I think there is a noise level that is being paid for with the Million Dollars a day that the Heath Insurance Companies are spending to retain there high profits. Yes they only return 60% of your premium in medical care. In contrast Medicare returns over 90% pleas explain how that makes America stronger.

If you think the phone town hall was phony you also believe in Death Panels.

I called McNerney office and a field rep was at my office the next week. The following week McNerney sat in my office with 2 other Small Business owners to answer our concerns. That's the best and most honest response I have gotten from a public servant in 40 years. If you wanted to talk to Pombo you better have made a very large contribution to his campaign. Oh yea, he is rated as the 13th most corrupt congressman in his term

I wrote origianl phone(y) town hall mtg letter to the TP editor, and since wrote TP because I was disconnected twice from the phony townhall mtg. I didn't even get to listen to what was said, just told to call my questions to one of McNerney's offices. I feel so disenfranchized. I really just wanted to have a dialogue with my congressman, not attack him. But I'm now convinced he has no intention of dialogue with his constituents. He will vote along his party lines no matter how destructive it is for the taxpayers of America. I will remember. CONGRESSMAN MCNERNEY THIS IS YOUR FIRST AND LAST TERM IN OFFICE, ENJOY IT. I WILL WORK FOR YOUR ELECTION DEFEAT.

Jerry McNerney,

I don't have health care insurance and really don't want to pay for YOUR "plan". It seems like a way to squeeze some additional monies out of us. And I don't have a lot more to give. I wonder if you could tell us, why should I have to pay for someone else's healthcare? Yes, please stop for a minute to explain. And why are Democrats suddenly interested in listening to businesses? When did Democrats listen to businesses. Democrats always claimed they we were the party for the American People.

Things have changed with the Democrats. Recently the Democrats, along with yourself, appear to be sidelining the American people in favor listening to business and other special interest groups. It's very sad to see this happen to the American people.

Democrat appear all to eager to push Nancy's agendas through and seem to be making the mistake of taking on far too many issues at one time. The current "Career Congress" is costing us a staggering multiple trillions, of trillions, of trillions of dollars. If not multiple trillions more. Why don't we pause for a moment and see if that makes sense? Why is it Congress won't go to work on the economy first?

Let's humanize this. My neighbor can't go to work becuse of the economy and has been unemployed for over eight months. Why can't Congres understand people like my neighbor want a strong economy first? Let's get back to the idea of making America a place where we all have a job to do and clearly understand what that job is.

While we're at it. Let's not focus on too many issues at a single time. When you do that we lose focus. It doesn't seem clear that Democrats like yourself, are being inclusive of the public's input on some issues of importance to the American people.

Honestly, I feel democrats are making the same mistake the Clinton administration did by not including everyone in a healthcare debate. A good example is your "phoney town-hall meeting".

I also don't see businesses as being the right venue to USE to push health care reform on voters who are getting little or no say in the issue. Bring the issue to the people (not businesses and special interests) and let the people who have health insurance be the judge.

The people are the stakeholders that Congressmen and Congresswomen should be listening to. Democrats appear to be ONLY interested in listening to businesses and special interests. That seems to be a sad repeat of history. And that will ultimately turn the voters away from Democrats agenda. It's already happening.

Sorry, Jerry. It sure seems wrong to count people out in favor of business and special interests. Is that what you promsed the American voters, back in November? Let's get our priorities back in order. Why not tell Congress to give us jobs and slow down on the 23 trillion dollars before we have no money left. I really doubt the American voters wanted Democrats to put the cart before the horse. (or the special interest before the voters).

We'll have to look at the ballot boxes in November.

Just hope somebody's listening.

Anyone out there still supporting it?

Just be careful what you ask for.

Anyone out there still supporting it?

Just be careful what you ask for.

Obama's Top Five Health Care Lies

Shikha Dalmia, 07.01.09, 12:01 AM ET

President Barack Obama walked into the Oval Office with a veritable halo over his head. In the eyes of his backers, he could say or do no wrong because he had evidently descended directly from heaven to return celestial order to our fallen world. Oprah declared his tongue to be "dipped in the unvarnished truth." Newsweek editor Evan Thomas averred that Obama "stands above the country and above the world as a sort of a God."

But when it comes to health care reform, with every passing day, Obama seems less God and more demagogue, uttering not transcendental truths, but bald-faced lies. Here are the top five lies that His Awesomeness has told--the first two for no reason other than to get elected and the next three to sell socialized medicine to a wary nation.

Lie One: No one will be compelled to buy coverage.

During the campaign, Obama insisted that he would not resort to an individual mandate to achieve universal coverage. In fact, he repeatedly ripped Hillary Clinton's plan for proposing one. "To force people to buy coverage," he insisted, "you've got to have a very harsh penalty." What will this penalty be, he demanded? "Are you going to garnish their wages?" he asked Hillary in one debate.

Yet now, Obama is behaving as if he said never a hostile word about the mandate. Earlier this month, in a letter to Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., he blithely declared that he was all for "making every American responsible for having health insurance coverage, and making employers share in the cost."

But just like Hillary, he is refusing to say precisely what he will do to those who want to forgo insurance. There is a name for such a health care approach: It is called TonySopranoCare.

Lie Two: No new taxes on employer benefits.

Obama took his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, to the mat for suggesting that it might be better to remove the existing health care tax break that individuals get on their employer-sponsored coverage, but return the vast bulk--if not all--of the resulting revenues in the form of health care tax credits. This would theoretically have made coverage both more affordable and portable for everyone. Obama, however, would have none of it, portraying this idea simply as the removal of a tax break. "For the first time in history, he wants to tax your health benefits," he thundered. "Apparently, Sen. McCain doesn't think it's enough that your health premiums have doubled. He thinks you should have to pay taxes on them too."

Yet now Obama is signaling his willingness to go along with a far worse scheme to tax employer-sponsored benefits to fund the $1.6 trillion or so it will cost to provide universal coverage. Contrary to Obama's allegations, McCain's plan did not ultimately entail a net tax increase because he intended to return to individuals whatever money was raised by scrapping the tax deduction. Not so with Obama. He apparently told Sen. Baucus that he would consider the senator's plan for rolling back the tax exclusion that expensive, Cadillac-style employer-sponsored plans enjoy, in order to pay for universal coverage. But, unlike McCain, he has said nothing about putting offsetting deductions or credits in the hands of individuals.

In other words, Obama might well end up doing what McCain never set out to do: Impose a net tax increase on health benefits for the first time in history.

Lie Three: Government can control rising health care costs better than the private sector.

Ignoring the reality that Medicare--the government-funded program for the elderly--has put the country on the path to fiscal ruin, Obama wants to model a government insurance plan--the so-called "public option"--after Medicare in order to control the country's rising health care costs. Why? Because, he repeatedly claims, Medicare has far lower administrative costs and overhead than private plans--to wit, 3% for Medicare compared to 10% to 20% for private plans. Hence, he says, subjecting private plans to competition against an entity delivering such superior efficiency will release health care dollars for universal coverage.

But lower administrative costs do not necessarily mean greater efficiency. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office analysis last year chastised Medicare's lax attitude on this front. "The traditional fee-for-service Medicare program does relatively little to manage benefits, which tends to reduce its administrative costs but may raise its overall spending relative to a more tightly managed approach," it noted on page 93.

In short, extending the Medicare model will further ruin--not improve--even the functioning aspects of private plans.

Lie Four: A public plan won't be a Trojan horse for a single-payer monopoly.

Obama has repeatedly claimed that forcing private plans to compete with a public plan will simply "keep them honest" and give patients more options--not lead to a full-blown, Canadian-style, single-payer monopoly. As I argued in my previous column, this is wishful thinking given that government programs such as Medicare have a history of controlling costs by underpaying providers, who make up the losses by charging private plans more. Any public plan modeled after Medicare will greatly increase this forced subsidy, eventually driving private plans out of business, even if that weren't Obama's intention.

But, as it turns out, it very much is his intention. Before he decided to run for office--and even during the initial days of his campaign--Obama repeatedly said that he was in favor of a single-payer system. What's more, University of California, Berkeley Professor Jacob Hacker, who is a key influence on the Obama administration, is on tape explicitly boasting that a public plan is a means for creating a single-payer system. "It's not a Trojan horse," he quips, "it's just right there."

But even if Obama wanted to, it is simply impossible to design a public plan that could compete with private insurers on a level playing field and without "feeding off the public trough" as Obama claims.

At the very least, such a plan would always carry an implicit government guarantee that, should it go bust, no one in the plan would lose coverage. This guarantee would artificially lower the plan's capital reserve requirements, giving it an unfair edge over private plans. What's more, it is simply not plausible to expect that the plan wouldn't receive any start-up subsidies or use the government's muscle to negotiate lower rates with providers. If it eschewed all these things, there would be no reason for it to exist--because it would be just like any other private plan.

Lie Five: Patients don't have to fear rationing.

Obama has been insisting, including during his ABC Town Hall event last week, that the rationing patients would face under a government-run system wouldn't be any more draconian than what they currently confront under private plans. This is complete nonsense.

The left has been trying to address fears of rationing by trotting out an old and tired trope, namely, that rationing is an inescapable fact of life because every system rations whether by price or fiat. But there is a big difference between the two. If I can't afford caviar and champagne every night, any rationing involved is metaphoric, not real. Genuine rationing occurs when someone else controls access--how much of a particular good I can consume.

By that token, Obama's stimulus bill has set in motion rationing on a scale unimaginable in the land of the free. Indeed, the bill commits over $1 billion to conduct comparative effectiveness research that will evaluate the relative merits of various treatments. That in itself wouldn't be so objectionable--if it weren't for the fact that a board will then "direct financing" toward approved, standardized treatments. In short, doctors will find it much harder to prescribe newer or non-standard treatments not yet deemed effective by health care bureaucrats. This is exactly along the lines of the British system, where breast cancer patients were denied Herceptin, a new miracle drug, until enraged women fought back. Even the much-vilified managed care plans would appear to be a paragon of generosity in comparison with this.

Obama has repeatedly asked for honesty in the health care debate. It is high time he started showing some.

Shikha Dalmia is a senior analyst at Reason Foundation and writes a biweekly column for Forbes.

Macpup,

That sounds precisely like what happened. I just wanted to point out that it certainly did seem like those callers were not allowed to rebut Jerry McNerney. I don't think they ever had a chance to do that because of the way it was staged. I thought so too. I even asked the operator to take my question on the phone. She would not reply to me.

I'd sure like a real Town Hall meeting where someone should ask Jerry why his operator/assistant thought it was ok to cut those callers off.

Also ask Jerry why his operator/assistant told people to 'hurry up'.

Well shut my mouth, Jerry?

I participated in last night’s telephone town hall orchestrated by Assemblyman McNerney and his staff. About 12 individual’s got to ask questions, and he responded with canned party-line answers. What I found frustrating is the questioners couldn’t rebut his answers. Even though the telephone town hall was basically an infomercial, the people asking questions had valid concerns and were truly worried about government taking over health insurance.

After last night, I am confident Assemblyman McNerny will vote the “party-line” just as he always does. That’s why he didn’t have a public town hall. Why suffer through listening to irate constituents, when you know what is best for them.



The politicians in DC are correct that American’s want affordable health insurance and lower hospital and pharmaceutical costs BUT we do not need a government run, taxpayer funded, public option to achieve it.

Oh, and they didn't let people ask that many questions either. Before you know it they said sorry we are out of time. Not really a town hall. I'm shocked that Jerry didn't say we can take some time to answer some more questions. Nope. Just a goodbye prerecorded message.

Silence.

Pleae leave a message maybe we'll call.

The questions seem like they were staged anyway.

For example, questions went along these lines.

I'm happy to talk to you again [today] Jerry, Thank you sooooo much for taking my call Jerry

Will there be preventative health care?

Thank you so much for asking that [staged] question. The answer is, yes, absolutely.

Next caller... same type of questions and the operator kept saying we'll get to your questions, but I think they already had the list of questions made out before people had a chance to get their calls in.

Terrible. Phony.

A real town hall would have been nice. I don't trust them to hide behind phones. Staged, I think.

I think the Tracy Press reporter heard something wrong, instead of a tele town hall, I think this was a tell-ya town hall. It is where they tell ya there will be a town hall and tell ya to call and sign up and then don't bother to call you back.

Sounded like they had a list of callers with prepared questions that were already queued up.

My question never got asked and the operator didn't even bother to ask my question.

Health Professional Groups and Insurance companies must be telling the Nancy Machinery to tell Congressmen to say they hope to pay for this with 'IT Jobs', but those positions are already being outsourced at an alarming rate while many companies are looking to hire only contract positions and not full time. Most of these jobs go overseas in untaxed salaries and US dollars. Medicare and SS must be near to pulling an AIG for this to have been pushed so high priority on Nancy's list. The number of retiring doctors who wont want to get low pay will also reduce jobs. COBRA is an additional cost. When they say their "intentions" are to not raise taxes, I had to laugh out loud.

Sorry!

I bet if they get some of the people who carried McNerney signs at Monte Vista they could make a YouTube.com video of the PhoneY calls and get Nancy's agenda pushed right on through.

By the way, I guess even TB gave up cheerleading for Jerry McNerney?

People it is a real shame, but unless your are a liberal, talking to McNerney about anything is a waste of time.

McNerney in my opinion is a San Francisco liberal with liberal values and morals.

Most of the time he votes as nancy( you are un-American if you disagree with me) Pelosi tells him to do. I’m sorry to say I voted for mcnerney I thought he was a moderate, boy was I fooled.

He does not represent the 11 district. The 11 district is not a San Francisco liberal district.

He has to go. We must vote in someone with the values of the people of the 11 district. Not a yes boy for Nancy.

off2work,

I hear you. I'm thinking don't bother lining the path of the debate halls and walkways again with signs promising us that a vote for Jerry McNerney would bring us someone with the cahones to at least hold a town hall meeting.

Hooop hooop hooraaay! Hooop hooop hooraaay! We're giving the country over to bankruptcy.

Everyone follow Nancy.

Hope they at least enjoyed their air-conditioned, bus-ride to Tracy and a twenty dollar bill for one hour of work?

Personally, if I had know it would turn out this way I would have went out and campaigned against Jerry McNerney myself.

McNerney is a joke

JoPlummer

I can't beleive that you would say "I just wish we knew this back in November".

Who are the we? All the misled liberals?

All this info was out there before the election, but there were so many voters blinded by the halo.

You're comment makes you sound like a lib that voted wrong. Now we all get to pay the price.

He is a coward, hides behinds issues and does not have nor possess all of the facts. He campaigned and vowed support for military members, but what did he really accomplish? How long has he been there and how long does it really take to make a difference? He is not even taken seriously on Capitol Hill partly because he does not make any sense to his constituents. So if his supporters really think he will help make government run healthcare work or succeed, they are in for a rude awakening. They will get better results from a garden hose.