[MarignyBywater] Re : [USDemocrat-Louisiana] Obama.....Louisiana Health

[Robert Desmarais Sullivan]

Russell, 

I have deleted some parts of your message below in order to emphasize that President Obama refuses to discuss the largest elephant in the room.

Limiting health-care costs is not the single most important thing we can do to balance the budget.  Limiting military costs is.

After giving time and money to Candidate Obama, I am angry that he is continuing the policies of the Bush administration in both military and security.  Iraq will continue to be occupied, Israel will continue to receive exorbitant aid, Afghanistan is called 'the good war', renditions and torture remain possible, and the Patriot and Military Commissions Acts are still on the books.

My direct communications to his website have gone unanswered.  For me and for many of my friends, this is a priority, and his refusal to address the military budget will cost him considerable support.  

ROBERT DESMARAIS SULLIVAN of New Orleans






________________________________
De : "nolarussell at bellsouth.net" <nolarussell at bellsouth.net>

Envoyé le : mardi 24 février 2009, 22 h 49 min 35 s
Objet : [USDemocrat-Louisiana] Obama.....Louisiana Health


With the fed offering 1.6 bil, for Health, we should redo the healthcare system in Louisiana. DHH Levine has made a convincing case that we need to change the way we are doing things. My understanding from DHH is their needs assessment may be helpful. Single payer; parish or regional system of care  Yes we can.

Russell Henderson
Organizing for Louisiana

 (Obama)
cited efforts to limit health carecosts as the "single most important thing we can do" for long-termfiscal stability (Condon, CongressDaily, 2/23).

Obama said, "Putting America on a sustainable fiscal course willrequire addressing health care," adding, "Many of you said what Ibelieve, that the biggest source of our deficits is the rising costof health care" (Kranish/Wangsness, Boston Globe, 2/24). 
During the fiscal responsibility summit, Obama also discussed theoutline of his fiscal year 2010 budget proposal, which he willrelease on Thursday. He said that the proposal will target Medicarespending. Obama said that efforts to reduce the federal budgetdeficit and the nearly $11-trillion national debt will requireefforts to limit health care costs in public programs and theprivate sector (Wolf, USA Today, 2/24). According to theWashington Post, the White House"offered no timetable for those goals and few explicit ideas forhow to achieve them, disappointing some lawmakers and otherparticipants, who had hoped the summit might produce greatermomentum to fix the chronic imbalance between government spendingand tax collections that is driving the national debt to dangerouslevels" (Montgomery/ Goldstein, Washington Post,2/24).

Obama in recent days also indicated that he "has no plans to backaway from campaign promises to revamp the nation's health caresystem and create new sources of clean energy, both of which costmoney, at least in the short term," Roll Call reports(Koffler, Roll Call, 2/24). According to the AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, his"challenge is clear: He will have to increase spending on healthcare and energy if he wants to accomplish the policy overhaul hepromised during his campaign, yet he also needs to cut spendingelsewhere and increase revenue to meet his deficit goal" (Kuhnhenn,AP/ Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/24). The Obamaadministration and congressional Democrats "are putting out a newline ... that plans to revamp the health care system are the key tocost savings that will help reduce spending on Medicare," accordingto Roll Call (Roll Call, 2/24).

According to the Washington Times, Obama plans to"use a significant portion" of his speech "to highlight his plansfor health care reform" and "tell Congress and the nation thatoverhauling the country's health system is the country's nextsignificant priority" (Lengell, Washington Times,2/24).

"Experts say that by designating health care as a priority now,Obama is trying to take advantage of a narrow window of opportunitywhen the public and many interest groups favor change and theeconomic crisis is making health coverage an imperative," CQToday reports (Bettelheim, CQ Today, 2/23).
rOmnibus Appropriations Bill
In related news, congressional Democrats on Monday introduced anomnibus appropriations bill (HR 1105) that includes the FY 2009 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill and the eight other unapproved FY 2009appropriations bills. Since last October, the federal governmenthas operated under a continuing resolution that will fund mostCabinet departments and federal agencies at FY 2008 levels untilMarch 6. The omnibus appropriations bill would fund thosedepartments and agencies from March 7 until Sept. 30, the end ofthe fiscal year (Wayne, CQ Today, 2/23). The billrepresents an 8%, or $30 billion, increase over comparable budgetsfor those departments and agencies in FY 2008 (Sands/Bellantoni, Washington Times, 2/24).

The House plans to vote on the bill this week (Kelley, USA Today, 2/24). The Senate likelywill vote on the bill next week (Bendavid, Wall Street Journal, 2/24).

The bill would provide $625.6 billion in Labor-HHS-Education appropriations, which includes about $152 billion in discretionaryspendi ng, an almost $6 billion increase from FY 2008. Under thebill, the HHS budget would increase by about 4% from FY 2008. Thebill would increase the NIH budget by $932 million from FY 2008. In addition,the bill would increase funds for a program to train health careworkers by 12% from FY 2008 to $393 million (Wayne, CQToday, 2/23). The bill also includes $6.6 billion forCDC (WallStreet Journal, 2/24).

The bill would provide $20.5 billion in discretionary spending forAgriculture appropriations. The bill includes $2 billion forFDA and $14.5million to establish a nationwide animal tracking system designedto prevent disease outbreaks and improve food safety (Sternstein, CQ Today, 2/23).

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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