File it under irony or justice, but Obamacare is pushing up premiums at AARP.  AARP recently announced that AARP employees would see health insurance premiums go up partially due to the impact of Obamacare.

AARP sent an email to its employees stating that premiums would increase between 8 and 13 percent.  AARP also added to avoid a 40% tax imposed by Obamacare on high-cost Cadillac insurance plans, employees would see an increase in co-pays and deductibles.  Adding costs to the employee helps avoid the additional Obamacare tax.

According to an AP article by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar,  “Although the tax on so-called “Cadillac” health care plans doesn’t take effect for years, employers are already beginning to assess their potential exposure because it is hefty: at 40 percent of the value above $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for a family plan. The tax is intended as a savings measure, to prod employers and workers into more cost-efficient plans.”

I irony and justice in this is that the AARP pushed for and endorsed the passage of Obamacare which included the Cadillac Insurance Tax that is pushing up AARP employee’s health care costs.

The interesting thing here is that Obamacare was supposed to lower our health insurance costs.  To help pay for Obamacare, the government impossed the Cadillac Insurance plan tax.  With employers passing on the cost of that tax to employees, not only will the costs to employees go up, but the government will fall short on paying for the massive cost of Obamacare.  Heck of a job federal government.

According to a post by Michelle Malkin, we can probably expect to see AARP request a waiver to the Obamacare plan that AARP helped jam down our throats.  The question is, where do we get our waivers from Obamacare?

The latest Obamacare support polls show 58% of Americans against with 37% in favor.  As Americans begin to understand how “unintended consequences” of Obamacare will impact all American families, support will continue to fall.

The healthcare reform bill extended the power of the Federal Government to determine how healthcare insurance companies are run.  Obamacare implemented a mandate that 85% of insurance company revenue is paid outer for healthcare coverage, leaving only 15% of health insurance company revenue to run the company.  The current average runs between 65% and 75%.  Congressional Democrats and other anti-capitalists consider anything over 15% representative of waste and overhead inherent in the greedy capitalist system.

The absurdity of those arguments aside, there is an unintended consequence with the Federal Government mandating the expense ratios of private companies.   Federal bureaucracies are now having to determine what services are covered within the 85% of revenue that must be paid out.

As healthcare insurance companies seek to be more competitive by covering services that may actually reduce costs, the government gets to decide if those services count toward the 85% that must be paid out.  Anything that the government decides does not count toward that level of spending will most likely not be covered.

According to a recent healthcare reform article in the Wall Street Journal, “…how to classify a program to double-check doctors orders to avoid one of the unnecessary surgeries that kill some 12,000 people every year? Or counseling, calls, emails and other types of case management to make sure patients comply with their diabetes regimen? Or investments in electronic medical records? Obviously these programs aren’t the same as an O.R. visit, but they still cost money, often a lot of it, and many insurance programs pay or are starting to pay for them.”  If a healthcare insurance company can not include those costs in the 85% federal mandate, they will not continue to pay for those programs.

Once again, Congress provides an example of why the government is not competent to run the lives of Americans or dictate how private companies can and should be run.  As Americans begin to understand and the negative impacts government overreach into our daily lives and voice opposition, will the government listen?  In the case of healthcare reform, the Congress proves that it is unwilling or unable to listen the American people.

Representative Bart Stupak has indicated that with the assurance that an executive order barring the use of federal funds for abortions issued by President Obama, he and several other pro-life Democrats would now support the Health Care Reform legislation.

Several insiders are still claiming that the Democrats are still a few votes shy of the 216 needed to pass the Senate’s version of the Health Care Reform bill and the House’s bill that makes changes to the Senate bill.  However, that remains doubtful as 8 or 9 are flipping to yes as a result of the promise from the President.

American’s should note that according to the rules of Congress and the Constitution, only the Senate version of the bill becomes law.  The bill with the changes proposed by the House would still need to be passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Obama.

The final legislation faces several more challenges in the courts as many people consider many of the provisions in the health care reform bill to be in violation of the Constitution.

Reconciliation was set up to allow for budget items to get through Congress after both the House and Senate passed slightly different bills.  However, both parties have used reconciliation in the past to move through items that were not purely budgetary.

Now the President and the Congressional Democrat leadership is threatening to use reconciliation to pass their massive health care reform bill.

Several leading Congressmen have spoke out against using the reconciliation process.  The following are several quotes from several Senators:

1. “The President hasn’t gotten his way. And that is now prompting a change in the Senate rules that really I think would change the character of the Senate forever…what I worry about would be that you essentially still have two chambers the House and the Senate but you have simply majoritarian absolute power on either side, and that’s just not what the founders intended.”
2. “We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis. The checks and balances which have been at the core of this Republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances which say that if you get 51% of the vote you don’t get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing it’s almost a temper tantrum. “
3. “Mr. President the right to extended debate is never more important than the one party who controls congress and the white house. In these cases the filibuster serves as a check on power and preserves our limited government.”
4. “This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.  It is a fundamental power grab.
5. “You’ve got majority rule and then you have the senate over here where people can slow things down where they can debate where they have something called the filibuster. You know it seems like it’s a little less than efficient — well that’s right it is. And deliberately designed to be so.”
6. “They want their way every single time. And they will change the rules, break the rules, and misread the constitution so that they will get their way.”
7. “This is the way Democracy ends. Not with a bomb but with a gavel.”  

Who are all these Senators that have spoken out against the use of reconciliation to pass legislation? 

1. Barack Obama
2. Charles Schumer
3. Harry Reid
4. Joe Biden
5. Hillary Clinton
6. Charles Schumer
7. Max Baucus

Several more quotes against reconciliation can be found at Human Events. 

The hypocrisy that exists in our government is truly astounding.  Remember these quotes the President and Democrat leaders are on television or in the media talking about how they must pass health care reform through reconciliation.  President Obama is on record saying the the use of reconciliation is clearly something that the founders of our country did not intend.

Hot Air is reporting that even the NYT is pessimistic about the use of reconciliation.  This comes as even Nancy Pelosi is urging Democrats to support the health care reform bill even if the people the represent are against it as this is something “the people need” according to Pelosi.

The question is, are enough Sentators and Congressmen willing to fall on their swords to give the President and the Democrat leadership a political victory against the wishes of the majority of Americans?

Reconciliation is a process that was set up to allow versions of a House and Senate budget bill to be made into one by making the numbers equal.  However, the Democrats are now threatening to use reconciliation to force health care reform through congress and down the throats of the American people.

According to Senator Reid, the Democrats would use reconciliation to make small changes to the existing Senate bill to make it more palatable to key Democrat Senators and members of the house.

Since losing their 60 seat filibuster proof Senate, the Democrats have been scrambling to find a way to pass their unpopular version of health care reform.  It would appear that they are willing to use one of the least popular with the American people to do it.

Conspiracy theorists claim that the “open” health care reform summit held by Democrats later this week is setting the stage for the use of reconciliation.  The claim is that the Democrats will show up with their version of health care reform, listen to and then reject a few ideas from Republicans, and then claim they have no other option but reconciliation to get health care reform through congress.

It now appears that the President and the Democrat leadership is willing to go it alone for health care reform.  However, using reconciliation to pass health care reform does not just pit Democrats against the Republicans, it pits them against the will of the American people.

The problem is that most Americans agree that some steps need to be taken for health care reform, but do not agree with Democrat healthcare reform bill.  The American people basically all want 5 things:

• Lower health insurance premiums
• Lower healthcare costs
• More choices
• Coverage for existing issues
• No life time caps or being dropped when serious illnesses occur

The problem is that the current versions of the healthcare reform bills either ignore some of these things or enact trillions in new spending that won’t achieve the things that are the most critical to the American people.

The first thing that congress can do to lower costs is to allow people to buy insurance across state lines.  This is true competition that would force companies to offer the best mix of coverage and prices.  It would also increase the risk pools allowing for lower premiums.

Second, Congress can allow people to form groups to purchase insurance the same way that corporations and unions can.  Large groups can negotiate better coverage and prices.

Third, Congress can end junk law suits that lead to unnecessary tests and defensive medicine.  Doctors often are forced to take steps to cover themselves by ordering procedures and tests that aren’t necessary to cover themselves from lawsuits.  This would also lower malpractice premiums which would lead doctors to lower prices.

Fourth, congress can end the practice of life time caps, dropping the sick, and not covering pre-existing conditions.

All of these steps would cost the American tax payers nothing and achieve many of the goals of health care reform.  These steps can be accomplished without raising taxes, creating hundreds of new departments and commissions, or giving favors to large donors and special interest groups.

These common sense steps would allow for drastic improvements to the American health care system without adding to the deficit and creating new large government bureaucracies and controls.

These steps are all contained in a draft bill proposed by house and Senate Republicans.  The question is, will the Democrat controlled congress and the President listen to these ideas and include them in health care reform?

One sticking point is the so-called Cadillac insurance tax provision in the Senate health care reform bill.  The bill seeks to partially fund Obamacare by placing a 40% tax on health insurance plans that cost over $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 or $23,000 for a family (depending upon where you get your information).  This tax will hit many middle class families, which doesn’t seem to bother the Democrats as much as you would think. 

However, this Cadillac insurance tax will also hit many union members.  The major Unions are against this provision being in the final health care reform bill which is making several Democrats in the house nervous as Unions pour hundreds of millions of dollars to the Democratic party every year.

Previous version of the Senate health care reform bill had exclusions for some or all Unions leaving non-union middle class workers and others with generous health insurance plans holding the bag.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air pointed out that there is another problem with the Cadillac insurance tax.  It seems that the Senate is counting on making hundreds of billions of dollars on the tax and not counting on the fact that many people will opt for cheaper plans as the excise tax will drive up the cost of insurance for many Americans.  This would further add to the deficit which is against one of Obama’s major goals for the legislation.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next month as the Democrats race to get a health care reform bill to Obama’s desk prior to the State of the Union Address in February.

However, this doesn’t mean the bill is headed directly to the President’s desk.

The Senate health care bill has to be reconciled with the House health care bill that was passed in the House several months ago.  Several House Dems are upset with the lack of a “public option” in the Senate health care bill version and are vowing to vote against any bill that doesn’t include a public option.

According to a post at HotAir.com, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is upset that the Senate health care bill forces people to purchase health insurance, as does the House health care bill, but the Senate health care bill doesn’t provide a government run health insurance option.  House Democrats see this as a give away to insurance companies as it will add roughly 30 million new customers.  The far left leaning Dems in the House do not want any part of helping private insurance companies.

The conference commitee will pick up the bills in January and will begin the process of reconciling the differances in the two bills.  It remains to be seen if the final bill will be better or worse that the two current versions.  Conservative Patriot HQ believe the final bill will be much worse than either one of the two bills can be separately.

Pelosi indicated that the bill would cost just under $894 billion, which is close to the cost of the Senate’s version of the bill.

However, the CBO estimated that the bill would cost just over $1 trillion, that is 1,000,000,000,000 to you and me.  Several Democrat officials indicated that the total cost of the bill would be just over $1.2 trillion or $300 billion more than Pelosi’s estimates.

In the Senate, the bill was kept under $900 billion by employing several accounting trickssuch as delaying costs for the first few years and moving almost $300 billion in spending to a separate bill (the total of the two would be $1.2 trillion, but you aren’t supposed to notice that).  It is unclear at this time if the Pelosi bill includes that $300 billion or not.  Having it included would push the cost of the bill to over $1.5 trillion.

According to house Republicans, Pelosi’s bill would also create over 100 new federal bureaucracies.  Among the new departments set up would be the Health Insurance Exchange; the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation; the Public Health Investment Fund; the Public Health Workforce Corps; an Assistant Secretary for Health Information; the Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health; grant programs for alternative medical liability laws, and infant mortality programs.

Not surprisingly, the media isn’t calling out Pelosi on her attempt to pull one over the American people by misstating the cost of her bill by over $300 billion.  Hopefully, moderate Democrats will refuse to support this costly behemoth of a health care reform bill.

One of the easier ways to reduce costs have been left out of most of the bills penned so far this year.  However, the newest House bill that Nancy Pelosi introduced does include a provision for Tort reform.

According to many estimates, common sense tort reform could save America $54 billion over the next 10 years.  However, the Democrat party receives millions from trial attorney special interest groups every year.  Tort reform makes sense in that it can reduce costs and would cost tax payers billions of dollars to implement.

The current version of the bill that Pelosi unveiled provides insight into the type of tort reform that Democrats support.

According to a post at HotAir.com, the Health Care Reform bill  on pages 1431 – 1433 provides for states to enact “alternative medical liability laws”.  However, the restricts the states to only allowing tort reform that requires that ”the law does not limit attorneys’ fees or impose caps on damages”.

You can expect to hear all about how the Democrats have addressed the need for tort reform in their most recent bill.  However, you need to remember that this tort reform will allow for anything but actual reform.