THE HEALTH CARE MOVIE II

"From Those Wonderful People

Who Brought You MEDICARE PART D"

The cast of characters is amazing and everyday the plot line of

"The Health Care Movie II" keeps changing.

Who knew Tom DeLay would join "Dancing With The Stars ?"

If you enjoyed the suspense of the original drama, read on.

You'll laugh. You'll cry.

This is a true story.

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act

(Pub.L. 108-173, 117 Stat. 2066, also called Medicare Modernization Act or MMA)

is a law of the United States which was enacted in 2003. It produced the largest overhaul of Medicare in the public health program's 38-year history.

The MMA was signed by President George W. Bush on December 8, 2003,

after passing in Congress by a close margin.

THE ORIGINAL SCRIPT

The chairman of the Commerce Committee, Representative BILLY TAUZIN (R-La.), coauthored the bill while negotiating a $2-million-per-year job as a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the drug industry's trade organization.

AARP, the (then) 35 million member senior organization, played a key behind-the-scenes role in engineering the legislation, helped by none other than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. (Readers will recall that, at one time, Newt said that all entitlement programs should shrink away to nothing.) BILL NOVELLI, AARP's Executive Director, actually wrote an introduction to Gingrich's book on health care. Reportedly, more than 15,000 members resigned after the information about AARP's involvement became known.

Former U.S. House Majority Leader DICK ARMEY, an influential Republican working as Chairman of the limited government group FreedomWorks, wrote an op-ed the day of the vote in The Wall Street Journal opposing the bill.

THE ACTION ON THE FLOOR

The bill came to a vote at 3 a.m. on November 22. After 45 minutes, the bill was losing, 219-215, with David Wu (D-OR) not voting. Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader TOM DELAY sought to convince some of dissenting Republicans to switch their votes, as they had in June. Ernest Istook (R-OK), who had always been a wavering vote, consented quickly, producing a 218-216 tally. In a highly unusual move, the House leadership held the vote open for hours as they sought two more votes. Then-Representative Nick Smith (R-MI) claimed he was offered campaign funds for his son, who was running to replace him, in return for a change in his vote from "nay" to "yea." After controversy ensued, Smith clarified no explicit offer of campaign funds was made, but that that he was offered "substantial and aggressive campaign support" which he had assumed included financial support. ( former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Representative Candice Miller (R-Mich.) tried to bribe him with political favors to change his vote — an infraction for which the House Ethics Committee later admonished them.

About 5:50 a.m., the Republican leadership convinced Butch Otter (R-ID) and Trent Franks (R-AZ) to switch their votes. With passage assured, Wu voted yea as well, and Democrats Calvin M. Dooley (CA), Jim Marshall (GA) and David Scott (GA) changed their votes to the affirmative. But Brad Miller (D-NC), and then, Republican John Culberson (TX), reversed their votes from "yea" to "nay". The bill passed 220-215.

ONE MONTH LATER

... the ten-year cost estimate was boosted to $534 billion, up more than $100 billion over the figure presented by the Bush administration during Congressional debate. The inaccurate figure helped secure support from fiscally conservative Republicans who had promised to vote against the bill if it cost more than $400 billion. It was reported that an administration official, TOM SCULLY, had concealed the higher estimate and threatened to fire Medicare Chief Actuary RICHARD FOSTER if he revealed it.

IN JULY 2004, it was revealed that Thomas A. Scully, Medicare Administrator, had ordered Richard Foster, a Medicare actuary, to withhold information from Congress on pain of termination. Foster had projected that the bill would cost at least 139 billion dollars more than the White House was claiming.

EARLY 2005, the White House Budget had increased the 10-year estimate to $1.2 trillion.

THE HEALTH CARE MOVIE II, 2009

REPEAT PLAYERS

BILLY TAUZIN: Billy Tauzin was named president and chief executive officer of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in January 2005. In 2009, Tauzin is in negotiations with Senator Max Baucus, the business-friendly Montana Democrat, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff; Mr. Messina, his deputy; and Nancy-Ann DeParle, the aide overseeing the health care overhaul.

TOM DeLAY: Resigned his seat in Congress on June 9, 2006. He co-founded The Coalition for a Conservative Majority with former Ohio Secretary of State, Republican Ken Blackwell. You will remember that Blackwell threw out 1000's of Ohio voter registration applications because they were not on 80lb. paper stock.

Tom will join fellow cast members Donny Osmond , Kathy Ireland, Macy Gray and others on the "Dancing With the Stars" 9th season.

TOM SCULLY: Scully was never charged and became a lobbyist for a venture capital firm, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe who invest in medical devices. As a board member of Solantic, Scully is working with Rick Scott, the chairman, who has organized the angry mobs at the health care town halls.

RICHARD FOSTER: Continues in his office of Chief Actuary for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Mr. Foster is responsible for all actuarial and other financial analyses for the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

AARP: AARP began 50+ years ago, before Medicare existed, as an insurance business providing health coverage to people 65 and older. As early as 1959, it was offering prescription drugs to its members by mail.

AARP has joined other centrist groups* in the Divided We Fail campaign that calls for a bipartisan solution and states that "all Americans should have access to affordable, quality health care, including prescription drugs, and that these costs should not unfairly burden future generations." WASHINGTON (AP) — About 60,000 senior citizens have quit AARP since July 1, 2009 due to the group's support for a health care overhaul.

WILLIAM NOVELLI: AARP's CEO Novelli, 67, has broadened AARP's reach and increased its clout in Washington. He has expanded AARP's marketing to include 17 types of insurance. The association collects royalties on each of those products. Its membership rose to 40 million from 35 million, and its total revenue grew to $1.17 billion in 2007 from $520 million when Novelli took charge.

Mr. Novelli is a former public relations man who founded the Washington firm Porter-Novelli, a division of Omnicom. Democrats have accused him of being a ''closet Republican,'' citing his work 35 years ago on an advertising campaign to re-elect President Richard Nixon. Mr. Novelli said he is an independent, not a Republican.

According to the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform Minority Office, Porter-Novelli received the following amounts per year, for federal PR contracts:

$14,786,313 in 2002

$7,495,188 in 2003

$7,019,145 in 2004

DICK ARMEY: Now chairman of the conservative group FreedomWorks. He is actively working to defeat health care reform by encouraging and organizing high conservative turnouts at congressional and senatorial town hall meetings.

NEW PLAYERS (added daily)

A partisan cast of 100's including the K street players, the White House and the always fascinating Blue Dogs.

THE NEW SCRIPT

HEALTH CARE MOVIE II has been through so many script changes and revisions that the release-date keeps getting pushed back. Naturally, the cost of producing this spectacle keeps going higher. And there is always the possibility of a conflict with the release of a new Terror or War epic.

HOW TO SECEDE IN POLITICS

THE 

FEDERATED 

STATES OF 

AMERICA

In a fascinating New Yorker article of May 4, 2009,  

So Long Pardner, writer Hendrik Hertzberg gave reality to Gov. Rick Perry's suggestion that Texas might end its association with the United States of America and strike out on its own.

Hertzberg called the potential affiliation of Texas and, "any other parts of the old Confederacy that might wish to accompany it - the Federated States ("Confederate"being a word that remains a little too provocative)." 

So Long Pardner is a must-read article,humorous and scary.

Perhaps Gov. Perry's April 15 "tea party" speech was prompted by prior legislative action in two other states, Georgia and Alaska.

On April 1, 2009, the Georgia State Senate passed Resolution 632 (SR632)[status “Affirming states’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.” The vote was a resounding 43-1, with 12 not voting or excused.

On April 6, 2009, the Alaska House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed House Joint Resolution 27 [HJR27][status page] which “claims sovereignty for the state under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States” The final vote was 37-0, with 3 not voting.

If that piqued your interest you will enjoy these news items. Somewhere in this same time frame the South Dakota house passed a similar resolution, 51-18, and an Oklahoma version passed that state’s house, 83-13, and its state senate, 25-17. Oklahoma’s Democratic governor, Brad Henry, vetoed it, noting dryly in his veto message that it “does not serve the state or its citizens in any positive manner.”

Now for the fun part. From Hertzerg's article, "Although Texas itself has been a net contributor to the Treasury—it gets back ninety-four cents for each dollar it sends to Washington—nearly all the other potential F.S. states, especially the ones whose politicians complain most loudly about the federal jackboot, are on the dole. (South Carolina, for example, receives $1.35 on the dollar, as compared with Illinois’s seventy-five cents.)"

These figures came from The Tax Foundation, a non-profit organization that explains these  numbers as, "Federal Taxes Paid vs. Federal Spending Received by State, 1981-2005."

Further, The Tax Foundation explains, "States send federal taxes to Washington and receive federal spending in return. However, some states benefit more from federal taxing and spending policies than others. Some "beneficiary" states receive a positive return from Uncle Sam, making other states "donors" who pick up the tab. The most important factor determining whether a state is a net beneficiary is per capita income. States with wealthier residents pay higher federal taxes per capita thanks to the progressive structure of the income tax. Other factors include whether states have powerful Members of Congress, the number of federal employees present in a state, and the number of residents receiving Social Security, Medicare and other federal entitlements."

I was concerned that the 2005 figures would surely have changed during this calamitous calendar year so I called William Ahern, Communications Director of The Tax Foundation for help.

His answer: "(In short, we haven't updated the study.)"

 

"The annual project got derailed when the Census went almost 3 years without publishing the Consolidated Federal Funds Report (our source for spending by state). Now they've made up the time with rapid-fire publication of 2 issues and a third to come out shortly. But in the meantime, the economist here who had taken ownership of that project took a job at PriceWaterhouse, and the remaining staff is preoccupied with other projects. However, because those ratios change at a glacial pace, essentially reflecting demographic changes on the spending side, and slowly rising progressivity on the tax side, the '05 data are probably correct for fiscal 08 within a few cents."

10 Biggest Receivers (I added 5 more)

1. New Mexico $2.03

2. Mississippi $2.02

3. Alaska $1.84

4. Louisiana $1.78

5. West Virginia $1.76

6. North Dakota $1.68

7. Alabama $1.66

8. South Dakota $1.53

9. Kentucky $1.51

10. Virginia $1.51

15.Oklahoma $1.36

16. South Carolina $1.35

31. Ohio $1.05

31. Florida $1.04

34. Georgia $1.02

10 Biggest Donators

1. New Jersey $0.61

2. Nevada $0.65

3. Connecticut $0.69

4. New Hampshire $0.71

5. Minnesota $0.72

6. Illinois $0.75

7. Delaware $0.77

8. California $0.78

9. New York $0.79

10. Colorado $0.81

THE PARTY'S OVER

A DATE WITH SARAH PALIN, ARLEN SPECTER & PEGGY NOONAN.

"The Party's Over, it's time to call it a day.

They've burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away. 

It's time to wind up the masquerade.

Just make your mind up the piper must be paid.

The Party's Over.The candles ficker and dim. 

You danced and dreamed through the night, 

it seemed to be right just being with him.

Now you must wake up, all dreams must end.

Take off your make up, The Party's Over.

It's all over, my friend."

("The Party's Over" is a popular song composed by Jule Styne with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.It was introduced in the 1956 musical comedy 

Bells Are Ringing by Judy Holliday.)

In 2008 less than two hours after Peggy Noonan and former McCain advisor Mike Murphy appeared on MSNBC, a YouTube video appeared of their candid exchange in which they dismissed Sarah Palin’s viability as a VP pick. 

Off camera, in reference to Sara Palin, Noonan said,"It's Over" and discussed the "Political Bulls--t" that had occurred. Palin and Specter, at that time, were members of the GOP. Palin is still a favorite of the party right wing. Specter is gone. One less Senatorial vote for the grand old party.

I like Peggy Noonan's comments - the same way I enjoy Dowd, Krauthammer, Krugman, Rich, and Robinson. Her WSJ column of 5/2/09, "Shrink to Win' Isn't Much of a Strategy" goes straight to the point:

"I am wondering once again if Republicans in Washington fully understand what they are up against. They have had a hard week. Someday years hence, when books are written about the Republican comeback, they may well begin with this low moment, and the bolting of Arlen Specter to the Democrats. It is fine to dismiss Mr. Specter as an opportunist, but opportunists tell you something: which side is winning. That's the side they want to be on."

I was a gung ho young Republican in college and a believer into the Nixon years when he targeted a group of Americans who identified with the concept “silent majority” as part of its drive to create a new center-right electoral coalition. It marked the first time a presidential administration had used survey research to disaggregate the electorate for the purpose of coalition building. The silent majority’s members shared a common set of political attitudes, particularly on social and cultural issues. This was the entry point for a set of moral and religious judgements that would fragment the party. It won the election for Nixon. A new GOP coalition entered the party. I left. 40+ years later so did Arlen Specter. Sarah Palin is still there.

 "The party has shifted very far to the right," Specter said, explaining that he isn't ditching the GOP so much as the Pennsylvania GOP is ditching him. The political reality is that he could not win a Republican primary in his home state next year.

Noonan's  column continues," Republicans need less enforcement and more encouragement. The people inside can't always be kicking people out of the tent. A great party cannot live by constantly subtracting, by removing or shunning those who are not faithful to every aspect of its beliefs, or who don't accept every pole, or who are just barely fitting under the tent. Room should be made for them. Especially in those cases when Republican incumbents and candidates are attempting to succeed in increasingly liberal states, a certain practical sympathy is in order.

In the party now there is too much ferocity, and bloody-mindedness. The other day Sen. Jim DeMint said he'd rather have 30 good and reliable conservative senators than 60 unreliable Republicans. Really? Good luck stopping an agenda you call socialist with 30 hardy votes. "Shrink to win": I've never heard of that as a political slogan.

Is it fully mature, and truly protective toward America, to be so politically exclusionary?"

OBAMA IS A CARTOON.

" As for Obama, Thank God for his ears. 

A good-looking president isn't good for cartooning."

PAT OLIPHANT ( from Cartoonists draw blank on Obama By DAVID MARK, POLITICO )

In the morning after a quick scan of the headlines and front page, I head for the opinion page of (at least) the NYT and Washington Post and then the editorial cartoons. Everyone reads the newspaper (or computer screen) in a different sequence. I need my editorial comic "fix". The only remaining "good" comic illustration in newspapers is contained in these frames. We'll discuss the wasted trash on the "funny page" of newspapers in a future blog.

The Chicago Tribune has more editorial Cartoons in one place (online) than any other paper but for quick browsing I prefer The Washington Post. The 9 syndicated editorial cartoonists shown in The Post plus Tom Toles and Ann Telnaes are "top" contenders in the Poison Pen league. They cover the field from right to left. 

My personal favorites are Pat Oliphant and Mike Luckovich. Both are Pulitzer Prize winning artists capable of annihilating politicians globally. Their drawing styles are completely different but they make dramatic use of black and white tones with generous use of cross-hatching techniques to achieve middle values. The Obama face and figure in both of these cartoon panels - for now - is neutral. A spare body frame with big ears and a sun tan. Compare that style to conservative editorial cartoonist Glenn McCoy's rendering of O. His unsparing rendering of big ears, big nose and goofy eyes is brutal.

Ann Telnaes, another Pulitzer winner, adds a delightful animated twist to Editorial Cartoons. Telnaes uses actual sound bites from newscasts. Then, she combines those sound bites with a minimalist rendering of politicos faces, animals, machinery - whatever it takes. A former Disney artist, she combines the limited animation style of the early Hanna-Barbara studio (Yogi Bear, etc) with savage wit.

Mike Peters is a syndicated Editorial Cartoonist and Pulitzer Prize winner from Dayton, OH. Peters has an excellent web site. His drawings are genuinely funny without losing their barbs. Mike uses color very effectively and his site has a very effective archive>farewells which honors people from Dr.Suess to John Denver.

Michael Ramirez is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning, conservative, editorial cartoonist for Investors Business Daily. He was born in Japan and graduated from UC, Irvine. He became interested in editorial cartooning when his first cartoon for the college newspaper, lampooning candidates for student office, had the student assembly demanding an apology. Ramirez is a superb draughtsman and his color cartoons are works of controversial art.

There are scores of other brilliant Editorial Cartoonists and I would appreciate your sending me their names. There are also great illustrators like Ed Sorel, Brad Holland, Barry Blitt and others whose art enlivens The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and the editorial pages and magazine section of The Sunday New York Times and Washington Post. We'll cover them in a future blog.

Finally, back to Obama's ears... the Oliphant quote that begins this blog is a transient statement. As each President's term progresses so do the editorial cartoonists' perception of the man or woman in the cartoon frame - the ears get bigger, the nose gets bigger, the figure grows larger or diminishes in size. Keep watching for things like the war helmet that Gary Trudeau created to represent George W. Bush in his editorial comic strip, Doonesbury.