“but would preempt state benefit mandates.” ;fits right in with the teabaggers complaints about ‘State’s rights’.

Bottomline is that Congress has abused and misused the commerce clause for untold years.

Slightly OT. ThinkProgress is pushing Dr. Atul Gawande as interim replacement for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. Good idea?

My answer would be no. I think the smart move is one of Kennedy’s top aides or former top aides. Someone who knows how and would vote like Teddy for that small few month period.

Whoever gets appointed could hire Teddy’s aides in the interim.

spelling question: did you mean customers instead of costumers?

A really, really horrible bill
And we waited six months for this .

I’ll bet the state insurance commissioners are not too happy with this.

Good catch!

Hi all. I’m new to commenting here, so bear with me. Here’s my two cents worth.

To me Baucus’ stinker of a bill reads that insurers would be able to ignore the states minium coverage rules if those states rules are more stringent than the federal law requires.

Lessoning regulations is not idea here.

The root of the problem is the fact that until we elect Democrats that act like Democrats, and furthermore, take them off the corporate teat, we will forever capitulate to the right. Clean elections is the key.

Agreed. I’m pissed because the Baucus bill is also the only bill of the four that doesn’t drop the 36-month Medicare period for post-transplant kidney patients.

It costs $17,000 per year on average to cover a post-transplant patient. It costs more than 4 times that to cover the same patient on dialysis.

Which is a bigger cost savings over the long-term?

I’ve never been a big fan of local control – I’d prefer that we have national mandates for both health coverage and for education. Living in Texas I’ve had ENOUGH of local wingnuts interfering with education so count me in for national mandates. However, we’ll need national oversight and the cost of that should be paid by the insurers.

That Medical Industrial Complex strikes again. It just GETS WORSE! One way to get more money to their greedy CEO’s is to deny coverage to Police Officers and Fire Fighters. Maybe when criminals attack health company employees or the house is burning down, just LET IT BE. The police and firefighters should deny coverage to them.

Health insurers have issued guidelines saying they could deny coverage to people suffering from such conditions as acne, hemorrhoids and bunions.

One big insurer refused to issue individual policies to police officers and firefighters, along with people in other hazardous occupations.

Typed this on an earlier thread, but it bears repeating. For insurance corps, living is a preexisting condition.

However, what we are most likely to get is a deal where the insurance companies get to pick the state with the least regulation and that becomes the “national” standard. It most likely will not be a true national system.

In education, Texas has an outsize influence on books and such due to their size, so it’s not just Texas students having to deal with the education interference.

I don’t think we want to give the Senate and the insurance companies an opening to bring “Texas style” insurance policies to the rest of the country.

How long before they reach the health insurance perfection they are clearly shooting for … insuring EVERYONE and covering NOTHING?

I apologize for this being off topic, but did this Fox News guest simply lie? Or did he just break the law? Everyone needs to read this article on Michael Scheuer.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2933

Yes, the Big Suck, as only we in the US know how to do it…badly. This Baucus bill is worse than doing nothing. It’s a farce, one that Molière would be able to satirize using only his little finger.

As in Le Médecin Malgré Lui…oh wait, that’s French. We’d never emulate their system!

The premption issue can cut both ways.

If there were a national public option, it would have to meet a federal standard for what it covers — the basic coverage requirements. If there were private competitors in the exchange, then they too should have to meet the same basic coverage requirements, otherwise, you’ve got prunes competing against apples.

Add to the this the concept of subsidies, which need to be tied to standardized products across the relevant market. If the feds subsidize low- to moderate-income folks purchasing policies on the exchange, then the subsidies need to be tied to standardized insurance plans. The argument is even stronger when you throw in the risk-allocation scheme from moving money from insurers with lower-risk enrollees to insurers with higher-risk enrollees. This suggests national standards would be needed.

It’s true Baucus doesn’t include a public option, unless you count his local co-ops, but it would still seem to make sense to have national standards for what the basic plan(s) included, even if the competitors were only private insurers. It wouldn’t make sense to allow states to say, “well, in South Carolina, the basic plan can include very little coverage.” So you’d need preemption at least on the down side.

It might be possible to allow states to set higher minimum coverage standards than the federal standard; that would imply that when you move from one state to another, your “national” plan actually might change.

mega profits from the sick and needy

christianity died on the cross

how sad this day has arrived in america

it had to happen just like communism had to fail capitalism has to self destruct

americans worship at the altar of capitalism not fair capitalism but corp fascism

if snowe and baucus are christians they have read little about what jesus taught. very little

greed and arrogance must self destruct

it is written in the infinite

Book Salon up at the Mothership with Max Blumenthal’s Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party hosted by watertiger

The Congress is back in session and doing the dirty work for the Medical Industrial Complex.

mcconnell $3.3M, hatch $2.9M, baucus $2.8M, grassley $2.7M,
lieberman $2.6M, burr $2.4M, ensign $2.4M, cornyn $2.2M, kyl $2.1M,
conrad $2.1M, cantor $1.8M boehner $1.7M, coburn $1.2M, j wilson 800K
were paid by the Medical Industrial Complex to kill Health Care Reform.
(Source: OpenSecrets.org)

Researchers from Harvard Medical School say the lack of coverage can be tied to about 45,000 deaths a year in the United States. 12 Million Americans were denied health care coverage by the Medical Industrial Complex because they had a pre-existing medical condition. 12K Americans are denied insurance coverage everyday by a for-profit Insurance bureaucrat. (Source: WaPo Article 05′ by Harvard Prof. E. Warren)

Medical malpractice lawsuits are a hot topic but, are they? Tort Reform is such a “red herring” and is easily disproved. A 2004 report by the Congressional Budget Office said medical malpractice makes up only 2 percent of U.S. health spending. Even “significant reductions” would do little to curb health-care expenses, it concluded.

Citizens for Tax Justice pointed this out. The tax legislation enacted under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2006 will cost $2.48 trillion over the 2001-2010 period. This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that results directly from the cheney/bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed. Over the upcoming decade (2010-2019), the costs of the health care proposals approved by three committees in the U.S. House of Representatives are projected to be around $1 trillion and deficit neutral(that means they’re paid for). In 2010, when all the cheney/bush tax cuts are finally phased in, a staggering 52.5 percent of the benefits will go to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers. The cheney/bush tax cuts were deficit-financed, which increased the national debt and resulted in greater interest payments on that debt. cheney/bush administration never even tried to pay for their tax-cuts. So, for the price of cheney/bush’s tax-cuts for the wealthiest 5%, we could have had Health Care for every American. Instead Americans got bupkus and cheney/bush’s republican campaign contributors/golf buddies got filthy rich off of the Blood Money from No-Bid, Cost-Plus Federal Contracts.

Follow the Money: Link

Call Congress and demand, Single-Payer Health Care for All!

(Toll Free # House and Senate)
1-866-338-1015_______________1-866-220-0044
1-800-473-6711_______________1-866-311-3405

Sign Single-Payer Petition: Link

Don’t let the Medical Industrial Complex steal your Health Care from you and your family by donating huge sums of money to Crooked Politicians in order to maintain the Status Quo. Keep up the good fight.

SEMPER FI!

Oh, good catch, and thank you. If it looks like Baucus’ travesty of a bill is getting traction, I may have to do something about it – like dialyze in Senators’ offices.

We need that coverage. Too many people have lost too many grafts because they couldn’t afford the immunosuppressant medications on their own and nobody would insure them.

I’m personally counting on it.