Tag: health care reform
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by Jsmog
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 06:49am
April 20, 2010, Juneau, Alaska – Alaska Governor Sean Parnell today announced that the State of Alaska will join 20 other states in challenging the constitutionality of recently enacted federal heath care reform legislation. Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan released a detailed legal memorandum in which he analyzes the potential legal claims and recommends the constitutional challenge.
Reporters present: Rena Delbridge – Alaska Dispatch, Jeremy Hsieh – Associated Press, Dave Donaldson – APRN, Pat Forgey – Juneau Empire, Amanda Coyne – Freelance (Huffington Post, former Anchorage Press writer,) Linda Kellen – blogger, Andrew Jensen – Journal of Commerce, Erica Bolstad – McClatchy DC, Pete Carrin – KINY
The governor said he was briefed yesterday on the AG’s memo and was so compelled and felt it was so important that he waived privilege to release it to Alaskans. He said the issue is “a battle for freedom” under the interpretation of the Commerce Clause. He said the issue is one of regulation versus mandating, highlighting pages 23-26 of the memo, but page 25 in particular (the mandated gym membership line.) He said “for the first time we have the federal government dictating commerce.”
“With the enactment of health care legislation, the federal government has reached well beyond the scope of its authority — into the lives and freedom of Alaskans,” Governor Parnell said. “This case is ultimately about the extent to which the federal government can exert power over the states. It has critical implications for the liberty interests of all American citizens. Alaska must join this important litigation.”
The Attorney General said the The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is an “unprecedented congressional action” and there is pretty “universal recognition that Congress has limited enumerated powers.” He said he’s advising the state to join the Florida lawsuit to protect Alaska’s interests.
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Dan Sullivan | federal lawsuit | health care | health care reform | individual mandate | Sean Parnell | unconstitutional | View Comments
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by Calickizzle
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 12:35pm
Supposedly, Republican attorney generals from 10 states have filed lawsuits challenging the Constituional basis of the health care reform legislation that was just signed into law by Obama. (Wait, did the President sign a bill turning health care reform into law, or did he sign a declaration that declared the GOP all but politically irrelevant? Oh, right. Same thing. My bad.)
Included with this group is the State of Washington’s AG Rob McKenna, who I guess is not willing to extend health care coverage to his constituents and avoid similar events as what happened to Marcelus Owens, the 11-year old boy from Everett attacked by conservatives because his mother had the gall to die due to a lack of health care coverage. McKenna’s predecessor? Christine Gregoire, the current Governor of Washginton who helped spearhead a landmark multi-billion dollar settlement from the tobacco companies, collecting funds to help pay the states for health care costs incurred by the effects of smoking. As a direct opposite approach, Mr. McKenna seems committed to ensuring that the health of Washington State residents is not improved by the legislation passed by Congress this past week. To little surprise, plenty of Washington voters on Facebook are taking umbrage with the approach taken by their current attorney general.
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constitution | health care reform | Obama | View Comments
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by Calickizzle
Monday, March 22, 2010 at 10:48am
Boy, that was an exciting Sunday, wasn’t it?
And no, I’m not referring to March Madness. Most of the excitement in the NCAA college basketball championship came the day before, when Northern Iowa ruined approximately 99% of the brackets filled out around the nation invalid by beating conference favorite Kansas. Of course, I’m referring to the House of Representatives passing health care reform, the only significant piece of legislation that has passed in my lifetime.
The day sure had a feel similar to a nail-biting college basketball game, didn’t it? The breathless Tweets from members of Congress, celebrating the historical moment. The votes tallied on C-Span’s screen, generating the type of tension that would otherwise be present at a Syracuse-North Carolina showdown.
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health care reform | Pelosi | Stupak | View Comments
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by Jsmog
Friday, March 19, 2010 at 11:27am
Have fun trying to repeal HCR next time you are in power, as if the Republicans will have a majority any time soon. But say they do, what are the Republicans going to do? Remove all those awful taxes? Put the wasteful medicare advantage subsidies back in? Well, like all Congresses, at the end of the year you got to balance the budget, so now how are you going to pay for it? If you guys have a better way of paying for it all by all means, but at the end of the day, it needs to be paid for somehow. Or will you fiscal responsible conservatives go back to deficit spending? My guess is that is exactly what will happen, and there goes the country again into a spiral of deficit spending whenever the Republicans are in charge.
Oh, but then I suppose you could “reform” health care again? You guys want to give it a go next time you are in power? It’s so easy afterall. And clearly after everything you wanted in the health care reform bill is actually included in the bill I can see why you’d want to completely reform it. Maybe you guys can call it the “Health Care Deform bill”? Just give the insurance companies anti-trust exemptions again and let them drop whoever and jack up premiums to whatever? That’s been working out so great so far, afterall. Would you spend a whole year debating it like the Democrats? Or would you “ram it through”? Would you use reconciliation? How about a “self-executing action”? Which form of hypocrisy would you use to get it accomplished? Because after all, the Democrats wouldn’t think of using every single tactic the Republicans used against them when the shoe is on the other foot. For some strange reason Republicans think that if they take back over Congress Democrats aren’t going to filibuster every goddam thing they offer. I guess you guys are prepared for the barrage of hypocrisy attacks that will follow, right? In fact, Republicans should campaign on repealing Health Care. That would be very fun to watch.
But the fact of the matter is, when Health Care reform passes on Sunday, and signed by Obama, it becomes law. If the Republicans want to “gut” it and take away its funding, a program that is paid for and is not contributing to the national deficit, then they will basically have to deficit spend to pay for it. Yeah, nobody will notice that. After all the horse shit the Republicans and conservatives are bitching about Obama spending money to keep our country’s economy from collapsing, trust me, if the Republicans even hint they are about to go on a Reagan/Bush spending spree there will be rioting in the streets.
So yeah, good luck with that.
health care | health care reform | hypocrisy | repeal | Republicans | View Comments
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by Calickizzle
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 11:30pm
As Sen. Ben Nelson was never really a proponent of health care reform- his ambivalence regarding abortion appears to just be a convenient cover to be an obstructionist- it appears that the real reason for Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback” is to basically extort the federal government into dropping health care reform. Or, you know, give up on the formula that sahres Medicaid costs between the federal and state governments, and have the federal government pay 100% of the costs. And this would result in Barack Obama’s desired deficit-nuetral, less-than-$1 trillion health care bill and pretty much punch a multi-trillion dollar hole into our deficit. And the sad thing is, not only would Sen. Nelson’s misguided efforts end up bankrupting the federal government- I’ll spare the mawkish and over-used sentiment regarding “our children”- but it would also, if his desire to see the federal government “fully fund” Medicare is legitimate and is realized, would result in bankrupting state governments as well!
In other words, Sen. Nelson’s utterly ridiculous plan- which seems to have been concocted by Sean Penn’s character in “I Am Sam”- fits the definition of “lose-lose.”
Bankrupting federal and state deficits would be an awfully odd tack for a deficit hawk to take. No, its pretty clear that Sen. Nelson- one of those good ol’ untrustworthy “Blue Dog” Democrats- is little else than a master extortionist, willing to hang the rest of the country out to dry in an effort to get the ugly spectre of health care dropped.
This would be fine, if the ugly realization of the status quo wasn’t so horrible. As the Wonk Room points out:
Under the Senate bill, the federal government is funding the expansion for the first several years and increasing its contribution to Medicaid over the long term. States, which have a certain degree of flexibility in how the implement the Medicaid program, are required to partly finance the Medicaid expansion in out-years of the 10-year budget window. But in doing so, they’re also make an investment towards lowering health care costs. With reform, states would be spending less on health care than they would if they did nothing at all. Without reform, costs continue to rise. States are forced to spend millions on uncompensated care for the uninsured. Residents with coverage are paying higher premiums to compensate emergency room services. State must stretch their Medicaid budgets, particularly during periods of economic recession, and have little to spend on other social services.
It takes a certain caliber of individual to be a Senator. It is quite clear that Sen. Nelson lacks that caliber.
Ben Nelson | health care reform | View Comments
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by Calickizzle
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 10:46am
What’s funny is that conservative critics actually claim that the Obama administration is “incompetent.”
With Department of Justice officials busting over 30 people in three states charging the federal government over $60 million in fraudulent Medicare costs, the Obama administration is certainly taking an efficient and competent stand against Medicare abuse.
These efforts by the Justice Department indicate how abuse of the Medicare system is rampant, as it is targeted by unscrupulous individuals looking at this federal government-run program as a cash cow. When Republican Senators rail against the planned decreases in Medicare spending as proposed by the current health care reforms, it needs to be asked: Are they arguing in favor of the fraudulent practices performed by those busted by the DOJ, which causes overspending by Medicare and puts it on insolvent ground?
Oh, that’s right, Republicans have always been against Medicare for ideological purposes. Why would they support efforts to ensure the programs solvency? Little wonder they oppose the efforts taken by an obviously competent Obama administration. Can’t have a solvent Medicare program now, can we?
health care reform | Medicare | Obama | Republicans | View Comments
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