Posts Tagged ‘John Boehner’
Thursday, January 13th, 2011
One of Illinois’ newest Congressman – Republican and Tea Party favorite Joe Walsh, who represents the 8th district that consists of Chicago’s far northwest suburbs – has refused to accept the government-sponsored health insurance plan that typically covers lawmakers. “I don’t think congressmen should get pensions or cushy healthcare plans,” he said. Walsh’s wife is not thrilled with her husband’s decision; because she has a pre-existing medical condition, she is now forced to hunt for a pricey individual policy. So far, Representatives Bobby Schilling (R-IL) and Mike Kelly (R-PA) have joined Walsh in turning down congressional healthcare coverage.
Representative Joseph Crowley (D-NY) called the Republicans’ bluff, writing a letter to GOP leaders asking that they refuse their federally subsidized coverage. “If your conference wants to deny millions of Americans affordable care, your members should walk that walk.” Crowley sent his letter to incoming Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Walsh’s stated legislative goals are repealing President Obama’s healthcare legislation and making major changes to Social Security and Medicare. Additionally, Walsh believes that reducing the size, scope and power of government is an end in itself. “An end in itself,” he said. “I think we were sent to D.C. to cut spending and grow the economy. We have to talk about cutting real programs” – as well as agencies — “like the Department of Energy and Department of Education.”
Tags: Bobby Schilling, Department of Education, Department of Energy, GOP, healthcare reform, Illinois, Illinois 8th Congressional District, Individual policy, Joe Walsh, John Boehner, Joseph Crowley, Medicare, Melissa Bean, Mike Kelly, Mitch McConnell, Pensions, Pre-existing medical condition, President Barack Obama, social security, Tea Party, Washington D.C.
Posted in Healthcare, Hospital Systems | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 28th, 2010
The most egregious lie of the year, according to PolitiFact.com, is the suggestion that President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare reform law is a “government takeover of healthcare.” This is the opinion of PolitiFact.com, the St. Petersburg Times’ independent fact-checking website. In early 2009, Republican strategist Frank Luntz urged GOP legislators to call the bill a “government takeover.” According to Luntz, “Takeovers are like coups. They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom.” PolitiFact’s runner-up lie was Representative Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) statement that President Obama’s trip to India would cost taxpayer $200 million a day.
Jonathan Oberlander, a health policy professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said “The label ‘government takeover’ has no basis in reality, but instead reflects a political dynamic where conservatives label any increase in government authority in healthcare as a ‘takeover’.” Although the new law increases government oversight of health insurance companies, it relies on private companies and the free market.
Others are in agreement with PolitiFact’s stance. The online magazine Slate said “the proposed healthcare reform does not take over the system in any sense.” Princeton University professor Uwe Reinhardt, a healthcare economics expert, wrote in the New York Times that “Yes, there would be a substantial government-mandated reorganization of this relatively small corner of the private health insurance market (that serves people who have been buying individual policies). But that hardly constitutes a government takeover of American healthcare.”
When a spokesman for incoming Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) was asked about Republicans’ insistence on using the phrase – even now that it’s been thoroughly debunked – the response was “We believe that the job-killing ObamaCare law will result in a government takeover of healthcare. That’s why we have pledged to repeal it, and replace it with common-sense reforms that actually lower costs.”
Tags: Fact.Check.org, Frank Luntz, Free market, GOP, healthcare reform legislation, John Boehner, Lies, Michael Steel, Michele Bachmann, New York Times, Obamacare, PolitiFact.com, President Barack Obama, public option, Slate, St. Petersburg Times, “Pants on Fire” rating
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Monday, November 8th, 2010
Now that the GOP has retaken control of the House of Representatives, one of their overarching goals – according to Speaker-of-the-House-to-be John Boehner (R-OH) – is to repeal the landmark Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act that would provide healthcare coverage for millions of Americans who now have no insurance.
In Boehner’s own words, “The American people are concerned about the government takeover of healthcare,” he said. “I think it is important for us to lay the groundwork before we begin to repeal this monstrosity and replace it with common-sense reforms that will bring down the cost of healthcare insurance in America.” “Republicans will roll back whatever they can on healthcare,” noted Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director.
Yet, there’s no hard evidence that the Republicans want to replace the current law with their own version of healthcare reform. The GOP vision would give states the power to fund programs that extend coverage to some uninsured Americans. People would also be allowed to carry insurance policies across state lines. Mandates and government-run insurance pool would be non-existent. Additionally, Republican legislation would cap court malpractice awards and help people direct more pretax money into healthcare savings accounts. The Republican plan is anticipated to cut deficits by $68 billion over a decade. On the downside, it would cover only about three million of the uninsured, leaving 52 million Americans with no healthcare coverage, according to Douglas Elmendorf, who is currently the Congressional Budget Office director.
There’s a significant roadblock in the way of the Republicans’ healthcare plan: the presidential veto, which can be overturned only by a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress. “It would be a symbolic vote – a vote of intention rather than reality,” said Joseph Antos of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.
Complicating the situation is the fact that some aspects of healthcare reform already in effect are quite popular, such as the provisions forcing insurers to cover children with pre-existing conditions and allowing parents to keep kids up to age 26 on their policies.
Tags: Congress, Congressional Budget Office, Department of Health and Human Services, GOP, House of Representatives, IRS, John Boehner, Medicare, Obamacare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama, repeal
Posted in Healthcare, Hospital Systems | No Comments »
Monday, May 24th, 2010
Although healthcare reform legislation is now the law of the land, Representative John Boehner (R-OH), the House Minority Leader, is still not shy about communicating his distaste for the bill. Recently, Boehner sent a letter to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, citing increased cost estimates, job-loss information and what he perceives as a lack of follow-through on an executive order regarding abortion coverage that the GOP finds troubling.
Boehner’s letter is a response to a recent statement by Secretary Sebelius, which stressed the law’s initial deliverables, including health insurance reform and tax credits available to small businesses. “Now I’ve seen my fair share of propaganda, but this letter must have been written in an alternate universe,” Boehner said. Republicans have uniformly opposed the healthcare bill throughout the process; the majority claim that it will increase costs. Additionally, the GOP hopes that the healthcare law will guarantee them a majority victory over Democrats in November’s mid-term elections. The GOP is expected to win more mid-term elections in the House versus the Senate.
Sebelius said that “Now, I want to be clear: the Affordable Care Act is not a magic pill that will cure all the problems in our health care system. It will take time for all the benefits to kick in. And if you look at the history of major social legislation, you see that there are always revisions and adjustments along the way.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sides with Sebelius, saying “We’re very pleased with the unfolding of the healthcare bill, In a bigger sense, it is about a healthier America.”
Tags: Democrats, Department of Health and Human Services, executive orders, GOP, healthcare reform, House Minority Leader, John Boehner, Kathleen Sebelius, mid-term elections, Nancy Pelosi, Ohio, propaganda, Republicans, tax credits
Posted in Economics, Healthcare | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
Now that President Barack Obama’s historic healthcare reform initiative has been passed by a sharply divided Congress, the struggle to approve the most ambitious expansion of the social safety net in a generation has revealed the difficulty of passing landmark legislation in a partisan environment.
Writing in the New York Times, Timothy Egan makes the point that “None of the great bipartisanship triumphs of the past – Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act — would have a prayer in the present environment. That’s not how we do politics in 2010. We talk, loudly, only to like-minded partisans, and everyone else be damned. If (Congressman) Kucinich had gone ahead as promised with a ‘no’ vote, it would not have an asterisk next to it. It would simply be another no, putting him in league with Michele Bachmann, John Boehner and other congressional defenders of the costliest, most inefficient and least accessible healthcare system in the Western world.”
Egan expands on his point, noting that “Reality is always a problem for purists. On the liberal side, many fail to comprehend that they are a distinct minority, stuck for years at around 19 percent of the public. When a liberal like Obama gets elected, he has to govern as a centrist for the simple reason that four-fifths of the country does not share his basic political outlook. Smart liberals understand this.”
Tags: compromis, Congress, Dennis Kucinich, healthcare reform legislation, Jim McDermott, John Boehner, Michele Bachmann, President, Timothy Egan
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Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
The Republican National Committee’s (RNC) response to the Obama Administration’s and Congressional Democrats’ efforts to pass healthcare reform legislation was to sponsor a “Hillarycare revisited” fund raising effort.
The RNC warned against “Obamacare” and pointed out that the government “already run
s car companies, banks and mortgage companies. Republicans believe that the last thing the American people want is government telling them when and where – or even whether – they can get medical treatment for their families.” “Hillarycare” refers to former President Bill Clinton’s failed attempt at reforming healthcare during the 1990s, an effort led by his wife, Hillary Clinton.
Republicans like John Boehner (R-OH) have raised the specter of a “bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor.” Perhaps it’s worth considering that we currently have an insurance company bureaucrat performing the same role. Also, government administered health options are almost uniformly popular. The World Health Organization ranks France’s healthcare system as the world’s finest, contrasted to the United States, which scored 37th. The United Kingdom’s combination of publicly and privately funded healthcare ranked 18th in the World Health Organization’s survey.
Tags: American, banks, bureaucrat, car companies, Congressional Democrats, doctor, France, government, government administered health, Healthcare, healthcare reform, healthcare system, Hillary Clinton, Hillarycare, insurance company bureaucrat, John Boehner, legislation, mortgage companies, Obama administration, Obamacare, President Bill Clinton, R-OH, Republican National Committee, Republicans, RNC, United Kingdom, United States, WHO, World Health Organization
Posted in Economics, Healthcare, Hospital Systems | No Comments »
