News Nuggets
The Ins and Outs, Ups and Downs of the Baucus Healthcare Bill
By Courtney Lowery, 9-16-09
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Montana Sen. Max Baucus released his much-awaited healthcare bill today and since the announcement this morning, just about every journalist, blogger and pundit has spent the day trying to figure out what’s in the 223-page, $856 billion behemoth.
Here’s a roundup of some of the more interesting (in my mind) tidbits and analysis:
The bill does not, as Democrats have advocated, include a public option. That move was supposed to help garner support from Republican Senators. Alas, still very little support coming from the GOP.
From the Washington Post story (the main, nuts and bolts story):
Although Baucus held more than 100 hours of meetings over several weeks with a bipartisan group of Senate health-care negotiators known as the “Gang of Six,” he was unable to secure a public endorsement from any of the group’s GOP members—or any other Republicans—before releasing the plan.
Still Baucus says they’ll come around. They just need time to “fully fathom” the bill.
Fellow Montanan Rep. Denny Rehberg was one of the wait-and-see Republicans. He said in a press release today, “Max’s hard work in putting together a bill on such a complex issue is a testament to his genuine desire to do what’s best for our country. There’s a long road ahead and the devil is always in the details. I’ll continue to seek input directly from Montanans as Congress considers the various health care reform proposals.”
Indeed, as Michael D. Tanner a senior fellow at the Cato Institute writes in a New York Times ”Room for Debate” post (which is full of interesting analysis from Tanner as well as three other analysts, so definitely worth a read), this is just the beginning, the framework really:
“In fact, despite months of work, Senator Baucus has not actually produced a bill, but a 223-page summary of what he hopes a bill will contain.”
Some of those hopes include (click here to download the PDF of the full bill):
Time does a good job here of explaining how the exchanges would work.
The bill will take 10 years to implement and cost $856 billion. But, it would, as laid out in this Atlantic article, save $49 billion over the 10 years.
Still, the real question is how can anyone afford this bill? And that’s what’s sticking with opponents on both sides of the aisle. (As a sidenote: It does not cover abortions (only in special cases) or extend coverage to illegal immigrants—both issues that had been keeping most GOP leaders from supporting the bill.)
One headline on CBS News today reads, ”Mostly Negative Reaction to Baucus Bill on Capitol Hill” and the story goes on to quote those in the so-called “Gang of Six” on why they can’t or won’t support the bill.
Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi, a Republican, put it this way in a statement:
“The proposal released today still spends too much, and it does too little to cut health care costs for those with health insurance. At a time when our nation faces a $9 trillion deficit, we should target assistance to those in the greatest need without creating unsustainable new entitlement programs.”
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Comments
It's useless however for us in Wyoming to try and get rid of Mike Enzi. In Wyoming, you could dig up Tom Horn and get him elected to Congress if you ran him as a Republican.
About the only thing I see coming out of Baucus' bill is that millions of people will have to rob banks to get the money to pay for mandated health insurance. Well, that's fair, since we've bailed the banks out with taxpayer money anyway. But it seems awfully complicated though to have to go that route. Why not something simpler that would actually work?
Why don't we just push single payer? The Republicans and the Blue Dog Republicrats don't matter any more.
RH
We'd discussed the bison issue with David Cobb, Max's former local rep, (to no avail, or surprise) so I called the local office to say "WTF?!" when I learned Wellpoint/BlueCross/Liz had written the bill.
It was just after 5:00, so had to leave a message, but they called me back, I'll give 'em that.
And, told me that Liz is "very intelligent", and wrote the best bill possible.
As I've seen mentioned elsewhere today, no one is saying these people are stupid. On the contrary.
That's why I agree, it should be called the "Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act."
He is not just hurting Montana, he is hurting his party and the entire country by screwing up health care reform.
This bill is worse than I could ever have imagined. It was designed to fail. But if it passes, it is nothing but a gift to insurance companies. A win-win for insurance companies. Kind of brilliant, really, if you can ignore how immoral it is.
I think bipartisanship means Democrats reaching out to the insurance industry lobby, and Republicans winking and going along.
"But when Baucus’s office announced in early 2008 that it was hiring Fowler, it didn’t exactly advertise that she’d been on the payroll of a massive health benefits firm. Baucus’s press release cited Fowler’s prior experience in his office and on the staff of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) as well as her work for a private law firm. It didn’t mention her most recent work for WellPoint, where she was not a registered lobbyist but served as an adviser."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27155.html.
"Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act" indeed.
RH
Big I took a jet to Montana
And bot him a Senator there
And when he was thru
Away Big I flew
With Good Old Max B in his pocket
Arriving in DC forth-with
Big I tossed Old Max on the Floor
He said, "Listen, Max,
I want you to was
And polish that Bill how I like it."
Old Max, he got right down to work
His duty to Big I in mind
He lined up his team
According to scheme
And the 3 million bucks in his pocket.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=506199
Doctors quit? Maybe if they were a couple years away from retirement, and that's it.
Ha! What a joke? Is that a threat?
Sure. I can just see them all lining up in front of Home Depot for a chance to become day laborers at six bucks an hour. Maybe a "Greeter" at Wal-Mart or a "Fry Cook" at Burger King? Come on, Doc! What are you going to do with that M.D. degree? Run a backhoe? Become an Architect because "I'm a Doctor"? Perhaps a Civil Engineer or a Geologist because you have an M.D.?
Sorry Doc. Back to school. No Mercedes. No house up on "Pill Hill". No "Country Club" membership or a European vacation for you, trophy mommy, and the 1.9 kids attending private school. And that second home tucked away in the mountains? Have to part ways... Whoops! You "quit" and you become an instant member of the lumpen, the "little people", and somebody is going to get divorced while there is still something left to walk away with.
Naw. I guess you'll stay put...
Solving the "Health Care Crisis" is real simple, and here is the solution.
Mandate the end to all health insurance except catastrophic. End medicare and medicaid. Return to a cash system, i.e. the patient actually pays for services received. You know, with their own money. Prices for so-called services offered will plunge because the "Free Money Pool" created by the government and insurance companies would vaporize overnight and the "Health Care Industry" (a misnomer if there ever was one - Why do 57% of Doc's say they would refuse chemo but they lay it on you?) could only charge what the market could bear.
Wow. What a concept.
The next thing you would see is Doctors driving Chevrolets and vacationing in the same places everyone else does. Like "regular folks". In 1952, the cost of birthing a child in an average hospital was $30.00 and an extra $30.00 if a caesarean was required. Circumscision was $5.00 Guess what? $17.00 for a semi-private room. I kid you not. Using inflation rates to translate these figures into constant dollars puts that service cost in today's dollars at $244.00, and don't tell me it's the damn lawyers. Delivery without complications today is what - $7,000? That's just a tad higher than the inflation rate, isn't it?
Did you know that 30% of all births in this country are now by caesarian? It's "convenient" for both the Doctor and Patient, and drives the cost through the roof. And why not? Someone else is paying for it. On top of that, the good doctor gets home by five and she didn't have to go through all that labor, much to the detriment of her child. Mommie Dearest will then feed her little delight a soy-based formula instead of breastfeeding. Such a bother.
We live in an age of "I deserve it", and when there is damn near unlimited "free money", they're going to grab it because they figure they "deserve it". Not terribly different than the illustration above, in 1952, a corporate C.E.O. was renumerated at an average rate of 14 times the average pay of his company's employees. Today it is 367-1. Doctors aren't any different.
Back in the day, we all shopped in the same stores and ate at the same eateries. There was a connectedness between people - whether employer and employee or doctor and patient that transcended position because the average pay was not so grossly different that back then the ghettoing of the wealthy was limited to the uber-wealthy, not those in the so-called "professions". today.
Name me any service industry besides "Sick Care" in this country that doesn't have a direct financial relationship with the customer. Any! Name one. When you pull in for gas do you whip out your State Farm or Progressive Insurance card and say "Fill er' up?" If your house needs painting do you get out your homeowners insurance policy and say, "Let's roll?" Hell no! They would look at you as if you lost your mind. Walk into the Doc's office and the first verbal exchange is what - "Your insurance carrier?", even if the visit is for a bruised bicep.
This is insane.
"Sick Care" is a false economy unto itself. If we truly want prices reigned in, make that sector of the service economy function like the rest of it - A "Direct Financial Exchange" between the parties involved. Maybe then every other commercial on those generally worthless televisions won't be pushing Viagra and Cialis, let alone all those other "Ask your Doctor" remedies with side-effects that make one wonder how the F.D.A. ever approved them at all.
"Depressed? "Ask your Doctor about..." Since when did your physician become a mental health professional? He/She isn't, but they can prescribe DRUGS for a condition they aren't even professionally trained to properly diagnose. But they can prescribe DRUGS.
Something is terribly wrong, and it isn't just Senator Baucus. It is the entire nature of the system, most of which needs to be totally scrapped.
END INSURANCE AND PAY CASH!
This bill does not bring real reform and it costs a fortune. Baucus managed to fail both those who want reform and those who are afraid of the cost. The only winner is the insurance lobby.
This will will never make it because there is nothing good in the bill to build on. Bury it and move on to the House.
I do not understand how, with 60% Democrats in the House, the committee is made up of 6 Republicans and 6 Blue Dogs. It does not reflect the Senate or the election of 2008 at all.
At the very least take him off that committee for $3 million in conflict of interest.
He has taken bribery to a new level. There is not even enough decent shame in him to make him veil it. The legal stealing means that we no longer have a representative government.
Obama is not going to sign a bill without a PO.Pelosi said again that she wont sign one either.
VOTE Bacus OUT.only the people can do this.the people put him there.
he has recieved over 700.000. from insurance co.' toward his next campaign.
He do not represent the best interest of the American people.
He's dealing with the insurers to provide more money for them.
In fact, it is so bad it needs to be killed, and quickly. If you support health care reform, you cannot support this bill. There is no reform of any substance, and certainly will not do what he says.
First, the Chairman's Mark is contradictory in the oft-repeated statement that it will make health care affordable. It won't.
Second, it is contradictory in that it will not cost taxpayers money. It will.
Baucus isn't dumb, but is a total jerk. He knows. Wendell Potter, a former high level insurance executive, is calling it the “Insurance Industry Profit Protections and Enhancement Act”.
The bad Senator notes that health care costs have increased drastically in the last eight years, yet any cost cap provisions don't go on for many years to come.
The joke he is making about affordability and cost savings fly in the face of what the bill says - that the insurance industry profits which are too much for lower income people to afford will be borne on the backs of taxpayers in the form of tax credits. Tax credits don't help lower income people buy overpriced insurance; people who are already financially strapped and have a negligible tax liability.
The bill would legislatively legitimize inequitable costs and inequitable care. You will get fined if you don't buy private insurance.
Well, any real examination of the problems with health care in this country today come down to one major problem - for profit insurance that has driven our health care costs in this country sky high. Compared to that issue, the rest are practically details.
Those who want health care reform, be forewarned! This could be it if passed. There will not be any fixing of the reform later. We will have gotten our reform, it will not work, and there will be no fix for a long, long time to come. It will hurt ALL reform on many issues.
Let's stop this Corporate Welfare nonsense and get some real reform that does not reward those who created the problem. A Single Payer Universal Health Care system will do that.
I agree, this statement should be the basic question, though sadly it is not. Especially since whatever Democrats come up with is labeled by Republicans as socialism anyway, despite the facts.
So, surprisingly, I think George McGovern had it right:
Medicare for all
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091102406.html
As for not allowing illegals to participate, the House version struck the ability to ask for proof of citizenship, does the Baucus bill do the same? Witout that, it is unenforcible, and you would have just as much in costs to the tax payers to pay for people who have no right to be here.
We certainly do not need "reforms" that put us deeper into the poorhouse. How can they possibly expect us to believe them when they say this will all be paid for with savings. When was the last time the government was able to save enough money to institute new programs of this magnitude.
I have an even easier solution...make congress, the president and their families participate in whatever plan they come up with. Same goes for social security. I guarantee you that if they had to participate in whatever they devise for all us 'little' people, it would be a much better system.
Why should it cost so much to put a bandaid on yor kid? Why would yout take your kid to the hospital for a bandaid? This report talked about "frequent flyers" who use the emergency room up to 48 times a year.
Do you really expect insurers to charge five dollars month and pay out this kind of money? First we need to control costs, then control the insurance companies. Not the other way around.
Easy way to stop malpractice suits? Stop malpractice. No more monetary awards. If you're found guilty of malpractice you lose your license. If we lose doctors, we don't need quacks who get away with malpractice anyway, we need real doctors, so let the system weed out the unqualified.
Health care is more corrupt and more lucrative than politics.
I'm not a racist because I disagree with Obama and I'm not a socialist because I disagree the republicans. I'm a concerned American who knows something needs to be done, but can't see through the partisan bickering to a clear solution. I don't think anyone can. The more they get us fighting among ourselves, the less we pay attention to what's going on in Washington, and the more control they have over us. Divide and conquer.
It's time to stand together as Americans and demand honest representation instead of these foney attempts to get reelcted.
It,s time to be an American first, an idealist second and a partisan last. Too many people are partisan first, last and always. Look what it's done to America.
Where could you possibly have gotten the notion that healthcare is free in Montana???? I pay nearly $800 a month for health insurance for myself, husband, and son. That is approximately 45% of my wages!!!! And, the coverage is CRAP! Since it covers only 30% of prescription costs, I cannot afford to buy my asthma medication!!! I struggle to BREATHE! I am all in favor of tort reform ... insurance regulation and control ... ending fraudulant spending etc. but there is no such thing as "free" anything!
BTW ... informed Montanans hate Baucus and would LOVE to see him RECALLED!!!!