Senate Finance Committee: We're Going to Make You Buy Insurance With No Public Option
- Lower the medicaid coverage rate from 150% to 100% of the fFderal poverty line, 133% for kids and pregnant women (once you have the baby, too bad for you)
- Subsidies stop at 300% of the poverty line (was 400%)
- No Public Option mentioned
- Insurance exchanges at the State level
- Must buy insurance unless it costs more than 15% of your income
- A fine if you don't buy insurance unless you're below the Federal poverty line
For the most part, as Walker discusses, this is about the same as or worse than the plan put forward by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). Yes, worse than the insurance industry's plan. Remarkable. Baucus is really earning his campaign donations these days.
Of course, this is only one proposal, and in principle others from the House and other Senate committees could be better, and the better ones could be enacted. Obama has said he wants a public option, and he may whip for it.
But, if something like this is what comes out as the eventual "reform" it is worse than nothing. Being forced to buy bad insurance, with huge co-pays without a public option to keep prices in check has as its primary value that it is a subsidy for the insurance companies and that it reduces catastrophic healthcare costs for hospitals, because due to forced purchases of bad plans, some of the folks who used to come in at the last minute, after having not gotten care, and then costing the hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars in emergency care, will be partially paid for. They'll still come in last minute and not have been properly cared for since the deductibles will mean they didn't get help, but 70% or 80% of their final death-rattle costs will be paid for.
The problem with this plan is that it won't control costs. Without a public option, the insurance companies will have no check on their prices, let alone pressure to actually reduce them. Because people will be forced to buy bad insurance, they'll hate the plan, and because "reform" has been passed, we'll have to wait another 10 or 12 years for another shot.
Obama desperately wants to pass health care "reform". The fear is that he may take the easy road, and pass any bill that is "better than nothing", and that progressives will once again accept the logic that it's better to get something rather than fight for an actual good bill.
But because Obama does desperately want to pass something, if progressives stand firm in the House or the Senate, and refuse as a bloc to pass anything without a good public option, nothing can pass unless Republicans cross the aisle, which is rather unlikely.
So the answer is to stop being taken for granted. Stand up for and demand a public option, and refuse to accept a bill which does less. Don't let Obama have a cheap victory; a cheap "medicare reform". If he wants it, make him whip for a real bill, a good bill, with a public option. He whipped for money to bail out banks in Eastern Europe. He whipped for TARP. He can whip for a good healthcare bill. And it won't even cost 700 billion.
...he has already caved on single payer universal and the Dems should be taking their marching order from him. He has to insist on single payer and keep pushing for it, but "politically" he doesn't have the votes.
That's pure bullshit. Go with single payer and let the country see who the assholes are who voted against it and we can focus on getting them voted out in 2010.
n/t
Obama will have a townhall next week on health care. It would be fair to get his actual position rather than assume he's in lock step with these Senators.
He was quite clear about that during the election.
So I do not expect he to change his stance on this matter, never mind that the town hall seems to be your typically coreographed M$M event, so I am willing to bet there will be no views critical of corporate America allowed.
That being said, you are correct and we need to wait to hear what Obama has to say about this respect, and he deserves that courtesy.
However, I want to ask you that if the outcome of the townhall is as some people predict: more of the same, if you will be able to openly accept criticism of Obama in that respect as warranted.
If there is a miracle and he advocates the interests of the people, and declares his support for universal coverage (via single payer for example). It will also be fair for Obama detractors to eat crow.
Fair?
Anyone opposing single payer is a liar and a traitor to the millions of struggling Americans who supported them. People are hurting and need relief from these health care barons. I want Obama to explain exactly where he stands and tell us why he won't try to help.
this is not in doubt
is provide a better judgement on where he is stands after the town hall debate. A few days is not really that big of a deal in the big scheme of things.
comes through for the people!
by the time this government is through with you...that's all you'll be able to afford to eat.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
All the other bullshit these guys are dreaming up is a lie. I grew up in a military family. I have benefited from single payer coverage. Socialized health care has existed and has worked in the United States for decades.
Nader was never irrational. We could unearth that whole "Nader helped Bush get into office twice" bullshit, but it was always a lie.
Just like health care reform is a lie. And both parties are beholden to their corporate masters. Whatever else Nader may have said (and much of it was accurate), this is abundantly clear.
.
Alice X - Chomsky Nader, thank you very much.
Pretty or not, just deal in facts.
Chomsky on class warfare, links here (Also links for Elizabeth Warren speech on the coming collapse of the middle class)
Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent here
Nader on single payer. here
Nader at Counterpunch The Single Payer Taboo here
excerpt:
Single Payer action here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
comment removed because it made no sense after stuffing Nader between what I wrote and what was said. Hint Hint: Nader is a DINOSAUR.
Why has Nader not developed a young person to replace himself?
Nader is OLD now. Yes, he has stood for a lot of very good things for a very long time.
But tossing every problem over to Nader has never been the answer.
Or didn't you notice that?
to turn things over to. Haven't you noticed?
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
If he had a son he would be 56 by now.
Haven't YOU noticed?
that there are no women he deemed worthy to carry his seed.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
How, precisely, do you know his attitude?
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
ergo not worthy of the benefit of the doubt regarding his life choices.
That's for sure.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
so... thanks, I guess?
know everyone else's mindset.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
WTH?
so is Saint Sanctimony of the Perpetual Candidacy!
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
.
to follow in my miserable trail of self esteem.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
see that is more like it.
BTW, I don't "follow you," nice projection there. It is just that when you are being all phony, you come up with all that stuff that are neither funny nor very apropos... much like a Dennis Miller act.
And BTW, my education is about 60% private, 40% public. LOL^2
pick up the droppings. Don't worry about your own. They smell like roses. You've told everyone so.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Grow up kid.
Nader is gay.
http://gaynation.info/node/12
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
My head is exploding! That is SO sexist!!!! Men!!! sheesh
Ricky doesn't seem to "get it".
It is that some posters here are a tad slow at "getting him" but his 'concernedness' shows in full technicolor glory when the lighting is right.
... the most 'concerned' of our members says so!
...there are simply too many Americans who are content to live with whatever we have as long as they have their little slice of the pie.
They don't know or care how much they are being fucked over every single day by corporate run and owned America.
That wouldn't change under the repugs, they would just continue the dumbing-down process at a faster rate.
That wouldn't change under the repugs, they would just continue the dumbing-down process at a faster rate.
Maybe, if we degenerate at a faster pace, we will finally get to a point where the sleeping sheep wake up and demand action.
take that path, thank you.
I'm done with both of the corporate parties.
there are simply too many Americans who are content to live with whatever we have as long as they have their little slice of the pie.
true
the good/bad news is that will soon no longer be a problem. good in that americans will demand change. bad in that it is going to require a near total brkdwn.
Don't vote for the Republicans - see comment above. here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
the repub-shwein will potentially harm the rest of the world a little faster.
BTW, I did hear the other day that there was a HUGE multi-national meeting in Russia, where the rest of the world was deciding our fate. They were discussing changing the international exchange currency - and the US was specifically not invited to that meeting.
One of the main goals is not to destroy the US so much as force an end to US imperialism. That currency change will crash the country....
counterpunch and commondreams had essays on that subject
scary as shit, but hardly surprising
The Lobbyists are paid by Corporations to do their dirty work in D.C. so the all the Oligarch's don't have to be inconvenienced.
And thank you SINCERELY for using the correct description:
OLIGARCHS.
It's about time we start using the right language.
I want to steal your thought and put it on a bumper sticker and footnote.
Have it!
I will use it. And ascribe it to Evet.
Thank you.
Why can't one of the states bring in a single-payer system?
Or would this be restraint of trade on the private insurance industry, and invite a constitutional challenge?
If 60% (or 70%, depending on the poll) or Americans want public health insurance, there must be states where this support is even higher. Canada got public health care because the province of Saskatchewan did it first and showed how well it worked. Why doesn't Minnesota or Vermont or Oregon introduce state single-payer? You have states' rights under the constitution, right? Can't a state decide set up a public single-payer system, if that's what the people want?
Check out Vermont.
They just can't control costs the way the Federal Government would and could.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
n/t
Someone needs to let congress know that it isn't about getting insurance it's about getting health care. A policy is no good if the insurance company refuses to pay. That's why there has to be a public option.
To stop all the waste fraud and abuse. In essence to bring forth honest competition between a few companies and the public option. That is why you have to have the public option. This is just what Obama said. I believe Obama's heart is in the right place. He is having a hell of a time fighting the corruption in the senate though.
I thought we were electing a new administration to get the corporate whores out of the chambers of the government? All of these thugs are paid by us but they are on the take from thieves in the healthcare industry to scrue us. Meanwhile, we furnish them universal healthcare.
...funding is the biggest issue. Nearly all the state are in such dire financial straits right now, who would vote for something that expensive?
...in reply to Canuck's state question.
and everybody is covered.
It may look expensive at first glance, but that's because the government would be taking on a new function, with costs added to the other costs the government pays. But in the aggregate, single-payer is far cheaper than private. A single insurer would have far more power to negotiate fees with doctors, restraining the endemic inflation of medical costs.
Doctors benefit by getting paid automatically. No endless negotiation with private insurers, no rejected claims, no litigation of fees owed, much lower overhead for doctors' offices.
No endless negotiation perhaps, but no rejected claims and the rest? Have you ever talked with someone that files medicare/medicaid claims?
I've made plenty of phone calls. This reminds of the Big Bank Bailout, Feinstein received 90,000 calls from constituents who said to vote no on the Big Bank Bailout and she arrogantly announced this on the floor of the senate and said she was voting for it anyway.
This is no different. 82% of Americans think a public option is what we need and still the politicians write legislation that only benefits the Health Care Industry PACs.
I would be interested in participating in a multi-million person march. We need to do something that the politicians will respond to. It's obvious phone calls and emails aren't enough.
check this out:
Go Ahead And Die! (Pirates Of The Health Care-ibean)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNuCfD5bICQ
Did anyone see Nate Silver's post On Health Care, Who's Hooked on Special Interest Money? (a table of all 99 senators and how much they got/get from Health Industry PACs):
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/on-hea...
"Based on data collected from OpenSecrets.org, I've tallied the amount of contributions that each of the 99 current senators have received from Political Action Committees -- PACs -- from the health care industry since 1989. This includes PACs associated with pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, HMOs, health services companies, medical supply companies and physicians', dentists' and nurses' groups. It does not include any money collected from individual contributors -- only money collected from PACs."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It says that John McCain has received $461,593,083 from Health Industry PACs since 1989.
I called McCain's DC office ($461,593,083) to let them know that I knew this number the guy who answered the phone said it wasn't true and by the time I got Nate Silver's name out of my mouth, he put me on cheerful marching-band hold, never to speak with me again.
Why would John McCain listen to ordinary Americans when the Health Industry PACs give him so much money?
What's the answer?
are trying to keep their Two Big To Fail Mirage-Hallucination afloat.
Kind of like writing your own bailout package.
Thank you for putting this together. I have experienced the same thing.
And lately there have been phone disconnects every time I try to call senators.
I do hope everyone on this topic is writing their story and gripes at Senator Bernie Sanders' site. He just said on the Breakfast with Bernie hour that he has received 2500 letters.
2500? Why not 25,000 instead? ONLY 2500 have written? I am one of them and there are over 400 MILLION of us people out here. 2500 is pathetic.
Hint Hint.
Tell them it is intolerable.
forming up a 'database'...
Cue the Kabuki....
December 11, 1941 - Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. Also, Max Baucus is born.
Kinda ironic, isn't it?
Democratic Party progressive, Vietnam veteran and proud Union member for 41 years
Demon seed.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Time to hit the streets and burn down the the insurance company buildings.
is intended to be a factual statement
maybe rather then destroying things and property perhaps just round up the thieves like they did in the French Revolution?
it would be counterporductive...
Evet...your idea sounds pretty good....but maybe just a series of big protests, and show of strength might be enough.
Doin nothin is not an option.
THE GALLOWS.........Get a rope!
Cue the Kabuki....
The C.I.A. and Tweeter? to help us organize.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Is Tweeter a twitter knock off? I feel so pated.
We would be required to buy insurance that, if we do actually need to use it, could find an excuse to drop us, no questions asked?
Precisely!
Their profits are the greatest when they DENY you care.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
their personal plantation slaves. The sick will be left in the woods to die obviously.
altjough way early, i had predicted a second term for president obama. i'm not so sure now.
is Obama's doing?
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
He's done enough to show who his real bosses are.
Change my ass.
Obama has shown NO indication that he's interested in real Health Care Reform.
The Public option is CRAP. Why aren't people paying attention to this? We need Single Payer. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.
Of course, as far as Congress cares - we can all go f*** ourselves.
Yank their health insurance.
*
and stop being a subordinate the the "Royal Corporate Court".
So where does this say it is Obama's plan? The readers here are starting to sound like Limbaugh dittoheads of the left.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Are you serious? What *IS* Obama's "plan"?
He said he was for single payer in '03. Then he gets elected to the senate and changes his mind. We elect him, giving him the opportunity to show us what his intentions are, and what's his starting point? A "public option" that favors the insurance companies--because, as he said, he'd rather have 70%, bipartisan congressional approval than something better with 51% approval (meaning Democrats only).
And he says single payer won't work--as it already does in every other fucking industrialized nation--because we already have a uniquely American structure in place that involves private insurance companies. Private insurance companies who make their profits by denying care to those they cover, then kicking them off their coverage when they get sick. And oh, by the way, thanks for your years of paying premiums. We enjoy our swimming pool over at the corporate mansion.
Huh-uh. Obama's a one-term president. I'm with the poster above who said let the system go to hell. The sooner the house of cards collapses, the sooner we can try to put something better in place. France had its revolution. As Gore Vidal has said, maybe its time we had another one of our own.
If he messes this up - I simply won't vote. I'll stay home. I've only done that once in my life before in an election for the governor of Illinois.
*
...they don't need us. And by "they," I mean the whole system. Corporations don't need us. Not when they're getting massive bailouts even though we've rejected the products they sell. Elected officials simply move among these corporations, government, and Wall Street. They don't need our votes. The two parties don't need us. Coke needs Pepsi, Pepsi needs Coke. They're locked in a make-believe, never-ending death grip, but they're the only games in town. As long as they have each other, they're either on offense or defense, but the game goes on.
We can take it, or we can not take it, which means protest. But that involves effort, willingness to give up what little "slice of the pie" we collectively have (as mentioned above), and potential harm to ourselves.
As of yet, most people aren't feeling harmed enough to risk it. Maybe the tea-baggers were onto something--for the wrong reasons, but at least they did something.
THIS IS INSANE!
We have to yank their health insurance. NOW.
*
If we can't have it!
They shouldn't either!
Fuckin bastards!
to describe the situation in which the very people deciding how good our healthcare will be are given the very best healthcare on the fucking planet?
A plan that is so pathetically weak that even the average US moron can recognize that fact is much better than a watered down public option that people might believe to be helpful.
If the goal is single payer, the best way to get there is to have a first "compromise" step that is an utter failure.
wayyyyyy too much credit!
If Obama manages to get a public option through that actually does improve health care, causes the HIC real pain, and is very costly to the taxpayers, that will be the end of the line. Single-payer will never see the light of day.
Or at least that's what my crystal ball sez.
Fri, 06/19/2009 - 09:54 — Freddy Knuckles
wayyyyyy too much credit!
_____________________________________________
Wish he was a bank?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Cue the Kabuki....
that's the kinda stuff that gets protests shut down before they have a chance to make an impact.
I'm pissed off too, but violence and destruction aren't what we need.
You're absolutely right.
An angry mob is not going to achieve anything anywhere.
And spouting about becoming one is no different than the right wing-nuts using their sites to cause nuts to kill people.
We should never stoop that low.
Unfortunately, congress is outdoing itself in it's efforts to disenfranchise everyone who isn't a member of the Oligarchy.
The Oligarchy is sowing the seeds of rage.
trying to instigate shit.
I think the oligarchy is trying to get us to rage in the streets so they can test out their head banging equipment. You know. The new stuff that takes down people by the hundreds. If they can get us to destabilize, they can overthrow the government and install an all out dictatorship.
Don't fall into this trap.
This shit is like something out of a bad movie.
But we must focus our anger into nonviolent and nondestructive means of getting what we want.
And you're right...we can't start acting like the rightwingers.
I used to believe that "change" could be voted in....
Cue the Kabuki....
Congress to Americans ...
F U C K ... Y O U !!
*
Have a cocktail!...........C-above
Cue the Kabuki....
Americans to Congress:
S A M E T H I N G ! !
Say that to my face, you pasty, sow-bellied cowards. Find out first hand that liberal is NOT the same thing as pacifist, made clearly manifest by my boot in your collective ass, you limp-dicked fools.
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
PUBLIC OPTION SUCKS!!
IT'S NOT SINGLE PAYER!1
WHY ISN'T ANYONE PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS!
And they won't even give us the sucky option????
*
attend the party conventions.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
in my opinion the financial elites do NOT want us to be able to compete with the likes of CHINA,india and others. u.s. economic competition would ruin their spoils in the foreign markets that they have been establishing the last 20-30 yrs. they want to do business with little to no regulation, large never ending supply of "cheap labor",infrastructure and universal healthCare. i'm not sure they really want or can change the trade relationship with foreign manufacturers. if healthCare became available to all americans there would be a resurrection if you will of u.s. small/medium businesses. i feel they don't want that competition. i realize they will say we just can't afford it. i don't believe that we can't afford NOT to reform the healthCare system. this seems like a move to give the economically developing foreign countries more of an advantage.
We can put the hurt on them one way only:
CLOSE OUR WALLETS
If THEY were as broke as us, they would then be on OUR PLAYING FIELD.
We know how to live broke.
THEY DON'T.
Government is corrupt and broken.
Need to go Iranian to change the establishment or deal with this corruption.
This horse shit needs to be stopped dead in it's tracks NOW. Get Angry. Get on the phone to your Senator and Congressman! Let's organize marches on the headquarters of insurance companies.
Aside from being a complete give away to the Medical Industrial Complex, if this crap makes it into law, the Democratic Party will be flushed away in the 2010 elections, because they endorsed and signed off on this garbage as the majority party in power. (That might not be a bad thing, but only if we had a viable progressive third party, otherwise it will be handing government right back to the Neo Cons.) Honestly how stupid/spineless/disconnected/corrupt can the Democratic party be!!!!
Americans of all classes,beliefs, are being bankrupted and DYING from our dysfunctional and broken health care system. SINGLE PAYER NOW! NO EXCUSES! NO MORE WAITING!
Did you know that before Canada could set up their medical system they had to KICK OUT THE INSURANCE COMPANIES FROM THEIR COUNTRY FIRST?
Did you know that?
That is very interesting.
I must learn more about this right away!
That Tommy Douglas was voted The Greatest Canadian....
Who/What/WHY Tommy Douglas!?!.....
BECAUSE TOMMY Douglas is widely hailed as the father of THE Canadian Healthcare Program!*
*take note/get a clue OBAMA!!!
Cue the Kabuki....
Thank you. I knew someone would mention that.
I have never heard of Tommy Douglas.
Like I said..I must learn more.
Canadians were pretty smart in their approach, I believe Saskatchewan was the first province to try out single-payer. The results were so positive that all the initial complains and roadblocks by the insurance/medical conglomerates were easily overcame by sheer inertia of public opinion.
Canadians did that almost half a century ago, and nobody in the USA seems to have noticed.
Tommy Douglas was also an ordained minister... which makes the bitching about the godlessness of socialistic initiative by the US Christian complex the more infuriating.
ARE Godless!
Cue the Kabuki....
in parts of the bible that are so old and antiquated that not even orthodox Jews observe anymore.
Which is the reason why basing your scale of values and moral compass on the writings made up by committees of ancient goat herders is not a very good idea.
OBAMA.....someone needs to LEARN that guy hard
Cue the Kabuki....
Forget about demanding a public option. A real, non-booby-trapped, public option now is simply "single payer tomorrow". This is so because the public option would be bigger than any of the privates, and therefore have more market power, but most importantly because it will have significantly lower overhead and no need to run at a profit. It will therefore charge cheaper premiums than the privates, and quickly kill all of them off, leaving what starts out as a public option the de facto single payer. Everybody, both the industry and single payer advocates, believes this to be true. The industry will therefore oppose any non-booby-trapped public option to the death, because a speedy death for them awaits if we get such a public option. Many single payer advocates think that they are being clever in supporting a public option, because it seems more politically doable, but will soon result in this de facto single payer.
But they're being way too clever. The industry is much better at perceiving and fending off threats to its profits than any public interest group will ever be. If they are so powerful that you think single payer is not politically doable because they will oppose it, then you need to acknowledge that the industry will be way ahead of you in recognizing this "single payer tomorrow" feature of a non-booby-trapped public option, and oppose such a public option with every bit as much force as they oppose single payer. To plump for a public option is to enter a contest in which the other side is far more clever, has way more resources and is much less scrupulous about truth-telling than the good guys will ever be. Our side is bound to lose such a fight, and we'll end up with no public option, or a booby-trapped pubic option that not only won't work, but in its failure will discredit govt intervention in the "free" market of health care.
Single payer is not only the right policy, it's the only politically viable way to get a universal health care system.
Look, the crisis in health care funding is that it is becoming so expensive that more and more even among the employed find it unaffordable, or at least that it makes economic sense for them to go naked, paying out of pocket for any small stuff that arises, and just accepting that they'll have to spend into bankruptcy if something catastrophic happens to them. Considering the crappy, hole-filled, private insurance plans they have, a real medical catastrophe is going to bankrupt them anyway. If there's going to be a fight over what reform will look like, if the question is not going to be settled by handshakes all around among the current players coming to agreement in some back room, and the public is going to have to be appealed to, then that side will win which has the more plausible story to tell the people about how the reform package will control costs. If our side is supporting single payer, and only if our plan is single payer, then we have a simple, simple to understand, and, yes, true, explanation of where sizable, immediate, cost savings are going to come from. The savings are going to come from cutting out the private insurers, from no longer paying for their overhead and their profits in exchange for them doing nothing but diddling in the middle between patients/the public and providers.
If our plan is any public option, what are we going to say about where the savings will come from? Sure, we could argue the same way, that our public option would cut out the overhead and thus be substantially cheaper than the private options. But if that's true, we're arguing for "single payer tomorrow", because if the substantially lower costs are passed on to the consumer, then the private options are toast. If killing off the private insurers is alright, an example of that weeding out of inefficiency that free markets and competition bring, then why is it not alright to simply kill them off at the outset with single payer today? Not doing single payer today implies that it's not alright to kill off the private insurers, or why wouldn't that be what we support? Lacking the will to be forthright about killing off the private plans, what the administratioin is left with is claiming that its plan will save money via a goulash of technical means that aren't easy to understand, probably won't save much money even if you did understand them and believed they would work, and many of which are basically the same "managed care" approaches that didn't work when the industry applied them. Well they didn't work, in the long run, to save money, but they were wildly successful at making people hate the idea of managed care. Great, our plan to win this fight politically is to embrace managed ideas care right after the industry has thoroughly discredited such ideas by applying them to serve profit rather than quality. That'll work.
Unless our side supports single payer, and only single payer, this push for reform will end only one of two ways. It will be like 1993, and we'll get no change, the status quo. Or it will end with just a large dose of the sort of bad, regressive, change we've seen implemented gradually since 1993. We'll end up with Medicare Advantage for All instead of Medicare for All. We'll end up with a plan that simply increases, and backs with the US Treasury, the massive subsidy we already allow the industry to collect from private sources for diddling in the middle.
but that's why I prefer to see a horrible plan like this one being discussed in the finance committee than a marginally successful public option plan. The sooner the system breaks and ENOUGH people get enraged, the sooner we'll have single payer.
[chuckling ruefully at myself, not you, Blue]
I want to join you in some optimism by fantasizing that this is some sort of genius-level chess move by our "change" President. That would be awesome. Truly, there are times when I really, really hope that a great deal of what we see lately as puzzling, for lack of a better, bigger word, stances taken by the Big O are actually all part of a bigger plan to outmaneuver the scum who populate the Congress. Reality says differently, but I can dream...
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
If it happens, it will be incidental and not due to a stroke of genius I'm afraid. I think O believes he is a great uniter and can find a compromise position on almost any issue. Unfortunately, when it comes to health care, a compromise is like mixing a bowl of crap with a bowl of cereal - you end up with two bowls of crap, not two bowls of breakfast.
about as good an analogy as I have seen.
Ah well.
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
Hey!...I think i voted for him....
Cue the Kabuki....
While not disputing that it is probably unrealistic to imagine that the administration's handling of health care reform reflects anything but that he's a fairly conventional centrist politician, and therefore simply wrong on this issue, there is some grounds to hope that the Blue Lensman's theory is correct.
Obama has been careful to praise single payer as the best way to do health care financing, if we had the luxury of designing a system from scratch. He also made the decision to let Congress actually write the proposed reforms, rather than having some latter-day Magaziner come up with an administration plan, as was tried in 1993. This suggest that at least his fall-back in case the Congressional plans falter, is to only then offer his own plan. Where the perhaps unrealistic hope comes in, is to imagine that he fully expects the initial reform plans to falter, that he wants the acrimonious debate these fall guy, stalking horse Congressional plans engender to "heighten the contradictions", to convince people that what we have now really is so broken that we do have to start over again from scratch and design a new system.
That may be the only path to real progress, that things get so bad, that "sensible centrist" reform is given a chance but only makes things worse, that people recognize that we have to start from scratch. What strains credulity is that anyone would have the nerve to plan a political strategy around that course of events. With Obama in the WH, I think our chances are much improved, compared to if McCain had won, that even a politician conventional enough to win the presidency, would still be sensible enough to react to the deepened crisis created by conventional reform failing by jumping in the right direction. But to imagine him planning from the outset to get radical reform via Chaos Theory pushes credibility.
Remember this YOU DON'T HAVE TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS TO BE A WEATHERMAN. To all corporations fuck with us some more and you will see this come BACK!!!!!!!!!!
Bill Maher was right. If Obama can't force some reform down the throats of recalcitrant Congresspersons NOW, then when?
Health care reform is the #1 domestic issue facing us today. If Obama signs into law some crappy watered-down bill that insurance companies will love with NO choice of a public option, I will NOT vote for him again in 2012. I'll vote third party--Greens, Commies, whatever.
For all of you "What about the Supreme Court?" whiners, don't bother. Better to have Republican evil in power than Democratic mediocrity. It's easier to pick a side with a clear conscience and build a viable progressive third party that way.
P.S. I've already written my Congresswomen/man about this and given $$$ to MoveOn earmarked for this specific issue.
China plans universal health care
By Edward Wong
Published: Thursday, January 22, 2009
BEIJING — China announced that it intended to spend $123 billion by 2011 to establish universal health care for the country's 1.3 billion people.
The plan was passed Wednesday at a session of the State Council, the Chinese cabinet. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao presided.
Xinhua, the state news agency, said the authorities would "take measures within three years to provide basic medical security to all Chinese in urban and rural areas, improve the quality of medical services and make medical services more accessible and affordable for ordinary people."
Providing universal health care is seen by some economists as a way to stimulate domestic spending during the current economic downturn. The Chinese have a high savings rate, and one of the reasons usually cited is their concern about possible medical expenses.
Bai Zhongen, chairman of the economics department at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management in Beijing, said that establishing universal health care with government-financed insurance would increase general consumer spending. He said the school did a survey in 2007 about the effect of rural health insurance on consumer behavior and "found that in government-sponsored health insurance areas, people are spending more."
The government already gives many people a small subsidy to help pay for health care, but more government financing for individual health care would strengthen the economy, Bai said.
Xinhua reported that the plan approved Wednesday would aim to provide some form of medical insurance for 90 percent of the population by 2011. Each person covered by the system would receive an annual subsidy of 120 yuan, or more than $17, starting in 2010. Medicine would also be covered by the insurance, and the government would begin a system of producing and distributing necessary drugs this year.
The plan also aims to improve health centers in rural and remote areas as well as equalize health services between urban and rural areas, Xinhua reported. Furthermore, the government would begin this year to reform the operations of public hospitals.
"Growing public criticism of soaring medical fees, a lack of access to affordable medical services, poor doctor-patient relationship and low medical insurance coverage compelled the government to launch the new round of reforms," Xinhua reported.
It appears that they've been embezzling monies from US insurance companies by filing false claims.
I LIKE IT!
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
From Canada:
You guys are actually going to have a worse HC system than you 'enjoy' now?
This is unreal.
And don't believe those lies about the Canadian HC system, we pay a lot in taxes but at least most ppl dont get sick worrying about their coverage. Wait times aren't as bad as the Corporate Media claims.
Feels like any second now Obama will rip off his mask revealing Ashton Kutcher .... "Punk'd!"
I'm Boycotting NewsCorp! Heres what not to buy: http://www.cjr.org/resources/index.php?c=news...
americans pay more TAXes than want to know. it's confusing and fragmented to cause confusion and the inability to really understand. the TAXes are collected in fees and cost shift(s). approximately 27% of americans have healthCare ins. paid by the government. that's subsidized by TAX payers. the uninsured and under insured unable to pay many who go bankrupt cause a COST SHIFT to the paying pool and TAX payes. we are going to pay even more in TAXes because our economic relationship with CHINA will change somewhat. up until recently CHINA kept our TAXes lower that's going to change...soon.
I tend to lump things like service fees in as taxes bc thats what they really are ...
But I still can't get over the whole 'socialized' bugaboo ...if your house is burning down, do you have to swipe you VISA card in the fire truck before they will turn on the water?
Jeez Louise !...
Biggest problem in Canadastan is the aging demographic ...
its gonna bite us in 5 yrs or so.
I'm Boycotting NewsCorp! Heres what not to buy: http://www.cjr.org/resources/index.php?c=news...
that population is growing at a rapid rate. unlike europe in this country people will keep/sustain a persons organ artificially. it's cost this country billions/yr. for that last 6-9 months of "life". it's a big business that this country needs to face very soon. this single payer system would have caused a renasisance/REVIVAL. they don't want it. i've been to vancouver,b.c. the people were very happy regarding their healthCare coverage. they thought it had a positive effect on crime overall and sense of community.
and the other folks who attended that financial meeting last week (in Russia, I believe) elect to not use the US dollar as their reserve currency any more, we'll have a lot bigger problems than a
shitty health care bill.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
I hope so.
I can hardly wait!!
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
Am I cynical enough to believe that this WHOLE dog and pony show was just a ruse to get the general public into an even worse medical plan or lack thereof? I AM HAIR'S-BREADTH AWAY FROM BELIEVING IT, tinfoil hat or no.
Sonzabitches!!!!
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
Obama's big campaign pitch was that American's should be able to buy into the same health care plan that Senators and Congressmen get. I hope this gets brought up during his Health Care pess address.
People should start asking their representatives if this is the health coverage. I say that is an elected official votes for a watered down health system, then it should be mandated that it becomes the level of care they receive.
Stop consuming. Stop watching television.
Work stoppages. Protests. Sit ins. Mail campaigns.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
That's L&P I know!
and i got a fridge full o beer, but I'm w/ you on the stop working...
Cue the Kabuki....
That's not watching teh teevee!
That will teach us uppity public-sector lovin', non-corporate types. Thanks to the corruption and degeneracy of our political system, the American people will lose Medicaid assistance, have forced tribute to pay to corporations and state lobbyists will also have free reign to skew the public.
My ex-pat plans are back in play.
President Obama should come out and say that he will veto any bill that doesn't have a public option, preferably single payer, and without a trigger.
If he's not willing to do that we let him know we will work to replace all the Dems that don't vote for the public option in 2010 and him if he can't stand up to them in 2012.
...one country where single payer isn't a complete disaster.
...that to completely ignore the will of the people isn't a disaster?
...why don't we take what actually works in other countries and try it here?
be socialism!
And Fux noose sez socializm baaaaad
corporatizm goooooood!
What "other countries" are you refering to, exactly?
.
Canada
England
France
Australia
Germany
There are five…
And NOT ONE is a 'complete' disaster. Far from it.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
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