Posts Tagged ‘Republican’
Ping-Pong
Sep26
By John Feehery
Ping-Pong is a wonderful game, requiring skill, finesse, great hand-eye coordination, and at times, power.
Ping-Pong is a different game in the Congressional sense.
When one legislative body ping-pongs back a piece of legislation to another legislative body (like the House jamming the Senate) it can be both exhilarating and frustrating at the same time.
Last week, the House served up a continuing resolution plus some additional disaster assistance money to the Senate before leaving for its break for the Jewish holidays.
The Senate, which hoped to also break for the week, is not at all happy with what the House served up.
But to be successful in jamming back the House, the Senate has to act as one. The rules of the Senate make it awfully hard for that body to act quickly on anything if there is a disagreement between the political parties.
And on this package, there is intense disagreement.
The Republicans want to pay for disaster assistance. The Democrats don’t like how the Republicans paid for it, especially their efforts to isolate a particularly bad political scandal that is currently afflicting the Obama Administration.
But in trying to avoid political embarrassment for the White House, the Senate Majority Leader might actually be putting his own vulnerable members in danger.
And you have to ask yourself this question if you are a Democrat up for re-election in a red-tinged state: What has this President done for me lately?
The interesting dynamic here is that both Senate Majority Leader Reid and Senate Minority Leader McConnell have been coordinating with their House colleagues in such a way as to weaken their own legislative body’s power at the negotiating table.
Reid apparently negotiated with House Speaker John Boehner on the initial CR package, and then went over to the House side to help Speaker Nancy Pelosi round up the votes to kill the package he negotiated.
McConnell, in turn helped to craft the Boehner strategy to jam the Senate and force Senator Reid’s hand.
The rule to be learned here is that when the Senate is divided amongst itself, the House has a great opportunity to jam the Senate.
As a former House guy, nothing gives me greater pleasure than seeing the lower chamber sticking it to the upper chamber.
My prediction? The Senate caves and they pass the House bill to keep the government funded.
Fighting Fraud In Medicare
Sep16
By John Feehery
“In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
That was Thomas Hobbes, who argued that implicit in civil society is a social contract that called for a strong government presence in regulating conduct. In Mr. Hobbes time, the king was the ultimate sovereign. These days, you could argue that the sovereign is the Federal government as set out by the Constitution.
Hobbes understood that the nature of man, without that social contract, would descend into chaos and ultimately darkness. In other words, without strong laws, people cheat, lie and steal.
I say this as a means of introduction to a bipartisan proposal by Jim Gerlach, a Republican from Pennsylvania, and Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, to get rid of fraud in Medicare. It is a modest proposal that could save tens of billions of dollars in government spending.
The most amazing thing about the proposal is that it hasn’t been implemented yet. The proposal would create a common access card that would store and secure a Medicare beneficiary’s personal information electronically on a computer chip. As a result, it would require both beneficiaries and providers to confirm receipt of services at the time services are rendered thereby preventing fraudulent claims. In sum, identity verification will prevent fraud among beneficiaries and providers, and legitimize Medicare claims. With more than $60 billion in fraud and abuse in the Medicare program annually, this proposal is long overdue. It would also protect senior citizens, who tend to be the most vulnerable to fraud.
A similar program exists at the Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD has issued over 20 million secure smart cards or Common Access Card to authenticate and verify users for access to programs and facilities. To date, DoD reports not a single Common Access Card has been counterfeited.
For the life of me, I don’t know why we can’t get moving on this proposal. American Express and Visa have both figured out how to instantly track down waste, fraud and abuse. We have the technical capabilities to do the same with Medicare. We should go ahead and pass this legislation.
