ARTUR DAVIS: FOCUS ON JOBS, START OVER ON HEALTH CARE REFORM
“Leadership is about building broad support for results. By that definition, it is increasingly obvious that the political process in Washington has failed to lead on health care reform, and that Americans in every corner of the country want a different approach.
It is clear that Alabamians share the same deep concerns. They believe, as I do, that we need to get on with the essential task of revitalizing this economy and getting Americans and Alabamians back to work. They also agree that instead of trying to do too much, Congress should return to a simple focus: helping individuals and businesses afford the cost of insurance and stopping insurance companies from discriminating against sick people.
Ron Sparks, who supports the flawed health care legislation in Washington, should realize that he is not only out of touch with the state he wants to lead, Ron Sparks would even be out of touch in Massachusetts.
To put Sparks’ position in perspective – he supports new mandates and taxes on businesses during the toughest business climate in a generation; he supports raising income taxes and Medicare taxes while the costs of insurance would still keep rising; and he apparently has no problem with a process that has been corrupted with secret deals that favor some states and make the rest of us pay for their special treatment.”
A couple of weeks ago in Huntsville, Davis broadly hinted that he might vote for the compromise Senate/House HCR bill, depending on the final language. This seems to be a strong signal that he finds the as-passed Senate bill unacceptable. But, imho, HCR has to pass. Andy Stern, emphasis mine:
So let's just say it: the Democrats own health reform. They own the votes they already took. And, they own what health reform will stand for. Most importantly, it will be a major achievement the American people need and deserve. There is no turning back. There is no running away. There is no reset button.
There is a right choice: Break the political paralysis and go big. Giving up or scaling back reform is not an option. It's not an option for our employers. It's not an option for our deficit. ... It's simply not an option for our country's future. It's time to deliver the change that the people of our country voted for in 2008 and Massachusetts voted for last night.
Maybe starting over is the right answer. A focus on JOBS is definitely the right answer. But health care reform can't simply be dropped altogether.
So far, no statement from the Ron Sparks campaign on health care reform in the wake of the Mass. Senate election.
The answer is no on H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Rep. Artur Davis (D, AL-07) says “I will vote no on the House legislation and continue to root for a final bill in December that can fix the holes in our health care system”
He released the following statement today regarding his position on H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act:
I am a supporter of health care reform who believes that the House leadership’s approach is not the best we can do. Because we risk a disaster if we get this wrong, I will vote no on the House legislation and continue to root for a final bill that fixes the holes in our health care system and contains soaring costs in both the private and public sectors.
While the Senate Finance Committee bill needs work, there are three reasons it comes closer to achieving the real reform we need. First, the Senate bill tries to roll back some of the aggressive government subsidization of the private health care industry, a trend that has made that industry much too bloated and inefficient. The Senate bill would take the savings and use them to pay for many of the reforms in the package. Second, while there is no ideal way to raise new revenues, the Senate’s proposed excise tax on insurance companies is the best of the imperfect options. It will help rein in the profit spiral in the insurance industry. Finally, while the Senate does not mandate that companies insure their workers, their bill would make companies share with the government the cost of subsidizing any of their workforce that is uninsured. In contrast, the House bill sets a mandate on businesses, but allows larger companies to walk away from it by paying a limited penalty: this will surely drive some companies to drop coverage they already provide.
These are all factors that should make even my more liberal constituents cautious about the virtues of the House bill. By the way, its much discussed public option will actually cost more than most private insurance plans. It is also estimated by the Congressional Budget Office that fewer than 2% of Americans would end up in the public option.
You can read and study HR 3962 here. These links are useful if you need more specifics about the Senate bills:
The public option in the House bill is certainly not the robust public option we all hoped for, and it's true that we should be careful about pushing any bill just because it has something named "public option" in it -- it may also have some very bad provisions. I can't speak to the details of these bills -- if any of you can, please share. As food for thought, Darcy Burner has a good piece at Open Left on how this whole thing might play out for progressives.
I haven't posted much lately because I'm more likely to rant than write. But listening to NPR this morning has finally caused me to blow my stack. People were on there talking about how 'people opt out of insurance they can afford', and how the insurance companies will now discriminate based on age rather than preexisting conditions. Obama promised in his campaign speeches many times not to 'force people to buy coverage'. What happened? Obama is now surrounded by Clintons and their followers. The current health plan, I believe, is simply a reworking of Hillary Care.
Insurance is the World's Biggest Casino. They calculate your odds of survival, then charge you based on their actuarial table plus profit. They are the House. You are the Mark. The House Always Wins. Maybe not short term - now and then some schmoe hits 'em for a bundle - but over time, their percentage edge pays off in huge profits. The average Casino operates on about 2% profit margin. Insurance is raking in more like 15%. Now we're going to give them better odds, courtesy of Uncle Sam.
Here's a real life example of how the Unhealth Care System in this country doesn't work:
Mr. D has insurance through his work. His wife has none - she works part time from home, or waits tables in a diner, or checks groceries. Why isn't she on his plan? Because the cost will QUADRUPLE if she is. Their kids are grown, but the employer's insurance company doesn't offer a 'Spouse Only' plan. You have to buy 'Family Coverage', and pay the same as the guy across the street with 8 kids.
OK, let's say they purchase the Family Coverage they can't afford. We'll say an Aunt died and left money. They now have Family Coverage, but they CAN'T COVER THE FAMILY. Their two grown sons, who are living at home because there isn't any work available that pays enough to live on, let alone provide insurance, aren't eligible because they are too old. This isn't a fantasy - 35% of working age kids are doing this at the moment. There aren't any jobs out there. The few that are out there don't pay a living wage. Insurance, if available at all, would take their entire paycheck.
Are THESE the people they keep citing who 'opt out' of having insurance 'even though they can afford it'? Well, technically I guess they can afford it - if they STOP EATING and DO WITHOUT ELECTRICITY. They aren't eligible for Medicaid. They have an earner in the family, which knocks them out. They aren't eligible for anything. They are on their own.
Now the insurance companies say, 'since they are older, we will charge them MORE - AND we won't cover the kids at home who are still dependent. Sweet deal for insurance, another knife in the heart for the working poor.
I say either mandate "spouse only" coverage at reduced rates from Family Coverage, or mandate that dependent children OF ANY AGE will be covered.
Americans wanted a working health care system. They wanted to be able to stop working jobs they hate simply to retain their insurance. They wanted to be able to get on with their lives without every penny of their disposable income going to some insurance monolith. They wanted to see a doctor or have surgery without taking out a second mortgage. What did they get? The Insurance-Congress Complex.
Hate the health system? Hate the Insurance Companies? Tough! Now you're going to have the Federal Government forcing you to give Blue Cross money you don't have. Sounds like a plan to me...sigh
Single Payer. The only intelligent way to provide health care.
Max Baucus (D-MT) & Olympia Snowe (R-ME) need to feel political pressure and pain. We're putting these hard-hitting ads on TV in Montana and Maine -- holding them accountable for voting against their constituents on the public option.
"The good news is that Senators Bill Nelson and Tom Carper voted yes on Senator Schumer's public option amendment. While that amendment still lost 10 to 13, these two Senators have never stated public support for any version of a public option before. So while the media is bound to claim a public option dead once again -- they'll also be wrong -- once again, because support for passing healthcare reform with a public option is actually growing.
But make no mistake about it. If Senators Baucus and Snowe had voted for the amendment, all five healthcare reform bills in Congress -- every single one of them -- would have a public option in it. Instead, today we have a failure of leadership and Senator Baucus showed the way."
As Flanagan explains, without a public option, insurance companies can set their own rates, set their own level of benefits, and force the uninsured to pay them under penalty of law - you're talking about a forced market where people will be fined for not giving money to private health insurance companies. Max Baucus would say that there are safeguards to limit the amount of out-of-pocket spending or premium spending as a percentage of income, but he wants those rules to be set by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, an industry-friendly group without open meetings or public hearings, making the potential for loopholes and abuse very ripe.
David Dayen, 'The Truth About the Baucus Health Care Bill'
EXCLUSIVE:UnitedHealth Lobbyist Announces Pelosi Fundraiser As She Begins Backing Off Pub Option
"Yale University professor Jacob S. Hacker, also warns that efforts to push health care cooperatives, which recently have been floated as an alternative to a public option, are meant “to kill the public plan and, with it, the prospect of an effective competitor to consolidated insurance companies that have too often failed to provide affordable health security.”
"A note on how these would affect "competition" - in Conrad's home state of North Dakota, Blue Cross Blue Shield emcompasses almost 90% of the health insurance market. [sound familiar?] And they're a non-profit that thinks they can qualify as a co-op, under Conrad's rules, making them eligible for some of the $6 billion in seed money, I presume. Amazing that Conrad's plan and the dominant insurer in his state match up almost perfectly, ain't it?"
Health Care co-ops have a checkered history and an uncertain future as well. According to the linked AP article, once established they could become so politically valuable that it would be impossible to reduce or eliminate the Federal Government's role in them. In this scenario, we would be stuck with the worst of both worlds - a weak, ineffective compromise to robust reform, and a cash cow for the insurance industry subsidized by tax dollars. Just like our current system, we would be spending more and more to get - shafted.
So, who else is hitting the chicken button? Feinstein (D-CA) for one - no big surprise there; and it looks like Reid (D-NV) may drink the Kool Aid, too.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday that healthcare cooperatives could be as effective as a government insurance plan, a stance that could draw strong criticism from liberals.
Guess we'd all better start stretching our hamstrings - bendover time coming soon to a Senate near you.
Judging by the track record of Group Health, one of the two pre-eminent cooperatives in the country and a health-care provider as well as insurer, such organizations won’t address the biggest ill of all: the masses of people who can’t afford coverage.
According to the Washington Post, The Gang of Six in the Senate Finance Committee is likely to unveil their bipartisan reform bill just one day before the President's speech to Congress.
THE BAD
1. No Public Plan
2. No serious subsidies for 300% of poverty level
[about 66k for a family of 4] 3. No real employer mandate
Not all bad news, however - the Baucus plan expands Medicaid to 133% of poverty line [29,336 for a family of 4], and includes adults. This is a major step. Right now, children of poor parents can often be covered by Medicaid or SCHip, while their parents remain ineligible.
While there isn't an employer mandate, there is an individual mandate, so they must have found that a more workable solution; it perhaps would be politically easier to get through than having anything the GOP can tout as 'hurting small business'.
They have included a way to opt out, as well.
Importantly, this mandate comes with an affordability exemption: If the lowest cost premium available exceeds 10 percent of a person's income, they're exempt from the mandate. Beyond that, the fee for people who are not eligible for subsidies is $950 per year, up to $3,800 for a family. Compared to the cost of insurance, that's not a ton of money.
Evidently, Grassley (R-Iowa) is still on about co-ops. Personally, I don't think co-ops will make it through. They have never been shown to provide insurance at much less than the more cost-effective regular insurance plans. Grassley could well be in favor because Iowa does have a sweet deal from Blue Cross, which he may have had a hand in.
Wellmark, the charity arm of Blue Cross, is Iowa's biggest insurer, and they are basically operating as a non-profit. How do they do that? By having cash reserves, much like a bank. Once they have enough liquid capital to pass the actuarial tests, they can achieve something like balance with the amount paid in for premiums vs. the amount paid out to patients.
The Baucus plan, which circulated among the gang this weekend, sets forth provisions that have already gained the group's unofficial support and adds nothing significant that the group has not deliberated, senior Senate aides said. But Democrats are wary that two of the three GOP negotiators -- Sens. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) -- could walk away, under pressure from their Republican colleagues to allow Democrats to fight for a bill on their own.
Here's one that's bound to cause some real wrangling in Congress:
In addition to the fee on high-cost plans, the proposal also would extract about $400 billion in cost savings from Medicare, cuts that are stirring unease among lawmakers in both parties because of Medicare's precarious fiscal state and the potential backlash among senior citizens.
... according to news reports, "although House leaders have said their members will demand the inclusion of a public insurance option, Obama has no plans to insist on it himself."
In response, we got a truly depressing email from Christian S. in Texas: "Your recent health care ads are great, they hit home. But Obama has decided to drop the public option and for breaking his campaign promise I am dropping out of political activism for the time being."
This fight is absolutely not over, but Christian's feelings are real. If Obama doesn't stand firm on the public option, millions of people will lose hope. So today, we're launching a petition to President Obama signed by those who volunteered, staffed, voted for, or donated to Obama's campaign in 2008, asking him to please stand firm on the public option.
The petition says: "We worked so hard for real change. President Obama, please demand a strong public health insurance option in your speech to Congress. Letting the insurance companies win would not be change we can believe in."
I'd like to go one better: don't sell out to corporate interests Clinton-style. The people who chose you over Hillary were hoping that your shorter record would mean that you had less ties to big business than perhaps almost any candidate in recent history. This isn't about Them, it's about us - the People. Remember us? The ones who are still dying of cancer because we can't afford the drugs? The ones who are going bankrupt at the rate of 2,000,000 a year due to medical bills?
Stand up for US, Mr. President. We stood up for you. Big Pharma and Big Insurance did everything they could to keep you out of the White House. We stand together. We voted for change. If that change becomes too much like business as usual, I predict that most Progressives and some moderates will split the Democratic Party in two.
The "trigger option" will be used to shoot the Donkey in the head. RNC will be laughing all the way to the White House.
In late May, Sen. Max Baucus(D-MT), head of the Senate Finance Committee which is putting the brakes on health reform, held an intimate little fund raising dinner in San Francisco.
Price of your plate of chicken? Ten thousand dollars.
Attending? Insurance execs, hospital group administrators - you know - people who matter.
Standing outside in the rain were the ones who don't - holding their soggy little cardboard signs.
As his committee has taken center stage in the battle over health-care reform, Chairman Baucus (D-Mont.) has emerged as a leading recipient of Senate campaign contributions from the hospitals, insurers and other medical interest groups hoping to shape the legislation to their advantage. Health-related companies and their employees gave Baucus's political committees nearly $1.5 million in 2007 and 2008, when he began holding hearings and making preparations for this year's reform debate.
Dan Eggen, Washington Post
LIMBAUGH: Get the government out of it. Get the government, their stupid regulations, get the government out of Medicare. Look it -- the only way that cost-price ratios make sense is based on the consumer's ability to pay.
Get the Government out of Medicare, Rush? Isn't that sort of like saying get the Government out of Congress? At least he's out in the open now. The de facto leader of the Republican Party, while railing against Health Insurance Reform, and scaring the old folks half out of their wits with false claims about "death panels", has REVEALED THE PLAN.
THE GOP HEALTH REFORM ACT: Just jerk it. All of it. Medicare, Medicaid - the lot. Think of the dollars saved. And just think of the massive savings to Social Security as well! Why, we could continue to pay it out to Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich forever! And really, these are the folks who deserve it. They have served the People well, have they not? A whole generation of useless, poverty-stricken oldsters would die off many years earlier than projected, and the country would be Back on the Right Track!
The only part I don't understand is the part where they moan and sniffle about 'pulling the plug on Granny'. Maybe it's just not fast enough? I don't get it. Seems to me the GOP wants to pull the plug on everyone who doesn't have Blue Cross.
You know, these ardent 'capitalists' don't seem to realize that our government has been subsidizing the Insurance Companies since 1965. How? By covering the old, the infirm, the poor, and anyone else who is, in their parlance, a "bad risk". Uncle Sam takes the lemons - Insurers get the lemonade.
Now Big Insurance is whining about competition. Boys, you haven't covered anyone but the young, healthy, and employed for a generation. Oh sure, you get the odd kid with leukemia, or the wife with breast cancer, and sometimes you just can't weasel out of the claim, but mostly you've had it pretty soft. All those amazing stock profits, and CEO bonuses, are coming out of the US Treasury, if you stop to think for a minute.
American taxpayers have gotten a rotten deal. We pay more and more for less and less. We want a better deal. We want *gasp* COVERAGE. And we aren't buying this twaddle, Rush. You seem to have confused 'Americans in general' with 'idiots who listen to your show'. There are a lot of us out there, Rush, NOT LISTENING. We don't respond to your polls because we don't HEAR THEM. But hey, RUSH HAS A PLAN - not to worry.
The caller also mentioned that he recently broke his wrist, and he couldn't afford the costs to treat it. LIMBAUGH: caller shouldn't have broken his wrist if he couldn't afford it.
114 million people may lose their employer-sponsored health insurance if Congress includes a "public option" in its health reform plan.
Scary, huh? The House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) are among the many Republicans talking up those numbers at various Town Halls across the country this month, citing them as "non-partisan, objective, independent research".
Well thanks for playing guys, but the facts don't bear you out. The Lewin Group, which is feeding them all those numbers, is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers. Specifically, Lewin is frontman for UnitedHealth subsidiary Ingenix, who were forced to pay out 400 million in fraud settlements to the State of New York and the AMA.
But to the big Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, which is currently occupied with murdering Health Care Reform, the Lewin Group is "well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country."
The British scientist says he would not be here today if it was not for tax-funded healthcare By Rachel Helyer Donaldson
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 12, 2009 Stephen Hawking, the British scientist who has lived with motor neurone disease since 1963, has been dragged into America's increasingly ugly row over Barack Obama's proposed £1 trillion overhaul of healthcare provision.
Hawking has defended Britain's tax-funded National Health System after he was held up by a US financial newspaper as an example of why the NHS should not be used as a blueprint for the reforms...
The Cambridge professor, who is of course British despite speaking with an American-accented vocoder, told the Guardian: "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived." ...
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/...
Sadly, 67 year old Professor Hawking is reported to be 'very ill', and has family at his bedside in Addenbrooke's Hospital.
Hawking is due to retire this year as Cambridge University's Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, although he had been hoping to stay on as professor emeritus.
The liars and haters have hung one Democratic Congressman in effigy, advised a Senator to commit suicide, made death threats on another Congressman and physically threatened others. All within the last week! Thankfully it hasn't degenerated to that level in Alabama -- yet -- but the liars are already hard at work. People in Congressman Artur Davis' (D, AL-07) district have been receiving phone calls misrepresenting (same as "lying about") his position on health care reform. This is from Davis' office:
In the last 24 hours, several constituents have notified us that they have received calls from a phone bank providing false information regarding Congressman Davis' stance on the current healthcare legislation being considered in Congress. This call apparently claims that Davis "supports Barack Obama's health care plan". In fact, Congressman Davis has stated that he opposes the healthcare legislation that is currently pending in the House of Representatives and that he would vote against it on the floor. Whether this false claim is politically motivated or a result of a factual error, it is unfortunate that misinformation is being communicated to our constituents.
I don't like Rep. Davis' position and I hope he will see his way clear to support the bill that eventually makes it the the floor, but there's no justification for lying about it. It's impossible to have a meaningful public discussion on any issue if one side continually resorts to lies and misinformation in an attempt to carry the argument.
This development dovetails nicely with a new video from Progressive Media called "The Paranoid Style In American Politics."
The video
... highlights the "paranoid style in American politics" that has re-emerged in recent months -- starting with prominent expressions of far-right fringe extremism that gained wide notice during the McCain-Palin campaign, and continuing into the current debate over health care, which has been marked by vocal expressions of extreme, and sometimes violent, right-wing views.
In 1964, historian Richard Hofstadter noted that "American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers." Unfortunately, as this video vividly illustrates, this statement remains true today.
Ben Nelson of Nebraska is a Republican. A (D) after his name doesn't make him a Democrat (you listening, Bobby not-so-Bright?) any more than a white hat makes me the Pope. Once again, Nelson is marching in lockstep with his GOP buddies, smilingly screwing his Party, his President, and all those Nebraskans who thought they elected a Democrat.
I'm stunned most of all by the fact that we have Appeasers derailing Democratic reform when Democrats have the majority. I mean, I thought appeasement was mostly something the losing side did to obtain concessions from the winners, or to keep a dangerous enemy at bay, not something winners did. Yoo hoo Democrats - WE WON. Why are we letting the GOP noise machine turn health reform into a National Referendum?
We HAD a referendum. Remember? Back in 2008? The People Voted for Change. So get ON with it, already. Why are we letting the GOP control the issue at all?
The votes, they argue tell the story. Nelson supported cloture or confirmation for some of Bush's most controversial judges and political nominees, including several who were never able to be confirmed even under a GOP-controlled Senate.
Nelson and his ilk have stood between genuine Democrats and progressive legislation at every turn. Why do we allow them to wear the mantle of the Party? Spare me the any Dem. in a storm argument. If they never vote with the Party, then they do us no more good than any other Republican would do. Why do we let them use Democratic campaign contributions instead of letting the GOP fund their election efforts, as the GOP are the ones who benefit from their presence in Congress?
Of course, in the case of Nelson, or as dearest W liked to call him, "Nellie", it might have more to do with the contributionshe raked in from the health insurance industries, than any paltry sums he received from his Party. And that's what it's all about, isn't it?
PCCC shares the following story:
Meet Mike.
Mike owns a small family restaurant in Ralston, Nebraska.
Recently, his insurance agent called and said his health care premiums were being raised this year -- by a whopping 42%. Now he'll have to cancel his insurance. Worried, he says, "I'm just going to pray my kids don't get sick."
It's the latest tactic from the insurance industry: Stop reform by stalling it. Kill momentum at all costs.
UPDATE: Ben Nelson responded. He (outrageously) said that if the grassroots keep pressuring him with ads "then health care reform may be dead by the end of August.” In other words, in his mind, it's all about him.
-PCCC
President Obama recently warned against attempts "to delay and defeat reform," and he called the insurance industry's stalling tactics "the familiar Washington script." We need to insist that the Senate take action now.
In closing, I'll just paraphrase Bill Cosby:
"Democrats brought you into this world, Blue Dogs, and we can take you out".
This is such a short article on the Bham News website that I put almost the whole thing below. Hopefully they'll write up something a litle longer later. I'd like to hear a little more about what changes he wants made to the bill - and what he can do to get those changes.
U.S. Rep. Artur Davis of Birmingham says he can't support the health care bill pending in the House unless significant changes are made.
...
He said Thursday the bill has become an incentive for small businesses to hire fewer workers because the mandates are based on the size of a company's payroll. He calls the bill hypocritical because it does not require congressional campaign committees to insure their employees.
Does he want all small businesses - no matter the size - to provide coverage to all employees? What about the public option - how would that change the game for him? Why do I always have more questions than answers?
The full text of the press release from Rep. Artur Davis' office is below the fold - mooncat.
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