Here's a few items to drop into conversation -- or to include in your letters and phone calls to the powers that be:* Congressional tax experts say Senate health care legislation would impose $29 billion more in taxes on health care industries than originally thought. (Associated Press)
* "Of the eight insurers listed in the AMA’s own 2008 National Health Insurer Report Card, Medicare is most likely to reject a claim, sending away 6.85% of requests. This is more than any private insurer and double that of the private insurers’ average! In short, the AMA is endorsing a plan whose closest existing example is the most frequent denier of claims. How the public option exemplifies “delivering care to patients” is unclear." (Andrew Breitbart presents Big Government)
* The Sunlight Foundation has begun a new effort to get Congress to post bills online 72 hours before lawmakers vote on them. It would give Americans an opportunity to read through the bill and understand just what their representatives are doing with the taxpayer's money. Plus, it would give the citizenry an informed voice to share with their political representatives while there is still time to amend the bill. Nearly every Republican in Congress has signed on to legislation that would require this. But the Democrat leaders? They are adamantly opposed. So much for transparency.
* The White House has confirmed that Obama will give the keynote address at the gathering of the national's largest gay and lesbian advocacy organization. (Washington Post)
* "Even the Democrats in Minnesota now realize their new US Sen. Al Franken was elected with the help of ACORN chicanery. The disgraced, pimp-friendly community organizing group claims it registered 43,000 new Minnesota voters. If just 1 percent were fraudulent but survived the recount process, that's 430 votes, almost all cast for Franken, who won by just 312 votes. Asks Katherine Kersten in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 'Did ACORN folks pull some fast ones to help get their favorite son Franken elected -- a win that handed Democrats the 60-vote, veto-proof majority that they needed to enact their liberal agenda?'" (New York Post)
