Health Care Bill: Congress won’t pledge to read it, won’t allow people to read or hear about it September 26, 2009

Don't Get Mad Because You Can't Read the Healthcare Bill Yourself

Some people may want to know about the pending health care legislation.  Well, don’t expect your healthcare provider to tell you what it thinks.  According to the Democrat House Majority Leader,  don’t expect your elected official to read the bill before they vote on it.  And after a recent Senate Finance Committee vote, don’t expect to be able to read the bill yourself before its voted on.

People in Humana Building Not Allowed to Opine to Customers

Recently, Humana sent out a letter to many of its elderly customers that included the following statement: “While these programs need to be made more efficient, if the proposed funding cut levels become law, millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable.”   Needless to say, the US Department of Housing and Human Services wasn’t happy and HHS sent out a letter to Humana and other insurance carriers demanding that they stop sending such letters, claiming that it was misleading.  The letter threatened legal action.  So, the insurance company says that the bill in question would cut services to Senior Citizens and that charge has been made publically by many people.  HHS and others disagree.  But, the Republicans view the letter as a “gag order” and object on the grounds that it is violating the constitutional right to free speech. The GOP is threatening to block any appointments to HHS until the “gag order” is lifted. 

Hoyer Laughed At Suggestion Lawmakers Be Required to Read Bills Before Voting

President Obama had pledged a transparent government and said while campaigning that his administration would post any bill before Congress on the internet for at least 5 days so that the American people could read it.   It’s called the “sunlight pledge” and many critics say that the pledge was broken just weeks after the administration took office.   After the bailout vote in 2008 when it was learned that members of Congress did not have time to read the legislation, many Americans thought that lawmakers should at least read a bill before they vote for or against it.  Recently, a reported asked House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer if Congress would make a pledge to read the health care reform bill before they signed it.  Hoyer laughed at the idea of members of Congress pledging to read a bill before it is voted upon.   He said that,  “If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,”  Ask yourself what that says about our elected officials. 

Snowe: What's the Rush?

The Republicans have been offering several amendments to the bill.   The Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have voted against the GOP amendments might saying that they would delay a vote on the proposal which is not scheduled to even take effect until 2012.  One of Maine’s Republican Senators is Olympia Snowe and she is one who often breaks party ranks in her voting record.  However, she questioned why there was such a rush to vote on the bill saying, ”If it takes two more weeks, it takes two more weeks.  We’re talking about trillions of dollars in the final analysis. What is the rush?” 

 One of the amendments that was defeated would have required that the bill be posted on the internet 72 hours prior to a vote.  I suppose that since Hoyer says that most in Congress won’t read the bill before they vote that they don’t want any Americans reading the bill before its voted on either.    However, a bi-partisan effort is going on in the House that would require all legislation to be posted on the internet 3 days prior to a vote.

Can’t hear about it, can’t read it and no one else will read it, but it will get voted on.  Just exactly what it is they are voting on seems to be destined to remain a mystery to everyone.

Weather Bottom Line:  When you have low clouds and fog, its a very stable atmosphere.  On paper, the data claims that there will be some sunshine this afternoon.  That would help to stir things up a bit.  Now, the GFS and the NAM both do not advertise any rain until the evening and overnight period and even then, its not much.  But, the SPC has observed a shortwave rotating around the flow ahead of a frontal system and so they have put a small area for a slight risk of severe weather from Louisville to the bootheel of Missouri.  So, I’d say that there will be more clouds more often than sunshine and the rain chances really don’t go up until the evening and carry until early Sunday morning.  We should see plenty of sunshine with pleasant temperatures and relatively low humidity on Sunday.  A second push of cooler, drier air comes through early Monday morning.  Both the NAM and the GFS advertise another round of showers.  Then it would appear that most forecast outlets are coming around to what I’ve been saying all along with highs for the first part of the week probably not making  it to the low 70′s and the overnight lows finding the 40′s to be a very popular number.  Upper 30′s for the northern part of the viewing area will not be out of the question by Tuesday morning.  Fall is here.

Are a you against HR 3200, or against Health Care Reform in General? Hurricane Forecast Reformed August 13, 2009

This Screaming Angry Lady is For Health Care Reform, is she un-American for her passion?

Are you against Healthcare Reform?  Snow White and I were on a trip and I listened to satellite radio most of the time in the car.  The topic on all of the news stations was Health Care.  Alan Colmes was interesting because he accused the protesters of being uncivil because they shout down their opponents then he proceeded to shout down any caller who disagreed.  I spoke with a friend of mine who runs a business.  Previously, he said that when his taxes get raised, he’s going to let some employees go because he’s not going to make less money.  Perhaps a real-life example of true consequences.  Anyway, we were discussing the health care plan and he pointed out that the president says that you can keep your health care coverage if you like it.  But, he will be offered an incentive to cancel his coverage for his employees.  If he does not offer health care, then he simply pays a 10% fee, which is cheaper to him than covering his employees.  So, there will be a number of companies that will end that benefit to save on the bottom line and force their employees into the public option.  There are those that say page 16 of the plan says that you can keep your coverage but the insurance companies cannot sign up any new people to that plan.  Thus, eventually there will be no one with that coverage and any new employees will be forced into the public option.  You can read HR Bill 3200 here to draw your own conclusion.  Then there is the argument that President Obama created when he pointed out how well FedEx and UPS do in competing with the US Postal Service.  First off, it shows and government operation that does more poorly than the private sector so why would we expect health care to be done better by the government.  Further, it also illustrates that the government can operate at a loss and still stay in business which means that the government has an unfair competitive advantage over the private sector that cannot stay in business if it loses money year after year. 

These people oppose the Bill does that mean they are against health care reform or just this bill? Are they more un-American than other protesters?

 But, this raises the question of whether it is right to call someone un-American or label them against health care reform just because they don’t like this particular bill or the proposals of others. Many people suggest that they agree that there needs to be reform, but they would favor Tort Reform and removal of prevention of availability of health care plans between states.  The argument is that it would lower costs and create more competition which would lower costs.  As it is now, you can’t go to another state for coverage like you can with auto insurance and there is no provision for tort reform in the current bill.  Still others say that if you want government health care, it should just be for those who are unemployed or do not have access to health care and that is all.  If someone is against this bill, does that mean that they are against health care reform?  With all of the tumult, why not send Congress back to the drawing board to come up with a plan that is more popular with more people?

TD 2 12Z 08.13.09 Spaghetti Model

TD 2 12Z 08.13.09 Intesity Spaghetti Model

Dr. William Gray and Dr. Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University revised their predictions for the 2009 Hurricane Season downward again, which is not suprising since an El Nino developed a few months ago.  When there is an El Nino, the Atlantic tends to have more frequent periods of strong westerly upper level winds that are hostile to tropical cyclone development and maintanance.  In my mind though, the latest prediction remains pretty aggressive considering that as of this writing, there has not been a single named tropical cyclone.  Nevertheless, the Colorado State tropical weather experts forecast 11 named storms with 5 of those storms becoming hurricanes.  They say that this is below average, yet up to a few years ago, the average was something like 10 storms and 6 hurricanes.  I suppose the increased activity of the past several years has raised the average.  The National Hurricane Center also revised their forecast downward and calls for a 50-50 chance of a near normal season.  Really going out on a limb.  They have a 40% probability than fewer than average storms in the North Atlantic. 

Invest 90 Spaghetti Model

Invest 90 Intensity Spaghetti model

Still, there have been no named storms in the North Atlantic and we’re heading into the heart of the Hurricane Center.  In my mind, it is not surprising that the forecast was revised downward, but that it wasn’t lower than it was initially and that it continues to be as high as it is.

Anyway, the past week is probably the most active time we’ve seen all year.  There have been a couple of strong tropical waves coming off of Africa and there are a few areas of disturbed weather in the  Caribbean.  The two waves have the best potential.  The first is the second tropical depression of the season.  The general direction forecast by a majority of the models is for this guy to move west northwest and then eventually curve into the Central Atlantic.  There is probably a better chance for it to affect Bermuda than it is the United States.  The second one (Invest 90)  has a forecast track that is more westerly and may be more of a threat.  In both cases,  the majority of the models make them tropical storms with a few outliers calling for hurricane development down the road. The others in the Caribbean probably won’t pose much of a problem as conditions aren’t too good, but they bear watching.

Weather Bottom Line:  The front is way to our south and will stay there.  Look for dry conditions with warm afternoons in the upper 80′s and lows fairly comfortable in the 60′s with relatively low humidity.  We should slowly become more uncomfortable as we head into the weekend with increasing humidity.