Fresh off his success getting Congress to pass legislation to help find jobs for returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets, the next stage in President Obama’s push for jobs bill is a similar $1 billion measure to hire, train, and deploy healthcare workers.
The Obama administration will announce Monday as much as $1 billion in funding to hire, train and deploy health-care workers, part of the White House’s broader “We Can’t Wait” agenda to bolster the economy after President Obama’s jobs bill stalled in Congress.
Grants can go to doctors, community groups, local government and other organizations that work with patients in federal health-care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. The funds are for experimenting with different ways to expand the health-care workforce while reducing the cost of delivering care. There will be an emphasis on speed, with new programs expected to be running within six months of funding.
“This will open the inbox for many innovators and organizations that have an idea to bring to the table,” Don Berwick, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in an interview. “We’re seeking innovators, organizations and leaders that have an idea to bring into further testing.”
On the surface, this seems like exactly the kind of program Republicans want in their approach to health care: venture capitalism for the doctors, hospitals, and medical device corporations to find better real-world solutions to lower Medicare and Medicaid costs. The reality is I fully expect Republicans to scream “Obamacare!” and unanimously vote against it because they are fully in the grip of The Crazy.
The fact of the matter is after Friday’s Senate vote to approve a jobs measure for veterans, the Tea Party will expect their wishes to be heeded on this, and you should expect to see a number of Republicans dismiss the measure as part of the President’s evil death panel machine or whatever.
It would be outstanding if I’m wrong on this preemptive hoocodanode, but I don’t think I will be. All that matters to the GOP is that Obama must be defeated so they can repeal this “horrible assault on our liberty” so we can die from not being able to afford healthcare like the Founding Fathers wanted, then turn around and pass the same legislation with the word “Freedom” in the title.
Josie
I may not be reading the article correctly, but it sounds to me as though this is an administrative initiative and won’t need congress’ approval. That won’t, however, keep them from screeching about the expense and the abuse of power, etc.
imonlylurking
Interesting timing.
I’ve been seeing more and more stories in the local paper about attempts to revise health care delivery.
This one is from today’s paper.
There was another story a few months ago-I’ll have to see if I can dig out the link-about using group doctor visits to manage chronic health conditions, like diabetes and asthma. That one was amusing-the doctor tapped to manage these group visits was really opposed, he thought it would fail miserably, and now he’s their biggest fan. (The clinic network saw visits decline by 30%, I think.)
4tehlulz
OH BOY HERE WE GO
Michael
Yes, it’s administrative action not requiring congressional approval.
Frankensteinbeck
The SENATE passed that tiny, token jobs bill. That doesn’t hugely surprise me. The GOP senate are assholes, but they’re sane. Rand Paul’s the only tea partier who won a senate seat. The question for every bill has always been ‘Will it pass the howler monkeys in the GOP House?’
Judas Escargot
@4tehlulz:
Liberals need to be ready for the outcome.
If it turns out that SCOTUS is seriously willing to throw away 75 years’ worth of decisions to get rid of the mandate… what other laws that we don’t like will suddenly become vulnerable?
burnspbesq
@4tehlulz:
It’s interesting that one of the issues on which they granted cert is the Anti-Injunction Act, which gives them an opportunity to kick the can several years down the road rather than having to reach the merits in an election year.
burnspbesq
@Judas Escargot:
I think you meant to say “187 years.” “Modern” Commerce Clause jurisprudence has its roots in Gibbons v. Ogden, which was decided in 1824.
Judas Escargot
@burnspbesq:
Even better, then.
The pure-abstractionist in me is intellectually curious as to what they’ll decide, and how they’ll try to argue it without unraveling all those years’ worth of decisions.
The human in me is still horrified that half the country would cheer at the news that the 1-2 million who’ve already started to get health insurance (the under 26 year olds, etc) might just as suddenly get it stripped away from them again.
Villago Delenda Est
@Judas Escargot:
Given the nature of Roberts, Scalia, Alito, and Thomas, I’d expect the entire Constitution to be tossed out the window, and an invitation issued to some Stuart pretender to take the crown of the United Colonies, providing he was militant about the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings.
The Other Bob
I am no lawyer or constitutional scholar, so this is just opinion, but it seems to me that if the federal government does not have the power to make this relatively small change to how we fund our health care, then is there really a point to our federal government at all?
The confederates will have won. If we cannot fix health care, then the red states and blue states should go their separate ways. Let the south have its state’s rights and weak federal powers, but those of us who understand that in the international marketplace a state cannot provide for its people, nor can it compete against those nations who invest and educate and empower its citizens for success.
The experiment will have failed.
Please give me a nation, not a collections of states.
danimal
This can not be stressed enough. The GOP opposition to Obamacare is heavy on the “Obama.” These poseurs strutting around claiming that ACA is unconstitutional will suddenly figure out that it’s ok once it’s their idea. I’d call them idiots, but some of the idiots I know have a soul and a good heart, and these are qualities the GOP leaders lack.
The Moar You Know
@Judas Escargot: Doesn’t matter. Liberals have this problem where they want to obey laws and precedent. Conservatives have no compunctions about freely violating either to get their goals accomplished.
Those laws that we don’t like will remain law, and we’ll obey them like the good law-abiding liberals that we are.
Villago Delenda Est
@danimal:
The supreme irony here is that it was their idea in the first place, and the basis of Romneycare, which OvenMitt announced at a press conference which was basically his “Hi, I’m Mitt, and I’m going to be your President someday” coming out party.
Which he’s been desperately running away from ever since ACA was passed, because now all those concepts are associated with the near sheriff.
RSA
On the plus side, we’ll still be able to afford the best health care available to the Founding Fathers in the late 18th century–leeches, unsterilized medical equipment, and whatever weird shit we can grow in our backyards. That’s dying with patriotism.
Perspecticus
hoocodanode- no dictionary results
That was Webster’s. Just in case, I checked Urban Dictionary…
hoocodanode isn’t defined yet.
I really like the word, and it’s fun to say, but what is it?
Menzies
@Perspecticus:
Phonetic rendering of “who could’ve known.” Check out the Lexicon on your right.
RalfW
the same legislation, with more pork/grift for profiteers, and no $$ for gubmit institutions, Zandar.
Get with the
jobsprofit program, dude.mclaren
What magnificent genius! Health care is the lowest productivity, highest-cost industry in America. So clearly we need more health care workers.
The American medical-industrial complex is collapsing from its own corruption and monopolistic anti-competitive bribe-taking inefficiency, so clearly we need to make the American medical-industrial complex bigger.
EPIC FAIL, Obama.