CABL Forum - Re: After Supporting Medicare Cuts Through Reconci

That's cool. I just heard on the news today that 5 million jobs will be lost if this bill goes through. And the question arises how is this going to be paid for if Obama decides not to take the 500 billion out of medicare, which is broke. And I don't know where you get your facts but how can anyone get health care by 2013 when they aren't going to start it until 4 years after it starts? All natives in Alaska have free health care. All of them. Any low income person can get health care by going to the hospital. Any child can get it. They have no idea how many people will gain coverage because they don't know how many just don't want to pay for it. And the other side of this argument says that there will be more cost to the individual for health care than now. Because it will be in the form of health care it will still be another tax.

58,000 people huh? Well Mark Begich, the liberal freshman senator says 154,000 people in one letter to me and 115,000 in a letter previous to that. So I don't think they really know.

Here is what Lisa Murkowski had to say:
In the last week, my offices in Alaska and Washington were bombarded with hundreds of calls, faxes and e-mails from constituents. The overwhelming majority were upset, even outraged, that the Senate was about to pass a partisan $2.5 trillion health-care bill that increases the role of the federal government in health care, worsens conditions for Medicare patients, raises taxes and insurance premiums and does nothing to reduce the cost of health care.

The Senate passed the health care bill on Christmas Eve, and I voted against the measure as did all of my Republican colleagues. Many of the Alaskans who contacted me in recent weeks are confused by what this bill does and are concerned about how the legislation will impact them directly. They should be. In fact, the nonpartisan government scorekeeper, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), said in late December that a large share of the savings from Medicare was double counted and thus overstated the improvement in the government's fiscal position. This further illustrates how the fatigued CBO staff is unable to produce accurate and verifiable information while adhering to harsh deadlines to pass a bill before Christmas.

Health-insurance premiums would rise under the bill, according to the CBO, which said that premiums for individuals without employer-sponsored coverage would increase between 10 percent and 13 percent, which in Alaska could affect up to 28,000 people. The University of Alaska at Anchorage's Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), which reviewed the legislation at my request, concluded that premiums would rise roughly 12 percent, or a net increase of $1,160 for some individuals and $2,950 for some families in Alaska. Although subsidies would be available to help offset the cost, it is unclear from the bill who in Alaska would be eligible to receive them.

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Re: After Supporting Medicare Cuts Through Reconci