Despite Senate health care bill, the public option is coming

Despite mainstream media reports and a weekend statement by the White House that they are no longer pushing for a public option, the option is alive, well, and may become a swift reality. Moreover, if the current course of events is not altered, Republicans may have no legislative ability to prevent the public option from becoming a reality.


Senate leadership and the Obama administration are currently working out details on how to combine competing versions of health care reform this week. A primary point of contention is the creation of a public option versus non-profit cooperatives. After Obama administration comments this weekend, it has become clear that the final Senate bill will most likely not contain the so-called "public option" in order to garner the 60 votes needed to overcome an impending Republican filibuster. Once the bill has overcome a filibuster, it will allow a small number of Senate Democrats who are facing challenges in the 2010 elections to then vote no on the final bill. However, the public option will not die with the passage of the Senate bill and once the White House has overcome a potential filibuster it will re-open the door to the public option.


The House of Representatives, under Nancy Pelosi, has not abandoned the government option and such a government option will pass the House of Representatives. As a result, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, the White House and a handful of chosen delegates will conference to hammer out the details of final legislation. The problem is that all three of the parties involved in combining House and Senate versions of health care bills support and have lobbied for a government option. As a result, this conference is likely to produce a final bill that not only contains a public option, but is also no longer subject to cloture rules within the Senate. The end result is a final bill that may contain a government option that only needs 50 Senate votes for final passage.


The installation of the government option within a final bill would inevitably cause a massive bloating of costs in order to appease Senate Democrats on the fence. For instance, the current Baucus bill cost estimates are based upon a 25% cut in Medicare reimbursement to providers. Currently, Medicare and Medicaid reimburse health care providers at a rate 17%-19% less than private insurance. Such a cut would mean that reimbursement rates would fall to nearly 40% less than private insurance, thus devastating the medical community and limiting care. In order to garner support for a public option, the conference committee would likely eliminate such language causing costs of the bill to skyrocket. In addition, Senator's such as Kent Conrad (D-ND), who are facing tough reelection bids, have already stated that they would not vote for a public option that was built upon current medicare reimbursement schedules (notice the carefully worded statements of such politicians). As a result, we will likely see a final bill that abandons the medicare payment basis and provide higher reimbursement rates for government run health insurance. Such a move would soften medical community opposition, maintain the support of wavering Senate Democrats, but also cause costs to balloon even further.


If the public would step back and take a second look, they would quickly find that the thrust of the White House has been solely upon passage of a Senate bill. Little attention has been paid to current House legislation and no pressure has been placed upon the House to adopt a bill without the government option. What we are witnessing is the worst of political posturing, publicly admonishing a public option, while privately working out details as to how to pass such an option. The public, for their part, is blind, naively trusting our legislative leaders to do the right thing, abandon government run health care and pass a bill designed to lower medical costs. However, in our blindness, we are overlooking the reality that Washington has no interest in lowering health care costs, if they were then reform would begin at the production level of goods and services rather than the end-user insurance level.

DOL Job Openings Survey: Job openings lowest level yet, stimulus failing

Fascinated by the President's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, the mainstream media largely ignored a Department of Labor report that highlighted the complete failure of the Obama stimulus package. On Friday, the Job Openings and Labor turnover summary showed that the number of new job openings in August fell not only to its lowest level since the onset of the recession, but its lowest level since the 1970's.

The Department of labor reported that the number of new job openings in August fell to 2,387,000 positions, a decrease of decrease of 21,000 from the month of July. The 2.387 million new job openings reached a level exactly 50% lower than the recent high of 4.8 new jobs in June of 2007. The number of new job openings has consistently dropped since September of 2008 and has reached a level nearly 600,000 jobs lower than February, 2009 when the Economic Recovery Act was passed.

The report showed that the number of job openings and hire rates dropped amid every sector of the economy including the construction, manufacturing and transportation sectors supposedly targeted by the stimulus act. According to the Department of Labor, there are now 6 applicants for every new job opening, the highest level in more than 30 years. Moreover, the summary highlights the lowest per-capita level of small business hiring since the government began publishing the report. Prior to this recession, small business accounted for more than 1/3 of all new job hires; today, that number has dropped into the 20th percentile as small business hiring has nearly frozen.

The Job Opening and Labor Turnover Summary highlights the failure of the Economic Recovery Act as the number of job openings and hires has consistently decreased since February. Moreover, the stagnancy in numbers within recent months demonstrates that as federal spending ramps up, job creation is not following. Detractors of the so-called stimulus plan, such as myself, highlighted that the spending bill failed to provide consumer based stimulus and tax incentives to small businesses. Moreover, federal stimulus money severely restricted industries that received such funds, requiring that the money be invested on unneeded capital projects rather than utilized to shore-up deficit budgets, enhance services and rev up supply. The failure of the Obama Stimulus plan may ultimately represent the most wasted spending in government history considering that the recovery act was nearly 5 times larger than any stimulus plan in U.S. history.

The bottom line is that you can not have long term economic growth without job creation. It is now evident that our nation is headed into an economic abyss similar to that of the 1970's.

Nobel Peace Prize will handicap US diplomatic efforts

The blogosphere and pundits will be in full force today discussing the accomplishments or lack thereof of President Obama. The left will spin the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize award as a reflection of the United States new found adoration brought on by President Obama. Meanwhile, his detractors will inevitably refer to lack of international diplomatic success of the administration, the increased belligerence of nations such as Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, the strained US-Israeli relationship, the Chicago Olympics debacle and criticism by the French president.

Inevitably, the historical significance of the prize will be discussed. There will be references to the award being the first time a sitting US president has received the prize. Likewise, the references to past award winner such as Arafat, Vietnamese diplomat Lo Duc and Gorbachev will be invoked. You will hear the discussion about past nominees such as Neville Chamberlain, Hitler, Stalin and others. In the end we will be barraged with discussions centering upon the past, with little discussion as to the unintended effect of receiving the award.

The world is ruled by largely egotistical, alpha males who do not react well to criticism and react even more negatively to arrogance or condescension by other leaders. No example typifies this better than how global leadership reacted to President Wilson in 1919. The President arrived in Europe, touring the continent to be greeted by record-breaking crowds of adoring fans. Publicly, European leaders positioned themselves to the side of Wilson, bowing before his public greatness and showering him with praise. However, privately they despised the arrogance of the President and despised the popularity of Wilson even more. At Versailles, they utilized his naivety and arrogance against him, shredding the Presidents peace plan until all that remained was the creation of the League of Nations and the most lopsided and damaging peace treaty in history. President Wilson never recovered from the humiliation of Versailles.

As we pointed out throughout the campaign and as recently as last month, President Obama is the first President in the past century to display a level of hubris, condescension and idealism that rivals that of President Wilson. On the world stage, belligerent countries have consistently challenged the resolve of the US over the past 9 months only to be met with a tepid response by Washington. Following the G20 summit, European leaders expressed private discontent and offered criticism of the naivete of President Obama's world views and the President's condemnation of another secret Iranian nuclear facility was offset by the disclosure that the President learned of the facility prior to his inauguration.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize will inevitably handicap U.S. diplomatic efforts as the self-serving egotism of other global leaders causes them to pursue policies aimed at embarrassing the President and enforcing their sense of power. Compounding U.S. diplomatic challenges is the reality that President Obama has displayed typical Beta-male behavior in dealing with foreign leaders as The American Thinker pointed out. The end result will be that even the leaders or closest allies will inadvertently work to improve their own sense of self-worth and superiority when dealing with an administration whose own arrogance will only grow as world peace is added to a list of accomplishments that have yet to occur.

Much of the world is demonstrating dismay this morning as they learn that President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. From the bewilderment of the crowd at the announcement to dropped jaws in Afghanistan and Iraq, the announcement was a shock and a body-shot to the egos of other world leaders. Ultimately, the Noble Peace Prize committee has damaged already strained U.S. diplomatic efforts.

Amnesty, Immigration reform will add billions to the cost of Health Care Reform bills

This spring President Obama alluded to his intentions of taking up immigration reform, aka Amnesty, in November or December of this year. Yet, administration officials have not publicly discussed the subject in months and now with votes looming on current health insurance proposals, administration officials are taking steps in preparation of an immigration bill.

The President has made clear that he wants a bill that will not cover illegal aliens, yet, every proposed bill on the table does not require verification of citizenship. In fact, each and every time that House and Senate Republicans have offered amendments that specifically bar illegal immigrants and require verification, they have been rejected. Yet, the legislative language and legal verification will not mean a thing if the Congressional Democrats and the President grant amnesty to the 12-17 million illegals living in the United States.

The administration and Democrat congressional leaders are pushing for passage of Health Care legislation prior to November 15th, which would fit the timeline for the introduction and attempt to ramrod an amnesty bill down Americans' throats during the holiday season when many Americans are focused on other issues. This past week, Kathleen Sebelius slipped up during a press conference and alluded to the administration's plans to push for amnesty. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security ordered Arizona sheriff Arpaio to halt his roundup of illegals and then announced plans to reform detention procedures of illegal immigrants.

This week news flowed out of Chicago that immigration reform activists are pushing for passage of a resolution calling upon Washington to enact immigration reform and grant amnesty. Considering President Obama's allegiance to the Chicago political machine, it is safe to assume that he will be supportive of their efforts.

The movement of the administration towards granting amnesty to illegal aliens is directly tied to the health care reform debate. Current CBO estimates of each plan are based upon the exclusion of illegal aliens. If the administration were successful in pushing their amnesty agenda it would add tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars to the cost of the programs. The lack of transparency and disclosure by the administration in regards to this agenda is a travesty and represents the worst of our political system. The administration understands that if the American people were to recognize the correlation between health care and immigration reform plans, they uprising would be severe. Then again, how are the American masses able to recognize such a correlation when the media has become the lapdog of the President.

The writing is on the wall and the move towards amnesty is inevitable. Higher taxes, higher premiums, cuts to Medicare and the inclusion of illegal aliens are not the change that Americans voted for....or at least what those blinded by celebrity thought they were voting for.