Today in Washington, D.C. - May 27, 2010 - Senate Republicans Demand Answers On Obamacare Propaganda

Update: In a phone call today withSen Tom Coburn he identified that his amendment to cut spending to pay for the 2010 supplemental appropriations bill was rejected.
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Senate resumed consideration of the fiscal year 2010 supplemental appropriations bill, H.R. 4899. At 10 AM, the Senate began a series of votes on amendments to the bill. Rejected were amendments from Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and John Cornyn (R-TX), respectively to provide for 6,000 more National Guard troops for the border, to provide more money for border security programs, and to provide $200 million for border enforcement. Also rejected, by a vote of 18-80, was an amendment from Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) to require a timetable for withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. Still pending were votes on amendments from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) to cut spending in order to pay for the cost of the bill and a vote on cloture on the bill.

Earlier this week, the Obama administration told Congress that it was sending brochures explaining the unpopular new health care law to Medicare recipients, but it quickly became clear that these flyers, created and distributed at taxpayer expense, were marketing material and were claiming things contradicted by Medicare’s own actuary. Today, Senate Republican Leaders, including two Senate doctors, Tom Coburn and John Barrasso, sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking where this brochure came from, how it was paid for, if anyone in the White house was involved in creating it, and if they bothered consulting the actuary about it. More on this in a separate post.

Of course, it’s not just the promises made about Medicare that continue to fall short of the expectations set by the Obama administration. Democrats repeated endlessly that the new law would assure people with pre-existing medical conditions health insurance coverage. In March, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said, “The new law is very important to early retirees because it will ensure lower insurance rates, and we will see a high-risk pool so that in my State, and all States, adults who cannot get insurance because of a pre-existing condition will be able to do so.” But The New York Times reports today, “The new health care law does not allocate nearly enough money to cover the estimated 5.6 million to 7 million Americans with pre-existing medical conditions who will qualify for temporary high-risk insurance pools, according to a report scheduled for release on Thursday. The government-operated insurance plans are intended to serve as a stopgap until 2014, when insurers will be prohibited from denying coverage to people with health problems. But an analysis by the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan research group, concluded that the $5 billion earmarked for the pools might cover as few as 200,000 people a year.” In other words, many people may be out of luck getting coverage from the government for the next four years.

And even a provision that the White House touted as being available immediately, forcing insurers to cover young adults up to age 26 on their parents’ plans may not be implemented right away either. In a weekly address earlier this month, President Obama said, “Even though insurance companies have until September to comply with this rule, we’ve asked them to do so immediately to avoid coverage gaps for new college graduates and other young adults.” But according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “[E]mployers, not insurers, pay the costs, and many employers across the country are balking. That means an untold number of 22- and 23-year-olds are going to have to buy their own policies or go uninsured for months. Their parents' health plans must offer coverage to age 26 once the new legal provision is triggered on Sept. 23, but companies then can wait until their next benefits-enrollment period -- typically Jan. 1 -- before extending coverage.”

As Sen. McConnell said commented earlier this week, “[Republicans’] arguments against this bill have been repeatedly vindicated, even as the administration’s many promises about the bill have been called into question again and again. So Democrats may have passed this bill, but the debate is far from over. And it’s important that Americans know the ways in which the promises they heard just aren’t adding up.”

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