The entire morning of the Senate Finance Committee mark up was dominated with heated debate about Rockefeller’s robust public option amendment. Most Democrats agreed with Rockefeller, saying such a plan would be needed to increase choice, improve competition, and keep private insurance companies honest. Republicans claimed it would the start of a “slow walk” to government-run, single-payer health insurance.
All ten Republicans on the committee voted against the amendment. Five Democrats (Kent Conrad, Max Baucus, Blanche Lincoln, Bill Nelson, Thomas Carper) also voted against the amendment. Eight Democrats (Jay Rockefeller, Jeff Bingaman, John Kerry, Ron Wyden, Charles Schumer, Debbie Stabenow, Maria Cantwell, Robert Menendez) vote in support of Rockefeller’s amendments.
The debate did have some interesting political developments. Bill Nelson did not really like Rockefeller’s public option because it would pay Medicare rates for the first two years. Nelson seemed to be very open to the way Chuck Schumer designed his plan. Nelson did not talk at length about Rockefeller’s robust public option, but has endorsed Schumer’s “level playing field” public option.
Kent Conrad was very upset that Rockefeller’s public option would be tied to Medicare schedules given that North Dakota has one of the lowest Medicare reimbursement rates in the country.
He also clearly lives in a fantasy world. Conrad talked about how some systems (Beligium, Netherlands) technically have universal coverage provided by private insurance funds. Yes, it is possible to have a good universal health care system with only private insurance providers, but it needs to be highly regulated. Baucus’s bill doesn’t come anywhere close to the level of government regulation that kind of system requires to work.
If Conrad offered an amendment copying the robust regulation, generous subsidies, strong bad practice penalties, and powerful risk equalizer of the Netherlands’ system, then we can talk about the possibility of reform without a public option.
Olympia Snowe, Thomas Carper, and Blanche Lincoln cannot be bothered to publicly debate one of the committee’s most important amendments. It seems neither Olympia Snowe, Thomas Carper, nor Blanche Lincoln thought they needed to explain their opposition to a robust public option in the official Senate record.
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The Senate Finance Committee: now with 22% more tool!
sorry to repost this here (from the previous thread), but I thought I’d make my plea again: we may get Nelson on Schumer’s, but that’s still three votes short for passage. As I said on the previous thread, we should force Obama and the Senate Dem leadership to embrace the other bill (the one with a PO) by blocking this in Finance… and that means hitting the phones to Rockefeller and Schumer (and Kerry, Wyden, Menendez, Stabenow and Cantwell) in order to give them the confidence to vote No on a PO-less bill. Since we can count on 10 rethugs and possibly one or two conservadems to do the wrong thing anyway, all we need is between 1 and 2 votes to block this, causing it to fail in Finance. It’s time to go all out to FORCE the PO back onto the table by taking this bill off the table. PO or NO, No PO No Referral.
I told you that there would be no PO coming out of the Finance Commitee 3 weeks ago..
Clearly, the TV ad in Arkansas was far too soft.
How about a new one with phrases like “stabbed the working people of Arkansas in the back”
or “blood money from insurance companies”?
oops comments were eaten:
Here’s Prairie Sunshine
The American public is seen as nothing but chumps there for the fleecing by Congress and their corporatist pals. Is this a great system or what? People reduced to living in their vans down by the river and they still are chanting “We’re number 1″.
another one:
VADEM
Quick.. join Mensa.
#3:
Morris Sheppard
Sep 29, 12:34 PM
While agree with the sentiment, I’m not sure that if that kind of wording doesn’t have the opposite effect? Or was that /snark?
and the last one:
Morris Sheppard
So much for kissing Snow’s butt. She votes no along with Baucus, Conrad, Lincoln.
Lincoln No
Snowe No
Baucus No
Time to vote no for everything from now on in this committee.
Period.
Don’t forget Conrad
Exactly
They don’t care what the people want, they don’t care what the people need, they’re just slaves to pigs at the trough. We need to reform the campaign finance system to make it public only, otherwise our votes are virtually useless.
And the nation continues to be held hostage
turning it off. Not much worth watching any more.
Thank you.
Off topic….8.3 earthquake in American Samoa. First tsunami has hit Samoa. South Pacific under tsunami warning. We’ll find out in about an hour if it hits the east coast of New Zealand. I’m high and dry in the center of the North Island and safe.
Maybe we can see to it that Baucus can’t come up with 60 votes in his next reelection bid.
amendment fails 10-13
Baucus, Conrad, & Lincoln – NO
So good to hear you are safe.
Why do we bother with these jokers?
So what happens if no bill is reported out of this committee?
I know I’ve read the process somewhere before, but in a nutshell . . . ?
If California can recall a governor, can Montana recall a senator?
If they could, I’m sure I wouldn’t like the alternative any better. Montana Republicans make mere batshit crazy look like fossilized guano.
Let’s do everything we can to get rid of Lincoln in 2010. Who is with me?
I want my country back.
I am home ill today with an upper respiratory infection. I have public school teacher insurance and was able to get in and see my doctor 3 hours after I called. Now I have the peace of mind that this is not the flu and probably not strep.
$20 to see the doc.
Why shouldn’t every American be able to do the same?
Buck Faucus.
Kagro’s answer
all of which is wide open to fillibuster
I’m sick at heart.
My uncle murdered by his HMO — prostate cancer, easily treated (my sister’s a doctor, had her oncologist friends look into his case) — his HMO denied and delayed until. he. was. dead.
There are several more health insurance horror stories in my family alone.
I don’t use this term lightly, but the Blue Dogs and Republicans are also murderers in pay of the insurance company.
No longer hyperbole.
he. My bet is that she votes No regardless of what sort of shite bill the committee comes up with in the end. That’s why I’ve been saying for weeks that I think we can block this with two votes ;-). Let’s make sure this bill dies in Finance and thus take the president’s choices away and force him to work with the HELP bill if he wants to get reform done. And, hey, if it forces Baucus further into collaboration with Snowe, so be it. If the bill fails in committee anyway, who cares how badly he screws it up and sells out.. it’s all the more ammunition to use against him in the next election. Weakening Baucus politically should be a goal.
I say, let them try. We got them 60 votes. If the dems can’t hold it together then they deserve to go down. They will not be forgiven.
yep.
Kabuki.
Senators and Representatives are considered “Federal Officers” and are not subject to recall, even in states where recall exists.
Once seated for a term, they are pretty much there (unless expelled by their colleagues – with James Traficant being the last Member of Congress to date)
sadly Rev, I’ve been annoying commenters all day with the notion that even those now voting yes are doing so to cover their re-election asses and will vote No on final Senate bill
We desperately need to find / vet a good candidate to run against her. ASAP.
AR Chamber of Commerce Democratic Party will defend her at all costs..
better a no on a sh*tty bill than a yes.
Either they vote out a good bill or they are history and will spend the rest of their lives working for the f*cking insurance companies. Let them!
by that you mean Mall-Wart, of course.
LOL
Ding
And Blue Cross. Not to forget what big Agro will do for her as well.
Hey Kent Conrad, Max Baucus, Blanche Lincoln, Bill Nelson, Thomas Carper:
Can you spell “Primary Challenge?”
My contempt for these fuckers is off the scale…
Nelson and Carper came over on the Schumer “compromise.”
But the others . . . . you said it.
DITTO
Nelson is up in 2012. We’re working on ousting him. Just another corporatist leech.
Anyone see the smug SOB photo of Baucus over here?:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Sickening.
why, that’s positively Liebermanesque!
just wait until we see how Lieberman votes on the final bill……
Great photo to glue to a punching bag.
McClatchy is reporting:
Someone needs to clue in McClatchy that this was the plan all along.
let them take this view.. it helps us. We have to force the president to accept that there has to be PO. Equating the failure of a PO with a setback for the president is exactly what we need.
“Why has Max Baucus derailed President Obama’s health care plan?”
Exactly right.
Another tragedy caused by the U.S. “healthcare system.” It really is criminal. The French aristocracy got away with exploiting the emerging middle class and the poor until one day they found themselves walking up the steps of the guillotine.
Disgusted with the whole thing,from this “BS” vote to the unbridled words that are coming out of the mouths and print from the right wing.
Beck calls the president a racist and gets on time magazine cover.
And the media is”LIBERAL”?
Please.
The democrats have “NO SPINE”.
Lincoln got a chairmanship and still votes “No”. Encroyable.
What does she want?
Will removing mandates make it easier on WalMart, er Lincoln?
And a big AMEN to that
The argument for the public option is really straightforward and was needlessly tortured by those opposing it.
First the PO would be immediately viable because there are currently millions that are uninsured, including those that could pay for reasonably priced premiums. Granted the population which the PO plan would insure would be more expensive to cover than those which the private insurers cover because they would generally be sicker. That is because they would mainly be those people which private insurers excluded because they were too expensive to cover. Even with this disadvantage, the PO would be able to offer affordable rates, enough so to sustain the plan.
If the PO were allowed to bargain down prescription drug prices and to fully reimburse only best paractice treatment, including preventative measures, then health costs could be held to affordable levels and with lower premiums. If people then flock to this plan then all the better.
The Senators who opposed the plan specifically Lincoln, Carter, Conrad and Baucus should be voted out and replaced by people that want the PO. Every effort should be expended to this end, including funding alternative candidates, opposing ads and applying relentless pressure with calls and emails.
These senators must be made to feel the pressure and to know that by declaring their position in opposition to the majority of people’s wishes they have crossed the Rubicon. They will be voted out. This is the only way we have left to advocate for a plan that is crucial and in our best interest.
If you live in Tennessee or Virginia, this is what is deemed, defended and supported as “the acceptable standards of your health care”.
http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=62
WE MUST HAVE PUBLIC OPTION because the status quo means more denial of care or rationing.
One point that needs to be made to rebut the claim that Republicans and others contiuously make, namely that health insurers somehow determine the way health care is delivered. For example they rail against the fear that a single payer system will give rise to socialized medicine.
Well of course insurers of any stripe, be it single-puplic or private have nothing to do with how health care is delivered much less determining it. Insurers pay for the delivered health care that is provided by doctors, nurses and others, and to do so they use the funds that people pay as premiums. They do nothing else. Private insurers keep a portion of that payment for themselves whereas public insurers do not. That is the long and short of it.
Further, competition in the making of this payment does not enter into this type of transaction. Either you prefer to give away to someone a portion of your funds when paying for the care you receive, or you do not. The very idea of competing for who you give more of your funds to is absurd.
The canard that is propagated inspite of all evidence to the contrary is that there is a deep seated social bias against a government managed health insurance plan. Even the most fleeting assessment of public sentiment reveals that: roughly 75% of people and physicians prefer a PO; that 84% of beneficiaries like Medicare and Social Security and the VA.
In contrast, the vast majority of people loath the abuses that spring from unfettered free makets: financial system; private health insurers; corrupt corporations like Enron and others.
So there is absolutely no evidence that people hate the idea of government run enterprises and many use them every day while taking them for granted like: the postal service school systems, courts.
Lastly, the very notion of insurance is based on collective effort because it requires that people collectively contribute to a pool from which they then draw funds to meet an expense which they can not aford to make alone.
The majority of the american people do not want the Gov’t taking over 1/6 of the economy..Hell they can’t even run the USPS or AMTRACK…
Criminally corrupt politicians are the reason the U.S. is ranked near the bottom of every catagory when ranked next to other modern, industrialized nations. Time for publically funded elections.
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)
Co-Author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler of a Recent Harvard Study on Annual Deaths of America’s Uninsured, says the lack of coverage can be tied to about 45,000 deaths a year in the United States. The only way to affordably cover all Americans is through a Medicare-for-All, Single-Payer System. A Single-Payer System would generate $300-$400 billion in administrative savings annually, enough to cover all of the uninsured, and to plug the gaps in coverage for Americans with only partial coverage. Obviously, Medicare-for-all is anathema to the insurance industry. What politicians are doing is saving insurance industry profits, by sacrificing American lives.
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.
bush(43) economic speech writer david frum, at least, is willing to admit the idea about selling insurance across state lines is a crock:
New Jersey health policies cost more in large part because New Jersey hospitals and doctors charge more. If I buy a cheaper Kentucky policy that reimburses my providers at Kentucky rates, leaving me to pay the balance, how much good does that do me? And if the Kentucky policy is made to pay New Jersey rates, there vanishes my low Kentucky price.
These are some of the easily refuted arguments bought and paid for by the Medical Industrial Complex to derail any chance of their criminally massive profits being reduced.
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!