More Op-Ed Malpractice From Mikey And The C-T

This Guest Opinion from our former PA-08 U.S. House rep appeared about a week ago, on January 12th to be exact...

Recently I attempted to speak with Congressman Patrick Murphy about the disappointing votes being cast in Washington as the current Congress squanders an historic opportunity to improve health coverage for all Americans. He told me to call him later.

Bucks Countians have been waiting months for their representative in Congress to hear their concerns about the gaggle of bills under consideration in the Capitol. Despite repeated calls for a town hall meeting where constituents can meet their elected federal representative face-to-face, questions and concerns have gone unanswered.

As noted here, Murphy did meet face to face on health care in a “Congressman In Your Corner” event that Murphy stated was not a town hall meeting, so Fitzpatrick is technically correct. However, true to form as always, he omits the fact that Murphy held conference calls with constituents on health care reform to avoid all of the teabagger nonsense such as this (again, in which Barney Frank gives one of these life forms the treatment she deserves).



Back to Mikey…

The reason: Patrick Murphy is in favor of government control of healthcare. I know because he told me so.

And in his quest to vote for a "strong public option" (read: the beginning of the federal government taking over our health decision making)…

OK, time out – here is a video from former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich describing the intent of the public option (which I’m sure will never be realized in part because of the utterly brainless demagoguery of those who opposed health care reform overall)…



Back to Mikey…

…he rushed headlong into H.R. 3962 which provides:

For individual taxpayers: Higher taxes on high-income filers, federal mandates to purchase health insurance or be subject to federal penalties and exemptions for non-resident aliens. In conjunction with the passage of HR 3962 (by the slimmest of margins and with Patrick Murphy's full support), Murphy also voted to pass HR 3961, increasing physician reimbursements and deficit spending, which adds to the federal debt.

As noted here…

HR 3962 is the big House health care bill. HR 3961 is the standalone bill that would spend $210 billion (latest CBO score for the bill) to cancel the Sustainable Growth Rate Formula cuts and pays for it by adding the full cost to the deficit. That proposal failed in the Senate a few weeks ago when only 47 Democrats supported it.

And the fact that HR 3961 was defeated in the Senate is hardly Murphy’s fault (with HR 3961 being the legislation to ensure the deficit neutrality of the health care legislation…and by the way, let’s see whether or not deficit neutrality is achieved in the bill which may yet go through reconciliation after all, as noted here).

Back to Mikey…

For employers: Practically every small business is now federally mandated to provide "qualified" coverage or be subject to a new, 8 percent tax. Employers are also limited in use of Flexible Savings Accounts, which I use to pay out of pocket medical expenses for my children and used for my own recent medical expenses in cancer recovery.

As for as Mikey’s supposedly onerous new tax, this from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius tells us that employers “could qualify for a tax credit to help pay their premiums.[vii] An estimated 12 percent of people insured through small businesses will qualify for tax credits that lower premiums by 8 to 11 percent. This translates into $620 to $860 for individuals and $1,540 to $2,120 for families assuming that the coverage is comparable to what they get today.” And as far as Fitzpatrick’s “flexible savings account,” this tells us that “HSA/high deductible plans shift more of the health financing burden onto those using significant amounts of care, with negative ramifications for the low-income and high-need. Nor is it clear that cost-containment, higher value shopping, or reductions in the uninsured will follow.”

Back to Mikey...

For seniors: $571 billion has been slashed from your allocated Medicare funding; $170 billion has been cut from your Medicare Advantage Plans. Your Medicare D premiums will be increased to help pay for new federal programs your representatives deem nice to have.

I tried to “source” the claim about $571 billion being “slashed” from Medicare, as Mikey put it, and I know it was referenced in an article in The Hill from last November (which, to me, doesn’t automatically assure objectivity), and in looking this up, I found this link to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services report where that $571 billion figure came from, and it tells us the following…

- The estimated Federal costs of the coverage provisions in HR 3962…would increase by a net total of $406 billion during (2010 to 2019) – a combination of $935 billion in net costs associated with coverage provisions, $571 billion in net savings from the Medicare provisions…

- Net Medicare savings are estimated to total $571 billion for fiscal years 2010-2019, with the majority of the savings arising from provisions in Title I of Division B (“Improving Health Care Value”).

- Total net savings from Medicare provisions would offset about $571 billion of the federal costs for the national coverage provisions.

Now I don’t claim to be an expert at crunching numbers, but can someone explain to me how all of this can be translated into “slashing” $571 billion in Medicare funding? Where is it written that the projected savings will come from cutting subscriber coverage?

And as far as Medicare Advantage is concerned, the whole damn thing is a scam anyway for private insurers who get a subsidy that they should pass along to their subscribers, but don’t. Also, Fitzpatrick has no room to criticize ANYBODY on Medicare Part D, which will close the donut hole Fitzpatrick originally helped create, as noted here.

Back to Mikey…

Murphy's bill is packed with problems too numerous to mention in my limited space available.

That’s a con-vee-nient excuse.

But Murphy's bad bill got worse in the U.S. Senate. Now we find out that, in addition to paying new Medicaid increases for Pennsylvania residents, we also are expected to pick up the cost for Nebraska residents because they "cut a deal" to buy Sen. Nelson's support. Still no comment from Patrick. Still no town hall meeting for his constituents.

Why the hell should Patrick Murphy feel obligated to conduct town hall meetings over a Senate screwup when he serves in the House? I think Mikey is losing his mind here.

And by the way, as long as Mikey is alleging that PA-08 residents have to pick up the tab for out-of-state malfeasance (in the case of Ben Nelson and Nebraska), this tells us that Mikey said not a word when government money (including that of PA-08 taxpayers) was used to fund no-bid contracts to firms accused of abuse, fraud, or excessive profiteering in the reconstruction of Hurricane Katrina (70 percent of the contracts were awarded on that basis, again, without a peep from Mikey in protest).

Back to Mikey…

Provide tax relief that makes it easier, not more difficult, for employers to provide health coverage. Reform the health justice system. Incentivize innovative solutions that fight healthcare fraud.

Mikey either doesn’t know that Patrick Murphy introduced this bill to fight Medicare fraud, or he knows but doesn’t want to admit it.

There is $250 billion in easy money - currently wasted - in the federal health programs. Recover the money and use it to cover pre-existing conditions and to reward health care clinics that already provide coverage to the uninsured: the Mother Bachmann clinic in Bensalem, HealthLink in Southampton and The Free Clinic at Doylestown Hospital.

I can’t think of a word to describe how ridiculous it is that Fitzpatrick doesn’t even acknowledge here that the health care reform bill will make it illegal for a subscriber to be dropped from coverage due to a pre-existing condition. And I’m not even going to bother sourcing that $250 billion figure because I’m tired of looking up numbers that Fitzpatrick is apparently too lazy to properly source himself.

(And by the way, I have a question for Guy Petroziello, editorial page editor of the Bucks County Courier Times – why the hell do you continue to publish editorial content where writers don’t source their information?)

Back to Mikey...

I firmly believe that the best solutions already exist in the communities across America. Our representatives should spend more time listening to us and less time listening to the partisans inside the Beltway. An old-fashioned, town hall meeting back home in Bucks County would be a good start.

In a strange kind of way, I was curious to know what Mike Fitzpatrick was up to all of this time, and I genuinely hope his health has improved. That being said, after reading this assault on common sense, I now realize that he has not changed one bit and remains the arrogant liar he formerly was when he served in the U.S. Congress.

Mikey, shut up and get out of the way. Why don’t you join the teabaggers in their massive “pity party” over their perception of Caucasian disenfranchisement due to the election of an African-American president? That way, the adults will be able to fix, to some degree, the mess you helped create.