No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for October 30th, 2009

Paul Ryan drops off a copy of H.R. 3962 at the Franklin Public Library

by @ 14:33. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

I attended Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI, and my Congressman) townhall meeting at the Franklin Public Library, where he dropped off a copy of the 1,990-page present House version of PlaceboCare. If you have the 36 minutes to watch the entire townhall, the 4-part video is below (and yes, it is recommended). If you don’t read the Cliff’s Notes version while you watch the short version from Ryan’s office:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN8O8-R45aw[/youtube]

  • Ryan would have brought more copies, but with the bill being over a foot tall, he couldn’t carry more than one on the plane. Fortunately, he did put it up on his House website.
  • H.R. 3962 would represent the largest tax increase in the history of the country, with a surtax of 5.4% on those making over $500,000 per year ($1,000,000 for couples) hitting most small businesses as well, a 2.5% medical device tax, a new payroll tax and the removal of the tax-exempt status of Health Savings Accounts.
  • Abortions would be paid for under the public option, and the bill would also establish an accounting gimmick to justify subsidizing private plans that cover abortion.
  • In order to make it appear to be deficit-“neutral”, it removed a $245 billion provision that would reverse a planned reduction in Medicare reimbursement rates, with plans to pass that as a stand-alone bill (or more-likely, attached to something else).
  • The $170 billion in Medicare Advantage cuts will, according to Medicare’s actuaries, cause 64% of those on Medicare Advantage off that program and raise the rates paid by those remaining in it.
  • Speaking of rate increases, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Milwaukee estimates that the bill will increase the insurance rates of those in their twenties by 199% (that’s essentially tripling it), those in their 40s by 122%, and those in their 50s by double-digits.
  • Instead of attempting to fix the joint state-federal Medicaid, which is currently bankrupting a lot of states, it increases its size by 50%.
  • The malpractice tort “reform” will be limited to states that do not cap damages, thus making it anything but reform (Ryan called it a “fig leaf”).
  • While the House Republicans will be offering a “consolidated” substitute amendment next week, it is unknown whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as part of hers, President Barack Obama’s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plan to use one-party rule to ram this through, will even allow it to see the floor.
  • On the House side, the current plan is to get this to the floor on Thursday, with a vote on Saturday. On the Senate side, a cloture vote is expected sometime in the third week of November, but ultimately it won’t be necessary as the groundwork has been laid to pass this through “reconciliation”, which requires a simple majority instead of 60 votes to invoke cloture.
  • Even though the current tally of the correspondence at the Ryan office is 9-1 against, he urged people to once again call Senators Kohl and Feingold to keep the pressure up, especially because it is not inevitable.
  • He explained why this was his first opportunity to come back to the district after the August recess – Pelosi is trying to keep everybody in Washington so they don’t hear from their constituents.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ww5jwQkip0[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGznTy69Bhk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghgSq3K4law[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m7Fxnk_AM0[/youtube]

Revisions/extensions (5:02 pm 10/30/2009) – Just received word that the new bill has a new bill number. It is now H.R. 3962.

R&E part 2 (5:28 pm 10/30/2009) – The preliminary CBO first-decade scoring is in. Between the “meeting” with Obama resulting in some “technical” changes, the removal of planned fixes to the reduction in Medicare reimbursements (removing $245 billion in costs), a further reduction in those reimbursement rates (which, along wth other cuts in Medicare amount to $426 billion), and taxes/fees/penalties equalling $739 billion, they were able to squeeze out a debt “reduction” of $104 billion out of a bill spending $1,055 billion (that would be $1.055 trillion for those who missed the comma) in new outlays.

Two More Czars

by @ 8:07. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

President Obama has acquired two more Czars.  Here’s a clip from their first meeting:

These are Czars I could accept!

H/T Big G

Oh, This Will Help!

by @ 5:50. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - Minnesota.

Queen Nancy unveiled her new version of Placebocare today.  Amongst the more than 1900 pages is a nice little gem:

Under Pelosi’s bill, anyone earning up to 150 percent of the poverty line will be eligible for Medicaid. This is an increase on previous iterations?and the Senate bill?which only covered people up to 133 percent of the poverty line.

I can’t tell you for sure, how many additional people this is going to put into the Medicaid ranks.  I have read various reports suggesting that the total numbers will increase 20% to 30%.

Medicaid?  We’re relying on an expansion of Medicaid to get more people health care?  I seem to remember that there were concerns about Medicaid….what were they?  Oh yeah, I remember!

According to Medicalnewstoday.com, in 1996-1997, 29% of solo practitioners did not accept Medicaid.  In 2004-2005, that number had increased to 35%.  The same analysis showed that group practitioners rejected Medicaid at the rate of 16% and 24% in the respective years.  The total number of practitioners who rejected Medicaid was less than 13% in the first period and 14.5% in the second.

Healthcarefinancenews.com reports that in a recent survey, 35% of all medical offices now refuse medicaid while only 17% refuse Medicare.

Why is it that more physicians are refusing Medicaid?  There’s a simple answer:

84% of physicians who did not accept new Medicaid patients in 2004-2005 said reimbursements were a factor; 70% of physicians said billing requirements and paperwork were a factor; and two-thirds said delayed payments were a factor (HSC release, 8/17).

Let’s see if I have this right.  Nancy’s plan significantly increases the number of people on a program that has fewer care providers each year.  For the rest of us, her plan lowers the reimbursements, increases the requirements and paperwork and will further delay or deny reimbursement payments.

If the definition of insanity is to repeat the same action over and over and expecting a different outcome, then Nancy Pelosi and anyone who supports her version of Placebocare certainly fit the definition of insane!

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