Opt-Out Madness
I wasn’t that thrilled with the health care reform bill that came out of the House, so you can imagine how I feel about this turd that might be coming out of the Senate. It’s an absolute disaster. For all that we complain about Democrats, they’ve certainly done a bang-up job fucking up health care reform.
Not only is the public option weaker than would be preferable in the Senate, but – in order to comply with President Obama’s almost draconian $900-billion-over-10-years ceiling – preexisting condition exclusions won’t be banned until 2014. Nevermind the hundreds of billions of dollars we continue to spend, without question, on “defense”; let’s make sacrifices in health care. Sounds good.
But the absence of a really good public option and immediate preexisting condition language aren’t all that’s wrong with the bill. Perhaps the most troubling aspect is the “opt-out” language, which allows states to opt out of the public option. The opt-out is a ludicrous compromise, considering more Americans are uncomfortable with the opt-out provision than are uncomfortable with the public option. But opt-out it is, and Reid picked the worst possible opt-out scenario to include in the bill. If Reid’s version of the opt-out provision passes, states will be allowed to opt out of the public option any time before the public option is implemented (2014). So that means that, assuming we get something like this in the conference report that the President signs into law, for the next four years the public option will be a political football to be kicked around by right-wing zealots in state legislatures all over the country. The public will not have a chance to experience the public option before legislatures potentially rip it from their hands, and the result could be a vast patchwork quilt of states participating in the public option and states leaving their citizens to the claws of the private insurance industry. Not only will this leave millions of Americans uninsured, but it will also raise costs for the rest of us.
This isn’t health care reform. This is an offense on the average American.
The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.
A Terrible Price to Pay for a Health Care Bill
House Democrats (and a lone Republican) made history late Saturday night by passing a health care bill for the first time in our nation’s history. As I stated in my last blog entry, this is a good, solid bill. It’s not ideal, it’s certainly not perfect; it’s a start, and it does a lot of important things (eliminating discrimination based on preexisting conditions, implementing a medium-strength public option, revoking antitrust exemption for health insurance companies, etc.). It still needs to be watered down (or killed) by the more moderate Senate, but the meat of the House health care bill consisted of serious reform efforts that will bring this nation one step closer to truly universal coverage.
But it came at a terrible price.
64 Democrats, including only 2 women (surprise, surprise), voted to include the Stupak Amendment, strengthening language that prevents abortions from being paid for with public dollars. But it goes much farther than that. What the Stupak Amendment effectively does is ban abortion for low- and middle-income women. It essentially bars all private insurers in the Exchange (which will inevitably be all insurers in the United States) from offering abortion coverage. As a result, many women who now have a comprehensive health insurance policy that covers abortion will lose their abortion coverage. The Stupak language seeks to create a two-tiered system in the United States – the top tier (the wealthy) being able to gain access to safe abortions, and the lower tier (everybody else) having to choose between having an unsafe abortion or none at all. This is a setback in reproductive rights of monumental proportions.
And, after all that, Stupak himself now says he got more than he really wanted.
The leadership’s strategy is obvious. They allowed a vote on this anti-choice language to appease the anti-choice crowd and pass a bill; now they expect the language to be stripped in conference, if and when the Senate passes its version of the bill (which will undoubtedly not include anything similar to the Stupak language). And I hope their strategy is a sound one. To enshrine this anti-woman language into law would be a step backward in history.
The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.
Progressives Need To Grow Up, Support Health Care Bill
As I was reviewing the updated House health care whip count, something struck me as a little disturbing (not to mention a bit odd). Along with the usual suspects, like anti-choice Stupak and the more conservative Democrats, some of those either opposed or undecided are some of the most progressive members of the House. People like Dennis Kucinich. Another one that I noticed is Eric Massa of New York, who favors single-payer.
This is troubling, to say the least. In the end, I don’t think that the progressives of the House will stand in the way of this bill, but that they’re even pausing to consider is, frankly, shocking to me. I appreciate that they’re fans of single-payer. So am I. I’ve been harping on this blog for a long time on single-payer. When I haven’t been harping on single-payer, I’ve been harping on the robust public option. I’m about as far to the ideological left as it is possible for a person to be. But (I’m sorry, Dennis, I love you, but I have to say this) there comes a time when you just have to pull your head out of your ass. Single-payer is a political non-starter. That sucks, I know. It was shitty for Democrats to take it off the table and not even give it a fair shake. I get it. The public option is not ideal. But it’s what we have. And it’s all we have. And, honestly, it’s a miracle that we have even that. Democrats included it in the House bill even though the pundits and the “experts” declared it dead. True, it’s not the robust public option; Pelosi should have let the Senate water it down (since we know that’s all the Senate is good for) and not watered it down herself with this negotiated-rate crap. I get it. I really do.
It’s not a perfect bill by any means. But, considering the sausage-grinding that is so characteristic of our legislative process, we got pretty much the best bill that we could have hoped for. Compared to what we could have gotten, this is a pretty good deal. It can work. And, even if it’s not the best, it’s a start. This bill will cover 96 percent of Americans, lower health care costs, reform the insurance industry, and add a dose of public competition to boot. No, it’s not a Canadian-type system, but it will work. Public-private hybrid systems work in other countries, and there’s no reason one can’t work here. How can any progressive in their right mind not vote for this bill? Is the status quo better? Any progressive not on board needs to set their black-and-white ideology aside, open their eyes, and take a hard look at the stakes. This is a window of opportunity, and it’s about to shut. 2010 elections are right around the corner, and – Democratic wet dreams aside – it’s entirely possible at this point that Democrats could lose some seats. And who knows what will happen in 2012? Health care reform can’t wait any longer. If health care reform doesn’t happen now, it will not happen for a long, long time. In the meantime, our budget will continue to be eaten up by out-of-control health care costs and people will continue to needlessly die. Progressives need to wake up, and fast.
Like I said, they’ll probably come around. I hope they do. It would be one thing if conservative/anti-choice Democrats sunk this bill. But it would just be tragic if progressives joined together with corporate Democrats in an unholy alliance and helped to sink health care reform.
The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.
The GOP Health Care “Alternative” – A Sick Joke?
If you haven’t read the GOP “alternative” to House Democrats’ health care bill yet, I’ll save you the trouble. Spoiler alert: It’s a massive gift to the insurance industry and should be viewed not as a serious proposal but as an attempt to defraud the American people. It’s nothing but a 200-page joke that ultimately has no punchline. Here are the major points that you should know about the bill:
- Insurance companies, while restricted from implementing lifetime caps, will still be allowed to discriminate based on preexisting conditions.
- States would be mandated to establish high-risk pools for sick people, in which the very sick would be forced to shell out a lot of money for highly expensive premiums. These pools, far from revolutionary, already exist in 30 states, and are far out of reach for many people who cannot access health insurance in the individual market.
- Insurance companies would be permitted to do business across state lines, but only having to heed the regulations of their respective “home” states.
- Explicit language in the bill would prevent any subsidies or tax credits from being used on abortion coverage, meaning that a low-income woman seeking truly comprehensive health care coverage that includes abortion would have to shell out all of the money for the policy out of her own pocket. This would effectively bar many women from obtaining affordable abortions.
- Undocumented workers would be specifically barred from benefiting from any of the so-called “reform” measures.
And let’s not even talk about the CBO analysis of the bill. Okay, let’s. As if any sane person would need further reason to scoff at this obscene perversion of a legislative turd.
- Over a period of 10 years, the bill would cost only $61 billion (as opposed to about $900 billion on the Democrats’ side).
- Does that sound good? Well, listen up, fiscal conservatives; the bill will actually increase the deficit by $8 billion over that same 10-year period. That’s because this $61 billion piece of shit isn’t really reform, and it doesn’t really lower health care costs.
- That increase in the deficit would decrease the number of uninsured people by about 3 million. Compare that figure to the 36 million Americans who would gain coverage under the Democrats’ health care plan (which, by the way, decreases the deficit).
- About 83 percent of Americans would have insurance in 2019 under the GOP bill. This is pretty much the status quo.
And yet, amazingly, The American Spectator complains that the GOP bill isn’t conservative enough and doesn’t do enough to deny coverage and – even more amazingly – doesn’t do enough to slash Medicare:
There are some elements of it that are good, including allowing Americans to purchase insurance across state lines, giving businesses more flexibility to offer financial incentives aimed at encouraging people to be healthier, and expanding health savings accounts. But there are also plenty of new mandates imposed by the bill, including barring insurers from having annual or lifetime spending limits and a “slacker mandate” that would make insurers allow adults to stay on their parents insurance until age 25.
But more importantly, the bill doesn’t do anything to move us beyond the employer-based health care system…
Also disturbing to me is that the one page summary of the bill has a chart titled, “Scorecard: Speaker Pelosi’s Government Takeover vs. GOP Common-Sense Solution” in which the GOP boasts that while Pelosi’s bill cuts Medicare by $500 billion, the Republican alternative has $0 of Medicare cuts. This is what we’ve come to — a Republican Party that talks a big game about standing up for small government while openly touting the fact that their health care proposal does not touch the health care entitlement program that is bankrupting our country.
Oy! Right-wing fringe arguments aside (obviously, the GOP bill could be worse; thankfully, Philip Klein wasn’t part of the drafting), “epic fail” does not even come close to describing this sick joke that has been pulled on Americans who actually want real health care reform. This bill was written for the insurance industry (probably by the insurance industry), not the people. Thefact that I just spent any amount of time at all breaking down this bill is fundamentally sad. But, at the same time, a blog is perhaps the only place that a consideration of this bill would be appropriate – certainly better than the House floor.
May the GOP “alternative” die in a pool of searing lulz.
The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.
The GOP Health Care Plan: Call the Actual Plan “Pelosi Health Care Bill”
With the Democrats moving swiftly to pass health care reform (no matter how crappy and watered-down that health care reform may be), more than one inconsequential Republican has pooped his drawers. It’s almost gotten so that my disappointment in the mediocrity of the House and Senate bills has been overshadowed by my elation at watching Republicans realize just how powerless they really are at stopping the Democrats from cranking a bill out. And, instead of doing what they promised and writing an alternative bill of their own, they are in constant attack mode. Not that I blame them. I mean, they obviously have nothing to offer at the table, and they know that the American people are going to laugh their bill into the political toilet, so what other option do these sorry bastards have?
It makes for some quality entertainment, that much is certain. The latest stunt that the GOP turd-sweepers in the House are pulling is getting together and conspiring to call the new House bill “the Pelosi health care bill.” OoOoOoOo!!! Le gasp! How diabolical. How sinister. How malevolent! No, Republicans! No! Whatever you do, don’t call it the PELOSI HEALTH CARE BILL!!! Joe “You Lie” Wilson has even taken it one step further and called it (are you ready for this?) the “Pelosi takeover.” Explaining his reasoning for emphasizing Pelosi’s name, Wilson had this to say: “Well, she introduced it!”
Give me a frigging break. Aside from the fact that it’s not Pelosi’s preferred bill, coming up with asinine titles for bills (“Pedophile Protection Act,” anyone?) is just a poor strategy altogether. True, Nancy Pelosi has a pretty low approval rating, but I’m pretty sure that the GOP’s exploitation of that low approval rating is not possible when the GOP’s approval rating is the lowest in a decade. Maybe instead of throwing temper tantrums, the Republican “leadership” (with Limbaugh’s permission, of course) should get its collective diaper changed and reveal its alternative.
We’re waiting.
The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.
Does Your Rep Want to Deny You Affordable Health Insurance?
Health care reform is moving fast on Capitol Hill. The latest news is that the House leadership is going to unveil its bill Thursday morning. The bad news is that it includes a relatively weak negotiated-rate public option rather than the “robust” public option that is tied to Medicare rates plus 5%. This decision was made in spite of the fact that a robust public option would save the average family $1,400 in premiums (not to mention the fact that it is the cheaper of the two plans, saving the government $85 billion over the negotiated-rate plan). The goal appears to be to appease the “centrist” Democrats who are more fiscally conservative. This, of course, presents a contradiction, since the fiscally conscious Democrats favor a public option that is fiscally irresponsible.
Even though Nancy Pelosi fought her damndest, the robust public option appears to be a few hours away from the chopping block. According to data previously published by The Hill and later removed (it appears that it may be a bit inaccurate, but it’s probably not far from reality), 47 Democrats stand in the way of you and affordable health care. Again, it seems that the list is off a bit, but I encourage you to check to see if your representative is on it anyway. If he or she is, give the office a call. Confirm. Then let him or her know how you feel. I’m nobody to tell you how to vote, but…I don’t think it’s rocket science that if your representative votes against you, you should reciprocate and vote against your representative. Especially when the choice between “good public option” and “bad public option” is so black and white on so many levels and these corporate Democrats go with the bad public option with their fingers in their ears. Again, here is the unofficial list of Democrats who oppose the idea of you having access to affordable health insurance.
If we don’t hold these sell-outs accountable, nobody will.
The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.
A Win for the Public Option?
I really want to be happy about the fact that Harry Reid is including an “opt-out” public option (which would allow states to opt out of the government-run insurance option) in the Senate bill. And don’t get me wrong – I am. For months now, the “experts” and the pundits have been continually declaring the public option dead, proclaiming that it’s a political non-starter that doesn’t stand a chance in the traditionally more conservative Senate. That we are assured now that a public option of some sort will be in the final Senate bill is a relief, because (considering how the conference committee usually works) whatever is in the Senate bill is probably what is going to pass into law. At this point, because I don’t think it’s politically feasible for anybody in Washington to not pass health care reform, I think it’s pretty clear that a public option is going to become law. Great news, right? The opt-out public option isn’t my personal favorite, but at this point, I’m ecstatic just to see that any public option not attached to some asinine trigger mechanism is making its way into the final bill. If for no other reason, I’m happy that Olympia Snowe, the President of the United States of Maine (who is deeply disappointed in Reid’s decision), has been put in her place and the GOP proverbially told to go screw itself on health care reform.
But the eternal pessimist in me has to ask a couple of questions. These are questions that came to mind before Reid made his official announcement, and they are questions that were not answered by Reid in that official announcement. The answers to these questions will either make or break my confidence in this admittedly less preferable public option plan. First off, who will decide that a state is opting out? Legislatures, governors, the public itself? As analyzed on Firedoglake, depending on how states can opt out of the national plan, very large numbers of the population could potentially be disenfranchised. This would be detrimental not only to the concept of “universal health care,” but it would also be destructive in fiscal terms, as such large numbers of people opting out would mean higher premiums for the rest of us. The second really important question that hasn’t been answered yet is: when can states opt out? This is crucial. If the Senate bill requires that states try the public option for a specified period of time (say, a year), that would make it much more difficult for a state legislature, a governor, or even a population to simply do away with the public option and opt out of the national pool. Honestly, if this is the way that the opt-out will work, I don’t see any state – no, not even Texas – opting out. That would bring us much closer to truly universal health care in addition to keeping health insurance costs down for everyone. However, if the Senate bill takes the route that I fear it will take and allows states to opt out of the public option even before the state’s residents are allowed to try it, there exists the potential for many states opting out and significantly weakening the public option for the rest of us.
The opt-out public option plan is not the way I wanted to go. But, considering that the pundits were predicting that we’d only get co-ops in the final bill, I’m willing to be pragmatic about this compromise. I’m not going to celebrate yet, though. In this case, details are everything, and I just don’t yet have enough information to be happy about this bill.
The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.
“Re-Branding” the Public Option
Now here’s a novel idea. House Democrats are looking at the possibility of “re-branding” the public option and instead calling it Medicare, informally known in the past as “Medicare Part E” (Everyone). Granted, the public option will not cover “everyone,” as it’s simply a compromise that waters down the only real solution to our health care problem (single-payer), but the idea is still a good one. In fact, we should have thought of it earlier and saved a whole lot of headache explaining to Americans the meaning of the term “public option,” a term that automatically stirs up Cold War-era anti-communist sentiment and turns people into teabag-waving idiots screaming about the government wanting to take over Medicare.
No, many Americans – as we’ve seen clearly enough – don’t even understand Medicare. But one thing is certain: Americans love their Medicare. In fact, they love Medicare so much that they want to extend the program to all Americans, meaning (quite simply) that we live in a country full of closet socialists. So why didn’t the strategists on the Democratic side see this? Why didn’t we brand it Medicare from the very beginning? We should have called it the Medicare option, let Republicans attack Medicare at its very core, and then watched the GOP opposition sink in a pool of its own fecal matter. This fight would have been much different – still opposed by corporate interests, of course, but with less overall confusion and even more vehement public support – had the Democrats taken that route.
But they didn’t, and I don’t believe it’s too late to “re-brand” the public option and call it something more familiar to the American people as health care reform moves toward final passage. Granted, most Americans already approve of the public option, but that number can only improve if we call it Medicare. At that point, the Republicans and Blue Dogs will only be able to piss and moan about Medicare going broke (which they know full well can be fixed if we lift the Social Security cap), an argument – like others posed by the GOP and Blue Dog Caucus – that ultimately will probably not hold water with the American people.
The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.
Health Care Reform Moves Forward?
Despite some worries about whether or not liberals on the Senate Finance Committee like Jay Rockefeller would vote for it, the Baucus bill was passed by the committee yesterday, with Olympia Snowe as the only supporting Republican (but not without a catch). And so health care reform has moved forward…or has it?
True, the simple fact that all committees have now reported a bill and we’re ready to merge the bills and move forward with an actual bill that we can debate – that’s great. That’s momentous. We haven’t made this much progress on health care reform since…well, practically since the health care reform debate started nearly a century ago. It has become clear to most observers that – since we’ve come this far – we’re probably going to get something. Something with the title “health care reform” is going to come out of the anus of Congress; whether it’s really health care reform or just a bout of legislative diarrhea, we’ve yet to find out.
As I mentioned yesterday, AHIP’s report relentlessly bashing the Baucus bill and promising premium increases only reinforces the need for a public option. We’re at a crucial crossroads here. We can pretty much be assured of a public option passing the House, but the Senate is an entirely different story. The leadership seems to be a bit nervous about the prospects for a public option surviving a Senate vote, but I’m not sure why. We need 60 votes for cloture; we have 60 Democrats in the Senate, and no Democrat is so far (or will be in the future, by my estimation) willing to stand in the way of cloture. So we have at least 60 votes, not counting moderates like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, who I really don’t see blocking the progress of health care reform. Then, once we get cloture, we only need 51 votes to pass the public option, which we have. At least – I believe we’ll see more. There is nothing standing in the way of meaningful health care reform but the Democratic leadership, if it chooses to do so.
The next stage of the game is the merging process. I’m not worried about the House. The Senate is where we should be concerned. The merged bill that will go to the Senate floor is going to be put together by Max Baucus (Finance – did not pass a public option), Chris Dodd (HELP – passed a public option), Harry Reid (supports a public option), and the White House (supports a public option). In other words, Max Baucus is the only person in this elite group who is opposed to the inclusion of a public option. We have the votes for cloture, we have the votes for passage, the House isn’t going to have a problem passing it, doctors support it, the American people overwhelmingly support it – what is the issue here?
Nothing is standing in the way but those in charge of crafting the final bill. They need to hear from us – from progressives and even from moderates and conservatives who are smart enough to support real health care reform. At this point, it’s all we can do. If the bill that goes to the Senate floor does not contain a public option, we will not get a public option. No amount of magic will make that happen. This is the moment of truth.
The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.
Surprise: AHIP Now Opposing Health Care Reform
You know we’re stuck in a health care reform rut when progressives actually rush to the defense of the POS Baucus bill. Yet that’s what we’ve come to, apparently.
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the chief lobbyist on behalf of the private health insurance industry released a report over the weekend that essentially attempts to take the already-shitty Baucus bill, rip it up into little pieces, and flush it down the proverbial toilet. The report makes the hysterical claim that the typical family’s premium would increase by $4,000 by 2019. Why? – because the federal mandate that requires all Americans to purchase health insurance coverage isn’t strong enough and doesn’t impose strict enough penalties; because of cuts in Medicare payments that AHIP argues will be shouldered by private insurers and passed on to policyholders; because taxes on high-end “Cadillac” plans will be passed down in the form of higher premiums. The apocalyptic scenario presented by AHIP is self-serving and plain asinine, not to mention demonstrably false.
But is there anything shocking about that? I’d argue that this was AHIP’s plan all along – to support the general, vague idea of health care reform, water down and shrink the plan as much as possible, and then, in the well-known (and tasteful) words of Grover Norquist, “drown it in a bathtub.” Because, when it boils right down to the meat of health care reform, health insurers are going to be limited in their methods of pursuing profit. Any health care reform – even health care reform that magically grants them millions of new customers bound by a federal mandate – is worse than the status quo. And so we should have seen this AHIP reversal coming.
So what now? I happen to agree with Rep. Anthony Weiner’s assessment that this shameless AHIP report that promises years of rising premiums for American families only reinforces the need for a public option. While progressives are rushing right now to defend the watered-down Baucus bill, they really should be putting their weight behind the fight for the inclusion of a government-run competitor that can keep these thugs in line. Anything else is just a waste of time and effort, because we’re not dealing with people here – we’re dealing with money-hungry leeches that want to suck everything they can out of the American people.
The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.
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