The Fix Is In: Dangerous Health Bill Coming to Final Vote

by James Gelfand

After months of posturing, the President has made it clear: the Senate bill is the final bill. The bill that narrowly passed the Senate on Christmas Eve by a partisan vote (prior to the election of Republican Scott Brown from Massachusetts), will more or less be the final bill. The only way the massive 2700-page health care bill will become law, is if the House now passes the Senate-passed bill. There may be another bill using the reconciliation “nuclear option” to make some minor adjustments to the Senate bill, but that second bill will not be the primary bill – in fact, proposed changes could only worsen the flawed underlying bill. If the Senate bill is enacted by the House, the special deals that bought off votes from Nebraska, Louisiana, Florida, and other states may become law unless stripped through reconciliation.(i) If the Senate bill is passed into law with the President’s reconciliation adjustments, the following dangerous policies will become law:

• You cannot keep the plan you have. All health insurance plans will be subject to numerous new mandates, requirements, regulations, and bureaucratic oversight,(ii) which will force the plans to raise prices and change or eliminate plan offerings.(iii)
• Your health care costs will increase. The bill will do very little to control costs (iv), while simultaneously taxing the health industry -- taxes consumers will pay (v) -- and forcing Americans to purchase more expensive health insurance. (vi)
• Your taxes will increase. There will be a massive new payroll tax, a new tax on investments and 401(k)s, a new tax on “Cadillac” health benefits, new taxes on medical devices and prescription drugs, new taxes on all health insurance policies, and increased taxes in the form of cost-shifting through lower payments to hospitals and doctors.(vii)
• The debt, the deficit, and federal spending will increase.(viii) Despite a number of accounting gimmicks, like starting the taxation before the program spending begins, and double-counting $500 billion in Medicare cuts (ix), the bill’s true cost will be trillions of dollars (x). The bill creates new entitlements that will increase forever, much like Social Security and Medicare.(xi)
• Medicare will be cut by $500 billion. The Congressional Budget Office clearly stated: “20 percent of Part A providers would become unprofitable” and stop seeing Medicare patients.(xii)
• Jobs will be lost, or never created. The bill creates a huge incentive not to hire low-wage workers and not to grow a business beyond 50 employees. Employers who hire a low-wage worker, even if they offer great health insurance, could be fined $3000 per year.(xiii)

Everyone agrees that changes are needed to make the U.S. health care system more efficient and affordable. But this is not a bipartisan plan. Ramming the Senate bill through the House and then using the nuclear option to make adjustments is the wrong approach. Tell your Representative to vote against the Senate-passed bill, and tell your Senators to oppose the reconciliation nuclear option: 51 votes is no way to restructure one-sixth of the already fragile U.S. economy!

//Update: 10 Mar 2010 - The American people agree these are health care bill we can't afford.

Links after the break.

i - A Reading Guide to the Senate Bill’s Backroom Deals. Senate Republican Policy Committee, March 2nd, 2010. http://rpc.senate.gov/public/_files/030210_ReadingGuideSenateBackroomDeals.pdf

ii - The President’s Proposal. White House Staff, February 22nd, 2010. Page 3, “Extend Consumer Protections against Health Insurer Practices.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/summary-presidents-proposal.pdf

iii -How Eight States Destroyed Their Individual Insurance Markets. The Heartland Institute, September 24th, 2004. http://tinyurl.com/y97lazy. (Explains how regulating insurance companies without appropriate safeguards results in rate shock, plan emigration, and insurance pool death spirals). Also See CMS report in xii, which estimates on page 11 that 17 million Americans will lose their employer-sponsored coverage.

iv - Editorial: Obama misses chance to address health insurance costs. Los Angeles times, February 23rd, 2010. http://tinyurl.com/y9aahw6. (“That's one reason we would have preferred to see him offer more vigorous provisions to rein in expenses… But the more ballyhooed initiative to have federal bureaucrats review insurance premiums… wouldn't address the forces driving up the cost of medical care.”)

v -Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, CBO Director Elmendorf states plainly that health sector taxes will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq8l4_2claE.

vi - “An Analysis of Health Insurance Premiums Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” CBO. November 30, 2009. (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10781/11-30-Premiums.pdf, Page 6: “Average premiums per policy in the nongroup market in 2016 would be roughly $5,800 for single policies and $15,200 for family policies under the proposal, compared with roughly $5,500 for single policies and $13,100 for family policies under current law… [an increase] of 10 percent to 13 percent in the average premium per person.”)

vii - Taxes mostly listed on page 6, spending mostly on page 5: “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” CBO. November 18, 2009. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10731/Reid_letter_11_18_09.pdf, as well as “Estimated Revenue Effects Of The Revenue Provisions Contained In The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act”, Joint Committee on Taxation, November 18, 2009. http://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=3635. More in the President’s Proposal (see ii) particularly on page 8, where the tax on investments is referred to as “Broadening the Medicare Hospital Insurance Tax Base”. The bill contains no Sustainable Growth Rate formula fix for Medicare reimbursements, which means it assumes payments to providers will plummet more than 20% this year. Fixing this would cost an additional $200 billion.

viii - The CBO said in their cost estimate on the legislation (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10731/Reid_letter_11_18_09.pdf, page 17) that they doubt the cost savings will really happen: “These longer-term calculations assume that the provisions are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. For example, the sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified (either through legislation or administrative action) to avoid reductions in those payments, and legislation to do so again is currently under consideration in the Congress.

ix - CBO: Democrats Double-Counting Medicare Savings. The Atlantic, December 23rd, 2009. http://tinyurl.com/yjeqcgb.

x - Senate bill will cost $2.5 trillion. Senate Budget Committee, Minority Staff. [Analysis and projections on H.R. 3590, including 20-year cost estimate]. http://budget.senate.gov/republican/pressarchive/2009-11-19HealthCareFactSheet.pdf.

xi - Page 2 of the President’s Proposal (see ii) outlines the new $500 billion entitlement that will give money to families making up to $88,000. For the second entitlement see “Additional Information on CLASS Program Proposals,” http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10823/CLASS_Additional_Information_Harkin_Letter.pdf, which specifies on page 5 that the program will explode in the out-years.

xii - “Estimated Financial Effects of the ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009,’ As Proposed by the Senate Majority Leader on November 18, 2009.” Richard S. Foster, Chief Actuary, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. December 10, 2009. http://src.senate.gov/files/OACTMemorandumonFinancialImpactofPPAA%28HR3590%29%2812-10-09%29.pdf. Page 9.

xiii - While employers with below 50 employees are exempt, an employer with 51 employees could be liable for thousands in new penalties. The President’s Proposal on page 4 increases the per-employee penalty from $750 to $2,000.

Comments

[Tomas]

10 million dollars on a commercial campaign *Against* health care reform?

You guy's have got to be kidding me.
-I'm already sick up the commercial.

Well you guys are the lobbyist...

Let's spend a bunch of money so we can slow down congress even more. Start Over is Republican speak for Do Nothing!

RAHM it through!

[themiddleclassguy]

I have a question. Why are unions exempt from bearing their fair share of health care costs? If they negotiate a contract why don;t they share the pain.

They spend hundreds of millions of dollars of member's dues money for elections, campaign contributions, political bribes, and advertisements. Maybe it is time to mandate by law they must be a fifty-fifty participant in all health care costs where there are union contracts.

[Karen Huber]

Your current ads are appalling lies - I am sickened at this distortion of the facts. Health care will help business by helping their workers and by helping the economy that is being drained by these unmanaged costs - your thinking is small, antiquated and represents fear-mongering. As others have said - shame on you. I will be contacting my local chamber to tell them I plan to boycott their members for being associated with this trash.

[Elizabeth Gillette]

Shame on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for attempting to defeat the healthcare bill now before Congress. Many small businesses (and those who work for them) in my rural New Hampshire community are without healthcare because it is presently unaffordable. How can the Chamber presume to speak for business when thousands are crying out for healthcare for all, based on federal criteria and standards? Stop lobbying to defeat this legislation and spend you money to support small business healthcare that works for every American.

[John Reichert]

Health Reform Myths

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 11, 2010 New York Times

Health reform is back from the dead. Many Democrats have realized that their electoral prospects will be better if they can point to a real accomplishment. Polling on reform — which was never as negative as portrayed — shows signs of improving. And I’ve been really impressed by the passion and energy of this guy Barack Obama. Where was he last year?
Skip to next paragraph

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Paul Krugman
But reform still has to run a gantlet of misinformation and outright lies. So let me address three big myths about the proposed reform, myths that are believed by many people who consider themselves well-informed, but who have actually fallen for deceptive spin.
The first of these myths, which has been all over the airwaves lately, is the claim that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health.
Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a “takeover,” that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.
The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster — no coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick, and huge premium increases in the middle of an economic crisis. It’s this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What’s wrong with that?
The second myth is that the proposed reform does nothing to control costs. To support this claim, critics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.
Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent, while extending coverage to 34 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. That’s a large expansion in coverage at an essentially trivial cost.
And it gets better as we go further into the future: the Congressional Budget Office has just concluded, in a new report, that the arithmetic of reform will look better in its second decade than it did in its first.
Furthermore, there’s good reason to believe that all such estimates are too pessimistic. There are many cost-saving efforts in the proposed reform, but nobody knows how well any one of these efforts will work. And as a result, official estimates don’t give the plan much credit for any of them. What the actuary and the budget office do is a bit like looking at an oil company’s prospecting efforts, concluding that any individual test hole it drills will probably come up dry, and predicting as a consequence that the company won’t find any oil at all — when the odds are, in fact, that some of the test holes will pan out, and produce big payoffs. Realistically, health reform is likely to do much better at controlling costs than any of the official projections suggest.
Which brings me to the third myth: that health reform is fiscally irresponsible. How can people say this given Congressional Budget Office predictions — which, as I’ve already argued, are probably too pessimistic — that reform would actually reduce the deficit? Critics argue that we should ignore what’s actually in the legislation; when cost control actually starts to bite on Medicare, they insist, Congress will back down.
But this isn’t an argument against Obamacare, it’s a declaration that we can’t control Medicare costs no matter what. And it also flies in the face of history: contrary to legend, past efforts to limit Medicare spending have in fact “stuck,” rather than being withdrawn in the face of political pressure.
So what’s the reality of the proposed reform? Compared with the Platonic ideal of reform, Obamacare comes up short. If the votes were there, I would much prefer to see Medicare for all.
For a real piece of passable legislation, however, it looks very good. It wouldn’t transform our health care system; in fact, Americans whose jobs come with health coverage would see little effect. But it would make a huge difference to the less fortunate among us, even as it would do more to control costs than anything we’ve done before.
This is a reasonable, responsible plan. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

[pamela michael]

I find your adds on television misleading and despicable considering we have so many hard working Americans who have lost jobs and are without health care. Also. who do yo think pays for those who go in the emergency ward without coverage (if they can get help). Are you on another planet or getting some of the billions being spent by the health insurance companies to scare people. How about we cancel Congresses health coverage and have them try to go and get coverage - especially those obnoxious ones who are out for themselves and I am sure have preconditions...no health care bill...no coverage for you! Stop paying for illegal immigrants and sending economic aid to other countries where their people all get free health care!!! Start taking care of our own!

[Bill Morse]

I was recently visited by a U.S. Chamber representative, and was considering joining, but I said I would wait until I checked out your web site. Boy am I glad I did. You obviously don't represent my interests when it comes to health care. James Gelfand's piece is a pack of misdirection.
"You cannot keep the plan you have". Actually of course you can under this bill. Gelfand's argument is that the changes in cost will force you to alter your plan. Well guess what? If we don't pass health care, you won't keep the plan you have either, because we small businesses that provide health care won't be able to any more.

"Your health care costs will increase" As opposed to now, when my costs are going up 10 to 15% a year? Every country that has passed universal health care has lower costs and better care than the US.

"Your taxes will increase". No, mine won't. There won't be new taxes on all health insurance policies. And "Cadillac" plans are in fact just a way for big business and big labor to give themselves tax free income. I provide a pretty good health care package, and it doesn't come close to being in the dollar range of the "Cadillac" plans.

I could go on, but the real problem is that the Chamber is pushing the myth that if we start over we will get a better plan. The administration tried for a year to get bipartisan support for a bill, and couldn't. The Republicans could easily have eliminated the special deals for various states if a few of them had agreed to support the bill, and didn't. The time is now. Just Say No To The Status Quo. Tell your congressman to vote for the bill, and get the US started on the road to health care reform.

[Tom M]

We have a health care system that excludes tens of millions of Americans yet could afford to pay a former UnitedHealth CEO $124 million annually. It's not surprising that Republicans and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are waging a fierce battle to defeat any and all health care changes being debated in Congress. Why change a system that is working perfectly -- and highly profitably -- for you?

[Elizabeth Bolton]

Shame on you Chamber of Commerce for your despicable ads against health care. Why on earth your organization is agaist health care reform is beyond me since employer-provided insurance will eventually be untenable and is aleady forcing many small businesses to cease providing employee benefits.

Profit-making companies have no place between people and health care. It's as simple as that. Huge salaries and bonuses and skyscrapers should not be paid for by denying health care to sick people

[Sandra Wojahn]

The commercial being run on TV by the Chamber is totally infuriating. Instead of spending money criticizing, why don't you spend some money promoting equitable health care.

[David]

This is what is wronge with our System, you donot care about anything but the very large Corporate Profits,and their Power.The leaders ( bonus collectors ) of these Corporations you are standing up for can all aford health care,and anything else they want ( Like your integrity )
Your message is the same as FOX NEWS and the Repubicans, You agree we need change but not
this or even now.
DELAY, DECIEVE, STALL, SCARE,and ultamately STOP that is your motive. Preserve Giant GlobalCorporate Profits and power.No matter what.

O Yea you might want to drop that US label and exchange it with a more acurate name GLOBAL Chamber of Commerce

[Duane Z.]

I think that everyone is missing the real healthcare crisis in the USA. The largest problem we have is not the 40+ million uninsured people or the ever-increasing cost of healthcare. It's the extremely poor quality of our healthcare. By any or all criteria, the USA is last or close to last when compared to all of the other "civilized" countries in the world. And to achieve these embarrassing results, we pay 2-5 times more money per patient than the other countries in the comparison. This is not just my opinion, it is stated by the Rand Foundation, The Kaiser Foundation and the World Health Organization, amongst others. To top it off, our care and results are continuing to deteriorate and no one seems to know how to fix our "real crisis." It's a very sad situation; may
God help us all.

[SR]

Thank you Teri for seeing the truth. To the CPA, thank God you're not my CPA. The presidents bill does nothing to control costs to small business'. Why is your house payment so high? Is it because the financing company is gouging you or is it because you bought a big house? The reason health insurance is so high is because the cost of care is so high. Health Insurance is the financing company for your medical care. Read the Milliman Medical Index 2009 about costs of medical care. The current bills do nothing to limit the costs of medical care they just try to limit the cost of insurance and how providers are paid. The bill will mandate what policies you can have under the so-called subsidies and many of those policies are far richer benefits than the current public carries. That will increase your premium along with so many other provisions. Higher taxes to carriers will be passed to us as consumers. It's time to get your sharp pencil out and really get educated about this situation. Backing the presidents plan will harm your clients Mr CPA, small business is being crushed by government mandates already, adding more only makes it harded to do business. This is a complex problem that our current administration is trying to win a political battle with just so they can try and be relelected in '10 and '12. GET EDUCATED before saying something like "back the presidents plan". This is a country that's founded on what's best for the majority and this health care bill is not what's best for the majority.

[John Neugebauer]

As a CPA with over 30 years of experience managing small business finances. I know how much we need President Obama's health care overhaul. Year after year I have faced double digit rate increases at my companies and have seen the market for insurance get less competitive. If current trends continue, the companies I have been with will probably not be able to provide employees coverage. We need the government's involvement now. The private sector solutions as well as those of the Republican Party and the Chamber of Commerce offer no hope for small business. Let's get on board with our President and get this problem address NOW; not 100 years from now like our President's opponents would wish.

John Neugebauer CPA

[Teri Newman]

Anyone who spells cynical "syncial" shouldn't be allowed to have a computer or express an opinion on this pig of a health care bill. It was enough "punnishment" to read Allen's diatribe of ignorance even without the poor grammar and plethora of misspelled words. Here are some FACTS: Very few people have an understanding of how insurance companies work. Theoretically there are “uninsured” people in the USA, but in actuality, everyone’s health care is paid for or the hospitals would have to close their doors! The very poor have Medicaid which is the government health insurance and the illegal aliens use it by having an anchor baby who is a US citizen at birth. The baby is then used to qualify for welfare benefits and Medicaid and it is automatically granted to underage US citizens. The illegal aliens along with those who choose not to buy health insurance are covered by what is known as “cost shifting”.

Cost shifting is the process by which hospital bill the insurance of covered people for the cost of their care AND THE CARE OF THE UNINSURED. Do you really think that two aspirin cost the hospital $30 to provide? Of course not!! The $30 pays for the aspirin and the care of the uninsured. The hospitals shift the cost of the care of the uninsured onto the bills of those of us who DO have insurance—if they didn’t do this, they would have to close their doors since they are legally required to provide care for any sick person or emergency. NO ONE in America is denied health care because of inability to pay because they either have Medicaid, health insurance or the cost of the care is shifted to the insured. It’s been going on forever and worst of all, the illegal aliens know that they cannot be denied care in an EMERGENCY ROOM so they use ERs as their primary physician which is horrendously expensive. Hospitals routinely deny that they are shifting the cost to the insured people, but they are. Just from a business standpoint, they MUST in order to remain open and provide care—and Medicaid is also billed through cost shifting.

To bring down costs, we need to change the incentives that govern spending:
* Right now, $5 out of every $6 of health-care spending is paid for by someone other than the person receiving care -- insurance companies, employers, or the government.
* Individuals are insulated from the reality of what their decisions cost.
* This breeds overutilization of low-value health care and runaway spending.

To reduce the growth of costs, individuals must take greater responsibility for their health care, and health insurers and health care providers must face the competitive forces of the market. Three policy changes will go a long way to achieving these objectives:
* Eliminate the tax code's bias that favors health insurance over out-of-pocket spending.
* Remove state-government barriers to purchasing and providing health services.
* Reform medical malpractice laws.
This is what our pathetic and out of touch Congress NEEDS to be doing rather than trying to force a power grab for 1/6th of our economy and calling it health care. God help us all if these buffoons survive the election in November.

[Moey]

In public remarks today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to have finally stumbled across the truth when it comes to health care reform. Pelosi said, "You've heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other.... But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, a...way from the fog of the controversy.".......
------------------------------------------------
Nancy: You are asking us to buy a 'pig in a poke.' We don't know what this bill has in it, we do not know what it is going to ultimately cost, we don't know how much it is going to increase the deficit (other than a whole bunch). When I buy something like a car, refrigerator, property, etc., I do research on whatever it is, I talk to people in the business and see what they recommend and how various things work or don't work; I may spend a fair amount of time in my research, but I don't jump in with no knowledge of what I am buying. It seems to me that Nancy and her cohorts are asking us to 'buy first and investigate later.' Not a good selling point.

In the first place, we can't afford it, it is poorly written, no thought is given to how it is going to put this country into debt and probably drive us over the edge. You can't give something and not expect someone to pay for it. You can't just open up health insurance to anyone with anykind of prior condition and expect it to be self sustaining. It does not work. Ever try to buy life insurance after a heart bypass surgery or major cancer surgery? No? well, it does not work and it works the same way with health insurance. You will break the bank and look guys - WE ARE THE BANK!

[ChamberPost]

Future commenters, please see:

http://www.uschamber.com/assets/uscc/09healthreform.pdf

And let me know what parts of our plan you specifically oppose. As to the costs, coverage, etc. If you want to legitimately have a dialogue, you need to show your work. (BP)

[Robert Brown]

You guys are showing your true colors as Republican mouthpieces. Why are you opposed to legislation that will benefit the small and medium-sized companies? You are clearly siding with the big insurance companies, and even that position makes no sense. They stand to gain 30 million new customers, subsidized with Federal dollars. What's not to love about that? I must conclude that you are simply spouting Republican nonsense in the hope of bringing any change to a halt.

[Former Republican, now Neo-Con]

Obama is right on, the US Chamber of Commerce is full of corrupt fat cats living off of our overpriced insurance premiums. The doctors and hospitals barely get their fair share of compensation. Obama's Healthcare reform will create TONS of new jobs in the Health Industry and we might finally have a Healthcare system free from the deadly corruption it has now... Look at Japan and Canada, they laugh at us. And it's been a long known fact that Americans are way overpaying for their drugs and healthcare. We can't even buy our drugs from Canada because Big Business has blocked your rights to get the same drugs for less because Canada's laws enforce fair trade.

[Gordon Brown]

When did the US Chamber completely sell out to big insurance. I used to get my personal health ins from my local chamber, so you must get a cut from all those in the pool.

You r distortions are simply Big Insurance/Republican talking pts. Costs will not go as you say, you can keep your current plan. Taxes on the rich only will increase.

So we should let the people continue to get screwed while you and the Republicans obstruct reform. No way! We could scrap the current bills and start over and you would both obstruct whatever is put forward. You have shown that. I hope the money you are receiving for being a shill for Lobbyists is worth losing all American credibility.

[ChamberPost]

Lorna - Our commercial is responsible and truthful, the current legislation is neither. You are correct that health care reform is desperately needed. And we truly support responsible health reform that lowers costs and expands coverage. Which is why we oppose the current bills. More here:

https://www.uschamber.com/assets/uscc/09healthreform.pdf

(BP)

[Lorna Fleming]

The commercial being aired by the US Chamber is irresponsible and untruthful. Health care reform is desperately needed. Your assertion that President Obama's plan is not bipartisan is absurd. Surely it is not from lack of trying. Small business owners, citizens with pre-existing conditions, those who lose their jobs all need health care reform. Our country needs health care reform. Your ad incites fear and distrust. Any respect I had for your organization is gone.

[ChamberPost]

Brian - we couldn't agree with you more that we need responsible health care reform. This legislation though just isn't it. Regarding your situation the bills and suggested fixes, in the words of one blogger, will be for small business growth: "a load of buckshot to the face." (BP)

[eddie c]

The US Chamber's campaign makes no sense. As a business owner I want to be relieved of the obligation to provide health care. I'd rather pay the small amount of fines than have to shell out tens of thousands for insurance. This alone seriously impacts my competitiveness, particularly in the export market.

[Brian Zweig]

As a self-employed businessman and member of two chambers of commerce, I am outraged that the US Chamber is opposing the proposed healthcare legislation.

Healthcare costs are killing small businesses and making US companies less competitive globally. If nothing is done, it's going to get worse. The current proposal is not perfect, but it relies on a private sector approach that will be an improvement over our current failing system.

It may be in the interests of big insurance companies to opposed this bill, but what about the rest of your members? Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and the US Chamber apparently has no interest in helping to solve one of our biggest problems.

I really have to question why I pay dues to chambers of commerce when your organization is working against my interests and against the interests of the country, as well.

[Elizabeth Brescia]

Health care, Simple, give the people what the people that work for the people have. That goes for health care, social security, medicare. In other words, government employees should recieve the same exact benefits the private sector recieves,if that was the case the problems with health care, social security and medicacare would have been fixed long ago. Bottom line, we need JOBS!!!!!

[rick g]

Thank goodness someone is standing with the American people. CNN polls indicate 81% of people either do not want this bill or want the Congress to start over.

[Ram]

In public remarks today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to have finally stumbled across the truth when it comes to health care reform. Pelosi said, "You've heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other.... But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, a...way from the fog of the controversy.".......
Um, did Nancy just admit that she doesn't know what is in the bill or that she could prove opposition wrong after winning???? Surely she will backtrack later and qualify this statement. However, perhaps this Freudian slip is exactly what it is: an unconscious (’dynamically repressed’) slip-up or, as we like to call it, the truth.

Before Washington Democrats move to push through their reform plan without the support of the American public or 51 (if not more) of their elected colleagues in the Senate let alone the House, they should at least be able to tell us exactly what their so-called reform will bring us.

Or maybe we should do as the Speaker suggests and just step aside and hope she is right. Hmmm, that seems unlikely and not how good public policy is made.

Pelosi said she would "drained the swamp" (of corruption, lies, double talk, spin, fraud)...and now she's put in a hot tub? Closer to a heated Olympic sized pool full of bribes, cons, double talk, double standards, fraud, tax cheats, adulterers, prostitutes, earmarks, pork barrels,back door deals, pay offs, Chicago style corrupt policies and politicians, Lame stream media with thrills up th...eir legs and don't forget all the teleprompter's!......Guess only thing missing is the water!

[Allen Sayble]

There is no room in our modern society for your organization. You are obviously not in it for the American people. This is the first time in a generation we are at the cusp of possibly passing meaningful health care reform and you are waging a multi million dollar campaign to fight it. I hope you who made this decision has a loved one who gets cancer and the health care company drops their coverage, so you can taste the repercussions of your decision. I don't really hope that because I am a compasionate person, but you get the point.

[Allen Sayble]

Hello,

You should be ashamed of yourself as the protector of the American people to be against the health care reform legislation now making its way through Congress. It is one thing to be against it but to wage a multi million dollar campaign against the American people, those who you are pledged to serve is unbelievable syncial. I hope who ever made such a decision is strung up by their thumbs and tarred and feathered (metaphorically speaking of course) and that would be a light punnishment for your behavior. Now I hate you.