Health Care Reform

MediaMatters fact-checked Roy Blunt's appearance on CNN yesterday, and -- this will shock you -- Blunt chose to play fast and loose with the facts.  Talking about the House GOP's health care plan, he claimed that "the Congressional Budget Office said would have reduced coverage cost for every single American that was gonna buy insurance."

This isn't actually what the CBO said.  The CBO looked at average rates for people who would still be covered under the GOP plan (52 million children and working-age people would remain uninsured), and said there would be "a great deal of uncertainty" for individuals and families.  And because Blunt and Republicans refused to follow through on their promise to make coverage affordable for people with pre-existing conditions, folks in poor health would certainly see higher rates -- if they find coverage. 

Todd Akin sure is confident that God is on Todd Akin's team. This morning:

[Todd Akin] credited divine intervention with the January election of Scott Brown, R-Mass., which deprived Democrats of the 60-seat majority needed to block fillibusters [sic]. Akin said he hoped God would intervene again in blocking the bill.

Peter Kinder needs to start getting his news from... news sources. This afternoon, Kinder tweeted that Warren Buffett has called the compromise federal health care legislation "2,000 pages of nonsense."

@PeterKinder: Obama supporter Warren Buffet, on #ObamaCare: "2,000 pages of nonsense." So, the Prez says, Full Speed ahead! #Demsoffthecliff! #pdk #TCOT

Kinder's tweet is misleading in several ways. First and foremost: Buffett didn't say what Kinder is telling his followers he said.  Second, while Buffett is critical of the current legislation because he thinks it doesn't do enough to reign in costs, Buffett says he "would vote for the Senate bill" rather than do nothing.  And third, Buffett is actually calling for more aggressive health care legislation -- something Kinder most certainly does not want.

In the same interview misquoted by Kinder, Buffett said "I would vote for the Senate bill":

No, if it was a choice today between plan A, which is what we've got [i.e., the status quo], or plan B, what is in front of--the Senate bill, I would vote for the Senate bill. But I would much rather see a plan C that really attacks costs.

For a man who has been in Washington as long as Roy Blunt, you'd think he'd know a thing or two about the way Congress has conducted itself in recent years.  Saturday, Blunt told a Lincoln Days crowd, “Tax policy is the only thing that I know of that we have used reconciliation for."

Democratic leaders in the Senate are currently contemplating the use of the "reconciliation" process to pass a handful of fixes to the health care reform bill already passed with a 60-vote supermajority.  The idea is that the House can pass the Senate bill, and then changes to the full bill can pass the Senate with 51-vote majorities.  (It's a little crazy that all this posturing is about allowing a majority to pass fixes that Republicans want -- like the exemption for Nebraska's state share of Medicaid expansion -- but that's a topic for another day.)

Blunt's statement about the use of a reconciliation process isn't even close to true. As noted in the Post-Dispatch about Blunt's comments, both parties have passed major changes with simple majorities in recent years. 

As put together by PICO, via Faith in Public Life.

Via Roy Temple's new blog, "A Closer Look"

Roy Blunt's many, many failures as leader of the House Republican's Health Care Solutions Group may be a key reason why he's not one of the nine House Republicans attending today's health care summit at the Blair House. 

Instead, Blunt has been named to the Junior Varsity "Truth" Squad by Minority Leader John Boehner.  Choosing Blunt choice to be part of anything approximating a "Truth Squad" on health care matters is....um... ironic.

• Blunt Receives Coveted "Pants On Fire" Award From PolitiFact.com
• Blunt Assessment: "Some of what he knows just isn’t true"
• Roy Blunt On Death Panels: "It's Easy for That Debate to Go Either Way"
• After months of research, Blunt still woefully misinformed about Missourians' health care struggles
• Even The Mind-Numbingly Dumb Talking Points Are Wrong
• Blunt Fibs Again About His Health Care Record
• What Roy Blunt Used To Think About Long, Complicated Health Care Bills
• Large Majorities Dismiss GOP Attacks On Health Care As "Scare Tactics"
• Blunt Stands By False Claim That Undocumented Immigrants Will Receive Benefits in President's Proposals
• Blunt Assessment: "Astonishing Inaccuracy"
• Roy Blunt: "Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy"
• Roy Blunt: It would have been "best" if Medicare and Medicaid never existed
• Blunt: My Four-Page Memo is "Actually Much More Detailed" Than Other Health Care Proposals

Roy Blunt, Chairman of the House Republicans' Health Care Solutions Group, isn't planning on taking any solutions to this week’s planned health care summit.  In fact, he isn't even sure he's going; Blunt is apparently worried that talking about ways to expand access to affordable health care might be a "waste of time."

Tellingly, the White House has invited Republicans to post their health care plan on their website in advance of the summit.... but they've refused. 

Igor Volsky breaks it down for The Wonk Room, and compares the new proposal to the bills that passed the House and Senate.

 Jason Noble has the amusing and frustrating story over at the Prime Buzz of Rep. Chuck Gatschenberger (R-Lake St. Louis) using big boy words in a recent constituent newsletter about federal health care reform legislation. Here's an excerpt, as posted by Noble:

CQ Politics' Political Wire:

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that nearly six in 10 Americans say the Republicans aren't doing enough to forge compromise with President Obama on important issues; more than four in 10 see Obama as doing too little to get GOP support.

In addition, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they want Congress to keep working to pass comprehensive health-care reform.

This pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the awesomeness of the FOX Business channel. Posted in three parts to YouTube, via CynthiaDavis.net.

Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O'Fallon) says you're a bad person if you think the uninsured contribute to higher health care costs for individuals and families with insurance.  From her weekly newsletter, as posted by The Turner Report:

Blaming the uninsured for driving up the cost of healthcare is just as prejudiced as blaming any other group of people merely by social, economic affiliation skin color [sic] or hair styles. Those with no insurance who pay their bills in a timely manner are likely to pay their medical bills in a timelier manner than the insurance companies. Our enemy is not the uninsured. Our problems are created by artificially inflated prices, minimal disclosure and a lack of incentive to shop for the most affordable medical care.

More on the federal budget plan from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) endorsed last week by Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, from The Washington Post's Ezra Klein:

As you all know by now, the long-term budget deficit is largely driven by health-care costs. To move us to surpluses, Ryan's budget proposes reforms that are nothing short of violent. Medicare is privatized. Seniors get a voucher to buy private insurance, and the voucher's growth is far slower than the expected growth of health-care costs. Medicaid is also privatized. The employer tax exclusion is fully eliminated, replaced by a tax credit that grows more slowly than medical costs. And beyond health care, Social Security moves to a system of private accounts that CBO says will actually cost more than the present arrangement, further underscoring how ancillary the program is to our budget problem...