For Democrats, Health Reform Isn't About Fixing The System, Says Gregg

By Chingyu Wang
Talk Radio News Service

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said Thursday that, for Democrats, policy has taken a backseat to politics in the ongoing debate over health care reform.

"This dialogue right now is no longer about substance, it's no longer about the purposes, it's just about 'I need to win because I need to win, because I need to win,'" said Gregg. "They see a loss as being a loss of credibility, it's no longer about the policy or the effectiveness or really about health care."

By metaphorically referring to the nation as a defibrillator, Gregg said on Thursday that his biggest concern over healthcare reform is the $500 billion worth of cuts to Medicare Democrats are proposing, which in his view is significant to the economy.

Medicare's $38 trillion fund "is the power source for defibrillator when we have this fiscal cardiac arrest as a nation," said Gregg. "And if you use it up now to create new entitlements...you know we're going to aggravate the cardiac arrest. Then the defibrillator has no energy."

Gregg added, however, that Medicare spending should "absolutely" be adjusted to make it solvent.

On the possibility of Democrats using reconciliation to pass reform, Gregg labeled it as a tool by which the Democrats can "buy the votes to pass the big bill."

"Reconciliation, by its definition, [means] you have to change a law," said Gregg. "You can't reconcile a bill that is not passed."

"It was never created for the purposes of doing policy."

Republican Gregg: Orszag, Obama Administration Could Be Skirting Law Through TARP Fund Use

By Laurel Brishel Prichard University of New Mexico/ Talk Radio News Service

Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag defended President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2011 during a Senate Budget Committee hearing Tuesday morning.

Many of the members on the committee experessed their concern over using repaid Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) funds as a “piggy bank” to fund the small business tax credit program that Obama has proposed.

“That's not what this money is for. This money is to reduce the debt of our children that we are passing onto our children, and you ought to at least have the integrity to be forth right about it and say that’s what your doing,” said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.)

Gregg’s attack on Orszag, that included accusations of not following or knowing the law, lead to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) breaching common norms of the committee hearing by speaking out before being recognized.

“Congress can amend the law tomorrow. What [Orszag] is indicating is he’s going to Congress to amend the law,” said Sanders.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) did commend Orszag for "trying to get [his] hands around this budget deficit and the problems facing the country.”

Bipartisan Group Pitches Commission To Examine Federal Overspending

John DuBois - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Speaking before the Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) called for the creation of a bipartisan, 16-member panel to examine federal spending. The "Securing America's Future Economy" (SAFE) Commission would make recommendations to Congress regarding ways to limit overspending and would force lawmakers to vote on them.

According to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) the nation's deficit exceeded $1.4 trillion during the last fiscal year. Lieberman and other Democrats including Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) are in support of Wolf's proposal, making it a truly bipartisan bill.

Said Conrad, “We must also address the demographic challenge we face in Social Security and the revenue challenge we face from an outdated and inefficient revenue system."

The SAFE Commission mirrors legislation proposed by Wolf and Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) in 2006. That bill, called the "Securing America’s Future Economy Commission Act," aimed to reform U.S. tax policy and entitlement benefit programs.

Lieberman argued that implementing Wolf's proposal will effectively help the country get back on the right fiscal track.

“The only way we will be able to make the difficult decisions needed to reduce our national debt is to create a special commission whose sole focus is to develop solutions to the long-term fiscal problems that our country faces,” said Lieberman.

Added Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), “The federal government is the worst credit card abuser in the world and we’re putting everything on the tab of our children and grandchildren.”

“We can continue down the same path, which means that in just 15 years every penny of the federal budget will go toward entitlement spending and retiring our debt, or we can start making the hard choices now," said Wolf.

GOP Senators Say Dems Ignoring Republican Health Care Ideas

By Courtney Ann Jackson-Talk Radio News Service

Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said Wednesday that Republicans want the nation's healthcare system revamped this year, and they’re proposing several ideas as to how to achieve this goal. The proposals all address what Alexander called the two biggest problems with the Democrats' plan; Too much debt, and a “Washington take-over.”

“The Republican caucus has a whole handful of lollipops [ideas about healthcare reform] and we keep offering them to the Democrats saying, you know, here’s the red one, here’s the blue one, here’s the green one,” said Alexander. “Why don’t you [the Democrats] take one and let’s go to work on it?”

Alexander noted that there are many alternative bills that have much in common but Democrats must take more Republican proposals into consideration in order to create a bipartisan bill. The Senators mentioned that despite the absence of formal agreements, they are in agreement with the President and the Democrats on many points within the debate. Specifically, the Republicans said they support preventing the loss of healthcare insurance for American people, not allowing for massive amounts of debt to run up and allowing Americans to keep their existing healthcare coverage if they are satisfied with it.

Gregg said he does not think the healthcare bill will be passed in the Senate before the August recess. When asked for his reasoning, he said Finance won’t complete its mark-up in time. He also said the health bill is being rewritten on a weekly basis, but the one consistency is that it is “extremely expensive and it’s not paid for.”

In terms of Medicaid expansion, Alexander said, “the debt is running up in Washington. So to lower that debt a little bit, they’re shifting it onto other people and the new version shifts it on first to employers across the country who are struggling to create new jobs, and second it shifts it in a big way to states through the Medicaid program.”

He highlighted the idea of “dumping low-income people into the Medicaid program” and pointed out that it is going to cost the states “huge amounts of money” in new tax increases.

The Senators said that above all else, Republicans want healthcare plans that average Americans can afford.