I won't be blogging for the next week or so, which means that Walberg Watch will go kinda quiet until September 16. My fellow bloggers are certainly free to post, but since I tend to be the most frequent author, I thought I'd mention that I won't be active for a little while.

I've got a few things for you all to discuss, of course, to keep this place active. First up, Tim Walberg's newest legislative adventure!

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On June 28, 2007, Congressman Walberg introduced HR 2948. Here's the text:

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to permit health insurance to be purchased from a health savings account.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Increased Access to Health Insurance Act of 2007'.

SEC. 2. PURCHASE OF HEALTH INSURANCE FROM HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS.

(a) In General- Paragraph (2) of section 223(d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (defining qualified medical expenses) is amended to read as follows:

`(2) QUALIFIED MEDICAL EXPENSES- The term `qualified medical expenses' means, with respect to an account beneficiary, amounts paid by such beneficiary for medical care (as defined in section 213(d)) for such individual, the spouse of such individual, and any dependent (as defined in section 152, determined without regard to subsections (b)(1), (b)(2), and (d)(1)(B) thereof) of such individual, but only to the extent such amounts are not compensated for by insurance or otherwise.'.

(b) Effective Date- The amendment made by this section shall apply with respect to insurance purchased after the date of the enactment of this Act in taxable years beginning after such date.

The short version is, he wants you to be able to purchase health insurance using money in a health savings account. I was in the process of doing some research on this, but if there are any health care professionals out there, I hope you'll share your knowledge with us. What would be the result of Walberg's bill? Could this help anything, or would it make things worse?

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Next, everyone's favorite Republican blogger, Joe Sylvester, stopped by on the last post and shared a link with us. For those that have forgotten, I wrote a bit about his blog here. I'm not going to say anything more about it, because I don't want this to turn into some pathetic blog feud... I'd like to think I'm better than that, and I hope Joe is too.

Anyway, it looks like Joe is tired of seeing us "left wing nutjobs" having all the fun, and he even mentioned Walberg Watch by name. He wants to start a new blog called "Democrat Primary Watch." Never mind that he used the wrong word (English teachers agree, it's "Democratic"). Citing Ken Brock's statements that caused quite a stir, he wants to have this new blog watch Democratic candidates in the 7th, while criticizing their every move and describing how wonderful Congressman Tim Walberg is.

I say, the more the merrier, and I hope that whenever this new blog gets started, you'll all check it out. And if the writing is good, they're respectful, the criticism is fair and intellectually honest, and the authors are willing to admit that sometimes, Tim Walberg can be wrong too, I might even give up blogging here and ask to join them.

Of course, I suspect that I'll be sticking around Walberg Watch for a little while longer. But that's just a hunch.

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I've been working on a series of videos, eventually intended for YouTube, which showcase some of Congressman Walberg's extreme positions and whatnot, mostly using actual quotes. If you've got an issue for which you definitely want me to create a video, or you want to help, e-mail me. And if you've got a really outrageous Walberg quote (with a legitimate source), send me that, too.

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Hopefully that'll be enough to keep you busy, and I hope you'll mention any news in the comments. It's not going to be easy to contact me for the next week, so any e-mails might go unanswered.

In the meantime, consider this an open thread.

Labels: Health Care, Netroots, Open Thread, Tim Walberg