So the definition of a “great amendment” now is losing only one democrat???

Aiyeee.

No, it’s a “great amendment” cause Industry-Bitch Baucus was able to vote for it without worrying about losing his campaign dollars.

Only possible explanation.

Certainly not acceptable as a solution

Watching these hearings and STILL can’t understand what the hell they’re doing to us……why is it that the more I watch, the more defeated I feel? Somehow, I’m not, in any way, feelin’ ,the “change”…Obama upholds State Secrets, fights to defend not one but many Bush policies, allows single payer to be taken off the table even before the debate begins ….WHERE is that change? Where is the transparency you promised us, sir? He is now defending Cheney’s “right” NOT to have his interview with FBI made public, and doing so using the EXACT SAME REASONING Bush used! This is beyond depressing.

WHERE is the change, Mr. President, that “I” voted for?!

Here are the most important things as I understand this shrewd amendment:

1. States don’t have to opt in, so those like Kyl who are all about ’state’s rights’ (or its many variants) just lost that argument.

2. It removes and diminishes a lot of the GOP claims about ‘competition’, because it basically simply puts a state-level negotiator between individuals and healthCos; the state has the clout to bargain down package prices, but the actual payment system is still implemented by healthCos. This moves toward what is called ‘managed care’ (the Cleveland Clinic is one example of a managed care system).

In Washington state, the state negotiates on behalf of it’s Medicare and state retirees (troopers, cops, firefighters, teachers, legislators, etc, etc). If you are a healthCo, you negotiate to be part of the state system, but the state retains the clout and regulatory authority to set the parameters for costs, options, etc, etc. If you can’t meet the state parameters, then no one buying through the state will purchase from your healthCo b/c you aren’t meeting the state requirements to be an approved provider.

Once you are an approved provider, then you compete for patients with all the other providers — but all of you have to meet the state’s guidelines, which provides some cost control. And the state uses its ‘clout’ to negotiate the best Medicare rates it can (and since that is a state budget cost, you can see the state’s incentive to pay fair costs that keep good docs in the state, while also not bankrupting the state budget).

Then, once you’re approved by the state negotiator, all those employees, retirees, and Medicare patients can decide which of the healthCos (and which state-approved plan offered by the healthCo) to sign up for — people then decide which of the plans they can afford that best meets their needs. They then sign up with **that** healthCo.

Which means that in one brilliant stroke, if I’m correct about Cantwell’s proposal, she’s completely and absolutely demolished the GOP fears of ’single payer,’ and ’states rights’, while at the same time moving the entire nation toward more functional, managed care health care models b/c the cost structures make it cheaper for health care providers to pay for exercise and cooking classes than to pay for coronary bypass surgery.

I still prefer Wyden’s plan (and Rockefeller’s) b/c they leave no stone unturned in the sense that the ENTIRE nation is covered.

But this strikes me as a genius move by Cantwell; looks like Schumer sees it the same way.

This reveals the Dems to have a much, much deeper bench than the GOP. This was a triple-run homer by Cantwell, IMVHO.

WHERE is the change, Mr. President, that “I” voted for?

*
I think that he left us on the floor of the DEM Convention in some deal with the Clintons. He has opened their play-book and can’t put it down.

Come on Barack! Isn’t there a sunset provision to the GREAT DEM PRIMARY COMPROMISE?

Committee = Senate Finance Committee

The Finance Committee has been working on health care “reform” for a year. Why are these grand new solutions being presented at the last minute, Cantwell and Carper, when we can hardly understand either their intent or effect? Probably because some lobbyist wrote them up and threw them over the Committee room transom.

Really, all this crap about transparency and accountability is absurd. These are last-minute proposals no one has read. Why is our legislature operating like this? It’s laughable, except it’s tragic.

Washington State’s Basic Health Plan sounds nice in theory, but if the goals are cost control AND universal coverage, this is story from June is rather ominous…

“Premiums for Washington’s Basic Health Plan will as much as double in January as part of a strategy to drive thousands of members off the popular but cash-strapped state-subsidized insurance program.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c…..th08m.html

Yeah, sounds like a winner. Apparently we’re fated to try every possible solution that keeps insurance companies in business before we finally go to Medicare for All. We’re all hostages to fortune till then.

The only thing more cost-effective than Medicare is full-bore socialized medicine. If I were in state government, I’d look at using fire department paramedics to implement a Community Health Aide program like that used in Native Alaskan villages (at an annual cost in 2007 of $1100 for each of the 550,000 Native Alaskans covered). http://www.akchap.org/GeneralInfo.cfm

There’s a 1993 GAO report that looked at the idea of using paramedics in this role. “Health Care Access: Innovative Programs Using Nonphysicians”.
http://archive.gao.gov/d49t13/149892.pdf

OK found a slightly more recent link to the paramedic idea—

First U.S. Community Paramedic Course Underway

* Mannie Garza
* April 2009 EMS Insider Vol. 36 No. 4
* 2009 Apr 1

Ten paramedics in Minnesota will become the first U.S. “Community Paramedics” this spring when they complete a course that prepares them to provide expanded health services in areas short on other health-care practitioners.
http://www.jems.com/news_and_a…..eople.html