The Queen of 'Reasonable' Republicans Commands: No Public Option for You!
By Susie Madrak Wednesday Sep 23, 2009 6:00pm
As Jason Rosenbaum points out, Queen Olympia's proposal is just another way of putting the final nail in the public option coffin. You going to lie down and take it? Call your congress critter today:
Olympia Snowe's trigger is a plan to kill the public health insurance option. Not kill it as in make it weaker, but kill it as in make absolutely sure it will never, ever come into existence.
Senator Snowe's trigger is literally a catch-22, defined by Wikipedia as "a set of rules, regulations, procedures, or situations which present the illusion of choice while preventing any real choice."
The legislative language says that a public option will be set up in a state in which health care is not affordable to 95% of the state's residents, but it defines affordability as after the new tax credits that are written into the bill to make health care affordable.
Let's break that down.
In Snowe's trigger amendment, if affordable coverage is not available for 95% of a state's residents, then you get a public option in that state. While there are issues with state-based public health insurance options, the catch-22 comes with Snowe's definition of affordability.
Affordable is defined as 13% of income. So, if there is no plan in the exchange that costs less than 13% of a person's income, we'd get a public health insurance option. But that calculation of what a plan costs is made after the government pays out subsidies or employers pay their share. And therein lies the catch-22.
Max Baucus's bill caps out-of-pocket costs for people buying insurance in the exchange at 12% of their income. Therefore, after you add in government subsidies, costs will legally always have to be below 12%. The insurance industry can raise their rates as much as they want and government will make up the difference. The trigger, if passed, will never trigger. Not ever.
(This opinion has historical weight - there is a trigger for prescription drugs in Medicare Part D. So far, after 6 years, it still hasn't been triggered. Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry rakes in the profits and seniors get screwed - a Families USA report [pdf] showed that private drug prices were an average of 58% higher than prices the government could have obtained through a public option. The fact that this trigger was never triggered costs government and seniors hundreds of billions per year, money that goes straight into the pockets of private pharmaceutical companies.)
It's clear: No public health insurance option anywhere in the country will ever be created under Snowe's trigger amendment.
The trigger amendment isn't a fig leaf. It isn't even a co-op. It's a plan to kill the public health insurance option outright, and give taxpayer money straight to private insurance companies.
Login or Register to post comments.
Just go with the Reconciliation Option and get the darn thing over with already!
The hell with the ReDUMBlicans. They are playing the game of, "Let's make Obama fail in this very important legislation", in the hopes that they will win back the majority in the Senate.
If the Democrats satisfied every repug demand they would move the goal post. Screw them, go it alone and fashion the bill with a HEALTHY PUBLIC OPTION. We tried to meet their really stupid demands. Enough. Get moving and give the people the kind of coverage that they can afford and will save their lives.
* Accent Preventative Care
* A healthy Public Option Single Payer Plan along the lines of medi-care, the Veterans system of health care delivery and a single payer plan equal to the plan the Congressmen and Senate has.
* Ability to bargain for the price of meds with the right to leave the country to buy meds.
* Bar doctors from owning Radiologic Diagnostic Centers. As it is now, every patient walking into their offices is sent for an MRI.
* Bar the drug Companies from advertising on Television fashioned after the ban on TV advertises Liquor and Cigarettes\
* Fashion a system where the doctors are incentivized to keep there patients healthy not on the number of sick they treat.
* Ban the drug companies from throwing parties for the entire doctor's staff.
* The right wingers on the Supreme Court ruled that giving money is free speech. I never heard money talk. And this same bunch ruled that corporations have the same rights as people. How would you like to go to bed with US Steel or General Motors????
That's for openers. Have a nice day!
Great start!
It is time to get the dems off their thumbs and just pass the bill with the public option...560 amendments means that they were waiting for something to come out of committee to pounce and get their names on it...This is not the path of leaders it is the path of limming chickens!
To just eat the cake of the status quo and be silent! No public option for you scurvy knaves---thou shalt just have to suck it up whilst we profit at your expense!
OK, the Trigger is really a "Snow"job...kinda like buying a gun with the trigger lock welded on. I think I get it. Either we give our money directly to the insurance companies or we give it to the feds as taxes which they then give to the insurance companies. Heads they win, tails I lose.
for democracy. The future of healthcare in the U.S. rests with this woman? This is utter bullshit.
and just who is it that conveys to her that she has that much power???
Obama has made it very clear he wants gop vote on the healthcare reform. Queen Snow job here is the most likely to vote with the democrats as such she has been given way too much power over the democrats.
by calling the people elected as REPRESENTATIVES "Leaders".
You're right. I never, ever thought of that.
We're perfectly well armed against an enemy that imposes wording to absolutely control us, and we're not using the armaments God/millions of years of evolution gave us to resist with.
Does she have the "option" for a face lift?.......or might that be wayyyyyyyy too expensive?..........just sayin'...........:)
I just read on huffpo that a census worker was found hanged with FED scrawled on his chest.
HELLO STUPID "LEFTIES" (i.e., people with more tan 3 working braincells).
THESE PEOPLE WANT TO KILL YOU.
THEY MUST BE STOPPED.
Now. Not later. Not someday. Now.
I'm NO fan of the American Imperium, by ANY stretch of the imagination, but a census worker is essential to ANY form of organised govt - you need to know who is in your country. Period.
You need to go TOE TO TOE with these idiots, and that includes Queen Snowe. FIGHT THEM BACK. NOW.
I think the murdered census worker may have been the first shot.
That is moonshine country, folks. Keep your powder dry.
Health Care.
and buddy to Olbermann.
He's very vocal about his support for the Democratic Party and progressive policies.
that we do not need the health insurance industry at all. They have become a blood-sucking entity that rapes us all of our money, thus our freedoms. When the healthcare business becomes 17% of our GDP and a useless leach scam operation siphoning off multi-billions (if not trillions) in profits from the use of "legal" deregulated and transparently immoral and inhumane practices, how can ANYONE not see the uselessness of this rip-off industry? Why in the hell would ANYONE in the 95 percentile of wage-earners support ANYTHING other then single-payer or public option?
We NEED the insurance industry to fold for the best interests of ALL of us. Like the horse & buggy, we have outgrown the need of this useless entity. It has absolutely NOTHING to offer us!
Exactly the same as Wall Street. They just got a trillion in bailout money. Now it's the insurance corporations turn ...
Thank you!!
You sum up the situation VERY well.
...as an appeal to look more moderate, or political theater in hopes that noone would actually pay attention to her amendment? I don't see how she gains favor with anyone with this... I'd imagine that righties would have a beef with her for being "for" it even under her insane scenario. Anyone have a clue as to why she went this long route of just being against the public option?
I know she's playing up something here, but I just can't figure out what. Seems she would be pissing off not just me (I' personally "settling" for a public option though I wish for a day that America has a big fat universal health care system, done in a way modeled after best practices from the rest of the industrialized world), but it seems like she'd be ticking off some players on her own team.
Anyway, besides her being against the option, what the hell is she doing? What's the goal of this song and dance she's performing?
She's playing the need for more financial aid in her next election cycle (2010) against the people who are going to vote her sorry ass out of office.
because she's on of them. Where does her real loyalty lie? We all know what the GOP wants to do to Obama and the Democratic Party. They are in a corner and desperate for mere survival. It's stall and destroy. If we get real reform along with an improving economy, the repugs are THROUGH! DeMint openly admits it.
That's how stupid she thinks we are. And so do the rest of those backing her up on this. She's a front. You must remember that bribery knows no political party boundaries. She has been bought and paid for, as have most of the others. If single payer is out, then so should this entire bill be out, no matter what. It is completely unacceptable that single payer was not even put on the table. Therefore, the whole process has to be tanked. It is not acceptable that US citizens will be forced to purchase health insurance from private insurance companies. This will be enforced by the US government through the IRS. You will be fined if you don't comply and buy the overpriced and inferior policies, and they are considering taking the payments for the private policies out of your paychecks. So you pay the IRS, through taxes, to take money from your paychecks to give to private insurance companies. The private insurance companies take 30% plus to cover administration costs and salaries. That's all they do. They are parasites. Are you going to take this?
Dear savannah43:
Where do I sign up to join the "We're Not Going To Take This!" Club??
I'll even contribute money!!
Just let me know!
Apologies to Jefferson Airplane, and also to Alice.
I am so disgusted. So much talk about the public option, even from those I would not have expected it from. There are some doctors and nurses who are almost "up in arms." I'll get back to you. I hate feeling powerless.
Our "cheerleaders" aren't even talking about the public option anymore. Rachel Maddow, Howard Fineman, Lawrence O'Donnell, Ed Schultz (hard to tell with him, but he isn't solid if he's upset that repugs "won't support the bill"!). Every one of them, all the guests and all the hosts, are now panicked only about Republicans "refusing to support the bill," even though the BILL is the BAUCUS bill, isn't it? Sherrod Brown now says he would "have a difficult time" signing it without the public option," which in no way means he won't sign it without the public option, in fact it means he WILL. And unless I'm seeing things, Rockefeller has come back to embrace the current nightmare proposals after all.
It's like the old army chow hall joke my Daddy used to like: A young recruit is asked by his folks how he likes it in the army. All he can do is lament about how really, really AWFUL, the food is. Worse than dog food, worse than rotted garbage covered with flies, worse than eating maggoty monkey dung, utterly inedible vileness on a plate!
"And besides that," the poor soldier says, "they serve tiny portions!"
That's "our side" now. We hate that Baucus bill to pieces! And we're falling apart at the seams that the Republicans won't support it, those bastards!
From our pundits, it's really only about saving Obama, preventing his "Waterloo" at all costs, falling in line with his love affair with repugs, a step at a time. Us guys are expected to behave like frogs being boiled real slow, and I guess we probably will. (I won't.)
God, I'm horrified and mad over this "Part Deux" of the shocking invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act and the torture/murders of innocent detainees as well as suspected actual terrorists, and the refusal to hear cases of the unlawfully detained, and all of it.
God, I can't wait to leave. God it feels good to keep saying I'm leaving. LOL!
Remember the CIA experiments? That happened! Nobody even denies it. Now, what is it again that makes America great?
Yeah government medical care brought to you by the same people that brought you ----"really AWFUL, the food is. Worse than dog food, worse than rotted garbage covered with flies, worse than eating maggoty monkey dung, utterly inedible vileness on a plate!"
and brought it in tiny portions!
Great idea. Think I'll take my chances with the insurance companies. At least you know they are only in it for the money.
That’s why the cheerleaders have stopped because nobody except an ignorant few want the government who screws up everything they touch to be in charge of their medical care. My god have you ever tried to call a government office on the phone. Forget it!
which is why the military must be dismantled and a private army raised immediately to defend the republic and the corporations that made us the most powerful nation on earth! Who need government fed armies running on bad chow.
Come on libs. Get with me and stupid.
Whatever rick. You know the term cluster fuck is a Uniquely Military term. I wonder what wonderful new terms goverment ran medical care will spawn?
"Think I'll take my chances with the insurance companies. At least you know they are only in it for the money."
My only problem is that money is a government program too.
But what the heck. We got the guns, right?
Halliburton and others are already contracted to do the menial chores like feed our soldiers and provide their latrines and showers.
The army food thing is a joke. It's not real.
You ever eat army chow?
I don't believe you have, scapengoaten, but my father did, my grandfather did, my brother did, and my son does.
So where were you, Dyala, Baghdad, what? Glad you got home okay. You seem...I don't know, real leisurely!
You can have the last word, faker.
No wonder he thought it was real. So did Ronnie.
You poor ideological schmucks who who have been bottle-fed Reaganistic wingnut drool from birth have been blinded from basic logic. Instead of putting a small percentage of our earnings into a pool with less then 3 percent administrative overhead, moronic ideologues like you would rather remain noble to your hollow "free-market" and "pure capitalistic" fairy tales from Uncle Ronny.
You conservatards would rather pay the 35% of administrative overhead to the private sector so that you can label yourselves noble capitalists while you walk down public sidewalks, drive down public highways and attend public schools. If you morons would truly STOP using everything the government has provided for you through taxation, you couldn't make it out of your own home to go to the corner grocery store.
Well Joriet The road on the way to work has many potholes the walks are cracked and don't even get me started on public schools. But not to worry seems like teams of illegal road crew workers have spent the last few months filling the same pothole. Hey maybe hector can perform a little surgery for us when he gets done with that messed up road. Better speak spanish if you want to talk to him though. Great ideal government health care.
Let your inner wingnuttiness show!
Son, you are some twisted piece of work. When did it become fashionable to profit from the suffering of others? Under which religion were you told it's ok to treat others like dirt?
The main reason the roads and other public works are in bad shape is because your sainted Reaganites have spent the past 30 years defunding programs, lowering taxes, and stealing the money for their "pet" projects. Our infrastructure is crumbling, because we don't use enough of our tax monies for their maintenance.
So go on, whine about how the roads are potholed and the sidewalks are cracked...we all know how that rant goes.
You Might Be A Socialist If You’ve Ever…
1. Checked a book out of the library
2. Called 911
3. Attended a public school
4. Drove on a public street
5. Visited a city park
6. Visited a state park
7. Visited a national park
8. Applied to or attended a state university
9. Applied for or received a student grant
10. Worked in government
11. Served in the military
12. Attended college on the GI Bill
13. Used a municipal sewer system
14. Used a municipal water system
15. Used a municipal gas system
16. Used a municipal electric system
17. Voted
18. Used municipal recycling services
19. Disposed of hazardous waste in a municipal program
20. Applied for or received an Small Business Administration Loan
21. Applied for or received a non-profit grant
22. Applied for or received a research grant
23. Ever applied for or received a government backed home loan
24. Ever applied for or received a farm subsidy
25. Ever applied for or received a business tax abatement
You have got to be kidding?
The private sector is 10000000000 times better at fucking stuff up than the government - except when republican's run it, and put all of their personal fascist companies on the payroll and completely screw the people.
And if it wasn't for the government, there wouldn't be any private sector, because they would all be BANKRUPT and no longer exist!
Drop the moronic talking points that have been proven to be complete and utter bullshit, and read a damn history book. Geeesh!
I told the state run fire departments to fuck off and that I'd put out any fires in my area with my fire extinguisher, since I didn't want them to screw it up. I also told the cops not to bother responding to any 911 calls from my house since I didn't trust them not to screw that up either. I'd rather deal with the armed gang members myself.
My god have you ever tried to call a government office on the phone. Forget it!
No but I have called several major companies, like Sony or Comcast, I've been put on holds there just as long as the holds you get put on when you try to call a state university's admissions office in August. Oh wait... you never went to college did you...? Bad analogy then...
The health insurance industry has absolutely become a SNOWE JOB!
Our doctors don't like the insurance industry interfering in their craft. Our hospitals are against it too! Joriet, you're absolutely correct. Now, how do you sell insurance: "YOU SCARE THE HELL OUT OF PEOPLE".....Good going SNOWE JOB.....YOU'RE JUST A BAD BLOW.........
Boo!
Especially when you know these rotten bastards would quickly tell Democrats to eat shit if they had won.
This inclusive bullshit is a waste of everyone's time.
Not Democrats, Liberals.
When you buy health insurance, your insurance premiums subtract from the money you have on hand to go to the doctor for mild to medium medical issues, the stuff you have to pay for yourself, that doesn't reach the deductible. I don't go to the doctor for those issues, usually--I wait them out. With health insurance I would go to the doctor even less, and take even bigger chances with warnings signs of illness. A protection racket is more honest than the health insurance racket. My grown kids are all insured, but 3 of the 5 don't go to the doctor, it costs too much.
the Democrats win the House, the Senate, and the White House???
Apparently not.!!!
Dear Mr. POTUS...........bipartinsanship is for the "losers"....not for the "winners"...........I don't think the people voted you into office to play "friendly" with the Repugs.........no??
Well in the philosophical words of Rosie Perez. Somtimes when you win you really lose.
Opportunistic, selfish and greedy -- BITCH.
*
and a Democratic Congress. If Snowe has power, it is because the weak Democrats gave her power. It's time to place the blame where it belongs------with the Democrats. It is the Democrats we need to put the screws to.
It's not that they are weak. It's about survival and constitutes, even in blue states know better than to let the government dictate their medical care. It’s just a reaction to what they are hearing in their districts.
not control right now you vapid tool?
Well they don’t control mine smart guy. I pay out of my pocket and get in fast. The doctors always have a little smile on their faces when the receptionist tells them I am paying cash. And I get a discount. Whose to tool now? Bread line boy.
believe that.
find the tumor in your brain? Just open your wallet for the operation?
What, space-goat, no V.A. health care after your time in the U.S. Army?
Carly I asked you if you ate the chow I never said I did. Glad that you mention it though. Ever ask a vet if he or she is happy with their government medical care.
I can't hear you, but I'm glad you can still hear me.
you never said you did? What if he ate the other chow? What did you have for lunch after failing the punctuation test?
And the spelling and grammar tests.
(Lol@ "government ran health care" for starters.)
what if you get hit by a car & need $500K for medical bills between the ER & overnight visits & surgery? You got that kind of money? If you do, then bless you, but if not, then guess who pays for it? The rest of us 'idiots' that have health insurance & pay taxes have to foot your bill b/c your sorry ass can't walk across a street. The hospital can't deny you life-threatening care, so the rest of us have to pick up your slack.
Well I pay a shit load of taxes myself so what do you mean the rest of us.
wisdom with us lowlifes in the bread line kind and wise sir. When you get home, kiss mommy good night and turn out the lights since she is paying for the light bill.
I don't even know where you are going with this?
You made it all too easy. Try again when your punctuation skills do not give you away. Tell Mom and Dad to save a little of their GOP PAC pledge money for your allowance in case you end up in the ER this weekend.
Oh, and next time you are at your doctor's office don't forget to ask Smiling Dr. Jack for the discount. You know, the one he will give you after he quits chewing the fat with his receptionist to find out how you will be paying.
Ricky I bet that I have kids older than you. I think this because my middle son Dan stopped calling himself Danny a few years ago.
be named Heretic, Jr.
I'm not going off topic with you anymore Lil ricky. Seems when I do what you are doing I get punished for it in here.
The cost of operations & bills for hospitals are through the roof b/c they need to account for unpaid bills like this situation. Since they do that, health companies raise our premiums every $1.30 for every $1 that a procedure goes up. So basically the people that have health insurance cover people that don't have it indirectly. So when you can't afford that huge bill, it'll just drive other procedures & things up so the health companies hit us even harder. Thanks a ton!
Funny how the some of the same people that would some how blame me for their rates going up because I pay my own way. Would have little or no problem with extending medical services to non U.S. citizens what do you think that overload on the health system does to your rates? I pay taxes and I pay my doctor. I have not been hit by a car but I guess you can always hope huh? For Ricky I pay my own light bill in fact I paid mom's last month and loaned my son money for his because somebody thought it was a good idea to stop drilling and he lost his job.
Heretic. Would that loan be to Heretic, Jr.,
Danny, or your youngest? Are you charging interest? You should. It will build character.
I know you did not let him apply for unemployment.
No my oldest. He is a roughneck in the oil fields. Maybe you guys should meet and you could converse about the finer points of character building and unemployment benefits. Oh and be sure to tell him how you just called his elderly grandmother a deadbeat. I sure you guys will hit if off.
You are totally out to lunch. Have you been in a coma for eight years? The policies you apparently support, are the ones that actually got us in this dispicable situation.
You need to take a class on CRITICAL THINKING!
Everyone I know who is on medicare likes it, except for the privatised part "D" rip-off program that the free marketers (corporate welfare queens) gave us. They really really hate that part.
I tell the clinics here in So Cal I'm paying cash, they give me a little smile, charge my ass the full cost that the co-pay doesn't cover, and tell me to sit my ass down where I inevitably occupy a chair for at least an hour. And I'm not even talking about a clinic in the hood.
Where is this private insurance utopia you go to, cause sitting around for an hour just to give blood sample is bullshit and on one occasion I didn't have my heath insurance card so, with a nice big smile on their face, they charged my ass the full $70. So I'd also like to know where I can get these discounts which you speak of, all I get is "fuck you, pay me!" said with a smile.
Screw the Democrats!
*
Only thing needed for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing.
Well, Obama is taking that a step further (or is it a step back) and trying to give the evil a seat at the table.
There of course will be an amendment added that says, “States beginning with the following letters automatically will receive the Public Option: B, E, J, Q, X, Y & Z”
WTF is that!
Hey Mr. President,
These people will never like your ass! They will stab you in the heart any chance that they get. Stop fucking around with our health insurance while trying to win over these chronic hatemongers!
What a fraud Dobbs turned out to be.
Thinks that 45,000 people dying every yr because they have no health care is a good thing.
assumes they cannot vote against her next election.
Good one ricky.
a lover of comics, a collector, who's love created a great biz, had the same hmo for years
then he needed a hip replacement....and the fuckers dropped him...because he had a preexisting that had nothing to do with the hip replacement
he has been forced to raise all the money needed for the surgery
he got a deal cuz he is going to pay cash up front
to raise the money, he has been having a sale on his comics on ebay
i couldve gotten a great deal on some classics...but i sent him a check instead
couldnt bring myself to take something so undervalued
we dont need no fucking triggers
we need these bloodsuckers out of the health care biz
Cancer Patient Loses Health Benefits
are people still buying a product that they know will break when they actually take it off the shelf and use it?
That way it would need a warranty and you can sue the shit out of the insurance company if they release a product they know won't work like people did to Ford over the Pinto.
...a fully insured (at taxpayer expense) Senator from a small state ought to have any significant influence over a policy favored by the majority of Americans -- probably including a majority of Mainers. Certainly, if they don't favor a public option now, they would after someone explained it to them honestly.
The Senate is horribly dysfunctional. It's bad enough that representatives from small states have disproportionate power. I'm even willing to accept that it's possible to have a principled disagreement about the wisdom of a legislative house that is as undemocratic as the US Senate, but I can't accept that a senator like Snowe -- from the minority party and a small state should be able to exert any more influence than her own single vote and anyone she can persuade through the magnificence of her personality and intellect. For the Democrats to set her up as something special is unconscionable.
The same goes for senators like small-staters Baucus and Conrad. Those guys should have very limited power. And seniority, which is nothing more than a reflection of the stupidity of their states' voters' willingness to re-elect them over and over again, is not an adequate reason to allow a few senators to have any special influence over legislation of vital importance to the majority of Americans, who don't happen to live in Montana or North Dakota.
This country would benefit immeasurably from major Senate reform. It would be nice if a way could be found to have an independent panel of constitutional and legislative scholars to review and rewrite Senate rules. (And perhaps a very few former senators known for their ability to set ideology aside for the greater good could be included. The number of former senators would be small, since the potential pool of competent, fair-minded senators is tiny.) I don't know that the filibuster would be completely abandoned, but its use would be severely circumscribed and it would no longer be enough to simply mutter something about the need for sixty votes to kill legislation. Maybe, instead of sixty votes, fifty-five would be sufficient to end debate. I would hope for a wide-ranging and deep discussion of all pertinent issues.
Then, the Senate Democratic Party would need to take a serious look at the mess it has made of itself. Why elect a leader with no noteworthy skills, who comes from a relatively small state in which the opposition party is dominant? There is no good reason for a spineless fool like Harry Reid to be in a leadership role. His home state political situation makes him a weak leader. His stupidity and other personal attributes make him a disaster.
We are never going to get anywhere (good) in this country without cleaning house in the Senate.
This stuff will ring loudly with the voters. Maybe they will send her home where she belongs. At least then she could not hurt anyone else!
Remember: republicanism is a mental illness! That is a proven fact!
In that case, Maria-Antionette Snowe here would be criminally insane. I got a nice house to move her into, it's called the nut-house.
After all these years of pretending to be a moderate Repubican, Snow proves that she's just as big of a whore for the health insurance companies as her far right-wing counterparts. Her "trigger" will be designed to make sure the public option never sees the light of day.
Are "Moderate!"
Login or Register to post comments.