1794 - The U.S. and Britain signed the Jay Treaty, which resolved the issues left over from the Revolutionary War.

November 19, 1863

Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address

On November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In just 272 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=52278

1919 - The U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles with a vote of 55 in favor to 39 against. A two-thirds majority was needed for ratification.

November 19, 1985

Reagan and Gorbachev hold their first summit meeting

For the first time in eight years, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States hold a summit conference. Meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev produced no earth-shattering agreements. However, the meeting boded well for the future, as the two men engaged in long, personal talks and seemed to develop a sincere and close relationship.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2489

1998 - The impeachment inquiry of U.S. President Clinton began.

The $100 Million Health Care Vote?

November 19, 2009 3:03 PM

ABC News' Jonathan Karl reports:

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?

Here’s a case study.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.” 

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.” 

I am told the section applies to exactly one state:  Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world:  Louisiana.  (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/11/the-100-million-health-care-vote.html

The Senate is headed for a rare Saturday vote to advance its major healthcare reform bill without a guarantee of success, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) indicated Thursday.

At a rally with supporters of the healthcare reform bill, Reid would not say he had secured commitments from all 60 members of the Democratic Conference to vote for the legislation — an absolute necessity given unanimous opposition from the 40 Senate Republicans.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/68647-reid-uncertain-of-tally-as-health-bill-heads-for-saturday-vote

The House overwhelmingly approved a physician repayment bill to permanently fix the way doctors who cover Medicare patients are reimbursed.

Only one Republican member voted with Democrats for the bill that was approved 243-183.

Dr. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) endured intense lobbying efforts by his GOP colleagues to oppose the nearly quarter of a trillion dollar bill that Democrats do not offset.

Eleven Democrats joined 176 Republicans in opposing the bill that would fix what both parties described as a “flawed formula” for reimbursing doctors of Medicare patients.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/68695-house-passes-medicare-doc-fix-243-183

Here is more on Dem's "slick fix:"

Something unusual and largely unnoticed happened last week as Democrats pushed the national health care bill through the House. In a complicated, late-night maneuver, on a party-line vote, the House Rules Committee used the health bill to pave the way for a $210 billion increase in Medicare payments to doctors, without any money budgeted to pay for it. Congress then combined that $210 billion with a measure that would force lawmakers to exercise fiscal discipline -- except when it came to the $210 billion.

It was a particularly slick move, even by congressional standards. With one vote, committee Democrats managed to propose spending a huge amount of money while also claiming to clamp down on spending. More importantly, they threw a very big bone to several physicians organizations, which badly want the increased doctor payments and to whom Democrats are deeply indebted for support of health care legislation. And at the same time, they gave cover to moderate Democrats, who are under pressure to support health reform but also fear the wrath of voters concerned about overspending.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Dems_-slick-fix_-_210-billion-of-fiscal-restraint-8523304-69917072.html


Here is the roll call:


---- AYES    243 ---

Abercrombie Ackerman Adler (NJ) Altmire Andrews Arcuri Baca Baldwin Barrow Bean Becerra Berkley Berman Berry Bishop (GA) Bishop (NY) Blumenauer Boccieri Boswell Boucher Boyd Brady (PA) Braley (IA) Bright Brown, Corrine Burgess Butterfield Capps Capuano Cardoza Carnahan Carney Carson (IN) Castor (FL) Chandler Childers Chu Clarke Clay Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Connolly (VA) Conyers Costa Costello Courtney Crowley Cuellar Cummings Dahlkemper Davis (AL) Davis (CA) Davis (IL) Davis (TN) DeFazio DeGette Delahunt DeLauro Dic-s Dingell Doggett Donnelly (IN) Doyle Driehaus Edwards (MD) Ellison Ellsworth Engel Eshoo Etheridge Farr Fattah Filner Foster Frank (MA) Fudge Garamendi Giffords Gonzalez Gordon (TN)

Grayson Green, Al Green, Gene Griffith Grijalva Gutierrez Hall (NY) Halvorson Hare Harman Hastings (FL) Heinrich Higgins Hill Himes Hinchey Hinojosa Hirono Hodes Holden Holt Honda Hoyer Inslee Israel Jackson (IL) Jackson-Lee (TX) Johnson (GA) Johnson, E. B. Kagen Kanjorski Kaptur Kildee Kilpatrick (MI) Kilroy Kind Kirkpatrick (AZ) Kissell Klein (FL) Kratovil Kucinich Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lee (CA) Levin Lewis (GA) Loebsack Lofgren, Zoe Lowey Luján Lynch Maffei Maloney Markey (CO) Markey (MA) Marshall Massa Matheson Matsui McCarthy (NY) McCollum McDermott McGovern McIntyre McNerney Meek (FL) Meeks (NY) Michaud Miller (NC) Minnick Mitchell Mollohan Moore (KS) Moore (WI) Moran (VA) Murphy (CT) Murphy (NY) Murphy, Patrick Murtha Nadler (NY)

Napolitano Neal (MA) Nye Oberstar Obey Olver Ortiz Owens Pallone Pascrell Pastor (AZ) Payne Perlmutter Perriello Peters Pingree (ME) Polis (CO) Pomeroy Price (NC) Quigley Rahall Rangel Reyes Richardson Rodriguez Ross Rothman (NJ) Roybal-Allard Ruppersberger Rush Ryan (OH) Salazar Sánchez, Linda T. Sanchez, Loretta Sarbanes Schakowsky Schauer Schiff Schrader Schwartz Scott (GA) Scott (VA) Serrano Sestak Shea-Porter Sherman Shuler Sires Skelton Slaughter Snyder Space Speier Spratt Stark Stupak Sutton Tanner Teague Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Tierney Titus Tonko Tsongas Van Hollen Velázquez Visclosky Walz Wasserman Schultz Waters Watson Watt Waxman Weiner Welch Wexler Wilson (OH) Woolsey Wu Yarmuth

---- NOES    183 ---

Aderholt Akin Alexander Austria Bachmann Bachus Baird Barrett (SC) Bartlett Barton (TX) Biggert Bilbray Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Blackburn Blunt Boehner Bonner Bono Mack Boozman Boren Boustany Broun (GA) Brown-Waite, Ginny Buchanan Burton (IN) Buyer Calvert Camp Campbell Cantor Cao Capito Cassidy Castle Chaffetz Coble Coffman (CO) Cole Conaway Cooper Crenshaw Culberson Davis (KY) Deal (GA) Dent Diaz-Balart, L. Diaz-Balart, M. Dreier Duncan Edwards (TX) Ehlers Emerson Fallin Flake Fleming Forbes Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen

Gallegly Garrett (NJ) Gerlach Gingrey (GA) Gohmert Goodlatte Granger Graves Guthrie Hall (TX) Harper Hastings (WA) Heller Hensarling Herger Herseth Sandlin Hoekstra Hunter Inglis Issa Jenkins Johnson (IL) Johnson, Sam Jones Jordan (OH) King (IA) King (NY) Kingston Kirk Kline (MN) Kosmas Lamborn Lance Latham LaTourette Latta Lee (NY) Lewis (CA) Linder Lipinski LoBiondo Lucas Luetkemeyer Lummis Lungren, Daniel E. Mack Manzullo Marchant McCarthy (CA) McClintock McCotter McHenry McKeon McMahon McMorris Rodgers Mica Miller (FL) Miller (MI) Miller, Gary Moran (KS) Murphy, Tim

Myrick Neugebauer Nunes Olson Paul Paulsen Pence Peterson Petri Pitts Platts Poe (TX) Posey Price (GA) Putnam Radanovich Rehberg Reichert Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Rooney Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Royce Ryan (WI) Scalise Schmidt Schock Sensenbrenner Sessions Shadegg Shimkus Shuster Simpson Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Smith (WA) Souder Stearns Sullivan Taylor Terry Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiahrt Tiberi Turner Upton Walden Wamp Westmoreland Whitfield Wilson (SC) Wittman Wolf Young (AK) Young (FL)

---- NOT VOTING    8 ---

Brady (TX) Brown (SC) Carter

Kennedy McCaul Melancon

Miller, George Towns

Health Care is not a right

By: Iain Murray and Roger Abbott
Washington Examiner
11/17/09 5:10 PM EST

President Obama argues that his party’s health care reform proposals are about “bending the price curve” However, the Democrats’ health care agenda is really about nationalizing health care, based on the concept that health care is a right, and therefore must be secured by the state. This claim is misleading for several reasons, but most fundamentally because of its conflation of “rights” and “needs.” Obamacare opponents need to address this emotional appeal. After all, who can be against basic “rights”?

Lying on a bed in an emergency room this week following a cardiac scare, one of us had an opportunity to think this through. He had a need for healthcare, one which was being met, but to what extent was it meaningful that he had a right to healthcare?

A right, in both a legal and practical sense, is simply an entitlement due to an individual that other people are obliged to respect, with a failure to comply typically resulting in some sort of sanction. Because rights entail claims on other people, they are necessarily negative in their construction and limited in their definition. Constitutional rights such as freedom of speech and religion and the right to property can be clearly defined in accordance with John Stuart Mill’s harm principle—act as you will so long as you do not directly harm others.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Health-Care-is-not-a-right-70302612.html

Rubio Surges in Primary Race with Crist

A new DailyKos/Research 2000 poll in Florida shows Marco Rubio (R) surging in his race with Gov. Charlie Crist (R) for the Republican Senate nomination.

Crist now leads Rubio, 47% to 37%. In January, Crist led 57% to 11.

Fred Thompson: Afghan war 'has been lost'

Former Sen. Fred Thompson today intensified his party's criticism of President Obama's long deliberation over policy in Afghanistan, announcing that Obama's delay signals that "the war has been lost" and that nothing the president now does will "make any difference."

"It really doesn't matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost," Thompson said on his radio show today.  "I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what's necessary to win it. His heart's not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.

Fred Thompson’s Harry Reid Impression   [Pete Hegseth]

As Kathryn noted, today Sen. Fred Thompson declared, “It really doesn’t matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost.” That’s right: Senator Thompson has declared America’s defeat in Afghanistan. Read it here.

I have a high regard for Senator Thompson, and greatly appreciated his robust and courageous support for the Iraq surge in 2007. But on this, he is dead — and dangerously — wrong.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzA2ZmIzZjQ5YWIzZTM2MGU0OTY4ODEyNzg3ZGI4MTE=

In a letter to Rep. Paul Ryan, the CBO explains that Reid is wrong about his deficits claim:

Dear Congressman:
This letter responds to questions you have asked about Medicare’s payments to
physicians and the budgetary effects of H.R. 3961, the Medicare Physicians Payment
Reform Act of 2009, as introduced on October 29, 2009. In particular, you inquired about
the budgetary impact of a new regulation specifying how payments to physicians should
be determined under current law and about the total budgetary impact of enacting both
H.R. 3961 and H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

...
The Budgetary Impact of Enacting Both H.R. 3961 and H.R. 3962
Under current law, including the new rule, Medicare’s payment rates for physicians’
services will be reduced by about 21 percent in January 2010, and CBO estimates those
payment rates will be reduced by about 2 percent annually for several subsequent years.
H.R. 3961 would increase those payment rates by 1.2 percent in 2010 and restructure the
SGR beginning in 2011. Those changes would result in significantly higher payment
rates for physicians than those that would result under current law. CBO estimates that
enacting H.R. 3961, by itself, would cost $210 billion over the 2010–2019 period.2

H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, would establish a mandate for
most legal residents of the United States to obtain health insurance, set up insurance
“exchanges” through which certain individuals could receive federal subsidies toward the
purchase of such insurance, and make numerous other changes in the health insurance
system, in federal health care programs, and in the federal tax code. CBO and the staff of
the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that enacting H.R. 3962, by itself, would
reduce federal budget deficits by $109 billion over the 2010–2019 period through its
effects on direct spending and revenues.3
CBO estimates that enacting both H.R. 3961 and H.R. 3962 would add $89 billion to
budget deficits over the 2010–2019 period. That amount is about $12 billion less than the
sum of the effects of enacting the bills separately. The $12 billion difference results from
two types of interactions. The higher payment rates for physicians’ services under
H.R. 3961 would increase the net cost of provisions in H.R. 3962 by about $3 billion.
However, that difference would be more than offset by the effect of a change under
H.R. 3962 in how payment rates for Medicare Advantage plans are set. That change
would reduce the effect of the changes made by H.R. 3961 to Medicare’s payments for
physicians’ services in the fee-for-service sector on payment rates for Medicare
Advantage plans. As a result, the estimated increase in payments to Medicare Advantage
plans would be $15 billion smaller if both bills were enacted than under H.R. 3961 alone.

http://www.house.gov/budget_republicans/press/2007/pr20091119cboscore.pdf

Giuliani Is Said to Have Decided Not to Run for Governor

Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has decided not to run for governor of New York next year after months of mulling a candidacy, according to people who have been told of the decision.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/nyregion/20rudy.html?_r=1&emc=na

Barack Obama rewards big donors with plum jobs overseas

By JEANNE CUMMINGS | 11/19/09 9:37 AM EST

He may have promised to change Washington, but President Barack Obama is continuing one of its most renowned patronage traditions: bestowing prized ambassadorships on big donors.

Of the nearly 80 ambassadorship nominations or confirmations since Obama’s Inauguration, 56 percent were given to political appointees and 44 percent have gone to career diplomats, according to records kept by the American Foreign Service Association.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29699.html

Health bill could get 34-hour reading in Senate

By Joseph Curl

The 2,074-page Senate health care bill would take 34 hours to read cover to cover -- and that's just what Sen. Tom Coburn wants done on the Senate floor.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/19/health-bill-could-get-34-hour-reading-senate/

Sen. Reid’s Government-Run Health Plan Requires a Monthly Abortion Fee

Follow @GOPLeader on Twitter for updates.

Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) massive, 2,074-page bill would levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run plan. 

Beginning on line 7, p. 118, section 1303 under “Voluntary Choice of Coverage of Abortion Services” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run health plan.  Leader Reid’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions (line 13, p. 120).

What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan.  It’s right there beginning on line 11, page 122, section 1303, under “Actuarial Value of Optional Service Coverage.”  The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.

http://republicanleader.house.gov/blog/?p=690

Subject: CBO Made Easy   [Rich Lowry]

A memo from McConnell’s office to the media:

 

The report CBO provided late last night has some interesting information. For example:

 

The cost curve goes UP

— “Under the legislation, federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010–2019 period, as would the federal budgetary commitment to health care.” (page 6)

Deficit reduction?

— While Democrats will point to $127 billion in possible deficit reduction, that is made possible in part by delaying the benefits until the fifth year of the 10-year budget window. And even then, the $127 billion is LESS than the deficit that was already spent in October of this year. In other words, any possible savings over 10 years of this bill are already erased by the deficit spending of last month alone.

— And remember, CBO predicts that the 2019 deficit will be $722 billion. So their projected deficit reduction, as uncertain as it is, over the second 10 years won’t erase even the 10th year’s deficit.

Delayed costs

— To make costs appear smaller, major provisions of the plan are pushed back an additional year—to 2014

“Starting in 2014, the legislation would…” (page 4)

Government plan would have higher premiums

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjQwNWRmZTUzYzkwZDIyM2IwNWY0NTFhYmJjZmE2Njc=

If the U.S. captures Osama bin Laden, there's no need to interrogate him, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of that committee, said that arguments raised by Republican senators about whether bin Laden would be afforded Miranda rights if he were captured amount to a "red herring."

"The red herring that my friend [Sen.] Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.] was covering is not realistic," Leahy said during an appearance on "Washington Journal" on C-SPAN.

"For one thing, capturing Osama bin Laden — we've had enough on him, we don't need to interrogate him," Leahy added.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/68593-leahy-no-need-to-interrogate-bin-laden-if-hes-captured