Senator Michael Enzi (R-WY), one of the three Senate Republicans negotiating with their counterparts on the Senate Finance Committee for a bi-partisan health care bill rejected the Democratic proposal, because it would reduce medical care to the elderly by means of a comparative effectiveness research board and would also make the country's "finances sicker without saving you money."

Enzi said: "These bills also raid Medicare. This will result in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the elderly to create new government programs. Savings from Medicare should only be used to strengthen Medicare.

Nitwit,  those were my words. I never attributed that statement to the President. That is however his intention. When you make these kind of wicked cuts it's called "austerity", and it's directed against the population. How can you disagree with that?

I havent avoided any of your question but at the same time I am not your babysitter. Try doing your own work instead of waiting for Obama to mail you your personal copy of his final "Healthcare bill"

But seeing as how you like the taste of your own foot. Read the direct testimony of Bacus/Rockefeller as they vote to defeat Cornyn's amendment.

The following excerpts are from the Wednesday, Sept. 23 debate in the markup session of the Senate Finance Committee when Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) engineered the passage of the Nazi IMAC provision by defeating the amendment by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), to KILL the IMAC provision.  Cornyn's amendment was defeated when all the Democrats on the committee, plus Republican Olympia Snowe, voted against it.

CORNYN: I appreciate the passion with which the senator from
West Virginia [Rockefeller] speaks ... But my hope is that our
future would embrace the courage to make tough decisions
ourselves rather than outsource them to an unelected,
unaccountable body....
...When you talk about joining the spending decisions with
decisions about outcomes, it reminds me of some of the concerns
that we have heard about compared effectiveness research and how
this could be used as a tool for rationing and how government,
rather than physicians making decisions in the best interest of
their patients would determine who gets what care, because it
would determine who gets compensated for that care and who does
not.
And this is really at the heart of some of our concerns
about rationing and the abuse of comparative effectiveness
research, which could be used for a good purpose but which in the
hand of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats could also be
abused.  So I agree with the chairman that our entitlement
spending is out of control ...this bill does nothing to fix
that."

BAUCUS:  I personally believe this commission is very
important. There are different versions of this commission,
different senators have different ideas on how it should be
constituted. But in the main, I think it is very, very
important....
We've got to find a way to control costs... And I do believe
that too often Congress has a hard time saying no to providers.
Providers come in and say, well, gee we won't agree with this
update, we need more ... And I do think it makes some sense to
have some private check here to help members of Congress do the
right thing ... start to reduce the rate of health care costs in
this country....
So, I just really believe very, very strongly that this
provosiion that we have in the markup is basically a no-brainer.
That is my personal belief.  This is just so important to help
set the stage, to help reduce the rate of growth of spending ...
Otherwise ... Spending is going to keep growing up so much that
pretty soon all these calls for empowerment commissions are going
to start to sound a lot more attractive.

JAY ROCKEFELLER:  I feel ...  not so much against this
[Cornyn] amendment as I am for the Medicare Advisory Commission.
And I think this is probably the most important argument that we
will have.... we have to learn how to discipline ourselves.
I'd appreciate if my colleagues would listen, particularly
on the democratic side.
I think this is a turning point for health care ... the
future of health care.  This is the discipline that we are going
to have to face up to in health care in the future, which we do
not have today.... all of us are going to be able to sit here and
explain how to really do a good outcomes research based
reimbursement policy ... [to reward a hospital] which is doing a
much better job on outcomes, because they have a tough
administrator , and he's making really good decisions....
And it is the future of health care, analysis, hard-core
professional, nonpolitical, non-monetary based, I say carefully.
Decision-making is the future of the health care system which
works.