Amendment 2824 – Strikes the creation of a new $375 million government program intended to promote personal and financial responsibility.  Among the new government programs created by the Senate health care bill is an initiative costing $375 million over five years intended to promote personal and financial responsibility.  This government “responsibility” program duplicates existing government programs, adds hundreds of millions of dollars to the national debt, and creates perverse financial incentives for states to encourage abortion to receive additional federal funds. In short, there is nothing responsible about the new responsibility program.  This amendment would strike the new program and save $375 million.  For further background click here. 

Amendment 2969 – Requires Members of Congress, the President, and their staffs to be enrolled in the new government-regulated state insurance exchanges. Patients currently in government run health care plans, such as Medicare and Medicaid, have limited access to care and often have poorer outcomes than many private plans. Members of Congress, who have created these public health plans for other Americans, have given themselves more than ten private health insurance plans from which to choose. As a result, they do not understand or experience firsthand the frustration and limitations on care faced by those in public plans. This amendment would mandate that members of Congress, the President, and their political advisors and staff be enrolled in the public option in states that have one and in the exchange in states that opt out of the public option. This will ensure that those in Washington managing health care decisions for millions of Americans would have the very same standard of care.
For additional background click here.

Amendment 2967 – To ensure health care providers are not forced to participate in abortions or discriminated against because they choose not to perform abortions. It is important that this health care bill not use the force of the federal government to require health care providers to violate their deeply held moral, ethical or religious beliefs or discriminate against them because they choose to exercise their consciences and not be involved with abortion. This amendment would protect health care providers from being required or coerced to perform abortions. For additional background click here.

Amendment 2966 – To reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid programs and to protect Medicare benefits and services provided to America’s seniors. The majority’s bill cuts $464 billion from Medicare – even though the Administration’s own actuary said this level of cuts could bankrupt hospitals and threaten patient care – and only generates less than $2 billion from reducing waste fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid. There is an estimated $100 billion in Medicaid and Medicare waste, fraud, and abuse each year. Technologies exist which would capture these taxpayer dollars before they go out and payment. Implementing these technologies could increase Medicare and Medicaid’s financial sustainability and improve return on investment for taxpayers. This amendment replaces the draconian Medicare cuts with the same kinds of technologies companies use in the private sector to prevent credit card fraud.  For additional background information click here.

Amendment 2965 – To require the certification of Medicare and Medicaid’s fiscal solvency and financial sustainability before any provision of the majority’s health bill shall take effect.This amendment simply requires the Actuary of the Social Security Administration and of the Department of Health and Human Services to certify to Congress that the provisions of this act – including the insurance cooperatives, the massive new entitlement program through Exchanges, the heavy handed insurance mandates, and the public plan – have no effect unless they can first certify that Medicare and Medicaid are fiscal solvent and financially sustainable. Click here for additional background.

Amendment 2964: To ensure that government health care rationing does not harm, injure, or deny medically necessary care or endorse the taking of life as a form of health care. This amendment also ensures the federal government will not ration end of life care, and that no taxpayer dollars will be used to pay for assisted suicide and euthanasia. For additional background click here.

Amendment 2825: Bureaucrat Limitation – To ensure that no provisions in this act increase the size of government bureaucracies in Washington, D.C. This amendment requires that for each government bureaucrat added to a government agency as a result of this act, there must be a corresponding decrease in a government bureaucrat at that agency. Click here for additional background.