Another week, another salvo of Health Care news. 

The latest polling shows public support of the Democrat health care proposals at a record low:

Just 41% of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and the lowest level of support yet measured.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% are opposed to the plan. 

Most pundits are focusing on the new plan for health care reform proposed by Sen. Baucus.

An unsigned editorial appearing in the Wall Street Journal reveals a big problem in the new plan:

The more we inspect Max Baucus's health-care bill, the worse it looks. Today's howler: One reason it allegedly "pays for itself" over 10 years is because it would break all 50 state budgets by permanently expanding Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor.

Democrats want to use Medicaid to cover everyone up to at least 133% of the federal poverty level, or about $30,000 for a family of four. Starting in 2014, Mr. Baucus plans to spend $287 billion through 2019—or about one-third of ObamaCare's total spending—to add some 11 million new people to the Medicaid rolls.

About 59 million people are on Medicaid today—which means that a decade from now about a quarter of the total population would be on a program originally sold as help for low-income women, children and the disabled. State budgets would explode—by $37 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office—because they would no longer be allowed to set eligibility in line with their own decisions about taxes and spending. This is the mother—and father and crazy uncle—of unfunded mandates.

Not only is the bill problematic in the ways outlined above, but the legislators who are tasked with debating and fixing such problems are essentially operating in the dark! This is what I mean:

During the mark-up in the Senate Finance Committee, the Committee defeated an Amendment by Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) that would have required the bill’s text and price tag be made publicly available on the Committee’s website for at least 72 hours before the Committee could vote on the bill. The Committee debated a document that was an outline of the bill, not the actual legislative text, and some Senators actually want to read the bill before they vote on it.

It is simply an outrage that one of the most important legislative decisions in recent history may be debated and voted upon in committee by individuals who have not even seen the the text of the proposal!

Gadhafi gives his assessment of the Lockerbie situation:

[Gadhafi] said he believed Mr. al-Megrahi's release, and the billions of dollars paid out by his government to the Lockerbie victims' families, could now allow U.S.-Libyan relations to move forward. "As a case, the Lockerbie question: I would say it's come to an end, legally, politically, financially, it is all over," Col. Gadhafi, wearing black boots and an ankle-length cape, said. "I would say, thank Allah that this problem has been solved to the satisfaction of all parties. We all feel the pain for such a tragedy."

Family members of the Lockerbie victims voiced outrage Thursday that Col. Gadhafi was allowed to visit New York this week, in the Libyan leader's first trip to the U.S. following decades of conflict with Washington. (Wall Street Journal)

From our APP press release of yesterday:

While US officials continue to block the release of transcripts detailing the communications between Scotland, the United Kingdom and the United States leading up to the release of the "Lockerbie bomber" Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the American Principles Project (APP) delivered a coalition letter to the House and Senate Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees, seeking full transparency in the affair.

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI #11), chairman of the Republican policy committee has also initiated a "Dear Colleague" letter which will be circulated on the Hill today.

[Read the full press release here.]

Special thanks to the Weekly Standard for noting our ongoing efforts, and to the almost twenty organizations that have co-signed on to our coalition letter thus far.

If you want to get involved with our efforts to hold the administration to its promises, visit our APIA action center where you can write your representatives and ask that they get on board as well.

David Montero writes:

Although US President Barack Obama pledged to close the controversial military prison at Guantanamo Bay within a year of taking office, administration officials now say they are unlikely to meet that deadline due to a series of political complexities and lack of foresight.

In addition, after a review of existing Congressional legislation, the administration decided it has the legal authority to hold indefinitely terrorism suspects even when they cannot be charged with a crime, a stance which echoes that of the Bush administration.

The story was originally broken by the Washington Post:

To address these setbacks, the administration has shifted its leadership team on the issue. White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig, who initially guided the effort to close the prison and who was an advocate of setting the deadline, is no longer in charge of the project, two senior administration officials said this week.

Craig said Thursday that some of his early assumptions were based on miscalculations, in part because Bush administration officials and senior Republicans in Congress had spoken publicly about closing the facility. "I thought there was, in fact, and I may have been wrong, a broad consensus about the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives," he said.

Where could he have picked up this idea?

Incompetence is not a good approach to national security.

Andrew McCarthy at NRO:

... The Obama administration has notified Congress of the State Department's intention to contribute $400,000 to foundations run by Muammar Qaddafi's two children — $200,000 each for daughter Aisha and son Saif. Saif, you may recall, is the son who escorted the Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi home to a hero's welcome in Libya after President Obama sternly "warned" Qaddafi that there was to be no hero's welcome.

Illinois Republican congressman Mark Steven Kirk (House Appropriations Subcommittee on State/Foreign Operations) has sent Obama a letter asking him to rescind the funding.

Could somebody please tell this president that this is not just Annenberg Foundation cash he's passing out to his personal terrorist pals like Bill Ayers but American taxpayer dollars he's doling out to the terrorist tyrant behind the murder — in just that one incident — of 270 people, including 189 Americans.

Yesterday the Senate unanimously voted to condemn the release of the Lockerbie bomber:

The Senate has unanimously condemned the release of the Libyan terrorist convicted in Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie and called upon Libya to apologize for celebrating his return.

The symbolic step came as Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The resolution was approved by unanimous voice vote.

The bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 killed 270 people, including 189 Americans. A Scottish magistrate ordered the release last month of convicted terrorist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi (AHB'-dehl BAH'-seht ahl-meh-GRAH'-hee), diagnosed with fatal prostate cancer. He was greeted by thousands of cheering Libyans upon his arrival, infuriating the victims' families. (AP)

While a good move, this does not serve to answer the outstanding domestic questions.

Currently it appears that the Senate is poised to debate health care before the House does. Here is where the Senate-side bill created by Sen. Baucus stands in committee:

"Though the revised Baucus bill fixes one concern, it does not tackle the list of problems pro-life organizations have with the bill and all of those abortion subsidy concerns remain.

"The bill contains provisions that would send massive federal subsidies directly to both private insurance plans and government-chartered cooperatives that pay for elective abortion," Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee previously explained.

"In addition, the Baucus bill requires that a specific charge must be included in the premiums paid by those who enroll in such subsidized plans, of at least '$1 per enrollee, per month,' which amounts to a surcharge specifically for elective abortions," he said. "The Baucus bill provides $6 billion in federal funds for the establishment of health insurance cooperatives, without any limitation on the use of these funds to pay for abortions or to subsidize plans that pay for elective abortions."

To fix these problems, pro-life senators have proposed a handful of amendments that the committee will vote on as soon by Friday, but possibly as soon as today." (LifeNews)

Here are the members of the Senate finance committee:

DEMOCRATS:

MAX BAUCUS, MT
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV
KENT CONRAD, ND
JEFF BINGAMAN, NM
JOHN F. KERRY, MA
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR
RON WYDEN, OR
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY
DEBBIE STABENOW, MI MARIA CANTWELL, WA
BILL NELSON, FL
ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ
THOMAS CARPER, DE

REPUBLICANS:

CHUCK GRASSLEY, IA
ORRIN G. HATCH, UT
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, ME
JON KYL, AZ
JIM BUNNING, KY
MIKE CRAPO, ID PAT ROBERTS, KS JOHN ENSIGN, NV
MIKE ENZI, WY
JOHN CORNYN, TX

The US Capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121. They will connect you to your Senator's office.

The pro-life amendments being voted on soon are numbers 354, 355, 426, 427, 428 and 353.

From the UK Mirror:

President Barack Obama is ready to repair relations with Scotland following the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

A spokesman for the US State Department said the White House was "looking to move on".

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, was freed on compassionate grounds from the life term he was serving at Greenock prison.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to free the only man convicted of the bombing provoked international outrage.

President Obama condemned the early release as "a mistake".

But Glenn Campbell, of the US State Department told the BBC's Newsnight: "I don't think it's a matter of forgiving anybody. I think at this point we're looking to move on.

"I think all along we recognised that Mr MacAskill had the right to do what he did.

"We're looking to continue the important co-operation that we have with the UK and Scotland."

He added: "We have deep ties with Scotland and we're looking to continue this relationship."

How strange for the state department to recommend sweeping this issue under the rug. Why would we want to move on before all the facts are known? How does this respect the victims of Pan Am 103? Are they ready to "move on" as well?

As for US-UK relations, Mr. Obama will not meet with Gordon Brown while they are both in New York for the United Nations General Assembly or the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.

While the media has particularly focused on the reaction of the Obama administration to the release, little attention has been paid to British officials who are claiming - off the record at this point - to be dissapointed that the US government has so vocally protested the release even though they knew for some time it was coming.

I received an urgent action alert for a worthy cause:

Senator Hatch (R-UT) has introduced an amendment into the Senate health care reform bill to reinstate Title V Abstinence Education funding for FY2010. This amendment will be offered this week in the Senate Finance Committee.

More on why this is a good thing:

Recent research analysis demonstrates that school based abstinence education is more successful in positive behavior change than so-called "comprehensive" sex education.

Because the vote will be tomorrow it is important to be active in letting your Senators know how you feel now. Phone calls are the most effective way to let them know your opinion. The US Capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121. They can connect you directly to your Senator's office.

Here are the Senators who will be voting on this issue tomorrow (so call today!):

Democrats
MAX BAUCUS, MT
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV
KENT CONRAD, ND
JEFF BINGAMAN, NM
JOHN F. KERRY, MA
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR
RON WYDEN, OR
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY
DEBBIE STABENOW, MI
MARIA CANTWELL, WA
BILL NELSON, FL
ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ
THOMAS CARPER, DE

Republicans
CHUCK GRASSLEY, IA
ORRIN G. HATCH, UT
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, ME
JON KYL, AZ
JIM BUNNING, KY
MIKE CRAPO, ID
PAT ROBERTS, KS
JOHN ENSIGN, NV
MIKE ENZI, WY
JOHN CORNYN, TX

More information is available at the National Abstinence Education Association website.

Mr. Obama appears to be engaging in another case of fact-avoidance:

Only one of the five television networks that interviewed President Obama for their Sunday shows bothered to ask him about Acorn, the left-wing community organizing group whose federal funding was cut off last week by an overwhelming vote in Congress.

"Frankly, it's not something I've followed closely," Mr. Obama claimed, adding he wasn't even aware the group had been the recipient of significant federal funding. "This is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to," he said.

Mr. Obama added that an investigation of Acorn was appropriate after an amateur hidden-camera investigation had found Acorn offices willing to abet prostitution, but he carefully declined to say whether he would approve a federal cutoff of funds to the group.

Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. (WSJ)

Mr. Obama at the United Nations General Assembly today, on "climate change":

It's deeply disturbing to see our President using disputed science to scare people into accepting "climate change" proposals which would further cripple our weakened economy. Excuse me but it is not "morally inexcusable not to act." Local ecology is one thing, but reducing "greenhouse gases" is a monumental task which, even according to the scientific consensus, may not reduce global warming, even if it is human-caused. More on Mr. Obama's address to the UNGA here.

Others have begun making the general point that the weakened US economy is diminishing our ability to do good internationally.

Current federal bans on nuclear power and off-shore drilling continue to diminish the potential of America to be energy independent and provides billions upon billions of dollars to regimes which are opposed to American principles.

Michael New on the religion-in-politics beat:

It seems that any concerns about abortion raised by Catholic Left groups like Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United are nothing more than rhetorical arm-waving. Technically both groups are nominally pro-life, but neither group has once criticized the Obama administration for pursuing policies which undermine the sanctity of human life, such as rescinding the Mexico City policy, repealing the Dornan Amendment, and ending the federal ban on funding on embryonic-stem-cell research.

However, health-care reform is more visible than some of these other initiatives. Furthermore, there is a good chance that if health-care reform is passed, the Department of Health and Human Services will be issuing reimbursements for abortions. To fend off future criticism, the Catholic Left probably saw a need to issue some statements to purchase itself some political cover. (NRO)

Michael Barone argues that they are so because of their experience of homogeneous liberal education:

I would submit that the president's call for an end to "bickering" and the charges of racism by some of his supporters are the natural reflex of people who are not used to hearing people disagree with them and who are determined to shut them up.

This comes naturally to liberals educated in our great colleges and universities, so many of which have speech codes whose primary aim is to prevent the expression of certain conservative ideas and which are commonly deployed for that purpose. (For examples, see the Website of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which defends students of all political stripes.) Once the haven of free inquiry and expression, academia has become a swamp of stifling political correctness.

Similarly, the "mainstream media" -- the old-line broadcast networks, The New York Times, etc. -- present a politically correct picture of the world. The result is that liberals can live in a cocoon, an America in which seldom is heard a discouraging word. Conservatives, in contrast, find themselves constantly pummeled with liberal criticism, on campus, in news media, and in Hollywood TV and movies. They don't like it, but they've gotten used to it. Liberals aren't used to it and increasingly try to stamp it out.

Where are we now, according to the numbers?

Rasmussen Reports "Opposition to Health Care Plan Hits New High of 56%":

Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide now oppose the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the highest level of opposition yet measured and includes 44% who are Strongly Opposed.
Just 43% now favor the proposal, including 24% who Strongly Favor it.

Amazingly, not even all those who are currently uninsured support the plan:

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters without health insurance favor passage of the health care plan proposed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 504 uninsured voters found that 35% are opposed. (Rassmussen) 

Such a background may explain House minority leader John Boehner's recent comments:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Sunday that the health-care plan that President Barack Obama is pushing in Congress is now dead and will not pass.
 
Boehner made the observation in an interview this morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he appeared after President Obama.

“There’s been no bipartisan conversation on Capitol Hill about health care,” Boehner said in an interview with "Meet the Press" host David Gregory. “At some point when these big government plans fail—and they will, the Congress will not pass this—it’s really time for the president to hit the reset button, just stop all of this and let’s sit down and start over in a bipartisan way to build a plan that Americans will support.”

“So you think the plan is dead?” asked Gregory.

“I think it is,” said Boehner. (CNSNews.com)

Rumors of the demise of Mr. Obama's health care reform plan, however, I fear are greatly exaggerated.

APP's Quote-of-the-day:

"Our own royalty, somebody who we have become so extraordinarily proud of, somebody who I've just come to adore, and who is somebody who's going to make us proud for many, many years to come, because she's not term-limited, the newest justice of the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor." - President Barack Obama

Hat tip: The Blog of the Courtier (with commentary).

From a blog which catalogs the press conferences of the UK Prime Minister. This comment from a September 1st news conference which only just now came to my attention:

Asked if the Prime Minister had received any direct protest from the White House, the PMS [Prime Minister’s Spokesman] said no, not that he was aware of, but the Prime Minister had regular discussions with the President. The special relationship between the UK and the US was extremely important and robust.

"No direct protest"? And yet the President and Prime Minister were in regular discussions.

So what did Mr. Obama say when al-Megrahi came up in conversation with the Prime Minister?

Vicky Ward, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, writes in the Huffington Post that the "air hanging over Britain and Scotland stinks of something rotten" and that we "'can't go hard" enough in retrieving all the facts" about the "Lockerbie cover-up."

I wonder if Ms. Ward is aware that our own government is keeping us from learning "all the facts" she believes deserve to be uncovered. They refuse to release all the records of their correspondence with the Scottish government.

Ward's interview focuses on the US side of Lockerbie in one paragraph:

Meanwhile the US is still reeling from what it sees as outright betrayal from its oldest ally. When I spoke to the Justice Department last week I could almost hear the fury down the phone line. Was it true, I asked, that though the American government knew the Scots were making some sort of decision about moving Megrahi -- against strong protests from FBI director Mueller, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder -- they were only actually apprised of MacAskill's final decision ten minutes before he stood up to make the announcement on August 20th? The response I got was terse. "We won't deny that."

Now it seems strange for a reporter to interpret the emotions of the person she is interviewing over the phone. Was that anonymous individual actually angry at what the Scottish government did? If so, why was he or she angry?

Second, the non-denial affirmation ("We won't deny that") uttered by this anonymous individual about a very specific question - does that pass journalistic muster? Why would we think that we have learned anything more reliable about what the justice department knew, and when?

If the justice department was indeed only informed about the release of al-Megrahi "ten minutes" before the public announcement was made, what is keeping the justice department from telling us that on the record, with (justified) anger in their voice?

Today is Constitution Day. Senator Orrin Hatch reminds us about what that means:

On this day, 222 years ago, 12 state delegations approved the new Constitution of the United States and 39 of the 42 convention delegates signed it. They sent it to the states for ratification, the act that would make it the supreme law of the land. It is worth focusing on just what the Constitution actually is.

[Read on.]

David Freddoso:

The House of Representatives just voted overwhelmingly to de-fund ACORN, 345-75. The vote came on a Republican motion to recommit the educational loan bill. As a result, the anti-ACORN provision made it into the House-passed bill.

Here are the last names of all 75 congressmen who voted to preserve ACORN's stream of funding.

Evidently someone got to Pelosi and let her know what was going on. She was recently surprised to find out the Senate had defunded the corrupt organization.

The National Right to Life Committee has begun vetting the new bill proposed by Sen. Baucus:

With respect to rationing, the proposal contains a Medicare provision that, beginning in 2015, would severely financially penalize physicians who are in the top 10% of medical resource use.  This provision does not link funding to outcomes or quality; instead, it will force a "race to the bottom" with relentless pressure on doctors to limit health care for their older patients.  On top of the significant Medicare cuts in the bill, this will gravely endanger the lives of America's senior citizens.
 
The bill does contain language to prevent the use of comparative effectiveness analysis in a manner that would discriminatorily deny treatment because of age, disability, or terminal illness; however, this language would not affect the financial incentive to ration care as described above.
 
There are other places in the bill where the Secretary of Health and Human Services is given discretion to regulate the treatment that healthcare providers can give to their patients.  - David N. O'Steen, Ph.D., NRLC executive director