By Donald Grove in Casey's Daily Dispatch:
I had to pass on
this piece from the Washington Examiner’s Byron York, which sheds some light on the increasingly incomprehensible actions of congressional Democrats in pushing health care reform despite growing opposition from constituents. York interviews a “Democratic strategist” who “compared congressional Democrats with robbers who have passed the point of no return in deciding to hold up a bank.
“Whatever they do, they're guilty of something. ‘They're in the bank, they've got their guns out. They can run outside with no money, or they can stick it out, go through the gunfight, and get away with the money.’ That's it. Democrats are all in. They're going through with it. Even if it kills them.”
Both House (HR 3962) and Senate (HR 3590) health care reform bills would require insurers to spend, respectively, 85% and 80% of premiums on benefits.
Administrative costs as well as any profits come out of what’s left. John Rockefeller (D-WV) and Al Franken (D-Minn), among others, want to force insurers to spend 90% of premiums on benefits.
A CBO memo this week explained that if the 90% threshold is imposed, the CBO will consider the health insurance industry to be captive to the federal government – an extension of the federal government for budget purposes. Harry Reid seems to be considering the 90% “medical loss ratio” as a way to keep consumer costs down.
When will it dawn on these people that they can’t “help” us except by doing nothing or, if they must act, undoing some of the damage they have already done?
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