Contact Congress to vote “No” on health care “reform”

Big week for health care.  The U.S House of Representatives is likely to vote this week in a bill that includes the Senate Health Bill, HR 3590.  Paul Hsieh M.D has written an update on the recent political machinations with links to contact information & summary arguments.  Remember, Markey and Degette from Colorado are on the fence. As I wrote last week: Health bill: Markey & DeGette on fence, tell them to vote “No.”

Dick Morris has a post about “swing votes,” i.e., Congressmen who are also on the fence, and their phone #’s.  Feel free to contact representatives outside of your district.

For opinion on the latest bills, see Cato’s coverage & National Review’s Critical Condition.

Health bill: Markey & DeGette on fence, tell them to vote “No.”

Do you live in either Betsy Markey’s district (4^th, map) or Diana DeGette’s district (1^st, map)? If so, contact them (see end of post) and tell them to vote “no” on the Senate health “reform” bill or any scaled down version of it.  This reform is terrible from both moral and economic grounds (yes, they overlap).

They are critical votes., as the March 5 Denver Post relates

President Barack Obama has laid out the path for Democrats’ last-ditch effort to save health care reform, and despite some relief among lawmakers that a final strategy is set, it’s almost certainly headed for a white-knuckle finish.

The sticky choices faced by Democratic Reps. Betsy Markey of Fort Collins and Diana DeGette of Denver show the hurdles confronting House leaders as they try to wrangle the votes to approve the Senate version of the bill, then fix key elements through a maneuver known as reconciliation. …

As co-chair of the Pro Choice Caucus and a fierce abortion-rights advocate, DeGette is facing strong pressure from national groups not to approve a health care bill with the current language restricting insurance coverage of abortion contained in the Senate bill — but the reconciliation process allows no clear way to change it. …

Markey, who declined requests to be interviewed for this story, is a vulnerable Democrat who last year voted against a reform bill viewed skeptically by moderates and conservatives in her Republican-leaning district.

But that vote has cost her dearly with party loyalists back home, and she’s now squeezed between the unpleasant prospect of alienating either her base Democratic voters or the independents she’ll need in a tough 2010 fight.

Read the rest of the article: Markey, DeGette in middle of health care reform quagmire.

Contact Betsy Markey here.  Contact Diana DeGette here.

Contact your Congressmen: no on health “reform” & reconciliation

Tim Phillips at Americans for Prosperity summarizes the situation and has links to quick ways to contact your Senator and Representatives.  An excerpt:

President Obama finally made it official yesterday:  he wants Congress to ignore Senate rules – and the American people – and use a parliamentary trick called “reconciliation” to pass his health care takeover legislation.  Fortunately, there’s a catch: before the Senate can use reconciliation to force through Obama’s tweaks, the House would have to pass the Senate health care bill.  And we must stop them.

In his remarks the president demanded that Congress cave in and vote “in the next few weeks.”

The key vote will now occur in the House of Representatives – perhaps within 10 to 12 days – and we have to win it.  That’s because it’s impossible for the Senate to make changes via reconciliation until after the Senate bill has passed the House.  Of course, once the Senate bill passes the House, President Obama will sign it and it will become the law of the land – whether or not the reconciliation trick makes some changes around the edges. …

I’m asking you to take 3 steps.

1. Call and email your member of Congress in the next 24 hours.  CLICK HERE to email your member, and CLICK HERE to call your member; – based on your zip code we can provide the right information for your representative.  Tell them to vote NO on the corrupt, big government Senate health care takeover bill and tell them Americans do not want this parliamentary trick called “reconciliation.”

2.  Forward this email to your friends, family, co-workers, and fellow activists across the nation asking them to do the same thing.  They may not know how much the House vote matters. Your friends and family need to hear from someone they know and trust that now is a crucial time on health care and protecting our freedoms.

3.  Commit to being a part of the ”Honk Against the Health Care Takeover” event on March 16.  Here’s how it will work.  On March 16 at 12 noon your time, we’re asking you to drive to your nearest congressional district office CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICE NEAREST YOU and drive around the office for at least 15 minutes occasionally honking your horn. Our goal is to have Americans across the nation telling the politicians to keep their hands off our health care through this “Honk Against the Health Care Takeover” effort.

Read the whole post: The biggest health care vote yet.

Why we’re “crazy” about health care choice

Originally published in the Aurora Daily Sentinel, January 29th, 2010.  This version has links to references.

Why we’re “crazy” about health care choice

By Brian T. Schwartz and Linda Gorman

Sentinel Editor Dave Perry dismisses the Colorado Right to Health Care Choice Initiative as “crazy” and says its supporters “clearly have lost” their minds (Opinion, January 21).

The Initiative would prohibit Colorado government from requiring you to purchase health insurance.

Mr. Perry thinks that mandatory insurance is justified because “those without health insurance are driving up the cost of health care for every American.” But these added costs are trivial compared to the amount that mandatory insurance would increase premiums and taxes.

Read the rest of the article at PatientPowerNow.org:  Why we’re “crazy” about health care choice.

Daily Camera article: Health insurers’ “sins” don’t justify “reform”

The Daily Camera (Boulder) published a shorter version of my Pajamas Media article from a earlier this month:

With so-called health care “reform” in limbo after the Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts, it’s worth examining a popular sentiment behind it: animosity toward insurance companies. Namely, insurers` profits, denial of claims, and rescission of policies. These do not justify the Democrats` goal of increasing political control of health insurance. Rather, they call attention to lax law enforcement and existing legislation that favors insurers at the expense of patients.

Read the whole article, or the longer version with citations at Pajamas Media.

Insurance company wrong-doing no rationale for government health plan

The Denver Post published my letter to the editor on October 31.  (Yes, I just saw it now.)

Re: “The cost of failure on health care for Colorado,” Oct. 28 online-only guest commentary.

Say your neighborhood deli rigged its scales so that customers who paid for a pound of meat left the store with less. Does such fraud justify a government-run “public option” for delicatessens? Surely not, but this is how Colorado AFL-CIO Director Mike Cerbo argues for a new government-run insurance plan. Cerbo says it should “impermissible” for insurers to “drop coverage due to pre-existing medical conditions” — presumably when patients had been honest about medical histories. This is called “post-claim underwriting,” and it violates the insurer’s contract with the policy-holder. But this is no justification of a “public option.” Rather, if it happens frequently and without penalty, it shows that government has been lax in one of its legitimate duties: enforcing contracts.

HB3962, insurance, and preexisting conditions

Section 211-213 of HB 3962 basically says that insurance companies must offer coverage (guaranteed issue) and charge the same premium (community rating) to everyone regardless of their medical history.  The November 8  Daily Camera (Boulder, CO) printed my brief opposition to such political controls:

Should government force you to pay more for medical insurance so others can pay less?  Dr. Laura Rosenthal thinks so, calling it “compassion and kindness.” It’s more like charity at gunpoint.

In a recent Camera article, Rosenthal advocated making it “illegal for health insurance companies to discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions.” That is, insurers must sell policies to everyone at the same price.

These mandates have dire consequences, including more people without insurance. “Individual insurance markets deteriorated,” concludes a Milliman actuarial study. “Insurance companies chose to stop selling individual insurance,” “premium rates tended to increase, sometimes dramatically.”

This legislation encourages insurers to design products that sick people don’t want, as insurers lose money by insuring the sick because it’s illegal to charge higher premiums.  Such policies lack features higher-risk customers want, like comprehensive coverage and minimal bureaucratic obstacles to doctor-recommended treatments.

These political controls cause a “death spiral”: premiums increase, so the healthiest stop buying insurance, the remaining risk pool is less healthy, and premiums rise again. Repeat. To prevent this, politicians want mandatory insurance, which Massachusetts imposed in 2006. Since then Massachusetts insurance premium costs have skyrocketed, affordable policies become illegal, and patients have poor access to care.

Preexisting conditions are a problem because the tax code favors non-portable employer-based insurance. This prevents people from buying guaranteed renewable policies before contracting a chronic condition. A free-market in insurance would also offer innovative products such as health status insurance, which would pay for premium increases should you get sick.

Thanks to Ari Armstrong for pushing me to use a strong lead.

Tell Washington: Hands off your health care!

Yes, their grimy hands are already on it, and that’s the problem. From Patients First:

While millions of Americans spoke up during the summer against a government takeover of health care, Congress has retreated to its bubble and ignored your concerns. We need to remind them we still oppose a trillion dollar health care bill that will take away resources for senior citizens and devastate small businesses.
…
Can you spare one minute to prevent a government takeover of our health care? Patients First’s Facebook application makes calling Congress easier than ever. In one step you can identify your Congressman and his or her phone number. Call your Congressman at your own convenience (or even leave a voicemail after business hours). It’s never been easier to make your voice heard in Washington.

Single payer: rationing both ideas and medicine

BBC News reports that British “doctors are keeping cancer patients in the dark about expensive new drugs that could extend their lives.” Why? Rationing under the UK’s single-payer health care. Single-payer advocates Lyn Gullette and Barry Karlin have done something similar to Camera readers regarding health care reform options (Guest Opinion, September 3). They are trying to ration ideas.

Gullette and Karlin claim that “our choices” in changing health policy include either various ways of increasing political intervention in medicine, or doing nothing.  They neglect to mention reforms that increase individual liberty by decreasing political intervention. After all, politicians control almost half of all medical spending in the U.S. and subject insurance, doctors, and treatments to many more controls.  Are they, like the British doctors withholding treatment options, deliberately not mentioning free-market health reforms?

Gullette and Karlin decry “‘pretend’ reform that advances profits to the insurance industry or prevents effective change.”  So why do they not explain how free-market reforms can address this? Current law punishes us for buying insurance directly from insurers rather than through our employer. It forbids us from buying more affordable policies available in other states. These policies coddle insurance companies and shield them from competition.

British doctors withheld treatment options so as not to “distress, upset or confuse” patients. But British patients deserve to know the ill effects of politically-controlled medicine. So do American readers. Gullette and Karlin should be honest brokers when claiming to present a menu of health care reform options.

This originally appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera on September 5, 2009.

Thanks to Ari Armstrong for suggesting that the authors were rationing ideas.

Michael Bennet should oppose Democrats’ health proposals

Senator Michael Bennet says that “health care reform must shift control from insurance companies to doctors, nurses and their patients.” If so, he should oppose the Democrats’ so-called health care “reform.” Insurance companies have too much control because politicians have handed it to them through tax laws that give preferential treatment to employer-provided insurance.

This punishes employees who buy insurance directly instead of settling for their employer’s insurance options. Hence, insurers cater to employers instead of patients. The Democrats’ proposals to mandate employer-provided insurance won’t solve this problem, but merely entrench it.

Worse yet, tax-discounted insurance has skewed demand in favor of excess insurance to cover routine and predictable expenses. If car insurance similarly covered oil changes and new tires, customers wouldn’t compare prices — they’d only ask if “it’s covered.” Demand and prices would soar, and insurers would wield too much power.

Senator Bennet should support ending a biased tax policy that that favors employer-controlled insurance over patient-controlled insurance.

This letter to the editor appeared in the Denver Business Journal on August 10, 2009. (scan of print version)