If the House Democratic majority passes Obama’s health care proposals, one of two things will happen by Election Day, 2010 — and neither one will be healthy for the Democrats seeking re-election.

Either the Medicare cuts will take effect or they will be postponed by a terrified Congress.

If they take effect, physicians’ fees will be slashed 21 percent and hospital reimbursements for Medicare patients will be cut by $1.3 billion. Tens of thousands of doctors and thousands of health care institutions — hospitals, hospices, outpatient clinics and such — will refuse to treat Medicare patients.

(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com …

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House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank should not expect an apology from the top House Republican anytime soon.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), in a speech at the American Bankers Association convention this week, called the Massachusetts Democrats’ aides working on financial reform “little punk staffers.”

Frank responded with a letter to Boehner, urging him to apologize for the “inaccurate cheap shot.”

In an interview with POLITICO Friday, though, Boehner said he wasn’t going to apologize.

“I was making a joke,” Boehner said. “I love staff, there’s nobody who treats staff better than I do.”

He said he has not made any overtures to Frank and says he has no plans to.

“No. it was a joke,” Boehner said. “Come on.”

Read the whole story at politico

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The community organizing group Acorn, battered politically from the right and suffering from mismanagement along with a severe loss of government and other funds, is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy, officials of the group said Friday.Acorn is holding a teleconference this weekend to discuss plans for a bankruptcy filing, two officials of the group said. They asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the news media.

Over the last six months, at least 15 of the group’s 30 state chapters have disbanded and have no plans of re-forming, Acorn officials said. The California and New York chapters, two of the largest, have severed their ties to the national group and have independently reconstituted themselves with new names. Several other state groups are also re-forming outside the Acorn umbrella, and will not be affected if the national organization files for bankruptcy.

This week, the Maryland chapter announced that it would not reopen its offices, which were shuttered in September in the wake of a widely publicized series of video recordings made by two conservative activists, posing as a prostitute and a pimp, who secretly filmed Acorn workers providing them tax advice. In the videos, Acorn workers told one of the activists, James E. O’Keefe III, how to hide prostitution activities from the authorities and avoid taxes, raising no objections to his proposed criminal activities.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com …

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CBS News and The Hill, a D.C. newspaper focused on Congress, both report this morning that there are at least 36 undecided Democrat Congressmen going into Sunday’s vote on the Democratic Party’s attempted conquest of the healthcare industry.

The Hill reports:

According to The Hill’s whip list, there are 36 Democrats who will vote no, leaning no or likely no and another three dozen are undecided or unclear. Pelosi does not have a lot of breathing room.

As Cantor says in his memo, 38 is the magic number for the GOP: “38 Democrats are needed to defeat a government take-over of health care.”

On The Early Show at 7 a.m. EST, CBS News reported their count showed 44 undecided Democrats.

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List of over 50 specific proposals in the HCR bill to be voted on Sunday. A sample:

Page 30 Sec 123 of HC bill: THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get.

Page 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill: YOUR HEALTH CARE IS RATIONED!

Page 59 HC Bill lines 21-24: Govt will have direct access to your bank accounts for elective funds transfer.

Sec 1177: The Govt will RESTRICT enrollment of ’special needs people!’ Unbelievable!

Read the whole bill at House.Gov

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Congressional budget scorekeepers say a Medicare fix that Democrats included in earlier versions of their health care bill would push it into the red.The Congressional Budget Office said Friday that rolling back a programmed cut in Medicare fees to doctors would cost $208 billion over 10 years. If added back to the health care overhaul bill, it would wipe out all the deficit reduction, leaving the legislation $59 billion in the red.

Read the whole story at Yahoo News

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Members continued to be inundated with phone calls from constituents and interest groups Friday thanks to an impending vote on health care reform this weekend.

Calls to the House numbered close to 100,000 an hour, creating a bottleneck in a phone system only meant to handle 50,000 calls an hour. The chamber has been similarly overloaded for four consecutive days, beginning on Tuesday when radio host Rush Limbaugh told viewers to call the Capitol switchboard phone number.

Jeff Ventura, spokesman for Chief Administrative Officer Dan Beard, said the problem was essentially unsolvable. The issue lies with the capacity of the cables buried underneath the Capitol complex — and even if those could be dug up and replaced, Members simply don’t have enough staff to answer so many calls, he said.

“Our capacity rate is about 50,000 calls an hour, and once we hit the 40,000 mark, we start to get these signals,” he said. “We’re beyond that. There’s no other way to say it other than the system is at capacity.”

Read the whole story at Roll Call

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Democrats are planning to introduce legislation later this spring that would permanently repeal annual Medicare cuts to doctors, but are warning lawmakers not to talk about it for fear that it will complicate their push to pass comprehensive health reform. The plans undercut the party’s message that reform lowers the deficit, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

Democrats removed the so-called doc fix from the reform legislation last year because its $371-billion price tag would have made it impossible for Democrats to claim that their bill reduces the deficit. Republicans have argued for months that by stripping the doc fix from the bill, Democrats were playing a shell game.

“Most health staff are already aware that our health proposal does not contain a ‘doc fix.’ … The inclusion of a full SGR repeal would undermine reform’s budget neutrality. So again, do not allow yourself (or your boss) to get into a discussion of the details of CBO scores and textual narrative. Instead, focus only on the deficit reduction and number of Americans covered,” the memo, sent Thursday to Democratic staff, said.

Read the whole story at Politico.com

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Yesterday, I decided to call Rep. John Garamendi’s (CA-10) office in Washington, D.C. He’s my representative and I wanted to voice my opposition to the Senate Health Care Bill. I spoke with a female staffer and politely told her that, while I support health care reform, I oppose the Senate Bill because it wasn’t true “reform.”

She said the Congressman thinks it’s a good bill and that he campaigned on health care reform. I told her I knew that. I also mentioned that I voted for him. When I tried to give her specific reasons why the Senate Bill would harm our system rather than reform it, she refused to listen. She said she was very busy and hung up on me. Being the persistent person that I am, I kept calling back. Each time I tried to finish my point, she hung up.

I called one more time. This time she said, “If you call one more time, we will notify Capital Police.” I asked why my conduct warranted involving federal law enforcement agents. She said I was “harassing” her. I tried to explain that trying to convince a representative to change his or her vote didn’t constitute “harassment.” Before I could fully explain, she hung up again.

I called back. This time, I asked to speak to her supervisor in order to report her repeated hanging up as well as the threat she made. I was placed on hold. Thinking I was holding for her supervisor, I was shocked when a Federal Agent with the Capital Police picked-up the telephone.

At first, the Agent was curt with me. He claimed I was harassing Mr. Garamendi’s staff by continually calling after being told to stop calling. I asked him when it became a federal crime to lobby a congressman. He said that it wasn’t but it was a crime to “harass” congressional members and staff pursuant to 47 U.S.C. 223. I told him I was an attorney (which I am) and that I would research the statute he had cited.

After researching 47 U.S.C. 223, I called Mr. Garamendi’s office again and asked to be transferred back to the Capital Police Agent. The Agent picked up the phone and I explained to him that the statute he cited was not controlling since it only prohibits people from calling with the specific intent to harass. I further explained that I was simply trying to voice my concerns with the intent of getting Mr. Garamendi to change his mind, not to harass his staff. The Agent eventually agreed with my position and said he would call Mr. Garamendi’s office and instruct his staff that I was within my rights to call my congressman and voice my concerns.

Read the whole story at BigGovernment.com

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“I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.”

~~ Barack Obama, at a rally for State Senator Creigh Deeds, Tysons Corner, Virginia, August 6, 2009

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