Dems Agree to Drop Government-Run Insurance Option

The worst thing is the insurance companies will be free to rape and pillage for a number of years on the under 55 crowd. The best thing about it is that 55 year olds will be able to get Medicare.

Now you will see the parents of the young folks who are on this site for instance getting Medicare. As they see the joys of health care without greedy dishonest insurance middlemen, the support for extending it will grow. Actual life experience will negate the propaganda about health care that many believe.

The Dems can then come back with another bill to extend the buy in to 45 year olds. They will want it, too. Contrary to the theology of conservatives/libertarians and their econ 101 they love so dearly, private insurance just can't compete when you add on the unnecessary overhead and profits for CEO's and stock speculators etc. Healthcare is expensive enough without adding the extra 30% for such non-medical charges to the bill.


This will also allow a lot of people to retire. I talk to people all the time in the 55 to 65 age bracket that keep working just for the insurance. This should open up some jobs for younger folks with young families.

Let the GOP keep being the enemy of healh care. It is such a gimmee to the Dems. Almost as good as pissing off Hispanics with their immigrant bashing.
The Repubs lost California for at least a generation with that issue and if the GOP loses Texas in a few years it will be damn near impossible for them to win nationally.

 

The voting results map from the '08 election for Texas is hilarious to me:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/county/#TXP00map

Rural, non-border Texas = Republican
Border and urban Texas = Democrat

 

Hum....

Lincoln, Landrieu Hint At Support For Revised Health Care Bill

Two key conservative Democrats hinted on Wednesday that they support the health care reform compromises adopted by the party's leadership, including the dropping of a pure public option and the addition of a buy-in alternative for Medicare.

 

I love how the liberals are trying to move the goalposts and call this a success. Obama has failed America on this topic. He has not accomplished anything (although he did win a Nobel prize! bwaaaahahahahaha)

 

And mark will owe the tip jar. Let's just keep that in mind as these "trying to find success of sorts" posts keep coming in...

 

Texxx it’s called compromise

Instead of republicans being obstructionists and unwilling to work with the apposing party maybe they should come to the table and try to work in good faith with democrats and do what is good for America and not for their own selfish (and destructive) attempts to destroy a presidency or do what needs to be done for the country. During this whole time of trying to reform healthcare we have seen Obama and democrats try and reach across the aisle and bring republicans into negotiations and time and time again they have slapped the hand away and rendered themselves more and more irrelevant.

Why is that?

 

Let's just see what happens when the senate bill is reconciled with the house bill. We've still got a long way to go.

 

Yeah, I find it amusing that Republicans try to call this a victory. They are going to get a massive expansion of a program they've railed against for years. At the end of the day, we all know a health care bill is going to pass. The GOP had the choice to participate in the discussions like a minority party normally does - and try to shape it to be more palatable to conservatives - or simply not participate (as they have done). The end result is they are creating policy that is much less acceptable to them - and that's a good thing in their mind.

If 20 GOPers in the Senate and 50 in the House came out today and said they would vote for this new health care bill as-is without the Medicare expansion, it would probably pass that way - lose some Democrats, win a chunk of Republicans, and make the whole process much easier by eliminating the Filibuster. From a policy perspective, it would be something good from the conservative viewpoint. But instead, they are more interested in political points and will end up with a more liberal bill. Tells you what their priorities are.

 

^^^^^Post of full of hypocritical and ironical hilarity. Enjoy, folks.

 

One thing I totally object to is this bs that only $900 billion can be spent on saving 45, 000 American lives from the ills of the current health care "system". We can bail out the banks and have near endless money for war based on the relatively few lives lost 9/11, compared to the health care morass.

Was it Lincoln who said: "You can fool some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time". Keep obstructing GOPers. When millions more have access to health care you will pay the price for your obstruction.

This is the type of issue that will create a major change in American politics. The poor teabaggers and the astroturf "populists" will burn out eventually , but the public at large will know who got them health care.

 

when will the CBO be done, when will we see the details?

 

Nate Silver, being right as usual.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

My Last Words on the Public Option
by Nate Silver @ 11:55 AM

We've been a little light on health care coverage this week. But to be honest, it's probably not a bad thing that I've been out of the country. Any time I write about the public option -- which appears have been sacrificed in pursuit of a health care deal -- I generally wind up pissing people off.

But here, for the record, is what I think -- and I think I've been pretty consistent in this thinking:

1) The energy by progressive activists on behalf of the public option has done more good than harm, and by a wide margin.

2a) Nevertheless, the public option is/was a relatively minor part of the health care bill, at least once it became clear that it (i) wouldn't be pegged to Medicare rates, and (ii) would only be available to a small fraction of the population.

2b) To claim that a health care bill without a public option is anything other than a huge achievement for progressives is, frankly, bull****.

3) Because of the symbolic importance attached to the public option on both sides of the debate, I'd tend to assume that it could be traded off for other policy goals at a relatively favorable exchange rate. That is, whoever "wins" the public option debate is likely to have traded some utilitarian benefits for some psychic income and/or longer-term tactical gains.

4) More specifically, in terms of the present compromise on the table, it seems to be quite clearly better than a bill without the Medicaid/Medicare expansion, the Franken Amendment, etc., but with a weak public option.

5) However, it's not clear exactly what is really being traded for what. Perhaps the public option was never going to pass in the first place, and so all these new things are basically freebies for Democrats. On the other hand, perhaps if they had dug in their heels, the Democrats could have gotten both the public option and these other things. Also, the compromise itself will probably wind up being compromised, which makes it even harder to keep score.

6) The case that the White House failed to achieve a public option because it was inept is much stronger than the case that it failed to achieve one because it wasn't progressive enough.

7) Liberals have tended to underestimate what a significant political achievement it would be for Democrats to pass such a major bill that has become rather unpopular with the public. It would be going too far to characterize the Democrats as courageous for passing health care reform (if they do), because at the end of the day, the political case for passing health care reform is probably stronger than the case for failing to do so. Moreover, the handling of public option debate is not completely exogenous from the bill's popularity or lack thereof. Nevertheless, Democrats have been negotiating into a stiff political headwind for months now, and have been rather resilient in the face of it.
__
p.s. The headline should probably not be taken literally.

 

I cannot fathom how any reasonable person can objectively look at the present system and come to any conclusion other than that it is horribly broken.

You hope that no bill is passed. Great. So you favor a system in which many people cannot obtain coverage and many who can pay a good deal for their coverage only to find that it really does not cover all that much. Somehow, that is a desirable result? How wonderfully odd. That kind of logic just sends one's brain to a screeching halt.

Take this as an example...

Refgal works for a local law firm. She makes a decent salary, but has to budget as most people do. Health insurance premiums of $400 per month were payroll deducted for her and her two kids. No history of serious illness for any of them. Here's the kicker. It does not cover any tests. She needed to have a colonoscopy (doctor recommended due to her age). The insurance company told her that she had to pay $1,300 out of pocket for it. They would negotiate the price, but would pay nothing. I was simply mystified that somebody can pay quite a bit of money monthly for insurance and that insurance will not cover routine screenings that all people over x age are recommended to get to keep them healthy.

That is a failure in our system.

For her, it is really academic. Due to the downturn in the economy, her company did away with the health insurance entirely. So now...at age 54...she finds herself without insurance for the first time in her adult life.

If you find this broken system to be acceptable...that is simply disgusting.

 

I agree this is not a Dem Vs Rep issue...Something needs to be done fast! Why are republican constituents not pushing there congressman to act is what I don't understand?

 

This is what we call a "lie." The insurance company absolutely covered the test. It was subject to deductible an co-insurance. The price is negotiated down from the high price the doctors charge and then applied to the co-insurance maximum. That is covered.

 

Agree with Nate Silver more than usual this time.

Interesting conversation this week with a cardiologist who both runs a heart hospital in SoCal and still runs a surgical unit for infarction patients. I've known this guy for a while, and he is red red-dog. Has voted Republican in at least the last six presidential elections and could spew a stream of Obama venom a mile wide during the last election (and since.) He and I actually get along very well -- there's no part of him that is a "troll," and he doesn't fall for FOX red-state herrings, so it's fun, and interesting, to talk politics.

I hadn't seen him in a while, and I asked him for his take on healthcare, since he's in the trenches. His response really and truly shocked me. He said "the only solution, long term, is to extend medicare to age zero. Period." Working in my business, you understand that healthcare is a right, and that's why you pursue a career like this.

He also said that massive reform was needed just because hospitals will start collapsing. "I can't get paid," he said. More than half of his patients can't pay their bills, even with insurance, and the state and federal programs that are supposed to cover some of them are a joke. "They have no money."

Just an anecdote, but I always like to hear from people who are actually, you know, delivering healthcare.

By the way, he said heart cases have really gone up during this bad recession. "Extra blood pressure -- it's all stress," he said. So all of y'all take a deep breath out there, you hear? Seriously.