Good this happening now.

the Eshoo-Barton amendment still in the endorsed bill – find it difficult to believe Consumers Union is unaware of the ramifications for consumers in this boondoogle

It is very much the baby and the bath water type of problem. Just how polluted must the water get before it ends up killing the babe.

OT Heads up: Tomorrow the October job numbers come out.

Jon, here’s a question for you:
What in the Constitution gives the government the right to mandate to anyone that they must have health insurance?

My perspective is that the government does have the right under the Constitution to offer a government healthcare/insurance plan because of the words ‘provide for the general welfare’ BUT I don’t see where the government has the right to mandate and fine anyone for not having healthcare.

Are we all willing to trash the Constitution upon the altar of this bill?

i see no reason to think this reform measure, as it currently exists, will be anything other than a massive FAIL — increasing healthcare costs, further breaking the system and further enriching and entrenching the same industries that work to prevent sensible healthcare reform so that we can provide universal comprehensive healthCARE to all.

no other country on the planet has made a for profit, market based healthcare system work. that we continue to put market fundamentalism and the health of corporations ahead of the health of our people is an outrage.

16th amendment allows the levying of income tax. It is long establish law that we can give people tax credits or tax waivers for if you do something. Basically you can argue the mandate is an income tax on everyone but with waivers from the tax for people who buy insurance.

chris floyd’s short post is still imo the definitive description of our current health care reform debates:

The Reason for the Anger and Intractability of the Debate Over Health Care Reform in the United States:

One side is lying; the other side is not telling the truth.

*

Or to put it another way: One side is pretending that a wildly reactionary plan to further enrich rapacious corporations is really hardcore, gutbucket socialism from the Bolshevik trenches, while the other side is pretending that its “reform” is not really a wildly reactionary plan to further enrich rapacious corporations but something that will somehow, in some way, be good for some people at some point way down the line.

*

One often finds that dealing in such utter unreality makes it somewhat difficult to achieve workable solutions to real-life problems.

Basically you can argue the mandate is an income tax

a massively regressive income tax

Then, using your logic Jon, where is the mention of the IRS code to cover this? And from what I have read, an expenditure is required even if such is given back in the form of a ‘credit’.

Where is the ‘income’ upon which the mandate to purchase is rested upon given the employer exemption?

from pnhp: CBO on premiums and cost sharing of the House bill:

Of the many flaws in the very expensive and highly inefficient model of health care reform that Congress has selected, one of the more important is the financial impact that it will have on middle- and upper-middle income individuals and families. Let’s look at the example of a family of four with a very good income: $102,100.

The premium ($15,000) and average cost sharing ($5,500) that that family would have to pay would leave them with a net income of $81,600. That is not bad, but it certainly falls short of the $100,000 plus income that no doubt the family believes they should have.

Also that family would likely want coverage beyond the average of the three lowest-cost basic plans. They would want coverage greater than an actuarial value of 70 percent, especially since employer-sponsored coverage now provides an average actuarial value of 80 percent. They would also want more protection should their out-of-pocket medical expenses exceed the $5,500 average net cost sharing. Even with caps on cost sharing, the family would still be responsible for non-benefit products and services and for often-unavoidable out-of-network health care. Take those costs out of the $81,600 balance and that one-hundred-thousand-dollar-income family is going to be very unhappy with this reform legislation.

Do you think that they know about this? Do you think that maybe we should tell them?

I agree that it is a bit too easy to want to undo whatever modest gains are provided for in this House bill.

A recent assessment by an MIT/CBO PhD specilaist was made comparing the premium cost between people eligible for the exchange as opposed to current non-group purchasers of insurance. His calculations showed a reduction in costs of $470 to $1260 for individuals and families per year, at least, without including the additional benefits from subsidies.

Granted this is a limited comparison and says nothing about the lack of regulations limiting cost increases by private insurers and other giveaways to Phrma. But it is also true that there is nothing to preclude these issues from being revisited and corrected.

An irrelevant but still maybe suggestive fact is that by opposing the passage of this bill, one faces the unsavory fact of being allied with the extremists on the right. Also there is still the possibility of pushing for some improvements on the most egregious aspects as the bill is considered before final passage.

“one faces the unsavory fact of being allied with the extremists on the right.” ; if the ‘extremists’ have a position that is a ‘correct’ position, one shouldn’t be concerned with the ‘unsavory fact’; it might actually be an opportunity to come to an agreement. Especially when the ‘people over profits’ argument is made and the Constitution is used as the mechanism for justifying a single payer healthcare system.

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I hate to break it to you but I have not heard a single legitimate constitutional scholar who has claimed it would be overturned by the Supreme court. I’m sure someone will try to bring this case if a bill passes but it will likely fail.

Yes, you are right, I did say that it was unsavory but also not relevant.

It is not however the case that the positions from the right and the left coincide because they are both equally true. In fact they are diametrically opposed. The left argues that the proposed bill does not go far enough in the direction of reform and should therefore be scrapped for a better more comprehensive tax based single payer not for profit system. The right wants reform to be scrapped and let the for profit system continue and just allow more inter-state deregulation of private insurers.

That the positions coincide says nothing about the positions themselves.

As long as private insurers and pharma can underwrite their investment losses and protect their profits with monopolistic rate increases the public is scr***d. They hold us hostgage and we have no recourse. Congress have caved for campaign cash at our expense.

I’ve not heard ANYONE address this issue so if you would provide some links to those “legitimate constitutional scholar(s)” who have, it would be greatly appreciated.

We’re # 37!

http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com/video/110509.htm

“That the positions coincide says nothing about the positions themselves.” ;understood and you are correct in that is the media’s take. My experience ,however, in actually discussing with some ‘teabaggers’ the issue (especially when I point out what the current healthcare system is doing to small businesses) is we do come to an agreement that the system needs changing and that a ‘medicare for all’ phased in is acceptable to those ‘teabaggers’ who still have the capacity for rational thought. The others are a lost cause and they are in the ‘rapture of the ideologue’.

Yes, most rational people can not justify the current system and can be persuaded.

The problem people in this site are grappling with is whether it’s better to scrap this current attempt at reform for being on balance more harmful than good, in the expectaton that a better proposal will come out of congress later if we continue to apply pressure. That is a pretty open question.

It is a difficult posiition to be in. Being the realistic and cautious type, I lean to taking even a small step in supporting the current bill in that it will afford increased coverage with lower rates for those in the exchage and place some modest limits regarding exclusions and rescisions on private insurers.

I only take this step because the opposing prevailing forces in this country are just too great. Deeply wrong headed beliefs among the public is not the problem as much as deeply entrenched monied interests. Those forces are not going away any time soon and a struggle for change may come step by step.

if it does fail jon, the problem is that many people will feel it to be unjust (perhaps even unconstitutional regardless of what the supreme court may say). and that’s a problem is the reform does not deliver — it will just fuel the anti-gov outrage, and we really don’t need to be provoking a right wing populist uprising.

“The problem people in this site are grappling with is whether it’s better to scrap this current attempt at reform for being on balance more harmful than good, in the expectaton that a better proposal will come out of congress later if we continue to apply pressure. That is a pretty open question.” ; one doesn’t have to ‘scrap this current attempt’ to scrap a flawed bill because of some arbitrary time constraint demanded by Obama and Rahm.

And it hasn’t been reconciled with the Senate version -whatever that might end up being- AND we know that the Senate version will be much mnore ‘conservative’ than HR3962.

The failure to include the Kucinich amendment is VERY BIG to me because I live in CA and we’ll have a new governor who most likely would not veto the single payer legislation the voters have TWICE passes only to have the Schwarz veto it.

Add to that the Eshoo amendment and as far as I’m concerned, this bill should be defeated and a rewrite be done. Based on what I read, it’s a setup for failure.

The Congress could rescind all antitrust exemptions for the industry(HR3962 does do this), allow for Medicare to negotiate drug prices(it does this to a degree), do away with rejection because of ‘pre-existing condition’ exclusions(it does that), and reduce Medicare enrollment age to 55 immediately(does not do that) and younger ages as time goes by(does not do that)remove ‘lifetime caps’(it does do that) and then come back to examine the results of those changes without causing the divisions in the populace that the current bill does.

also, imo, regardless on where we come down on the question…. jane raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of cpc members who promised to vote the bill down if it did not include certain po features. for 57 of them, the conditions have not been met and imo we have to have their back, and jane’s, to support them if they follow through on their pledge or to hold them accountable if they do not.

p.s. i don’t blame you for your position on the bill. if i lived in CA or PA, i’d be wanting to pursue the single payer efforts instead of this pos.

i’m not sure, but it may even be that MA is better off without the proposed reform. it’s confusing though because if there are additional fed $$$ that will help, even if benefits decrease. very complicated.

For me it’s not an argument on the merits, I agree with the demerits of this bill that you cite. It is more a question of how to proceed.

Do you continue to attempt to push for more improvements on the existing proposal or do you make the decision to actively oppose its passage. It’s one or the other. We know there are people bent on defeating this attempt for the wrong reason and if it goes down in defeat they will believe that it was their doing.

We know further that Obama, Reid, Landrieu, Lincoln are worthless as are many in congress. I believe that they should pay a price. But that threat needs to be credible and I believe that a campaign to support alternative candidates should begin now. That is the biggest leverage we have.