Action Alert from Senator Grassley on his Health Care amendment ...

Our senior Senator, Chuck Grassley, from the Great State of Iowa sent us the following Action Alert. Again, our government officials failed to cover themselves under the recent measure acted upon by The House on Sunday regarding Health Care Reform ...

ACTION ALERT

Senators are expected to vote later today on my amendment to the health
care reconciliation bill to apply the health care reforms enacted yesterday to
leadership and committee staff in Congress and to the President, Vice President,
the President’s cabinet and White House staff. All of these political leaders
and public officials remain untouched by the reforms that have taken effect for
the rest of the country. If my amendment isn’t passed, then President Obama will
not live under the Obama health care reforms, and neither will the congressional
staff who were most responsible for helping to write the overhaul. That sends a
message to the people at the grassroots is that the health reforms are good
enough for you, but not for us.

This pending amendment follows my efforts last year to make sure there
wasn’t a double standard and that the public officials who pass the laws and
work hard to get laws changed experience the law themselves. The new health care
law requires members of Congress and their personal office staffs to get their
health insurance through the new exchange because of an amendment I got adopted
last September by the Finance Committee. The principle is one I’ve fought for
going back two decades, when I first offered legislation to apply civil rights,
labor and employment laws to Congress for the first time.

• Click here to read my news release.


• Click here to see the Senate floor debate last night.


• Click here to read the story in today’s Politco.


• Click here to read the story in today’s Roll Call newspaper.


• Click here to read the editorial in today’s Washington Times.


• Click here to read the story in today’s New York Post.


• Click here to read the editorial in today’s New York Post.

On the Senate floor, I’m also fighting for my amendment to the health
care reconciliation bill to secure specific changes to the way Medicare
calculates payments to physicians and unfairly penalizes rural doctors, making
it increasingly difficult for Medicare beneficiaries in rural states to find a
doctor.

There are two issues behind my effort. First, the reconciliation bill
from the House is accompanied by a letter from the Secretary of Health and Human
Services committing to a new study on geographic disparity. I don’t want to risk
the fix that I got in the health care reforms signed into law yesterday, and the
new data that could emerge from this study could be hurtful to rural
reimbursement rates. It’s uncertain. And, the study is connected to a Board that
is supposed to cut Medicare spending, which is unlikely to result in
improvements for rural areas. Second, one of the special deals in the health
reform that became law yesterday gives extra payments to five selected frontier
states. They’ll get more money at the expense of every other state, and the fact
that they’re getting a better deal under the new law will make it harder to
build support for changes to help rural states everywhere. My amendment is
driven by fairness and would take some of the savings from repealing the special
deal for frontier states and use it to improve rural payments in all states
during the two-year transition to accurate data this year and next.

I hope senators don’t let politics get in the way of making sure these
important policies are established in a way that is equitable and fair. These
formulas determine how well Medicare works, or doesn’t work, for beneficiaries
in rural states.

Click here to read my news release.

We commend our Senator, Chuck Grassley, from the State of Iowa for working on behalf of rural states like Iowa. We appreciate the importance of Health Care in the USA. We are concerned about the direction our Federal government is heading with this type of health care insurance legislation. As a proponent of Limited Government, a strong defense, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, we encourage the Senate and the House to make the appropriate changes to correct the wrongs found in this current legislation.

Robin Tucker