The president's health plan won't solve a problem. It will be the start of bitter fights over funding and policy that will consume the nation for decades to come. By Fred Barnes

Liz Cheney's Big Question

Is the Obama administration on the right side of national security? By Daniel Henninger

Final health bill omits some of Obama's promises

By Erica Werner

Obama’s Business Buyout by Daniel Henninger

The Health Vote and the Constitution-II

The House can't approve the Senate bill in the same legislation by which it approves changes to the Senate bill. By Michael W. Mcconnell

Sen. LeMieux Busts 10 Myths Surrounding Health Care Reform Debate

Sliding Down the Communitarian Slope

By Berit Kjos

Transcript of Baier and Obama

A First Look At The House Health Care Fix: More Bad News by Ed Haislmaier and Robert Soffit

Mitch McConnell Sums it Up

Links

Additional Sources

The Rush Section

Democrats in Their Own Words: We'll Eliminate Private Insurance

Amnesty is Next

Focus on What's in the Senate Bill

EIB Interview: Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

[This could be our next president]

America's Outrage Set to Boil Over

Chris Christie Keeps Promises

A Fairness Doctrine for Internet?

Additional Rush Links

Perma-Links

Too much happened this week! Enjoy...

If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).

I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 2 or 3 pm central standard time (I sometimes fail at this attempt).

I try to include factual material only, along with my opinions (it should be clear which is which). I make an attempt to include as much of this week’s news as I possibly can. The first set of columns are intentionally designed for a quick read.

I do not accept any advertising nor do I charge for this publication. I write this principally to blow off steam in a nation where its people seemed have collectively lost their minds.

And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, always remember: We do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).

The Obama administration's chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services notified Republican leaders Saturday that the "very tight time frame" and "complexity" of the Democrats' health spending bill would prevent them from fully analyzing the costs and efficacy of the bill before the House votes on the legislation.

The Virginia General Assembly passed legislation prohibiting the federal government from forcing Virginians to purchase government-approved health insurance (this has occurred within this past month).

Idaho’s governor signs a measure requiring the state attorney general to sue the federal government if residents are forced to buy health insurance.

The House is voting today on the Senate Healthcare Bill and the House reconciliation bill.

Thousands of people rally against Putin in Russia; at least 50 separate rallies break out.

At least 15 different states are now suing the EPA to stop it from issuing rules to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Philadelphian teens and pre-teens are playing the game "Catch and Wreck," where they surround and beat people they believe to be homeless.

President Barack Obama: “For Americans who get their [healthcare] insurance through the work place,...your employer, it is estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3000%, which means they could give you a raise.”

Nancy Pelosi, in selling the healthcare bill: "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."

President Obama: “Now, you keep on repeating the notion that it's one-sixth of the economy. Yes, it's one-sixth of the economy, but we're not transforming one-sixth of the economy all in one fell swoop.”

Nancy Pelosi again, “We won that fight, and once we kick through the door [i.e., pass healthcare reform], there’ll be more legislation to follow.”

Vice President Joe Biden: “You know we're going to control the insurance companies.”

Florida Democratic Representative Alcee Hastings:“When the deal goes down, all this talk about rules; we make ‘em up as we go along.”

Lamar Alexander observed, “The motto of the Obama administration seems to be, ‘If we can find it in the yellow pages, the government ought to try to do this.’ ”

John Boehner (House Minority leader): “The President's latest ploy as he's dealing with Members trying to convince them to vote against their constituents and to vote with him, is to make the point that his presidency is on the line. Well, I'm sorry Mr. President, this isn't about you. It's not about the office you hold and it's not about the Speaker. This is about the American people and the health care system that they want for our country.”

Karl Rove to David Plouffe, “Look, you have run up more deficit, before this bill, in the first 20 months and 11 days of your term in office then was done in the entire Bush years!”

Published academic paper in China describes how to take down the US through our power grid system.

US-born fugitive cleric Anwar Al-Awlaqi: "Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea."

In case you didn’t see it, Bret Baier took on the President in a tough interview; the toughest Obama has had to date:

Rove interviews (I think the one with Brokaw was the best; and I could not find Huckabee’s interview with him):

CNN’s take on the Coffee Party (it’s not bad, nor is it slanted; but, when the original TEA parties started up, they were COMPLETELY ignored by the media, and then, when finally covered, months after this movement began to kick into high gear, it was with no little confrontation by most media):

Here is the founder; note how well-produced this video is (my point being, this is not some homemade vid):

(It is fascinating about how these Coffee Party vids rarely express a specific point of view, but speak in generalities throughout).

O’Reilly interviewed Brett Baier after his interview with Obama, and Brett said that, off camera, Obama said, he loved the Factor. O’Reilly asked, “Do you think he’d do a promo?”

1) At least 6 months ago, I told you about the seriousness of the drug wars in Mexico, and just recently, there has been move coverage on the news on them. These particular areas of Mexico near the U.S. border are now more dangerous than Iraq or Afghanistan.

2) There are two roads we can go down, with regards to healthcare: if it passes, this will be the focal point of politics and Washington D.C. for the next 4 years at least. If it is not repealed 4 years from now, then it will become the chief focal point of politics for at least 10–20 years. The other road is, if healthcare is defeated, then that almost ends it.

3) The reason insurance companies are being singled out as evil and profit-taking is, Obama needs a villain. He’s done the same thing with lobbyists, bankers and Wall Street.

4) One of the talking points I have heard from Democrats is that healthcare insurance is too expensive for companies, and so we are unable to compete on the world market. However, Caterpillar is claiming that their insurance costs will go up by $100 million if Obamacare passes.

5) Dick Armey said something along the lines of, “More nations have become failed states because their currency failed...” I don’t know what the percentages are, but if the U.S. currency failed, can you imagine the chaos which would ensue?

6) Months ago, I mentioned the importance of the drug wars in Mexico, and how they were virtually ignored by much of the media. I saw a little more reporting on them this past week, which is only reasonable, as the number of dead, during any given week, exceeds the number of dead in Afghanistan.

7) Moody’s warns that the United States could lose its AAA bond rating. What does this mean? You will understand what could happen, if you have had an adjustable mortgage.

8) There was a half good show on 60 Minutes this past week, where the financial meltdown was examined. This time, they actually explained credit default swaps better than when they did an entire segment on them last year (they are an insurance policy; they previously described them as a side bet). The show was reasonably good in explaining what the mortgage backed securities were and why they were worthless, and how this led to the financial collapse. However, they spent no time whatsoever explaining where all of these bad mortgages came from. It was as if, various Wall Street firms and banks looked down, and suddenly discovered billions of dollars worth of worthless loans on their books that materialized out of nowhere. That is where 60 Minutes disappoints me. The actual origin of these bad loans is what started all of this in the first place, and 60 Minutes will not examine that.

9) The President misrepresents another sad medical case of the woman in the Cleveland hospital. Although she lacked health care insurance, she was still in the hospital and she was not going to lose her house.

10) We have completely lost sight of what insurance is. The idea that someone can develop a medical condition or get in an accident, and then purchase medical insurance after the fact is not insurance; it is welfare. The idea that we ought to be paying for a person’s doctor visit is also an abuse of insurance, and will encourage bad behavior on the part of those who get this coverage for free. People who ought to go to their local drug store for cold medicine will begin to go to doctors for these things.

The so-called $138 billion deficit reduction is equivalent to 18 days of deficit spending in February of 2010.

50% of the new U.S. jobs created in the year 2008 were created in (hand-over-the-heart) Texas.

There have been 50% more denials under the freedom of information act in the first year of the Obama administration, over the last year of the Bush administration.

A quarter of a billion dollars will be spent to curb the fraud, waste and abuse in Medicare.

When Doc-Fix legislation is included, the Obamacare bill will but the budget at $59 billion in the hole. This is assuming that the money taken out of Medicare can be actually used on a different program (which, at this time, is illegal).

Calls to the House of Representatives numbered close to 100,000 an hour, creating a bottleneck in a phone system, which is only meant to handle 50,000 calls an hour. There has been an overload of phone calls since Rush Limbaugh, for the second time in his career, called for phone calls.

Do you feel your views are represented by the federal government right now, or not?

The alphabet media’s treatment of the Coffee party; it is a much more balanced approach, and much more favorable than the TEA party movement coverage.

CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller twitterd the following: "Obama's motorcade arrives at Capitol Hill. Boos and jeers passing tea bagger protests."

Statistics with Professor Obama, beginning with employers possibly enjoying a 3000% drop in insurance costs. “Let me work this out on my Blackberry; hmm, uh, this means that you could experience a 3000% raise in your salary, and, as a bonus, get better medical insurance.”

This time, Obama/Pelosi/Reed played pretty good chess this time, with regards to Bart Stupak. The left him out of the discussion for the past week, acting as if they did not need him; and then, in the last hour, got his support.

If healthcare reform passes, this is just the beginning. States are mounting legal objections which will surely go to the Supreme Court. The House, if it goes Republican, could block all funding to the bill (just as the Democrats could have stopped the war in Iraq in one week way back when they took over the House in 2006).

This healthcare bill represents the best ideas of the left and the right = this healthcare bill represents the best schemes of the left and the far, far left.

You are a constitutional scholar, and yet you dismissed the various approaches pursued in the House to pass healthcare as unimportant. Does this mean, you favor passing your healthcare bill by any means possible?

Do you think this healthcare bill will come up for judicial review? In case you try to evade this question, let me remind you that you taught constitutional law at Harvard.

Mike Huckabee asked these questions: “How many small businesses and small business organizations support this healthcare bill? How many private practice doctors support this bill?”

If you think Obamacare will actually lower the deficit; if you think a yes vote at this point will end the healthcare debate.

Brit Hume predicts, “The Media will be awash with praise for Obama’s tenacity and influence if healthcare passes. Let me add, the opposite is not true.”

Rush has been predicting that, if the Senate Bill is passed in the House, that will be the end of it. Obama will sign it and then the administration will move on. Let me add to that, there may be some discussion and debate on the reconciliation bill, but it will not pass, and the media will virtually ignore this additional bill.

Rush has been saying over and over, do not put any faith in Bart Stupak; we should not be shocked if he folds.

According to the CBO report, approximately 30 million people will be enrolled in some kind of a healthcare insurance plan which they were not in before. However, part of the way we are paying for this bill is requiring everyone to have healthcare insurance. Some people choose not to because they have money enough to pay for their healthcare and some choose not to carry healthcare insurance because they don’t want to pay for something they will not use (young people in their 20's and 30's). These people, for whom healthcare insurance is a bad bet, will have to begin carrying healthcare insurance. These are the easiest people to insure, because they are going to pay attention to healthcare mandates enforced by the IRS. However, I have not yet heard the question or the estimate of how many of this 30 million are people simply required to have healthcare insurance, when they did not have it before.

The second important question is, when exactly is this responsibility handed off to the states? According to the CBO report, if the doctor fix is ignored, after 10 years, the taxes and fees and additional premiums generated from this healthcare bill are supposed to $138 billion (a number which I certainly don’t believe, but...). However, 10 years out, it is supposed to cut the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion.

First of all, as most of you know, most of the benefits included in the healthcare bill begin in year 4, but the taxes begin immediately. So, there are 6 years of benefits for 10 years of payments. However, in the 2^nd 10 year period of time, suddenly, there is this huge surplus, according to the CBO report. How can that be for 10 years of benefits and 10 years of revenue?

Assuming that all of this is correct (and, we may rest assured that this federal program will cost anywhere from 2X to 10X the projected amount), what will be done is, the cost will be off-loaded on the states, but the federal government will continue to collect revenue as if the federal government is paying for it. So, where will the money come from? The states. How will they get it? More taxes. So essentially, the way this bill is written is, we will be subject to a whole set of federal fees and taxes, and then, when the responsibility is off-loaded on the states, we will be essentially double-taxed. The states do not get this money out of thin air, so they will have to raise their fees and taxes in order to pay for this. The excess revenue on the back end, is simply the federal government continuing to collect for this bill, while putting the actual cost off onto the states.

Finally, we are told over and over again how healthcare costs keep rising—but have you seen a single news story explaining why healthcare costs are going up? It seems like this would be newsworthy, but apparently, it is not.

As the Democrats scramble to pass health care legislation, talk still returns to the idea that at least the health care bill is "deficit neutral". That is, while it spends more than a trillion on a new entitlement, it pays for itself mostly by cuts in Medicare. Of course, the doc fix -- scheduled Medicare cuts to doctors which Congress has no intention of making -- will dwarf those savings and add $89 billion to the deficit.

But leave that aside. Medicare already faces a $30 Trillion deficit. The bigger issue is that Democrats are poised to make cuts in Medicare -- something that is incredibly difficult to do -- but instead of applying those cuts towards Medicare, they are applying it towards a lavish new entitlement program.

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw sums up the absurdity of this attitude perfectly on his blog. He shows off his professorial side by writing this dialogue between a friend who consistently spends more money than he earns, racking up credit card debt--and you:

Friend: I am going to take off a few days from work and fly down to Bermuda for a quick vacation.

Friend: Yes, it is expensive. But my plan is deficit-neutral. I have decided to give up that half-caf, extra-shot caramel macchiato I order at Starbucks twice every day. I really don't need that expensive drink. And if I give it up for the next three years, it will pay for my Bermuda trip.

You: But in light of your budget problem, maybe you should give up Starbucks and skip the Bermuda vacation. Giving up Starbucks could be the easiest way to start balancing your budget.

The special relationship is over. We gave America years of unwavering support after September 11. And now we see how Barack Obama's administration repays us.

First, Obama declared that America was "neutral" over the sovereignty of the Falklands, ignoring the clear wishes of the islands' population. And, second, his Assistant Secretary of State, Philip Crowley, snubbed Britain by failing to use their proper name and instead calling them the "Malvinas".

I don't know where Obama learned about diplomacy, but his stinks. I'm normally pro-American, but Mr Obama's seeming support for Argentinian aggressors, who have no legitimate claim over the Falklands, is gratuitously offensive. So from today, I'm boycotting America as a tourist destination. This summer, I'll be going to France, not California.

Let me be clear: I'm not normally in favour of boycotts, and I love the American people. I holiday in their country regularly, and hate the tedious snobby sneers against the United States. But the American people chose to elect an idiot who seems hell bent on insulting their allies, and something must be done to stop Obama's reckless foreign policy, before he does the dirty on his allies on every issue.

If our American friends want to stop Obama shredding the respect the rest of the planet has towards America, they need to stop Obama's destructive policies - and fast.

Forget “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” All Mrs. Martin had to do was stay in her seat, and she landed another blow against Obamacare.

Mrs. Martin, aka Ingrid, is an unemployed health care professional from Ohio. A friend took her along to see President Barack Obama’s “Health Care Hallelujah” speech in Strongsville Monday, where she wound up in the front row, listening in disbelief.

“I crossed my hand and bit my lips a couple of time, and when he made his Medicare claim I said ‘no, no, no,’ ” she told me yesterday.

While she kept her reactions more in line with Justice Sam Alito’s, the president must have noticed. As he shook hands after the speech, he asked her, “Are you OK?”

“ ‘Yes, sir, I’m fine,’ I told him. ‘I just don’t support your bill,’ ” she said. “And at that point, security and everyone stopped.”

And so it came to pass that, for two minutes, Obama and an informed citizen who doesn’t support his plan shared some straight talk. Well, Martin talked straight, anyway.

“He asked me what I would do, and I said the problem is that he’s doing insurance reform, but the problem is really the cost of medical care itself. I said we should fix things that are driving costs up, like defensive medicine and the need for tort reform,” she said. “He told me the bill handled all that, and I said ‘Well, I don’t believe it.’ ”

Ingrid Martin, of Brunswick, Ohio, called out the president of the United States. And at his own pep rally, to boot. “Oh my gosh, I’m calling the president a liar,” she said afterward.

The conversation went along politely and the president promised to send Martin some information to answer her questions. What didn’t happen is the president explaining how cutting $500 billion out of Medicare while adding more people to the rolls is going to “make its finances more secure.”

Obama didn’t answer the question because he can’t. Even Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf agrees with Martin, saying “to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare with the same $500 billion in ‘savings’ would essentially double-count . . . and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.”

This is where Obamacare is. Everyone knows it won’t work. As liberal Sen. Dick Durbin just admitted, “Anyone who would stand before you and say well, if you pass health care reform next year’s health care premiums are going down, I don’t think is telling the truth.”

Voters across America - and particularly here in Massachusetts - are focused on the question of policy. Will this 2,400-page “deem and pass” Washington monstrosity get me a better doctor or better medicine at a better price? We’ve figured out the answer is no, which is why the latest WSJ/NBC poll has opposition to Obamacare at 48 percent, a new high. Only 36 percent of Americans support it.

But Democrats aren’t even talking policy anymore. They’re all about the politics. They’ve got to pass a bill - any bill - to save this inept poseur of a president from himself.

That’s the worst part of Ingrid Martin’s encounter with Obama. It showed the facts don’t matter. The trillion-dollar debt doesn’t matter.

And none of those Democrats in Congress understands the consequences of this bill as well as one unemployed woman in Ohio.

Michael Graham hosts a talk show on WTKK 96.9. He is the author of the recently published “That’s No Angry Mob - That’s My Mom.”

So the CBO says Obamacare reduces the deficit. Democrats are crowing about that, as they twist arms and scour through their bag legislative tricks to pass their thousand page bill this weekend, However, Fortune Magazine's Shawn Tully notes something new from the CBO's latest score: in real life, the health care bill will add to the national debt.

That forecast, however, doesn't mean that what the CBO counts as lower deficits will lead to less debt, as taxpayers might expect. In fact, it appears that it would require the Treasury to borrow almost 40 cents of every dollar in new spending the bill requires.

How can a bill reduce the deficit ... yet add to our debt? Because the CBO is required by law to count only the revenue and spending specified in the bill. If revenues claimed in a bill exceed its spending, then it is deemed to "reduce the deficit."

Unfortunately, the CBO doesn't count the "Doc Fix" because Democrats introduced it as a separate bill. But that's absurd. In the future, the docs are definitely going to get "fixed." If that cost were included in the CBO's estimate, Obamacare would add $89 Billion to the deficit.

A bigger problem is that Democrats claim new tax revenues in the bill that won't actually pay for Obamacare. For example, a big source of revenue comes from new Social Security and Medicare taxes. The CBO counts that revenue as if it would pay for Obamacare, but in fact, that money cannot legally be used to pay for Obamacare-it's required by law to pay for Social Security and Medicare benefits.

But the CBO's hands are tied. Megan McArdle, an admirer of the objective role the CBO plays, says "the CBO process has now been so thoroughly gamed that it's useless."

`When I use a word,'" Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less.'"

Like the famously cracked egg in the Lewis Carroll fantasy, Barack Obama refuses to be bound by conventional English. Words like "choice" and "competition" are thrown around in ways that mean the opposite of how most Americans understand them. Once Americans do understand how he's been using a word, moreover, it changes-in the way that a second "stimulus" suddenly becomes a "jobs bill." Other words simply disappear.

The Dumpty dynamic is especially pronounced in the home stretch of the health-care debate. During a boisterous rally yesterday at Arcadia University outside Philadelphia, the president thumped that the time for "an up-or-down vote on health care" has come, and today he follows up with remarks in St. Louis.

In the interests of furthering understanding of this debate, here are five words Mr. Obama now avoids unless forced to comment by some reporter or Republican lawmaker:

• Reconciliation. Last Wednesday the president called for Senate Democrats to use reconciliation to ram a health-care bill through Congress. In the same way he called for a second stimulus back in November without ever saying it, however, "reconciliation" did not cross Mr. Obama's lips as he endorsed it. Instead, he spoke of a vote that is "nothing more than a simple majority."

The White House Web page suggests the last time the president uttered the word "reconciliation" in the context of health care was a dismissive answer to a question from John McCain during the bipartisan summit. "I think the American people aren't always all that interested in procedures inside the Senate," he told the Arizona Republican-notwithstanding that Americans seem very much interested in the procedures that led to the Cornhusker Kickback or a federal judgeship for a wavering House Democrat's brother. Not to mention Mr. Obama's own statement in October 2007 that "we are not going to pass universal health care with a 50-plus-one strategy."

• Cadillac. In his town-hall meetings last summer the president spoke frankly of the problem posed by so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans. These are expensive policies, provided by employers, that give people more coverage than what they would choose if they had to buy them on their own, without the tax advantage that comes from getting insurance through their jobs.

In September, Mr. Obama told CNN, "I do think that giving a disincentive to insurance companies to offer Cadillac plans that don't make people healthier is part of the way that we're going to bring down health-care costs for everybody over the long term." In other words, a tax on employer-provided health coverage over a certain level.

Then, in January, he agreed to a big exemption for unions. In his own proposal released last month, he scaled the tax down for everyone and delayed implementation. As a result, Cadillac is not a word the president brings up himself these days.

• C-SPAN. On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama loved the word C-SPAN. As he stated at one point, "we'll have the [health-care] negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Alas, it hasn't turned out that way, and C-SPAN is a word that Mr. Obama no longer volunteers.

• Health-care reform. OK, he still says this. But sometime last summer, after the protests, the official name for ObamaCare became "health-insurance reform."

This signaled both a ratcheting down of his original ambitions for universal coverage, and a ratcheting up of the rhetoric against the corporate villains who would serve as his foil. Thus yesterday's remarks in Pennsylvania, where the president warned that evil insurance companies will keep on raising premiums "for as long as they can get away with it" unless Congress acts now.

• Mandate. During the Democratic presidential primary, Mr. Obama slammed rival Hillary Clinton over the individual mandate. "The main difference between my plan and Senator Clinton's plan," he said, "is that she'd require the government to force you to buy health insurance and she said she'd `go after' your wages if you don't."

Now the Senate and House bills include a mandate that would force Americans to do just that. When asked about it at the recent health-care summit, Mr. Obama did concede he's flip-flopped. But because the word smacks of "force," "mandate" went unmentioned yesterday-and will likely stay that way.

So listen closely as the health-care debate comes down to the wire. The words the president won't say are more telling than the words he will.

The president's health plan won't solve a problem. It will be the start of bitter fights over funding and policy that will consume the nation for decades to come.

On Dec. 7, 1941, an announcement was made during the football game between the hometown Washington Redskins and the Philadelphia Eagles. All the generals and admirals at Griffith Stadium were instructed to report to their duty stations. Little did they know their lives would be changed forever and America would be at war, or on war footing, for the next half-century. Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

America will be in a constant health-care war if ObamaCare is enacted. Passage wouldn't end the health-care debate. Rather, it would perpetuate ObamaCare as the dominant issue for decades to come, reshape politics, create an annual funding crisis in Congress, and generate a spate of angry lawsuits. Yet few in Washington seem aware of what lies ahead.

We only have to look at Great Britain to get a glimpse of the future. The National Health Service-socialized medicine-was created in 1946 and touted as the envy of the world. It's been a contentious issue ever since. Its cost and coverage are perennial subjects of debate. The press, especially England's most popular newspaper, The Daily Mail, feasts on reports of long waiting periods, dirty hospitals, botched care and denied access to treatments.

A Conservative member of the European Parliament, Daniel Hannan, last year in an interview on Fox News denounced the NHS as a "60-year mistake," declaring he "wouldn't wish it on anybody." As prime minister, Margaret Thatcher bravely cut NHS spending in the 1980s, but current Tory leaders regard criticism of the NHS as too risky. "The Conservative Party stands four square behind the NHS," its leader, David Cameron, said in response to Mr. Hannan.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi believes ObamaCare would have a more congenial fate-that it will become as popular as Social Security and Medicare with voters. She's kidding herself. Social Security and Medicare were popular from the start and passed with bipartisan support. ObamaCare is unpopular and partisan. It's extremely controversial. Its passage is far more likely to spark a political explosion than a wave of acceptance.

Democratic leaders believe the public doesn't focus on the process of how legislation is enacted. But in this case they're wrong. I've been amazed at how many people understand "reconciliation"-a process that allows budget and spending bills to pass in the Senate with only 51 votes, instead of 60. Many voters are also now studying the details of the "Slaughter solution," which would allow the House to "deem" the Senate health-care bill to have passed without actually voting on it and then to vote through changes to the Senate bill. These legislative shortcuts are already infuriating ObamaCare's opponents.

If ObamaCare passes, sooner or later the backlash against it would morph into a movement to repeal it. Republicans would likely make repeal a top issue in congressional elections this November. The GOP is expected to win a substantial number of seats in Congress this fall. If Republicans take control of the House or Senate or both, clashes over health care would be unavoidable.

Assuming it passes, ObamaCare wouldn't go into effect fully until 2013. This fact alone would make the health-care plan a paramount issue in the 2012 presidential race, regardless of whether Mr. Obama is on the ballot. As long as he's president, Mr. Obama would surely veto legislation to repeal or gut ObamaCare. With a Republican in the White House things would be different. Republicans might be successful in dismantling the program.

But Democrats wouldn't give up. Having gone to great lengths to enact ObamaCare, they'd go all out to protect it or revive it. Mrs. Pelosi is already talking about expanding ObamaCare. She favors adding a "public option" to compete with private insurers. "Once we kick through this door [and pass it], there'll be more legislation to follow," she told liberal bloggers on Monday.

So the struggle would go on and on. If you think the fights over funding of Medicare and Medicaid in recent years have been unpleasant, wait until the funding battles over ObamaCare start. It's all but inevitable that they would occur every year given the way Mr. Obama has proposed to finance his health-care program.

ObamaCare low-balls its cost and exaggerates the means for paying for it. "Our proposal is paid for," the president insisted in a speech in Ohio on Monday. It's not. The financing includes billions that are obligated elsewhere. It claims to cut the budget deficit by $118 billion but achieves this by borrowing hundreds of billions more.

At the same time, Mr. Obama's plan offers a cornucopia of new benefits: free preventive care, coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, guaranteed issue, no lifetime or annual benefit caps, and subsidies for insuring 30 million people now uninsured. All of this would increase the use of health-care services. The tendency is to underestimate just how large this increase might be. This was true with Medicare and Medicaid, whose costs have ballooned far beyond initial projections. The annual struggles in Congress over funding for ObamaCare would be intense.

The courts would also get involved. In anticipation of passage of the president's health-care plan, three states-Virginia, Idaho and Utah-have passed laws to nullify ObamaCare's mandate that everyone purchase health insurance. Other states are expected to follow suit. Arizona voters will decide the matter in a referendum in November. Ultimately, federal judges would decide if these state laws are constitutional. Other issues would also end up in court. That includes the constitutionality of the process that Democrats used to pass ObamaCare. We could expect years of litigation.

Enacting ObamaCare would be only the beginning. The controversy surrounding its passage and how it might work would preoccupy the president, Congress and millions of average Americans for the foreseeable future-and then some.

At the end of the street fight the lawyers' tongs had over Liz Cheney's "Al-Qaeda Seven" TV ad, we've agreed that common criminals have the right to an attorney. Thank heavens for that. The real question the ad raised was bigger than that: Is the Obama administration on the right side or wrong side of national security? That anyone should ask suggests a problem.

Hard as it is for some to believe, they do get some things right. The Afghan surge was the right call. The drone war is killing enemy without apology. Little noticed, the Holder Justice Department's attorneys have defended the Bush warrantless wiretap policy-in a long-running lawsuit in San Francisco's Ninth Circuit, and last month before the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, involving the tracking of cellphone locations.

It is impossible to separate the good things done by a surprisingly good national security team, mostly overseas, from the actions and public statements on fighting terror at home by the men at the top: President Obama and Attorney General Holder. Every call seems to be a jump ball-closing Guantanamo, trial venues, reading airline bombers their Miranda rights.

This is an inefficient and dangerous way to run an antiterror bureaucracy that needs clarity and consistency.

The fog moved in early. Last March they rebranded the "war on terror" as "overseas contingency operations." Then came the "civilian" trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which even hyper-liberal Manhattanites couldn't take, no matter the assurances about the need to rediscover "our values."

In September seven former CIA directors, citing Agency morale, asked Mr. Obama to shut down Attorney General Holder's criminal probe of the CIA terrorist interrogators. Mr. Obama dismissed the appeal in a "Face the Nation" interview, asserting "nobody's above the law."

It is surely true, in theory anyway, that lawyers who argued on behalf of Gitmo detainees in the past can argue for more limited rights when working for the government. Before he became Mr. Obama's deputy solicitor general, Neal Katyal argued the pro-detainee case in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld before the Supreme Court. Two months ago, he stood before a D.C. appeals court to argue against detainee habeas corpus rights at Bagram Airfield base in Afghanistan.

The tumult over Liz Cheney's Keep America Safe ad is being spun as a defeat for Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama terror policies. Agence France-Presse: "A witchhunt orchestrated by George W. Bush supporters . . . has backfired." We'll see about that.

This fight reminds me of an earlier, similar war-the war on crime. The lawyers took over that fight, too, waging it inside an extreme-fighting cage known as the Fourth Amendment, with its now-famous exclusionary rule for police searches.

Ultimately it was voters inside polling booths, not lawyers, who settled that fight.

After the Supreme Court's restrictive police-search decisions in the 1960s, Richard Nixon rode "law and order" into the White House in 1968. Liberals got into trouble during the law and order years because their views on crime seemed an abstraction, elegantly argued but oblivious to the lives of innocent people on the street.

I'm convinced the reason liberal New York City re-elected Rudy Giuliani and then Mike Bloomberg twice was mainly to continue the 1990s' no-nonsense policing program of Commissioners William Bratton then and Ray Kelly now. The comfort level on the streets is the city's No. 1 issue, each day. After 9/11, that's true everywhere in the U.S.

Whether the wolf at the door is a common criminal or a foreign-trained terrorist, the legal issue at the level of the voting booth is simple: Where along the spectrum of personal safety do I and my family feel comfortable? On this score, the incoherence of the Obama administration's policies on domestic terrorism, detainees and military tribunals unsettles people. When they felt this way about personal safety in the 1970s and '80s, their votes for "law and order" candidates were an attempt to restore balance. It worked. The Supreme Court narrowed the 1960s' most expansive interpretations of defendants' rights.

Barack Obama's handling of terror is a voting issue. Republican candidates should put it before voters this November and in 2012. Looking at the failed Christmas airliner bombing, the aggressive recruitment of home-grown jihadis and the aborted Najibullah Zazi bombings in New York City, I'd say establishing a policy of coherence and constancy in meeting this threat is more urgent than the health-care odyssey Mr. Obama has forced on us for a year.

Whatever one thinks of Liz Cheney's TV ad, it asks one big question: Is the legal mindset of the lawyers she criticized naively expansive and dangerous, just as it was on domestic crime 30 years ago? Let the voters decide.

If GOP candidates are looking for a way to talk about this in terms voters will get, put it this way: You look at the Obama team's views on terrorism and the law, from the top down, and then ask yourself, Are they going to protect us 24/7 . . . or not? That's one question you never had to ask about John Yoo.

It was a bold response to skyrocketing health insurance premiums. President Barack Obama would give federal authorities the power to block unreasonable rate hikes.

Yet when Democrats unveiled the final, incarnation of their health care bill this week, the proposal was nowhere to be found.

Ditto with several Republican ideas that Obama had said he wanted to include after a televised bipartisan summit last month, including a plan by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to send investigators disguised as patients to hospitals in search of waste, fraud and abuse.

And those "special deals" that Obama railed against and said he wanted to eliminate? With the exception of two of the most notorious - extra Medicaid money for Nebraska and a carve-out for Florida seniors faced with losing certain extra Medicare benefits - they are all still there.

For the White House, these were the latest unfulfilled commitments related to Obama's health care proposal, starting with his campaign promise to let C-SPAN cameras film negotiations over the bill. Obama also backed down with little apparent regret on his support for a new government-run insurance plan as part of the legislation, a liberal priority.

In the cases of the insurance rate authority, the Republican ideas and the special deals, it came down to Obama making promises that Congress didn't keep. He can propose whatever he wants, but it's up to Congress to enshrine it into law.

Arguably, the president could have foreseen that outcome, and was making a low-risk p.r. move by floating proposals - dismissed by critics as insubstantial anyway - whose demise he couldn't be blamed for.

While the White House worked hard to trumpet Obama's plans for the rate authority, his embrace of bipartisanship and his opposition to special deals, the administration hardly advertised the lack of follow-through. Understandable, certainly, but perhaps not the new way of doing business that Obama promised to bring to Washington.

Removing the special deals ran into opposition from powerful lawmakers including Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Max Baucus, D-Mont. The rate-limiting authority and the Republican ideas were left out of the legislation because the bill is going to be considered under special filibuster-proof Senate rules that prohibit provisions that don't have a budgetary impact, and those ideas don't fit in.

"There are a number of proposals that the president wanted to incorporate into the legislation including additional Republican proposals, but the parliamentarian ruled against allowing those proposals to be included," said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin. "We would like to enact those proposals in separate legislation in the coming months. In the meantime, some important Republican measures remain."

Of the four main Republican ideas Obama endorsed, only one made it into the final bill - a proposal embraced by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa to bump up payments to primary care physicians under Medicaid. A proposal to expand the use of health savings accounts was rejected out of hand by congressional Democrats, while a plan to increase funding for medical malpractice reform projects was also determined to be undoable under fast-track Senate rules.

Coburn's spokesman, John Hart, complained that Democrats "found time to buy votes with earmarks but couldn't include bipartisan ideas endorsed by President Obama." House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, had dismissed the GOP ideas Obama endorsed as "bread crumbs" sprinkled atop the health bill - and now even most of those bread crumbs are blown away.

At the same time, Baucus got to keep a provision to give Medicare benefits to asbestos-sickened residents of Libby, Mont., and Dodd still has one that could result in a new hospital being built at the University of Connecticut. Both senators argue their special deals aren't really special deals, because the Medicare provision could apply to other places where public health emergencies are declared, and other sites outside of Connecticut could be eligible for the hospital.

Most of the provisions of the health care bill don't kick in until 2014, so Obama still has time to make good on everything he promised - or try to get Congress to do so.

"To hold the president accountable for every single provision he advocates for is simply unreasonable," said Alec Vachon, a health policy consultant and former Republican Capitol Hill aide. "Some things aren't in there because the members of Congress who have the votes don't want it. Some things aren't in there because congressional rules which Republicans will be enforcing won't allow it. But Democrats will have three years to tinker with health reform before universal coverage goes live."

President Obama is proposing that the U.S. government both guide the economy and do so with a new, aggressively redistributive tax policy.

It made perfect sense for President Obama to speak yesterday to the Business Roundtable. Businesses big and small could use a pep talk just now. Bank lending last year fell the most since 1942. San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen describes a jobless recovery, with the economy not returning to U.S.-style Mach speed until 2013.

But instead of giving a speech about reviving business confidence in the economy, Mr. Obama gave a speech about reviving business confidence in him.

“I take the time to make these points because we have arrived at a juncture in our politics where reasonable efforts to update our regulations, or make basic investments in our future, are too often greeted with cries of ‘government takeover’ or even ’socialism.’”

The evening before this speech, Mr. Obama held a small White House dinner for some CEOs from household-name corporations, such as AT&T, Xerox, State Farm, Verizon, PepsiCo and GE. The reason for a linen-tablecloth dinner followed by a big speech to really big business is the White House has concluded it is wrongly seen as antibusiness.

I agree. This White House is pro-business. In fact, it’s so pro-business it’s proposing a virtual merger with the private sector. Ladies and gentlemen of the business community, meet your new partner—Uncle Sam.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, the White House will drive the locomotive of the American economy and U.S. business will ride in the passenger cars. You’re being told to get over it.

Now, the president doesn’t talk that way when he speaks, as yesterday, to the Business Roundtable. And some of the “antibusiness” rap is the result of the Obama folks doing what they felt they had to do the past year to get the financial and credit systems back on track.

Along with this came some traditional pistol-whipping of bankers and brokers. Blame transferral is what politicians do. Everyone big enough to be a Fortune 500 CEO understands how this game is played.

But then along came a $90 billion tax on banks? That’s a high price for taking a fall.

And how did it come to pass that the just-released Obama budget includes a $122 billion tax on businesses’ overseas profits? Business thought it had beaten back this tax last October. What happened?

The answer lies, as it always has, in Mr. Obama’s first budget statement—”A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America’s Promise”—released last Feb. 26. This is the most important presidential budget document since Ronald Reagan’s April 1981 “Additional Details on Budget Savings.” There Reagan offered an explicit philosophical rationale for his reordering of the federal government’s role. The Obama statement does the same for events the past year.

“A New Era of Responsibility” describes the years before Mr. Obama as “an era of profound irresponsibility that engulfed both private and public institutions.” From this emerged the two core themes of the Obama presidency.

The first is that “government,” which Mr. Obama identifies as “we,” must “transform our economy for the 21st Century.” Thus, the now-familiar initiatives on carbon auctions, a green-jobs economy, and health care. “At this particular moment,” Mr. Obama said a year ago, “government must lead the way.” This isn’t just an antirecession patch, but something new and permanent.

Mr. Obama said yesterday it is not a “government takeover.” Nothing so crude at all. It’s an M&A agreement between Uncle Sam and the private economy.

This in turn requires what Mr. Obama many times has called “investments”: Thus this year’s long list of tax increases—the fees, fines and taxes in the health-care bill, the overseas profits tax and the 2011 expiration of the Bush tax cuts.

This is about more than just siphoning tax revenue. It’s about big theme No. 2: “For the better part of three decades (my emphasis), a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth has been accumulated by the wealthy. Technological advances and growing global competition, while transforming whole industries—and birthing new ones—has accentuated the trend toward rising inequality.”

I take this to mean that while the tax and economic policies of the past four presidencies worked for the economy—birthing whole industries—it was bad for society, as Mr. Obama understands it.

He is proposing that the U.S. government both guide the economy (”the right balance between the private and public sectors,” he said yesterday) and do so with a new, aggressively redistributive tax policy, which was made explicit in his just-released budget. Guide and redistribute. Agree or not, it’s a bold argument. But will it work?

This is radical, a big change indeed from the past three decades. It’s also a roll of the dice with the American economy. But as politics, it isn’t working. It has produced anxiety—the state-election surprises, the tea partiers, weak consumer confidence, nervous credit markets and surly executives.

If it were working, Mr. Obama wouldn’t have to give speeches to revive public confidence in his new vision for a new era. Could be, most people were fine with the one we had, until now.

The House can't approve the Senate bill in the same legislation by which it approves changes to the Senate bill.

In just a few days the House of Representatives is expected to act on two different pieces of legislation: the Senate version of the health-care bill (the one that contains the special deals, "Cadillac" insurance plan taxes, and abortion coverage) and an amendatory bill making changes in the Senate bill. The House will likely adopt a "self-executing" rule that "deems" passage of the amendatory bill as enactment of the Senate bill, without an actual vote on the latter.

This enables the House to enact the Senate bill while appearing only to approve changes to it. The underlying Senate bill would then go to the president for signature, and the amendatory bill would go to the Senate for consideration under reconciliation procedures (meaning no filibuster).

This approach appears unconstitutional. Article I, Section 7 clearly states that bills cannot be presented to the president for signature unless they have been approved by both houses of Congress in the same form. If the House approves the Senate bill in the same legislation by which it approves changes to the Senate bill, it will fail that requirement.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), chair of the House Rules Committee and prime mover behind this approach, has released a letter from Yale Law School's Jack Balkin asserting that a "rule which consolidates a vote on a bill and accompanying amendments, or, as in this case, a reconciliation measure and an amended bill, is within the House's powers under Article I, Section 5, Clause 2."

But that does not actually address the point at issue. No one doubts that the House can consolidate two bills in a single measure; the question is whether, having done so, it may then hive the resulting bill into two parts, treating one part as an enrolled bill ready for presidential signature and the other part as a House bill ready for senatorial consideration. That seems inconsistent with the principle that the president may sign only bills in the exact form that they have passed both houses. A combination of two bills is not in "the same form" as either bill separately.

Defenders of the Democratic strategy say that a self-executing rule has been used many times before by both parties. But never in this way. Most of the time a self-executing rule is used to incorporate amendments into a pending bill without actual votes on the amendments, where the bill is then subject to a final vote by the House and Senate. That usage may be a dodge around House rules, but it does not violate the Constitution. I am not aware of any instance where a self-executing rule has been used to send one bill to the president for signature and another to the Senate for consideration by means of a single vote.

Self-executing rules have also been used to increase the debt ceiling by virtue of adopting a budget resolution. That procedure is questionable, but because budget resolutions are not laws, this usage does not have the feature of using one vote to send a bill to the president and at the same time to send a different bill to the Senate. There may have been other questionable uses of self-executing rules, but not often enough or in prominent enough cases to establish a precedent that would overcome serious constitutional challenge.

Whether the courts would entertain such a challenge is a harder question. The "enrolled bill doctrine," announced by the Supreme Court in Marshall Field v. Clark (1892), holds that the courts will not question whether a bill certified as having passed both houses of Congress was properly enacted. More recently, in United States v. Munoz-Flores (1990), in a footnote, the Supreme Court stated that Field concerned only the "evidence" the courts would consider in such a challenge and that when "a constitutional provision is implicated," the enrolled bill doctrine would not apply. These holdings are not easy to reconcile. The D.C. Circuit, in a 1995 case, essentially said that it did not understand the Munoz-Flores footnote and thus would not follow it.

The Supreme Court might well hold that Field governs only questions of historical fact, while Munoz-Flores governs questions of constitutional interpretation. In Field, the question was what text passed the two houses of Congress; there was no doubt that only what the two houses passed could be treated as law. Here, by contrast, there will be no dispute about what occurred in the House; the question will be whether using a self-executing rule in this way is consistent with Article I, Section 7. It is one thing for the Supreme Court to defer to Congress on questions of what Congress did, and quite another to defer to Congress on the meaning of the Constitution. Indeed, in United States v. Ballin, decided the same year as Field, the Court ruled, "The Constitution empowers each House to determine its own rules of proceedings. It may not by its rules ignore constitutional restraints . . . ."

One thing is sure: To proceed in this way creates an unnecessary risk that the legislation will be invalidated for violation of Article I, Section 7. Will wavering House members want to use this procedure when there is a nontrivial probability that the courts will render their political sacrifice wasted effort? To hazard that risk, the House leadership must have a powerful motive to avoid a straightforward vote.

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator George LeMieux (R-FL) today called attention to a number of myths that have become part of the health care debate as if they were fact. Senator LeMieux made his remarks on the floor of the Senate this evening.
"We know this comprehensive proposal will not reduce costs for Americans, it will not guarantee that you can keep your health care plan if you like it, and it does not truly reduce the deficit," said LeMieux. "These proposed reforms will take half a trillion dollars from Medicare, they will not reduce the demands on emergency rooms, and they will only go after fraud at the edges."

MYTH 1: YOU CAN KEEP YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE IF YOU LIKE IT
• As recently as today, President Obama has said, "If you have a plan you like, you can keep it."
A: Employers will drop coverage
• CBO says, "Between 8 million and 9 million other people who would be covered by an employment based plan under current law would not have an offer of such coverage under the proposal." Because of the employer mandate some businesses would likely drop existing coverage or fail to offer new coverage.
• Rick Foster, the CMS actuary says this number could be even higher. He concluded that 17 million people will lose their employer-sponsored coverage. Many smaller employers would be, "inclined to terminate their existing coverage" so their workers could qualify for "heavily subsidized coverage" through the exchange.
B: Medicare Advantage will be downgraded
• Foster also says, "Lower benchmarks would reduce Medicare Advantage rebates to plans and thereby result in less generous benefit packages. We estimate that in 2015...enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans would decrease by about 33 percent (from a projected level of 13.7 million under current law to 9.2 million under the proposal)."
C: Mandates will usher in era of one-size-fits all health care system
• Mandates eliminate patient choice and force Americans onto certain plans.

MYTH 2: YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS WILL GO DOWN
• One of the President's earliest stated goals was to control health care costs, including lowering insurance premiums.
• CBO estimates that a majority of Americans who receive their insurance through an employer will notice only a negligible impact on their premiums. Essentially, this is a continuation of the status quo.
• Those who buy their own insurance from the individual market can expect premiums to rise.
• According to CBO, "Average premiums per policy in the non-group market in 2016 would be roughly $5,800 for single policies and $15,200 for family policies under the proposal, compared with roughly $5,500 for single policies and $13,100 for family policies under current law. The weighted average of the differences in those amounts equals the change of 10 percent to 13 percent in the average premium per person summarized above..."

MYTH 3: DEMS' PLAN WILL LOWER COSTS
• In today's Washington Post, Robert Samuelson takes on the President's claim that his plan will control costs.
• Samuelson writes: "When people get insurance, they use more health services. Spending rises. By the government's latest forecast, health spending goes from 17 percent of the economy in 2009 to 19 percent in 2019. Health ‘reform' would probably increase that."
• According to the CMS actuary, "We estimate that overall national health expenditures under this bill would increase by an estimated total of $222 billion (0.6 percent) during calendar years 2010-2019."
• It would also increase the government's share of health care spending. According to CBO, "Under the legislation, federal outlays for health care would increase...by about $210 billion" during the 2010-2019 period.
• For all of its 2,000 pages, the bill does not include ideas to lower costs:
o No transparency;
o No consumer-driven ideas for reducing costs,
o No changes to laws prohibiting purchases across state lines
• Real reform should include medical malpractice reform, which according to CBO, could save as much as $54 billion over the next decade -10 times more than previously estimated.

MYTH 4: DEMS' PLAN WILL REDUCE THE DEFICIT
• The Senate bill relies on budget gimmickry to achieve what appears to be a deficit reduction, but will actually result in another mountain of crushing government spending.
A: Six years of spending/10 years of taxes
• CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote in his December 19, 2009 letter to Senator Reid, "A detailed year-by-year projection for years beyond 2019, like those that CBO prepares for the 10-year budget window, would not be meaningful because the uncertainties involved are simply too great."
• CBO has also said, "Under the legislation, federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period, as would the federal budgetary commitment to health care."
B: Budget-buster for states
• The proposal also forces states that cannot afford their current Medicaid programs to contribute tens of billions more to fund new coverage expansions beginning in 2018.
• Tennessee Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen called it, "the mother of all unfunded mandates."
• The head of Washington State's Medicaid program believes that states facing severe financial distress may say, "I have to get out of the Medicaid program altogether."
• CBO released its first estimate of expected discretionary spending under the Senate-passed bill, confirming the $10-20 billion in discretionary spending over the next decade to implement the legislation - $5-10 billion each for the IRS and HHS.
• CBO also estimates an additional $55.6 billion in discretionary spending on the various grant programs authorized (but not appropriated) in the measure.
C: Will be a trillion-dollar program
• The total to enact health "reform" will easily exceed $1 trillion.
• Government programs rarely cost less than projected.
• The White House has not explained how all this new discretionary spending comports with the President's plan for a spending "freeze" over the next three years.

MYTH 5: MEDICARE CUTS WON'T AFFECT SENIORS
• The bill cuts a half a trillion dollars from Medicare, including nearly $120 billion from Medicare Advantage, which delivers a range of health care options to nearly 11 million seniors, almost one-quarter of those enrolled in the Medicare program.
A: Effect on Medicare
• In his letter to Senator Reid, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote that the effects of the cuts to Medicare remain unclear, but warned that they could "reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care."
• These cuts include:
o $135 billion from hospitals
o $120 billion from Medicare Advantage
o Nearly $15 billion from nursing homes
o Nearly $40 billion from home health agencies
o Nearly $7 billion from hospices

• The CMS Actuary says that many of the Medicare cuts are "unrelated to the providers' costs of furnishing services to beneficiaries." He concludes that it is "doubtful" that providers could reduce costs to keep up with the cuts.
• The CMS actuary also finds that because of the bill's severe cuts to Medicare, "providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries)."
• Because of the increased demand for health care, the Actuary says that access to care problems are "plausible and even probable" under the Reid bill.
B: Doctors are turning away patients
• According to a June 2008 Medicare Payment Advisory Commission report, 29 percent of the Medicare beneficiaries it surveyed who were looking for a primary care doctor had a problem finding one to treat them - up from 24 percent in 2007.
C: Florida
• Florida is disproportionately affected since it has the second highest population of seniors and the highest concentration of seniors in the nation at 19 percent.
• Ron Malone, Vice President of Gentiva Health Services expects these cuts to devastate home health care in Florida.
• The Florida Medical Association - the largest physician's association in Florida with nearly 20,000 members says, "...this legislation does not adequately fix what's wrong with our current system. It contains many provisions that would allow government bureaucrats to interfere with patient care decisions and actually raises the cost of health insurance unnecessarily."

MYTH 6: EMERGENCY ROOMS WILL BE LESS BURDENED
• According to the Urban Institute, after Massachusetts adopted a somewhat similar plan, emergency-room use remained higher than the national average.
• More than two-fifths of these visits were for non-emergencies. And of these, a majority of the adult respondents said it was "more convenient" to check into the E.R. because they were not able to get in to see a doctor.
• Massachusetts' plan has worsened the state's doctor shortage. The Massachusetts Hospital Association found that two thirds of hospitals say their community has too few primary care clinicians.
• The 2008 Massachusetts Medical Society Report found that 12 of the 18 physician specialties had, "critical or severe shortages." The problems were particularly acute in the family and internal medicine fields.
• The percentage of family medicine physicians no longer accepting new patients rose from 25 percent in 2006 to 35 percent in 2008.
• Waiting times increased from an average of 15 days in 2008 to 18 in 2009.
• With a shortage of doctors in rural communities nationwide, such a plan on a national scale will only make matters worse.

MYTH 7: THE DEMS' PLAN TAKES ON INSURANCE COMPANIES
• Contains tax credit for insurance companies. According to the Senate Finance Committee's report, "The premium tax credit, which is refundable and payable in advance directly to the insurer, subsidizes the purchase of certain health insurance plans through the state exchanges."

MYTH 8: BILL TAKES UNPRESCEDENTED STEPS IN FIGHTING HEALTH CARE FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE
• The bill only continues the pay-and-chase method of fighting Medicare fraud, waste, and abuse.
• I believe more money can be saved on the front end. There is a more efficient way of fighting the estimated $60 billion lost through waste, fraud, and abuse each year.
• We can look no further than the private sector for innovative ways to save money and stop wasting Americans' hard-earned dollars.
A: S.2128
• Under my plan, we adopt the predictive modeling used by the credit card industry.
• Predictive modeling has realized as much as a 30 to 1 return on investment in the financial services industry.
• Using predictive modeling, the credit card industry loses about 7 cents for every 100 dollars transacted due to fraud, a fraction of 1 percent of total transactions. Medicare, on the other hand, loses 1 out of every 7 dollars or approximately 14 percent of the entire payouts.
B: Background checks
• My plan will stop fraud before the checks are sent out - ensuring the people rendering medical services or selling medical devices are not criminals.
• According to independent estimates, once the system is fully operational, my plan would result in the savings of $22 to $35 billion per year.
• Predictive modeling is not limited to the financial services industry. In fact, private health care companies have saved millions of dollars after implementing this technology. The Federal government can, too.

MYTH 9: DEMS' HEALTH CARE REFORM WILL NOT IMPACT PATIENT-DOCTOR RELATIONSHIP
• I agree with my colleague, Dr. Barasso, who supports a patient-centered approach.
• Real health care reform should ensure a doctor and a patient can work together toward the best health for that patient.
• This bill will increase costs for patients, create more bureaucratic headaches for doctors, and result in an America where the health of our people is only as good as the health of our nation's balance sheet.

MYTH 10: TAXES WILL NOT GO UP
• This bill is a jobs bill for the tax collector.
• National Federation of Independent Businesses - I talked with the Florida NFIB members and they have great concern about this bill and the impact the taxes will have.
• The NFIB released a statement on their Web site on December 8 expressing their opposition to the Reid bill: "When evaluating health care reform options, small business owners ask themselves two specific questions. First, will the bill lower insurance costs? Second, will the bill increase the overall cost of doing business? In both cases, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act fails the small business test and, therefore, fails small business."
• If you have insurance...you get taxed.
• If you DON'T have insurance...you get taxed.
• If you need prescription drugs...you get taxed.
• If you need a medical device...you get taxed.
• If you have high out-of-pocket health expenses...you get taxed.
• Some of these taxes go into effect right away, while the majority of the benefits do not kick in for 4 years.

It is (blow the trumpets) Communitarianism! The Third Way! And it changes everything, just as our president promised.

Daniel Henninger illustrates this governing structure well in his recent Wall Street Journal article titled "Obama's Business Buyout":

"It made perfect sense for President Obama to speak yesterday to the Business Roundtable. Businesses big and small could use a pep talk just now.... But instead of giving a speech about reviving business confidence in the economy, Mr. Obama gave a speech about reviving business confidence in him.

"The evening before this speech, Mr. Obama held a small White House dinner for some CEOs from household-name corporations, such as AT&T, Xerox, State Farm, Verizon, PepsiCo and GE. The reason for a linen-tablecloth dinner followed by a big speech to really big business is the White House has concluded it is wrongly seen as anti-business.

"I agree. This White House is pro-business. In fact, it's so pro-business it's proposing a virtual merger with the private sector. Ladies and gentlemen of the business community, meet your new partner—Uncle Sam.

"Under the terms of the proposed deal, the White House will drive the locomotive of the American economy and U.S. business will ride in the passenger cars. You're being told to get over it."[1]

No longer will American freedom, initiative, incentive and common sense inspire new ideas, build new companies, multiply jobs and reward hard work. As President Obama (an Alinsky disciple and a former member of the Marxist "New Party") explained,

"For the better part of three decades, a disproportionate share of the nation's wealth has been accumulated by the wealthy. Technological advances and growing global competition, while transforming whole industries—and birthing new ones—has accentuated the trend toward rising inequality."

"I take this to mean," wrote Mr. Henninger, "that while the tax and economic policies of the past four presidencies worked for the economy—birthing whole industries—it was bad for society as Mr. Obama understands it."[1]

That's scary. While Mr. Obama assured his listeners that this new policy is not a "government takeover," he has something even worse in mind. It could even "work" in a twisted sort of way. The government may own GM, but it won't own everything. Instead, it will control, tax and manipulate everything. That means it can crush or strengthen any company at will. It's far easier to give the commands when it's free from the responsibilities of actual ownership.

If you doubt the reality of this spreading agenda, please read our series on Reinventing the World. It shows the three main elements of the Communitarian structure:

Part 1: The Seamless Communitarian SYSTEM -- Conforming schools, communities, corporations, nations and churches to the global agenda that rules out Biblical truth and Christian lifestyles.[2]

Those standards are already outlined in major UN treaties, initiatives and declarations. To understand their restrictions on freedom, read these four articles:

The tentacles of this controlling web are spreading around the world. The corrupt United Nations with its regional branches (European Union, African Union, etc.) provides the governing framework. Like a wolf in sheep's clothing, it speaks kindly, but has sharp teeth. It exists largely for power-hungry elite leaders with few qualms about mass murder. In fact, its "peace-keeping forces" are better known for killing and raping than for achieving peace.

Back in 2003, Thomas Sowell wrote this wise warning, which our administration largely ignores:

"When you see a four-year-old bossing a two-year-old, you are seeing the fundamental problem of the human race -- and the reason so many idealistic political movements for a better world have ended in mass-murdering dictatorships. Giving leaders enough power to create 'social justice' is giving them enough power to destroy all justice, all freedom, and all human dignity.

"Most people who read 'The Communist Manifesto' probably have no idea that it was written by a couple of young men who had never worked a day in their lives, and who nevertheless spoke boldly in the name of 'the workers.' [Actually, Marx had little sympathy for "the workers"] Similar offspring of inherited wealth have repeatedly provided the leadership of radical movements, with similar pretenses of speaking for 'the people.'"[3]

Like my little classmates in Norway, I once memorized a popular poem called "Flugten til America" (Fleeing to America.) It's a funny story about a little boy who has a bad day and decides to run away, follow his utopian dream and head for America. He packs his favorite things and starts his journey. Before long, his tummy gnaws and his legs are tired. So he abandons his dream and returns home to live with reality.

Today's global "dream" is fast becoming a tragic reality. And there's no simple way back to the America that brought genuine hope and freedom to people around the world for more than two hundred years. But don't say we weren't warned. God told us in His Word:

"...when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them... your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God. ... you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’
"...if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods... you shall surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God." Deuteronomy 8:10-20

Many claim to know God, including President Obama. Yet, few seem to really know the Biblical God who speaks to us through His Word. Obama illustrates this confusion well:

"I am a Christian.... I believe that there are many paths to the same place.... I am a great admirer of our founding charter... and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root in this country.... I think Gandhi is a great example of a profoundly spiritual man who... never slipped into intolerance or dogma."[4]

Such unwelcome "dogma" would probably include God's Word. That's sad, since it alone offers us genuine hope and guidelines. It tells us that if God's people would truly "humble themselves and pray"[4], discarding the corrupting idols of our times, He will surely have mercy on us and grant us a reprieve from the judgment we deserve. But is our thrill-addicted nation willing to repent and return to His Truth? "When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:7-8)

In these amoral times, even churches that proclaim faith in God are twisting the truth to accommodate popular culture, just as He warned long ago:

"The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 2 Thessalonians 2: 9-12

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears... they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables." 2 Timothy 4:3-4

"...false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect." Matthew 24:25

Yet, through the coming darkness, the Light of God and His eternity will surely shine ever brighter for those who delight in His Word and "seek His face." Just as the night sky lights up when we leave our well-lit cities, so will we treasure His unwavering promises all the more when the world's bright illusions fade away. In the face of dangers, persecution and loss, His peace and provision become all the more precious!

"...in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39

Note: This article's title is a reminder of Cry, The Beloved Country, a bestselling book by Alan Paton, a white, Christian South African schoolmaster, who loved his country deeply and grieved over its racial divisions. When he died in 1985, millions of copies had sold in over 20 languages around the world. He didn't live to see the end of apartheid, but in the years that followed Mandela's election, his beloved country didn't get "better." Instead it faced rising violence and lawlessness under its new socialist/Marxist leaders. In 1998, having faced repeated burglaries, assaults and terror, his widow, Anne Paton, moved to England.

"I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating."

"The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions."

BRET BAIER, "SPECIAL REPORT" HOST: Welcome to Washington. I'm Bret Baier, and this is a special edition of "Special Report", beginning tonight in the Blue Room in the White House, mid-way through what many people are calling the most pivotal week of his presidency so far. We are interviewing President Barack Obama.

BAIER: You have said at least four times in the past two weeks: "the United States Congress owes the American people a final up or down vote on health care." So do you support the use of this Slaughter rule? The deem and pass rule, so that Democrats avoid a straight up or down vote on the Senate bill?

OBAMA: Here's what I think is going to happen and what should happen. You now have a proposal from me that will be in legislation, that has the toughest insurance reforms in history, makes sure that people are able to get insurance even if they've got preexisting conditions, makes sure that we are reducing costs for families and small businesses, by allowing them to buy into a pool, the same kind of pool that members of Congress have.

We know that this is going to reduce the deficit by over a trillion dollars. So you've got a good package, in terms of substance. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or the Senate.

OBAMA: What I can tell you is that the vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform. And if people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform. And I don't think we should pretend otherwise.

OBAMA: Bret, let me finish. If they don't, if they vote against, then they're going to be voting against health care reform and they're going to be voting in favor of the status quo. So Washington gets very concerned about these procedural issues in Congress. This is always an issue that's - whether Republicans are in charge or Democrats in charge - when Republicans are in charge, Democrats constantly complain that the majority was not giving them an opportunity, et cetera.

What the American people care about is the fact that their premiums are going up 25, 40, 60 percent, and I'm going to do something about it.

BAIER: Let me insert this. We asked our viewers to e-mail in suggested questions. More than 18,000 people took time to e-mail us questions. These are regular people from all over the country. Lee Johnson, from Spring Valley, California: "If the bill is so good for all of us, why all the intimidation, arm twisting, seedy deals, and parliamentary trickery necessary to pass a bill, when you have an overwhelming majority in both houses and the presidency?"

Sandy Moody in Chesterfield, Missouri: "If the health care bill is so wonderful, why do you have to bribe Congress to pass it?"

OBAMA: I've got the exact same e-mails, that I could show you, that talk about why haven't we done something to make sure that I, a small business person, am getting as good a deal as members of Congress are getting, and don't have my insurance rates jacked up 40 percent? Why is it that I, a mother with a child with a preexisting condition, still can't get insurance?

So the issue that I'm concerned about is whether not we're fixing a broken system.

OBAMA: The key is to make sure that we vote - we have a vote on whether or not we're going to maintain the status quo, or whether we're going to reform the system.

OBAMA: What I'm saying is whatever they end up voting on - and I hope it's going to be sometime this week - that it is going to be a vote for or against my health care proposal. That's what matters. That's what ultimately people are going to judge this on.

If people don't believe in health care reform - and I think there are definitely a lot of people who are worried about whether or not these changes are, in some fashion, going to affect them adversely. And I think those are legitimate concerns on the substance - then somebody who votes for this bill, they're going to be judged at the polls. And the same is going to be true if they vote against it.

BAIER: Monday in Ohio, you called for courage in the health care debate. At the same time, House Speaker Pelosi was saying this to reporters about the deem and pass rule: "I like it, this scenario, because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill." Is that the kind of courage that you're talking about?

OBAMA: Well, here's what's taking place - we both know what's going on. You've got a Senate bill that was passed, that had provisions that needed to be changed. Right? People were concerned about, for example, the fix that only fixed Nebraska, and didn't fix the rest of the states.

Now, a lot of the members of the House legitimately say, we want to vote on a package, as the president has proposed, that has those fixes embedded in it. Now that may mean they have to sequence the votes. But the ultimate vote they're taking is on whether or not they believe in the proposal that I put forward, to make sure that insurance reform is fixed, to make sure the deficits are reduced, and premiums go down, and small businesses are helped. That's what they're concerned about.

OBAMA: I am certain that we've made sure, for example, that any burdens on states are alleviated, when it comes to what they're going to have to chip in to make sure that we're giving subsidies to small businesses, and subsidies to individuals, for example.

OBAMA: So that's not - that's not going to be something that is going to be in this final package. I think the same is true on all of these provisions. I'll give you some exceptions though.

Something that was called a special deal was for Louisiana. It was said that there were billions - millions of dollars going to Louisiana, this was a special deal. Well, in fact, that provision, which I think should remain in, said that if a state has been affected by a natural catastrophe, that has created a special health care emergency in that state, they should get help. Louisiana, obviously, went through Katrina, and they're still trying to deal with the enormous challenges that were faced because of that.

OBAMA: That also - I'm giving you an example of one that I consider important. It also affects Hawaii, which went through an earthquake. So that's not just a Louisiana provision. That is a provision that affects every state that is going through a natural catastrophe.

Now I have said that there are certain provisions, like this Nebraska one, that don't make sense. And they needed to be out. And we have removed those. So, at the end of the day, what people are going to be able to say is that this legislation is going to be providing help to small businesses and individuals, across the board, in an even handed way, and providing people relief from a status quo that's just not working.

OBAMA: My understanding is that whatever is going to be done on Medicare is going to apply across the board to all states.

BAIER: Connecticut, Montana - there are a lot of deals in here, Mr. President, that people have issues about.

OBAMA: Bret, the core of this bill is going to be affecting every American family. If you have insurance, you're going to be able to keep it. If you don't have insurance, you're going to be able to buy into a pool, like members of Congress have. We're going to make sure that we have delivery system reforms that strengthen Medicare, that are going to make sure that doctors and hospitals are providing better service and better care, and this is going to reduce the deficit.

Now, there are going to be in this, as I just mentioned, on things like making sure that states who have gone through natural catastrophes and medical emergencies are getting help, but those are not going to ones that are driven by politics, they're going to be driven policy.

You said a few times as Senator Obama that if a president has to eke out a victory of 50 plus one, that on something as important as health care, "you can't govern." But now you're embracing a 50 plus one reconciliation process in the Senate, so do you feel like you can govern after this?

OBAMA: Well, Bret, the - I think what we've seen during the course of this year is that we have come up with a bill that basically tracks the recommendations of Tom Daschle, former Democratic senator and leader, but also Bob Dole, former Republican leader, Howard Baker, former Republican leader. The ideas embodied in this legislation are not left, they're not right, they are - they are -

BAIER: I understand what you're - I know you don't like to talk about process, but there are a lot of questions in these 18,000 that talk about process.

BAIER: And there are a lot of people around America that have a problem with this process.

OBAMA: I've got to tell - I've got to say to you, there are a lot more people who are concerned about the fact that they may be losing their house or going bankrupt because of health care.

BAIER: Deem and passed, Senate reconciliation and we don't know exactly what's in the fix bill. Do you still think -

OBAMA: No, we will - by the time the vote has taken place, not only I will know what's in it, you'll know what's in it because it's going to be posted and everybody's going to be able to able to evaluate it on the merits.

But here's the thing, Bret, I mean, the reason that I think this conversation ends up being a little frustrating is because the focus entirely is on Washington process. And yes, I have said that is an ugly process. It was ugly when Republicans were in charge, it was ugly were in Democrats were in charge.

OBAMA: And, Bret, let me tell you something, the fact of the matter is that for the vast majority of people, their health care is not going to change because right now they're getting a better deal. The only thing that is going to change for them is is that they're going to have more security under their insurance and they're going to have a better situation when it comes to if they lose their job, heaven forbid, or somebody gets sick with a preexisting condition, they'll have more security. But, so - so -

OBAMA: Well, I'm trying to answer your question and you keep on interrupting. So let me be clear.

Now, you keep on repeating the notion that it's one-sixth of the economy. Yes, it's one-sixth of the economy, but we're not transforming one-sixth of the economy all in one fell swoop. What we're saying is is that for the vast majority of people who have health care, they're going to be able to keep it. But what we are saying is that we should have some basic protections from insurance company abuses and that in order for us to do that, we are going to have to make some changes in the status quo that we've been debating for a year.

This notion that this has been not transparent, that people don't know what's in the bill, everybody knows what's in the bill. I sat for seven hours with -

BAIER: Mr. President, you couldn't tell me what the special deals are that are in or not today.

BAIER: The $100 million for the hospital? Is Montana in for the asbestos program? Is - you know, listen, there are people - this is real money, people are worried about this stuff.

OBAMA: And as I said before, this - the final provisions are going to be posted for many days before this thing passes, but -

OBAMA: - the only thing I want to say, just to close up, is that when you talk about one-sixth of the economy, this is one-sixth of the economy that right now is a huge drag on the economy. Now, we can fix this in a way that is sensible, that is centrist. I have rejected a whole bunch of provisions that the left wanted that are - you know, they were very adamant about because I thought it would be too disruptive to the system. But what we can't do is perpetuate a system in which millions of people day in and day out are having an enormously tough time and small businesses are sending me letters constantly saying that they are seeing their premiums increase 40, 50 percent.

BAIER: Mr. President, you said Monday that you praised the Congressional Budget Office numerous times. You also said this, this proposal makes Medicare stronger - and you just said it to me here -

BAIER: - it makes coverage better, it makes its finances more secure, and anyone who says otherwise is misinformed or is trying to misinform you.

BAIER: The CBO has said specifically that the $500 billion that you say that you're going to save from Medicare is not being spent in Medicare. That this bill spends it elsewhere outside of Medicare. So you can't have both.

BAIER: You either spend it on expenditures or you make Medicare more solvent. So which is it?

OBAMA: Here's what it does. On the one hand what you're doing is you're eliminating insurance subsidies within Medicare that aren't making anybody healthier but are fattening the profits of insurance companies. Everybody agrees that that is not a wise way to spend money. Now, most of those savings go right back into helping seniors, for example, closing the donut hole.

When the previous Congress passed the prescription drug bill, what they did was they left a situation which after seniors had spent a certain amount of money, suddenly they got no help and they were stuck with the bill. Now that's a pretty expensive proposition fixing that. It wasn't paid for at the time that that bill was passed. So that money goes back into Medicare, both to fix the donut hole, lower premiums.

All those things are important, but what's also happening is each year we're spending less on Medicare overall and as consequence, that lengthens the trust fund and it's availability for seniors.

BAIER: Your chief actuary for Medicare said this, that cuts in Medicare: "cannot be simultaneously used to finance other federal outlays and extend the trust fund." That's your guy.

OBAMA: No - and what is absolutely true is that this will not solve our whole Medicare problem. We're still going to have to fix Medicare over the long term.

OBAMA: Absolutely, and that's the reason that we're going to have to - that's the reason I put forward a fiscal commission based on Republicans and Democratic proposals, to make sure that we have a long-term fix for the system. The key is that this proposal doesn't weaken Medicare, it makes it stronger for seniors currently who are receiving it. It doesn't solve that big structural problem, Bret. Nobody's claiming that this piece of legislation is going to solve every problem that's been there for decades. What it does do is make sure that the trust fund is not going to be going bankrupt in seven years, according to their accounting rules -

OBAMA: - no, what is absolutely true and what I do agree with is that you can't say that you are saving on Medicare and then spend the money twice. What you can say is that we are going to take these savings, put them back to make sure that seniors are getting help on the prescription drug bill instead of that money going to, for example, insurance reform, and -

BAIER: And you call this deficit neutral, but you also set aside the doctor fix, more than $200 billion. People look at this and say, how can it be deficit neutral?

OBAMA: But the - as you well know, the doctors problem, as you mentioned, the "doctors fix," is one that has been there four years now. That wasn't of our making, and that has nothing to do with my health care bill. If I was not proposing a health care bill, right - let's assume that I had never proposed health care.

BAIER: But you wanted to change Washington, Mr. President. And now you're doing it the same way.

OBAMA: Bret, let me finish my - my answers here. Now, if suddenly, you've got, over the last decade, a problem that's been built up. And the suggestion is somehow that, because that's not fixed within this bill, that that's a reason to vote against the bill, that doesn't make any sense. That's a problem that I inherited. That was a problem that should have been solved a long time ago. It's a problem that needs to be solved, but it's not created by my bill. And I don't think you would dispute that.

OBAMA: Well, I think that - look, I came in at a time when we probably had the toughest economic challenges since the Great Depression. A year later, we can say that, although we're still a long way from where we need to be, that we have made the economy stronger. It's now growing again. We have created a financial situation that is vastly better than it was before.

And so we're now in a situation in which the economy is growing, moving. We're reforming areas like education. We're taking steps on energy. We're doing a whole bunch of things out there that are going to create the foundation for long-term economic growth.

OBAMA: Well, if it doesn't pass, I'm more concerned about what it does to families out there who right now are getting crushed by rising health care costs and small businesses who were having to make a decision, "Do I hire or do I fix health care?" That's the reason I make these decisions.

BAIER: Mr. President, I'm getting wrapped up, and I don't want to interrupt you, but to finish up, do you think this is going to pass?

OBAMA: I do. I'm confident it will pass. And the reason I'm confident that it's going to pass is because it's the right thing to do. Look, on a whole host of these measures, whether it's health care, whether it was fixing the financial system, whether it's making sure that we passed the Recovery Act, I knew these things might not be popular, but I was absolutely positive that they were the right thing to do and that, over time, we would be vindicated in having made those tough decisions.

I think health care is exactly the same thing. We - I've got a whole bunch of portraits of presidents around here, starting with Teddy Roosevelt, who tried to do this and didn't get it done. The reason that it needs to be done is not its affect on the presidency. It has to do with how it's going to affect ordinary people who right now are desperately in need of help.

BAIER: I apologize for interrupting you, sir. I tried to get the most for our buck here.

In their feverish effort to enact the Senate health bill, the House leadership recently released their 153 page bill to fix the underlying 2,409 page Senate legislation through the budget reconciliation process. As a matter of health policy, there is little that is substantively different between the Senate bill and this "fix it" bill. A closer look at the fine print shows that the latest version would only make the massive and unpopular Senate health bill even worse.

Based on a preliminary review of the key provisions, taxpayers should be aware of the following features of the legislation.

• The House reconciliation bill increases taxpayer subsidies and lowers cost sharing for individuals receiving a federal subsidy to buy health coverage. This change adds to the overall cost of the bill, while depending on unproven savings and tax hikes to pay for it.

• Instead of removing special deals, the bill extends additional federal funding to all states for Medicaid. This "fix" is supposed to replace the scandalous requirement that federal taxpayers fund the Nebraska Medicaid expansion. In both case, however, the burden is back on the backs of federal taxpayers.

• The reconciliation bill increases the individual mandate penalty for some by requiring the penalty be the greater of two options. This mandate amounts to a new tax on those people who choose not to purchase a government-approved health plan regardless of income.

• The bill also increases taxes on all consumers who use prescription drugs, medical devices or have health insurance.

• The bill also keeps the Cadillac tax, the tax on high value health plans. But by delaying its start date and indexing the application of the tax to general inflation, it will hit more families harder when it goes into affect.

• Finally, the reconciliation bill adds a new Medicare tax on upper income individuals and families that extends to investment earnings as well.

• The reconciliation bill increases the penalties on businesses for not offering health insurance and continues the penalty on businesses whose employees claim the new health care subsidy.

• The reconciliation bill makes changes to Medicare and Medicaid that reverse course for reforming these struggling health care programs.

• The bill increases costs to seniors by requiring prescription drug plans in Medicare to offer more coverage and

• The bill also undercuts any reform of Medicare by linking Medicare Advantage payments to the flawed fee for services system and by eliminating demonstration projects that utilize competitive bidding to show how an alternative that would use real market pricing would work in practice.

• Although the sponsors of the House bill claim to address long term costs to Medicare, the bill's dependence on traditional cuts to providers is not fundamental entitlement reform. It's basically the same, old, tired cuts in hospital and physician payment.

• The bill would add millions of Americans to the already broken Medicaid program. Medicaid remains fiscally unsustainable (for state or federal taxpayers) and it is a notoriously poorly performing program for those who are forced depend on it. Moreover, when new federal funding expires, states will be left with an even heftier cost.

• The House reconciliation bill would secure a massive federal take over of the regulation of health insurance. It nullifies state authority in rate regulation of premiums, setting standards for solvency and reserves. It creates, instead, a new federal rate authority in charge of authorizing changes in politically approved premium levels and imposing penalties on health insurance companies.

• The reconciliation bill would undercut the ability of state and local governments to control state and local government employee health plans. As a condition of receiving federal money, state and local governments must abide by the new federal regulations and bureaucracy.

• The House reconciliation bill includes major funding for community health centers with no Hyde Amendment type restrictions on federal taxpayer funding of abortions.

• The bill, of course, does not in any way address the large loopholes for taxpayer funded abortions included in the underlying Senate bill, which it is supposed to "fix".

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Friday regarding health care reform:

"That's what this year-long debate has come to: a handful of Democrats had been holding out to see the final bill.

"And anyone who was waiting to see what the final bill meant for government spending should vote no, because this bill spends even more.

"Anyone waiting to see what the final bill meant for Medicare should vote no, because the Medicare cuts in this bill are even deeper than the Senate bill that Speaker Pelosi said Democrats didn't want to vote on.

"Anyone waiting to see what the final bill meant for taxes should vote no, because the tax increases in this bill are even higher than the Senate bill.

"Anyone waiting to see what the final bill did to the cost curve should vote against this bill, because this bill is likely to bend the cost curve up even further than the Senate bill, not down.

"If you were waiting for a bill without the CLASS Act in it - a provision that even top Democrats describe as a Ponzi scheme, then you'll vote against this bill, because it's still in there.

"If you were waiting to see if they'd cut out the sweetheart deals that have outraged the nation and soured the public on the entire legislative process, then you have to vote against this bill, because there are even more of them in there now.

"If you were waiting for a bill that costs less, then you'll vote against this bill, because it costs even more than the last one.

"And if you were waiting for a bill that wouldn't compel taxpayers to cover the cost of abortions, then you'll vote against this bill because this is, the National Right to Life Committee says, the most abortion-expansive piece of legislation ever to reach the floor of the House of Representatives.

"Americans are outraged at what's going on here: a bill that aims to shift a major segment of our economy into the hands of the government, and which accomplishes that goal by imposing crushing burdens on already-struggling seniors, middle class families, and small businesses, is being rammed through Congress against the clear will of the public.

"No amount of spin will change the fact that Medicare will be deeply cut, insurance premiums and taxes will go up, the federal bureaucracy will grow, and as demand increases, the quality of care in this country will get worse and worse.

"Taking a bill that House Democrats are too embarrassed to vote on, adding more than $50 billion in new taxes and slashing $60 billion more from our seniors' Medicare and keeping sweetheart deals may make some Washington Democrats `giddy,' but it's not reform.

"This bill isn't an excuse to vote in favor of the Democrat plan for health care. It's a reason to vote against it.

"Anyone who votes for this bill is clearly less concerned about responding to their constituents than responding to the pressure tactics of Democrat leaders in Congress.

"Some may have concluded that there's more merit in following the cajoling voices in Washington than the clear voices of their constituents back home, more merit in choosing to side with Democrat leaders in their quest to ram this bill through over the wishes of the American people.

"Some may argue that the details we've seen since yesterday are reason to support it. But if anything is clear in this debate, it's that yesterday's CBO score is conclusive proof that this health care bill is unsalvageable.

"This is something the American people realized a long time ago, and now they're counting on the final holdouts to vote on their behalf this weekend. Now that they've seen the final bill, they can't understand why anyone would do otherwise."

The money your state pays to the deferral government compared to the money it gets back:

Code Red Moves Cardoza and Costa to "Yes" Votes on government Healthcare Takeover After Water Deal. Months ago, it was reported about the withholding of water from the central California Valley, which has destroyed much of the central valley farming community (and a story which was, for a very long time, frozen out of many California papers). Now it appears that the President, who has ignored this problem for a year, might be able to do something about it...for a couple of yes votes on healthcare.

It is fascinating that President Obama believes that waterboarding is torture, and yet has no problem with killing terrorists from afar, along with any civilians unfortunate enough to be around them. His Attorney General has said, “We will read Miranda rights to Osama Bin Laden’s corpse.” Now, I do not have a problem with Obama’s aggressiveness with regards to the war on terror. It just makes no sense to be so queasy when it comes to squeezing information out of terrorists when we capture them alive.

RUSH: Charlie Rose said to James Clyburn, "You have said, and you have compared health care to the civil rights bill and in the context that it wasn't done in one fell swoop, that civil rights came to America legislatively over a period of time. How are you going to do that in health care?"

CLYBURN: You know, you looked at what we did in civil rights. In 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was passed, it did not have voting in it, it only outlawed discrimination in the private sector of employment. It was a year later before we got voting, and it was three years after that before we got housing. And so I believe that what we're doing here is laying a solid foundation which, over time, will have complete universal access to quality health care by all Americans.

RUSH: And there you have it. We're laying the foundation. We will have complete universal access to quality health care for all Americans down the road. Kucinich has opened up. Kucinich has said that he was assured a robust public option is coming in Obamacare 2. Obama himself, let's go back and revisit this, March 24th, 2007 in Vegas talking to the Service Employees International Union. This is a campaign stop. And, remember, now these are his boys, these are his buddies, these are the people to whom he speaks the truth.

OBAMA 2007: My commitment is to make sure that we've got universal health care for all Americans by the end of my first term as president. I would hope that we set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort but I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.

RUSH: I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately, but we're going to do it. Meaning we're going to get rid of private sector health insurance. Go back to 2003 at an AFL-CIO conference while campaigning for the US Senate, Barack Obama said this.

OBAMA 2003: I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal health care plan. A single-payer health care plan, universal health care plan. That's what I'd like to see.

RUSH: Yet he's out there saying all these people are throwing every scare tactic in the world, it's a government takeover of health care, granny is going to die. It is a government takeover of health care and granny is going to die. Granny always dies at some point, we all do. It's going to be hastened under this bill, and it is a government takeover. They're lying through their teeth. Here's Barney Frank July 27, 2007, National Press Building, a reporter for SinglePayerAction.org had this exchange with the Banking Queen.

FRANK 2007: Because we don't have the votes. I wish it weren't. I'm all for it. I'm a big sponsor. Been a cosponsor for single-payer for a very long time.

REPORTER 2007: Don't you think we should scratch everything and start anew with single-payer?

FRANK 2007: Because we don't have the votes for it. I wish we did. I think if we get a good public option it could lead to single-payer, and that's the best way to reach single-payer. The best way we're gonna get single-payer, the only way, is to have a public option and demonstrate its strength and power.

RUSH: That's an elevator bell you hear in the background. Barney is trying to go up or down, I don't know which way on this particular occasion. But, ladies and gentlemen, they're laying it out here, that's back in 2007. Here's Jan Schakowsky, she's a Democrat congresswoman from Illinois and she has said basically the same thing.

SCHAKOWSKY 2009: And next to me was a guy from the insurance company who then argued against the public health insurance option, saying, it wouldn't let private insurance compete, that a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and -- (cheers and applause) He was right. The man was right. Here's what I told him. I said, "Excuse me, sir, the goal of health care reform is not to protect the private health insurance industry." (cheers and applause) And I am so confident in the superiority of a public health care option that I think he has every reason to be frightened.

RUSH: Our objective is to wipe out the private health care industry. Jan Schakowsky, Democrat from Illinois, and that was April of last year. So they're open and honest about what they really want to do and they're doing it, and this is what they're telling people like Kucinich and others to get their votes. You've heard it from their own words.

RUSH: Now, if they get away with this -- if they get away with the Slaughter Solution, if they get away with voting on something other than the Senate bill but saying they did vote on the Senate bill, if they get away with "deeming" something to pass -- they're going to do it again. Bob Gibbs said so yesterday. He said they'll even use it on amnesty. They'll even use this same procedure to get amnesty for illegals. It was yesterday afternoon at the White House press briefing in the Rose Garden. A reporter said, "Mark Levin with the Landmark Legal Foundation has prepared a suit against the President that if he signs the health care bill passed by the House without a recorded yea or nay vote required by Article I, Section 7. My question on that is, would the President rule out signing future bills such as immigration reform or finance reform you mentioned earlier that are not subject to a yea or nay vote in both chambers?" In other words: Will you do this again? Will you pass bills without actually voting on them?

GIBBS: I understand that there are those that want to discuss this as being, uhh, a unique thing. It is not. I stated earlier that, uh, when this bill passes the House, the president will be happy to sign.

REPORTER: So the president wouldn't rule out signing future bills that didn't pass both houses by a yea-or-nay vote?

GIBBS: I'm not going to get into a series of legal hypotheticals that both of us seem unprepared to discuss.

RUSH: So they are prepared. If he does it this way, he'll do it again. Gibbs said Obama is "perfectly happy" to sign the bill if it comes to him without having been voted on and passed by both houses. So they'll do it again, and they will because the Constitution's an impediment to these people and what they want. It's serious. Now, what are the likelihoods...? A lot of people are asking, "What are the likelihoods a lawsuit to stop this can succeed?" and it is a tough challenge here. There are a tough couple of things to overcome. The Supreme Court had a decision in 1892 and there have been two subsequent circuit decisions that rely on it as precedent, including the DC circuit where this would be litigated, if it is. The Supreme Court decision in 1892 said that the court will not look behind the enrollment of the bill. That is, once the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate certify that they have a bill, the Supreme Court said they will not look at how the bill became law. If that holds, then all this is academic and it ain't going to happen. Separation of powers, coequal branches.

The Supreme Court says, "It's not our business how they do it. We'll rule on the constitutionality of the result but we're not going to mess around with how they did it and get involved in that." That's what they said in 1892, and that is a key provision or issue that has to be overcome. And given that this is a fundamental violation of the Constitution, a lot of legal scholars think that they have a solid chance here of getting the court to actually look at the process because it is, without question, a violation of the Constitution. It's a violation of the Constitution that is profoundly specific in its intent. There's not a lot of ambiguity in the clause and the section of the Constitution describing and requiring how a bill becomes law. It's not ambiguous at all and it's being shredded here. It is being totally ignored and lawlessness is taking place, unconstitutionality is taking place right in front of our eyes. Now, go back to audio sound bite number three. I want to go back to Obama today at George Mason University, because really what he was doing here was starting his victory lap. He thinks he's got the votes on Sunday. Here's what he said about all the people having lying about what's in his bill.

OBAMA: We have heard every crazy thing about this bill. You remember. First we heard this was a government takeover of health care. Then -- then we heeeard that this was going to kill granny. Then we heard, well, eh, "Illegal immigrants are going to be getting the main benefits of this bill." There -- there has been -- eh... They have thrown every argument at this legislative effort. But when it -- it turns out, at the end of the day, what we're talking about is commonsense reform. That's all we're talking about.

RUSH: Did you notice he didn't deny anything? He didn't deny any of that. He just said "they're throwing every crazy thing at it." Well, because it's true. We happen to have read it. The Senate bill does have death panels in it. What do you think all these switches are from? Luis Gutierrez, Illinois, was going to vote "no." He's a "yes" now. I wonder why. This is about amnesty and illegal immigrants and getting them health care. Obama is going to need those people to win reelection because he's going to be so unpopular by 2012, he's not going to stand a chance unless he has amnesty in those new people.

RUSH: Now, here are some things in the reconciliation package, the reconciliation fixes that will not be part of the bill if they vote Sunday and Obama signs it. This is the deem-and-pass thing. I've told you about the increase, almost 1% increase in the Medicare payroll tax on investment income, capital gains. There are even deeper cuts to Medicare Advantage, which will mean fewer and less attractive Medicare Advantage plans available to seniors.

And as I mentioned yesterday, take a look at Walgreens in the state of Washington, they are not accepting any new Medicaid patients starting April 16th. I mean that's the future. There are increases in the employer penalties for not complying with the mandates which will hit all businesses with more than 50 employees. It's deadly. Now, what's in the Senate bill? What's in the Senate? The Senate Democrats' health bill cuts Medicare by $463 billion. And, by the way, folks, you should know this. Steny Hoyer has sent a memo to all Democrats in the House: "Do not get into a discussion about specifics of the CBO report. Do not get into specifics." The reason is, if they get into specifics they're going to have to admit that everything they're saying is untrue about how much it costs and how much premiums are going down and how much the deficit's going down because none of that's true. Hoyer is printing out a memo to staff members to tell their leaders and members of Congress, do not get into a debate with anybody about what's in the CBO report, just focus on deficit reduction.

In other words, Hoyer sent a memo out to his members saying: "Just lie, just lie, and say this reduces the deficit but get into no specifics. You keep walking, you don't stop, and you do not get into a detailed discussion of CBO numbers." They don't want a detailed discussion of any of the details here. They lose if that happens. They don't want it, and that's why people are focusing on these details today. The sum total of Medicare cuts in the Senate bill is $523.5 billion dollars. That's the total and that's what will pass. The Senate bill will be separated if they vote on this reconciliation thing Sunday, it will be sent over to the Senate to be certified there, then on to Obama. The reconciliation package will not be part of it. The reconciliation package may never see the light of day. Here are the way the cuts break down: $202.3 billion in cuts to seniors Medicare health plans including massive cuts targeting the extra benefits and reduced cost sharing that seniors receive through Medicare Advantage; $156.6 billion in cuts to inpatient and outpatient hospital services, inpatient rehab facilities, long-term care hospitals. Folks, there's no expanded care anywhere, especially for you seasoned citizens. There are massive cuts. And this $523 billion is being taken away from Medicare and is being spent elsewhere. They're taking it away from senior citizens, spending it elsewhere in the new entitlement. This is in the Senate bill, not this reconciliation stuff, what has been passed last Christmas Eve in the Senate.

Thirty-nine point seven billion in cuts to home health reimbursements; $22.1 billion in additional cuts to hospitals by slashing reimbursements designed to assist hospitals that serve low-income patients; $20.7 billion in cuts to the Medicare improvement fund; $13.3 billion in yet-to-be-determined Medicare cuts from the hands of an unelected federal board. Look, I'm going to stop with the numbers because they get blurred after a while. We're talking about a couple of different things, reconciliation and the Senate bill when we start talking about these numbers. The bottom line is there are no expanded services, there are no smaller premiums. Nothing that they're saying about this -- Pelosi, Hoyer, Obama -- none of it is true.

RUSH: We have a special guest I want to welcome to the EIB Network: The ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan from Wisconsin, who really got the ball rolling today on the fraud that was the early release of CBO numbers. Clear estimates, wild guesses. Congressman, thanks for carving some time. I know you're swamped today.

PAUL RYAN: Great. It's good to be with you. First, longtime listener, first-time caller, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you. (laughing) That's great. Tell us what's going on with this. We know the CBO number is basically a fraud designed to persuade some wavering --

RUSH: -- Blue Dogs, but what's the real state? It seems to me like they don't have the votes; they're getting further away. It seems like a fire drill gone amuck.

PAUL RYAN: Right. So they needed to pile on some more spending to try and assuage, you know, the liberals and progressives. So they basically put the screws on more Medicare cuts, more tax increases to accommodate the extra spending they had to add on this thing. They got a new 3.8 tax on interest, dividends, annuities, royalties, and rents for people. They increased taxes on the Medicare payroll tax and they did more penalties on businesses if they don't offer the kind of health insurance Kathleen Sebelius tells them they have to offer. So more taxes, more Medicare cuts to pay for more spending to try and get these votes.

RUSH: Is there a reconciliation bill? Is there something you've seen, 'cause the CBO said they can't score it because it's an estimate.

PAUL RYAN: No. We have not seen anything. But because they started leaking out their numbers that they manipulated, CBO was forced to release their estimates. So we've seen a CBO estimate, but we've not seen the bill that they're estimating.

PAUL RYAN: Well, they must have a draft of something for CBO to give these estimates. So we have not seen a bill but clearly they have a draft because the way it works is you send CBO drafts and they give you scores from it. So now we've seen the score of this draft and by looking at the CBO score, I'm able to tell you what the tax increases in the Medicare cuts are.

PAUL RYAN: Correct, it's not. They double count CLASS act premiums, they double count Social Security taxes, they double count a half a trillion -- actually $522 billion -- in Medicare cuts to make this thing look as if it's adding up.

RUSH: Now, explain to people how that happened. When I say "double counting," when they're double counting $500 billion in Medicare cuts, what are they actually doing with it?

PAUL RYAN: So they're cutting a half a trillion out of Medicare. That's supposed to go to Medicare and make it solvent. But they're using it instead as a piggy bank to pay for this new program. So they're taking it from Medicare, but at the same time they're claiming they're extending Medicare's solvency. So they're counting those cuts twice, when in fact they're using this money to create a new entitlement. Then they have all these tax increases, which the dollars for these tax increases are already spoken for for Social Security, for this new entitlement, for long-term care called the CLASS Act which are spoken for those programs. But they're counting it to fund this new program. So they're basically saying, "We're going to spend in both places the same dollar," which the CBO is telling them, "You can't do that."

RUSH: Did I see...? There are so many people making estimates. Did I see you make statements saying that you think they're ten votes short?

PAUL RYAN: That's what we think. So it's really so fluid. It's basically they're at least a handful, maybe two handfuls short. This is a fluid situation. We've moved two people from the "yes" column to the "no" column. Arcuri from New York, Lynch from Massachusetts, we believe are two people who went from "yes" to "no," but as you know yesterday they put a couple from "no" to "yes." So it's a fluid situation. They're clearly down. They don't have the votes. The president wouldn't be postponing his trip if he didn't think that they were still shy.

RUSH: If he wanted to leave Sunday he could still leave Sunday if they were going to vote. So does this mean there isn't going to be a vote Sunday likely?

PAUL RYAN: I think there is going to be a vote likely. That's what our Democratic colleagues are telling us. But they know they don't have the votes and they think they can create sort of a pressure cooker situation to pressure their members to voting with the, quote, unquote, "team" and bring this over the finish line.

RUSH: The president said last night in his interview with Bret Baier that this whole thing is going to get posted, that he'll find out what's in it when it gets posted and we'll all be able to find out and it's going to be posted for 72 hours. That's I think you referred to these two votes that they gained yesterday, these two guys in Central Valley California, that they're going to turn their water back on for them.

RUSH: It can't possibly be posted for 72 hours if it's going to be voted on Sunday.

PAUL RYAN: That's exactly right. So something's going to have to give. Either they're going to violate their pledge of 72 hours or they're going to vote later than Sunday and the president, you know, will postpone his trip more.

RUSH: Well, he's already announced he's going to postpone the trip, and that's why a lot of people are thinking they're not going to vote Sunday, or at least they don't have the votes now to do it. Well, it does remain fluid and we're fortune we were able to get through to you with all the phones being clogged there.

PAUL RYAN: (laughing) I tell you it's amazing. And I just ran into a busload of seniors who came up here for one day from Florida to walk the halls and talk to members of Congress. People are engaged unlike anything I've ever, ever seen before. It's truly remarkable and impressive. They gotta keep the pressure on. They know if they let their members go home for this Easter recess they're done, and that means they gotta do it now and that's why they're trying to put this pressure cooker to try and get their members to do this. And they're starting to lose people, and they don't have the votes and they're going to try and break arms and muscle this thing through. And the next handful of days will determine the outcome as to whether or not, you know, this bill to basically nationalize the health care sector of our economy succeeds or not.

RUSH: Well, you're doing yeoman's work here in trying to stop it, and people are so proud of you with the meeting you had over at the White House. People loved what you said to Obama and the way he looked back at you at that.

PAUL RYAN: Rush, I appreciate it. I'm a representative, and the way I look at it is that's exactly what people in southern Wisconsin, would have wanted me to say to them.

RUSH: Well, you did, and keep it up everybody's proud of you and supporting what you're doing. That's Paul Ryan, who is a ranking Republican member on the House Budget Committee with the latest update on the real meaning of the CBO numbers today, what (as best anybody can determine) they mean, and what the future holds. Five to ten seats undecided is the best count so far, or votes undecided.

CALLER: One point that's been missed, if you're a welfare recipient or if you're drawing unemployment compensation, please call your congressman and let them know that they're threatening your benefits if they vote for this bill.

CALLER: The federal government is already saying that they can't maintain their commitments for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. If they pass this health care bill, welfare, food stamps, military retirement, federal retirement, all of those are on the list. As soon as someone says there are Medicare cuts in this bill, all you have to do is look down the line and see that if they can't afford Medicare, they can't afford the rest of these, either.

RUSH: Wait a minute, nobody affords Medicare. I'm sorry to be losing my patience. You qualify or you don't qualify.

RUSH: Yeah. The federal government's already bankrupt. That's actually a good point. This is all academic at this point. We don't have any of this money and there is no deficit reduction with any of this. And everybody, a lot of people are going to lose coverage, by design. Insurance premiums are going to go up. Nothing that they're saying is true. Look, there are memos out today from Steny Hoyer to the members: Do not discuss the details of CBO. If you get dragged into a discussion of details, the lie will be exposed. There is no deficit reduction. So you just keep saying there is. I've seen the memo. It's been leaked. Politico's got another memo from the Democrats. Don't talk about it, we're going to do the doc fix later in a separate piece of legislation. What's the doc fix? The doc fix is going to repeal reimbursement cuts to doctors. It's going to cost $321 billion to permanently repeal this. So all this talk of $500 billion in Medicare cuts, which is just a budget gimmick anyway, is wiped out 60, 70% by the doc fix. The doc fix, in a separate piece of legislation, seals the fact that there is no deficit reduction in this. The point is that everything being said about this is a lie, particularly the structural things: the cost, insurance premiums going down, deficit going down. None of it is true. I mean it's not even close to being true.

Here's Susan in Concord, California, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, I'm just wondering, I feel like as time goes on we keep giving the Democrats an excuse by saying that a lot of what they're doing is about their ideologies. I believe it's more about the unions, about SEIU wanting to take over the industry. I firmly believe that Obama is maybe a front man for the union. He doesn't seem to really have much interest in running the country. And I think that they're just getting their way in there, they're gonna take over as much industry as they can, which will guarantee the Democrats back into party again, as long as the union members continue to vote the way they tell 'em to.

RUSH: Well, that makes it about ideology because the unions are as far left as anybody else in the country is. The unions are as radical -- the government unions -- well, even John Sweeney, the AFL-CIO guys are as radical left as Saul Alinsky. I mean they regularly have their op-eds published in the Communist Party of America's publication, Daily Worker or whatever the hell it's called now. It's clearly ideologically driven and it's clearly driven to expand government, and the unions are out saying this is our payback, this is what we want, we got Obama elected. I've heard a lot of people also speculate what you've speculated here that there's somebody really running the show here besides Obama, that he's the front man, that his lack of interest in things, lack of interest in specific details, lack of caring about whether he's telling the truth or not means he's doing somebody else's bidding. Frankly, if it's true I don't really care. Either it's Obama or somebody, but he's executing the orders and we're dealing with the most radical leftists who have ever achieved in this country, and it's right in front of our noses, right in front of our eyes what they want to do with it. And it is to transform by overthrowing this country as founded. It's right there for everybody to see. And they are seeing it.

There's an interesting Fox poll today: "Americans Feel Disenfranchised By Obamcare Push -- The latest Fox News Poll was just released and it reflects the degree of anger and disenfranchisement Americans feel about their federal government, spurred on by the Obamcare poll that very few want. Presidential Approval has fallen to an all time low in this Fox poll, 46% approve and 48% disapprove." It's pretty close to what Gallup has. "Do you feel your views are represented by the federal government right now, or not? Only 35% of Democrats, 19% of independents, and 7% of Republicans think so." In other words, a vast majority of the American people do not think they're being represented by the federal government, and they're right. The federal government is governing against

everyone's will. The American people are angry, they are fit to be tied and they're not going to comply with this whatever and whenever it happens.

Here's Joe in Rock Falls, Illinois. Great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hello, sir.

CALLER: We're forever in debt to you. We wouldn't even be in this fight at this stage if it wasn't for you.

CALLER: And I want to thank you. It seems like the Democrats and their media friends are always successful at framing a debate. Right now they're pitting the people that need health care against the insurance agencies when, in fact, it's actually the government that has the biggest role for health care costs being so high, and that's through Medicare and Medicaid. I work at a hospital and at the hospital we only receive pennies on the dollar for Medicaid, sometimes that takes years to recoup. Medicare does a little better, but still falls short, and --

RUSH: Right. And they want to expand. The point he's making and he's dead right about this, the biggest insurance company in the world is the US federal government: VA, S-CHIP, Medicare, Medicaid. They have more customers than any private insurance company in the country. They deny more claims than any private insurance company, by percentage, than any private insurance company in the country does. They have lousy care. They don't pay well, they don't pay the doctors, they don't reimburse. Obama is the president and CEO of the biggest insurance company in the country, and it is broken, and it is bankrupt, and there is no literal intelligent reason why this man should be entrusted with the power to run anything. He is a neophyte, he is clueless, and he is dangerous.

RUSH: Here's Nancy in Morris Plains, New Jersey. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I'm really spitting nails. You've got a irate Italian on your hands here. Every time I hear that Obama is at 46%, I want to know why half of the people in the United States are this stupid. Of course my husband the engineer keeps telling me that, you know, they pick the intelligence level at 80, so half of the people are below that.

CALLER: But I am sick and tired of listening to these actors and actresses and the Main Street (sic), quote, media pushing this garbage agenda, this "progressive" nonsense. Unless people listen to Fox, or ABC Radio, they're fed the same crap. And most of them do not have either the intelligence or the will to listen to the other side. What. Can. We. Do? This is so frustrating. I'm tired of Tom Hanks. I'm tired of all these A-holes! Excuse me. This frustration level just builds and builds. My husband has worked since he was 15 years old. We're almost ready to retire. Our money is gone from our 401(k). He went to college 12 years. Now, we grew up in Newark, no one gave us a penny, and I have to listen to this idiot talking about "sharing the wealth"? I just cannot stand it anymore. I have had it, and it is so frustrating. I argue with people in the post office, in the grocery store. My husband's afraid he's going to have to bail me out someday. What can we do? We have calls, we have e-mails, we have written letters. They're not listening to us. They are trying to ruin this country. My father came here in Ellis Island and built a business when he couldn't even talk English. What can we do besides calling? They're ignoring us. You can hear the frustration in my voice.

RUSH: It's not that they're ignoring us, Nancy. It's that they are looking us in the face and saying, "Screw you."

RUSH: They're not ignoring us. They are insulting us. They are telling us that we don't count. They are telling us, "Whatever the hell you want doesn't matter. They look at us with contempt." They look at us as an obstacle to overcome. They are like many totalitarians: The people are the problem. The people are the obstacle. The Constitution is an obstacle that has to be overcome and they're using trickery and illegality and lawlessness to get this done if they're able to Sunday with the Slaughter Solution. You --

CALLER: But, Rush, 46% of the people in the United States are still approving of the job he's doing! Where are these idiot 46%? He should be at 20%. That's what they did to Bush --

RUSH: Wait a second, now. Bush was nowhere near these numbers at this point in his presidency. He was still in the sixties. It took --

RUSH: Wait a second, now! Wait. It took them five years to get Bush into the thirties. At this rate we'll have Obama in the thirties by August.

RUSH: Well, "should be" and "will be" are two different things, and you have to understand: It's still honeymoon time for a lot of people. He's the president. There are some people who are just going to say they like the job he's doing because they're afraid to tell a pollster anything other than that because he's black. They don't want a pollster to think they're racist. There's all kinds of stuff that factors into this. What you have to understand is that you are in the vast majority of people in this country. You are as frustrated, and you have as many millions and millions of Americans who are as frustrated as you, who are asking: "Who the hell is Tom Hanks and why do we care?" and, "Who the hell is actress A, B, C, and D? Why do we care?" and, "Who is Chris Matthews and why do we care whoever is?"

RUSH: Well, we don't care. The Cartoon Network has a larger audience than MSNBC and CNN combined! People aren't watching them, Nancy. We are winning this except our obstacle is we have a bunch of statist, tyranny-devoted totalitarians that we're fighting here, who don't care about the democratic process or that this is a representative republic.

CALLER: They have a soapbox, and so does... You know (TV channels) two, four, five, seven, they got him elected. They are the ones. Those idiots on Saturday Night Live that made fun of Sarah Palin. Every time somebody says to me, "Sarah Palin is an airhead. She's stupid," I say, "Tell me one stupid thing she said."

CALLER: They can't say anything. They watched Saturday Night Live and Tina Fey. They listened to Tina Fey and equated that with Sarah Palin. Nobody can tell me one stupid thing she said, and I say to them, "You're telling me she can't do a better job than Obama is doing?" I mean, I look at people and say, "Tell me what stupid thing she said." On the economy, why aren't we drilling for oil? Do you know how much money we could save if we drilled for oil in Alaska? All that money we wouldn't have to pay Saudi Arabia

RUSH: All right. All right, all right. Why don't you try to answer just one of these questions for me? Why --

CALLER: I know why. It's all political. Why did he send $2.2 billion to Brazil and let them drill to oil? It's because George Soros gave money to his campaign and he owes money.

CALLER: Oh, I know what's going on but you can't talk people into it. I'm arguing in the post office and some idiot kid says to me "Halliburton." I said, "If I hear that name one more time..." I'm just I have almost gone to jail. I tell my nephew, who's a police officer, "Tom, get ready to bail me out," because I'm standing in the post office, and I said something, and then some idiot turns around and says, "Oh, Halliburton." I said, "Oh, PUH-leez with the Halliburton! Let it go." I said, "Do you know that Obama's sent $2.2 billion to Brazil to drill for oil off the coast of Brazil because his friend George Soros owns a company?"

RUSH: Why? No, no, no, no. No, no. Why is Obama doing all these destructive things? Why?

CALLER: He wants to bring us down. He wants a world economy because he's a communist. I'm sorry, but he's a communist.

CALLER: Umm, I guess I like manicotti best. Any time you're in New Jersey, give me a call. I'll make you a nice Italian dinner.

RUSH: Now, this lady Nancy that called from New Jersey, Nancy exemplifies what is about to boil over and boil over outside people's homes. She said that inside her home, but she's not far from taking it outside her home if you get my drift, and this is happening all over the country. Nancy, I want to answer your question, I didn't want to interrupt you, why do 46% of the people still approve of Obama? It's about the percentage of people that get government benefits. About 46% of the people get food stamps, welfare, unemployment compensation, whatever, 46% of the people get some kind of government assistance, and a lot of them, as you know, we've had 'em on this show, associate it personally with Obama, from his stash, and about 25 to 30% are paying for that 46%.

But there's a lesson here, and I would be remiss if I did not teach it to you. Nancy's call, all of this anger, all of this frustration, all of this "I can't take it anymore" is what happens when Republicans decide to teach Republicans a lesson. All of you who are mad now, you were mad back in 2006, Republicans were too big spenders, they were no different than the Democrats, you wanted to teach Republicans a lesson, there was no difference in the two parties, and so the Democrats won the House, Obama won the White House two years later, this is what happens when you teach Republicans a lesson, when you think there's purity in throwing your own guys out. This notion that there's no difference between the parties, do you think that's true now? Do you think there's really no difference between the two parties? Do you think any of this would be going on? Even with McCain, do you think we'd be doing this kind of process to get national health care even if McCain had been elected? Nope. No way.

RUSH: John on Route 81 in New York, great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Yeah, I was traveling back to Virginia. I just elected about a month-and-a-half ago to move my family back to Virginia from New York, we're voting with our feet. Not against our will, we'd rather stay, this is where we grew up, but there's not really any choice, you know, I'm a small business guy, self-employed guy and we just finally had to say uncle, and what I really wanted to say is if the rest of the country really wants to have a regulated health care situation similar to that we have in New York and all that goes with it, the high cost of health insurance and the incredibly low benefits, then all they have to do is support this health care reform and that's exactly what they'll get.

RUSH: Well, in fact, if you go to Massachusetts, I got a story right here in the Boston Globe, more cuts loom as state faces $295 million in red ink. There is rising demand for Massachusetts universal care, because people think it's free, and people are using it for things it was never intended, average, run-of-the-mill, I got a cold.

Governor Chris Christie is delivering a speech right now in New Jersey, and he's just taking it to 'em. Here's the New York Times version of this. "Christopher J. Christie, took office two months ago vowing a sharp change of direction for a state battered by the recession and choked by its tax burden. On Tuesday, he made clear that what he had in mind was a U-turn. Upending the priorities of his Democratic predecessors, Governor Christie --" first Republican in 12 years "-- unveiled a budget that would hit the poor, elderly, schoolchildren, college students and inner-city residents hardest, while largely sparing the wealthy and businesses," which is a crock. It is just part of the mainstream media template. Here's a portion of his speech. "Today, we are fulfilling the promise of a smaller government that lives within its means. The defenders of the status quo have already begun to yell and scream. They will try to demonize me. They will seek to divide us rather than unite us. But even they know in their hearts, if not yet in their minds -- it is time for a change. Time has run out, the bill has come due."

They simply are on an unsustainable direction in New Jersey, and they, unlike the federal government, cannot print money. They have to do something about it. This business of hurting the poor, all that is is an attempt to get people to oppose it. What the New York Times doesn't understand is people are fed up with way too many of this nation's citizens being deprived of their full dignity and humanity by being made wards of the state and kept perpetually poor by the state, which happens to be Democrats, the never ending welfare state.

RUSH: Here is Chris Christie. I mentioned earlier that he was giving a gangbuster speech. Smaller government is cool again. Conservatism is in ascendancy. This is this afternoon in Trenton at the statehouse, Chris Christie, the governor, addressing a joint session about the budget. We have two sound bites. Here's the first.

GOV. CHRISTIE: Today, we are fulfilling a promise of a smaller government that lives within its means. Today, we begin doing what we promised we would do. Now, defenders of the status quo have already been to yell and scream. They will try to demonize me, they will so as to seek to divide us rather than unite us, but even they know in their hearts -- if not yet in their minds -- that it is time for a change.

GOV. CHRISTIE: Today we stop sweeping problems under the rug. We will not hide our problems until another day, and we are certainly not increasing the tax burden upon the people that we serve.

GOV. CHRISTIE: Today we are taking necessary and decisive action to reduce state spending and reform state government. The problems we have hidden for 20 years are evident for all to see. The day of reckoning has arrived.

RUSH: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, following through on his promises, the promises that resulted in his election.

RUSH: To Bucks County, Pennsylvania, we start with John. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: USA Today, the 16th, front page, small story, it seems insignificant. The FCC wants more fast lanes to Internet. They basically hit you with a bunch of numbers, blah, blah, blah, by the time you get through it. But when you read through it and you see what the plan -- actually what they want to do, today they're voting on Congress, is to have a sweeping plan, the federal regulators have unveiled an ambitious plan to bring high speed Internet service to millions of people. Here's their promises, promises, and they go on to say about a nationalized system. Jump way to the bottom of the story, the FCC, the White House or Congress would have to implement the plan, some of which would be controversial, or another way of saying unconstitutional. If you jump around in this story, Rush, it's a takeover of another industry by "helping us." And what industry is it? The cable, communications. The FCC, which is the government, wants to take over another industry.

RUSH: Well, it's actually much more hideous than this. This story that you're quoting is just talking about the spectrum, the frequency spectrum, and they want more broadband spectrum for higher speed access for everybody that uses the Internet. In getting this, one of the areas they're looking at is asking over-the-air television stations to stop broadcasting over the air since it's all cable or satellite now and they want to take that spectrum and apply it to Internet. Now, you can say that they want to take over the Internet, but they already have. I mean they regulate all broadcasting. They don't regulate cable or satellite but they regular over the air broadcasting, like radio. You have to go through, every five or ten years, whatever it is now, for license renewal, community ascertain, you have to run out and talk to librarians, a bunch of people, ask them what their big issues in the community are, okay, document that, send it in with your license renewal, they say you're paying attention to local issues, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

What's coming way beyond this, what's coming in the fall is the deceptively named net neutrality. The easiest way to understand this is to think of a Fairness Doctrine for the Internet. Now, how would this work? Let's say that you want to go Google or Bing, you want to search the mating habits of the Australian rabbit bat. Net neutrality would require that every search engine produce an equal number of results that satisfy every disagreement about the issue. Yep. And that's going to happen. That pretty much is going to happen. And the White House is in bed with Google. The White House and Google are bedmates, Google, largest search engine. Already, if you do a search of me on Google and you look at the crap that comes up, it's by design and on purpose. It's literal crap, I mean the most obscure places you never knew existed with comments about what happened on this program every day. It took a long time, but we had to really work hard at getting our website to pop up in a search of Google, our own website.

So in the era of net neutrality -- and this is where the Google-White House partnership comes into play -- the results of any search, let's say you want to search abortion, or you want to search the health care bill, they want to control what you see. They want to control what your options are. They can't really control the content, it's too massive and it's too big. What they want to try to do is limit your access to it and have that access flavored toward whatever particular point of view the administration wants supported. Now, that is coming. That's why they want all this new broadband. That's why they want all this new speed. That's why they want all this new access. It's not to own it; it's to control the content as best they can. Just think of it as Fairness Doctrine for the Internet. I'm not making this up. I guarantee you that's what's coming. I think this is a fait accompli. I think it practically has been voted on, done deal.

RUSH: George in Philadelphia. I have about a minute and a half here, but I wanted to get to you. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush. The real issue with these net neutrality is that Google is looking for the bandwidth, not so much for searches for information but what they want to do is go into the Voice Over IP telephone business. That's why they need the bandwidth and without net neutrality there would be preference given to like packets being sent by Comcast or by the AT&T networks or something like that. So they have to flatten that out in order to make their VOIP phones work properly.

RUSH: Google wants to do that with their phones. There's also a cost component to net neutrality, too. And it's kind of complicated to explain, but if a website wants to start charging for its content, it's all gotta be equal, and they have to make content to other websites available as well. It's so convoluted. It's all rooted in this corrupted notion of "fairness" that liberal Democrats have. But the VOIP stuff is probably relevant, too. One thing you can probably rest assured of: Google and this administration, they're very, very tight. Very tight.

Scientific America links food stamps to obesity (if you will recall, I have 2 rentals in a poor section of time, and what stands out to me, is all of the overweight people in that section of town; we must be the only nation in the world with fat poor people):

Since there are some links you may want to go back to from time-to-time, I am going to begin a list of them here. This will be a list to which I will add links each week.

This is a news site which I just discovered; they gave 3 minute coverage to Obama’s healthcare summit and seemed to give a pretty decent overall view of it, without slanting one way or the other:

I have glanced through their website and it seems to be quite professional and reasonable. They have apparently been around since 1942.

This is fantastic; Florida (the Sunshine State) is now putting its state budget online:

Suzanne Somers s supposed to be older than Bill O’Reilly? He interviewed her this week, and she looked, well, hot. She is big into vitamins and human growth hormones.

The National Journal, which is a political journal (which, at first glance, seems to be pretty even-handed):

And I am hoping that most people see this as non-partisan: Citizens Against Government Waste:

This website reveals a lot of information about politicians and their relationship to money. You can find out, among other things, how many earmarks that Harry Reid has been responsible for in any given year; or how much an individual Congressman’s wealth has increased or decreased since taking office.

This is an outstanding website which tells the truth about Obama-care and about what the mainstream media is hiding from you:

Politico.com is a fairly neutral site (or, at the very worst, just a little left of center). They have very good informative videos at:

On Obama (if you have not visited this site, you need to check it out). He is selling a DVD on this site as well called Media Malpractice; I have not viewed it yet, except pieces which I have seen played on tv and on the internet. It looks pretty good to me.

Conservative Review
Issue #119	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	March 21, 2010