How do you find $455 billion in Medicare savings without cutting benefits to seniors?
The health care legislation approved by the U.S. House of Representatives Sunday assumes Medicare spending will increase by $455 billion less than current projections over the next decade, but the bill’s supporters insist seniors won’t see a reduction in benefits.
The issue has especially big political consequences in senior-heavy South Florida.
The Medicare cuts are key to Democrats’ claims that the $940 billion health care bill will actually reduce the deficit by $138 billion over the next decade. But a look at the Congressional Budget Office estimates raises questions about whether Medicare savings of that magnitude can be achieved.
Democrats nationally could take a pounding for their sweeping health care overhaul bill, but U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, said today he’s confident his ‘yes’ vote is right for his senior-heavy district.
“I really have a good sense of the district and a sense of benefits that this bill will provide to the district,” Klein said in an afternoon conference call with reporters.
“Ultimately I think it’s the right thing to do and people will judge you based on using your best judgment and I’m very comfortable that I’m using my best judgment in making this decision.”
The legislation purports to reduce Medicare payments by $500 billion over the next decade without reducing benefits. Klein’s district has about 125,000 Medicare recipients.
Some speculation spread late Saturday that U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, might vote against health care overhaul legislation after supporting it in November.
But Klein’s office this morning points to a one-minute floor speech Klein delivered Saturday touting the controversial legislation as a plus for seniors and urging passage.
Count him as a ‘yes.’ Read the text of Klein’s remarks after the jump….
U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca, voted for the House health care bill and against the anti-abortion Stupak amendment in November. He’s been considered a likely vote for final passage of health care overhaul.
South Florida’s own U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, is taking heat in the conservative blogosphere today for remarks at a Rules Committee hearing in which he defended a controversial “deem and pass” strategy for approving health care overhaul that Democratic leaders ended up abandoning.
Hastings said Republicans often used the same tactic when they were in charge of the House from 1995 to 2007. Hastings said it was time to “stop all of the rhetoric and get to the business of what’s at hand. The fact of the matter is that a lot of our fellow Americans are hurting and they don’t have affordable health care and for the life of me I cannot understand why we all should not be willing to share in order to help the least of them.”
Hastings then added:
“I wish that I had been there when Thomas Edison made the remark that I think applies here: ‘There ain’t no rules around here — we’re trying to accomplish something.’ And therefore, when the deal goes down, all this talk about rules, we make ‘em up as we go along, and I’m here now 18 years, and a significant amount of that time here on this committee under the leadership of the Republicans…”
Edison is widely quoted as saying “Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something.”
Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter signed legislation requiring his state to sue the federal government if Congress approves health care overhaul with a mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance.
McCollum
Pledging to sue the feds over an insurance mandate has been a consistent applause line for Florida Attorney General and GOP governor candidate Bill McCollum.
McCollum has been pressing his Democratic rival, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, to take a stand on the health care legislation that appears headed for an historic cliffhanger vote in Washington this weekend.
Sink
Sink responded Thursday with a statement saying she’s “encouraged” by elements of the legislation.
She also accused McCollum of “trying to score cheap political points” on the issue.
As local supporters and opponents of health care overhaul took to the streets Tuesday to make their case, it was clear that many supporters of the Democratic legislation don’t see it as the culmination of decades of struggle but as a starting point for future changes.
“The day after it’s passed we’re going to start working on it to improve it. It’s a mess,” said Charles Oliver of Delray Beach, one of about 15 demonstrators at a MoveOn.org event outside U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s office in West Palm Beach. Oliver wants a government-run public option, and says even if it doesn’t make it into the emerging legislation now, the bill will provide “a structure” for future change.
About 30 opponents of the Democratic legislation made their case Tuesday outside Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein’s office in Boca Raton at an event organized by conservative tea party and 9-12 groups.
WEST PALM BEACH — Attorney General and GOP governor candidate Bill McCollum dropped by tonight’s Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee powwow and sounded at first like a federal candidate before throwing his likely Democratic opponent, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, into the mix.
“In Washington, President Obama and his administration and some of the friends we have over there like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are more worried about growing government than they are about growing jobs,” McCollum said. Sink, he added, “believes that the public should hold Tallahassee accountable for creating jobs. Jobs shouldn’t created by government, whether it’s the state or federal. Jobs are created by small businesses.”
McCollum also got a standing ovation when he repeated his pledge to use his position as AG to sue the federal government if Congress approves a health care overhaul that includes a requirement for individuals to purchase insurance.
U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla., who was a just another chairman of a major Florida law firm last summer when health care town halls were all the rage, looks to get into the fun Monday when he holds his own in Fort Lauderdale. The event starts at 2:30 p.m. at the Beach Community Center, 3351 NE 33rd Ave.
LeMieux, who Republican state lawmakers hope will bring home a re-up of about $1.2 billion in extra Medicaid money for Florida’s budget hole, has been opposed to President Obama’s suggestions for reducing costs and increasing access to health insurance coverage. From a press release this week:
“This proposal still seeks to cut half a trillion dollars from Medicare. That’s a direct cut in health care benefits for seniors” LeMieux said. ”The proposal fails to achieve its main goal which is to lower the cost of health care for Americans. It takes money from programs, like Medicare, and seeks to create new federal programs. It is clear that the American people do not support this bill.”
Notwithstanding that Massachusetts special election and sinking poll numbers for Democratic health care proposals in Florida and across the nation, it looks like President Obama isn’t throwing in the towel.
The guest list for First Lady Michelle Obama’s box at tonight’s State of the Union address includes a Central Florida woman whose family, according to the White House, was denied coverage in 2008 because of preexisting conditions and can’t afford to buy insurance now.
Cindy Parker-Martinez of Belle Isle, near Orlando, is one of 26 people who will be seated near Michelle Obama for tonight’s speech, according to the White House.
Read the White House’s bio of Parker-Martinez after the jump….
Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum has opened up a 10-point lead over Democrat Alex Sink in Florida’s race for governor, a new Quinnipiac University poll says.
McCollum leads Sink, 41 percent to 31 percent, in a poll that has a 2.4 percent margin of error. McCollum held a 4-point lead in polls last August and October.
The poll also finds 57 percent of Floridians oppose the Democratic health care overhaul legislation moving through Congress and 55 percent favor increased drilling in federal waters off Florida — but not if rigs are as close as five miles from shore.
Poll respondents generally don’t support relaxing immigration laws in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti that is likely to increase the number of refugees leaving the island.
Democratic St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft, who’s challenging U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, in a Republican-leaning district, said Wednesday he’s “deeply concerned” that President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders might bypass a formal House-Senate conference on health care and hash out a private deal.
Craft is running as a “moderate and independent voice” in a district that voted for Republican John McCain in 2008. So he raised some eyebrows in the fall when he said he supported the House health care bill. That bill passed on a 220-to-215 vote in which most Dems from McCain districts voted no.
There’s a spirited debate on the Internet over whether Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., was drunk when he turned in this rambling performance during the recent health care reform debate. Baucus was also in the news recently after it was revealed he had nominated his live-in girlfriend and former staffer for a U.S. attorney’s position in Montana.
Former Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who resigned in a 2006 scandal over sexually charged Internet messages to former congressional pages, links to the Baucus video on his Facebook page and says: “This is the senator that hired his staffer and then took her on trips…and divorced his wife….and they had me run out of town.”
U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, who’s in Palm Beach County today, told a business group this morning that a Democratic health care overhaul bill will probably pass and cause a deterioration in the overall quality of health care.
“I think it’s going to be bad for America. What I fear is down the road all we’re going to have is Medicaid for the masses…If this goes down the road 5 or 10 years from now, everybody’s going to have really poor health care. You may have it, but it’s not going to be any good. You’re going to wait — 100 people in the waiting room,” LeMieux told trustees of the Chamber of Commerce of the Palm Beaches.
Landrieu says she’s “very skeptical about a government-run national option” and won’t commit to voting to cut off a Republican filibuster to force a vote on Democratic health care legislation.
County Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel announced the dis-invitation of Landrieu this morning.
“This is news to us,” Landrieu spokesman Robert Sawicki said in an e-mail this afternoon. “Sen. Landrieu agreed to do this event as a favor to Palm Beach Democrats, and no one from the Palm Beach Democratic Party has notified us about a change in plans for the dinner.”
Democratic Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu is out as keynote speaker for the Palm Beach County Democratic Party’s annual fund-raising dinner next week because party leaders dislike her stance on health care reform, county Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel said today.
Landrieu, a moderate who recently described herself as “extremely concerned about a government-run, taxpayer-funded, national public plan,” has not committed to voting to cut off a likely Republican filibuster and forcing a vote on the legislation.
Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Holly Benson resigned from her post this morning, the day after meeting with Gov. Charlie Crist who appointed her to the post in Feb. 2008.
“I had a meeting with the Governor the other day to talk about some opportunities that lie ahead, and I regret that because of those opportunities I will no longer be able to serve as your Secretary,” Benson wrote in an e-mail to AHCA workers this morning.
Benson, a former state representative from the Panhandle, is expected to jump into the attorney general’s race next month, according to sources close to the Pensacola Republican. That could elevate interest in a GOP primary against Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, who’s already announced his candidacy to replace Bill McCollum. Democratic state Sens. Dave Aronberg of Greenacres and Dan Gelber of Miami Beach are already engaged in a heated battle for the state’s top law enforcement chief.
Crist tapped Benson, a bond lawyer, to head AHCA in 2008. Before that, she left her Pensacola House seat to head DBPR, again at Crist’s bidding.
In the House, Benson was the force behind a model Medicaid reform project that has had mixed results. (more…)
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey with singer Lloyd Marcus at a Tea Party rally today. TAYLOR JONES/Staff Photographer
PALM BEACH GARDENS — After drawing big crowds to Tax Day protests, town hall meetings and a march on Washington, the Tea Party movement can’t rest on its laurels, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey told a lunchtime gathering of activists here.
Armey, chairman of the Washington-based FreedomWorks group that has helped coordinate Tea Party protests, said conservative activists must continue to fight against an expanded government role in health care and then prepare for a fight on a cap-and-trade environmental bill.
“We’ve got the bad guys on the run,” Armey told a crowd of about 150 that crammed the patio of the Yard House restaurant.
“We have given the massive great big government takeover of health care a TKO for the time being. But they’re not going to go away empty handed,” Armey said.
Freshman U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, came under fire from Republicans this week after summarizing the Republican health care plan as “Don’t get sick” and, if you do, “Die quickly.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele called Grayson’s remarks “a calculated scare tactic and smear” and said Democrats serious about “civil debate on the floor of the House” should demand an apology.
Grayson took to the House floor Wednesday to offer an “apology” that drew more GOP outrage: “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”
Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R-Boca Raton, who is a devout Jew, responded: “Comparing the American health care system to the systematic murdering of over six million Jews is totally outrageous and unfit for someone holding public office. Congressman Grayson should apologize to the Jewish community and the families of those whose loved ones were brutally executed.” (more…)
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