Health Care Overhaul — Get on Board the Train
June 16, 2009 by Gee Carol
Different legislative tracks intersect at several points – cost, control, consumer needs, care-giver interests and collegiality. Republicans are almost universally skeptical. Democrats are very divided about health care reform between liberals and moderates. How fast the legislation can move through Congress depends on how fast the committees can complete their work. President Obama wants a vote in the Senate by August. The President now active in the debate using the town hall as his forum. So far the American Medical Association is opposed to a public option. And it is fairly apparent that a single payer plan is out of the question.
“The health care industry has a huge stake in reform” opines J.P. Green of the Democratic Strategist: “They will fight the public option, but they know that some form of expanded government health coverage is inevitable.” To quote Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown, “The public insurance option remains the single biggest obstacle to a bipartisan bill, snarling the parties – and wings within each party – in a debate over the power of government, the role of the free market and the need to cover the uninsured.”
A big part of the division in the Senate is associated with the so-called “public plan.” Senators in the cross-hairs of several active advocacy groups include Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Other moderates with whom groups must contend are Evan Bayh of Indiana, John Tester of Montana, Tom Carper of Delaware, along with Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
Floor strategies in the Senate are not yet settled. The reconciliation process, needing just 51 votes is still on the table. Two senators, Kennedy and Byrd, are absent due to illness, and the Minnesota seat is still empty. Senator Chris Dodd is acting in a leadership role for Senator Ted Kennedy’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which has, quoting Politico:
. . . released a 615-page bill, but details on the most contentious issues, such as the public insurance option and the employer mandate, were left out for now . . . The bill calls for insurance market reforms, a prohibition on insurers’ denying coverage to sick people, a mandate on individuals to own coverage and the creation of marketplaces where people can compare and buy coverage.
In the U.S. House of Representatives – According to Patrick O’Connor and Chris Frates of Politico, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s top aides have prepared a joint memo indicating the unity of their leadership positions. To quote:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are double-teaming powerful chairmen and rank-and-file members to save health care reform from a repeat of the Democratic Party infighting that helped kill it in 1994.
. . . Pelosi and Hoyer urged Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to heed the concerns of moderate Democrats.
. . . Waxman, Miller and Rangel — along with their respective aides — are trying to draft legislation in concert with each other so their committees will take up the same bill later this summer.
In the House, moderates include Blue Dog Democrats, constraining any public health plan option, and members of the New Democratic Coalition. Again, the public option provides a variety of sticking points for them including cost, Medicare rules. Rep. John Dingell of Michigan is a respected leader who has “offered a universal health care bill every year since he came ot Congress in 1955,” the authors reported. To quote:
Toward the end of Tuesday’s caucus meeting, he rose on his crutches and told the audience that this measure has the promise of becoming a legacy like Social Security — a program his father helped create in the 1930s.
As he closed, he told members they should have the courage to move forward, eliciting a standing ovation from his fellow Democrats. Pelosi announced Tuesday that the bill will bear Dingell’s name.
. . . House Democrats expect to introduce actual legislation next week, Waxman and others said Tuesday. The preliminary goal is to move legislation out of the committees by the Fourth of July and then clear the House by the August recess, setting up a fall showdown with the Senate over a final bill.
Health Care Reform will happen this year, in my opinion. The train has already left the station. In fact change is already happening. The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is now the law of the land. Health Information Technology reform is being funded by the President’s Stimulus monies. And the President will soon sign the bill to mandate tobacco regulation by the FDA. If all of us work hard, a new era can emerge. But it could also easily get derailed. It is going to be an interesting ride.
References:
- “Can Health Overhaul Heal the Economy,” by Alex Wayne of Congressional Quarterly (6/3/09).
- “Axelrod Fuels Democratic Message Machine for Health Care Overhaul,” by Drew Armstrong of Congressional Quarterly (5/13/09).
[Original Post date - June 12, 2009]
See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.
Blogs: My general purpose/southwest focus blog is at Southwest Progressive. My creative website is at Making Good Mondays. And Carol Gee – Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.
Technorati tags: news news and politics politics health care reform obama congress U.S. Senate U.S. House
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[...] when they learned that President Barack Obama for the second postponed a bipartisan meeting on Health Care Overhaul — Get on Board the Train – sirenschronicles.com 06/16/2009 Different legislative tracks intersect at several points – [...]
Along with saying I’m an anarchist, the other thing my wife has insisted I quit repeating is that I’m for socialized medicine. I have pretty much given up on anarchism at least.
Being self-employed, I have a health insurance policy through Assurant with the highest possible deductions in order to keep the payments as low as possible. I only have it as a hedge against some catastrophic illness as I’m one that avoids going to the doctor and one that doesn’t need a doctor much anyway. Therefore, I don’t really get anything for the premiums I pay besides some peace of mind that medical bills won’t take my house away.
In the obviously selfish “What’s in it for me?” mode, I haven’t heard anything from anybody on healthcare reform that’s going to toss me a bone. Other than a patriotic feeling of doing something for my uninsured fellow Americans, does anyone see a plan from anybody that I’d be interested in supporting? To me, it looks like I’ll be lucky to break even and retain the crummy deal I’ve got now.
Rant over. Time for 50 jumping jacks…
Robb, my pov is like yours in many ways. But I am on the Medicare Advantage program, which Obama says he is going to shitcan.
I get great coverage. It’s a local insurer that only covers the elderly and disabled here in Kern County. They haven’t denied shit yet for myself or the Ball n’ Chain™ who has been with them for five years.
I wonder if our Primary Care physician will still be able to treat us under the ‘Obama Plan’. He takes very few insurance companies as he also teaches medicine at the local hospital.
I talked to my workers comp doc this morning. I asked him what he tought of the Big O’s Plan. He ranted for ten fucking minutes.
He also used the phrase “Socialized Medicine”. I thought he was more intelligent than that.
sigh…..
The irony of the WC doctor’s comment is this:
Workers Compensation IS socialized medicine. He makes a fortune off it, enough to own a horse farm in the Tehachapi mountains.
One of the things I hear is that if we get all the people without insurance that are using emergency rooms for their healthcare, there will be huge savings. They will have a regular doctor and get preventative care. I’m down with that. They say my insurance premiums are currently paying for this emergency room abuse. I believe that also. However, having seen the way things generally work over the last 50 years, you know damn well the savings won’t be passed on to the schmo that was footing the emergency room bill before the new-and-improved healthcare plan blessed the nation.
Ok, so you’re not a cynical pessemist like me and you think there’s a chance our dumb, fat and happy politicians, enjoying the sweet healthcare perks they voted in for themselves, will pull a public servant rabbit out of there hats? That’s nice, but just in case, bend over and assume the usual position. You’ll be less disappointed.
I am cynical but I still hold out hope that some how, we will get the 47 million uninsured..health insurance and also lower everyone else’s premium’s. My premium’s go up every year. Social security gives me a cost of living raise and then turns around and applies most of it to my health care premium.
Dusty´s last blog ..Ah, the great healthcare debate..
One of the compromises I’ve heard being floated around settles for getting around 17 million of the 47 million insured. Both sides will claim victory at any level, whether it’s considered high or low. Of course, we could have afforded the best for the most, but the ol’ cupboard is pretty bare these days. We can’t all live like Uighurs.
The Scrooge side of me does raise an arched eyebrow towards anybody that wants free healthcare for the tired, poor, huddled masses, wretched refuse,teeming homeless, etc. I hope there will be some responsibility attached. A little message from the top, like maybe from Obama, proposing what a good idea it would be to have only as many children as you can afford even if that number is zero. I don’t think it’s too much too ask for the insurance newbies to ease up on the over-population peddle to offset the octomoms and Quiverfull idiots walking amongst us that we’ll never be able to control.
Families on welfare have medicaid. It’s people, like those that live in Appalachia, that don’t get healthcare and even if they did, there aren’t doctor’s in those areas.
It is going to take years to implement whatever the assholes in Congress approve and even then, like you say Robb, not all will have it. My son works for a guy that pays him in a personal check and runs his business underground so to speak..no one including the owner pays taxes. Think my son will get healthcare? I doubt it. He wants healthcare so bad it’s pathetic. He most likely has the same condition in his spine that I do and it’s getting worse every year he doesn’t get treatment..like mine did when I went seven years without health insurance.
Ironically, I only got healthcare when I became disabled. That is so fucked up and ass backwards, it makes me seethe with anger.
Dusty and Robb, I so enjoyed your dialog in this thread. I learned a lot I did not know and enjoyed the personal stories and repartee ever so much. Thanks!