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Madam Speaker keeps fighting for the public option
Filed under I truly believe in single payer but the bastards won't listen so the public option is better than nothing. It's a first step. It's world's better than the insurance boondoggle crap the senate is trying to foist on us. Keep up the fight Madam Speaker and I just may start to like you.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democrats Tuesday night that she wants to move forward with the more liberal version of a House health reform bill that would peg government-run coverage to Medicare – setting up a clash with moderates in her caucus who oppose the plan.
Pelosi told her rank-and-file that she has more than 200 votes for a public option tethered to Medicare and that she wants to "see if we can find the remaining votes," one member present said afterward.
"We are very close and I count tough," Pelosi told the room, according to one person in the room. She asked Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) to ask his deputies to survey members in the next 24 hours to see if she could get to 218 votes for the bill, several members said after the meeting.
thanks to Politico
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is the only powerful Democrat to consistently take on Obama and try to push him to the left. She repeatedly tried to make him repeal Bush's tax cuts immediately instead of waiting, and successfully forced him put funding for contraception and birth control back into the "stimulus" package after he took it out. The bills that come out of the House are always far more liberal than the ones that come out of the Senate.
She is far, far from a perfect public servant, but I think she doesn't get enough credit sometimes. If she can pull off the public option tied to Medicare, AND make it available to all instead of only 30 million Americans, then she deserves major props. MAJOR.
Because really, that was Hillary's plan. And I'd much rather have hers than a dastardly combo of Romney's and McCain's!
I used to defend Pelosi when my fellow progressives started dissing her (while praising Obama). Pelosi, actually voted against Iraq Resolution, so the liberal dissing baffled me. (Obama of course didn't have to put his money where his mouth was and vote on it.) Ironically even the progressive Pelosi was snookered by candidate Obama, and supported him over Hillary. Go figure. bet the speaker regrets that now. Other than her mis-placed support of Obama in the primary, I've always liked her -- and still do. and I like that her fighting spirit is being revived now for health care.
and I'm so glad that people here are "allowed" to say so.
At some point, I believe, we have to accept that a lot of the "liberal elite" branch of the Party were honestly fooled by Obama, and try not to hold it against them.
Here are some of my thoughts on this.
What better way of selling public option than by using Heather Graham?
Thanks Izzie
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His support of the fraud will forever piss me off but he is fighting for the public option.
May be an offshoot of DFA, but I signed. http://standwithdrdean.com/
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Blinders off, eyes wide open, looking at the big picture, here's why US government healthcare is a bad idea. At the moment, we have the best healthcare service in the world. Not the best system, the best care. The best quality of care. The most advanced and the most innovative. Other countries use what we produce. They use our equipment and our drugs. They use our diagnostic techniques and our cures. They sponge off of our creativity and innovation but what if that were no longer the case? What if we no longer did the R&D that leads to fantastic new products and cures?
You see, right now we have a capitalistic system. The profit motive is behind the innovation. Altruism has never been a motivative force behind products that are costly to develop. Take away capitalism and the profit motive and new cures disappear.
Our system can be improved. Insurance companies can be better regulated. There are things that can be done that would reduce costs. Coverage can be extended to the habitually uninsured.
If the right things are done, there would be no need for higher taxes of any kind on anything. There's no need for socialized medicine. No need to kill capitalism in the healthcare industry. No need to stifle innovation. No need to ruin our quality of care.
I am sorry to say that there is not one thing that you just said which is based in reality. Not one. Your eyes are shut, your hands are over your ears and you're singing "la la la la la" as loudly as you can.
Guess what? Government can sponsor R&D. It used to, before W's and Raygun's war on science. Remember how we went to the moon before anyone else? Who sponsored that R&D? Was it industry? No. It was government. It was JFK who led the way.
But this is what really kills me.
There's no need for socialized medicine. No need to kill capitalism in the healthcare industry. No need to stifle innovation. No need to ruin our quality of care.
You're right. Those poor, beleaguered insurance companies aren't making ENOUGH MONEY OFF MY HEALTH!!!!!!!!!!! That's the problem with our health care system! Quick, let's throw tens of millions more poor people under the bus so some jackoff CEO can make $30 million a year denying people care! The insurance companies are the ones who decide who lives and dies, Ron. You want to enable those death panels?
Do you know any doctors, Ron? Ask them if they prefer dealing with Medicare to dealing with insurance companies. Obama's own doctor says that Medicare gives him much more freedom to diagnose and treat people than the insurance companies.
Here, check out this site. This is a non-partisan organization of doctors who are pushing for expanded Medicare. Wouldn't you trust doctors to know a little more about this than you do?
http://pnhp.org
As for not raising taxes, you are right, we don't need to. We can just increase the pool of buyers of medical care by thousands of percentage points, by opening up Medicare for All. And, we will cut costs by up to $150 billion A YEAR! Doesn't that sound like smart capitalism? It sure does to me.
You really need to think about what you are saying, Ron. In my opinion, you are letting ideology interfere with pragmatism. My philosophy is, do what works. Government-paid health care WORKS. It works everywhere else in the civilized world.
It will work for us too. Right, Big Al?
I've spoken with doctors and I know what they're saying. They all want tort reform. Is there any in any of the bills proposed so far? NO! How about Medicare? As it stands today, a lot of doctors aren't taking Medicare patients. Today, only 70% of Medicare patients get the help and the doctors they want.
Publicly funded R&D has an extremely poor track record. The space race was the exception, not the rule. Government funded R&D doesn't work because there's no profit motive so no incentives for extraordinary effort. Socialism is a failure because of that fact.
You don't like the big, bad insurance companies? No one does. Change the rules, regulate them better. Make sure they can't pass along their investment losses to the insured.
There are ways to improve the system, as I've outlined. The public wants reform but not the reforms offered by Congress thus far. They say Fear of Losing Private Health Insurance Trumps 'Public Option' - Rasmussen Reports™. They don't want the quality of their care to decline while getting more expensive. They have good common sense. Even Pelosi admits she doesn't have the votes to pass a bill with a public option and the Dems have an overwhelming majority in the House. You can blame the fiscally responsible Blue Dogs for that and you can blame Rahm for their being there.
The next thing to be proposed will be a "trigger" that imposes a public option if healthcare costs don't come down but they way they have it rigged, costs are guaranteed to keep rising because nothing is being done that would bring them down. NOTHING! How about something simple like being able to choose any plan from any company in the country? Right now, states limit the plans available to only a few per state despite the fact there are hundreds in the country.
ought to be an equal-opportunity resource! We already have socialism for our big money tycoons: that's why all the bailout money went to them. Where's the baillout for the rest of us: those who lost huge chunks of their lifetime retirement funds; those who are losing their homes which could have been saved through mortgage modification; and those of us tossed out by health insurers when they get sick (after paying into the system their whole lives). Socialism for only the most wealthy of us just doesn't cut it anymore.
We stopped having a free market economy when Rayguns threw out virtually all regulations and allowed things like the banks to grow to where they are too big to fail. It did not all happen under Ronny and lots happened under Clinton, but Reagan began the deregulation process that became a Washington must do for both sides.
Remember when our banks were our NH banks. Dartmouth Savings, Merchants Bank and Trust, Shawmut and a few others that first joined hands, then with the dropping of interstate banking rules, got gobbled up by Baybank, then Fleet then Bank of America.
When Fleet took over I knew the name was relevant and we would get the shaft. http://www.fleetlabs.com/fleet_enema_products.php?panel=0
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With a public option.
Right, by forcing them to compete with a public option.
Right, by forcing private companies to compete with a public option.
Right, by offering the habitually uninsured a public option.
Basically, the government would provide the funds to insure the indigent through private insurers. That does nothing to improve the system since nothing would be done to curb costs.
A public option could negotiate lower prices and offer lower premiums and deductibles, through the leverage of the federal government. Private insurers would have to lower costs to compete. They would have to become more efficient, less overhead, less gigantic bonuses and salaries for their executives.
Health care is not a commodity like cars or clothes, etc. If you get sick, you have to go to a doctor. It's not a choice, unless you just want to die. So private insurance has been able to raise prices all it wants to over time, since they have a guaranteed market of sick people. A public option that offered low premiums and no pre-existing condition filter would be a bulwark against the awful practices of private insurance companies.
We do what you want and there would be the shadow of what we enjoy today. There would be a massive shortage of doctors and nurses. Medical advances would grind to a halt. No thanks.
That is straight out of the GOP play book and total bull because it is based on absolutely no history.
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I have no idea what you're talking about. The history is clear: Finding a Doctor Who Accepts Medicare Isn’t Easy - NYTimes.com
We could find the same anti-health care reform talking points on the RNC web site.
I haven't been to the RNC site. I'm also not anti-HCR. I'm just against the crap the Dems in Congress have come up with.
there are two things that will work, according to my dad, who was in charge of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) for several years.
1) Hillary Care from the 90's. He said it was new, but probably would have worked.
2) Medicare for All.
That's it. Factually speaking, those are the only reforms that are big enough to actually cut costs. HR 3200 (Obamacare) won't do it. The "public option," I'm sorry to say, won't do it unless it is expanded to include as many people as want to buy into it...and unless the ban on single-payer systems in HR 3200 is lifted.
Why don't you want to do what is guaranteed to work, public policy-wise? I don't get it.
And all that nonsense about other countries doing what they're doing because we let them? Do you know how they pay for their medical care? Higher taxes. It has absolutely zero, zip, zilch to do with what we're doing. Zero, zip, zilch. As you keep pointing out, we can't even pay for 100% of our own government-sponsored health care - how are we paying for theirs?
But if we implemented Medicare for All, we wouldn't need to raise taxes, because we have a huge pool of people to tap into - tens of millions more than France, Germany, etc.
Gotta go.
Other countries do what they do because we make it possible. Our military protects them. We pay for that. Our healthcare system makes possible the science and innovation that others get to take advantage of. If we change in a way that innovation is stifled, where will the new drugs and treatments come from?
That's a pretty sweeping conclusion, but you're not backing it up with anything, so it's really just an assertion. Can you back it up?
Finding a Doctor Who Accepts Medicare Isn’t Easy - NYTimes.com
Investors.com - 45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul
That's not quite the same thing as a "massive shortage" of doctors. Yes we know that Ron Paul and others don't like Medicare.
Yeah, I'm sure that 45% of doctors would leave the profession they dedicated their lives to and went to school for 8+ years because the government up and got them more patients whose treatment could actually be covered. That poll is also well over a month old, and is contradicted by other polls, as even the article you posted admits.
Do you know how many doctors treat many patients for absolutely nothing? Out of the kindness of their hearts? Don't you think those doctors would like some kind of coverage for those people? Same with the hospitals who treat emergency walk-ins every day who will never pay their massive ER bill, because they have no insurance and know that the ER has to take them.
Docs who have been in practice a number of years may soon reach a point that it simply isn't worth it to stay in practice. What do you think would happen if Medicare is gutted to the tune of half a trillion dollars while adding millions of new people to the system?
"The public option epitaph was written months ago during the more than two dozen meetings Obama and his aides had with the insurance industry and pharmaceutical bigwigs.
The deal went like this........" (see link for rest)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/the-public-option-is-dead_b_330146.html
Damn it. You don't have the votes then go back and twist their wrists some more. Use power. Threaton to visit their states and campaign for their reelections.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28651.html
Speaker Nancy Pelosi counted votes Thursday night and determined she could not pass a “robust public option” — the most aggressive of the three forms of a public option House Democrats have been considering as part of a national overhaul of health care.
The California Democrat's count — coupled with a significant turn of events Thursday during a private White House meeting — points to an increasingly likely compromise for a “trigger” option for a government plan.
Administration officials have been telling POLITICO for weeks now that this is the most likely compromise because it can probably satisfy liberals — albeit only reluctantly and after many vent frustration and some even threaten to walk away from the bill.
This would clear the way for backers to sneak a limited public option through the Senate by attracting moderate Democrats and then to win President Barack Obama's signature.
Speaking to reporters Friday after a meeting of House Democrats, Pelosi said “no decision of that kind has been made" on which public option to pursue. "By no means is the count complete or has the decision been made," she said.
Don't give up Madam Speaker!
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to me:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/23/crunch-time-pelosi-puts-d_n_331470.html
that we cannot do what every other civilized country in the world can do?
Every country in Europe and the Netherlands has both capitalism and socialism. What have they got that we haven't got? How about, they believe health care is a right, not a privilege, and correctly so?
If you are a liberal, Ron, do you think that FDR was right about this? Because he also declared that health care should be a right in his inaugural address to Congress in 1944. His wife, Eleanor, put that concept into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights she helped create when she was at the U.N. Were they socialists? Were they capitalists? I say, yes to both.
Your "facts" about the public option are incorrect, as well. The support for it is strong. As for the DINOs, I won't thank them for anything, except I'll thank them to get the f*ck out of Congress and make way for some real Democrats. As for Pelosi, she said they were very very close to getting the votes she needs.
As for who is getting covered by Medicare, I think you may be confusing it with Medicaid. Many doctors are no longer accepting Medicaid patients because the states are too broke to pay for it any more.
http://www.texmed.org/Template.aspx?id=7896
http://www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices/12807985...
http://www.healthlawattorneyblog.com/2009/06/medicaid-enrollment-up-phys...
But that is not the fault of socialized medicine; that is the fault of the deregulation, no taxes on the rich, "free market" maniacs who got us into this financial crisis in the first place.
"Tort reform?" Once again, ideology trumps pragmatism. You can't reform health care by focusing on legal issues. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the delivery system problems we face.
Ron, you are such a good-hearted person. I urge to think outside labels when it comes to this important issue. I know you can do it. "Hope" springs eternal.
Sounds like one of the 4 questions on Passover. Other countries can do what they like because we're here. If it weren't for us, they wouldn't have the money or the technology to do what they do for their citizens. They're free to have socialized healthcare because we make that possible. Most European countries don't have the military expenses we do as a percentage of GDP. They also don't have the R&D costs we do to develop new drugs, treatments, and diagnostic equipment.
You say we should be more like them but if we do end up like them, we'd be in very sad shape.
Please don't assume anything about me except that I'm honest and get my facts straight. I'm not an ideologue. I'm a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. I don't give a damn about the DNC or the GOP. I'd like to see some good reform but haven't heard anything I like yet. All the best ideas keep getting shot down by the Dem leadership.
Check this out:
Finding a Doctor Who Accepts Medicare Isn’t Easy - NYTimes.com
Note that it says Medicare, not Medicaid. From the article:
And this:
If there's a doctor shortage with the system we have now, imagine what it'd be like if there's a public option. If doctors are opting out of Medicare now, imagine how many will opt out of the medical profession altogether in the future if the Dems get their way.
What caused the shortage? don't you think it might be exactly what you want more of.
Once upon a time, smart people became doctors to help other people. Now we have shortages but only in the fields which don't pay so much. Like family practice.
My wife spoke with an Anesthesia resident the other day and asked how she ended up in Anesthesia. She first got a Law degreee then decide on Med School. While there, she researched which doctors earned the most. Turns out that Anesthesiologists earn the most without having to do all that bothersome brain surgery stuff. baby docs are way down the totem pole.
Why would any member of the flip flop generation want to deliver babies for 261k a year when they can pass gas for 311k? http://www.studentdoc.com/salaries.html
The current system encourages capitalism in medicine and capitalism in drug development (try getting a new drug for something that has only a few thousand victims).
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You think the government can mandate that so many students can go into the medical profession and earn a preset low fee? You want Communism? What are you asking for? Hey, we have a pay czar. Maybe he can dictate what doctors earn and how many doctors we should have.
We used to have more doctors in more of the right sort of professions before the government started monkeying with fees. The more the government is involved, the worse things get.