Factoid of the day: President Barack Obama's economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.

– Quote from an Associated Press Report on overstating of stimulus job creation by the White House. 

Pelosi Health Care Update: Last night at 10:07 PM Eastern time, Speaker Pelosi released the latest version of her health care plan. This version added 42 pages to make the total bill now a whopping 2,032 pages. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) had pledged to have the final bill in print for 72 hours before it is voted upon. That means that the soonest the bill could be brought to a vote on the House floor is 10:07 PM on Friday night.

But by all accounts, they have not yet cajoled the necessary 218 votes to ensure the bill’s passage. It also appears clear that they may make more changes to the bill in order to secure more votes before Friday night or Saturday. But they have also been clear that they will not wait until 72 hours after any further changes.

Yesterday, I spent some time in a “bill reading room” set up by Republicans to read the bill. In between floor speeches and committee votes, I randomly picked 3 sections of the bill to read. Each one was instructive. Here’s what I learned that I had not before known about the bill in just a short reading:

1. The bill contains a section called “Individual responsibility.” It is less than 20 words long. It merely refers to a section in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. But immediately following, is a section called “employer responsibility.” It goes on for many sections and pages. We will never control health care costs as long as people are disconnected from the choice, cost, and quality of the services they receive. This bill moves people farther away.

2. In another section of the bill, I only went a few pages before encountering an entirely new “private right of action.” A “private right of action” is an opportunity to file a lawsuit on the basis of federal law. This particular new lawsuit opportunity would be for employees to sue employers if they don’t like their health care choices. There are many more such new litigation opportunities in this bill. It is universally (except of course for Pelosi and her minions) acknowledged that lawsuit abuse is driving up health care costs through direct costs as well as “defensive medicine”  by tens of billions of dollars annually. However this bill not only contains no lawsuit reform, it actually will make the problem far, far worse.  The trial lawyer lobby, however, must be very happy.

3. There is a 5.4% surtax on incomes over $500,000. This is just a “soak the rich” tax to partially pay for socialized medicine. But interestingly, the tax applies to adjusted gross income, not to taxable income. That means if you make $500,000 and give it all to charity, you will still pay a surtax of $27,000 even though you have no net income. I am not aware of any other provision of the tax code that applies the tax on gross income, rather than taxable income.

It just gets worse and worse and worse.  We will keep up the fight. I hope you will too.

Yesterday in response to my post on the Greeneyeshade Blog, a reader made a very observant and pithy comment that I wanted to share with the rest of you:

“So, let me make sure I get this correct…We're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee, whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn't read it, and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's nearly broke.

What possibly could go wrong?”

I also want to draw your attention to a new tool that House Republicans are using in the debate on Speaker Pelosi’s government takeover of healthcare.  This website allows you to scrutinize the 1,990 pages of Pelosi’s bill right along with Members of Congress.  I think you will find it particularly useful. See the link below.

http://healthcaretruth.amplify.com/

Lest there be any doubt about whether the new Pelosi Health Care Bill is more costly, more controlling, and closer to socialism than the previous iteration, here is your fact of the day:

You may remember that the ‘original’ health care bill introduced before the August recess, H.R. 3200, would have created 53 separate bureaucracies, commissions, boards etc... The new Pelosi Bill, which the House may vote on as early as this week creates a whopping 111 new boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs….wow….if this isn’t a massive government intervention into our health care system, I don’t know what is.

Today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal has a scathing editorial of the legislation introduced by Speaker Pelosi. It notes the creation of a new ‘Health Choices Commissioner’ that will decide “essential benefits” which all insurers will have to offer. This sounds like something straight out of Aldous Huxley’s, A Brave New World or George Orwell’s, 1984.

Thanks to the House Republican Conference, I have included a list of names of these proposed new bureaucratic entities along with the corresponding page numbers.

Click Here to Read all 1,990 pages.

Speaker Pelosi and President Obama are determined to socialize medicine and to permanently put 1/6th of the American economy in complete control of the government. But the American people don't want that, not a single elected Republican in Congress wants that, and a significant number of elected Democrats don't want that.

Pelosi needs to get 218 Democrats to vote for her bill. That means she can lose 39 Democrats, but no more. She is keeping Democrats in town "working" because she wants to keep trying to convince them to vote for her bill. She also knows that if they go home, most of them will hear the opposite message from their constituents. So, she keeps us all in town with busy work so that she can keep using carrots and sticks to get the votes for her awful bill. Don't underestimate the power of the Presidency and the Speakership to convince Members of Congress to vote their way.

And just what is in this bill? Well, having had it for only a short time, I can't tell you everything. But here are a few facts you may find interesting:

- It is 1990 pages long.
- It has about 400,000 words. That is 5 times the length in words of the Torah.
- It contains a government-run "option,” which will effectively not be optional over the next 5-8 years.
- It spends over $1 trillion. That amounts to over $2.2 million per word.
- It uses the word "shall" 3,429 times. So, 3,429 times it compels someone to do or not do something.
- But one place where it uses the word "may" is in reference to whether Members of Congress "may" join the government run system. So, much of the public will be forced onto the government-run system but we in Congress will not. (Do what I say, not what I do)
- It increases taxes on small business, wealthy individuals, all medical devices (including wheelchairs, bandages, and such), people who save for their own health care costs through health savings accounts, payroll taxes and anyone who does not buy health insurance.
- It authorizes government funding of abortions, which is not allowed under current federal law.
- Any state that has a limit on attorney's fees or punitive damage awards in malpractice cases (like California) must change that law to remove all limits or the state loses federal money under the bill. (blatant trial lawyer provision)
- And that's just the beginning.

This week is D-day week for this bill. You will receive updates from me during the week as news progresses.

I sincerely hope that all of us together can persuade at least 40 reasonable Democrats that there are much better ways to reform health care than this monstrosity.