House Health Care, Swine Flu and Emissions Trading in Europe

1. CONGRESS

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveils the Democrats’ proposal
for health care legislation.

CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Senior Fellow Gregory
Conko
on the prognosis for consumers:

“The House Democrats’ health care bill is a recipe for
exploding costs, and it poses a genuine threat to patient care and long-term
medical innovation.  The bill eliminates a substantial amount of consumer
choice by dictating the benefits and prices for insurance policies, and it
imposes billions of dollars worth of new taxes on the private sector. 
Worse still, the only mechanisms that could reduce the annual rate of health
care cost inflation would erect government barriers between patients and their
doctors.”

 

2. HEALTH

President Obama declares a spread of swine flu a “national
emergency
.”

CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Adjunct Analyst Michael
Fumento
on how the administration is overstating
the threat
:

“Swine flu cases in the last seven
months, according to the CDC, equal about four days‘ worth of seasonal
flu deaths during the season. There’s no medical emergency except that
emergency facilities are swamped with the worried well and the mildly ill. Why?
Because of the Obama administration’s first swine flu emergency declaration and
the report from the President’s Council of Science and Technology Advisors
predicting up to 90,000 deaths.”

 

3. ENVIRONMENT

The Taxpayers’ Alliance releases
a study
on the failure of emissions trading in Europe.

CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray on the useful timing
of its release:

“This report couldn’t have come at a more important time.
The leadership in both houses of Congress are poised to ram through cap and
trade restrictions which would slow the economy, stifle innovation and
create an enormous burden on American families. Hopefully exposing the
costly and wasteful consequences of such policies in Europe will drive home the
threat they pose here in the U.S.”

 

Listen to LibertyWeek,
the CEI podcast, here.