The Following News Article is From the Washington Post:
Cost estimate for insurance aid jumps $111B; administration cites technical budget issues
By Associated Press, Published: March 2
WASHINGTON — Cost estimates for a key portion of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law have ballooned by $111 billion from last year’s budget, and a senior Republican lawmaker on Friday demanded an explanation.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., wants to know by Monday why the estimated cost of helping millions of middle-class Americans buy health insurance has jumped by about 30 percent for an eight-year period, from 2014-2021.
Administration officials say the explanation lies in budget technicalities and that there are no significant changes in the program that would raise concerns.
Cost estimates for new government programs can be wide off the mark. For example, the actual cost of President George W. Bush’s Medicare prescription drug benefit came in lower than estimated, so it wasn’t as big a drag on federal finances as initially forecast.
Cost overruns for the health care overhaul could create new political problems for Obama by undermining the law’s promise to reduce federal deficits.
The revised health care numbers, buried deep in the president’s budget, stumped lawmakers and some administration officials earlier in the week. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is in charge of carrying out the health care law, indicated she was unaware of the changes.
At issue are subsidies that will be provided under the health care law to help middle class people buy private coverage in new state insurance markets that open in 2014.
Last year’s budget estimated the cost of the aid to be $367 billion from 2014-2021. This year’s budget puts it at $478 billion over the same period.
“This staggering increase ... cannot be explained by legislative changes or new economic assumptions, and therefore must reflect substantial changes in underlying assumptions regarding ... costs,” Camp wrote Friday in a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
Republicans say they’re concerned about two possibilities: that the estimated cost of the insurance has gone up, or that the administration has quietly determined that more people will be losing employer coverage as a result of Obama’s overhaul. That means they’d have to purchase coverage in the new government-subsidized markets, called exchanges.
Either of those explanations could have major consequences for taxpayers and the nation’s health care system.
But administration officials say the big increase is no cause for alarm and that the administration is not forecasting an erosion of employer coverage or higher insurance costs.
About two-thirds of the increase is due to effects of newly signed legislation that raises costs for one part of the health care law but still saves the government money overall. The rest is due to technical changes in Treasury assumptions unrelated to the health care law, covering such matters as income distribution in America.
“The estimates do not assume changes in what exchanges look like, the cost of insurance, or the number of Americans who will get their insurance in this new marketplace,” Treasury spokeswoman Sabrina Siddiqui said in a statement Friday.
That explanation has drawn skepticism from Ways and Means Committee Republicans.
They say a big reason for their doubts is that the Congressional Budget Office — the fiscal referee for lawmakers — has different numbers from the Obama administration. The budget office is not forecasting a major impact on the health insurance exchanges from the same newly signed legislation that the administration says accounts for most of the $111 billion increase.
That legislation fixed a glitch in the health care law that would have allowed some middle-class people to get virtually free insurance from Medicaid. As a result, projected Medicaid spending under the health care law will drop significantly. But spending for subsidies in the exchanges will go up.
The Following News Article is From the The Salt Lake Tribune:
Hatch’s grand plan for survival to be put to the test Thursday
Politics » Effort has been most exhaustive, expensive delegate recruitment in state history.
By Robert Gehrke | The Salt Lake Tribune First Published Mar 14 2012 09:38 pm • Updated 4 hours ago
Millcreek • At Orrin Hatch’s campaign headquarters, a half-dozen volunteers were hunched over phones Wednesday night, putting the finishing touches on what has been the most exhaustive and expensive delegate recruitment effort in Utah political history.
The effort spanned more than a year and entailed contacting more than 100,000 Republicans around the state and identifying thousands of the most die-hard supporters of the die-hard senator and ensuring they turn out to their GOP caucuses Thursday evening.
"No campaign has ever spent this much time and this much resources to accomplish what we have accomplished," said Hatch campaign manager Dave Hansen.
The fate of the 36-year senator, fighting like a pit bull for his political survival, hinges on the success of the effort.
His challengers are betting all the effort will be for naught and that Utah Republicans are ready for a change.
"Orrin Hatch has spent more money to try to influence the delegate process than any candidate in the history of the state, but I don’t think that delegates can be bought and I don’t think the process can be manipulated like that," said Dan Liljenquist, a former state senator challenging Hatch.
Hatch’s opponents haven’t had the millions of dollars to go toe-to-toe with the incumbent senator. So it will take hard work and organizing Utahns ready for a change, Liljenquist said by phone, on his way to his 93rd public meeting.
"There are people all over the state who are ready for change and that’s how you combat it," he said. "We’ve seen a groundswell of support for us, people who are old and young and say 36 years is enough."
The 4,000 delegates chosen at Republican caucuses Thursday evening will gather in April to vote for a GOP Senate nominee. If a candidate gets 60 percent support, he will win the nomination; if not, the top two vote-getters will be on the ballot in the June primary.
In 2010, Republican delegates who were fed-up with Washington and wanting a change ousted Hatch’s colleague, Sen. Bob Bennett, at the Republican convention — the first time in 70 years a sitting Utah senator had lost his party’s nomination.
On TV it said Hatch supporters turned out in droves. I had ward members kindly asking me if I wanted to go with them to the Republican caucuses. The ward directory makes for good participation at these civic events.
Brackite wrote: The individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as 'ObamaCare' is most likely Unconstitutional.
I'm still wondering how Brackite can justify this assertion.
He linked to the two lower-court decisions that ruled against the mandate, while ignoring the two that upheld it.
Three appeals courts have taken up the issue. One upheld the mandate and one struck it down, while the third refused to rule (essentially agreeing with the administration that it is a taxation matter that can't be challenged until actually paid).
How one gets "most likely unconstitutional" out of that is beyond me.
"The DNA of fictional populations appears to be the most susceptible to extinction." - Simon Southerton
I have two questions for conservatives about health care plans.
1 - The current reform law is essentially the idea of the conservative Heritage Foundation, and was supported by Republicans in 1993 as their "market-based" alternative to the universal-coverage plan that Hilary Clinton was trying to get passed. So why do they now characterize it as a "government takeover" of health care?
2. Since they now see their own previous ideas as rampant socialism and therefore evil, what is their solution for fixing the obvious crippling problems in the system (increasing number of uninsured, decreasing coverage, rapidly escalating costs, people dropped for making claims, bankruptcies caused by medical bills, ER as primary care, etc.)? I haven't heard any alternatives that do anything for these issues.
Just defeating an opponent's solution to a problem doesn't make the problem magically go away.
"The DNA of fictional populations appears to be the most susceptible to extinction." - Simon Southerton
KROSE, I think a big part of the problem concerning the cost of healthcare is based on consumer demand. We only want the most highly educated people to serve us. The simple fact that we rely on the AMA board to tell us who is qualified to give medical advice and not strictly based on a buyer beware policy automatically makes the healthcare industry less than a free market. We often times aren't willing to decide on the price of healthcare or life, therefore the decision gets made for us and it becomes an overly expensive decision.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
krose wrote:I'm still wondering how Brackite can justify this assertion.
He linked to the two lower-court decisions that ruled against the mandate, while ignoring the two that upheld it.
Three appeals courts have taken up the issue. One upheld the mandate and one struck it down, while the third refused to rule (essentially agreeing with the administration that it is a taxation matter that can't be challenged until actually paid).
How one gets "most likely unconstitutional" out of that is beyond me.
I think it - the mandate - is most likely unconstitutional. I base on that on my understanding of the Constitution. Clearly the split decisions indicate that numerous legal experts agree with that position. Is it that you think people can't have opinions on the constitutionality of a law and must defer to the courts? Do you ever think the Supreme Court gets a case wrong?
EAllusion wrote:I think it - the mandate - is most likely unconstitutional. I base on that on my understanding of the Constitution. Clearly the split decisions indicate that numerous legal experts agree with that position. Is it that you think people can't have opinions on the constitutionality of a law and must defer to the courts? Do you ever think the Supreme Court gets a case wrong?
Sure, I think the Supreme Court gets it wrong plenty of times. They have made rulings that I think were clearly unconstitutional (Bush v. Gore, for example).
But when you and Brackite say "most likely unconstitutional," it sounds like a prediction on how it will ultimately be ruled. Otherwise, why not just say you believe the mandate is unconstitutional?
As a description of the current situation, it's definitely inaccurate, because the courts have been evenly split so far.
Obviously you can hold any opinion you would like regarding constitutionality of anything, but I am curious. What part of the Constitution do you think would be violated here?
"The DNA of fictional populations appears to be the most susceptible to extinction." - Simon Southerton
krose wrote: I'm still wondering how Brackite can justify this assertion.
He linked to the two lower-court decisions that ruled against the mandate, while ignoring the two that upheld it.
Three appeals courts have taken up the issue. One upheld the mandate and one struck it down, while the third refused to rule (essentially agreeing with the administration that it is a taxation matter that can't be challenged until actually paid).
How one gets "most likely unconstitutional" out of that is beyond me.
krose wrote: Sure, I think the Supreme Court gets it wrong plenty of times. They have made rulings that I think were clearly unconstitutional (Bush v. Gore, for example).
But when you and Brackite say "most likely unconstitutional," it sounds like a prediction on how it will ultimately be ruled. Otherwise, why not just say you believe the mandate is unconstitutional?
As a description of the current situation, it's definitely inaccurate, because the courts have been evenly split so far.
Obviously you can hold any opinion you would like regarding constitutionality of anything, but I am curious. What part of the Constitution do you think would be violated here?
I believe that the individual mandate in the PPACA, also known as 'ObamaCare' is Unconstitutional From the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The main difference between 'Romneycare' and 'Obamacare' is that 'Romneycare' was done on a State level while 'Obamacare' was done on a Federal level. The individual mandate in 'Obamacare' on a Federal level is likely Unconstitutional, while the individual mandate in 'Romneycare' is within being Constitutional.
"And I've said it before, you want to know what Joseph Smith looked like in Nauvoo, just look at Trump." - Fence Sitter