Well I have been reading through the Boehner Amendment to HR3962 and it is worse than I could have imagined. In fact it is a fricking nightmare. Someone tell me I have got this wrong. Or remove all sharp objects within my reach. Because they cannot be this brazen.
http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_h r3962_boehner_sub.pdf

It starts innocently enough. Under Title II of the Boehner amendment employers are allowed to auto-enroll employees in any plan they choose. Employees can opt out but as near as I can see employers have no further obligation. Okay that's not good, but not much different than today.

Title III introduces a ringer. Although the Title is called Expanding Choices by Allowing Americans to Buy Health Care Coverage Across State Lines what it really means is that insurers can simply pick any state they like as their 'primary state' and be governed almost entirely by its rules in selling into 'secondary states'. Okay that is really not good, think how many credit card companies are officially based in South Dakota because of its lenient laws. But now things get nightmarish. See extended entry.

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(from) democraticparty@democrats.org: 10/1/09

(to)Poorbensjournal

Ben --

After decades of fighting to dismantle Medicare, GOP leaders like Senator Jon Kyl are taking to the airwaves with a cynical campaign of deception about how health reform will affect Medicare.

Kyl, one of the top Republicans in the Senate, has claimed that reform would cause the rationing of care for America's seniors. It's a claim that both AARP (which represents over 40 million seniors) and the non-partisan fact-check website PolitiFact have repeatedly debunked as absolutely false.

But it's no surprise that Senator Kyl has resorted to lying and scaring seniors to block reform. After all, he has publicly stated that insurance companies don't need to be "kept honest," and he even opposes requiring them to provide coverage without discriminating against pre-existing conditions.

Senator Kyl, we've had enough of the fear-mongering and lies -- we're calling you out.

Call 'em out: Jon Kyl. Watch the video, spread the word, make a call.

Contrary to Kyl's claims, reform would help seniors who are still paying too much for prescription drugs, while making Medicare more efficient and more financially-secure in the long-run.

But his lies don't end at Medicare. He's claimed that comparative effectiveness research (a key tool to increase quality of care while lowering costs) would lead to rationing, another claim clearly debunked by the independent FactCheck.org.

Kyl has also claimed that the debt from health reform would not be sustainable, even though President Obama has promised not to  sign a bill that adds to the deficit -- and even though Republican Senator Olympia Snowe has said the Senate Finance committee bill will be deficit neutral.

And, of course, Kyl has trotted out that most-debunked of lies, that reform will result in a government takeover of health care. No independent observer is buying that one.

Kyl's lies add up to a clear plan to score political points by tanking reform that Americans need. So, together, it's time to give Senator Kyl the same treatment as Rep. John Boehner and Gov. Tim Pawlenty before him: It's time to call him out.

http://www.democrats.org/CallOutKyl

Keep up the fight,

Jen

Jen O'Malley Dillon
Executive Director
Democratic National Committee

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Senate Minority Leader McConnell and House Republican Leader Boehner released near duplicate statements today that sent a clear signal to President-elect Obama and Congressional Democrats that Republican leadership has no inclination to be honest partners with the new administration.  Despite all the right words, like "bipartisan" and working "across the aisle", they quickly dissolved into just another round of talking points, filled with veiled slurs and innuendo.

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Does anyone else think that John Boehner, at least in part, engineered the ouster of Dennis Hastert from the speakership following the Mark Foley page scandal?

Was a chain of evidence ever established from Mark Foley to Scott Palmer, Hastert's Chief of Staff?

The events I saw in the fall of 2006 following that scandal always struck me as a political coup d'etat within the Republican leadership.

The ethics bill is the first of the 100 Hours bills, and therefore the first chance we have to gauge the legislative performance of the Dem leadership in the 110th House.

In substance, presentation and every which way, the ethics bill will set the tone.

The Timesyesterday had news both potentially good and potentially bad.

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