Today in Washington, D.C. - June 8, 2010 - Reports Show ObamaCare Won't Keep Obama's Promises - Consider EPA's Cap-and-Tax Agenda

Senate began consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 4213, the debt-extending “extenders bill”. Yesterday the Senate confirmed Audrey Fleissig to be US District Judge for Eastern Missouri and Lucy Koh to be US District Judge for Northern California, both by votes of 90-0.

On Thursday, the Senate is scheduled to debate and vote on a resolution of disapproval of the EPA’s actions to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, being offered by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). If passed, the resolution could block the EPA’s action. As the ARRA News Service reported yesterday, "This is an very important vote; if the EPA is allowed to regulate humans and animals who breath out carbon dioxide then our government will have reached the state of lunacy! Hard to believe, but that only leaves regulating and controlling all plants which provide oxygen. Wait a minute, the government is already regulating water, energy, crops, etc. Are America's elected officials about to sell out their constituents?" Please Contact your senators! and urge them to adopt this critical resolution. Tell your Senators to vote "Yes" on the Murkowski resolution to disapprove and hopefully stop the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide (a natural product exhaled by YOU, and all other humans and animals)."

The AP writes today, “President Barack Obama is turning his attention back to his signature health care bill and trying to win over the most skeptical constituency: seniors. Obama was set to pitch the bill at a senior center in Wheaton, Md., on Tuesday. . . . The timing coincides with the release later this week of the first batch of $250 checks to seniors who fall into Medicare's prescription drug coverage gap, known as the ‘doughnut hole.’ The checks will be the first tangible benefits most of them will be seeing from the law Obama signed in March.”

It’s a good bet, though, that the president won’t be reminding seniors about one of the central features of his health care bill: the half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare that are used to finance a new government. Nor is he likely to note that "a report from his own Health and Human Services Department “projected that Medicare cuts could drive about 15 percent of hospitals and other institutional providers into the red, ‘possibly jeopardizing access’ to care for seniors,” according to the AP.

Just two weeks ago, HHS was circulating a mailer to Medicare beneficiaries proclaiming the supposed benefits of the unpopular health care law that Obama is going to be selling today. It’s unlikely the president will explain to seniors why a report from the actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services contradicted almost all the key claims in the mailer. The mailer says the new law “will keep Medicare strong and solvent,” but the CMS actuary says “the longer-term viability” of the Medicare Changes “is doubtful”; the mailer says the new law makes “improvements to Medicare Advantage” but the CMS actuary says it will “result in less generous benefit packages” for Medicare Advantage customers; and the mailer says the new law provides “greater savings” while the CMS actuary says health care costs will actually increase. Will President Obama be making any of these same claims to his audience today?

Not even one of the president’s most-repeated promises about his health care law holds up based on recent reporting. Throughout the health care debate, Obama pledged, “If you like your current plan, you will be able to keep it. Let me repeat that: if you like your plan, you'll be able to keep it.” But we’ve already learned that many companies are now considering dumping their health care coverage as it would be cheaper to pay the fine than for the new coverage mandates. And today, Politico reports, “Part of the health care overhaul due to kick in this September could strip more than 1 million people of their insurance coverage, violating a key goal of President Barack Obama’s reforms.” The story explains, “Under the provision, insurance companies will no longer be able to apply broad annual caps on the amount of money they pay out on health policies. Employer groups say the ban could essentially wipe out a niche insurance market that many part-time workers and retail and restaurant employees have come to rely on.” In fact, Politico, points out, “Depending on how strictly the administration implements the provision, the ban could in effect outlaw the plans [commonly offered by retail or restaurant companies to low-wage workers] or make them so restrictive that insurance companies would raise rates to the point they become unaffordable.”

As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said this morning, “That’s been the story all along about this bill — a lot of promises that couldn’t be kept. And that’s why the story now isn’t the bill itself, but the administration’s broken promises. Americans never wanted this bill, and they’re reminded every day why they opposed it in the first place.”

House GOP Leader John Boehner ridiculed an online town hall the president will hold today. Boehner said: "Out-of-touch Washington Democrats’ problem isn’t the sales pitch for ObamaCare – the problem is ObamaCare itself. The American people don’t want the higher taxes, higher costs, Medicare cuts, and payoffs to Washington special interests. No glitzy PR campaigns are going to change that.”

Bohner also said: "President Obama is re-launching his health care plan for the umpteenth time today by promoting Medicare rebate checks that more than nine in 10 Medicare beneficiaries will never receive. It’s another in a long line of false starts and mishaps for the Obama Administration’s attempt to sell its government takeover of health care. By now, this monstrosity has been rebooted, recast, renewed, refreshed, retooled, revamped, repackaged, rehabilitated, revived, and recharged. Despite all this communications ‘stimulus,’ the American people’s strong opposition to this government takeover of health care, with its Medicare cuts and job-killing tax hikes, hasn’t changed.

"President Obama remains singularly possessed with talking up this health care law in the false hope that this is all merely a marketing problem, not a policy problem. But with evidence that the new law is already crushing small businesses continuing to mount, the last thing we need is another tired, unconvincing PR blitz to mask the fact that it will increase costs, destroy jobs, and add to the deficit. It’s time for President Obama to face facts and start listening to the American people so we can repeal this job-killing health care law and replace it with common-sense reforms that lower costs and protect American jobs."

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