Well, supposedly tomorrow will be the day for a vote in the House on HR 3962.  The House bill did receive a boost when it was endorsed by the AMA and AARP.  The AMA represents at best 20% of American physicians.  It is “in bed” with the government at many levels such as its ownership of the CPT coding language and guides.  As the AMA controls which treatments will be accepted for payment and which ones will not be accepted, they and the federal health cabal have a vested interest in supporting each other.  AARP on the other hand is looking to gain millions of new insureds both at the primary level and in the Medicare supplement market and Part D market (drug benefit).  While not all the motives of the AMA and AARP are self-serving, it is interesting that they both chose to support the House bill as is, rather than supporting reform and lobbying for a more perfected bill that is yet to come out of House and Senate conference (if and when the Senate can pass a bill at all, and assuming the House bill does indeed pass).  The House bill is not Real Health Reform, but it is real federal involvement, at the deepest level into the health care system.  Check out these interesting facts about HR 3962:

Speaker Pelosi’s 1990 page Health Care Bill

• $1.055 Trillion total cost
• $ 530+ million per page
• $ 2.5 million per word
• $ 385,504 per letter
• $729 Billion in new taxes
• $500 Billion in cuts to Medicare

The vote should be interesting and to be sure, it appears that the Democratic majority has the numbers to prevail, though this is by no means a sure thing.  Two major issues, access to tax payer funded health care programs by illegal aliens and use of federal funds for abortions are causing some Democrats, particularly the 50 or so who won seats in conservative states on President Obama’s coattails, to think long and hard about their vote.  Republicans, rightly, are concerned about the cost both in terms of real dollars and in cuts to the existing Medicare program.  It will be interesting to see where this ends up.  We have argued for Real Health Reform and sadly, ideologues, this time on the left, have gained control of the process and are pushing a bill that is a Trojan Horse for an eventual drive towards a universal, federal, tax payer funded health system . . . obi jo

Congressman Steve Scalise – http://scalise.congressnewsletter.net/mail/util.cfm?mailaction=clickthru&gpiv=2100049582.10402.378&gen=1&mailing_linkid=5262

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Rules – http://rules.house.gov/bills_details.aspx?NewsID=4465

H.R. 3962 – http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf

Democrats wary of health-bill defections – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110505441.html

Temperatures rising on healthcare bill: Pelosi sees win; Republicans demand to see pricetag – http://thehill.com/homenews/house/66659-temperatures-rising-on-healthcare-pelosi-sees-win-gop-demands-pricetag

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