Nancy Pelosi is now claiming that if the vote were taken today, she’d have enough support from House Democrats to pass health reform. But according to The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward , that’s news to Rep. George Miller, a close Pelosi ally who responded “I don’t know, I don’t know” when asked to verify her statement
The single biggest hold up for health care reform right now is the language determining whether or not federal funding can be used to pay for abortions. When the House passed its original bill, it had to make a last-minute addition of language strictly prohibiting any federal funding for abortion in order to get enough votes. This became known as the “Stupak language,” after Rep.
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Is Bart Stupak Ready to Flip?
On Newsweek ’s website, Associate Editor Peter Suderman looks at how Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan to cut spending and kill the deficit might cause trouble for the GOP : Ask most Republican politicians what they stand for, and they’ll quickly pledge allegiance to the principles of limited government, restrained federal spending, and fiscal responsibility. But follow up and ask what policies are needed to achieve these goals, and the answers don’t come as easily. In fact, to date, only one GOP legislator has drafted a comprehensive plan to cut spending, eliminate the deficit, and balance the federal budget.
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Reason Writers Around Town: Peter Suderman in Newsweek on Paul Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future
Slate ’s Tim Noah counts the votes for ObamaCare in the House and comes to the conclusion that, without an act of God—or at least a letter from the Pope, who could perhaps flip some pro-life Democrats—there isn’t enough support for the bill to pass. For a more cautious, but equally thorough, take on the vote count, see Daniel Nichanian at Campaign Diaries . The best response the bill’s supporters have left is to point out that a number of House Democrats who voted for the original bill have (so far) declined to confirm that they’ll vote no again
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One, Two, Three, Four, Counting the Votes For Health Reform
From the Daily Mail : A former pub landlord yesterday became the first person to be jailed in connection with the smoking ban. Nick Hogan, 43, was sentenced to six months in prison for refusing to pay a fine imposed for flouting the legislation. Two years ago Hogan, who ran two pubs in Bolton, became the first landlord convicted of breaking the law for allowing his customers to routinely light up in his bars
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Pub Owner Jailed for Flouting Smoking Ban
Now that the bipartisan health care squawkathon is, praise the gods of C-SPAN, finally over, Democratic legislators can finally get down to the important business of ignoring the polls and radically overhauling the entire U.S. health care system via party-line vote. To do so, they’ll have to use a budgetary process known as reconciliation, which allows Democrats, who no longer control a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, to circumvent a Republican filibuster with a simple 51-vote majority
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On Reconciliation, Both Parties Agree: The Other Side Is Right!
The Wall Street Journal notes Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s latest attempt to reign in the skyrocketing cost of his state’s health care plan : Now that it’s expanded health-insurance coverage to nearly all of its citizens, Massachusetts is trying to figure out what to do about the rapid rise of health costs. The latest proposal comes from the state’s governor, Deval Patrick, who yesterday proposed a bill that would give the state the power to review—and, in some cases, reject—rate increases by doctors and hospitals. No doubt many will see this as a good thing: What’s the harm in making sure that providers don’t increase their rates too much
Supporters of an individual mandate for health insurance frequently cite the problem of “uncompensated care”—health care that hospitals perform but are never paid for, often (though not always) because the individuals involved lack insurance. For example, in a story earlier this week, The New York Times noted as follows : Nationwide, the cost of unpaid care for hospitals, which includes charity care as well as money that could not be collected from patients, was around $36 billion in 2008.
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Is Uncompensated Care a Problem?
In a write-up following a debate with Chris Riley of the pro-Net neutrality group, Free Press, the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s Barbara Esbin succinctly captures the essence of the Net neutrality debate : I argued, as I have in the past , that net neutrality remains a solution in search of a problem, and Riley argued, as Free Press has , that it is required to ensure a fair and open Internet. In my presentation, I focused on the lack of evidence of a market problem or consumer harms to be redressed by this regulatory remedy; the FCC’s lack of “ancillary” jurisdiction to impose the proposed net neutrality mandates; and the possibility that the rules would be found to infringe on the First Amendment rights of broadband Internet service provider.
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Demystifying Net Neutrality
At Tuesday’s House Budget Committee meeting, Congressman Paul Ryan got White House budget-maestro Peter Orszag to admit that the administration’s new budget only kinda-sorta meets the deficit reduction standard it set for itself (the relevant exchange occurs about 29 minutes in). The administration’s self-set goal—which Orszag talked up last fall —is to get the deficit down to about three percent of GDP.
