- ‹ previous
- 2119 of 2715
- next ›
Healthcare Update
HEALTHCARE UPDATE....Senator Max Baucus is outlining his healthcare reform proposal today, and naturally, now that Barack Obama is in town, he brings the socialism!
I don't think a single payer health care system makes sense in this country. We are America, we will come up with a uniquely American health care system that's a combination of public and private.
....I do believe we should not scrap the employer based system. We should maintain it. We should build upon it. But the current vision of the tax code has certain inefficiencies that I believe we can address while still building on the employer-based system.
Wait a second. That's not socialism at all. What the hell is going on here?
Hmmph. And here I thought the revolution had arrived. Jon Cohn provides a quickie look at the non-socialistic Baucus plan:
It look a lot like the plan Barack Obama touted on the campaign trail: Expanded Medicaid and S-CHIP for the poor; a pooling mechanism that allows individuals and the uninsured to buy coverage at group rates; a new public insurance plan, modeled vaguely on Medicare, that would be available to people buying coverage through the new pool; subsidies to offset the cost of insurance coupled with efforts to restrain the cost of medicine in the long term; and regulations that force insurers to sell to everybody, regardless of pre-existing condition.
But Baucus' plan will differ from Obama's in one intriguing, and important, way. According to the Wall Street Journal's Laura Meckler, it will include a requirement that all people obtain insurance. In other words, it will include an individual mandate. That was a major source of contention during the Democratic primaries. Obama opposed such a mandate, while Senator Hillary Clinton supported it. (As readers of this space know, I think Clinton was absolutely right about this.)
More later as details of his plan percolate through the capitol. (The full policy paper is here.) Overall, it sounds a lot like what we heard during the campaign, with an interesting addition that allows people to buy into Medicare at age 55 if they want, and I very much doubt that mandates will be a huge sticking point with Obama. In fact, he might very well breathe a sigh of relief that someone like Baucus is insisting on it, since it gives him an easy out on the issue.
Bottom line: Republicans will almost certainly try to filibuster whatever the final product turns out to be, but they're going to have a hard time making it stick. Unlike 1994, Baucus, Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and the president are roughly on the same page, the liberal interest groups are interested in getting something done, not bickering, and even the business community is finally coming around to the need for dramatic action. I give serious healthcare reform an 80% chance of passing before June.
Kevin,
The email script on the blog doesn't seem to be working, or I'd have used that, but this link is worth checking out:
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/11/fake_new_york_ti...
Apparently, some group has created a hoax NYT dated 7/4/09 announcing the end of the Iraq war and other items of interest.
I do wonder how much disagreement there will be over the details of any plan. There seems to be an incredible array of plans that hope to arrive at the same conclusion, but the details matter here in more than any other sort of legislation that I can think of in recent time. Even with plans that seem to overlap fairly well, I wonder how much longer the legislative process will take. Or is the big stuff out of the way, since so many people have plans, with writing them into final legislation that can be voted on being the easy part?
The health care debate is sorely in need of an all-out barrage of factual information showing that single-pay coverage WORKS. Canada, UK, France, etc., even with a few problems, provide much better care overall than the US.
This needs to be presented in a matter-of-fact way and not in an over-dramatized fashion (as in Sicko) so that people are exposed to facts, and not the "socialized medicine" propaganda that typically makes the rounds when the subject of reform rears its head.
Seriously, the only way to rein in costs and provide decent coverage for all is to scrap the current system almost entirely.
I may naive, but I think any health system should eliminate the profit motivation by excluding the insurance industry. Anything less would only perpetuate the current fiscal mess we have today.
To this day, I am offended that "health care" and "profit" have to somehow be linked in this country.
There is a place for profit. Keeping people healthy is not such a place. And don't get me started about the obscene profits stuffing the pockets of drug industry executives...
The insurance companies, in the spirit of capitalism, appreciate the value of a government mandating every individual must purchase private health insurance.
Not quite sure why Baucus is so enamored of the employer connection, given the other provisions that would be implemented. Is it just a case of leaving everything as is as much as possible, so as not to spook the citizenry?
Propositions:
1) Unless you favor universal healthcare, in some meaningful form, you should be denied all healthcare. Ability and willingness to pay are irrelevant.
2) An insurer's wrongful denial of health benefits should be treated as attempted murder. Respondeat superior should apply. A showing of statistically significant unusual denials to the insured as a class should suffice as a prima facie to convict executives.
3) A strong social stigma should attach to working with for medical insurer.
4) Medical insurance profits should be regarded as blood money.
"Wait a second. That's not socialism at all. What the hell is going on here?"
Unless all Americans have the equal right to be refused coverage for pre-existing conditions, we are not truly free. If we no longer all equally face the risk of losing our house from cancer-treatment medical bills, then the jackboot of communism is not far from our neck.
Perhaps you'd rather be in that socialist hellhole called Sweden with socialized healthcare and their long vacations than in the Land of the Free, comrade Drum?
Can there be any savings if the insurance companies are sucking money out of the system at the current rate?
And I don't get how the unemployed, for example, will be able to buy insurance. They can't afford it, even at group rates. They won't be eligible for Medicaid, because they own a house or have savings they're living on or the like. And they aren't old. Furthermore, this keeps a heavy burden of insuring employees on business, especially small businesses.
he might very well breathe a sigh of relief that someone like Baucus is insisting on it, since it gives him an easy out on the issue.
OK, now that we've figured out how this works I say we divide up the rest of Hillary's three point, five point, and six point plans among conservative democratic senators from the mountain states and south. We can call them stimulus packages.
I love it when the federal government tells me what I have to buy, upon penalty of fine or imprisonment. Can't you just feel that freedom??
Kevin--
Ezra Klein has reported that, at the press conference, Baucus said it would take "at least three years" to roll out the plan.
From my reading of the white paper that sounds about right.
Do you have any further information on what Baucus has said about timing?
Sorry-- I'm "anonymous" --
didn't mean to post anonymously.
Given the size of Obama's victory and the length of his coattails the chances of something getting done in the first year are high. But given the cost and the screaming that would ensue I'd be stunned if universal care with a mandate came to pass anytime in the first term.
If there was anything that proved Obama was a different kind of democrat -- and there were many -- it was his decision to omit a mandate from his health care proposal. It proves, among other things, that his people looked at the disaster that was Hillary-care and learned a few lessons.
The numbers vary depending on your assumptions concerning costs, providers, etc. but every analysis indicates that there are more than 5 million people in the country who would not purchase health care without a mandate. Imposing a mandate immediately makes a lot of these people into a highly energized (and loud) single-issue interest group. Combined with the sure obstructionism of most of the Republican caucus -- remember Phil Gramm et al. back in the 90s? -- things would quickly come to a halt.
Obama's "middle way" is much more pragmatic in terms of actually getting something truly reformative done in the first year.
One thing is for sure, we need people to have a wide variety of options, so we don't get boxed-in with one or two approaches which might fail. One of the beauties of a free market system is you can have any number of solutions to your needs. Government must avoid thinking they know the best and only way(s).
So, Baucus has put out a proposal. Good. Now, let's see some others.
Clinton was right about what exactly? That if you fail to buy healthcare you could be subject to a financial penalty when the reality is that many, if not most people don't have healthcare because they can't afford it.
If the reform doesnt begin with capping medical lawsuits,reining in wrongful action lawsuit lawyers,creating a good environment for doctors,preventing insurance fraud,and by not writing a blank check to the drug companies there will be no reform.
I hope so. As fo the moment I have not seen any substantial changes for better.