BOARD BOYCOTT:Republican Leaders Rally Against ObamaCare Panel

• 

  April 23, 2013: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell listens during a news conference on Capitol Hill.AP

The Republican leaders of the House and Senate announced Thursday that they will boycott the ObamaCare-created committee responsible for holding down Medicare costs, in a challenge to a controversial element of the health care overhaul. 

The Individual Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, has been described as a "death panel" by some of its fiercest critics. Though that epithet is not often used anymore to describe the panel, Republicans still say it would hurt seniors by forcing doctors to stop seeing patients. 

House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, in a letter Thursday to President Obama, said they would refuse to recommend any nominees to the committee, reiterating that they think it should be repealed entirely. 

They revived concerns that the panel would enforce Medicare cuts by reducing payments to providers and/or "eliminating" certain treatments. 

"These reduced payments will force providers to stop seeing Medicare patients, the same way an increased number of doctors have stopped taking Medicaid patients. This will lead to access problems, waiting lists and denied care for seniors," they wrote. 

The 15-member advisory board, known as IPAB, would have the power to force payment cuts on insurers, drug companies and other service providers if Medicare costs rise beyond certain levels. 

The health care law explicitly forbids the board from rationing care, shifting costs to seniors or cutting their benefits. But Boehner, at a news conference Thursday, said the members still "have the authority to deny seniors access to care." 

It's unclear what effect the boycott will have on the panel. The law says the president should consult with Congress on the nominations, but the president is free to make his own appointments. The members of the board, though, are supposed to be from both parties and nominees would be subject to Senate confirmation. 

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney slammed Republicans for the stance and for renewed efforts to repeal the health care law. 

"It just demonstrates again how out of touch with what the American people want the House Republicans have become. Instead of focusing on measures that could help us invest in innovation and manufacturing and job creation, instead of focusing on common-sense efforts to reduce our deficit in a balanced way, House Republicans are voting again to repeal the Affordable Care Act," Carney said. 

Asked why the House was voting a 37th time to repeal all or part of the law, even though GOP leaders know the Democratic-controlled Senate will again ignore the vote, Boehner said there were about 70 new members of the House this year. "Frankly they have been asking for an opportunity to vote on it, and we are going to give it to them." 

He said he supports total repeal of the law rather than efforts to amend it as it goes into effect over the next year. 

Republicans say there have been only two previous votes to eliminate the health care law in its entirety. They say there have been more than 30 votes to partially repeal or defund the law, and several have been signed into law, including one eliminating an unpopular tax-filing requirement that would have affected millions of businesses. 

Economists have predicted that the Medicare board's services might not be needed in the near future because Medicare cost increases appear to be manageable. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

View the original article here

GOP Leaders Meet on Benghazi, Vow Coordinated Inquiry Into Attack

• 

House Speaker John Boehner convened a special meeting on the Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attack Thursday, bringing in the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Government Oversight committees, as well as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Fox News has learned.

While the three House Committees are conducting independent investigations of the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Government Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce and Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers agreed to now pool their findings in a single report that should be complete in "weeks not months."

"There were some members who wanted to have a conversation to kind of compare notes on what we know and what we don't know. And frankly, there's a lot that we still don't know," Boehner said. "It was a friendly exchange of information and some decisions about a way forward."

After the meeting, Rogers, R-Mich., told Fox News the members are taking a fact-based approach, and in the process, they are finding "anomalies" that still need to be addressed more than six months after the attack, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and there other Americans were killed.

"We want to make sure that we have a full story of what happened, and where there are conflicting stories, we are going to work to de-conflict them," Rogers said. "I think the report will shed light on those decisions, including senior leadership that may have been involved or may not have been involved."

Asked if questions remained about President Obama's involvement in the U.S. response on the night of the Benghazi attack, Rogers responded, "or lack of involvement that evening."

The ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, Dutch Ruppersburger, was not at the Thursday meeting, but he told Fox he has no problem with Republican efforts to dig into the Benghazi terrorist attack to fulfill their oversight responsibility.

"Let's get over the politics. There are many issues that we are dealing with. And bring closure to this, but if we don't have all the evidence then we need to continue to look at it," Ruppersburger said.

With gaps in the timeline, lawmakers say they want to question the survivors, as well as government employees and contractors in the military and intelligence community.

"There are people who are there, there are people who are decision makers in the intelligence community, in the State Department, in the Department of Defense, and there are people who still want to communicate things. And we want to make sure all those folks have an opportunity to have that discussion," Rogers said.

In recent letters to the State Department and CIA, Ayotte, McCain and Graham asked for the Benghazi survivors to be made available for congressional investigators to question. Graham told Fox News, in an interview with Bret Baier, that he'd spoken to survivors who claimed they had been told not to talk.

"I've had contact with some of the survivors. Their story is chilling. They feel afraid to tell it. It's important they come forward to tell their story," Graham said. "Some are back working for the government. Some are still injured. The bottom line is they feel that they can't come forth. They've been told to be quiet."

The State Department has been non-committal about making its employees and contractors who were in Benghazi available to investigators. An agency spokesperson said in a statement, “The CIA respects requests from Congress and we will provide a response through the appropriate oversight committees.”

View the original article here

Can Republican Leaders Trust Obama's Charm Offensive?

After a week of President Obama extending lunch and dinner invites to congressional Republicans, ahead of the next budget battle, party leaders are expressing cautious optimism about the president being sincere – not just leading a so-called charm offensive.

The invitations appear to be a change in political tactics for Obama, who since elected in 2008 has largely avoided courting Congress, preferring as of late to instead make his case to the public with campaign-style events.

He also plans to keep up the effort this week with three scheduled trips to Capitol Hill to visit Democrats and Republicans in both chambers, a likely effort to broker a “grand bargain” on tax and spending instead of another short-term fix.

"I hope that this is sincere," Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, who had lunch Thursday with Obama at the White House, told “Fox News Sunday.” “We had a very good, frank exchange. But the proof will be in the coming weeks as to whether or not it's a real, sincere outreach to find common ground."

Obama’s apparent courtship follows $85 billion in spending cuts this year that kicked in March 1 and before the next deadline, March 27, when the current short-term budget extension expires and a government shutdown looms.

Ryan, R-Wis., also told Fox his proposal for 2014 would balance the federal budget in 10 years, but is based in part on repeal of the president’s Affordable Care Act, which appears unlikely.

Though Republicans appeared optimistic, they also expressed concern that the president’s second-term efforts might be too late.

“I think he is sincere,” said Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, who attended the hotel dinner with 11 other Republican senators Wednesday night.  

“But you know, you’ve got a lot of scabs and sores on people,” Coburn told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And it’s going to take a while for that to heal.”

The president will have to work quickly to achieve even a shorter-term deal, considering Congress is scheduled to leave town March 22.

Senate Democrats said they already have a spending measure ready for passage that would pay for day-to-day federal operations through September. The measure would impose automatic cuts of 5 percent to domestic agencies and 7.8 percent to the Pentagon.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said Sunday that leaders of the Democrat-controlled Senate also are working on full budget for passage, the first in four years. And he expressed optimism about an eventual Hill deal.

“The two (chambers’) budgets will be different,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We're going to have to find a balanced solution, and it will involve all elements. It will involve talking about revenues, talking about expenses, talking about entitlements. We have to do that.”

Still, some Republicans seem unconvinced about the president's recent efforts.  

"I hope that he's genuine,” Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., told NBC. “But I don't think we're going to be doing the Harlem Shake any time soon together."

Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy question whether Obama’s efforts were about winning over the Republican-controlled House or “governing for all of America.”

“Only time will tell,” the California congressman told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

View the original article here