Why Is Buck McKeon Gung-ho To Allow Insurance Companies To Deny Coverage To People With Pre-existing Conditions?

90% or so of Americans would like to see Congress pass a law to enhance background checks for criminals, terrorists and the mentally-ill before they can purchase a gun. But Republicans have steadfastly refused to even allow a debate, let alone a vote, in the House. Instead, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has scheduled a 37th-- literally-- pointless vote on repealing Obamacare... not on making Obamacare better, which most people would like, but to repeal it, which would require a huge majority in the Senate and a signature from President Obama. So why are Cantor and Boehner wasting everyone's time? It means they don't have to do any real work and, more importantly, is allows freshmen from super red gerrymandered rural districts in the Old Confederacy to have a chance to vote NO as a way of showing lo-info voters back in their district that they're standing up to the illegitimate black usurper in the White House.

The DCCC is making their own political hay out of it. And, I was happy to see that just as they have realized they screwed up by not helping Jim Graves defeat Michele Bachmann in 2010-- and are working to remedy that situation next year-- they seem to have figured out the same dynamic here in the Los Angeles area. Yesterday they sent out a press release tying vulnerable Republican committee chairman Buck McKeon to Cantor's anti-healthcare nonsense.

The Republican Congress will cast its 37th vote this week to put insurance companies back in charge of health care-- will Congressman Buck McKeon go along? House Republicans have Tea Party Caucus Chair Michele Bachmann as their sponsor. Instead of finding smart reforms to our health care system, House Republicans are voting on Tea Party Caucus Chair Michele Bachmann’s bill that refights old ideological battles to take away consumer health care benefits and put insurance companies back in charge of health care.

  House Republicans already voted 36 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act during the last Congress-- costing the taxpayers $50 million.

    If Congressman McKeon votes yes, he will be:

•         Raising prescription drug costs by re-opening the prescription drug donut hole
•         Denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions
•         Ending tax credits for small businesses
•         Kicking children off their parents health care before they turn 26
•         Closing prevention and wellness initiatives that lower costs and improve health
•         Eliminating the cap on health care costs and let people go back into bankruptcy because of health costs

"California families want solutions that lower health care costs and protect consumers but Congressman McKeon’s Republican Congress just wants to refight old ideological battles instead,” said Emily Bittner of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Republicans will vote to put insurance companies back in charge of health care, which will raise prescription drug costs, deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, and even drive people back into bankruptcy because of health care costs--but will Congressman McKeon go along with this backwards plan? Middle class families will clearly suffer if Congressman McKeon puts insurance companies back in charge of health care."

Last November, Lee Rogers won in the Antelope Valley third of McKeon's district and came closer to defeating him than anyone had in his career. Local activists are hoping to persuade Rogers to run again. When we first met him last year, he had an entirely different persepctive on health care policy than McKeon-- although he told us he would have voted against the bill that came to be known as Obamacare.

As a doctor, I see the effects of health policy and health funding on Americans every day. There are several tenets of basic health policy that I believe in. I believe health care is a right, not a privilege. Every American should be able to choose their own doctor or other heath care provider. Insurance portability, allowing you to take your same insurance from job to job, is important. Discrimination for pre-existing conditions must not be allowed.

But this is a deeper problem because our current heath care crisis cannot be separated from our current fiscal crisis. They are one in the same. Health care represents about 23% of the federal budget-- and it’s growing. Part of the increase is because of the aging baby boomers who are requiring more care and part of it relates to the advances in medicine which are more costly. These costs cannot be controlled. Take my specialty, diabetes, for example. Diabetes affects 26 million Americans and an additional 79 million more have “pre-diabetes.” Diabetes alone is responsible for about a third of health spending. In most cases, diabetes is a preventable disease. For the first time in human history, chronic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc.) surpassed infectious diseases (pneumonia, HIV/AIDS, etc.) as the leading causes of death. The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that chronic diseases will cost the world $47 Trillion by 2030. We must get control of chronic diseases, lest we bankrupt ourselves. This problem is not going away in 5, 10, or 15 years. It is a problem that is going to last decades and will be a major draw on the country’s finances.

But there is something that can be done. We can intervene to prevent chronic disease, before they occur, before they become more expensive. We can invest in research to treat disease and prevent complications. We shouldn’t slash the health care budget leaving more people to seek treatment later when the diseases are more advanced and costly.

Many people have asked my opinion on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), or the health reform law. Yes, I am a Democrat, but I’m also a doctor and I would not have voted for the bill. It is about 2700 pages long filled with payoffs to corporations and legislator’s home districts funded by taxpayers. It’s a sad state of affairs when legislators couldn’t care about what’s best for the country, only what pet projects they can get funded so they can fill their re-election coffers.

Certainly the law contains some beneficial provisions, like outlawing exclusions for pre-existing conditions, allowing adult children to stay on parents insurance until age 26, and eliminating lifetime maximums on policies. But there is more bad about the law than good. It creates an executive branch appointed panel to legislate reimbursement decisions by Medicare, instead of Congress. It creates Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), which sounds responsible, but they are really HMOs for Medicare patients without the ability to contain costs that traditional HMOs have. In the few pilot ACOs from around the country, all have lost money.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to repeal the law, but I think that we can take the good parts of it and improve upon them and repeal some of the bad provisions and pork.

One significant cost saving opportunity missed by Congress was failing to allow Medicare Part D (the prescription drug plan) to negotiate medication prices. Why should we pay more for the same medication in the US than they pay in England or in Canada. In effect, we’re subsidizing health care in other wealthy nations.

As I have stated, the health issue is a fiscal issue. We need legislators with the right priorities in Washington. There will have to be shared sacrifice including a combination of cuts and increases in revenue. Irresponsible behavior in Washington caused this debt and we can’t let it solely fall on the backs of our middle class, poor, and seniors by cutting their benefits and raising premiums. That will only lead to a poorer health quality for all, and result in larger expenses down the road. We can’t bury our heads in the sand. Let’s put America first.

The DCCC isn't sending e-mails like that blasting all Republican culprits though (let alone to media in districts with anti-health care Democrats like Jim Matheson and Mike McIntyre). One especially bad Republican they ignored was John Mica in the Orlando area. But the progressive Democrat running against him, Nick Ruiz, isn't ignoring Mica's vile record.

"When John Mica votes with the GOP's plan to roll back the Affordable Care Act, what does it mean? Does he believe that Americans don't need or want it? Most do. Or does he believe that he has a better idea for American healthcare? He doesn't. And he certainly is against other alternatives like single payer care for all. So what is it with representatives like John Mica? And what is it about the GOP? Do they want people to suffer? Do they want illness to go uncared for? There's no logical explanation for their position against expanding insurance coverage for American families. The only question now is-- will American families act to remove people like him and his party from office, because they clearly do not represent the best interests of America."

You can help Nick do that-- here.

UPDATE: DCCC Staffers Seem To Be Making Good Decisions Without Interference From Israel

The DCCC is launching a campaign of robocalls against 10 Republicans who keep voting against Obamacare in blue districts. In the past Steve Israel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz have prevented staffers from launching these kinds of campaigns against their personal Republican friends. This list includes two Republicans the dynamic duo have protected in the past, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ). We'll see if Israel allows the DCCC to follow through with real recruitment efforts and campaigns against these two. The other eight Republicans who are getting the robocalls: Chris Gibson (R-NY), Michael Grimm (R-NY), Jon Runyan (R-NJ), Gary Miller (R-CA), David Valadao (R-CA), Bill Young (R-FL), Joe Heck (R-NV) and Steve Pearce (R-NM). The script people living in Coalinga, Hanford, Delano and in Fresno's southern suburbs are getting: today:

The Republican Congress is scheduled to vote tomorrow to put insurance companies back in charge of your health care and repeal vital consumer protections and benefits that you’ve earned.

And your Congressman might be part of the problem. Tell Congressman Valadao to stand up for middle class families here in California-- and don't help the Republican Congress give insurance companies more control over your life.

We don’t need any more ideological wars in Washington, we need solutions that reduce health care costs and protect consumers. Sadly, Congressman Valadao might deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions, raise prescription drug costs, kick kids off their parents' health care before they turn 26 and even eliminate the cap on health care costs, forcing people into bankruptcy to take care of their families.

That would be a devastating blow to middle class families like yours across the country. Call Congressman David Valadao now at [xxx-xxx-xxxx] and tell him to vote no. Tell him it’s time to move forward and strengthen our health care, not join the partisans in Congress who want to put insurance companies back in charge.

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Dust-Up In Orlando-- Alan Grayson vs John Mica vs Nick Ruiz

The Orlando Metro has 4 congressmen, Corrine Brown (D-FL-05), John Mica (R-FL-07), Alan Grayson (D-FL-09) and Daniel Webster (R-FL-10). These were the election results last November:

• Corrine Brown- 71%
• Alan Grayson- 63%
• Daniel Webster- 52%
• John Mica- 59%

Monday, Lauren Rowe, a feisty, albeit simpleminded, reporter from WKMG, Local 6, invited two of them, Orlando's dynamic duo, Grayson and Mica, on to Flashpoint to discuss the Sequester, which Mica voted for and which Grayson strenuously opposes. "Anybody," Grayson patiently explained to Rowe, "who's looked at this agrees it will cost at least 700,00 jobs nationally and maybe as high as 3 million. At a time when the economy is already weak, slowing recovering-- and could easily double dip into a double dip recession-- I think it's a mistake from any sort of view of economic management... And I'm against it; I voted against it. I've been pretty consistent about that. Remember, we're talking about federal employees. Every one of those jobs is a job in the United States. You give a tax cut to a multinational corporation and the money either ends up in Zurich, Switzerland or it ends up in Singapore or it ends up in Tokyo or Seoul. It hardly ever ends up here creating new jobs in the United States. When you cut federal spending, you're cutting U.S. jobs," he tried explaining to the bobble-head who was already on to the next question someone had written for her about "some seniors who are maybe missing their Meals on Wheels."

Grayson, who Democratic freshmen admiringly call "the Kraken," was like a patient professor trying to make Rowe understand. But she seemed neither capable nor interested. "OK, let's move on to immigration..." She seemed far more deferential to Mica. As you can hear on the video above, Mica regurgitated the stale Republican Party talking points of failed European Austerity. Not on the video, of course, is the actual Democrat who is running against Mica and will replace him as the fourth Orlando congressmember if the DCCC decides to spend money on a real Democrat instead of on a celebrity's sister who publicly bashes unions. We asked Nick Ruiz to take a look at the interview and tell us what Orlando voters would have heard from him instead of Mica. If you like it and would like to help him get into Congress, please consider a contribution on this page. Nick:

"The problems America has come to face are simply not being handled well by people like John Mica. People need higher wages. Mica votes against higher wages. Social Security does not pay enough for retirement purposes. Mica votes to cut Social Security. Government spending per se isn't out of control. The lack of appropriate levels of historic taxation are out of control. Pollution is out of control. Banks are out of control. Military escapades are out of control. People like John Mica are out of control, and left so, continue to unbalance and mismanage the federal affairs of the United States of America to the point where we lag behind nearly all other Western nations on multiple historic measures. That's a fact. John Mica, along with countless other Republicans, and even some horribly unreliable Democrats, have brought about mass American failure. That is their legacy. Be it on education, fair wages, healthcare, the military, energy policy, social justice issues and more. Repeatedly, people like John Mica default to senseless policies of social bigotry and economic hardship, that are breaking the back of our domestic social and economic systems, and have squandered our reputation amongst a world of nations. It's time for him to go. And I look forward to replacing him for you in 2014."

Can you imagine the look on Rowe's face when she has Nick on her show and he let's loose with something like that? Two krakens... better than one.

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104 Republican Congressmen Voted To Reduce Benefits For Seniors And Vets

Looks like somebody stepped in it

The GOP is trying to decide how to best use Obama's screw up on Chained CPI for their own purposes. It's a Republican Party policy that he foolishly adopted for his dead-in-the-water budget at the urging of Boehner and McConnell. When will he ever learn that their ideas are toxic? (That's a rhetorical question; he'll never learn.) But while some Republicans praise the idea or say it doesn't go far enough, the chairman of the NRCC, Greg Walden (R-OR) has decided to use it in an attack against Democrats aimed at seniors and people who expect to be seniors someday. H was quick to run to CNN and tell Wolf Blitzer viewers that "the budget really lays out kind of a shocking attack on seniors, if you will. And we haven't seen all the detail yet, and we'll look at it, but I'll tell you, when you're going after seniors the way he's already done on Obamacare, taking $700 billion out of Medicare to put into Obamacare, and now coming back at seniors again, I think you're crossing that line very quickly here in terms of denying access to seniors for health care in districts like mine, certainly, and around the country. I think he's going to have a lot of pushback from some of the major senior organizations on this and Republicans, as well... you're trying to balance this budget on the backs of seniors and I just think it's not the right way to go."

And yet... and yet... 104 House Republicans already voted for Chained CPI on March 20th, when it was presented as part of the Republican Study Committee's alternative budget. So whatever game Walden wants to try playing, the candidates he's charged with reelecting aren't running against Barack Obama. They're running against Democrats who, in most instances are strongly opposed to Chained CPI, no matter if it's being proposed by Boehner, Obama or a bunch of crackpot extremists. Let's take Buck McKeon, for example. McKeon is an extremist in a moderate suburban Los Angeles area district (CA-25). His likely opponent in 2014 will be Dr. Lee Rogers, one of America's most distinguished podiatric surgeons, a man who already came closer to beating McKeon than anyone else in his career. As soon as Alan Grayson and Mark Takano circulated their letter pledging not to vote for any cuts to benefits for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Rogers announced he would have signed it on the day it was drafted. "As a doctor I am adamantly opposed to cutting benefits to our population in most need. I announced several weeks ago, I would have been a day-one signer of the letter Mark Takano and Alan Grayson authored pledging to protect seniors and veterans from cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits, including chained CPI." So for voters in Santa Clarita, Antelope Valley and Simi Valley, there is a clear choice: McKeon (and Obama) want to cut social security benefits for seniors and veterans using Chained CPI. Rogers is adamantly opposed. 104 Republican incumbents are in the same boat and although most of them are crazy fanatics in gerrymandered blood red districts with constituents as ignorant as they are, there are several, like McKeon, in more precarious political positions.

This is a list of Republicans (with their districts' PVIs) who already voted to reduce benefits for seniors and veterans and could be vulnerable to competent independent-minded Democratic opponents in 2014:

• Justin Amash (R-MI) R+4
• Joe Barton (R-TX) R+11
• Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI) R+4
• Dave Camp (R-MI) R+5
• Steve Chabot (R-OH) R+6
• Ron DeSantis (R-FL) R+9
• Scott Garrett (R-NJ) R+4
• Randy Hultgren (R-IL) R+5
• Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) R+10
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC) R+11
• John Mica (R-FL) R+4
• Steve Pearce (R-NM) R+5
• Robert Pittenger (R-NC) R+8
• Scott Rigell (R-VA) R+2
• Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) R+7
• Pete Sessions (R-TX) R+10
• Lee Terry (R-NE) R+4
• Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) R+8

There are Democrats serving in Congress in districts with PVIs higher than these. It won't be easy for any of them, but it's not impossible either. The Democrats running against these guys-- and every one of them is a male (even Patrick McHenry and Dave Camp)-- have an opponent who voted to cut Social Security for seniors and vets. They did it already. That should be what the election in those districts are about.

Two of the Democrats in the Blue America Save Social Security contest, Nick Ruiz and Ken Sanders, are in that sweet spot, respectively running against John Mica and Joe Barton. As you can see, each is already running against Chained CPI and other unfair cuts their opponents back. Sanders has a message that will resonate in the suburbs between Dallas and Ft Worth, maybe even down in Waxahachie, Midlothian, Ennis and Corsicana:

"We cannot balance the budget on the backs of seniors, veterans, and our nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Our Social Security system is critical to protecting middle class families, and we cannot allow it to be dismantled one inch. Chained CPI, cutting Social Security, is a terrible idea and a pointless exercise. Besides, Social Security isn't in serious trouble. The Social Security trust fund is flush for at least two decades. If we want to ensure it's there beyond that, there's an easy fix-- just lift the ceiling on income subject to Social Security taxes, which is now $113,700. This way people making above $113,700 will pay like everyone else does, is a far better way of keeping Social Security secure long into the future. We need Congressional leaders who support middle class families, seniors and veterans; those who have helped make this nation great. I will fight to defend social security from Chained CPI. Seniors spend 20-40% of their income on healthcare. Two-thirds of seniors rely on Social Security for most of their income; one-third relies on it for at least 90% of their income. These people aren’t stashing their Social Security checks in the Cayman Islands and buying vacation homes in Aruba-- they are hanging on by their fingernails to their place in the middle class. Right now, corporate profits are at an all time high, the wealthy are doing phenomenally well and we must not balance the budget on the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in this country. Support me and I will be your voice in Washington to fight against Chained CPI and any other cut that threatens the shrinking middle class families of this country."

Nick Ruiz is running in the suburbs just north of Orlando-- Winter Park, Altamonte Springs, Oviedo, Maitland, Apopka, and all the way up to Deltona and Orange City. He'd make a great neighbor for Alan Grayson, who represents the suburbs on the other side of Orlando. They sure see eye to eye on protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Ruiz: "I would never vote to diminish Social Security benefits.These benefits cover retirees, widows, children, disabled persons and veterans-- none of whom receive enough as it is by current economic standards of reasonable cost, inflation and common decency. In fact, it's part of my platform to actually increase Social Security benefits, financed by lifting the FICA cap, and Wall Street cost-sharing. My GOP opponent, John Mica wants to CUT Social Security benefits and make seniors retire even later in life, at 70 years of age. It's unacceptable. Help me stop him."

If you'd like to vote in our contest, just contribute at least one dollar to one of the anti-Chained CPI candidates on this page. The candidate who gets the most donors wins $1,000 from the Blue America PAC and everyone who donates is eligible to win an RIAA-certified platinum award for the eponymous 311 album. Win-win!

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