headline « Healthcare Horserace

BREAKING: BAUCUS BILL UPDATES

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

UPDATE 3:03 P.M. EASTERN- VOTE TALLIES:

Republican
CHUCK GRASSLEY -no
ORRIN G. HATCH -no
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE -yes
JON KYL -no
JIM BUNNING -no
MIKE CRAPO -no
PAT ROBERTS -no
JOHN ENSIGN -no
MIKE ENZI -no
JOHN CORNYN -no

Democrat
MAX BAUCUS -yes
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER -yes
KENT CONRAD -yes
JEFF BINGAMAN -yes
JOHN F. KERRY -yes
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN -yes
RON WYDEN -yes
CHARLES E. SCHUMER -yes
DEBBIE STABENOW -yes
MARIA CANTWELL -yes
BILL NELSON -yes
ROBERT MENENDEZ -yes
THOMAS CARPER -yes

Agreed to (14-9)

The Mark is ordered reported.

UPDATE: 1:03 P.M. EASTERN- SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE (R-ME) WILL VOTE “YES” ON BAUCUS BILL.

In what Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of Senate Committee on Finance, calls an opportunity to “make history” by satisfying President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority, his bill will be up for vote around noon Tuesday to determine the future of the health care reform agenda of the White House and Congressional progressives.

Stay tuned to healthcarehorserace.com for the latest breaking news as the votes are tallied and the White House, Congress and the public respond.

Tags: headline, health care reform, Max Baucus, Senate Committee on Finance
Posted in Eye on the Media, Horserace | Start the Discussion

Baucus Plan Hides Nearly $1.2 Trillion in Additional Spending

Monday, October 12th, 2009

-By Rep. John Shadegg (R, AZ), Posted at RedCounty.com

Now, more than ever, American families are living on strict budgets. If we have learned anything from the economic downturn, it’s that we must be cautious about how we spend our hard-earned money.

However, Congressional Democrats continue to set the rules of the health care debate on their own terms, using budget gimmicks that defy logic and saddle future generations with trillions in new debt.

The latest salvo comes in the form of the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) score of the Senate finance bill. One day after the CBO announced that our record deficit has tripled in just one year, Senator Baucus and friends in the media were busy running victory laps with the latest CBO “score” of his health plan. In reality the Baucus plan hides nearly $1.2 trillion in additional spending from the American people.

Amid pages of description and complicated budget tables lies the heart of what this bill means for the American taxpayer. On page 10 of the “score,” CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf writes that the expansion provisions in the bill are estimated to cost $180 billion in 2019, with projected growth at 8 percent beyond 2019. However, also revealing, the “score” assumes taxes on health insurance plans will total $46 billion by 2019, and receipts from these taxes are expected to grow by 10 to 15 percent in the following decade. Other taxes in the bill will total $52 billion in 2019, and are expected to grow by 10 percent in the following decade.

What do all these figures mean? Simply stated, it means the costs of the Democrats’ program will continue to grow and taxes will have to increase exponentially to pay for this growth. This is the story that Democrats don’t want you to know. Higher spending means higher taxes. Period. Americans know that if they spend more than they should, there will be less in their savings account at the end of the month. American families aren’t playing fast and loose with their dollars. Their government shouldn’t either.

Tags: Baucus, headline, John Shedegg, Senate
Posted in The Players | 1 Comment »

Senate Democrats Shield Constituents from Tax Burdens of Health Care Reform

Friday, October 9th, 2009

According to a report from Kimberly A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, some Senate Democrats have supported health care reform, so long as their own constituents don’t have to pay for it:

How good is Sen. Max Baucus’s health reform bill? So good that Democrats have made sure some of the most costly provisions don’t apply to their own states.

The Senate Finance Committee is gearing up for a final vote next week, and Chairman Baucus now appears to have the Democratic votes to pass his bill. Getting this far has of course meant cutting deals, and those deals, it turns out, are illuminating. The senators are all for imposing “reform” on the nation, so long as it doesn’t disadvantage their constituents.

A central feature of the Baucus bill is the vast expansion of state Medicaid programs. This is necessary, we are told, to cover more of the nation’s uninsured. The provision has angered governors, since the federal government will cover only part of the expansion and stick fiscally strapped states with an additional $37 billion in costs. The “states, with our financial challenges right now, are not in a position to accept additional Medicaid responsibilities,” griped Democratic Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.

Poor Mr. Strickland. If only he lived in . . . Nevada! Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is worried about losing his seat next year, worked out a deal by which the federal government will pay all of his home state’s additional Medicaid expenses for the next five years. Under the majority leader’s very special formula, only three other states—Oregon, Rhode Island and Michigan—qualify for this perk, on the grounds, as Mr. Reid put it recently on the Senate floor, that they “are suffering more than most.”

Tell that to Mr. Strickland, who is still trying to figure out how to close an $850 million budget hole, in a state with near 11% unemployment. And tell it to Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, who quipped: “I wonder how citizens in Wyoming, in California and Florida and other states will feel if they pay more taxes so that Nevadans can pay less taxes.”

To pay the bill for his version of ObamaCare, Mr. Baucus’s legislation would tax high-value insurance plans—a 40% tax on plans that cost more than $21,000 a year. Democrats argue it is reform to make those who can afford “luxury” health care chip in for those who can’t afford any at all.

That is, unless you live in a state such as New York. That state, along with some others, has many high-value plans—in part because it boasts a lot of union members with “Cadillac” plans, in part because the state has imposed so many insurance regulations that even skimpy plans are expensive. Sen. Chuck Schumer didn’t want a lot of angry overtaxed New Yorkers on his hands, so he and other similarly situated Democrats carved out a deal by which the threshold for this tax will be higher in their states. If you live in Kentucky, you get taxed at $21,000. If you live in Massachusetts you don’t get taxed until $25,000. This carve-out is at least more sweeping, applying to 17 (largely blue) states, though that’s cold comfort if you live in Louisville.

Mr. Baucus will also pay for his bill by socking it to pharmaceutical companies, on the principle that drug companies are filthy rich and should have to contribute to health care. The view is a bit different in New Jersey. The state’s Web site boasts it is the “global epicenter” of the drug industry, where “15 of the world’s 20 largest pharmaceutical companies have major facilities.” And Sen. Bob Menendez, of the Garden State, seems concerned that his home-state employers are going to struggle to both pay their federal liabilities and to continue to grow and innovate. Thus Mr. Menendez’s quiet deal for a $1 billion tax credit for companies investing in drug R&D.

The Baucus bill, we are assured by many Dems, will successfully “bend down” the health-care cost curve. Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow isn’t counting on it when it comes to her constituents. She and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry included $5 billion in the bill for a reinsurance program designed to defray the medical costs of union members.

“This will help our employers, whether it’s the auto industry or whether it’s other industries, be able to lower their costs for early retirees,” said Ms. Stabenow. She is apparently unaware that this is what the broader bill is supposed to do, even without $5 billion in union slush money.

So, health-care “reform” is good, smart and necessary, so long as it isn’t fully applied to the states of the senators who are pushing it. The Democrats’ growing problem is that somebody is ultimately going to have to pay, and Mr. Reid’s bad example has given every one the same idea. “If Colorado has a fair claim on being treated the same way Nevada has been, of course we’re going to ask to have that kind of treatment,” promised Sen. Mark Udall, upon news of the Reid deal.

Most senators are saving up their special state demands for when the bill hits the Senate floor. At that point, we’ll get an even better idea of how much health-care change Democrats truly believe in.

Tags: Bob Menendez, Harry Reid, headline, health care reform, John Kerry, Mark Udall, Max Baucus, Obamacare, Senate Democrats, Ted Strickland
Posted in The Players | 1 Comment »

Senate Committee on Finance Approves State-Based Public Option Plan

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

Just when the majority of Americans thought they could sleep a little easier since the Senate Committee on Finance squashed the so-called public option, they approve of another version of it just Thursday.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. The public option passed the Senate Committee on Finance Thursday. But, it’s not “nationalized health care.” You see, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and his cohorts on the Left passed an amendment that would create a state-based public option program, a measure proposed by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA).

“This proposal is about giving federal dollars to the states and putting them in the driver’s seat,” Cantwell said. “It is a public plan, but negotiated with the private sector.”

All Democrats except Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) voted to support the Cantwell amendment and all Republicans voted against it. Baucus, who has resisted adding a public option of any kind to his bill based on the argument that there is not enough support in the Senate, was enthusiastic about Cantwell’s proposal. “This is a great amendment,” he said.

Sen. Baucus believed that there wasn’t enough support for a federal public option, but now he backs a state public option. After governors on both sides of the aisle resisted co-operatives for the enormous entitlement strain they would create, it is doubtful they would throw support behind this measure either. With states so heavily (and disproportionately) subsidizing health care infrastructure locally, the state-based public option would only further deplete their already barren coffers, which would serve as yet another excuse to raise taxes. When the federal government doesn’t kick enough money to state X, its lawmakers will have to find a way to fund it.

Still, all Democrats but Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas voted for the amendment, indicating they believe they could garner support for shifting the financial and regulatory burden of health care to the states. Politically, it makes sense. After all, the Democrats have to pass something, or risk President Obama facing his, as Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) called it, Waterloo. But, if the program fails, Congress can dodge the blame and instead point to the failures of individual states.

Here are the “nuts and bolts” of the plan:

Under the Cantwell amendment, people with incomes between 133 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level who do not get insurance at work would enroll in these state-based programs. The federal tax credits that would otherwise have been given to those individuals would instead be paid to states to finance the plan. Cantwell based her amendment on a program in Washington state.

States could choose to set up their plans, which would negotiate with medical providers on payment rates rather than base them on Medicare’s fees, as other public option plans would do. Cantwell and Baucus said the amendment would save money. “We are putting someone in charge, finally, of negotiating rates,” Cantwell said.The benefits offered by these state plans would have to be at least as good as under Medicaid or through a private plan sold through the health insurance exchange in the legislation.

Republicans complained that any claims that the state plans would save money were purely speculative because Cantwell’s amendment has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). “There is no CBO score to tell us that,” said Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.). “We don’t know that.” Republicans also pointed out that Baucus had ruled numerous GOP amendments out of order because there were not CBO scores.

So, an amendment that has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office is going to be sandwiched in the Baucus health care bill, an amendment that would obligate states to more entitlements and more bureaucracy. The government is going to negotiate rates. Oh, and those tax cuts have been eliminated, too. Splendid. Just splendid.

Tags: headline, Maria Cantwell, Max Baucus, Obamacare, public-option, Senate Committee on Finance, state public option
Posted in Policy Alternative | 1 Comment »

Senate Republican Policy Committee: Baucus Proposals Would Break Obama Pledge

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

The Senate Republican Policy Committee (SRPC) has released an analysis that they believe indicates that the proposals of Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) break the pledge President Obama made to the American public that his health care initiatives would not increase taxes on the middle class.

According to the SRPC, the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office have both confirmed that “at least 71 percent of the individual mandate penalties in the Baucus bill would fall on the backs of Americans earning less than $250,000.” They argue that if the bill were to pass, it would “directly violate the President’s pledge on the campaign trail that he wouldn’t raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 “one single dime.‘”

The table below indicates that at least $2 billion of the $2.8 billion raised from the fines imposed upon those choosing not to purchase insurance in 2016 would “come from Americans earning less than 500 percent of the Federal Poverty Line, or $120,000 for a family of four ($59,000 for a single person).” The SRPC concludes that at least a portion of the remaining $800 million in penalties from those earning more than 500 percent of the poverty line will come from families who earn less than $250,00 annually. The table does not estimate how much, though.

Check out the Distribution of Penalties in 2016.

	Individual Mandate Penalties
AGI Relative to the		Total	Share of
Federal Poverty Level (FPL)		Payments	Payments
		($ billions)		(%)
Less than 100% ($24k)		0.0		0
100% to 200% ($24k to $48k)		0.6		20
200% to 300% ($48k to $72k)		0.6		20
300% to 400% ($72k to $96k)		0.5		18
400% to 500% ($96k to $120k)		0.3		12
Greater than 500% ($120k+)		0.8		29
Total		2.8		100

Tags: Congressional Budget Office, headline, health care reform, individual mandate, Max Baucus, Obamacare, Senate Republican Policy Committee, taxes
Posted in Policy Alternative | Start the Discussion

Congressional Liberals Demand Health Insurance for Illegal Immigrants

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Congressman Michael M. Honda (D-CA) and more than 20 of his progressive colleagues in the House of Representatives issued two letters that demanded health care coverage for immigrants illegally residing in the U.S. Analysts believe that this move suggests that liberal Democrats are “fearful that they’re losing ground on immigration and health care.”

“Legal permanent residents should be able to purchase their plans, and they should also be eligible for subsidies if they need it. Undocumented, if they can afford it, should be able to buy their own private plans. It keeps them out of the emergency room,” said Rep. Michael M. Honda, California Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

As the bill reads now, legal immigrants can take part in the health care exchange proposed by President Obama after five years of lawful residency. Still, many Democrats assert that it is “unfair” to prevent those here illegally from “paying their own way in a government-sponsored exchange.” They also believe that immigrants living in the U.S. legally should be allowed to participate, and even receive government-subsidized health care, regardless of their length of lawful residency.

It is apparent that the issue of covering illegal immigrants has been an especially explosive component of the health care reform debate. With many citizens vocalizing their disapproval at town halls across the country and the outburst of Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) during the President’s most recent prime-time health care appeal, it is evident that many Americans vehemently resist the notion of their taxpayer dollars funding the coverage for those who choose to enter the country by circumventing the law.

And the poll numbers indicate this to be the case:

Even 53 percent of self-proclaimed liberals oppose extending health care coverage to illegal immigrants.
83 percent of all Americans believe that “proof of citizenship” should be required to obtain government health aid.

Despite the apparent unpopularity of such a measure, progressives in Congress push on. Immigrant rights groups have firmly pressured liberal lawmakers to instate provisions that would be sympathetic to a growing number of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. Whether or not their prying works to sway the votes of the majority of 435 members of the House away from the desires of their constituents, who likely disapprove of this attempt, will be known in the weeks to come.

Regardless of the outcome, one could expect the U.S. Supreme Court would examine any piece of legislation regarding the interests of illegal immigrants in health care legislation.

Tags: headline, health care reform, illegal immigrants, Joe Wilson, Michael Honda, proof of citizenship
Posted in Policy Alternative | 2 Comments »

Imprisonment Possible Consequence for Failure to Meet Insurance Mandate

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

Under the Senate Committee on Finance proposals of Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), individuals who refuse to purchase insurance could face a year of jail time for their non-compliance.

According to a letter obtained from Politico, Section 7203 of the Code “provides that if there is a willful failure to file, pay or maintain appropriate records and the like, that the taxpayer may be charged with a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to $25,000 and not more than one year in jail.” This assessment comes from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Thomas Barthold, who submitted a handwritten followup to Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) after he inquired about the consequences of not paying the $1,9000 penalty for failure to purchase insurance.

Tags: headline, individual mandate, insurance mandate, John Ensign, Max Baucus, Politico, Thomas Barthold
Posted in Policy Alternative | 2 Comments »

Snowe proposes public option trigger amendment to Baucus bill.

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

In a bold move that could both save health care reform and alienate the Maine senator from her own party, Republican Olympia Snowe offered an amendment to Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus‘ America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 calling for a trigger mechanism that would establish government option insurance plans in states across the country that cannot guarantee affordable health care coverage to their citizens. The amendment calls for a “safety net” under which a public option insurance plan to be implemented in states where at least 95% of people did not have the option of an “affordable” health insurance plan that cost no more than 13 percent of income for an average family of four.

Short Title: Provision of Safety Net fallback plan to ensure access to affordable coverage

Description of Amendment: This amendment establishes a non-profit government corporation through which a “safety net” plan would be provided in any state in which affordable coverage was not available in the Exchange to at least 95% of state residents. An individual would be deemed to have affordable access if either of two conditions is met. First, two or more plans are offered with premiums – the cost of which does not exceed a specified percentage of the individual‘s adjusted gross income (AGI), after deducting any available tax credit or employer subsidy from the cost of such premium. The percentage contribution shall range from 3 percent of AGI at 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, to 13 percent at 300 percent and above.
Assessment of affordability shall follow submission of plan premiums filed one year in advance of the first day of each policy year, and should a state be found to not meet the 95% threshold, plans would be permitted to submit of any revised premium filings, after which a second assessment of affordability shall be performed. If, after that second assessment, a state still be deemed as not meeting the affordability standard, the safety net plan shall be offered within that state, and shall be available at the pending open season enrollment. (Click here to view all of the 564 amendments to be voted on during mark up this week.)

Snowe’s move was not unanticipated. For weeks HealthCareHorseRace.com has been following the will she or won’t she debate surrounding Snowe and the trigger. Snowe reportedly has been in constant contact with President Obama and the White House over the past several months - despite the fact that Republican Chuck Grassley said that the White House had cut off communication with Republican members of the Gang of Six prior to the August recess.

SCHIEFFER: You first broached this idea of the so-called trigger option, and that is setting a deadline for these private insurance companies to come up with plans that would cover everyone who needed health care, and then if they didn’t get that, then consider some sort of a public option. Do you still feel that way?

SNOWE: Yes, I do. I think it is a possibility. You know, bridging the gap at some point in this process as we move forward. And, in fact, I recommended it to the president months ago, even before health care was at the forefront in Congress, because that started (ph) as a way of assuring coverage, not instituting a public option, but making sure that people have access to choices of affordable coverage if the health insurance industry doesn’t perform under a newly restructured market, similar to what we did in the prescription drug benefit, which actually — it worked. There were so many choices, we never triggered the fallback, in fact. (From Maine senators united against public option but divided on trigger mechanism on HealthCareHorseRace.com.)

As recently as Thursday, Snowe announced in a New York Times interview that she was still considering the public option but was undecided on whether to introduce it in Finance Committee mark-up or to wait until the bill hit the Senate floor.

I offered the trigger many months ago as an idea or alternative to the public option and I mentioned that to the President at that time. He didn’t reject it in the ensuing conversations I’ve had with him and with others. They indicated they would be flexible on that point. I think now the question is whether or not or at which to point to address that issue and I think we’ll have to determine whether or not it’s in the committee or on the floor and how we build a concensus at that point in addition to the other issues.

It is most likely that Democrat Ben Nelson’s offering of an amendment to strip the Baucus plan of cooperatives and replace them with a national public option triggered Snowe’s move.

Tags: amendments, America's Healthy Future Act of 2009, Barack Obama, Ben Nelson, Chuck Grassley, Gang of Six, headline, Max Baucus, New York Times, Olympia Snowe, public-option, safety net, Senate Finance Committee, trigger
Posted in Policy Alternative | 1 Comment »

Obama to Offer His Own Plan

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Marc Armbinder of The Atlantic is reporting that President Obama will be unveiling his own healthcare plan in the coming week as a way to kick start the debate back in his favor. Obama will discuss his plan on Wednesday, September 9.

One of the easy digs against Obama until this time has been that he not only had nothing to do with the various plans floating around Congress (at least three bills thus far) and, worse, that he hasn’t seemed to really know what is in any of them.

Now Obama is about to offer his own plan. Some of it will be ideas already in play and others will be new.

He plans to list specific goals that any health insurance reform plan that arrives at his desk must achieve, according to Democratic strategists familiar with the plan. Some of these “goals” have already been agreed to, including new anti-discrimination restrictions on insurance companies. Others will be new, including the level of subsidies he expects to give the uninsured so they can buy into the system.

Obama will also specify a “pay for” mechanism he prefers, and will specify an income level below which he does not want to see taxed.

He will insist upon a mechanism to cut costs and increase competition among insurance companies — and perhaps will even specify a percentage rate — and he will say that his preferred mechanism remains a government-subsidized public health insurance option, but he will remain agnostic about whether the plan must include a robust public option. Officials won’t say whether the president intends to endorse a specific “trigger” mechanism if the competition mechanism fails, but they say he will make it clear that the final bill must contain language that increases competition.

But here are the real questions. So Obama has his own “new” plan to offer. So what? Does it have the force of law, has he found a few Congressmen or Senators to sign on, is it actual legislation of just his blather that has no force of law?

What ever the case it is true that the Democrats are losing the debate thus far. If Obama wants to win the day here something will have to be done calm the fears of the electorate.

Lastly, it is a bit odd that we are going to get “Obama’s plan,” now, isn’t it? After all, this whole thing has been sold since day one as the president’s policies, the president’s campaign promise, and the president’s idea. Now, though, we are going to suddenly see “his plan” unveiled? This seems to make the lie to the last 6 months of selling “his” plan, doesn’t it?

Tags: headline, President Obama
Posted in The Players | 3 Comments »

White House Appeal for “Fishy” Emails Warrants Lawsuit

Friday, August 28th, 2009

The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) announced today that they have filed a lawsuit in DC District Court against the White House for their request for “fishy” emails from opponents.

In an August 4, 2009 press release, the Obama Administration asked that supporters turn in any persons guilty of disseminating “disinformation” that is contrary to their faming of liberal health care reform proposals.

Healthcarehorserace.com discovered last Tuesday that the White House disabled the “flag@whitehouse.gov” email address they provided for submitting the sources of “fishy” emails.

Still, the buzz surrounding the White House’s appeal persisted, with Americans on both sides of the aisle concerned that the Obama Administration overreached by essentially monitoring the discourse of private citizens regarding policy issues that will impact their lives forever. Now, the AAPS and CURE intend to fight for these Americans and make an example out of the Administration for their inappropriate exercise of power.

The White House has “unlawfully collected information on political speech,” thereby illegally using the power of the White House to chill opposition to its plans for health care reform, according to the complaint filed in District Court <http://www.aaps-eop-complaint.pdf/> for the District of Columbia, by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) <http://www.urbancure.org/>

The lawsuit was prompted by the White House solicitation for the public to report any “fishy” comments to ‘flag@whitehouse.gov.’ Although the White House slightly revised its data collection procedure last week, the email address still exists, the illegal activity continues, and is part of an “unlawful pattern and practice to collect and maintain information” on the exercise of free speech, which “continues in violation of the Privacy Act and First Amendment even if the Defendants terminate a particular information-collection component due to negative publicity.”

The lawsuit outlines how the White House has employed a form of “bait-and-switch” tactic of accusing the Plaintiffs and other opponents of spreading misinformation about the Administration’s goals for health care reform, and thereby refusing to ‘come clean’ about its real agenda.

The groups believe that the “White House knew that the data collection would chill free speech, and in fact, intended to do just that.” According to Kathryn Serkes of AAPS, the call to report Obamacare adversaries catalyzed a significant increase in the number and severity of scathing emails her organization received.

“My hate mail started shortly after the White House issued the ‘fishy’ request,” said Kathryn Serkes, Director of Policy and Public Affairs. “We were quite visible and vocal before then, so it doesn’t seem like a coincidence. Who did they share their data with? With whom might they share it?”

Star Parker, Founder and President of CURE, expressed that while the White House’s bullying did not dissuade her, she does find it disconcerting that President Obama’s administration would see no problem in developing a database to track those who might oppose their policies.

“As a black conservative spokesperson and columnist, intimidation tactics aren’t new to me,” Parker said. “But it is of great concern to see the current Administration build an enemies list of those who disagree with them on this important issue.”

A few significant excerpts from the AAPS and CURE lawsuit delivered to the White House include:

43. As part of their effort to advance the White House healthcare reform agenda, Defendants have accused opponents (including Plaintiffs) of spreading misinformation on issues such as whether (a) health reform would provide public funding for abortions, (b) put “death panels” in place to deny care to the elderly or infirm, (c) amount to a government takeover of healthcare, and (d) increase healthcare costs..the Defendants and the administration have spread misinformation, semantics, and disinformation on these topics…..

“45. By denying and continuing to deny that healthcare reform legislation includes “death panels” that make individual life-or-death decisions on the elderly or infirm, the Defendants and the current administration have ignored and implicitly denied and continue to ignore and implicitly to deny both that their healthcare reform agenda involves rationing healthcare…”

The lawsuit demands that the Obama Administration “remove all information already collected, and further, be prohibited from collecting any personal data in the future.” It requests “declaratory and injunctive relief,” a procedure that would force the White House to cease their “fishy” email collections or face criminal penalties. Such a judicial restraint is rare, as the courts have ruled consistently in favor of the defendant’s right to freedom of speech. This case might be different, however, because the White House is a federally-funded entity and the injunction, in the eyes of the plaintiffs, would provide the only remedy to correct their errors and protect the American people.

AAPS and CURE argue that Americans’ First Amendment-guaranteed rights to privacy and freedom of speech deem the behavior of the White House as unconstitutional. The suit was issued yesterday to the “Executive Office of the President,” located at none other than 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and was addressed to Nancy-Ann Deparle, director of the White House Office of Health Care Reform, and Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House.

Tags: AAPS, American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education, CURE, Ellen Carmichael, fishy, headline, Kathryn Serkes, Obama, white house
Posted in The Players | Start the Discussion

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