Jaime Herrera Reaches ‘Contender Status’

Washington Republican Takes Critical Second Step in ‘Young Guns’ Program

Washington- The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) announced today that Republican Jaime Herrera (WA-03) has reached ‘Contender’ status as part of its Young Guns program. ‘Contender’ status is the second step in the three-level program, with Herrera now facing a new set of benchmarks to reach ‘Young Gun’ status in her bid to take over the open seat being vacated by Brian Baird.

Founded in the 2007-2008 election cycle by Reps. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Young Guns program is a member-driven organization dedicated to electing open-seat and challenger candidates nationwide. By achieving ‘Contender’ status, Herrera has already proven her ability to build a successful campaign structure and achieve vital fundraising goals.

“Jaime Herrera has already proven that she will be a formidable candidate by meeting the Young Guns program’s rigorous goals and is well on her way to building a winning campaign that will put this seat in the Republican column,” said NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX). “Jaime is part of a strong and growing pool of candidates who are frustrated with the Democrat majority’s big-government ways and aren’t willing to stand by any longer. Her campaign has put Democrats on notice that Americans are ready to turn the page on the failed experiment known as the Obama-Pelosi agenda.”

Jaime Herrera grew up in Southwest Washington and graduated from Prairie High School and the University of Washington. From 2005 to 2007, she served as a Senior Legislative Aide for Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, acting as the Congresswoman’s lead advisor on healthcare policy, education, veterans’ and women’s issues. In 2007, Herrera was appointed to a vacancy as State Representative in Washington State’s 18^th Legislative District. After serving in the 2008 legislative session she ran for election and 60% of the voters in her district cast their vote to keep Herrera representing them in Olympia. Herrera aims to bring a fresh and effective voice to Congress and restore commonsense leadership to the Third District in order to get the local economy back on track and restore prosperity in Southwest Washington.

While already having achieved certain benchmarks to place her on the road to victory, Jaime Herrera now faces a new set of rigorous goals that will elevate her to the top level of the Young Guns program and help her build a competitive, effective and winning campaign.   

 For more information, click here.

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U.S. House and Senate Democrats have passed two sweeping 2,000 page bills that would fundamentally and dramatically change our health care. There are significant differences between the two bills, but the more moderate Senate bill has the best chance of passing through the conference committee and being signed by the President. Both bills passed on a strict party-line vote, with essentially no support from minority Republicans.

What will this far-reaching legislation mean for Washington state?

Washington has a 13.2% uninsured rate and one half of these people are in the age range of 18-34. Because of the bill’s individual mandate that would require every adult to buy health insurance, 432,000 young healthy people in the state would be forced to make this purchase whether they want to or not. The bill also requires a community rating price control on all policies which would cause these young Washingtonians to pay a higher price for coverage, while older, sicker individuals would pay less for their insurance.

On the other end of the age spectrum, 890,000 seniors have Medicare coverage in Washington. Congress plans to finance the Senate bill in part by cutting Medicare by $471 billion. Physician reimbursement would be reduced by 21%, while Medicare Advantage would essentially be eliminated, forcing 205,000 Washington seniors out of the program and back into traditional Medicare. Access to doctors is already a problem for Washington seniors because of low Medicare payments compared to private insurance. Further cuts in how much Medicare pays doctors will only make this access problem worse for seniors.

An independent Medicare Commission would be established to decide what drugs, procedures, and treatments the government would allow for seniors. These decisions would ostensibly be based on evidence of treatment effectiveness, but in reality they would be based on how to cut costs for the government.  As costs rise, as they predictably will, rationing of care to seniors will, by necessity, occur.

Almost 130,000 Washington residents have health savings accounts (HSAs) and high deductible insurance plans. The Senate bill reduces the HSA contribution amount by one half and doubles the penalty for non-medical withdrawals. New government limitations will probably eliminate high deductible policies and consequently eliminate HSAs. All HSA holders would lose their personal coverage and be forced to buy traditional insurance.

The Seattle area has growing industries in biotech and medical device manufacturing. The Senate bill would add a 10% to 20% tax on these businesses.  The cost would either be passed on to consumers or, more likely, would cause a reduction in medical research and development.

Almost 2.7 million workers and their family members in Washington receive health insurance through their employers’ self-insured programs. These people would be allowed to keep their insurance for five years. The plans must then comply with strict government benefit plans which would cause many employers to drop their coverage and force many workers to join a government plan. In addition, generous employer-sponsored insurance will be subject to a new 40% tax. In three years, 20% of all workers will be paying this tax and in six years, 20% of all households making more than $50,000 a year will have to pay this tax.

Under the Senate-passed bill the number of Medicaid recipients in Washington would immediately increase by over 280,000 people. The federal taxpayers would initially pay for these new enrollees, but within five years state taxpayers would be forced to pay at least $6.8 billion more over the following ten years. The total cost of Medicaid to Washington taxpayers would then be nearly $36 billion for that ten year period. Access to doctors for Medicaid patients is even worse than for Medicare patients because of lower doctor reimbursement rates. Adding hundreds of thousands of people to Medicaid, when these patients are already being turned away by doctors, makes no sense for either patients or taxpayers.

The Senate-passed bill would still leave an estimated 480,000 people in the state without health insurance, while adding billions to the state’s tax burden.  It would increase the cost of health care and increase the deficit. A reason poll shows most Americans oppose what the President and Congress are doing. The proposed reform would have a huge negative impact on our country and the people of Washington state.

Dr. Roger Stark is a retired surgeon and a health care policy analyst at Washington Policy Center, a non-partisan independent policy research organization in Washington state.

This story was originally published on December 31, 2009.

Read excerpts of the interview with KOMO News here.

If these numbers continue to follow this trend, then we’ll see a setting in of reality between how people perceive the president and how they perceive his policies. The administration continues to say that the American people voted for them, and that because of this, they have the approval of the people to sharply steer this country to the left. But with the stimulus package, the omnibus spending bill, a very large budget, cap and trade proposals, and now a push for government run health insurance, independent voters are taking a step back to look at all this.

This is why there is such a big push to get health care on the books so quickly. They need to get it passed before the public’s support of the plan drops too far.

Now, take a look at this.

The first article came to the Seattle Times via the St. Petersburg Times.

The second article came from the Washinton Policy Center.

Ms. Martin is a news reporter. Dr. Stark, in his capacity with the Washington Policy Center, is a healthcare opinion writer. Again, Ms. Martin is a news reporter, however, her piece probably shows a more pronounced ideological slant. Go figure.

For many leading American firms who do business overseas, Obama’s plan to eliminate the deferral of taxes on foreign profits could increase costs and cut into profits by as much as 10 to 15 percentage points.  Bloomberg reported:

…Ballmer, Symantec Chairman John Thompson and the heads of smaller companies such as privately held Bentley Systems, an Exton, Pa.-based maker of engineering software, said such policies would hurt domestic investment, reduce shareholder value and increase the cost of employing U.S. workers.

Ballmer said the deduction limits for companies that defer tax on foreign profits would raise the cost of employing U.S. workers. Fiduciary responsibility to shareholders would require Microsoft to cut costs, he said, meaning many jobs would be moved out of the country.

Ballmer concluded, “It makes U.S. jobs more expensive…We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.”  As one of the Northwest’s leading employers, political leaders in the region are sure to be nervous.

President Obama, you may recall, promised to “save or create 2.5 million jobs” during the presidential campaign.  

So why would the President now be willing to propose a policy that could have the effect of shipping thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of American jobs overseas?  

The change in tax policy would deliver an additional $200 billion in revenue–at the same time the Administration is looking to continue boosting spending on its domestic agenda, most notably as of late: healthcare reform.

The President’s plan was also met with criticism from pro-business members of his own party concerned could handicap American firms’ competiveness in the global economy:

“This new tax burden would impair American companies’ ability to compete in global markets and sustain and create jobs here at home.” – Former Democratic New Mexico Gov. Jerry Apodaca

Editorial opposition from regional outlets has also been noteworthy.  In the West, the Denver Post echoed Ballmer and other critics of the President’s plan, with in an editorial carrying the slug: “Tax Tweak Could Harm U.S. Firms.”

However, after encountering stiff resistance from top CEOs, members of his own party, editorial boards across the nation, and Republican leaders in Congress such as Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, the Administration now may not be in such a hurry anymore.  

Today, President Obama met with five Governors to talk healthcare, including Washington’s Gov. Christine Gregoire.  We’ve got a call into the Gregoire’s Office to ask if the topic of the President’s tax plan came up in their talks.

UPDATE: According to Gov. Gregoire’s spokesman Pearse Edwards, the issue did not come up during her D.C. meeting yesterday with President Obama.

Photo licensed under Creative Commons 2.0, Flickr.

The Obama Administration has repeatedly said that they are not for a single-payer government run national health insurance program. According to the Administration, they just want to provide a public option that will provide a lower cost alternative to people, in place of the high costs (and “profits”) that come from private insurance plans.

The Administration’s plan, however, is already under fire, and its prospects for the future are dwindling.  As more information comes out about Obamacare, more opposition seems to arise.

Politico has great coverage here of the fight already underway.

A main concern that many Americans who have been paying attention seem to have, is that the public option is a first step in a complete governmental takeover of health insurance (even if it’s a slow evolution over the next 10 to 20 years). A main cause for concern is the admission from left-wingers who want this to happen. Don’t believe me? Then take a look at the tape:

The rhetoric from President Obama leads people to believe that this is not the case, and that he opposes a single-payer national health insurance program, like those found in Europe and Canada. That is, systems that may create rationing, waiting periods and as a result a poorer quality of health care.

Is there something else going on behind the scene? Is the path the Obama Administration wants to go down going to take us into a health care system where the government crowds out the private sector and we are left with a Canadian-type system?

After watching that video, what do you think?

The answers to those questions may surprise you.  While the widely cited impetus may be the Rick Santelli on CNBC (click for video) outburst at the Chicago Stock Exchange, it was in the heart of liberal Seattle where the very first protest took place, nearly two months before the April 15 rallies were even contemplated.

Washington organizers, therefore, was sure to take special offense at accusations that the Tea Party Movement was just a concoction of Fox News and groups like Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks and Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions.  

In fact, the preponderance of evidence points to a genuine citizen-fueled movement, with its origins right here in our own backyard.  Of course, coverage of that fact has been inadequate.  Former Seattle Times columnist, Michelle Malkin, outlines the definitive history of the movement, including its Seattle roots, in a post at her site.

You can read more about two of the local Seattle organizers who helped kick off the wave of Tea Party rallies at their respective websites: “Liberty Belle” and “Steve Beren.”  There you will also find details about their motivations and activities over the past few months.

And if you’re curious as to what the next steps for the Tea Party might be, check out a new group set to launch later this month: American Liberty Alliance.