Dick Morris

The recent decision of the federal government to recommend that women abstain from annual mammograms illustrates well exactly how ObamaCare would force a deterioration in the quality of medical care, particularly for the elderly.

The panel evaluating the effectiveness of mammograms did not find that they don’t work or that they do not save lives. Rather, it found that the lives they save are not “worth” the cost of annual testing. This bureaucratic balancing of human life and financial cost lies at the core of the government-managed healthcare in the Obama bill.

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

A Zogby Poll this week illustrates the stark choice facing Senate Democrats as they have to decide whether or not to vote for ObamaCare. The poll shows that Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln, high up on the list of vulnerable Senate Democrats seeking reelection in 2010, literally faces a choice between being reelected and voting for the bill.

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Harry Reid can pass a bill in the Senate that has no public option or an easy opt-out, shallow subsidies for the uninsured, a low total cost, weak penalties for not having insurance, no coverage for abortion and no general tax increase (except for the premium and medical device taxes).

And Nancy Pelosi can pass a bill in the House (on final passage) that has a public option with no opt-out, steep subsidies for the uninsured, harsh penalties if they don’t buy insurance, a higher cost, full abortion coverage and a surcharge income-tax increase.

The question is: Can either one’s bill pass the other’s chamber?

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation reported that the House version of the healthcare bill specifies that those who don’t buy health insurance and do not pay the fine of about 2.5 percent of their income for failing to do so can face a penalty of up to five years in prison!

The bill describes the penalties as follows:

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed to rubber-stamp the Obama healthcare reform despite the drubbing their party took in the ’09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these — and the other endorsements — his package has received are all bought and paid for. Here are the deals:

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

The more the fiscal details of the healthcare bills emerge, the more appalling they seem. The Senate Finance Committee bill includes a broad provision taxing all manner of medical devices. This tax includes such frivolous luxuries as pacemakers, stents, artificial heart valves, defibrillators, automated wheelchairs, mechanized artificial limbs, replacement hips and knees, surgical gurneys, laparoscopic equipment and the like.

President Obama is planning to reduce the cost of medical care by taxing it!

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Whether or not you now have health insurance, Obama’s healthcare bill will cost you dearly. If you don’t have insurance, you will be required to buy it. The legislation specifies how much you will have to pay for the coverage before any subsidy kicks in. All during the campaign, Obama kept speaking about affordable coverage. Now it appears that his definition of “affordable” might be a bit elastic. 

President Barack Obama has won the Peace Prize, but nobody thinks he deserves the Nobel in economics. Despite $800 billion of economic stimulus and the accumulation of a $1.4 trillion deficit, he has been unable to lower the unemployment rate below 9.8 percent.
 
So why, after nine months of Obama, do voters, in the latest Rasmussen poll, still blame Bush — and not Obama — for the economic situation by 55-37? How can Obama skate by without having to account for the failure of his economic program?

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Faced with a need to scrounge for revenue to fund his plan for healthcare, President Barack Obama and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have come up with a brilliant new idea: Tax the sick!

In a new amendment to the healthcare bill, they propose to limit the deductibility of medical expenses on income taxes.

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

America's elderly are finally realizing that Obama's healthcare changes are largely financed by cuts in Medicare and are rallying against his proposals in increasing numbers.

The latest poll by Scott Rasmussen not only shows national opposition to Obamacare rising — now it is 41-56 against — but also shows the elderly moving against it even more strongly, by 33-59, or almost 2:1.