Why is the US Chamber of Commerce spending soooooo much money to stick it to the little man?

The top-spending groups on health care reform generally spent about as much lobbying last year as they did in 2008 — with one notable exception. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce stood out not only for consistently outspending other groups, but also for nearly doubling its lobbying spending over the previous year. In the fourth quarter of 2009 alone, the group’s outflows easily topped the amount spent by any other group all year.

One wonders?

In a private meeting in the Capitol just now, a dozen or more House liberals bluntly toldNancy Pelosi that there was no chance that they would vote to pass the Senate bill in its current form — making it all but certain that House Dems won’t opt for this approach, a top House liberal tells me.

Of course, the Republicans have been spinning this like crazy, saying that some Democrats don’t support the bill for the same reasons they don’t, socialized medicine, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. A majority of Americans have said it should include a public option. Some polls were as low as 51% and some as high as 69% in support of the public option. I think they need to start from scratch and they should include two provisions (one that is a Republican idea and one that is a Democratic idea).

• Tax refunds for private insurance premiums, &

• A public option that ANY American can buy into and pay premiums thru payroll taxes

Without either one of those options, there really isn’t any reform. Reform should affect ALL Americans, not just the very poor or the very rich.

Attorney General Marty Jackley will be speaking at the DownTown Holiday Inn on Tuesday Jan 19th  from 12-1:30 PM.  $15. Includes a buffet lunch with dessert. Open to the public.

Mr. Jackley is one of 15 attorneys general that is challenging the constitutionality of the Nebraska Compromise and Florida to purchase Senatorial votes.   This is a historic meeting. If you would like to attend there is limited seating. Please RSVP to 605-332-1962 by 10:00 a.m. Monday morning Jan 18.

sponsored by teapartysd.com

I’m not sure if I will attend, but I think it would be an interesting presentation.

Guest post by Barbara O’ Brien

A few weeks ago the Congressional Budget Office released an analysis that said tort reform would save the federal government $54 billion over ten years. That sounds like a great argument for tort reform. But if you read the analysis more carefully, you see the picture is not so simple. For example, on page 4 of the analysis you can find this little bombshell:

“CBO’s estimate takes into account the fact that because many states have already implemented some of the changes in the package, a significant fraction of the potential cost savings has already been realized.“

The fact is, more than half of the states already have “reformed” tort. The CBO is saying that federal tort reform would not give us an additional $54 billion in savings. Rather, we’re already enjoying a significant fraction of the $54 billion in savings because tort is already “reformed” in most states.

Wait, you didn’t notice that health care costs are dropping because of state tort reforms? That’s because they aren’t.

What we see in states like Texas, which has enacted sweeping “tort reform” laws, is that while the number of lawsuits go down the overall costs of health care and health insurance keep going up — as much as in states that haven’t changed their tort laws.

It is true that states with “reformed” tort law have seen a big reduction in the number of personal injury lawsuits and jury awards, which does save some money. But the costs of caring for people injured by malpractice, mesothelioma cancer, or other injuries from dangerous products or workplaces, don’t go away. And if the responsible party doesn’t pay, usually the rest of us do — in higher insurance premiums and taxes.

And according to a 2006 Harvard study published by the New England Journal of Medicine, only 3 percent of malpractice claims are completely frivolous.

Every state has its own tort laws, and there may be many reasons to reform many of those laws. But reducing health care cost is not one of those reasons.

Here is a great video about Canadian socialized medicine;

Obama said during the campaign that he would change Washington, he failed to mention he was going to let Rahm short change the American public;

ROBERT KUTTNER: Rahm Emanuel, the President’s Chief of Staff, was Bill Clinton’s Political Director. And Rahm Emanuel’s take away from Bill Clinton’s failure to get health insurance passed was ‘don’t get on the wrong side of the insurance companies.’ So their strategy was cut a deal with the insurance companies, the drug industry going in. And the deal was, we’re not going to attack your customer base, we’re going to subsidize a new customer base. And that script was pre-cooked so it’s not surprising that this is what comes out the other side.

BILL MOYERS: So are you saying that this, what some call a sweetheart deal between the pharmaceutical industry and the White House, done many months ago before this fight really began, was because the drug company money in the Democratic Party?

And it looks like it is well on it’s way to become a polished turd;

WASHINGTON — After a long day of acid, partisan debate, Senate Democrats held ranks early Monday in a dead-of-night procedural vote that proved they had locked in the decisive margin needed to pass a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

Someone should abort that hairdo

Well when big pharma, the insurance companies and anti-choice freaks have you by the balls, whadda you expect?

“The absolute refusal of Republicans in the Senate to support health care reform and the hijacking of the bill by defenders of the insurance industry have brought us a Senate bill that is inadequate,” said Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO.

His criticism of GOP lawmakers aside, Trumka’s blast seemed aimed at Nelson, Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and possibly other members of the Senate Democratic caucus who have stripped the legislation – a year in the making – of any form of government-run insurance option.

As I said from the beginning, the legislation would start out strong (public option) then in the end be stripped of anything good in it, help few people and cost too much. I hope it does fail, and so does Howard Dean;

Andrew Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, said he, too, is deeply disappointed in the proposal.

But, like Trumka, he stopped short of urging its defeat. Not so Howard Dean, the former national party chairman, who has said he opposes the legislation because it does not include a strong enough role for government in a remade health care system. Dean unleashed his criticism this week after Lieberman won the deletion of a proposed expansion of Medicare.

I would go farther and say Medicare should be available to everyone, it would be the ‘Public Option’. I have also felt that if you are going to force people to have private insurance there should be a 75-100% write off in your taxes for the cost of premiums, you would think that would be something the private insurance companies would support.

The legislation’s current form is a gigantic turd that won’t do anything for anyone, and for once, I agree with Thune, it needs to go down in flames. BUT, after the Holiday recess they need to start fresh, offer a strong public option TO EVERYONE and get it done before November 2010 when the Republicans will likely gain more seats.

DRIFTGLASS EXPLAINS IT BEST

First he turns hisback on working Americans;

Senate Republicans predicted on Wednesday that the 40 members of their caucus would unanimously oppose health care reform despite changes made by Democratic leadership to make the product more palatable to conservatives.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) told the Huffington Post that he did not think the dropping of a public option for insurance coverage from the bill would be enough for Democrats to win even the support of moderate Republican Senators Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, both of Maine.

“I just think that our side believes that it is a really bad idea to take a program that is already sinking and put more people into it.”

Both Thune and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said they thought the last minute alterations to the Senate’s version of health care — specifically the decision to expand Medicare coverage to those as young as 55-years-old — was a “Hail Mary” attempt on the part of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to amass the votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

“This is like Groundhog Day. It is déjà vu all over again where we wake up every day and there is a new idea to try and figure out how to get to 60 votes,” said Thune.

Pointing out that Sen. Joseph Lieberman’ (I-Conn.) supported a Medicare buy-in provision in the 2000 campaign, Thune added: “Maybe that is what they are trying to tie into — something he supported in the past. I don’t know how that helps them with moderates on their side who have expressed concern about government-run health care. But they are obviously figuring out how to pick off one or more of their own.”

It does appear that Reid and his deputies believe that the most recent round of compromises will yield them the needed votes to cut of a Republican filibuster. The quick moving debate, however, has meant that there is a paucity of details about the actual legislation. On Wednesday, Republicans sought to latch on to the one provision that has been widely reported — the Medicare buy-in — painting it as a financial death sentence for hospitals and a killer for doctors.

“We had never heard of such a proposal before in all of the proposals that were being made and we don’t know the details yet,” said McCain. “But the American Medical Association and the American Hospitals Association and a whole lot of other groups have heard enough that they are against this provision.”

Told that under the Democrats proposal, 55-to-64-year-olds who want to be covered by Medicare would have to pay a premium, the senator still foresaw budgetary ruin for the government-run program.

“Number one, obviously the premiums that are paid in now aren’t enough because the Medicare trustees have stated the system is going bankrupt in seven years,” said McCain. “Number two is, there is a concern that people who have pre-existing conditions can’t get insurance anywhere else. Third of all, you would be expanding, over time the population in Medicare dramatically at a much earlier time.

“I always thought that Medicare was a way to take care of our senior citizens,” he concluded. “That was the original design. And I think, and maybe it’s from my vantage point, but I consider 55 to be pretty young.”

But $40 million for pine beetle control? No problem;

Sen. John Thune expressed misgivings Wednesday about federal spending plans for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, health care reform and a potential second round of stimulus money that could bolster state budgets.

“I say that knowing South Dakota is facing difficult budget projections,” Thune said.

But he praised a U.S. Forest Service offer of $40 million to fight pine beetles.

“That’s really important now. This pine beetle thing has gotten out of control. It’s gotten to the point where we need to do some more aggressive management and reprogram funds to where the highest need is.”

Only ironic Johnny would pick pine beetle control over healthcare.