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Pelosi: Pass Health Reform So You Can Find Out What’s In It
Peter Roff
U.S. News & World Report, 03/09/10

It has been said well and famously that politicians only really commit a gaffe when they tell the truth without meaning to. Add House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the list. Speaking Tuesday to the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties, Pelosi began the windup of her healthcare pitch by alluding to the controversies over the healthcare bill and the process by which it has reached its current state. Then, just after saying, "It's going to be very, very exciting," Pelosi gaffed, telling the local elected officials assembled that Congress "[has] to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it, away from the fog of controversy." Read more...

Why Obama Can't Move the Health-Care Numbers
Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen
Wall Street Journal, 03/09/10

One of the more amazing aspects of the health-care debate is how steady public opinion has remained. Despite repeated and intense sales efforts by the president and his allies in Congress, most Americans consistently oppose the plan that has become the centerpiece of this legislative season. In 15 consecutive Rasmussen Reports polls conducted over the past four months, the percentage of Americans that oppose the plan has stayed between 52% and 58%. The number in favor has held steady between 38% and 44%. The dynamics of the numbers have remained constant as well. Democratic voters strongly support the plan while Republicans and unaffiliated voters oppose it. Senior citizens—the people who use the health-care system more than anybody else and who vote more than anybody else in midterm elections—are more opposed to the plan than younger voters. For every person who strongly favors it, two are strongly opposed.
Why can't the president move the numbers? Read more...

The Emotion of Reform
David Brooks
New York Times, 03/09/10

For the Democrats, expanding health care coverage is an emotional hot spot. Over the past year, Democrats have fought passionately for universal coverage. They have fought for it even while the country is more concerned about the economy, and in the face of serial political defeats. They have fought for it even though it has crowded out other items on their agenda and may even cost them their majority in the House. And they’ve done it for almost no votes. The 30 million who would be covered under the Democratic proposals are not big voters, while the millions who would pay for the coverage are strikingly unhappy. Read more...

57% Predict Health Care Plan Will Hurt The Economy
Rasmussen Reports, 03/09/10

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters say the health care reform plan now working its way through Congress will hurt the U.S. economy. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 25% think the plan will help the economy. But only seven percent (7%) say it will have no impact. Twelve percent (12%) aren’t sure. Two-out-of-three voters (66%) also believe the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats is likely to increase the federal deficit. That’s up six points from late November and comparable to findings just after the contentious August congressional recess. Ten percent (10%) say the plan is more likely to reduce the deficit and 14% say it will have no impact on the deficit. Read more...

Why Health Care Costs Keep Rising: What You Need to Know
Huma Khan
ABC News, 03/09/10

Republicans and Democrats may disagree on what a health care bill should include, but both parties agree that dramatically rising health care costs need to be contained. President claims health insurance industry puts profits before patient care.The U.S. government spent more than $2.3 trillion on health carein 2008, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In 2008, U.S. health care spending averaged $7,681 per person in 2008. To put that into perspective, the United States spends twice as much on health care as it does on food, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, even though the prevalence of disease is relatively less than in comparable countries. Read more...

Dem And Voter Differences Are Irreconcilable 
Sally C. Pipes
Investor's Business Daily, 03/08/10

During his 35th speech on health care at the White House last Wednesday, President Obama called on Congress to give his reform package an "up-or-down vote" before the Easter recess, with or without Republican support. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claim to have the votes to do it. But going it alone by resorting to the controversial reconciliation process may prove politically costly for Democrats. After all, a majority of Americans oppose their health reform proposal. The latest CNN poll showed that only 25% of Americans like the president's plan. Read more...

What the House Would Have to Swallow in the Senate Bill
Kathryn Nix
Heritage Foundation: Foundry Blog, 03/08/10

Amidst all the intense speculation about quickly passing the President’s health care agenda through the Budget Reconciliation process before the Easter Recess, ordinary Americans should remember one thing: the House of Representatives must first pass the 2,700-page, $2.5 trillion, Senate health bill. So, the next big step in the national health care debate is floor action in the House of Representatives, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must round up at least 216 votes...Regardless of Administration or Senate leadership promises to “fix” the new law (the Senate bill) through the Budget Reconciliation process, there are no guarantees. Any “fixes”—if they did come about—would have to survive another round of Senate floor action. So it is worth recalling what the Senate bill would mean for Americans were it to become law. Read more...

Will the House be tagged out on reconciliation?
John S. Hoff
Washington Examiner, 03/08/10

Advocates of President Obama’s plan to overhaul our health care system are trying to enact it through reconciliation. The House and the Senate have passed different bills, and the discussion of reconciliation has led many to believe that there will be a new bill, reconciling the two versions. The president’s recent announcement of his proposal to bridge the gap between the two bills has added to this impression. The reconciliation scheme is a hidden-ball trick. The danger is that Americans may focus on the planned reconciliation package (which still does not exist), while the Senate-passed bill is snuck through the House and enacted as law while they are looking elsewhere. Read more...

The Truth About Tort Reform
Lamar Smith
National Review Online: Critical Condition, 03/08/10

If the president is serious about bipartisan health-care reform, he must include real lawsuit-abuse reform that produces savings for the American people. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, 40 percent of medical malpractice suits filed in the U.S. are “without merit.” Yet despite the frivolous nature of many of these suits, juries often award millions of dollars to plaintiffs — and their trial lawyers. These predatory suits amount to legalized extortion and require doctors to purchase malpractice insurance at great expense. A Department of Health and Human Services study found that unlimited excessive damages add between $70 billion and $126 billion annually to health-care costs. Read more...

State Insurance Experts See Flaw in Obama’s Plan to Curb Health Premiums
Robert Pear
New York Times, 03/08/10

At the heart of President Obama’s drive to rein in health costs is a proposal for federal review and regulation of health insurance premiums, with a new agency empowered to block excessive rate increases. Obama Turns Up the Volume in Bid for Health Measure (March 9, 2010) State officials are leery of the proposal, which raises a host of questions: How would Congress define “excessive”? How would the new federal power relate to state insurance regulation? The proposal has great political appeal. But experts see a serious potential problem: Federal officials will focus on holding down premiums while state officials focus on the solvency of insurers, the ultimate consumer protection. Economists say that holding down premiums does not necessarily hold down the cost of care, which reflects the prices charged by doctors and hospitals and the volume of services. State officials worry that they would be left to police the solvency of health insurance companies while federal officials pressured insurers to reduce premiums, as Mr. Obama has done in recent days. Read more...