The Pelican Post

Feinberg and Landrieu hold town halls to explain new victims claims process

On August 18th, approximately 500 individuals crowded the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner, Louisiana, to hear from Kenneth Feinberg and Mary Landrieu (D-La). The two speakers explained the new Gulf Coast Claims Facility, highlighted its independence, and assured the audience of their concern for victims of the oil spill.
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Would you like to read an excessively optimistic view on health care reform? Sen. Mary Landrieu’s op-ed highlights what she believes to be the greatest ObamaCare achievements, praising the full coverage of Louisiana’s children, young adults, and seniors.

Claiming that “congress has finally delivered meaningful health care coverage to all Americans,” Sen. Landrieu argues that the new reform will “save businesses thousands of dollars each year which will allow businesses to potentially increase wages or hire more employees.”

But Sen. Landrieu is overly confident – and even deceptive – because she is neglecting important facts behind the new health care reform: its costs. As Michael Cannon from the Cato Institute points out:

“Obama’s plan [aka: ObamaCare] would vastly increase the size and scope of the federal government, and increase our already record federal deficit”

The Congressional Budget Office estimated costs to be around $940 billion, but this projection takes into account only the costs to expand current health insurance coverage. Considering other unavoidable spending provisions, the costs would amount to around $1.2 trillion.  And that is a conservative estimate. Further, the new health care reform will force nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance, set price controls on the private health insurance industry, and increase the federal deficit by providing more than $1 trillion in subsidies.

Sure, Landrieu is right to claim that these reforms will extend coverage to more children, seniors, and sick individuals. Unfortunately she fails to acknowledge that this will not be sustainable in the long run.

On January 11, 2010, Senator Mary Landrieu was confronted by protestors outside the Vermilion Parish Library as she spoke about coastal protection.  The protestors were there to discuss the Senator’s vote on health care reform.  As she responded to criticism, she noted:

“The idea is to require personal responsibility.  People have to have insurance but we’ll help you pay for it.”

This is a strange kind of personal responsibility.  Real personal responsibility requires individual people to take ownership of their actions.  If the government mandates behavior, it can hardly be thought of as people taking the responsibility to accomplish something on their own.

To make matters worse, Landrieu follows up with a promise that the government will help pay for this required behavior.  It seems that she views personal responsibility as something that ought be legislated and subsidized rather than left to the individual where it belongs.

If legislators focused on addressing the unnecessary rules and regulations that drive up the cost of insurance and health care, more individuals could afford to act responsibly. That would be better for the individual and less expensive for the government.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed a complaint with the FEC over a $25,300 donation by Senator Mary Landrieu’s campaign to the U.S. Treasury.

CREW executive director Melanie Sloan argues, “We all know politicians don’t give up campaign contributions – much less $25,000 – without a very good reason. It appears Sen. Landrieu’s reason may have been to avoid a scandal or, even worse, a federal investigation into some of her contributions.”

Marc Elias, Senator Landrieu’s campaign lawyer, called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said the campaign wanted to protect the identity of donors who “may not have done anything wrong.”  The CREW complaint however argues that the only two scenarios in which “dirty” money may be donated to the Treasury are if a donor is under a Justice Department investigation, or has been convicted for making illegal contributions.  In both of these cases, the identity of the donor must be made public.

Sloan follows up, “Our campaign finance laws were designed to ensure transparency.  If Sen. Landrieu did nothing wrong, she has no reason not to come clean with the American people and explain why she turned over $25,000 in contributions to the Treasury.”

The Landrieu campaign will have 15 days to respond after the FEC provides its formal notification.