Health Care Procedural Machinations

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Just got this. Thought it worth sharing...

Since my last e-mail to you, the health care dynamic has changed once again. I didn’t think it was possible, but the road to passing health care reform is becoming “curiouser and curiouser.” In the words of Yuval Levin, the Congressional Leadership’s plan is now to “amend a law that doesn’t exist yet by passing a bill without voting on it.”

While the House has been quick to condemn the Senate for its sweetheart deals like the “Cornhusker Kickback,” “Louisiana Purchase,” and “Florida Gator-Aid,” it has been reluctant to heed its own advice. The reconciliation language – which would amend the Senate bill to make it more palatable for certain Members of the House – appears to be piling on even more backroom deals. It appears as though votes are being solicited in the House reconciliation bill by increasing the water supply to agricultural districts, allotting time on the House floor to debate and vote on pet bills, and appointing family members to the federal bench. Americans rightly expect that Congress not resort to this kind of wheeling and dealing to pass a bill that takes over one-sixth of the U.S. economy. A bill that requires these sweetheart deals for passage is clearly bad legislation and the Congress should not pass a bad bill just so it can say it passed something.

Then there is the self-executing “deemed as passed” rule that could trigger “passage” of the Senate bill, sending it to the President for his signature without the House ever voting on the Senate bill. The problem is that this is simply unconstitutional. The Constitution states, and the Supreme Court maintains, that in order for legislation to be valid it must be passed in both the House and the Senate and be presented to the President for approval or a veto. The United States Supreme Court stuck down legislation in 1998 because it failed to meet this bicameralism and presentment to the President requirement. The Court has stated that “the Constitution explicitly requires that each of those three steps be taken before a bill may become a law…If one paragraph of that text had been omitted at any one of those three stages, Public Law 105-33 would not have been validly enacted.” However, since the text of the Senate bill will not be passed in the House – but only “deemed” passed with the inclusion of the reconciliation language – the President cannot sign the bill without violating the provisions set forth in the Constitution.

These procedural contortions are not only flagrantly disrespectful of the rule of law and the will of the people, but they are also unnecessary. When targeted health care reform legislation that would repeal the antitrust immunity for the health insurance industry came before the House, we passed that legislation 406-19. If the House and Senate Leadership would end its insistence on a purely partisan health care bill, it is likely that the Congress could in fact reach agreement on a bill built on the principles of affordable, quality, personalized care.

I will continue to update you on developments in Washington and will fight to ensure that your rights are not infringed by these procedural machinations being discussed.

Sincerely,

Daniel E. Lungren
Member of Congress

Dan Lungren is a Republican from California in the House of Representatives (Wikipedia). In other words, he's a biased source. After following the healthcare debate for nearly a year, I'm pretty sick of hearing Republican rhetoric and talking points.

So post an email you got from your rep... you can subscribe to their listserv.

lol you didn't even read it

name one thing in there that is biased

you don't even need to hear it from the Republicans to know this whole process is corrupt, the democrats straight up admit it. Listen to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi or any of them. The end justifies the mean to them and they will do ANYTHING and everything to get it. 'And they are, from straight up intimidation(cornering a fellow butt naked in a shower is a little too literal), threats, obscure loopholes, begging and groveling, and back room deals essentially buying votes(for example the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid, and many more we don't even know about) It wouldn't surprise me if they were breaking the law too.

Check out the link I'm providing that exposes the biggest lies about healthcare reform. It's an unbiased site.

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/mar/19/top-5-lies-about-health-care/

I don't know if anyone or anything can ever be truly called unbiased, but the site has called the shots exactly as I've seen them in other credible (to me) sources and is consistent with how I interpret the provisions I've read (which, as we all know, are evolving so my last read may not be the final). End sum, I think it does call the 5 myths correctly.

But it doesn't actually answer the questions in the email, above.

The Republican party has admitted that it would rather pass nothing than compromise even on something that meets the party's values and criteria, and it's all for political reasons. As a result, I'm having trouble reading anything they are now putting out, even when the issues and questions are real. Health care reform is needed and, as much as I'd rather pass the right bill than the wrong one, we can't trust the Republican politicians in Washington to help make that happen (NOTE that I am separating the politicians from those who are members of the party, or generally believing in the party's principals - these are are not one and the same).

According to the Politifact's About Us page "Politifact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times to help you find the truth in politics." I was interested to know who the St. Petersburg Times is and more specifically their political slant. According to St. Petersburg Time's own website they write, "The St. Petersburg Times is shown featuring more progressives than conservatives, with 43 percent of columnists considered progressive and 29 percent considered conservative. Just three other newspapers in the state featured more progressive voices than conservative: The Palm Beach Post, the Ocala Star Banner and the New Smyrna Beach Observer." The information is also under the heading Political Slant on Wikipedia's article about the newspaper.

That website you claim is unbiased... well, it's not. Of course I'm not discounting their articles as politically slanted. I'm just saying you should use caution when throwing around the "they're an unbiased site" label.

The website exposes falsehoods from both the Left and the Right; I consider that to be unbiased.

Bias occurs in application. An unbiased publication is not one in which the authors hold no bias, but one in which bias is not applied in any way that negatively effects the accuracy and balance of the publication and its content.

The cost of health care is entirely due to artificial inefficient bureaucracy PLUS
corruption in said system.
I recently posted an offer of a FREE technical solution to a medical technical
problem that I KNOW will not be implemented because it reduces the cost of
a procedure and the equipment to do it while increasing the quality and
efficiency of the same procedure. It does not in any way endanger the
patient beyond the consequences of doing it the inferior expensive way.
It needn't even be used by anyone actually performing a procedure on a
patient, so it has no possible negative consequences.
I also recently posted something about 3 companies that went out of
business after choosing expensive failures over free solutions. I cannot
understand the logic of such choices but the consequences are invariably
lose-lose situations for everyone involved.

Someone I know who doesn't have insurance shops around for the lowest
cost of procedures. Hospitals find this strange but they give him numbers
and procedures and overcharged bills, and he responds to those bills by
sending a copy of the estimate along with a check marked PAID IN FULL.
He's smarter than everyone else I know. This method drives down the
cost of health care under the direct control of the customer. Darn the
people who made up the lies to rip everyone off. To heck with insurance
companies that take your money and cancel your policy when you are sick.
If you're paying them, and they ever did that to anyone, FIRE THEM!

As someone who lives in a country where free healthcare is a right for each and every citizen... I can tell you most of us are beyond baffled at the debate in the USA. I believe most of the developed world is baffled.

It's easy to get lost in the details, but the big picture (at least the way it looks to those of us on the outside) is that America will defend to the death it's right to bear arms... but it doesn't believe the sick have the right to health care. Very strange indeed.

Obama was elected on a platform that promised to move forward with this health care bill. He said he would do it, and he did it. Unfortunately for my country, we are currently being led by what we bitterly refer to as a Shrub (small Bush). God help us.

If "free" health-care is a right then paying for someone else's health-care must be a duty. That sounds like a tax to me.

I will give you a hint: TANSTAAFL - There ain't no such thing as a Free Lunch.

ruveyn

Well, this bill does not actually give free health care to anyone. There is no public option in the bill that passed.

Also, yeah, of course there is a tax involved. Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats occasionally attempt to pay for their legislation. Most of the general arguments against taxation really require you to take up an anarchist position, so unless you're prepared to go that far it's necessary to argue against the specific provisions of this individual bill.

Ruveyn, yes we do believe in the duty of paying universally for the healthcare of those who cannot afford it.

Some resent it and call it a tax... but most don't.

Most of us call it a privilege.

A privilege when circumstance puts us on the giving end, and a blessing when coverage is there for our inevitable turn on the receiving end.

What the US has lost sight of in their death grip on consumerism, is that not everything in life can be measured by dollars and cents.

Dollars and cents equate to hours of toil and effort, and that counts for something. Most money is earned by mostly honest toil.

Consumerism (as you call it) is why we don't live like they do in Haiti, if you can call that squalid existence living.

ruveyn

Not true. People who perform honest toil earn the least.