Senate Smackdown: GOP Gimmicks Backfire

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Party of No continues to engage in rank obstructionism on health care reform. Two more attempts at GOP gimmicks backfired and blew up in their face.

Senate Republicans on Saturday continued their misleading fear mongering of seniors begun by Sen. John McCain reported here Sen. John McCain's rank hypocrisy on Medicare cuts and here Update: Senator John McCain's rank hypocrisy on Medicare cuts, by repackaging McCain's lies about "cuts" (savings) to Medicare, this time from providers of home care for older people. Dems forced to vote for large cuts in home health | www.azstarnet.com ® (Note the entirely misleading headline of this story. The Star's copy editor never read past the first sentence of the report which set the premise for the GOP gimmick. I bet many readers did the same thing and were mislead. What actually occurred as reported in the body of the report follows.)

The measure by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) would have eliminated $42 billion in cuts over 10 years to agencies that provide home health care to seniors under Medicare.

* * *

Johanns said home health-care agencies were being unfairly targeted in the legislation, noting that they account for 3.7 percent of the Medicare budget but would absorb 9.4 percent of the cuts to Medicare in the Senate bill. The percentage is even higher in the House version of the legislation, which passed last month.

"These are truly some of the most vulnerable Americans that receive these services, and the cuts are placed directly on their backs," Johanns said.

Democrats said those cuts, and others to Medicare private insurance plans and providers, would reduce overpayments, inefficiency and waste in the popular program, thereby strengthening it. They noted repeatedly that AARP supports the overall cuts, and also produced a letter from the National Association for Home Care and Hospice in support.

The Dec. 4 letter said the group has "agreed to do its part by reducing costs and payments in a manner that makes the Medicare home-care program more efficient and less susceptible to abuse."

Like the GOP's previous two gimmicks, this gimmick also went down to defeat on a vote of 53 to 41.

Democrats didn't want to let the Republican amendment go unanswered, so Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., offered an amendment stating that the bill would not reduce guaranteed home-health benefits. It passed 96-0.

"They're busy talking about cuts when this actually improves what Medicare beneficiaries are going to get," said Kerry, referring to new preventive services and other items in the bill.

Well that settles that. Vice President Joe Biden was dispatched to reassure seniors that the GOP fear mongering on Medicare is an irresponsible sham.

Earlier, C-Street Boy Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) (who negotiated payment to Sen. Jon Ensign's mistress) and Sen. David "I love hookers" Vitter (R-LA) came up with this gimmick: The two authored an amendment they want attached to the bill that would require members of Congress to enroll in whatever version of the public option the final legislation creates, if it includes one. War Room – Salon.com

Both Coburn and Vitter are vehement opponents of the public option, and they're hoping to prove themselves right by showing that no senator who's in his or her right mind would want their healthcare covered by it. They've gotten a surprise, though: Genuine support for their amendment from someone on the other side of the aisle — and a proponent of the public option, at that — Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Brown doesn't have any illusions about why Coburn and Vitter decided to introduce the amendment. "It's clear they just want to score political points. They hate the public option… they want to introduce [the amendment] and have it lose," the senator said in an interview with Salon on Friday.

But Brown's a strong supporter of the public option, and he's actually been taking a stand like this one since he was first elected to the House nearly 17 years ago, keeping a campaign promise to pay for his own coverage until Congress passed health insurance for everyone.

* * *

Senators are usually eager to collect co-sponsors for their bills and amendments, especially ones from the other party, for the simple reason that this helps the bill pass. It turns out their attitude is a bit different when the amendment in question is actually a political ploy, however. Brown's office contacted Coburn's about co-sponsorship of the amendment nine times last week, to no avail.

"We did get an email back saying they would check with their boss," Brown says, but that was the extent of the response.

So on Friday, Brown took matters into his own hands, going to the Senate floor and asking to be added as a co-sponsor to the amendment by unanimous consent. Since objecting under these circumstances is pretty much unheard of, Brown was finally added as a co-sponsor, along with fellow Democrats Chris Dodd, Barbara Mikulski [and Al Franken].

The gimmick backfired and blew up in their face as one of the options currently on the table before the "Gang of Ten" negotiating the Senate bill is a health insurance exchange similar to the Federal Employee Health Benefit (FEHB) exchange to be made up of non-profit health insurers under the supervision of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) – similar to the health plan that members of Congress currently enjoy.

Don't get too excited. As mcjoan pointed out at Daily Kosthe "OPM Exchange within Exchange Unlikely to Control Costs":

What exchanges don’t do is systematically control cost. The 8 million-person federal employee health benefit (FEHB) exchange has premiums and premium growth rates basically identical to any large employer. As a serious cost control mechanism, they are basically a failure. In fact, the proven cost control failure of the FEHB run by OPM was one of Jacob Hacker’s best arguments for the need for a public option.

* * *

It's just another mechanism to provide private plans, rather than a public option, and for all the "deficit hawks" who oppose the public option, won't actually work to bring down costs. This is perhaps an intriguing idea for a substitute for the exchange, but not for the public option.