: The CBO has said specifically that the $500 billion that you say that you’re going to save from Medicare is not being spent in Medicare. That this bill spends it elsewhere outside of Medicare. So you can’t have both.

OBAMA: Right.

BAIER: You either spend it on expenditures or you make Medicare more solvent. So which is it?

OBAMA: Here’s what it does. On the one hand what you’re doing is you’re eliminating insurance subsidies within Medicare that aren’t making anybody healthier but are fattening the profits of insurance companies. Everybody agrees that that is not a wise way to spend money. Now, most of those savings go right back into helping seniors, for example, closing the donut hole.

When the previous Congress passed the prescription drug bill, what they did was they left a situation which after seniors had spent a certain amount of money, suddenly they got no help and they were stuck with the bill. Now that’s a pretty expensive proposition fixing that. It wasn’t paid for at the time that that bill was passed. So that money goes back into Medicare, both to fix the donut hole, lower premiums.

All those things are important, but what’s also happening is each year we’re spending less on Medicare overall and as consequence, that lengthens the trust fund and it’s availability for seniors.

BAIER: Your chief actuary for Medicare said this, that cuts in Medicare: "cannot be simultaneously used to finance other federal outlays and extend the trust fund." That’s your guy.

OBAMA: No — and what is absolutely true is that this will not solve our whole Medicare problem. We’re still going to have to fix Medicare over the long term.

BAIER: But it’s $38 trillion in the hole.

OBAMA: Absolutely, and that’s the reason that we’re going to have to — that’s the reason I put forward a fiscal commission based on Republicans and Democratic proposals, to make sure that we have a long-term fix for the system. The key is that this proposal doesn’t weaken Medicare, it makes it stronger for seniors currently who are receiving it. It doesn’t solve that big structural problem, Bret. Nobody’s claiming that this piece of legislation is going to solve every problem that’s been there for decades. What it does do is make sure that the trust fund is not going to be going bankrupt in seven years, according to their accounting rules —

BAIER: So you don’t buy —

OBAMA: — and in the meantime —

BAIER: — the CBO or the actuary that you can’t have it both ways?

OBAMA: No —

BAIER: That you can’t spend the money twice?

OBAMA: — no, what is absolutely true and what I do agree with is that you can’t say that you are saving on Medicare and then spend the money twice. What you can say is that we are going to take these savings, put them back to make sure that seniors are getting help on the prescription drug bill instead of that money going to, for example, insurance reform, and —

So, after all that flailing like a fish on a line, Obama kinda sorta concedes that if you’re filling the Medicare prescription drug donut hole, then you’re not making the trust fund more solvent.

The other comical exchange was when Obama claimed that everyone knows what’s in the bill, but at the same time couldn’t tell Baier whether special deals for Connecticut, Montana and various other states were still in the bill.

For those who are interested, you can see the video after the break.

For an idea of just how dishonest this entire takeover of the health care system is, I present to you an AP fact check.

Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.

Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don’t look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help cover the cost for millions of people.

That’s right, premiums only become more affordable because the government subsidizes them. Where does the government get the money for the subsidies?

Taxes!

If you think the government is going to get sufficient tax money for this by focusing on “the rich” making more than $250,000 a year, then I’ve got some oceanfront property to sell you in Kansas.

Finally, I’d like to re-emphasize two points.

First, just because you don’t have health insurance, doesn’t mean you can’t get health care. If you’re uninsured and you break your arm or you’re throwing up blood, there isn’t an emergency room in the nation that will turn you away.

Second, just because you have health insurance doesn’t mean you’ll get health care. Waiting lists and rationing are hallmarks of the Canadian and British health care systems and you’d be a bit of a fool to think that if we were to adopt a similar system, that those undesirable aspects wouldn’t come with it.

If you’re willing to trade the former for the latter, at least be honest about what the system is now and what you’ll be getting.

On a related note, doctors think health insurance companies are a pain. Doctors also think the government is worse and appear to be on the verge of “going Galt” if Obama’s plan passes.

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