Geithner Hints Dems Will Move Ahead On Health Care Without Republican Support - If They Must
When I think of how much the Bush administration shoved down the country's throat on strictly partisan votes, it makes me crazy when Democrats start talking about being bipartisan. This kind of talk by Tim Geithner on This Week with George Stephanopoulous is more like it:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you about health care. The negotiations seem to stall out in the Senate, they are going to try to come back by Sept 15th. The House committees have all passed the bill. One of the things that, Senator Grassley, we just saw, is asking about is that he says he wants some assurance, some guarantees really, that whatever deal, if they strike a deal, a bipartisan deal in the Senate finance committee it's going to hold all the way through the process. The Senate floor, the House floor, the conference committee, can the administration give him that assurance?
GEITHNER: I think that is what every legislator wants. They want that to be of confidence.
STEPHANOPOULOS: They are not going to get it through?
GEITHNER: You know, (chuckles), we want to have an outcome that meets these core principles the President laid out. Which is we want to make sure that we're doing something that is going to reduce the growth in cost over the long term, expand access, improve the quality of care. Do that in a fiscally responsible way that does not increase, increase unduly the burden on average Americans today. That's the basic test. And we're going to try to make sure that we achieve that with the broadest consensus as possible.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You want broad consensus but Senator Grassley, his colleague Senator Enzi are saying that they need those assurances, that can't get them?
GEITHNER: Well again, you know (laughs) we want to make sure we get this done. And we're gonna- as the President's said, we're going to look at anything reasonable, consistent with those principles that's going to get this done.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You want it to be through consensus, the President has said he wants a bipartisan bill if possible, but do you believe it is possible if necessary to get meaningful health care reform with democrats only?
GEITHNER: George, I think that again this is a big consequential reform of the country. And as many people observes, ideally you want to do this with as broad a base of consensus as possible. But people on the hill are going to have to make that choice, do they want to help shape this and be part of it. Or do they want this country, the United States of America, to go another several decades without doing whatever other serious country has done, which is to give their citizens access to basic quality of care.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But if Republicans can't come to an agreement with the democrats are the Democrats and the White House willing to go it to alone?
GEITHNER: George, again, we're going to try and get this done on the best possible terms consistent with those principles. Can't tell you what it's going to take. But you see what the President is trying to do.
As gratifying as it is to hear tough talk from the Dems, though, there are some very serious drawbacks to doing it through the reconciliation process. It would require Obama to walk quite a political tightrope after dangling major healthcare reform in front of the voters:
But reconciliation is not just a “50-vote senate,” as it's sometimes called. It's a process constructed in the 1970s for a specific, limited purpose: to bring existing programs in line (reconcile them) with a long-term budget. Since then, it's been used for huge policy changes: the Reagan and Clinton budget plans, the Bush tax cuts. But there are limits. Under the senate's Byrd Rule, intended to hold the process somewhat to its original purpose, reconciliation can't include provisions that have no budgetary effect or that have an effect outside the current budget window, which right now is five years. (Byrd Rule limits can be waived, but by 60 votes, so you're back in the 60-vote Senate.)
To greatly oversimplify, what this means is that it's almost impossible to use reconciliation to build something new. You can expand Medicare or shrink it, cut taxes or raise them. But to construct something that doesn't already exist will inevitably require provisions that don't in themselves have a significant budgetary impact: regulations, structures, guidelines, realigned bureaucracies. In particular, much of the structure of health insurance exchanges that are envisioned in the House and HELP Committee bills would not survive the Byrd Rule axe. Only the flimsiest outlines of a health reform bill would survive – the financing would be there, but not the structures to ensure that the money would be used properly. Further, reconciliation would give the Finance Committee – which controls the money – even more clout over the more liberal HELP committee.
Some have suggested using reconciliation to install the rough skeleton of reform, and then fixing it later, but the act of using reconciliation in the first place is such a nuclear option that it is likely to poison the waters not just with the four semi-reasonable Republicans but also with the Democrats who are left out of the deal, and will be needed on subsequent legislation.
But what if Congress did it in reverse? Use the 60-vote Senate to pass whatever they can pass now -- we liberals will grumble but live with it -- and then use reconciliation next year to fix it. With the exchange structure and subsidies established, it wouldn't be hard to add an employer mandate, which would save money. With the rudiments of even a weak public plan in place, it wouldn't be complicated to expand it and modify its eligibility rules, in ways that might save or cost money but in either event, involve budget changes to an existing program rather than creating something new. Aggregating small changes over the next few years (on the model of the steady expansion of Medicaid engineered by Henry Waxman and others over the 1980s and 1990s) could non-controversially build the kind of robust and equitable system we dream of.
It's not ideal, and any political scheme based on do something now and hoping to fix it later faces the reality of all the partial reforms that litter the landscape. A plan that is so bad that it brings a backlash is more likely to be repealed than fixed. But it might just be that the big reform of health care can't be achieved all at once. And this would at least get the pieces in place for the next phase to move forward, with or without the current obstructionists.
The big problem there is if the Democrats are turned out of control in the next election. Then we have a very big problem on our hands.
Those are words I haven't heard lately.
So how long would "getting the pieces in place" for the next phase take - 4 years?
...but they are wrong on health care (as they are on so many things).
... care to expand on that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZm47SrmuwM
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
i imagine the insurance thugs are already planning how to spend the windfall in profit they are set to receive.
i imagine the dems expect to be handsomely rewarded by the insurance industry
right on the big problem.
The insurance industry profits form a massive intractable front that from a free enterprise perspective is very hard to come to terms with.
They (rightfully)assume that they won't be able to compete with government insurance.They must somehow be mollified(subsidized?)to move things forward.Their happiness is an inescapable part of the equation.
"To me, truth is not some vague, foggy notion. Truth is real. And,
at the same time, unreal. Fiction and fact and everything in between,
plus some things I can't remember, all rolled into one big "thing."
This is truth, to me. "
-Jack Handy
not to mention that we are likely looking down the barrel of a individually mandated, non-employer-mandated healthcare policy.
If you cannot afford the premiums for insurance will make you SICK.
The arrogance of these legislators amazes me.
To think that they are actually going to FINE people for not paying for for-profit health insurance or even if they cannot afford to BUY into the public option.
Congress is NOT thinking of the well-being of the people at all. They are strictly trying to play nice in the sandbox with the insurance corporations to keep the checks flowing for their re-election campaigns.
"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
..they may well as include an amendment to establish debtor prisons, so that they can throw all the people who go bankrupt from medical bills into prison.
Just remember, there is nothing these clowns can do that cannot be undone and set to right once they have been evicted from their offices.If they are too corrupt to do what we want, we can replace them with people of integrity. These bozos are just the hired help. We hired them, and we can fire them. Every one of them is replaceable. Every one.
"But it might just be that the big reform of health care can't be achieved all at once"
yep,if true change in the American health care system is to come,it will no doubt be in increments,with each step involving a lot of blood sweat and tears.Still,as has been made painfully clear,change MUST come and doing nothing is not an option.
"To me, truth is not some vague, foggy notion. Truth is real. And,
at the same time, unreal. Fiction and fact and everything in between,
plus some things I can't remember, all rolled into one big "thing."
This is truth, to me. "
-Jack Handy
I will take Geithner more seriously when he owns up to his FUBAR part in the Wall Street Bailout (how soon we forget this Mofo ran the New York Federal Reserve and was in bed with Hank Paulson on that deal), and if he spearheads the legislation initiative to get the Federal Reserve under Congressional oversight without making congress entirely responsible for monetary policy in this country.
The Fed crafts monetary policy and because they have no congressional responsibility or oversight, they damn well do what they want and tells the rest of the country to go to hell.
We got the banking bailout and the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Okay, getting off my soapbox....
We all need to wake up and realize that politicians, regardless of political affiliation, do not care about average Americans. Perfect example is when breaking news came out today stating that the SEC was going to charge Bank of America with wrong-doing, CNBC anchors basically said, "well, so much for the stock market going up."
I was infuriated. I found the exact on clip from CNBC on this site.
Check it out:
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2378
Kinda like we got the tobacco companies to go along with the labeling of cigarette packages?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
(YouTube): Weiner Introduces Single-Payer Amendment to House Committee
(Library of Congress): H.R. 676 Summary
Read the whole summary - it's short, and sweet!
More here: (PNHP): United States National Health Care Act (H.R. 676)
And then, just minutes after Weiner introduced the amendment, Waxman asked him to withdraw the amendment, saying Pelosi had pledged a floor vote on Single Payer!!!
(YouTube): Waxman to Weiner: Pelosi Will Allow Single-Payer Full House Vote!
At the end of the clip Weiner shares a High Five with Tammy Baldwin!
More here:
(The Public Record): Pelosi To Allow Floor Vote On Single-Payer Healthcare Plan
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
but i would kiss that weiner on the head
and, he is the same Congressman who tried to get the congress corporatists to vote against ALL "socialized" medicine (see, medicare)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTh-Yu9RfF0
i don't much about rep weiner's voting record, but from what i have seen recenetly he rocks like gilbralter on the issue of single payer healthcare.
*salutes rep weiner*
Of course, Pelosi still has to come through on her part of the bargain. I wouldn't put it past her to make the offer in bad faith just to get Weiner's amendment out of the picture again.
no doubt
and, i think the fact that health professionals are her number one contributors for the 2009-2010 cycle, and insurance is her number 3 contributor will continue to play a part in her effort to screw americans for her own gain.
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/indust...
You can expand Medicare or shrink it...
If that is true, you could use reconciliation to offer Medicare for all. Just do a find and replace for the digits "65".... and replace with "0" as in "eligible for insurance after the age of.... 0"
"But it might just be that the big reform of health care can't be achieved all at once."
Well when the word 'can't' is part of the message, it means 'won't.' They CAN do whatever they want, within the constructs of the rules of physics.
And when they use the word 'Can't,' it means they don't want to. That's what 'won't' is all about, 'will not,' as in don't have the will or desire to get this done.
'Can't' is them implying that they are victims too, at the mercy of the vagaries of the Universe, which they are not, unless getting full healthcare reform somehow defies the rules of, say, gravity.
Can you imagine how it would be taken if they told the truth and said 'Won't?'
me-oww!
The Senate is still in session and doing the dirty work for the Medical Industrial Complex.
mcconnell $3.3M, hatch $2.9M, baucus $2.8M, grassley $2.7M,
lieberman $2.6M, burr $2.4M, ensign $2.4M, cornyn $2.2M, kyl $2.1,
conrad $2.1M, cantor $1.8M boehner $1.7M, coburn $1.2M were
paid by the Medical Industrial Complex to kill Health Care Reform.
Follow the Money: Link
Call Congress and demand, Single-Payer Health Care for All!
Sign Single-Payer Petition: Link
The Medical Industrial Complex doesn't take vacations in August. Keep up the good fight.
SEMPER FI!
Maybe Democrats need to take a page from the right-wing playbook. Look at Geithner. He had a half a dozen opportunities to knock the Republicans for playing politics, for being dishonest, for being obstructionist, for being ignorant... and instead, like all Democrats, he ties himself in knots to make sure that he doesn't say a single negative word against the Republicans.
If this had been a Republican SecTreas, we would've heard things like "The Democrats aren't interested in a solution" and "The Dems are obstructionist" and "once again, we see that Democrats are an obstacle to reform" and "Dems hate America" and "Dems want to socialize medicine" and "Dems eat babies, you said it yourself" and all kinds of guff.
I'm not saying Geithner has to lie or be scum, but could we get some anti-right spin from our side *once* in a while? If only to counteract their nonstop PR campaign?
Because unfortunately the Dems have shown themselves to be pussies.
Makes me wonder if we even have two parties.
Several years ago, Obama said that if we ever got Sixty Democratic Senators in the Senate, health care reform would be a done deal. And he was leaning towards Single Payer Universal Health Care.
Now that he owes so much to those Big Boys of the Insurance Industry with all their campaign contributions, Single Payer UHC has been moved off the burner. We civilians have to keep our fingers crossed just to get a really lousy version of health care reform.
And then, to add insult to injury, Obama has Geithner out doing the talking points. Someone who should be under indictment (Using RICO) for busting apart our economic system. Is Geithner really the best Obama could do?
Insurers and wingnuts will try
To poke health reform in the eye
They're prone to resisting
For their pre-existing
Condition's to claim, 'We deny.'
News Short n' Sweet by JFD8
http://twitter.com/JFD8
Health Care and the US Economy are a single "System". The Administration and the Congress are trying to "Fix" Health Care and to "Stimulate" the Economy simultaneously in ways that seem to be oblivious to the interactions and unintended consequences.
Our Economy is in dire straits because we borrowed against illusory wealth and sent the money overseas to buy cheap goods and commodities without considering the loss of domestic employment and the consequent tax revenue that might have been generated. The Government expects to "Stimulate" new economic growth by borrowing even more money even as it ignores the consequences of sending that money overseas too. An Economy has two component activities - Creating Wealth and Distributing Wealth. Wealth is created by Manufacturing, Agriculture and Extraction; it is Distributed by Services such as Health-Care and by the Government. Wealth created within the borders of the US circulates in the Economy where it creates more jobs and tax revenue until it is ultimately consumed or until it leaks out through a Foreign Trade imbalance or through individual or Government payments to foreign recipients.
"Free-Trade" is a costly illusion - nearly every law that is passed forces our Businesses to stop profitable activities or to add costs to their products that are not imposed on their foreign competitors. Caps or Taxes on by-products thought to contribute to "Climate Change" that are not imposed on foreign competitors such as the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), for example, further reduce US "competitiveness" and exacerbate the consequent Federal and Private debts. Health-Care, which is free or non-existent in the PRC, is said to add thousands of dollars to the costs of each car made by the former "Big Three" Automakers that are not borne by their competitors. "Stimulus" funding handed to the Corporations could have been more effectively spent to provide the Health-Care that they had promised to their current and former employees and so liberated an equivalent amount of capital and thus addressed two issues at once.
Health-Care in the US costs what it cost - Direct Payments, Insurance Premiums, Bureaucracies at all levels of government and on and on - a sum that has been poorly reckoned but which could easily amount to ten thousand dollars or more per-capita each year (i.e. $3 Trillion / yr). The only ways to reduce this total cost are to reduce the amount of Health-Care that is delivered or to reduce the income of those who contribute to the cost. Since we want to increase the amount of Health-Care that is delivered through Universal Coverage and ever more sophisticated and expensive treatments, the "savings" must come from the incomes of the contributors to the costs.
First on the list would be the Trial Lawyers whose profits come from Mal-Practice Insurance and whose looming presence forces "Defensive Medicine" costs well beyond good practice. If all Health-Care costs were provided by "Universal Coverage" and "Pain & Suffering" was paid by the Government according to a reasonable schedule, the fat legal-fees and perverse litigious incentives would be greatly reduced.
Second would be the vast Bureaucracies - Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans, State and Local Health and Welfare Agencies, Insurance Companies - that exist mainly to determine who is covered and for how much. If everyone had the same coverage and all payments followed a schedule based on an economic analysis that considered the actual costs and the profit necessary to maintain a robust / competitive supply of "providers", then the role of the Bureaucracies would be reduced to defending against fraud. If the Congress believes that the Big Insurance Companies should become Wards of the State, they should enact a Bail-Out for them as they did for the former Financial Wizards - otherwise, the companies can compete to provide administrative services to the new system.
Third would be the Drug and Health-Care Facility Companies - since the Government would be paying all of the costs (as it now pays for much of the Research), it should be able to set limits on executive compensation (say to Cabinet Levels?) and to award contracts to operate government-owned facilities competitively on the basis of performance standards and incentives.
"Choice" in Health-Care "coverage" leads to a destructive spiral . Costs borne by the individuals should be limited to modest co-payments set only discourage abuse. Any system that allows the young and healthy (usually the same population as the "employed") to pay less will only transfer the cost to the old and sick or/and encourage costly reliance on Emergency Rooms when the need becomes acute. The Federal Income Tax has all of the machinery to collect the necessary revenue and is more than adequately "Means-Tested". Taxes on "Consumption" should be used only as a means to limit that Consumption - gasoline, cigarettes, booze, trans-fat,... - and then the consequences to Trade Competitiveness or Criminal Markets should be monitored. Hiding the National Health-Care bill as a tax on Health-Care consumption or as another anti-tectionist burden on domestic Manufacturing is both dishonest and counter-productive.
Finally, it must be remembered that except for Imported Drugs and Medical Equipment or "Out-Sourced" remote diagnostic services, each dollar spent on Health-Care translates to Domestic Employment and consequent Economic Growth - at least until it leaks out to buy foreign goods or commodities. Perhaps a "Buy-American" clause for Government provided Health-Care would be appropriate.
The Ideal Solution to the current "Health-Care" / Economic Crisis would be a System of Uniform / Universal coverage funded from the General Revenue. The coverage could start out as a copy of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) / Standard Option or even the Senate Health Plan (as suggested by Ms Clinton) with subsequent adjustments made to coverage and "co-pays" to meet popular demand or to respond to significant abuse. The same outlay that provides the "Free" Health-Care will "Stimulate" the Economy by reducing the anti-competitive burden on our domestic Manufacturers, Increase Domestic employment in proving the Heath-Care, and by keeping more money for non-Health-Care expenditures in the pockets of the consumers. None of this would any more "Socialized" or less reliant on "Private" Health-Care "Providers" (actual providers, not Lawyers, Bureaucrats or Corporate Bigwigs) than is the current system.
Health-Care and The "Economy" are a Single System and the Government should apply a "System Discipline" to find the most cost-effective solution to the Unified Problem.
...abour "bipartisanship", are only using the word as cover, behind which they hope to hide or disguise their own corruption or complicity in perpetuating a corrupt system from which they derive so much personal riches.
Try this one out for size, Bribocrats and GOPers: A universal, single payer system, a social medicine system or an honest public option benefits everybody - GOPers, Bribocrats, Democrats, Greens, Independents, Socialists, the apolitical. It's not only bipartisan, it's multipartisan, while, the insurance/pharma/for-profit hospital and HMO welfare program you guys are peddling benefits only a few wealthy corporations that barely qualify as businesses - they parasitize wealth instead of create it. You can't get any more bipartisan than that, and you just can't get any more one-sided than what you guys are advocating.
Jeez, even the rationalizations these clowns invent and deploy to cover their true motives are shallow and lame. No imagination or thought behind them. I think one of the consequences of becoming corrupt is that it makes them even more shallow, lame and dim-witted than they were before they made the decision to abandon all integrity and line their pockets. Talk about the banality of evil.....
that he wants to totally rip off the taxpayer to pay GoldmanSux bonuses.
Some stuff you can't make up!
Hugo Chavez, strong-arm, Venezuelan dictator and Barry's good buddy, is shutting down 34 radio stations in the name of "democracy". Barry is probably not far behind, with his pal Hugo setting such a stellar example of how truly easy it can be to hoodwink the general public. It's no secret that the radical left, those most loyal to Obama, would love nothing more than to silence conservatism, starting with anyone and everyone on radio and television who even hints at a right-leaning point of view. Freedom of speech is only a good thing when that speech is as left-leaning and America-hating as possible. Everything else is labeled as "bigotry", "racism" and/or "greed". For now the White House is content with strong-arming the networks in order to get the air time they want. Chavez and Hitler understood the importance of controlling the media. Why should Barry be any different?
What will it take for our population as a whole to resist the kind of events which have shaped Venezuela? At which point will the democrats (I use that word loosely), since they are the ONLY ones under Barry's spell, realize what a slippery slope their fawning over this administration's policies really is? When will they realize that Barry has lied to them from the very beginning? Take the promises Barry made to the middle class about NOT raising their taxes. Guess what? He will break that promise just like he's already broken the promise of "reaching across the aisle". 2 Obama officials, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, have said as much.
What about national health care? We can conclude that Obama's intentions are for EVERYONE to be insured by the government. He wants to put the private health insurance industry OUT OF BUSINESS!
Wake up America...before it's too late!!
____________________
You can read articles by Michael Daxe on a regular basis at:
http://www.emailsenators.com and http://www.emailcongressmen.com
If Obama fails to deliver Healthcare Reform without a Strong Public Option his Administration will be considered a Failure and he will
be a one Term President.
Tough talk would actually go something like this: "The Democrats are going to cockpunch the Repugnicans into submission and pass Single Payer Healthcare Reform. We will then disembowel the so called "Blue Dog" Democrats who opposed this legislation and feed their carcasses to the pigs". The worm is turning and it will get uglier, but keep the faith - reason may prevail in this country after all.
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