Selling Out Healthcare for GOP Votes
Here is one blogger’s take on the effectiveness of local or regional nonprofit insurance cooperatives, which is the alternative the Gang of Six are touting to a full-throated public option:
What’s going on? I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on: The White House is laying the groundwork for dumping the public plan option in order to win a few Republican votes for healthcare.
If so, it’s a total betrayal of what the president’s been talking about. Regional, nonprofit insurance co-ops may be a good idea, and they have worked in some rural parts of the country, but they’re no substitute for a national, Medicare-like, affordable public plan option that would make health insurance instantly available to all who can’t afford it.
Which helps explain why, yes, the demographics of the Gang of Six’s home states do matter.
Here is news about another constituency that is very happy about a health care “reform” bill with no public option:
News that Senator Max Baucus’ Finance Committee deal on health care financing excluded a public option sent health insurance stocks soaring Tuesday.
[...]
Health insurance executives who have poured money into the campaign coffers of Blue Dogs, Max Baucus, Chuck Grassley, Kent Conrad, Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins (as well as their political action committees) likely made all their money back in the one day rise in stock prices. The companies themselves, which hold huge amounts of their own stock, surely recouped all of their PAC investments on Tuesday alone.
You don’t have to wonder whether Wall Street thinks Max Baucus’ deal is great news for the health insurance industry’s status quo: numbers like these don’t lie.
27 Responses to “Selling Out Healthcare for GOP Votes”
The blue dogs have the most to gain from good reform, the most to lose from ineffective reform.
What would make reform ineffective is to ask for ideology over results. It's arguable that the total cost should be limited as much as possible, but the stupid Finance committee offer saves little money but reduces coverage by a lot. That is not acceptable. If there is a lot of money to be saved by reducing coverage a little, then that might be acceptable. But lots of reduced coverage just because some fools hate the public option and want to save a little money? No way. If that's acceptable to the blue dogs their careers should be over.
It's funny, when it comes to getting a bipartisan deal there were two options – Cornyn's and Wyden's. Going with Cornyn in that situation is obviously partisan and ideological. No deal. If that's the best the “moderates” can offer, it's reconciliation time.
Look, we have guarantees in our founding documents as to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness right? And the militia, rights to bear arms and such were including in the Constitution as means to preserve and promote that right? So when a person becomes ill, isn't that also an enemy of the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?” If that doesn't qualify, nothing does. And when the paying for suppression of illness and disease becomes such a burden on the individual that he and his entire family are put to homelessness, suffering and loss of productive livelihood, isn't this the ESSENCE of deprivation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
I would say that a good trial lawyer could argue this right up to the Big Nine. And s/he should. Absolutely. The GOP stonewall against public-guaranteed health care is yet another assault on the american way of life and against our Constitutional guarantees. Anyone guilty of depriving another person of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by erecting walls between the individual and that productive life ought to be tried for treason.
I swear to God, the GOP is the most anti-american group I can think of. I nearly vomit in my mouth when I see them use the american flag to cover up their rotten and treasonous agendas. *urp*…
Regional, nonprofit insurance co-ops may be a good idea, and they have worked in some rural parts of the country, but they’re no substitute for a national, Medicare-like, affordable public plan option that would make health insurance instantly available to all who can’t afford it.
Why? The author doesn't give any evidence for inferiority of the one as opposed to the other. Not to mention that the current Medicare program is financially unsustainable, and nothing in the plans to add another public option seriously addresses that.
Ah yes but what about the “great and best” health care plan the military and Congress already have on the public tab and management? Seems they're financially sustainable….lol…
Your man blew it on the Daily Show the other night. Cat's out of the bag and those damned kitties scratch the hell out of you when you try to shove them back in.
The GOP stonewall against public-guaranteed health care is yet another assault on the american way of life and against our Constitutional guarantees.
Public-guaranteed health care has not been felt to be a constitutional right for 233 years, and for many of those years the Democrats had the majority, presidency, or both.
Yes, Silhouette, it's not surprising that for a very small segment of the population, the govt can provide decent health insurance without bankrupting the nation. The probability of that happening goes down rapidly as you expand to try to cover the majority of the population.
Is it not obvious that a large number of taxpayers can support healthcare costs for a small segment, but a small (and shrinking) number of wealthy taxpayers can't support unlimited care for the entire population (along with all the other federal expenditures and interest on the debt?)
No, no it doesn't. You have no model on which you can prove that. Other countries are affording their public's right to protect their lives via the weapons and tools health care. Just because they have less zillionaires doesn't mean they aren't sustaining themselves in a meaningful and productive way. Malignant capitalism can't have it both ways. They cannot insist in right to bear arms but limit those arms to only certain ones that protect life.
Gotcha.
“Why? The author doesn't give any evidence for inferiority of the one as opposed to the other. Not to mention that the current Medicare program is financially unsustainable, and nothing in the plans to add another public option seriously addresses that.”
Didn't I post a link from The New Republic that explained that the coops had been tried and found wanting, especially if one were to use them all over the country?
Wyden's bill could please both sides, but they went with Cornyn. That's their idea of bipartisanship – avoiding a public option for no good reason.
Silhouette, your comparison is apples to oranges, so no, you didn't 'get me'.
The size of most EU countries is similar to most US states. If you want to propose trying this on that scale, state by state, I wouldn't object as much to a nationalized approach. However, that's not going so well in states like Massachusetts, so clearly there are also other differences between the US and Europe. Among other things, one obvious difference is in the amount we spend on eldercare. So, if you have any ideas on how to fight the AARP lobby which doesn't allow us to make cuts in Medicare benefits, I'm all ears.
Didn't I post a link from The New Republic that explained that the coops had been tried and found wanting, especially if one were to use them all over the country?
Uh, if you did I didn't see it. If you'd care to repost I'll look at it. However, my comment was directed at the author of the article that Kathy quoted, who stated that conclusion as a given without providing any evidence to back the opinion.
I told you, the war on terror must extend to protect american lives against a microscopic Al Qaida. That must be a public-mandated protective front. More lives have been lost to these tiny terrorists than all the wars in American history combined. It's about time we address these terrorists..
So Kathy's still upset as usual, for the usual wrong “reasons” — nothing new this week so far…
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“Look, we have guarantees in our founding documents as to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness[,] right?”
What's in the _body_ of the Constitution is what counts. I've seen your “argument” [sic] in favor of government-provided or at least government-financed-and-controlled health care (as a “right” [sic]) in the past, complete with this silly reference to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” _explicitly_, by a leftist professor of constitutional law who said this supports a legal ruling that everyone has a “right” [sic] to a federally-provided guaranteed minimum income.
He was wrong, obviously, and you are wrong, too, _obviously_.
Meanwhile, the intelligent adults are looking at the _real_ issue here, which is that health care is but the latest and the largest of the Democrats' reckless rush (complete with inattention to or deliberate neglect of essential details, such as the costs and the paying of them in the case of health care) to increase not only the vast over-size of federal spending and debt, but the size and scope of the federal government and its intervention and intrusion into life, of individuals, not limited to wrongful encroachment more than ever in the past several years into what are properly state and local governmental affairs.
Not only are Obama and Dems suspect to suspicion and concern by smarter people since the “stimulus” nonsense and actions with the banks and with the Detroit dinosaur companies, but even now much of the more-previously-agreeable public is concerned (for example, the public widely objected to and was alarmed by the horrible “climate” legislation and demanded it not be passed; Democrats defied the public and reason and passed this rushed, destructive legislation nevertheless), but more and more of the public sees neglect, incompetence, and untrustworthiness in Obama and Dems with health care, as well as serious concerns about the direction as well as the (ever-changing, perhaps dysfunctionally crafted with only partial thought) content of the initiative, compounded by other serious public and personal blunders (Obama's idiocy about Professor Gates's arrest, encouragement of the activist fools inappropriately, then professing in an elitist manner or in an atttempt to manipulate public opinion again, that he didn't understand why the public was so upset about this), which continues to expose how bad this health care initiative and its proponents in Washington are, as well as the low intellectual and behavior level (and likely, in many cases, low developmental level) of those who so desperately and pathologically remain fervent supporters of it At All [Unnamed] Costs.
It's no surprise, no shock, no catastrophe to intelligent adults that this awful health care initiative will not be stupidly rushed to be passed by the August Congressional recess, and that even some Democrats (who fear losing their re-election given how bad this initiative has been and has gone) are refusing to be as stupid as the remaining stupid core of support. It's no surprise that the “deadline” for the somewhat-still-vapid legislation is being delayed. It won't be surprising to normal people if nothing happens this year at all.
Reality wins, the silly extremists lose. No surprise. And given the Dems' misconduct, it's overdue as well as welcome.
[dusting hands]
Silhouette, philosophically you and I differ on what it means for the govt to have an obligation to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You seem pretty dug in, and I think it's beyond the scope of this discussion (certainly without hijacking the thread) to get too much into it, but to me the bottom line is that no govt or individual is making people sick. The govt protects your rights against other people who might threaten you – it isn't obligated to level the playing field for all individuals' that come from nature. Out of compassion and sometimes pragmatism, we decide to use the govt as an instrument to do that in many cases, but that doesn't make it a natural right.
If it was a natural right to have life extended indefinitely, the govt would be in the impossible position of guaranteeing immortality.
'Public-guaranteed health care has not been felt to be a constitutional right”
It is not a constitutional right. There is no legitimate [mis]construction of the Ninth Amendment (which some of us had feared would be attempted by the Clinton bunch during the Clintons' health care fiasco), much less idiotic references to the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble (the preeminent refuge of losers), the Fourteenth Amendment (“equal protection” deliberately misconstrued to “mean” a minimum level of provision of various goodies of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” to all, to enable them to pursue happiness if not directly make them happy!), or distorting the Tenth Amendment (ignoring what is there that refers to the federal government and arging in favor of illegitimate federal action on behalf of “the people,” using “the people” also to refer to the federal government wrongly in that Amendment).
They're wrong on the facts (and intentions behind the law, as well as wrong morally so often), so they deliberately manufacture bogus arguments and misconstructions of the law, using tiresome, predictable “arguments” that are presented time and time again and fail obviously time and time again.
“The GOP cannot insist in right to bear arms but limit those arms to only certain ones they handpick that protect life.”
Not only is your argumentation in favor of government provision of health care (be it as a bogus “right” of people, as bogus as a “right” to a guaranteed minimum income or an alternative means of transportation to the Evil Automobile, or, for that matter, to “alternative energy” rather than Evil Coal or Nuclear or Oil, or as a fictitious “obligation” or “duty” of the federal government — never state or local government among such people, who have contempt for constitutional federalism in addition to the Constitution and correct reading of it) wrong, obviously.
What is ironic about your statement here is how it is the *** LEFT *** (not limited to the ACLU, who has earned “Cafeteria” when not “Communist” for its proper word corresponding to the letter C) who is not only dishonest, but so obviously selective when it comes to constitutional rights.
Yes, preservation of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is a right guaranteed to each and every citizen. Ergo any threat to that end coming from outside the individual's best efforts at said must be guaranteed to be defended against. And yes, I gotcha on that one..
Moreover, I'll bet there is language in the Constitution that allows the President to circumvent Congressional involvement when s/he perceives a threat to the nation that has not been addressed.
Further, this “silliness” isn't silly at all. Language within the Constitution allows for amendments to things the forefathers left out or did not foresee in their wide scope of planning for our future. Wise men were they to admit they didn't think of everything. Lucky we have logic. The Constitution should be a logical document and not the arbitrary and silly one it is today having omitted providing for defense against the greatest enemy to american lives since day one: disease.
“Is it not obvious that a large number of taxpayers can support healthcare costs for a small segment, but a small (and shrinking) number of wealthy taxpayers can't support unlimited care for the entire population (along with all the other federal expenditures and interest on the debt?)”
That's the dirty little secret, which has never been a secret, about having Other People, Namely the “Rich,” pay for everything. (Progressive taxation in the real world is unjust as well as impractical, but here we will dwell only on the second issue, not the nature of those in favor of such taxation.)
There aren't enough at the top-most levels to pay for all this, much less at morally defective and destructive rates (exceeding fifty per cent is effectively slavery as well as a deliberate disincentive all but the blind cannot fail to see).
That's why even during Obama's campaign, the income level below which taxes were “promised” “never” to be raised (and in fact, to be lowered) was changed — downward.
But this has no effect on those with an effectively blind, dogmatic, rigid, reality-denying faith in such taxes as well as in the magic of Washington as Santa Claus.
Fewer and fewer people outside this silly core group remain fervent believers in Obama and the Dems' rushing idiotically _backward_, with stupid, destructive measures by Washington, as Change [tm].
That may “rush” an end to their stupid rushing.
Is that why they're notably silly and Upset right now about the lack of rushing to destruction with health care?
Silhouette, you can say the earth is flat, and that things fall up, but you remain wrong — obviously. Your false claims are in no way augmented, earn no extra value, if you actually believe what you are stating.
“Language within the Constitution allows for amendments to things the forefathers left out or did not foresee in their wide scope of planning for our future.”
You are claiming that misconstruction is legitimate, which it is not, rather than saying we should amend the Constitution in the legitimate manner (as opposed to your misconstructions or an illegitimate activist ruling by the judiciary in place of this legitimate _altering_ of the document).
This by you is in fact another irony (like saying others rather than lefties are notoriously selective when it comes to [real] constitutional rights).
My claims are quite factual I assure you. I took American Govt. and understand the essence of the founding documents. You sir are the flat-earth subscriber. As long as the money is right you'll believe even conflicting things like the right to defend oneself against seen and unseen enemies and denying those same tools to the common man. Your logic, not mine, is faulty.
What's in the _body_ of the Constitution is what counts.
The body of the Constitution (Article I, Section 8), gives Congress the power to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. Obviously, one can debate the specifics of what “general welfare” might include, but reforming a health care system that leaves 47 million Americans without the means to pay for health care, and that is going to bankrupt our nation if something isn't done to bring down its costs, certainly would seem to me to fit under that term.
@CStanley: “it's not surprising that for a very small segment of the population, the govt can provide decent health insurance without bankrupting the nation. The probability of that happening goes down rapidly as you expand to try to cover the majority of the population.” Also: “Not to mention that the current Medicare program is financially unsustainable”
I'd just like to point out that the reason that Medicaid/Medicare don't break even is that it only covers those who are the most likely to need expensive procedures, the patients that regular insurance will not cover because they cannot possibly make money on them. Specifically, it covers the elderly, the disabled — these are groups with astronomical health care costs compared to the normal young or middle-aged, middle-class, able-bodied person. Covering a wide range of people — paying out more for some and less for others — is how insurance companies stay afloat. Of course a system that covers only groups with serious health concerns is going to have difficulty breaking even.
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/ar…
Thanks for that link, Kastanj. I was looking for tha tarticle.
Kathy, I already have laid to rest, long ago, the common silly equivocation of the “general welfare” clause.
It might be appropriate to note aloud here that it's as pathetic or more so than misuse of the Preamble.
* * *
“I'd just like to point out that the reason that Medicaid/Medicare don't break even is that it only covers those who are the most likely to need expensive procedures, the patients that regular insurance will not cover because they cannot possibly make money on them. Specifically, it covers the elderly, the disabled — these are groups with astronomical health care costs compared to the normal young or middle-aged, middle-class, able-bodied person. Covering a wide range of people — paying out more for some and less for others — is how insurance companies stay afloat. Of course a system that covers only groups with serious health concerns is going to have difficulty breaking even.”
Aside from the other logically superior things that are all but demanded of Congress and the Obama administration instead of their current lunacy and misconduct (taking existing programs and expanding the scope of Medicare, which is what is incrementally and indirectly being sought currently, which means absorbing Medicaid into Medicare* along with VA, Indian Health, etc.; extending Medicare now to children [and absorbing S-CHIP]), the first and foremost thing that they should be doing (for a _real_ change) is to reform Medicare to correct its known defects, which include financial insustainability.
In addition to that, health care form could begin with insurance reform that specifically addresses what you describe, which also extends to “cherry-picking” by insurance companies and denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions and other reasons, which would be to make health insurance in this country on a community rating (all people-at-large) basis. (An additional topic would be the scope of the community, namely on a state-wide basis, a regional basis, or a nation-wide basis.)
This has always been _so_ easy. Leave it to the Democrats to not only seek what's wrong, but to do it wrongly. Who actually _supports_ what they are doing? [staring and scowling]
* arguably a stimulus (though actually a state bailout) measure as well
Good point about the general welfare provision of the Constitution Kathy.
The DLS strategy: call it “silly” until it [hopefully] goes away.
No such luck pal. Your gang screwed us in the early '90s on health care and were not going to let y'all get away with it again.
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