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Clark Vandeventer: Backroom Deals, Sinister Maneuvers Mar Health-Care Legislation
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, and the House of Representatives on Sunday passed the most sweeping changes to health care in U.S. history. It was quite a process. In the end, the vote was close — 219-212 — and represents a fundamental change in the lives of the American people.
I’ve been involved in the ongoing American conversation on health-care reform from the beginning. Last summer, I hosted a town-hall meeting on health care. Noozhawk carried my take on the “community information sessions” hosted by Capps. I also wrote an editorial on the then-proposed health-care bill and discussed what was right, what was wrong and what was missing.
After more than a year of debate, the House passed not just a flawed bill, but a fundamentally disastrous bill. The process was marked by the worst of Washington — backroom deals and sinister procedural maneuvers. The fact that President Barack Obama had so many Democrats defect means that this is either a complete failure of leadership or that Obama is a radical like this country has never seen. Or both.
Capps and I couldn’t have a more different approach when it comes to health-care reform. In November, voters will have the opportunity to decide who they think is right. Capps is focused entirely on access to health care and not on the cost. By doing so, one of a few possibilities are guaranteed to take place. Either we’ll have access at the cost of millions of dollars of new taxes, or health care will be rationed.
I believe that by focusing on the cost of health care, we can make it more affordable and thus increase access for millions of Americans. Furthermore, I believe the bill supported by Capps and passed by the House is in direct violation of the Constitution. The bill would require that millions of Americans purchase health-care insurance that they don’t need or don’t want, or face a tax of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income.
That’s just one reason that as your congressman, I would have voted against the bill passed Sunday. Other reasons include:
» Raises taxes. The bill increases taxes by $569.2 billion over 10 years. This will harm small businesses and middle-class families. The bill also includes $523.5 billion in cuts to Medicare, cutting benefits and raising premiums on seniors. These cuts are not used to reduce the deficit, but instead to create new entitlement programs.
» Cost to taxpayers. The total cost of the Senate bill with the changes in the reconciliation bill is nearly $1.2 trillion (not including the $371 billion “Doc Fix” proposed in the president’s budget). Furthermore, when including the cost to states of the mandated Medicaid expansion ($20 billion), as well as authorized discretionary spending for grants, public programs, changes and funding for a variety of agencies that would be responsible for implementing the Senate bill (up to $114 billion according to the Senate Budget Committee Republican staff), the total cost of the bill is more like $1.33 trillion. Finally, the bill costs $2.47 trillion counting just the first 10 years after it’s implemented.
» Government takeover. The bill is a dramatic step away from personal, private coverage and choice to a Washington-controlled health-care system that rations care, limits choice, and reduces quality, innovation and competition.
» Illegal immigrants. The bill fails to adequately address citizen verification for individuals applying for low-income affordability subsidies, or enrolling in Medicaid/CHIP, or enrolling in high-risk pools.
» Funds abortions. The bill permits federal funds to be spent on abortion services.
» Lack of medical liability reform. Trial lawyers get off scot-free as Democrats pay lip service to real medical-malpractice reform. Virtually no changes occurred from the insufficient medical liability provisions as passed in the Senate bill.
» Forces Americans out of current plans. The government-run plan will force tens of millions out of the coverage they have. Even “grandfathered” plans are not safe.
» Increases premiums. The Democrats’ health-care plan will increase premiums 10 percent to 13 percent. As the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Congressional Budget Office and six other studies have shown, imposing new taxes on insurance policies, health-care products and various new insurance regulations will be drive up the cost for patients of all ages in the form of higher premiums.
» Increases personal health expenditures. The Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services predicts overall national health expenditures under the Senate bill because various regulations will jump 0.6 percent, or $222 billion (if Medicare cuts are allowed to occur, which CBO has doubts about).
» Bends the curve in the wrong direction. According to the CBO, “Under the legislation, federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-19 period, as would the federal budgetary commitment to health care.” The CBO estimates that the federal commitment would increase by about $210 billion.
» Constitutes a massive, permanent government takeover of the private student loan industry. Liberals have been trying to achieve this goal since the early-1990s, when the Direct Loan program (the government-run program) was created. This student loan bill has no place in a health-care bill. The only reason Democrats are placing the student-loan provisions into the reconciliation bill is because they don’t have 60 votes in the Senate to pass it on its own.
» Chock full of special deals. The bill includes new backroom deals such as the “Bismark Bank Job” and old favorites such as the “Louisiana Purchase,” various provisions still part of the “Cornhusker kickback,” carve-outs for unions and many more.
» Doesn’t factor in market risk regarding defaults on student loans. The CBO score for the student-loan portions of the bill doesn’t fully account for the cost of market risk (inevitable defaults on loans). Adjusting for the cost of market risk will increase the cost of the bill.
» Potentially eliminates more than 30,000 jobs. The bill will eliminate the jobs of those involved in the private student-loan industry.
I believe that when it comes to health-care reform, Americans want three things: greater access, diminishing costs and no compromise in quality.
The best way we can ensure that an increasing number of Americans have access to health care is to bring the cost of health care down. The bill passed by the House in no way addresses the cost of health care. It is crucial that we don’t give up the fight.
Today, Capps had the vote. But in November, the people have the vote.
— Clark Vandeventer is a Republican congressional candidate in the 23rd District. Click here to learn more about his campaign.
Comments
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» on 03.22.10 @ 11:33 PM
I like your ideas Mr. Vandeventer and will gladly support you in your run for Congress!
I could say so much about this bill that was wrong as you succinctly did in your piece here, but let me add a personal note. Since when is owning something a right? This must be a little of how the American Indian felt way back when someone decided they could own the land & water.
My husband and I always made it a priority and *sacrificed* things like cable and vacations to have the best insurance even as a young married couple 15 years ago. It was a conscious choice which at that time we wondered, but took it on faith that it was the responsible thing to do no matter what. We always enjoyed the quality, cutting edge care that we sacrificed for, and we’re glad we did when leukemia came into the picture a few years ago. Between the first diagnosis/treatment/remission & the recurrence/bone marrow transplant that followed, the charges were somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million which insurance paid for 80%, and even if the govt were to pay for it 100% I’d still rather live on a shoestring and get this kind of quality service.
Through my experience as a patient I have found out that there are many foundations and programs already in place to help people with all kinds of diagnoses who don’t have the ability to pay. Most people don’t realize this until they need it.
In Europe, my friends tell me they have to wait 6 months to get treatments for cancer - 6 months when treatments need to happen immediately for a successful outcome. I don’t get what just happened in Washington, D.C. this weekend except for the power grab to make dependents out of all of us.
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”—Thomas Jefferson
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» on 03.23.10 @ 12:13 AM
Clark,
That’s the best you’ve got? I’m so sick of this “government takeover” phrase. You Republicans need to really start looking at your party and take note that you have no damn ideas or solutions to anything these days.
Look at all the protesters outside of the Capitol building. White folks. No minorities at all. And then they have the indecency to yell racial and homophobic slurs at members of congress?
Clark, you’re just another Michelle Bachman in male form. What a joke…
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» on 03.23.10 @ 03:42 AM
I agree with your analysis of the bill. Having watched the absence of Lois Capps on most activities I believe she is probably the most unimportant member of congress. Oh sure, she probably gets on the airplane for the taxpayers trips and surely listens to Nancy Pelosi at every turn but what has she ever influenced. Talk about a waste of taxpayers money. A real do nothing.
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» on 03.23.10 @ 04:28 AM
Finally, a candidate that is focusing on the real issues of much needed health care reform and not government take over. I can no longer support Lois Capps, as she has become no more than a puppet for the Democrats that run the White House and Congress…. I should have known better years ago when she promised to only seek to fulfill her late husband’s term and then changed her mind. I am not trusting her anymore….. The health care reform that our President will sign into law today is laced with special deals for votes and this is a BIG RED FLAG. We need reform badly - but not at the cost of bankrupting our country… This is not the hope and change I and many of my friends were looking for…. WE WERE DECEIVED!!!! I am going to support a Republican this time around as they are the only ones who tried like heck to stop the massive take over of our health care. Government——stay out of my health care! I for one will work tirelessly to vote these crooks out of office…. Mr. Vandeventer seems like a good choice to me…. young, smart, and ready to fight for we the people… and fight we must!
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» on 03.23.10 @ 08:34 AM
Lois capps—Taxin Cappsin—Never saw a tax she didn’t like.
Lois is a Tax and spend Liberal, pro illegal alien, anti small business, paid off by trial lawyers and unions.
Vote her out—remember she promised only two terms—lies???
Go Clark we need change..
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» on 03.23.10 @ 10:12 AM
Anyone who doesn’t think this is going to lead to single, payer Nationalized HC (government takeover) is either uninformed or happy about it. President Obama campaigned on it! I would also add that with this new legislation, the IRS, for the first time in history, will have access to our HC information. The bill will immediately create some 16,000 new jobs in the IRS, plus thousands in new bureaucracies to plan, monitor, assess, and enforce compliance.
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» on 03.23.10 @ 10:45 AM
It is odd that you think you are qualified to run for Congress. You clearly have NO idea what the legislative process looks like. Perhaps you would do well to take the time to sit down and READ the House of Representatives Rules and bone up on them.
Being ignorant is not terribly useful in a politician.
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» on 03.23.10 @ 11:17 AM
Congressional candidate Vandeventer has an interesting view of what “sinister”
means.
In Latin, it means left-handed, which Lois Capps is not.
In English, it also means “suggesting evil” or “ominous”.
Has Vandeventer ever actually met Lois Capps? A less “evil”, “ominous” furtive
person would be hard to imagine.
As someone who lost her husband to heart disease, her young daughter to cancer, and as someone trained pediatric nutrition and health, who would be
better situated to evaluate a Health Care Reform bill?
The means used to move the bill forward were no different than the ones Rove,
Cheney, Bush, Hastert and Frist used to enact their Big Pharma “Prescription
Reform Act”.
You remember, the one with the big “donut hole” to gouge seniors and the chronically ill?
The one which - unlike the new Health Reform Act - identified no revenues to
pay for it.
Yet Mr. Vandeventer opposed neither that bill, nor its deficit financing, nor the
way it wound through Congress as “sinister”. Why is that?
Health care reform has been championed in the last century not only by Dems
like FDR, Truman, LBJ, and Clinton, but also by Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt
and Ike, Nixon and Gingrich.
Were war veterans TR, Eisenhower, Nixon “sinister” too? Was Speaker Gingrich?
Vandeventer claims he wants “health reform”, but “done the right way.”
So, why didn’t he ask Karl Rove (during his recent local appearance) why it did
not happen during the years that Vandeventer’s Party controlled Congress, the
White House, and the Supreme Court?
If Vandeventer has a superior program, he should put it forward, like Ryan did
in Wisconsin, and not stoop to calling his political opponents “sinister”.
There are a whole lot of Americans who think that adjective fits Mr. Rove a lot
more than it does Lois Capps.
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» on 03.23.10 @ 03:20 PM
Lois is a nurse not a business person, and that is what we need today—She was the wife of Walter—that doesn’t entitle her to our seat?—vote the Lib out..
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» on 03.23.10 @ 03:41 PM
Publius, no one has denied the need for reform. All we have said all along is it should be done on a smaller more meaningful level (tort reform, portability, fraud and waste elimination). That is reform. Adding 30 million new users to a system that is contracting on the supply side is insane and no it is not cheaper than treating the same people using emergency rooms because they are half that number. Forcing people to buy government specified private insurance is not reform its tyranny. And how does that change your stated greed in the insurance industry? Right, it does not.
So we are slapped by Chicago thugs with a bill that adds cost, forces the use and lets the lawyers off scott free and that is your idea of reform? Sorry pal but not even your ardent leftist socialists liked this bill and yet that’s what we got.
This is the greatest example of a sloppy, power/legacy hungry government that says the ends justify the means. After all the whining and crying by democrats over the abuses of Bush and company your answer is to be a better abuser. And of course you can’t stand the truth so you all do your best to kill the messenger.
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