Comments on: Bayh: If 50 Senators Really Want A Public Option, They Can Get It With Reconciliation

By: tosh

tosh — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:06:24 +0000

I like that the “Senator Wellpoint” crack is starting to take hold. :)

I *think* that we might see further reform *next year* through reconciliation. As much as we would like to get everything this year, if we get some of the foundational items down that need the 60 votes, next year we can make “adjustments” to them via reconciliation.

I’m not sure how much of a stomach there is Leadership or the White House to fight some of these smaller wars. But I don’t think this:

Level Playing Field –> Medicare + 5% + Rural Adjustments

Is something that would run into Byrd Rule issues. It saves around $80B, and simply sets rates rather than creates the PO structure.

The worry then becomes the Blue Dogs.

Well, get some primary folks out there.

John

By: mikesong

mikesong — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:37:27 +0000

Finally, Bayh gets something right!

This is obviously going to reconciliation, unless someone can get Joe Lieberman and Roland Burris to hug it out.

The eminently straight-reporting and sober Susan Page said a few months ago that reconciliation was likely to get this done – I’ve never doubted her.

By: letsgetitdone

letsgetitdone — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:40:39 +0000

Thanks. Where’s Jon’s reply, I wonder.

By: purplefishies

purplefishies — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:37:33 +0000

Lets pass this baby by reconcilliation….

and then lets put the fucking foot up the fucking ass of Lieberdouche.

Send that little beyotch into the fucking mines for the rest of his pathetic little career until he is gone in 2012.

By: selise

selise — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:58:30 +0000

The much-maligned “public option” would save every American taxpayer money (since we spend much more per capita than the dreaded socialized-medicine countries) and give the poor, or the recently-laid-off, a feasible, workable alternative to paying for everything out-of-pocket (which can put you among the reviled, credit-card-debt-ridden sector of the American public right quick.)

public option in hr 3200 might save as much as $110 billion over ten years. that’s less than 0.5% of our nation’s total healthcare expenditures.

it is not the public option, but the subsidies (that apply to both private insurance public option in the exchange) that provide the alternative for the poor to paying everything out of pocket.

there are reasons to support some kind of a public option, but they are not the ones you give.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8870
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/9592

robust does not mean what it used to mean.

By: noneofyourguff

noneofyourguff — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:46:17 +0000

The much-maligned “public option” would save every American taxpayer money (since we spend much more per capita than the dreaded socialized-medicine countries) and give the poor, or the recently-laid-off, a feasible, workable alternative to paying for everything out-of-pocket (which can put you among the reviled, credit-card-debt-ridden sector of the American public right quick.) That lobbyists have the influence to make a mockery of the very idea of government-funded healthcare (when by most accounts it is the LEAST expensive – unless your accounting is skewed by political expediency) is an obscenity. For-profit health insurance companies, which barely existed 40 years ago, insist that government-funded healthcare cannot even be permitted as an option, because simply by virtue of not existing to turn a profit, it would obviously out-compete them. To them I say – suck it up, you bastards. You’ve profiteered long enough by bilking the still-solvent and abandoning the desperate. Maintaining the profitability of the vast for-profit insurance sector is not your job, Congress – and certainly not sufficient reason to screw over millions of hard-working Americans yet again.

By: selise

selise — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:46:00 +0000

good call. that would require thinking ahead and a political strategy informed by policy analysis, not talking points, and not strictly focused on the next vote.

By: letsgetitdone

letsgetitdone — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:37:19 +0000

Hi Jon, You asked:

"The question may come down to whether a bill that would be watered down by the strange Byrd rule would still end up a better bill than one watered down to fulfill the whims of Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, or Ben Nelson."

It doesn't have to be watered down. In fact, it can be optional Medicare for All. See the three-step strategy.

By: letsgetitdone

letsgetitdone — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:34:16 +0000

Hi selise, They can do it in three steps outlined here.

By: letsgetitdone

letsgetitdone — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:30:13 +0000

Making money? Betraying his mother’s memory?