Finally, Common Sense: Draft Bill from The House Includes A Public Plan
By Susie Madrak Saturday Jun 20, 2009 8:16am
The House plan, naturally, is looking a hell of a lot closer to reality as we live it than the proposals spawned by the Millionaires Club they call the Senate:
House Democrats on Friday answered President Obama’s call for a sweeping overhaul of the health care system by putting forward a 852-page draft bill that would require all Americans to obtain health insurance, force employers to provide benefits or help pay for them, and create a new public insurance program to compete with private insurers — a move that Republicans will bitterly oppose.
The bill was unveiled by a trio of committee chairman, George Miller of Education and Labor, Henry Waxman of Energy and Commerce, and Charles B. Rangel of Ways and Means, who have worked jointly for months to develop a seamless proposal. But the chairmen said they still did not know how much the plan would cost, even as they pledged to pay for it by cutting Medicare spending and imposing new, unspecified taxes.
Hey, I have an idea! We can invade an oil-rich country, take over their oil to get cheap gas and... oh. Never mind.
The three chairmen described their bill as a starting point in a weeks-long legislative endeavor that they said would dominate Congress for the summer and ultimately involve the full panorama of stakeholders in the health care industry, which accounts for about one-sixth of the nation’s economy. They described their efforts as the historic culmination of a half-century of failed attempts across the tenure of a dozen presidents.
Mr. Miller, a Democrat of California, said that completing a bill would require extraordinary cooperation among lawmakers. “In order to change American’s health care system,” he declared, “Congress itself must change.”
House Republicans, who have had no involvement in the development of the health legislation so far, quickly denounced the Democrats’ proposal as a thinly disguised plan for an eventual government takeover of the health care system.
Here's hoping for that government takeover, guys!
“Families and small businesses who are already footing the bill for Washington’s reckless spending binge will not support it,” the Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, said in a statement. “Raising taxes, rationing care, and empowering government bureaucrats — not patients and doctors — to make key medical decisions is not reform.”
I'd like this amoral buffoon to say this to my face without laughing.
Login or Register to post comments.
Damn I like that Henry Waxman.
Wish we had a few hundred just like him.
My sincerest thanks to you, Congressman Waxman. You are a great American.
That have actually ever been poor and out of the ones that have, none seem to remember what it was like. I've always been disgusted that rich white men are the almost exclusive arbiters of policy in a society in which their socio-economic status is shared by fewer than one percent of the population.
What the He!! is all this "Mandatory Health Insurance" about? Do they think people wouldn't get it if the could?
What next, the "Mandatory Eating and Breathing Act"?
Doing away with the senate completely. Let the People's house make laws. We don't need a rich man's club messing up the People's business.
It's in the first article of the US Constitution, and although it's immediate predecessor was the UK House of Lords, who inherited their position by primogeniture, it guaranteed the protection of States Rights until the passage of the XVII amendment which provided for direct popular voting, but even with that caveat, they represent the whole state, and not just a district within the state.
the senate exists because some of the founders feared that the farmer 'rabble' were a danger to their wealthier businessman superiors. Even then there was the disgusting belief that successful men were probably successful because they were chosen or designed by God to be that way. The rich and the poor are 'that way' because it's part of the celestial plan.
Sounds so much like the way repugnicants think today.
of saying "Single Payer." Because otherwise, I don't give a rats ass...
And what about regulation of private health insurance providers?
I'm STILL pissed over that outline from yesterday....
BUT...not as much...
Not only am I not voting Dem again I am going to make sure everyone I know never does either.
troll?
Here is something radical... how about each American Citizen gets the same health care plan the members of the Senate Enjoy (http://www.opm.gov/). They are all mighty fine.
How about no member of the house or senate will receive health care as long as other citizens do not have it? Looking at their plans, they are much better than mine. It is good to know that they work for us, but we afford them better plans than our the plans we have for our families...
These fat cats are out of touch. They need a dose of our reality.
a spokesman. Mine can't voice it's opinion.
Mine can.
It lets me know when there's prime tail in the area.
just cant see it happening
but ive got to hand it to obama and the dems...at least they learned from their last mistake with clinton
ramrod it through while you have the chance
and make some spending changes. For example, if the average family has very sick kids needing medical attention, and their monthly firearms collection hobby stretches their budget too much, they'd cut back on their weapons collecting and instead get their kids the medical attention they require. They'd do this even if a crazy uncle told them to f*%k the kids and take out a loan to finance some neighborhood home invasions.
The devil will be in the details but my suspicion is that any public option will be another version of the virtual protection racket available from the private providers.
As for:
On top of the health care conundrum we have the converging dual catastrophes of climate change (we are at 385 ppm co2, over the theoretical 350 ppm safety level) and peak oil.
Cheap gas was the result of no energy policy. Even when Jimmy Carter proposed one. here
Cheap gas created the situation that is going to crush us.
We still have no energy policy.
On top of that we are in the midst of the greatest credit collapse in history here
As for health care, the only true solution is single payer. It is the solution that reigns in cost.
As with the Bank Oligarchs, the Congress is beholden to the Medical Industry Oligarchs.
---
Joe Conason/Truthdig The AMA's Unhealthy Obsession here
Michael Bader/Alternet When We Talk About Health Care, We're Forgetting One Important Group: The Already Insured here
Robert Reich/Salon Memo to President Obama here
Amy Goodman/Truthdig Congre$$, Heal Thyself here
did you get 350 ppm for co2? Osha lists 5000 ppm for the permissible exposure.
http://www.vngas.com/pdf/g8.pdf
5000 ppm is a cited toxicity level for the indiviidual exposure
350 ppm is the danger level for the Planet Earth.
This according to Bill McKibben here
There are others who share this view.
I said CLIMATE CHANGE, why cite OSHA, even their numbers are probably too high for the individual .
Life on Earth is going belly up long before 5000 ppm.
Here is an interesting interview on Bloomberg and the new atmospheric carbon counter in Manhattan.
We are at 3.6 trillion metric tons and climbing.
...is a lot higher than plants' tolerance. It doesn't become toxic to mammalian species until around 50,000 ppM (5%). Plants are a different story, and you can have too much of a good thing. We're is not too far from moving into the range where CO2 becomes toxic to plants, by a specific mechanism called Carbon Dioxide bleaching. A 5000 ppM free residual, BTW, is lethal to most terrestrial plants. Also, we are all ready well passed the inflection point where oceanic CO2 absorption is reducing the pH of the oceans. As it gets more acidic allshell building species have a progressively more difficult time surviving, including corals and plankton. Deep six the corals and the plankton, and there goes the lion's share of the foundation of the food chain. Mass extinction time.
2 laws:
1. Insurance companies cannot deny coverage. All they do is pay the bills. After all its not the patients that diagnose themselves, its the doctors that ask for treatments. So if insurance companies think that a procedure is unnecessary, let them sue the doctors for fraud. Stop punishing patients.
2. If an insurance company wants to cancel someone's insurance based on a flawed application (when someone comes down with an expensive disease, insurance companies frequently investigate the patient to see if they can cancel the policy because for example they forgot to put down they used Clearasil once when they were 17) anytime AFTER the insurance company has already accepted a payment, then the insurance company must repay ALL payments plus interest to the policyholder. After all, if the patient isn't good enough to do business with, they shouldn't be profiting from that patient.
coverage for a person being sick, the managers of said company can be charged and tried for insurance fraud.
I'm talking about when you get sick and they investigate you and find a legal reason to cancel your coverage. Happens all the time. My point is if insurance companies want to play that way, they shouldn't be taking payments from people who they themselves say they shouldn't have given a policy to. Problem with what you say is that it is nigh impossible for one person to legally win against a multinational global conglomerate corporation, and even if you did win, you'd probably be dead by the time you saw any money.
Edit: Actually what they do, is when they find an error in your application form, they threaten to cancel your coverage if you insist on pressing your claim. That way they haven't denied you anything, since you "agreed" to not claim, and they get to keep getting paid.
...extortion under RICO.
Only, and I want to be clear, ONLY if you tragically fail to be a large multinational corporation that
bribesdonates hundreds of millions of dollars to congress. A frequent mistake of the common criminal.We could follow the Right's example and shoot four or five Med Company's CEOs, only we'd use a Super Shooter full of ketchup, or maybe red ants...
...involved in the chain of players who make denial of service decisions and bestowing upon them a rich opportunity to personally exercise their own catostrophic medical events coverage.
I am scared to get sick. It cost $200 just to get my teeth cleaned. They want $950 to fill a cavity. I have until September to save up the money.
One thing that frustrates my dentist is I have to get my teeth cleaned four times a year, but not unusually, my insurance company only pays for two.
I have to pay for the other two myself, but according to my dentist other patients might skip the other two, and risk some kind of mouth disease, which is more expensive to treat, but IS covered by insurance.
They're saving nickels when they could be saving dollars.
to read the bill but don't want to get my hopes up and then be disappointed when the final bill contains nothing. Yeh, I'm full of optimism today.
__________________________________
"Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital.."
-Bill Maher
insurance is such a horrifying idea, why do these geniuses accept government provided health care instead of going to private route?
...how about how much it will *save*? This is an investment into the health and well-being of Americans. If we can make it easier to get care when you need it, the costs of fixing more difficult conditions later in life will be lowered. Besides, if you take all the bloated premiums that are now being paid to insurance companies and put them into the public option, surely there's enough to pay for it.
If you pay 2.5 times more money for lesser quality health care than the rest of the first world, that's a tax.
Please let's not play into the hands of the wingnuts by making "tax" a bad word.
Tax is the cost of living in a society. Paying over twice for one of the worst health care systems in the in the industrialized world in terms of quality... would be considered fraud.
Heck, in my line of work... if my sector would operate under the margins/cost structures as the American health care industry does, the DOJ hawks would have a field day filing anti-trust and collusion cases left and right.
I have to explain to consersatives that taxes aren't used like in the days of Prince John for expensive gold plates, silver cutlery and crystal goblets
And they answer, "Who's Prince John?"
The clever ones already know who Crystal Goblets is because they watch ET.
....Men it Tights!! :) (Sorry just gotta laugh sometimes or you just cry)
The people that benefit the most from our peaceful and safe society want to pay for it the least.
I was listening to some of these Republicans, and one of them were comparing the public option to the DMV, taking away a patient's ability to choose a doctor, and so forth.
Glaringly absent was any criticism of Medicare. Patients can shoose their own doctors under Medicare. So, to make everyone happy, we should simply have Medicare run the public option, and that way, everyone will be happy. Just call me Salomon.
Actually, I read an analysis that the public option should be run as part of Medicare, so that the combined group would have leverage in negotiating arrangements with hospitals and so forth, and that having a separately run public option would curtail the ability to negotiate cost concessions. I happen to buy into that logic.
Of course, what is Medicare? Among other things, it is a dumping ground for the uninsurable, people who have reached an age where most of their medical services are now needed. Will the public option be anything other than a place for insurers to dump chronically ill patients?
But in the end, this health debate is quite the charade. We spend 16% of GDP on health care, whereas other countries spend 11% of GDP. The issue is whether to adapt a system that reaches cost parity with Europe, giving cost relief by eliminating corporate profits. Or continue with enhancing shareholder value by price gouging people, as evidenced by the huge cost disparity between us and the rest of the world. In a democracy, one outcome would be certain, however, in an corporate oligarchy, unfortunately, one outcome is also certain. Certainly, if we were to choose the 11% option, then there are no funding issues, since the moneys could come from the 16% cash stream.
A Consolidated System
They wanted a system that gave everybody equal access to health care — free choice of doctors, with no waiting time — and a system that encouraged a lot of competition among medical providers.
To finance the scheme they chose a national insurance system: a single, government-run fund that forces everybody to join in and pay.
The result is a system that works a lot like Canada's, or like the U.S. Medicare system, but with more benefits.
"It has drug benefits, vision care, traditional Chinese medicine, kidney dialysis, inpatient care, outpatient care, just about everything under the sun," Cheng says.
To satisfy the patients in Taiwan, there's no gatekeeper who controls access to specialists and no waiting lines.
If you woke up in Taiwan with shoulder pain, for example, Chang says that you would be able to see an orthopedic specialist the same morning, no recommendation from a general practitioner required.
"Our people don't like the idea of gatekeepers. They want to decide by themselves," Chang says.
Don't Forget Your Smart Card
By consolidating so much — one government plan that covers everybody — Taiwan achieves remarkable efficiency.
Everybody here has to have a smart card to go to the doctor. The doctor puts it in a reader and the patient's history and medications all show up on the screen. The bill goes directly to the government insurance office and is paid automatically.
So Taiwan has the lowest administrative costs in world: less than 2 percent.
They also use that smart card to track patterns of use.
"If a patient goes to see a doctor or hospital over 20 times a month, or 50 times in a three-month period, then the IT picks that person out. The person then gets a visit from the government, the Bureau of National Health Insurance, and they have a little chat. And this works very well," Cheng says.
That may be too much like Big Brother for some people in the United States, but surveys show the Taiwanese are highly satisfied with their health care.
Plus, no one goes bankrupt because of medical bills, Chang says.
A Strained System
So the patients are safe from bankruptcy. But the system itself is under strain. Chang says that Taiwan spends 6.23 percent of its GDP on health care, compared to 16 percent in America.
So the United States spends too much on health care, and doesn't even cover everybody. But the Taiwanese don't bring in enough money to pay for all the services they offer.
"So actually, as we speak, the government is borrowing from banks to pay what there isn't enough to pay the providers," Cheng says.
Taiwan's politicians are reluctant to increase premiums: they're afraid the voters will punish them.
So that's the problem here. And frankly, the solution is fairly obvious: increase the spending a little, to maybe 8 percent of GDP.
Of course, if Taiwan did that, it would still be spending less than half of what America spends.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?...
I wanted to thank you for:
1) putting in all the work researching and typing in the text, and
2) using visually digestible paragraphs.
But then I followed the link and found you had simply copied and pasted.
Well thank you at least for that much and this note will at least point the rest of the credit to them. Such as it may be.
i apologize if that's not protocol. that npr article was of interest so i copied/pasted the portion i thought was of interest with a follow-up link on bottom. i hope it's not a question of my intention. i'm not a skilled writer nor do i claim to be. no" thank you" needed. just trying to stimulate a conversation on why other countries have successfully intergrated universal healthCare and how it's not being talked about in the media. i'll try better next time.
No, I think your copy and paste was the best way to provide the information. If the copy and paste gets your point across and you provide the link to the original article I think copy and paste is a good idea. Much better than an incomplete summary.
You included a link, which is good enough for most folks to comprehend that you didn't write the article.
The point of protocol is, the terms of use say don't copy the entire text of an external link.
Abbreviate
OK.
i try to follow the rules but sometimes i fail. the dilemma of being a human.
TIF
NPR on various nations health care systems that all seem to be better than ours.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Taiwan
If I had a salary and a research assistant I would tell you exactly what I thought of each report.
Yank All Congressional Health Care NOW!
^
Better yet, yank all Congress persons except for maybe Kucinich and and Bernie Sanders.
You can add your own exceptions but I'd bet between us we could NOT come up with a quorum that aren't bought and paid for by the Oligarchs.
It just seems to me we could collapse the expense of running programs like Medicare, Medicaid and perhaps even the VA, any insurance regulators and presumably others into one program of single payer system; and, that would not only save the government money, but also businesses who are expected to give employees medical insurance, and doctors and hospitals who have to hire their own insurance paper pushers, and who don't get their full pay which is standard insurance practice.
This approach is no good. If we did that, what would happen to corporate profits, and enhancing shareholder value?
And that is what this charade, called health care reform is all about, rationalizing why the insurance corporations should still be in charge of health care, with the price being that we're the most overcharged people (for health care) in the world.
Add to that, that while we have 25% of world GDP, we spend 50% of all world expenditures on the military. So far, the effect on our standard of living has been masked by massive borrowing. I think the borrowing bubble is the next to burst. Then, our standard of living will go down, maybe not to 3rd world status, but perhaps, to "2nd" world status. And we have our banana republic government to thank.
But don't you dare put a condom on a banana in sex ed class.
are congressmen and senators who ALREADY HAVE A PUBLIC OPTION.
1. Boner lives in fantasy land
2. IF cutting Medicare costs means cutting services, no way. BEst way to cut Medicare cost is not to let 3rd parties administer it.
3. They should have signed onto HR-676. They don't need the republiucans' participation to pass it.
John Boehner's DC office will tell you his constituents support the insurance co./bigPharma/no-public-option "reform". He claims anything that involves breaking away from the horrid system we now have (and that he would continue) would empower government bureaucrats, not doctors and patients (when what we're really talking about is the peripheral FUNDING aspect, not the direct relationship). Of course, we'd all prefer to have a profit-driven INSURANCE COMPANY BUREAUCRAT making medical decisions for us, compromising the doctor in his application of the Hypocratic Oath (not to mention the very contract people have signed with the insurers, but then, who cares about contracts when an insurance rationer can make a few extra bucks killing people instead of saving them by paying a bill they're legally obligated to pay but won't).
John Boehner's been on the wrong side of too many issues, claiming bi-partisan solutions and continued Republican recklessness is the only answer to our problems. Folks in Ohio! (and even those NOT from Ohio). Evidently his office is being drowned out by the "we want the status quo" (and no real health care reform) crowd; time to let him know his stance and line is roadkill...and don't be shy (202-225-6205). And while at it, give a shout to Mitch at 202-224-2541. They need to hear from Main St. and not just the Beltway and I've-got-mine-let-them-eat-cake crowd.
When the Republicans talk about health care reform, they're silent on the one government plan running already. Would Boehner advocate getting rid of Medicare? Inquiring minds want to know.
That's the bind the Republicans are successfully dodging. Disparaging a public health care option, while not disparaging Medicare.
http video://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiYqEaa1svI
watch this short. fariz shakir talks healthCare and being competitve in the global economy. the cNBC
host wants to avoid that fact. to me president obama and other lawmakers need to emphasize this
angle of the issue more. CHINA is implementing a universal healthCare system. how are we to compete? the cNBC host tries to push the fact that the public doesn't believe healthCare is/should be a priority. again if that's true the public needs to be reminded why healthCare is a priority for now and the future. i hope this meets protocol.
"It" being: "to me president obama and other lawmakers need to emphasize this angle of the issue more..."--do you think they would be silent about it?
Why do you think they haven't seized upon these very telling data and used them to attack the lies of the opponents?
Maybe because it's all a carefully scripted kabuki, decided months ago, and we're just seeing the dramatic rrepresentation of the actual debate.
We can't compete with China, they are an authoritarian system.
They will
1) have their workers work for serf wages and live in dormitories next to the factories. The workers have no political means of complaining en masse about anything. Not safety, not conditions, not wages, and not health care. But some sort of minimum probably is necessary.
2) the Doctors such as they are, will enjoy probably only slightly better fare.
3) China will pursue an energy and environmental policy that likewise has no political constraints.
Your protocol is fine.
I'd like this amoral buffoon to say this to my face without laughing.
Not much of a challenge. Any performer worth the time learns not to laugh at their own jokes. Deadpan. Stand-Up 101.
Does this mean you are finally done running around doing chicken little imitations every time any plan without a public option is discussed?
- Teddy Kennedy's plan will have a strong public option. We have not seen it yet.
- The house plan has always been known to be putting forth a strong public option. Pelosi is on record on that along with many others.
- Obama has said he wants a public option
... but then one senate committee run by a blue dog leaks a supposed "draft" and all hell breaks lose.
We will all need more health care if the foolish omg, omg, omg bullshit keeps recurring every time someone who isn't going to be a a major factor in this says anything. Please stop the foolishness.
If the government plans don't reimburse physicians equal to the private insurance reimbursements it's just not going to work. Cutting Medicare reimbursement is just the WRONG thing to do. Many physicians already don't accept Medicare due to the low reimbursement. It won't matter one bit if you have insurance that no doctor will accept. More nursing homes will fold, more doctors who care for the elderly will just close up their shops.
All profit needs to be taken out of health care. Boehner is an idiot. Does he think it's better to have the insurance companies making the decisions like they are now? Does he think it's OK for a doctor who stands to make more money if he performs a certain procedure to be making decisions about your care?
This whole topic makes me crazy. And this House plan is not enough and it won't work. It'll go the way of Hillary's attempt at health care reform. I spend 35% of my paycheck on f*cking health insurance. It's ridiculous! Mandating that employers pay for it and then taxing it just totally sucks. Get rid of private health insurance! They are a waste of money.
Damn capitalism!
I won't be satisfied with anything less.
It's time for ALL these congressmen to stand up to the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. I know...that's a long shot, but it's now or never.
Login or Register to post comments.