The debate over health care has reached a fevered pitch in our nation’s capital.  Over the last several months, millions of Americans have spoken out at town halls, have called and written in to the White House, and have even made personal visits to their members of Congress to express their strong opposition to government run health care.  Yet Speaker Pelosi has once again ignored their voices.

Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill H.R. 3962 was drafted without committee hearings or markups behind closed doors by Speaker Pelosi and a very limited number of her inner-circle.  Weighing in at more than 2,000 pages, Pelosi’s bill will cost the American taxpayers $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.

Real reform of our health care system is needed.  We must help those who want health insurance but cannot afford it.  We must expand access to health care in rural America.  We must fix our medical malpractice laws so that doctors can focus on saving patients rather than paying lawyers.  And we must expand our investments in preventative care.  However, that doesn’t mean we should throw out the car because it has a soft tire.  This country still has the best doctors, the best treatments, the best researches, and the best hospitals in the world.  Improvements need to be made, but not at the cost of potentially destroying our current health care system, saddling our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt, decreasing our standard of care, and burdening American families and small businesses with $729.5 billion in new taxes.

I will continue to oppose Speaker Pelosi’s government run health care legislation and any legislation that comes before Congress that includes a public option.

Congressman Frank Lucas represents Oklahoma’s Third Congressional District.  For more information, visit his website at www.house.gov/lucas.

One trillion, four hundred twenty billion dollars.  It’s an astounding number.  It’s more than the entire economy of India and enough to give every man, woman, and child in the United States $4700.

It is also our country’s federal budget deficit for 2009.  That means that in the fiscal year 2009, which runs from October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009, the federal government spent $1.42 trillion more than it took in.  To put this in perspective, last year’s deficit was $459 billion – still an astounding number, but less than half the deficit for this year.

When our nation runs with a deficit like this year, we increase our national debt – or the total debt we owe over the life of our country.  Our current national debt is $9.1 trillion, and climbing every day.  The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that, under President Obama’s spending plans, our national debt will rise to $17.1 trillion by the year 2019, meaning an increase of $8 trillion over the next ten years.  Most of this debt is held by foreign countries.  China, not known for their great relations with our country, holds the most – more than $800 billion.

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From the diaries by Erick

Yesterday, Americans United for Life’s legislative action arm, AUL Action gave America a much-needed reality check with a groundbreaking new online ad that dispels the deceptive rhetoric in Washington and gives clear evidence how your taxpayer dollars will go to funding abortions in health care reform.

Our new online video ad, “Don’t Be Fooled: Abortion is in Health Care Reform,” is a part of our “Real Health Care Respects Life” initiative to mobilize pro-life opposition nationwide to abortion in health care reform.

This ad cuts through the deceptive rhetoric of pro-abortion politicians and shows how American taxpayers will be forced to pay for abortions against their conscience. The ad highlights current health care reform proposals which would allow abortion in health care reform.

You can learn more about how your tax dollars could go to abortions in health care reform in my op-ed in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Tax Dollars Shouldn’t Fund Abortion” or you can go to www.RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com.

From the diaries by Erick.

My full article is here at The Heritage Foundation’s blog.

A major new report confirms the worst fears of many: Health care reform will raise the costs for most Americans—by about 18% on average. That is on top of existing and expected inflation of health coverage.

This exposes President Obama’s fictitious claim that people will save money under his proposal.  Only those who receive new government subsidies and benefits will “save.”  The rest of us will pay–big-time.

Once the plan is fully phased-in (by 2019), a typical family of four would pay an extra $4,000 each year.

When combined with inflation, costs would rise from today’s $12,300 annual average to $25,900. Of that 111% increase, $9,600 is due to existing factors uncorrected by the legislation, and $4,000 due to additional costs created by the legislation.

For single persons, the differential is projected at $1,500 a year. Premiums would rise from today’s $4,600 a year to $9,600 overall.

Prepared by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), the study was requested by AHIP—America’s Health Insurance Plans. It focuses on the leading plan pending in Congress, sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D, MT), which is scheduled for a Senate Finance Committee vote on Tuesday.

The PWC projections track what The Heritage Foundation and many others have said about the legislation: It does not save money. It simply taxes those who have health coverage and uses their money to give care to others.

The White House is said to be furious. After all, President Obama’s claims that he makes care more affordable are exposed as a myth by the new study.

Details and links are here.

While the cognoscenti of the Western financial world is attempting to spin the recent fall in the dollar as a stylish financial mystery play with a journalist based in the Middle East as its star, the Whodunit spin is a red herring: the facts are that the dollar is weak, and getting weaker.

The world is awash in dollars. There is a massive oversupply. We are electronically creating (printing in another era) hundreds of billions of dollars to buy our own T-Bills. Our deficit and spending has soared.

Kudlow, in his column, “Save the Greenback, Mr. President” explains that solution is to remove the excess dollars from the market and to stop “printing so much debt:”

for therapy, the Fed should begin moving excess cash from the economy….And they need to stop printing so much debt from Congress. All this massive spending and borrowing is killing us.

Instead, the Democrats in Congress and the White House are planning more spending: a second spending bill is on the table — ironically tagged as the second stimulus bill, which ought to stimulate the dollar tanking — and of course, President Obama’s $1 trillion health care spending boondoggle.

When town hall meetings are interrupted with shouts of “stop printing money” the jig is up. Note to the White House: in the age of the internet, you cannot hide printing $600 Billion a year from the world.

Until the Federal Reserve stops printing money to buy our own T-Bills, and the Democrats in Congress stop spending on new programs and we lower our deficit the dollar will continue to drop. End of story, no other outcome is possible.

Simply put, the Dems are killing the dollar.

A direct result of Barack Obama being elected President and the Democrats take over of Congress is that the U.S. the deficit has grown to a record $1.4 Trillion. From AP:

The federal budget deficit tripled to a record $1.4 trillion for the 2009 fiscal year that ended last week, congressional analysts said Wednesday.

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Reasons like this are why Mark Tapscott is worth always reading.

Being nonpartisan, the Tea Party movement must identify and encourage like-minded candidates in both major parties. That means a Tea Party Movement Seal of Approval, or a Tea Party Pledge, to point voters of all stripes to the new blood needed to replace the current calcified cast of establishment insiders running Congress.

Most Americans are fed up with business-as-usual in Washington and they want real change, not more of the Democrats’ power-grabbing slogans, or the “Me-Too” timidity of Republicans who talk the reform talk, but love the perks of power too much to actually walk it.

Yes, getting a loosely organized grass-roots movement like the Tea Party Coalition to agree on a set of fundamental principles is tough, and I don’t claim to know how to do it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Tea parties do little good if all the people do is protest. They must at some point put down the protest signs and pick up campaign signs. A “buycott” of Whole Foods may make you feel involved, but you aren’t really involved until you’re making politicians permanently scared of you.

The best way to do that is sign up for your local political party, encourage and support like minded candidates, and throw the kleptocrats out of office.

Reading this post by Mickey Kaus made me realize something.

The idea of postponing health care reform–until, say, the economy improves– doesn’t seem appealing to many Democrats now. But it might soon. The problem, as Michael Goodwin’s recent column points out, is that the issues waiting in the wings–should health care leave the stage–are even worse, from the Democrats’ political perspective. Cap and trade, immigration legalization, “card check”–these are not what you’d call confidence building appetizers leading up to the main course of Obama’s presidency. Plus the Afghan War! At least a clear majority of the public wants something done about health care….

It’s easy to forget that, even if Obama’s health care effort is bogging down, the effort itself still serves his presidency as a crucial time-waster, tying up Congress and giving him a reason to postpone (or the public a reason to ignore) those other divisive, presidency-killers.

It was not until after 1994 that Bill Clinton really stretched his legs. As much as Clinton had “gays in the military” and “Hillarycare” in the months before the Republican take over of Congress, he’s really known for what? Well, if we’re serious about his legacy — Kosovo, Welfare Reform, Standing Up to Newt, and Impeachment.

Clinton shines as a model of what a Democratic Presidency can be when fighting against Republicans at home and in multinational coalitions abroad. Impeachment has a mixed meaning for him, but among Democrats and Independents, they typically see it as out of control Republicans and a philandering President with the President coming out looking better than the GOP.

Republicans controlling Congress gave Bill Clinton a political opposition from which he could set himself a part. Clinton could be contrasted with the GOP. He could not, pre-1994, viably do that because his party controlled the White House and Congress.

What is Barack Obama’s worst nightmare?

Democrats keeping Congress in 2010.

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The recent announcement by the White House that they are dropping/will accept no public option in their health reform bill has cause the already comatose Intrade market prediction of passage of a federal government run health insurance plan (public option) to completely tank, going from 35% chance of passage to a 14% chance of passage.

This is the single best predictor of the future known to exist — people making bets with real money about the outcome of the future.

Check out the straight down line on this graph.

The exact question Intrade is asking is:

Will a federal government run health insurance plan (a public option) be approved in the US?
A federal government run health insurance plan to be approved before midnight ET 31 Dec 2009

There is a new pro-Obamacare ad out by a group called “Americans for Stable Quality Care.” You can see the ad here.

The ad asks “what does health insurance reform mean for you?” One of the points is “a focus on preventing illness before it strikes.”

There’s a problem with that.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, preventative care will drive up the costs of Obamacare.

Doug Elmendorf, the CBO Director, responding to Congressman Nathan Deal, wrote that

Although different types of preventive care have different effects on spending, the evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.

Elmendorf went on to write

Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness. An article published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine provides a good summary of the available evidence on how preventive care affects costs.3 After reviewing hundreds of previous studies of preventive care, the authors report that slightly fewer than 20 percent of the services that were examined save money, while the rest add to costs.

Now, lest anyone think either Elmendorf or I am knocking preventative care, we are not. Elmendorf notes that, “just because a preventive service adds to total spending does not mean that it is a bad investment. Experts have concluded that a large fraction of preventive care adds to spending but should be deemed ‘cost-effective.’ He’s right.

There’s just one problem that Elmendorf alludes to. The CBO cannot really score the run up in costs of preventative care under H.R. 3200, the Democrats’ healthcare legislation.

Assuming Obamacare is successful at increasing preventative care, the program will escalate costs. Then, also as Elmendorf alludes to, the government is going to have to decide who gets preventative care and who does not, if they want to contain costs.

In other words, we will get escalated unknown costs or we will get rationing, but most likely we will get both.

We’re going to lock this calendar at the top of the site. I’m compiling all the townhalls into it.

Until it is locked up top, you can view it in this post. I’ll be adding a heck of a lot more data tomorrow.

This afternoon I took a trip to downtown Circleville, Ohio to catch a stop on Rob Portman’s just launched RV Tour.  Rob spoke to grassroots leaders from the area and stressed the importance of this race; and Ohio in general in 2010.

He stressed how important it was to avoid giving President Obama and Democrats in Congress another rubber stamp for their liberal agenda.  He noted that on a host of issues (health care, energy, taxes, the deficit, etc.) the Democrats are pushing liberal policies out of line with the common sense conservatism and values of Ohio.

He noted that the stimulus was rushed through and yet is having little to no positive impact on Ohio despite the Democrats grandiose promises.  He noted that on issues like Cap and Trade and Health Care the Democrat proposals are simply going to raise taxes and kill job growth in Ohio.

I was lucky enough to have a chance to talk with Rob briefly on the RV.  In the video clip below he stressed these same issues and highlighted why this race is so important.

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Head’s up: there is a rumor circulating in the House of Representatives that enough Blue Dogs have caved on health care for Nancy Pelosi to get the bill to the floor this week. The memo to Republicans assuring them there’d be no vote could have been a ruse to turn down constituent heat enough.

Democrats are growing fearful that August recess will turn the Blue Dogs cold and want something out by Friday.

It appears they may have the votes to do that.

CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN RIGHT NOW.

Go here and get the number. Call now.

This is your must read article on healthcare. According to Fortune magazine, there are five freedoms that you have now that the Democrats in Congress intend to take away from you. These are in the actual legislation.

1. Freedom to choose what’s in your plan
2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs
3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage
4. Freedom to keep your existing plan
5. Freedom to choose your doctors

Call your Congressman. Tell him to vote no on H.R. 3200, the Democrats’ healthcare legislation.

Nancy Pelosi intends to push H.R. 3200, the Democrats’ plan to socialize American healthcare, to the floor this week for votes.

We must bring every ounce of possible pressure to bear on members of Congress this week.

I’ve made it easy. Go here to get your Congressman’s district office phone number.

Call and demand that your congressman vote no on H.R. 3200, the Democrats’ healthcare legislation.

We can stop this through concerted, constant action and pressure.

Call now. Remember congressional offices are only open during normal business hours. If you don’t get someone on the phone today, call tomorrow.

Yesterday’s Washington Post’s front page is a study in cross-cutting pressures on our new President. “Poll Shows Obama Slipping on Key Issues” reads the four-column headline.

Amazing. But then, in smaller type, read this: “The Race to Reform.” That lesser headline is the Administration’s answer to the slippage the grim polling figures disclose.

Since his much-hailed 100-day mark last April, President Obama’s handling of health care, the Post’s poll reveals, has declined in public approval from 57 percent to 49 percent. Disapproval has increased from 29 percent to 44 percent.

Of particular worry to this still-new Administration is the hemorrhaging of support among the independents. Among these voters, Obama held a long lead on his health care proposals back in April—53 percent approval to only 30 percent disapproval.

April, T.S. Eliot wrote, is the cruelest month, but today the President can only look back longingly for it. Today, his health care proposals have taken on a sickly pallor among independents. Forty-four percent of them approve what he’s offering; 49 percent disapprove. That’s a stunning loss of 1 in 5 independent voters to the President’s team on health care.

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We are speeding headlong toward a time when our Congress will have become just like Mad King George’s Parliament, that body from which in 1776 the American colonists separated with the rallying cry of “no taxation without representation.” Our national government is fast becoming just as unrepresentative of the people as far off Briton was when we went to war to become the United States of America.

Does that seem like a hyperbolic statement to you? At first blush, it might. But a considered look at the direction in which we are quickly heading will prove that, compared to the British Parliament that raised the ire of our forefathers so long ago, today’s Congress shows many signs of the same, oppressive, haughty, disinterested politicians that considered their national government more important than the local’s interests and needs.

Representation is the key word, here. What does it mean? What did it mean then? Of course, the problem was that it meant two different things to the opposing sides of the Revolutionary era, hence the conflict. In England, representation meant that Parliament “represented” the whole of the country and that each member of that body was elected from their home to go forth and become a member of the whole. British politicians generally did not imagine that they were representing their hometown when they went to Parliament.

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The Hill newspaper is reporting that Speaker Pelosi is finding that the tough slog that the healthcare debate is having in the House of Representatives is the “price” she is paying for the arrogant rushing of the Cap and Trade bill that the Democratic leadership earlier forced through the House. The way that bill was rammed down the throats of Democrat moderates rankled them and they are getting payback by slowing progress, even opposing parts, of the healthcare bill.

Pelosi rushed the climate bill through without giving her own members time to read the bill and come to understand it. The result was a vote that has gotten moderates beaten up pretty well by constituents that were never given an opportunity to voice their opinions before their representatives voted.

Since the climate bill, moderates are “once bitten” on rushing to vote on an issue before they’ve had a chance to digest the thing and bring it back home to get a feel from their voters as to which way they should go. With that experience, they don’t want to rush into healthcare in the same way they did the climate bill that has caused so many of them so much heartburn.

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Although it has yet to see combat in the air, the F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter is the object of an intense dogfight on Capitol Hill. The debate has made for some strange bedfellows. On one side, there are the antis - the Pentagon, Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and Sen. John McCain among them - who want to wrap the program up and shut down the production line. One the other, the pros - Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Sen. Chris Dodd and the Air Force Association - who want to see more of the advanced fighters built.

The Raptor is beyond impressive:

The F-22, which entered service three years ago, blends key technologies that formerly existed only separately on other aircraft - or not at all. Its stealthiness will make trigger-happy combatants shoot at birds. It has agility, air-to-air combat abilities and penetrability far beyond that of the F-15 Eagle which entered service 33 years ago. It cruises at Mach-plus speeds without using fuel-guzzling afterburners.

No other fighter on the planet can touch it. So what’s the problem?

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I’m sorry, I’m not much for name calling but this woman is an idiot. She is claiming that the oppressive surtax can “also” go to retire the Obama $1 trillion deficit if there is any “left over” after Obamacare is “paid for”!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Democrats could use a proposed new tax on the wealthy to pay down the deficit, if there’s money left over after funding healthcare reform.

But, the CBO is claiming that Obamacare will cost in excess of $1 trillion and the surtax is “only” going to raise $544 billion. How, exactly, is there supposed to be anything “left over” after Obamacare is “paid for.”

I know, I just used a lot of quote marks, but they are deservedly derisory.

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