Barrow Introduces Bi-Partisan Bill to fix Healthcare Flaw

Congressmen John Barrow (D-GA) and Mike Rogers (R-MI) today introduced a bipartisan bill that would amend the new health care law to preserve consumer access to licensed insurance agents and brokers.

“Insurance agents and brokers serve as the voice of health insurance for millions of families and small businesses in rural communities,” said Congressman Barrow. “These folks can help explain to consumers the many changes taking place in the healthcare world over the next few years, and so it’s important that our insurance agents are not hampered by provisions in the new healthcare law. This is another critical improvement that needs to be made to the healthcare law, and I’m hopeful that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will work with Mike and me to see that this important improvement is implemented.”

“The nation’s 500,000 insurance agents and brokers help consumers find the right health care, advocate on their behalf, identify cost-savings opportunities and inform them of new products and changes in the industry,” said Congressman Rogers. “A mandate in the new health care law severely restricts their ability to perform such services, meaning small businesses are losing jobs or shutting down completely and consumers are finding it harder to access their services.”

State consumer protection and tax laws require that insurance agents and brokers be paid through commissions included as part of consumers’ regular insurance premiums. The new healthcare law now classifies commissions as an “administration expense.” By itself, this reclassification would not pose a problem, except that a new regulation in the law – called The Medical Loss Ratio – mandates that insurers may only spend 20 percent of insurance premiums on administrative expenses. The result has been insurers dramatically cutting commissions to agents and brokers in order to comply with the Medical Loss Ratio mandate, which is causing job losses in the industry and restricting the ability of rural consumers from accessing healthcare advice from qualified, licensed healthcare professionals.

Earlier this month, Congressman Barrow voted to repeal the 1099 reporting requirements for small businesses included in the Affordable Care Act. The 1099 provision requires businesses to send the IRS a form detailing every business entity they pay $600 or more for goods or merchandise in every year. This requirement greatly increases the cost and complexity of complying with the tax code for small businesses and does nothing to improve the healthcare people receive.

Race, Health Care, and the ‘Southern’ Strategy

A website called Like the Dew has a no-hold barred analysis of the Healthcare Debate that dominated the Town Hall meetings during the summer of 2009. They call the grassroot anger of Healthcare "A Hoax" & says its all about race "pure & simple". You be the judge. Read this piece from Like the Dew.

Here's what Cliff Green of Like the Dew says:

Let’s cut to the chase: This orchestrated grass-roots anger over health care reform is a flat-out hoax, and the equally phony political debate going on in Washington is just as spurious. Neither one is about how much reform will cost, personal choice, or how many government bureaucrats will come between a patient and his or her doctor.

This is about race, pure and simple.

And since nothing scares the right-wing-nuts in the Republican Party more than the prospect of racial equality in anything, health care reform has become the latest outrage for their talk-radio stooges and, in turn, their never-ending search for higher ratings.

In the absence of facts that support the health care status quo, the radio ranters have been forced to reveal the outlines of the alternate universe in which they exist, that scary place where American voters last November elected a black Muslim born in Kenya who is using reform of this nation’s perfect-as-is medical care system as a way to usher in a Marxist-Leninist state.

Those who agree—but who want to remain socially acceptable—cloak the issue in different terms. They torture arguments into discourses on socialized medicine, cutting taxes, smaller government, market-based solutions and personal liberty. This bunch would never say aloud that President Barack Obama wants to convert Americans into Godless Communists, rather they imply that he would do something worse: turn them into single-payer-loving Canadians.

Tragically, large segments of the American public have bought into this reactionary nonsense and honestly believe that health care reform is a singular issue, a one-time thing that understandably divides the political left and the political right over the question of who should control a major sector of the American economy, private enterprise or the federal government.

But the argument is much broader and markedly more insidious. The debate has nothing to do with the cost of drugs, rationing medical care, or that constantly flogged waiting list for elective surgery. Its tap root reaches deep down into a steaming pile of racial muck dropped more than 60 years ago.

After President Harry Truman desegregated the military following World War II and the Democratic Party inserted a strong civil rights plank in its 1948 platform, southern segregationists walked out of that year’s convention and formed the States’ Rights Democratic (Dixiecrat) Party. Meeting later that summer in Birmingham, Alabama, that party picked South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond to head its ticket, and the upstart organization succeeded in winning four Southern states that November. The effort was not enough to keep Truman from being re-elected, but the wound in Democratic circles festered for years.

Observing this fracture up close was a young man from St. Matthews, S.C., named Harry Shuler Dent. A devout Southern Baptist who graduated from nearby Presbyterian College, Dent went on to get a degree from George Washington University Law School in 1957, and a master’s of law from Georgetown University in 1959. By the time he graduated, Dent had long been an aide to Thurmond, who by then was a U.S. Senator.

In addition to his expertise in the law, which he used to help his boss thwart civil rights legislation in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Dent had a sensitive ear for the political stirrings of the folks back home. And they were uneasy. When the Republican Party nominated Sen. Barry Goldwater for president in 1964, Dent caught a glimpse of the future. At his urging, Strom Thurmond switched parties, which leads to the other thread of the health care reform story.

After losing the 1960 presidential election to John Kennedy and the 1962 California gubernatorial contest to Pat Brown, former Vice President Richard Nixon was dismissed as a viable political candidate by pundits on both the left and the right. ABC News commentator Howard K. Smith even hosted a 30-minute, prime time television program titled “The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon.” But while others were dismissing him as a has-been, the Dark Prince of the GOP was plotting a return.

Nixon joined a New York law firm for cover and quietly spent years traveling the back roads of America, speaking at fund raisers and kick-off rallies for obscure Republican candidates seeking the most minor of offices. Over a period of time, he appeared in countless VFW halls, addressed hundreds of small-town coffees and endured thousands of photo-ops, all the while building up a huge cache of political IOUs. More importantly, Nixon was picking up on the vibe emanating from what would soon be called The Silent Majority. He and Harry Dent were destined to get on the same page.

Meanwhile, the nation was undergoing a revolution. In response to almost constant pressure from African-Americans, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed a Democratic-controlled congress into enacting the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which gave black folks access to public accommodations, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which guaranteed them access to the ballot box. Federal courts were ordering school systems to abide by Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka and desegregate their facilities, even if that meant bussing students from one district to another, and Stokley Carmichael, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was talking about something new and scary called “black power:

Continue reading: Race, Health Care, and the ‘Southern’ Strategy

Repeal the Healthcare Law? After this, I say it maybe time to do so.

And 8th District Rep Jim Marshall was right when he called the law a "Disaster".

Politico reports that supporters of President Obama's health care plan --including the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org and SEIU-- are now moving away from their previous assertions that the health care bill would reduce the deficit and health care costs.

The confidential presentation, available and provided to POLITICO by a source on the call, suggests that Democrats are acknowledging the failure of their predictions that the health care legislation would grow more popular after its passage, as its benefits became clear and rhetoric cooled. Instead, the presentation is designed to win over a skeptical public and to defend the legislation — in particular, the individual mandate — from a push for repeal.



The Herndon Alliance, which presented the research, is a low-profile group that coordinated liberal messaging in favor of the public option in health care. Its "partners" include health care legislation's heavyweight supporters: AARP, AFL-CIO, SEIU, Health Care for America Now, MoveOn and La Raza, among many others

Andre Walker over at Georgia Politics Unfiltered thinks the only option now is to repeal the plan altogether & even cited a Jim Marshall article in which he saye the Healthcare Law is a "DISASTER": 8th district Democratic Congressman Jim Marshall recently called health care reform "a disaster." [Stucka, Mike (2010-8-6). Marshall: Health care reform 'a disaster'. Macon Telegraph. Retrieved on 2010-8-20.]


The presentation also counsels against the kind of grand claims of change that accompanied the legislation's passage.

Now I thought that the bill wouldn't be repealed, instead parts or provisions of the legislation would neither be repaled or be thrown out. Now after hearing that this new Law won't reduce the deficit & reduce cost.

Im with Andre to say the only option now is to repeal the Damn thing, if that means people with pre-existing conditons losing their benefits. I wasn't a huge suporter of the bill, only the rural aspects of the legislation, but this bill will do more harm that good, especially when it comes to the federal deficit & debt.

Health Care Reform: What's in It for Small Business? - New report debunks top 4 myths about reform and small business

There has been so much negativity towards the Health care reform Bill that was passed recently that is time to look at what does the bill actually do, especially when it relates to small businesses. I want to thank Jon Bailey, Rural Research and Analysis Director at the Center for Rural Affairs for sending this INFO thru my email.

Bailey says small businesses are the dominant driver of economies in most rural places. Rural areas also have higher rates of uninsurance and underinsurance and lower rates of employer-provided health insurance. Increasingly, rural small businesses are finding it difficult to continue providing health insurance for employees. Taken together, these issues act as barriers to creating a strong rural economy built on entrepreneurial development.


The Patient and Affordable Care Act will begin to lower these barriers for many rural small businesses. While exempt from mandates requiring insurance coverage for employees, these small businesses will benefit from the tax credits provided by the law, helping make health insurance more affordable and providing an incentive for insuring small business employees.

"Too often small business has been used as a foil for opponents of health care reform. While we agree that considering the impact of reform and of skyrocketing health insurance costs on small business should be an important consideration in this debate, we also believe that it is crucial that those who want to reference small business get the facts straight, according to Bailey.

Four myths that opponents of reform most often referenced about small business and the health care bill are:

(1) Small businesses will be forced to provide health insurance for their employees or face penalties. Section 1513 of the health care reform legislation, however, exempts all businesses with 50 or fewer employees from the general employer mandate in the law, freeing them from any penalty for not doing so.

(2) Small businesses cannot afford the health insurance they are required to provide

The health insurance reform law is all gain and no pain for small businesses, particularly initially. As discussed above, Section 1513 of the law exempts all businesses with 50 or fewer employees from providing health insurance for their employees and frees them from any penalty for not doing so. Section 1421 of the law establishes a Small Business Tax Credit for those businesses who do provide health insurance for their employees in order to make health insurance more affordable and to provide an incentive for employer-provided insurance in small businesses. The initial credit exists for tax years 2010 through 2013. It is a sliding scale credit for businesses with fewer than 25 full-time equivalent employees and average wages of less than $50,000 who provide health insurance for their employees. A second credit exists for any two years beginning in 2014 when the health insurance
Exchanges begin. The chart on the following page outlines the basics of both tax credits:

(3) Small businesses should be able to pool together to purchase insurance, and the new law does not allow that.

Not true. In fact, the Health Insurance Exchange concept is based on the pooling idea. The health reform law mandates the creation of exchanges in every state by 2014and allows businesses of up to 100 employees to participate. a (Sections 1304 and 1311) The result is the creation of a health insurance pool of small businesses, their employees and the self-employed. When fully implemented the exchange will allow for more attractive insurance as a result of lower administrative costs (costs will be spread across the larger pool) and the spreading of risk across the larger pool. A larger pool will also allow annual premium volatility to moderate and enhance competition (more potential customers in the larger pool).


The law also allows states to create the Small Business Health Options Program, (SHOP), a special exchange for small businesses, either within the larger state exchange or as a separate exchange. The SHOP Exchange is designed to assist small business employers in enrolling their employees in small group health plans.
The law also enables other insurance alternatives within the exchanges that could result in small business pools or groups. The law enables establishment of state-based nonprofit health insurance cooperatives and funds such efforts with loans. Small businesses or small business organizations could presumably establish a health insurance co-op that would allow small businesses across a state to band together to purchase health insurance.

The law also allows exchanges to serve more than one state. (Section 1311) Regional, interstate or multistate exchanges may exist if the states involved permit and they are approved by the federal government. These exchanges also would be a reasonable response to criticism made by some that the law does not allow for purchase of health insurance across state lines. While the authority still granted to states may make interstate sales of insurance of dubious benefit and potentially bad policy, regional and interstate exchanges could be developed in ways that provide another insurance option to benefit small businesses.

(4) The health reform law will cause my taxes to go up.

It is true the health reform law imposes some new taxes and increases others. But the real question is who is responsible for those taxes. While each individual and business has unique circumstances that will determine tax liability, it is clear that most rural small businesses will not be affected by the tax changes contained in the Patient and Affordable Care Act. Some of those changes are:

· A new 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services (for services provided after June 30, 2010). This excise tax will obviously be paid only by those businesses providing indoor tanning services.

· A 0.9 percent Medicare surcharge on the wages of single taxpayers earning more than $200,000 per year and couples earning more than $250,000 per year (starting in 2013). In addition, these taxpayers would incur a special Medicare tax of 3.8 percent on unearned income (interest, dividends, capital gains, annuities, royalties and rents; tax-exempt interest and income from retirement accounts would not be considered “unearned income”). While some rural small business taxpayers may earn enough income to activate these taxes, that case will be extremely rare. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center finds that less than two percent of taxpayers with small business income are in the federal income tax brackets that include the $200,000/
$250,000 income levels.

· An excise tax beginning in 2018 on insurance companies providing “high-cost” employer-sponsored health plans, defined as those with values exceeding $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for family coverage. The tax is equal to 40 percent of the value of the plan exceeding the threshold amount. This tax will likely not apply to many health plans offered by rural small businesses as the 2008 average value of health plans offered nationally by businesses with 10 or fewer employees ranged from $4,536 (individual) to $11,952 (family) and for businesses with 11 to 25 employees ranged from $3,984 (individual) to $10,51 (family).

· Fees assessed on businesses that do not provide health insurance to employees will only be charged to businesses with 50 or more employees. As explained above, that's a small fraction of businesses nationwideand even fewer in rural areas.


Conclusion

The rural economy is unique in its composition, with small businesses the dominant economic driver of economies in most rural places. Rural areas not only have higher rates of uninsurance and underinsurance, but significantly lower rates of employer-provided health insurance. And these trends are growing, as rural areas have lost jobs with higher rates of employer-sponsored health insurance while gaining jobs with much lower rates of employer-sponsored coverage since the 1990s.

With increasing insurance costs many rural small employers are finding it difficult tocontinue providing health insurance coverage for employees, exacerbating the issues of uninsurance, underinsurance, and health care costs for many rural people. Taken together, these issues act as barriers to creating a strong rural economy based on entrepreneurial development. The Patient and Affordable Care Act will begin to lower these barriers for many rural small businesses. While exempt from mandates requiring insurance coverage for employees, the tax credits provided by the law will make health insurance more affordable for businesses and provide an incentive to help insure employees.

Over time as the primary features of the law areimplemented and take effect, particularly the Health Insurance Exchanges, rural small employers will reap the benefits of pooling and larger group coverage that provides comprehensive, affordable, and continuous health care coverage for their business and their employees.

And let's be real here: This Bill will not be repealed in its entirety, despite all of the talk from Republicans of repealing this legislation. The most likely scenario will be certain parts of the legislation will be repealed or fixed. As you know there will be complaints about certain aspects of this bill from people that are deemed "unreasonable" or just flat out wrong. So in my opinion the whole bill won't be repealed, but certain provisions of the bill will.

What Will Healthcare Reform do for Small Businesses

Affordable Coverage:

In 2014, the reform creates Health Insurance Exchanges, or competitive marketplaces, where small businesses and their employees, the self-employed, and the uninsured can purchase affordable coverage. For the first time, small businesses will be able to pool their buying power and have access to the same quality plans only available to large firms today.

Through the Exchanges, small business owners and workers can do one-stop comparison shopping for an affordable plan that offers:
. lower rates like what big businesses pay
. stable pricing from year to year
. lower administrative costs
. choice of quality plans for employee.

Tax Credits:

Health reform provides $40 billion in tax credits for small businesses to help them offer employee health insurance coverage—if they choose to do so. More than 60 percent of small employers, or more than 4 million firms, will be eligible for these credits.

The tax credit is effective January 1, 2010. Small businesses that provide coverage for their workers will receive immediate help with their premium costs, and additional firms that initiate coverage this year will get a tax cut as well.
This sliding-scale tax credit is worth up to 35 percent of a small business’s premium costs in 2010. On January 1, 2014, this rate increases to 50 percent. Firms can claim the credit for 2010 through 2013 and for any two years after that.
To qualify for the tax credit, businesses must have fewer than 25 employees and average annual wages of $50,000 or less—and the full tax credit is available to businesses with 10 or fewer employees and average annual wages of $25,000 or less.

Quality Coverage:

Starting in 2014, affordable plans in Health Insurance Exchanges will have a guaranteed set of minimum benefits—to eliminate fine print surprises that often face those who don’t have the purchasing power of a large corporation or group. Health insurance reforms will mean:

. no more “pre-existing conditions” for children now, and adults in 2014
. no selective refusals to renew small business coverage
. no more premium ratings for gender, occupation or previous illness or medical condition that unfairly drive up costs for some
. caps on what you pay out-of-pocket
. no lifetime or annual caps on what insurance companies will pay for your coverage

Exemption From Responsibility To Offer Coverage:

In recognition of the fact that providing employee health coverage is simply unaffordable for many of America’s small businesses, the reform exempts all small firms with fewer than 50 employees from the employer responsibility requirements that begin in 2014. This means that 96 percent of all firms in the U.S. or 5.8 million out of 6 million total firms will be exempt.
Many small firms that do not currently offer coverage will be more likely to do so under reform – because of new tax credits, lower premiums, and better choices.

Help With Wellness & Prevention:

Small businesses that want to promote healthy behavior have access to health plans for their workers that provide free preventive care.

Immediate Help For The Uninsured:

For those small businesses with workers who have been uninsured for several months, or denied a policy based on “pre-existing conditions,” a high risk pool will immediately offer insurance, and assistance to help pay the premiums.

Access To The Best Doctors:

The best doctors in America can see patients--even those who own or work for small businesses in rural areas--through telehealth networks and telehealth resource centers established through grants.

Benefit From Small Business Health Care Tax Credit: Three Cases:

Example 1:: Auto Repair Shop With 10 Employees Gets $$24,500 Credit For 2010
Main Street Mechanic:
. Employees: 10
. Wages: $250,000 total, or $25,000 per worker
. Employee Health Care Costs: $70,000
2010 Tax Credit: $24,500 (35% credit)
2014 Tax Credit: $35,000 (50% credit)

Example2:: Restauraunt With 40 Part--Time Employees Gets $$28,000 Credit For 2010
Downtown Diner:
. Employees: 40 half-time employees (the equivalent of 20 full-time workers)
. Wages: $500,000 total, or $25,000 per full-time equivalent worker
. Employee Health Care Costs: $240,000
2010 Tax Credit: $28,000 (35% credit with phase-out)
2014 Tax Credit: $40,000 (50% credit with phase-out)

Example3: Foster Care Non--Profit With 9 Employees Gets $$19,000 Credit For 2010
First Street Family Services.Org:
. Employees: 9
. Wages: $198,000 total, or $22,000 per worker
. Employee Health Care Costs: $76,000
2010 Tax Credit: $19,000 (25% credit)
2014 Tax Credit: $26,600 (35% credit)


Millions of small businesses together power the American economy. During economic crisis, these businesses operate close to the margin, or don’t survive at all. But their innovation and entrepreneurship put them in the lead in helping our economy recovery. For American small businesses, health care has been an unrelenting headache, with:

. small businesses’ health care costs growing 129% since 2000,
. workers paying an average of 18% more for premiums than those with larger firms, and
. only 45% of America’s small businesses can afford to offer health benefits—which means the majority of uninsured Americans are small owners,
employees, and their families.

So there it is. I'll let you be the judge.

Source: Department of the Treasury

Health Insurance Reform At a Glance: Rural America

PREPARED BY THE HOUSE COMMITTEES ON WAYS AND MEANS, ENERGY AND COMMERCE, AND EDUCATION AND LABOR
MARCH 20, 2010

Provides Coverage for Uninsured Rural Individuals: In rural areas, the uninsured rate reaches 23 percent, almost five percentage points higher than in urban areas, and the current recession means that more people may lose access to their employer-based health coverage. The legislation guarantees that individuals currently without access to affordable health insurance would have options for obtaining affordable, quality health care coverage.

More Affordable Choices and Competition. In many rural states, one insurance company dominates more than 80 percent of the market, meaning that there are often only one or two insurance companies offering health plans in the individual and small group markets. Health insurance reform will result in an additional 32 million people accessing health insurance creating greater participation and competition by health insurers.

Protects Rural Consumers from Discriminatory Practices that Make Coverage Unaffordable: Health reform includes insurance market reforms that prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, prohibit charging higher premiums based on gender or health status, and require insurers to include an essential set of health benefits in their plan. These provisions will all help make quality health insurance more accessible and affordable for rural residents.

Provides Bonuses to Reward Primary Care Doctors that Practice in Shortage Areas: Only 9 percent of physicians practice in rural America even though 20 percent of the population lives in these areas. The legislation provides a 10 percent incentive payment for primary care doctors practicing in underserved areas, which, combined with a current bonus for physicians in shortage areas, will help recruit and retain primary care physicians where they are needed the most.

Ensures that Rural Doctors Are Paid the Same Rate for Their Work as Urban Doctors: Prior to 2003, the Medicare reimbursement formula paid doctors practicing in rural areas relatively less for their work, even though they have the same training as their urban counterparts. The legislation helps rural physicians by extending an existing provision that addresses this payment inequity.

Helps Rural Doctors Cover Costs Related to Operating their Practice: Physicians practicing in rural areas are paid relatively less by Medicare than their urban counterparts for expenses such as rent and hiring office staff. The legislation will encourage doctors to practice in rural America by increasing Medicare reimbursement rates in many areas for these types of overhead costs.


Supports Community Health Centers in Rural Areas: Community health centers are an important source of care in rural areas. The legislation provides $11 billion in newfunds to support community health centers over the next five years, and maintains the current requirement that these rural areas receive special consideration for distribution of funds.


Trains Primary Care Providers for Rural Areas: There is a shortage of health providers in rural America,particularly primary care. The legislation emphasizes training for primary care providers by supporting training on rural health, investing in advanced nurse training, and providing $1.5 billion to expand the
National Health Service Corps to address work shortages in high-need area. Thelegislation also redistributes unused Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions to hospitals in rural and other communities and health professional shortage areas that commit to train primary care or general surgery residents.

Rewards Hospitals in Low Cost Areas: The legislation provides $400 million to reward hospitals located in areas of the country with the lowest per capita levelof Medicare spending.

Protects Payments for Rural Outpatient Hospitals: When Medicare moved to a new payment system for outpatient hospitals in 2000, rural hospitals were protected from potential losses. The legislation extends this current “hold harmless” policy for rural outpatient hospitals to ensure that rural residents will continue to have access to care.

Helps Certain Rural Hospitals Cover Their Lab Costs: Rural hospitals have lower patient volume than their urban counterparts, making it more difficult to sustain much needed services such as laboratory tests. The legislation helps to maintain access to routine lab tests for patients living in rural areas by paying small
rural hospitals their reasonable costs for performing clinical laboratory tests.

Boosts Payments for Rural Home Health Agencies: Home health providers in rural communities often must drive long distances to see their patients, incurring additional transportation costs. The legislation reinstates a 5 percent add-on payment for rural home health agencies that had previously expired.

Protects Ambulance Services in Rural America: The bill protects seniors’ access to ambulance services in rural areas by continuing an existing increase to Medicare reimbursement rates for rural ambulance services. These adjustments help compensate for the additional costs incurred for providing these services over great distances.

Ensures Access to Preventive Services in Rural Areas: The bill eliminates cost-sharing for preventive care (including well baby and well child care) in new health plans to underscore the importance of preventive health services in making America healthier and lowering the growth of health care costs over time. And the legislation caps annual out-of-pocket spending for individuals and families so that no one faces bankruptcy from health costs ever again.

Assistance for Rural Hospitals: The Medicare Modernization Act enabled certain hospitals, commonly referred to as “Section 508 Hospitals,” to be more appropriately reimbursed by Medicare for the services they provide to rural communities. The bill continues these critical payment improvements, enhancing the ability of these rural hospitals to recruit and retain essential staff to care for Medicare beneficiaries in their communities. Additional provisions assist hospitals with a low-volume of discharges and extend payment protections for Medicare Dependent Hospitals.

Now I'm not a supporter of the overall Healthcare bill that was just passed in congress, but these provisions will do rural america alot of good, where access to healthcare is at its worst.

My Thoughts on the Passage of the Healthcare Bill

Last Night, the Healthcare Reform Bill passed the House which will be signed into law by President Obama. The reconciliation bill also passed the house & is now in the hands of the senate, which will take it up on tuesday.

All of Georgia's Republican GOP congressmen voted against the measure, while the democratic congressman was split: John Barrow & Jim Marshall voted against the measure, while John Lewis, (who was called a n---r by a unruly protestor), David Scott, Hank Johnson & Sanford Bishop voted in favor of the measure. (More on Bishop later).

Now I am not a supporter of the bill due to its uncertainty & misconceptions of the bill by supporters & opponents of the legislation. Some has called this the end of American as we know it, to America is now a "Socialist" Country, all sorts of accusations to the bill. Some libs compared it to the 1965 Civil Rights Bill passed by LBJ. I won't go that far in that comparison, but it is a monumental piece of legislation that will have far-reaching affects, both positive & negative, in my opinion.

Speaking from someone with a rural point of view, if this bill helps improve healthcare for rural Georgia & rural America as whole, then more power to the bill, but like I said, I'm not in favor of the bill. It could have been done in a more effective, bi-partisan way (although there are over 200 GOP amendments to the legislation), but still something this far-reaching should have included both sides.

My Rural Point of View:

Rural Georgia & America as a whole presents a unique set of challenges for health care reform. Rural Georgians have less access to health networks and health care providers, greater rates of disability and chronic diseases and higher use rates of all public health care programs. And largely as a result of higher rates of self-employment and small business employment, rural folks have lower rates of employer-provided benefits and are more likely to be underinsured or uninsured for longer periods of time. The thousands of people in Rural Georgia & millions in Rural America, are most in need of health care system reform

Rural Georgians & Americans are somewhat older and have lower incomes compared to the rest of the state. This demonstrates greater need in rural communities, and confirms why rural residents – particularly those in remote rural areas – are more dependent on public forms of health insurance and health care & the affordability challenge is even greater for low- and moderate-income individuals and families.


Health care is also a major barrier to rural economic development that creates genuine opportunity and reduces poverty. But if small entrepreneurs cannot gain affordable access to health care for themselves or their employees, that path out of poverty is blocked. Any hope of building genuine economic opportunity for struggling rural Georgians, as well as Americans, through entrepreneurship must be accompanied by reforming the health care system in a way that benefits both small business owners and their employees.

Again, these are my opinions.

I have no idea how this will play out, so I'll take a wait & see approach to this bill. I know staunch critics of the bill says it's a takeover of government, (I thought the public option was the govermnent takeover of healthcare), but Gov't will have a increased role in our healthcare system, I tell you right now. They say it weakens small businesses, we will see about that as well, they say this is marxist, communist, I don't believe none of that off-the-wall nonsense at all.

I applaud Jim Marshall & John Barrow for voting against the bill. These mne wnat to see healthcare reformed in the worst way, just not this way with this bill. Sanford Bishop, well, he will most definitely be targeted by the NRCC for this vote, although it is a strong democratic district, which is 48% African-American.

But he has had strong opposition to his votes for both healthcare bills, as well as the Cap & Trade Bill he voted on last yr as well, mainly from the southern part of the district south of Albany. I will tell any republican right now, Bishop will be extremely hard to beat here, but given the mood of the opposition for this piece of legislation & for congress as a whole, anything is possible.

Poor priorities, partisan politics ruled Legislature says Golden.

From Tim Golden in the Atlanta Journal Constitution::

Since the Republican Party assumed majority control of state government six years ago, Georgia has been sliding backward in almost every area that the governor and Legislature can influence

Our public schools have suffered from $2 billion worth of cuts in state Quality Basic Education funding, causing higher taxes on local property owners to make up the difference.

Manufacturing jobs have been lost by the hundreds of thousands.

Rural health care is on life support because of drastic cuts in Medicaid reimbursement.

Our transportation system’s failure to keep up with a growing population has gone unaddressed.

Seeking to recruit bio-medicine and related technology businesses and retaining academic leaders in the field of science is becoming more difficult.

And fiscally irresponsible policies during better economic times have left Georgia especially vulnerable to the recession, causing an unprecedented $3 billion budget deficit.

But as poorly as the legislative majority has performed since 2003, the 2009 session would have to be considered the worst in recent history. And that’s saying something.

Consider that from the first day of the session back in January, finding a solution for the transportation funding crisis was the state’s No. 1 priority. In metro Atlanta, drivers sit for hours in traffic, causing untold losses in productivity. In rural Georgia, we are at least 10 years behind the curve in making the road improvements needed for economic development.

The Senate voted Feb. 3 on a transportation funding plan, one of the first actions we took this session, calling for a one-cent sales tax to be voted on, collected and invested on a regional basis. The House of Representatives, meanwhile, insisted on a statewide sales tax to finance a predetermined list of transportation projects in selected areas.

But the two houses were unable to work out a compromise plan, primarily because the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker were preoccupied with pushing through separate legislation to give them tighter control over transportation revenues and road-building decisions. For the second year in a row, helping Georgians get from point A to point B more efficiently was doomed by misplaced priorities at the top of the executive and legislative branches of government.

Regarding the new budget passed for fiscal year 2010, there is no question this was a difficult year because of the revenue shortfall, and cuts were inevitable. But the failure to beat back the governor’s insistence to eliminate homeowner tax relief grants will cost the average Georgia homeowner $200 to $300 on our next local property tax bill.

Partisan politics also reared its ugly head in the budget process when the Republican majority decided to withhold needed funding from districts represented by Senate Democrats because we had the audacity to offer a budget amendment that would have kept the Georgia War Veterans Nursing Home in operation by reducing spending on a new luxury resort on Jekyll Island.

The lowlights of the 2009 session don’t stop there. The Republican majority couldn’t go without passing a few more unfunded mandates on counties and cities, while still prohibiting them from making their own decisions on Sunday alcohol sales. Thankfully, the House stopped a Senate bill outlawing potentially lifesaving embryonic stem cell research, but this is a battle we now have to fight year after year.

Georgians don’t expect much of the Legislature when we go to Atlanta each year. They do want us pass a budget that meets basic needs such as education and health care while respecting taxpayers. They want us to focus on the major problems, like transportation funding and unemployment. They want us to put public policy over partisan politics.

After the 2009 session, I wouldn’t blame them if they start expecting less and less.

> Sen. Tim Golden (D-Valdosta) is chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

By the way Golden has mentioned as a possible candidate for Lt. Governor or Governor.