The Republicans offered an amendment to protect people who like their current medical insurance plan. (H/T PowerLine via ECM)

Excerpt:

The purpose of this amendment is simple. If the secretary of Health and Human Services certifies that more than 1 million Americans would lose the current coverage of their choice because of this bill, then this bill would not go into effect.

It seems like a very, very simple but perfect amendment for those of us who have integrity. This amendment is simply trying to safeguard President Obama’s pledge to the American people, you’ll get — that you will get to keep what you have.

John Cornyn also introduced a similar amendment.

Here’s the result, as reported by the Heritage Foundation:

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced amendments to preserve Americans’ existing private health insurance coverage. This would be in accord with the President’s promise that “nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.” Senator Hatch’s amendment would have required that the Secretary of Health and Human Services certify to Congress that the final piece of legislation would not result in more than 1 million Americans losing their current coverage. Senator Hatch’s amendment failed on a party line vote (10-13).

Senator Cornyn’s amendment also sought to guarantee that Americans enrolled in self-insured employer coverage would be able to keep their current coverage by amending Title I, Subtitle D of the Chairman’s mark. The amendment simply provided that any health insurance plan governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) would be deemed to have met the personal responsibility requirement. This amendment also failed. It was a party line vote (10-13).

Naturally, tons of Democrats voted against it! Because they know exactly what will happen as a consequence of this bill.

Death panels revisited

A Washington Times editorial. (H/T Powerline via ECM)

Excerpt:

The offending provision is on Pages 80-81 of the unamended Baucus bill, hidden amid a lot of similar legislative mumbo-jumbo about Medicare payments to doctors. The key sentence: “Beginning in 2015, payment would be reduced by five percent if an aggregation of the physician’s resource use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization.” Translated into plain English, it means that in any year in which a particular doctor’s average per-patient Medicare costs are in the top 10 percent in the nation, the feds will cut the doctor’s payments by 5 percent.

Forget results. This provision makes no account for the results of care, its quality or even its efficiency. It just says that if a doctor authorizes expensive care, no matter how successfully, the government will punish him by scrimping on what already is a low reimbursement rate for treating Medicare patients. The incentive, therefore, is for the doctor always to provide less care for his patients for fear of having his payments docked. And because no doctor will know who falls in the top 10 percent until year’s end, or what total average costs will break the 10 percent threshold, the pressure will be intense to withhold care, and withhold care again, and then withhold it some more. Or at least to prescribe cheaper care, no matter how much less effective, in order to avoid the penalties.

Government-run health care means rationed health care.