A group usually seen as one of Barack Obama’s allies in the health care debate — AARP — says the president went too far Tuesday when he said the seniors lobby had endorsed the legislation pending in Congress.

AARP is sensitive to the issue because polls show that Medicare beneficiaries are worried their health care program will be cut to subsidize coverage for the uninsured.

At the town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., Obama said, “We have the AARP onboard because they know this is a good deal for our seniors.” He added, “AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare.”

But Tom Nelson, AARP’s chief operating officer, said, “Indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”

Like Obama, AARP wants action this year to cover the uninsured and restrain health care costs, but the organization has refrained from endorsing legislation. Nelson said AARP would not endorse a bill that reduces Medicare benefits.

A spokesman said the Medicare cuts that have been proposed so far would not affect benefits.

Obama assailed “wild misrepresentations” of his health care plan Tuesday during the town hall, taking on the role of fact-checker-in-chief for his top domestic priority. It’s a strategy he will employ at two more town halls this week in Montana and Colorado, and on the White House Web site.

To that end, the Obama-aligned Democratic National Committee is running health care overhaul ads nationally on cable channels and in spots the president will visit, joining a chorus of ads that has become a cacophony over a problem that has vexed Washington for decades.

On the other side, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was joining the fray Wednesday, beginning to air 30-second spots in about 20 states criticizing the Democratic proposal to offer optional government health coverage, according to R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the nation’s largest business group.

The multimillion-dollar buy would be one of the largest so far critical of Obama’s effort, in a year in which opponents have been heavily outspent by supporters of the president’s plan. The spot, showing a balloon being inflated until it bursts, says: “Big tax increases, huge deficits, expanded government control of health care. Call Congress.”

In Portsmouth, Obama faced a polite crowd of 1,800 packed into a high school auditorium and a nationwide audience watching on cable television. He urged them not to listen to those who seek to “scare and mislead” on his plans to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

“Where we do disagree, let’s disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that’s actually been proposed,” he said. “Because the way politics works sometimes is that people who want to keep things the way they are will try to scare the heck out of folks, and they’ll create boogeymen out there.”

The boogeymen have prompted the White House to strike back. The president ticked off the highest-profile, most emotional issues that critics have used to greatest advantage to interrupt town hall meetings held by lawmakers home for the August congressional recess.

For instance, Obama said the Democratic health care legislation would not create “death panels” to deny care to frail seniors — or “basically pull the plug on grandma because we decided that it’s too expensive to let her live anymore,” as the president put it. The provision he said had led to such talk would only authorize Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care if they want it, he contended.

He also disputed accusations that he seeks a federally run system, or one in which the government makes decisions about care.

Obama’s new message, sharpened amid sliding public support for him and his plan, targeted a vital and, polls show, particularly skeptical audience: the tens of millions of people who already have health insurance and aren’t yet convinced of a need to spend billions of dollars to change it or cover the nearly 50 million people who lack coverage.

That message is finding reinforcements online. The White House launched a Web site to counter critics and asked supporters to share with them e-mails they say misrepresent Obama’s positions. It’s a tactic similar to the one the tech-savvy Obama campaign used to win the White House.

From Foxnews.com – Read Whole Article Here

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other HHS officials will host a live webcast Aug. 7 at 1 p.m. to discuss the Obama administration’s plans for health insurance reform.

The public is invited to comment and ask questions. Tell HHS your reasons for opposing a government-run health care plan by e-mailing hhsstudio@hhs.gov, or submit your opinions via Twitter using the hashtag #HCRQ.

The Campaign for Responsible Health Reform came up with a list of sample questions to ask HHS. CRHR suggests phrasing these in your own way:

• How does the legislation bring down health care costs while at the same time promise no limits on care and artificially capped premiums? It doesn’t add up, and the Congressional Budget Office agrees.
• How is it possible for government-run health care to be sustainably funded and not reliant on taxpayer money when it’s a proven fact that other — and smaller-scale — government-run health programs like Medicare and Medicaid soon will run out of cash?
• How will it be possible to choose a private health insurance plan if more people jump to a less expensive government-run health plan? Won’t that cause my premiums to rise — or even put my health plan out of business?
• What guarantees are there that my health care options won’t be determined by bureaucrats instead of my doctor?

What: Health and Human Services webcast, “Health Insurance Reform — What’s in it For You?”
When: Aug. 7 at 1 p.m.
Where: Watch it live here.

This country deserves a respectful, honest debate about health care. And the hundreds of townhalls that members of Congress will host across the country this August are just the place for that conversation to happen. Here are just five questions Americans should press their elected leaders on in the coming month:

Can you promise me that I will not lose my plan and doctor? President Obama says it is “not legitimate” to claim the “public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system.” But Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.; Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.; and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman have all admitted that the public option will inevitably lead to government-run health care. The independent and nonpartisan Lewin Group estimates that about 83.4 million people would lose their private insurance if Obamacare became law.

Can you promise that you and your family will enroll in the public plan? Members of Congress and their families receive health care through the popular, and completely public option-free, Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which allows members of Congress to choose between 283 private health insurance plans. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., proposed an amendment that would require all members of Congress and their staffs to enroll in the newly created public health insurance plan. His amendment passed by just one vote in the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee. In the House, Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., offered a similar amendment, and all 21 Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee voted it down. If the public plan is so great, then members of Congress should be willing to forfeit their private coverage and join the millions of Americans who would be forced into the public plan.

Can you promise that Obamacare will not lead to higher deficits in the long term?Obama said he would not support health care legislation that would add to the national deficit. But Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf has stated that the House health care legislation would “generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits during the decade beyond the current 10-year budget window.” To help Obama keep his promise, Rep. Patrick Tiberi, R-Ohio, offered an amendment that would require the secretary of Health and Human Services to submit an annual report to the president and Congress, comparing the expected revenue and spending under the bill’s provisions for the upcoming 10-year period. In the event that projected spending under the bill outpaced revenue, the secretary would have to reduce spending so that it would not exceed revenue. Democrats defeated Tiberi’s amendment.

Can you promise that government bureaucrats will not ration health care for patients on the public plan? Obama promised July 22 that health care reform would keep the government out of health care decisions, but the House and Senate bills call for an increased role of Comparative Effectiveness Research. More information on health care effectiveness is good so long as doctors and patients are the ones empowered to use that information. Conservatives in the House and Senate offered amendments prohibiting the use of CER by government to mandate, deny or ration care. These anti-rationing amendments were defeated in the House and Senate.

Can you promise me that my tax dollars will not fund abortions? The House bill, as drafted, allows the HHS secretary to outline the minimum benefits that must be included in any health plan. There is no specific provision in the bill that would require insurance coverage of abortion. However, because the decisions over benefits are left to the HHS secretary, with recommendations from a newly created Health Care Benefits Advisory Committee, there is nothing to prevent the current or future secretary from including abortion coverage in Americans’ health insurance. Conservatives in the House and Senate offered amendments that would prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. The taxpayer-funded abortion bans were defeated in the House and Senate.

By Robert Powell, MarketWatch

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — If President Barack Obama says it’s so, it must be so. It’s time, if you don’t have one already, to get a living will. Yes, President Obama in his town-hall meeting with AARP this week noted that one way America can trim its health-care tab is for everyone to have directives in place that tells doctors that it’s OK to pull the proverbial plug on you.

Many Americans became familiar with the need for a living will in recent years given what happened to Karen Anne Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan and Terri Schiavo. But being familiar with living wills is not the same as having one. Indeed, less than one-third of Americans have a living will, according to Jeff Scroggin, an estate-planning attorney with Scroggin & Company.

Read more …

PROJECT AIM –- ATTRACT, INFORM, & MOBILIZE

The unscrupulous politicians and lobbyists are regrouping and planning to launch a new series of attacks to push their big government agendas. We can stop them! Let’s unite against them and AIM.

Our focus this summer is Project AIM — Attract, Inform and Mobilize — to educate and mobilize the grassroots army and oppose government-run health care as well as cap and trade.

Do you want to become an AIM volunteer or leader? Click here.

Please contact these Blue Dog Democrats ASAP and tell them you are against socialized health care!

Click here to e-mail the Blue Dogs!

Bureaucrats and politicians, not families, will control health care choices and decisions. The horror stories of long waits and denied treatment in countries with government health care systems cannot be denied. Government health care doesnt work.

We all know health rationing makes good sense. But did you know that it’s popular, too?

It is! Citizens from around the country have embraced the chance to give a lot — and take a little.

Are you up for the challenge?

Learn more about the Health Administration Bureau: dedicated to ensuring that all Americans, regardless of age (where appropriate) and need (where appropriate), receive adequate health care.