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The manager’s amendment would eliminate the state regulation gutting “nationwide” plans and replace them with “multi-state plans” in a new OPM exchange. This is a positive change I was hoping would be made.
If you are going to allow insurance companies to sell their plans on a national basis you need a national regulator to oversee them. While having the Secretary of HHS serve this function would be preferable, the Office of Personnel Management can be enlarged to do this.
Despite earlier reporting, the new OPM exchange will not be only for non-profit health insurance plans. It will only require that there be at least one non-profit plan in the program, but will also allow for-profit insurance companies to take part. This makes the already weak OPM exchange idea even weaker than the one originally floated a few weeks ago.
Unlike the “nationwide” plans there is no state opt-out for the new OPM exchange. Whether the OPM exchange within other exchanges can ever work in practice is still an open question. My support for this change is not that I think this new OPM exchange is in itself a great idea. I think this change is a positive development because it would eliminate what I think was an extremely destructive idea in the original bill.
Update – The OPM exchange requires only that one of the plans offered be a non-profit plan and that at least one plan offered not cover abortion. This, in theory, could result in women not having access to a non-profit plan in the new OPM exchange that does cover abortion, since the one non-profit plan offer could also be the one plan that doesn’t cover abortion.
Update 2 – The CBO shares my concern and is doubtful if the OPM exchange program would even be able to function properly.
The proposal would call on OPM to contract for two national or multi-state health insurance plans—one of which would have to be nonprofit—that would be offered through the insurance exchanges. Whether insurers would be interested in offering such plans is unclear, and establishing a nationwide plan comprising only nonprofit insurers might be particularly difficult. Even if such plans were arranged, the insurers offering them would probably have participated in the insurance exchanges anyway, so the inclusion of this provision did not have a significant effect on the estimates of federal costs or enrollment in the exchanges.
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OK, someone HAS to have something to bitch about on this. . .
Speechless at how much of these bills reads like it’s concern trolling the problem.
Give us time, give us time… :})
The whole thing is outrageous. Insulting. Enraging.
A perfect illustration of the Senate’s break from reality is happening right now on C-SPAN 2: To make a silly, juvenile point, the Republicans are forcing the clerks to read Reid’s amendment.
Aside from the ridiculous waste of time, it’s insulting and abusive to the clerks and shows how the lofty senators think the “little” people are just serfs.
They care for our general health about as much as they care for the clerks’ vocal cords.
Acronym problems again – OPM == “Other People’s Money”?
Hmm, later on it appears that it’s Office of Personnel Management.
Just saw a “breaking news” clip of Reid announcing a deal and saying that he spoke out strongly in favor of a public option.
He looked like he was about to start crying.
They fucked the American people.
They fucked themselves.
And they know it.
I had insurance with a “non-profit” provider. They kicked me out for “minor seasonal allergies,” so I don’t have much faith in the “non-profit” sector of health insurance.
My premiums were going up 20% or more each year I was on the plan.
Help us Obi Wan Pelosi! You’re our only hope!!
This is totally Reid’s fault. By giving the Republicans a no-cost GIMMEE on every fillibuster threat so far, instead of having them do it each and every time, the Republicans still have not exhausted America’ patience. There should have been a price the Republicans paid in the American public’s view of them for every delay.
Reid is either incompetent or a party to this entire charade. Take your pick.
Ah yes!
Well, say what you will, but Reid did get Boehner.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/the_congressional_budget_offic_5.html
Progressive should not give their money to Democrats BLINDLY!!!
Make all DEM CANDIDATES SIGN A CONTRACT!!! MAKE THEM WORK FOR YOU!!!
When LOBBYIST COME AND THEY WILL COME, MAKE PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATES FEAR INTERNET ADS, MASS MAILING TO THEIR BASE, ETC. LOBBYIST CANNOT GET PEOPLE ELECTED, WHEN THEY TELL THEM VOTE AGAINST DISCOUNT DRUGS
The key is to make sure each dem candidate understand you can wipe out thousands of his or her votes with stroke of a KEY!!!
THIS IS AN AWESOME DAY FOR PROGRESSIVES!!!!
Look on the bright side.
The guestimate that the Senate bill would save some $132b over the next decade would just about equal the amount that the new defense appropriation bill allocates to Iraq and Afghanistan for the whole of next year.
Assuming, of course, that the medical industrial complex doesn’t unleash its armies of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists to game the system, or that Rahmbobama doesn’t come back to Congress demanding a war supplemental.
Book Salon up at the Mothership with Jonathon Hafetz and Mark Denbeaux, The Guantanamo Lawyers hosted by Mary
Indeed! That’s why I’ve donated to the ActBlue project to run ads in Nevada critical of Reid.
I think we should have a pro-active plan of working to dump Reid, Lincoln, etc.; campaign for Repubs if necessary.
One must collect scalps. That’s how it works in corporate-owned, American politics.
Great. Something else to read. But thanks for the link. For the record, I’m skeptical but will be happy if the nationwide plan scam is gone. (Somehow I can’t believe it is since it didn’t get a proper airing.)
Jon,
Sorry I had to check for myself but I couldn’t believe it without looking. Sure enough, the Manager’s Amendment makes a clean surgical cut to nationwide plans.
My only question now is how this happened. It can’t be that Harry Reid learned it was on your chopping block. It can’t be that Ezra Klein stupidly blew the Senate’s cover.
My first problem is that I don’t know how nationwide plans got into HR 3590 in the first place. It is a leading plank in the Republican reform platform, bigger than tort reform. Frankly they could have been praising it but for fear of exposing it and suggesting they actually liked the bill.
Any idea what accounts for the elimination — or its original introduction? I’m really curious as the answer says a lot about current political dynamic.
Another problem is that now I don’t understand what vision the Senate has of the transition to exchanges and the mandate in 2014. I have an idea of what the House has in mind, but I don’t understand these OPM-supervised multistate plans at all, and without a printed out restatement of HR 3590 to reflect the manager amendment we’re now dependent on summaries, which are notoriously self-serving, obscure, and unreliable. (Just ask Ezra Klein.)
HELP!
It’s very impmortant to understand that “non-profit” does NOT = administered by the Lollipop Guild. Non-profits are guilty of the same bloodless thievery as for-profits. Blue Cross Blue Shield is a non-profit. Nuff said. If we hop in our time machine, we’d have to go back only a couple of days to the announcement by Blue Shield of California that it was dropping its non-pay grace period.