Politics/elections

Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), both medical doctors, released a 32-page report on Wednesday to mark the 100 days since enactment of the healthcare reform law. The report is entitled "Bad Medicine: A check-up on the new federal health law."

The report raises concerns with the law, notably the fact that premiums and other healthcare costs will continue to rise.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is betting healthcare reform will do Democrats more good than harm in November’s elections.

Organizers of a failed petition drive to exempt Michigan from aspects of the federal healthcare reform law rallied activists in Lansing on Tuesday to urge them to continue their fight through the November midterm elections. The petition collected more than 150,000 signatures, well short of the 381,000 needed to get a referendum to the state constitution on the November ballot.

“Although we fell short of the number of signatures required, the results are unprecedented in recent Michigan history,” said Charlie Owens, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). “Critics who are dismissive of our efforts would do well to consider this fact in light of ongoing efforts that will continue through the elections in November.”

The NFIB’s Michigan chapter held the press conference along with Michigan Citizens for Healthcare Freedom. Their amendment would have prohibited government from: restricting a person’s right to choose his or her own healthcare system or plan; interfering with a person’s or employer’s right to pay directly for lawful medical services; and imposing a penalty or fine on those who choose to obtain or decline any healthcare coverage or to participate in any particular healthcare system or plan.

“The average petition drive has six months to gather signatures and spends about $1.5 million,” Owens added. “We had about 11 weeks and spent about 2 percent of that amount and we still managed to obtain a record number of signatures. This is a battle, not the war; we will carry on with this fight in the courts, with legislation and at the ballot box in November.”

House Democratic leadership has given members a list of suggestions for building support for the healthcare reform law ahead of the midterm elections. The top three suggestions:

• Hold a roundtable discussion on the so-called "Patient's Bill of Rights," which consists of new insurance provisions in the law that starts Sept. 23. These include mandating coverage of sick children; banning arbitrary rescissions; prohibiting lifetime limits and restricting annual limits; protecting patients' choice of doctor; and removing barriers to emergency room care.

• Demonstrate the new Web portal (www.HealthCare.org) that helps consumers navigate their private insurance options and helps them determine if they're eligible for public programs such as Medicaid or the new high-risk insurance pools.

• Hold a press conference with local seniors' groups on the second round of "doughnut hole" rebate checks, which are slated to go out Saturday to about 300,000 beneficiaries. The $250 checks are meant to help seniors pay for their Medicare prescription drug coverage; the first round went out June 10 to about 80,000 beneficiaries.

The push comes as new polls show growing support for the healthcare reform law even if seniors continue to have concerns.

Other events suggested include:

• Meeting with seniors to talk about elder fraud prevention;

• Holding events with small business owners to tout the law's $40 billion in tax credits for small businesses; 

• Organizing events with mid-sized and large employers to bring attention to the law's $5 billion Early Retiree Program;

• Pointing out that congressional and White House pressure has led insurers to decide to immediately end arbitrary rescissions ahead of the Sept. 23 date called for in the law; and

• Touting other provisions, such as the requirement that dependents until age 26 be allowed to stay on their parents' policy as well as new grants to promote primary care and prevention.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced this weekend that Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) will soon introduce legislation that would bar Congress from using taxpayer money to support abortions or abortion coverage.

The legislation would extend the so-called "Hyde amendment," which in its current form only applies to Health and Human Services (mainly Medicaid) funds allocated in the department's annual appropriations bill;
the issue came up again during the healthcare reform debate when an amendment by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joseph Pitts (R-Penn.) to apply the Hyde language to the bill passed the House but not the Senate.

"I believe this must be the next objective for pro-life America," Boehner said, speaking Saturday at the 40th annual National Right to Life Convention in Pittsburgh, Penn. "It's clear from the health care debate that the American people don't want their tax dollars paying for abortion, and a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives agrees."

Boehner said he'd be a an original cosponsor of the bill and called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) to bring it to an immediate vote once it's introduced.

"It's the will of the people," Boehner said, "and it ought to be the law of the land - right now."

Senate Democrats just failed for a third time to advance legislation to extend unemployment benefits through November.

In a 57-41 vote, the Senate failed to end debate on the legislation.

The failure to move the tax extenders package, which also would have renewed scores of individual and business tax breaks, illustrates the extent to which fears about the deficit are now dominating the legislative process five months before a midterm election where Democratic control of Congress will be on the line.

The legislation cost about $100 billion and would have added about $33 billion to the deficit by extending unemployment benefits for six months. The cost of the added unemployment insurance was not offset with other tax hikes or spending cuts.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), whom Democrats had been aggressively courting as a key vote to get the tax extenders passed, just said she'd vote no on the bill. Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has just called for a vote on the bill at 5:14 p.m.

"It didn't have to be this way," Snowe said on the Senate floor. "I certainly laid out a blueprint ... to passing a responsible (package).

"A lot of these provisions were just dumped in there," she said, adding that new taxes in the bill are too high for the small business community to support. Small businesses want the tax extenders passed but "they don't want this bill at any cost."

Instead of the "jobs, jobs, jobs" Democrats have promised, she said Congress was focused on "taxes, taxes, taxes" and "spending, spending, spending." Snowe expressed her frustration she'd had a small business tax relief package since March and has been repeatedly promised action was forthcoming.

And she said the Medicare payroll tax in the healthcare reform law should have been used to give physicians a payment update for 10 years or more.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) today explained to reporters how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) apparently did not follow through on a promise he made to her concerning stripping some tax provisions from the so-called tax extenders bill. 

Snowe had concerns over how the bill taxed S corporations and how it levied retroactive taxes on certain organizations. According to her, Reid promised to take those measures out of the bill, but when the third iteration of the package was presented to her those modifications were not made. 

"They told me it was going to be taken out and then last night, subsequently, they inserted it back in," she said, adding that she "spent countless hours" negotiating with Senate Democratic leaders trying to modify the bill so that she could support it.

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Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion rights group that has taken a lead role in questioning Solicitor General Elena Kagan's suitability for the Supreme Court, tackles healthcare reform in its daily memo Thursday.

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Republicans marked the three-month anniversary of healthcare reform passage Wednesday by releasing a 43-page report titled: "ObamaCare — Three Months of Broken Promises." The report compiles what the GOP calls the law's "across-the-board failure to live up to Washington Democrats’ specific promises, including creating jobs, lowering costs, reducing the deficit and protecting seniors’ benefits."

The report also includes the GOP's solutions, including its substitute to the Democrats' bill, unveiled late last year. Republicans focus on their bill's low cost and the lower premiums it promises for many individuals and businesses, but the bill also covers less than a tenth of people — 3 million rather than 31 million — by 2019 than the Democrats' law.

The Obama administration, for its part, marked the three months since the law's March 23 enactment on Tuesday with an unveiling at the White House of new regulations guaranteeing that patients' health insurance benefits won't run out.