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Kelly was a stay-at-home mother who raised her six children and went on to help raise her grandchildren, while her husband John worked as a truck driver for 50 years.
When John Kelly, 68, retired he was able to go on Medicare, but Kelly was not old enough.
With no private insurance, the couple was also told she didn’t qualify for social security disability because she had never worked.
When John Kelly went to Welfare, he was told his pension checks were too high for his wife to get benefits.
The family paid for Kelly’s treatments out-of-pocket until the costs recently became too much to bear.
She was treated at Christ Hospital in Jersey City through charity care and Compassionate Care Hospice treated her at home in recent weeks for free through its foundation.
I could add more, but the Rude Pundit covers it all:
Think about that: John and Jacqueline Kelly were like apple pie, they fit so perfectly into the mold of ideal Americans that conservatives propagate. John was able to support his family doing a job that he stayed dedicated to. Jacqueline chose to stay at home and raise a large family. This is also death by sexism in that we live in a nation where full-time motherhood is not valued as a job and never has been. The myth of the American dream is always, always revealed as the lie it always was, and those who continue to foist it upon us are the ones least willing to make it be true. Where were all the alleged Christians, who are now so ready to kill health reform legislation? Where was the charity that's supposed to take care of such things? There was some, but not enough to get her the medical care that might have saved her.
You know who stepped up to help the Kelly family? Professional wrestlers. Yeah, Total Mayhem Pro Wrestling held a fundraiser for Jacqueline about a week ago, raising $4000 for medical expenses. That money will now be used for a funeral.
Pulls at your heartstrings, no? Really gets that lump in your throat going, this story of love and failure? Jacqueline Kelly was one of millions of Americans who would have qualified for help in just about any of the health care reform measures that actually seek to insure people. She'd have qualified for the public option. She'd have qualified for Medicare buy-in. In almost any other country in the developed world, and even in some in the undeveloped part, her care would not have even been an issue.
We are overwhelmed, yes, by tale upon tale of the sadness and horror brought on by this country's willful neglect of its citizens because we need to please some mad god of capitalism. And because we need to soothe the vanity of politicians, like Joe Lieberman.
This is a little complicated to explain, but bear with me.
On Facebook, there are games you can play that require money to advance. They are simulation games -- like running your own farm, or rollercoaster theme park, or mafia crime family, or something like that. Of course, these games doesn't involve real money, but fake money -- usually given names like "FarmBucks" or something (I don't know for sure -- I don't play games on Facebook). You get this "virtual currency" by winning it through the games, or by paying real money for it.
Anyway, the health insurance lobby has found a way to gin up support for their cause -- or worse, to make it appear that there is support for their cause. An industry group called Health Reform Right is now providing this "virtual currency" to Facebook players who take a survey. That survey is then forwarded to the Facebook player's congressional representative with the words:
"I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have."
It's basically "astroturfing" (a term used to describe creating a false grassroots movement).
It's not illegal to pay somebody to pretend to be a supporter of a cause.
But it's clearly not above-board.
So naturally, the health insurance lobby is doing it.
Well, this much I understand: the Senate defeated the amendment which attempted to ban all abortion-related healthcare coverage from the public option. So that's good.
The other piece of news escapes me. It seems that the public option didn't have the votes in the Senate, so a compromise was worked out. What is it? This:
Under the agreement, people ages 55 to 64 could ‘buy in’ to Medicare. And a federal agency, the Office of Personnel Management, would negotiate with insurance companies to offer national health benefit plans, similar to those offered to federal employees, including members of Congress. If these private plans did not meet certain goals for making affordable coverage available to all Americans, Senate Democratic aides said, then the government itself would offer a new insurance plan, somewhat like the ‘public option’ in the bill Mr. Reid unveiled three weeks ago.
So it seems to me that we get a two-tiered system: (1) an expansion of Medicare for those 55 and up, and (2) for everyone else, a national not-for-profit plan run by insurance companies but overseen by the OPM. And if #2 ends up sucking, we get the "public option" run by the government.
I guess it is a good thing although I'm not sure that insurance companies offering a national health benefit plan, which will (I assume) compete with their OWN plans, is workable. I just don't like insurance companies in the loop. But I'll keep an open mind.
Aetna Forcing 600,000-Plus To Lose Coverage In Effort To Raise Profits
Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to drop their coverage next year as it seeks to raise additional revenue to meet profit expectations.
In a third-quarter earnings conference call in late October, officials at Aetna announced that in an effort to improve on a less-than-anticipated profit margin in 2009, they would be raising prices on their consumers in 2010. The insurance giant predicted that the company would subsequently lose between 300,000 and 350,000 members next year from its national account as well as another 300,000 from smaller group accounts.
"The pricing we put in place for 2009 turned out to not really be what we needed to achieve the results and margins that we had historically been delivering," said chairman and CEO Ron Williams. "We view 2010 as a repositioning year, a year that does not fully reflect the earnings potential of our business. Our pricing actions should have a noticeable effect beginning in the first quarter of 2010, with additional financial impact realized during the remaining three quarters of the year."
***
Aetna actually made a profit in 2009 but not at levels that it anticipated.
So over half a million people will lose health care coverage because this insurance company's profits weren't big enough. They only made a 7% profit.
Steve Benen writes: "It's not an abortion bill, but the debate managed to turn to abortion. It's not a gun bill, but the debate has managed to turn to guns. It's funny how the culture-war issues manage to sneak their way into everything."
How did guns get into the picture? Well, about a week ago, Gun Owners of America told its 300,000 members that the reform bill pending in the Senate "would mandate that doctors provide 'gun-related health data' to 'a government database,' including information on mental-health issues detected in patients, which could jeopardize their ability to obtain a firearms license."
This is simply not true (although I wish it was). The Senate healthcare bill requires doctors to report anonymous statistical information to help with research, but none of this would lead to gun ownership or "gun related health data" being included in reporting to the government.
The Gun Owners of America go even further, alerting their members that "nothing within the bill would prohibit rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from decreeing that 'no guns' is somehow healthier", resulting in higher premiums for gun owners.
That's just stupid semantics. Guess what? Nothing in the bill would prevent Obama from raping your kittens either -- doesn't mean it's going to happen, and it certainly doesn't mean the bill is flawed.
I guess health care reform is so big that it's like a Christmas tree bill upon which everyone wants to hang their own ornament. Still, it's more propaganda and disinformation which detracts from an honest debate.
If you don't believe in evolution, you should not be getting any flu or H1N1 vaccines. Why not? Because flu strains evolve each year, and since you don't believe that living things evolve, then why are you taking a vaccine shot every year? Especially this year, when flu vaccines are in short supply?
Instead, creationists should get a vaccine waiver.
But does that actually "settle" the matter? The new RNC policy, apparently, is to have insurance through Cigna, opting out of abortion coverage. But let's not lose sight of the original fungibility problem -- the RNC is taking Republican money and giving it to an insurance company through premiums. That company will then use its pool of money to pay for abortion services, not for RNC employees, but for other customers.
In other words, the Republican National Committee will still indirectly subsidize abortions, every time it writes a check to Cigna.
It won in the House -- the amendment to the health care bill that makes sure that no government health care plan will subsidize abortions, which -- last time I checked -- are legal medical procedures.
You see some people don't want their insurance premiums for the health care plan to be used for a purpose that they find immoral. Never mind the fact that their private insurance premiums go for that purpose right now. Never mind the fact that *I* have to pay taxes to support schools, and I don't have any kids.
And never mind that, as Digby points out, that the government health care plan will pay for Viagra.
Yes, the whole thing stinks. Blatently anti-women.
But I don't despair. If that's what it takes to get a health care plan passed, it's worth it. Plus, we can always revisit the issue in a few years. Heh.
Then again, maybe it won't be so bad. In his Washington Post column today, E.J. Dionne claimed that pro-choice lawmakers and advocates are overstating how detrimental the Stupak amendment would be to women’s access to abortion:
The Michigan Democrat’s measure — passed 240 to 194, with 64 Democrats voting yes — would prohibit abortion coverage in the public option and bar any federal subsidies for plans that included abortion purchased on the new insurance exchanges. [...]
Whatever else is true, Stupak’s amendment is unlikely to have a significant effect on the availability of abortion. And most abortions are not paid for through health insurance. The Guttmacher Institute, for example, reported that only 13 percent of abortions in 2001 were directly billed by providers to insurance companies — although the institute has cautioned that the proportion of women whose abortions were covered by insurance could be higher because the figure did not include those “who obtain reimbursement from their insurance company themselves.”
So the tea partiers boarded the corporate-sponsored buses to come to Washington DC today to let their Congressmen know that they don't want socialism blah-blah-blah. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn, who fell out of the right wing crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down, was the one who called for the protest. She's not known for her truthfulness when it comes to healthcare.
A couple thousand are there, along with B-list celebrities. Well, two B-list celebrities. Actors Jon Voight and Jon Ratzenberger ("Cliff" from Cheers).
And things aren't going well.
First, one speaker forgot the Pledge of Allegiance, after giving a fervent speech about its importance:
Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) had the honor of leading the anti-health care protesters on Capitol Hill today in the Pledge of Allegiance. To show his fervent devotion to the Pledge, he gave a short speech about the importance of the phrase “under God.” However, when it came time to actually recite the Pledge, he was so excited about that one phrase that he forgot to say “indivisible” before “with liberty, and justice for all.” The crowd seemed to remember the actual words though, which threw Akin a bit off track.
Ironic how the divisive GOP forgets the word "indivisible".
Almost as embarrassing was House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who decided to wave his pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution around. Boehner, with voice raised, pledged to "stand here with our Founding Fathers, who wrote in the pre-amble: 'We hold these truths to be self evident ..."
In our reality, that's the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, not the U.S. Constitution.
Now, I'll gladly concede that these were fairly inconsequential errors, which were part of a fairly inconsequential right-wing rally. But the flubs were nevertheless a reminder -- self-righteous conservatives, who enjoy nothing more than lecturing others on patriotism, should hesitate on using the Constitution and the Pledge as some kind of partisan weapon, especially if they don't know what they're talking about.
By the way, here's one of the signs out there today (click to embiggen):
That's right. Health care reform is just like the Holocaust.
UPDATE -- More rally signs, these having little to do with health care:
At the Capitol Hill Tea Party, TPMDC's Christina Bellantoni happened upon what looked to be a series of several arrests -- for an as-yet unidentified offense. She reports that a crowd of Tea Partiers began heckling Capitol Police and singing "God Bless America" while several people were being detained.
There's also a massive backup of people outside Longworth office building. They've blocked traffic and some supportive cars are honking. Many protesters are shouting, "Kill the bill!"
The House Republican caucus has been working behind closed doors since June on a health care plan. Last week -- five months later -- they unveiled their plan. Key features: it does nothing for the uninsured, nothing for those with pre-existing conditions, and nothing for those worried about losing coverage when it's needed most. Republicans admit this -- they say that their bill is designed to cut health care costs (mostly by capping damage awards when doctors are negligent and remove the wrong organ), not to provide for more and better health care insurance coverage.
The main reason why the Republican plan is so different is because Republicans have a different view of what the problem with health care is. The problem, according to Republicans, isn't that millions don't have coverage, or that insurance companies can drop your coverage as soon as you get sick.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), a new ringleader for right-wing activists, stated plainly what the "problem" is, according to the GOP:
"The largest empirical problem we have in health care today is too many people are too overinsured," he said.
There it is, the right's philosophy on American health care in 17 words. Most of us think the problem with the existing system is that we pay too much, get too little, and leave too many behind. Dick Armey sees the existing system and thinks we'd all be better off with less coverage. It's all premised on the notion that health insurance encourages medical treatments. If we have coverage, we might get tests and procedures that we wouldn't get if weren't so darned insured. Less coverage means fewer costs.
The problem is that you go to the doctor and agree to take the tests the doctor recommends. Shadegg and Hoekstra want a system where if your doctor suggests a biopsy for a suspicious lump you think about the pros and cons. Is it worth the money? Do you have the money? How suspicious is the lump anyway? Maybe you get the first one. But not necessarily the follow up scan six months later.
This is the essence of the Republican plan: the fact that you're insured and aren't directly feeling the cost of individual tests and procedures is the problem and getting rid of the insurance concept is the solution.... [T]he problem according to most Republicans in Congress isn't that there's not enough insurance or that it's not good enough. It's that there's too much. The problem is that you have insurance. And good policy will take it away from you.
Of course, if you don't have insurance, you don't even get to make that choice.
But let's see move past the features of the GOP plan and see what the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says about it. Ezra Klein summarizes:
Late last night, the Congressional Budget Office released its initial analysis of the health-care reform plan that Republican Minority Leader John Boehner offered as a substitute to the Democratic legislation. CBO begins with the baseline estimate that 17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won't have health-care insurance in 2010. In 2019, after 10 years of the Republican plan, CBO estimates that ...17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won't have health-care insurance. The Republican alternative will have helped 3 million people secure coverage, which is barely keeping up with population growth. Compare that to the Democratic bill, which covers 36 million more people and cuts the uninsured population to 4 percent.
But maybe, you say, the Republican bill does a really good job cutting costs. According to CBO, the GOP's alternative will shave $68 billion off the deficit in the next 10 years. The Democrats, CBO says, will slice $104 billion off the deficit.
The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan. And amazingly, the Democratic bill has already been through three committees and a merger process. It's already been shown to interest groups and advocacy organizations and industry stakeholders. It's already made its compromises with reality. It's already been through the legislative sausage grinder. And yet it saves more money and covers more people than the blank-slate alternative proposed by John Boehner and the House Republicans. The Democrats, constrained by reality, produced a far better plan than Boehner, who was constrained solely by his political imagination and legislative skill.
This is a major embarrassment for the Republicans.
Okay, first of all, if you are talking about comprehensive reform of the health care system in this country -- and Dems are -- then of course it is going to be a "big bill". You can't accomplish real change by nipping at the edges of an issue.
The other thing: if you actually look at the bill, you'll instantly see that it is printed in double-space, with margins actually bigger than the text itself. Only about 150 words per page. This post alone would be about two pages!
UPDATE: One thing to like about the Pelosi bill (so far) -- it outlaws "domestic violence" as a pre-existing condition to deny coverage. A short summary is here.
In case you haven't heard, the "public option" which many (including me) lamented as "dead" only a few weeks ago, appears to be quite alive. The Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill (the only one to come out of the Senate -- there are several in the House), lacked the public option. Even after it came out of committee, it didn't look like Democratic leaders in the Senate would push for the public option.
But Senate Majority leader Harry Reid surprised everyone last night by siding with the liberal democrats, and coming out for a public option. The catch? States could "opt out", if they wanted.
It's really not a "catch" at all, in my view. I doubt that most state would choose to "opt out", and those that do (deeply conservative states, I suspect) will eventually regret it, and come back into the fold after 5-10 years.
Good news.
UPDATE: Joe Lieberman is going to back a filibuster of the Senate bill. Note, he's not merely opposing it -- he's going to side with Republicans in blocking the bill to even come to a vote. Can't believe this guy used to be a Democrat. Steven Benen has some good observations about the ramifications of Lieberman's decision.
There's a lot of meat to this Washington Post-ABC News poll. The Washington Post leads with the most relevant to today's political debate: health care.
Specifically, people are warming up to the public option:
On the issue that has been perhaps the most pronounced flash point in the national debate, 57 percent of all Americans now favor a public insurance option, while 40 percent oppose it. Support has risen since mid-August, when a bare majority, 52 percent, said they favored it. (In a June Post-ABC poll, support was 62 percent.)
If a public plan were run by the states and available only to those who lack affordable private options, support for it jumps to 76 percent. Under those circumstances, even a majority of Republicans, 56 percent, would be in favor of it, about double their level of support without such a limitation.
What demographic accounts for the change? Independents and senior citizens. Yup. After a summer of falling for scare tactics (death panels, etc.), they finally listened long enough to hear the truth.
But here's the part I want to draw your attention to:
Only 20 percent of adults identify themselves as Republicans, little changed in recent months, but still the lowest single number in Post-ABC polls since 1983. Political independents continue to make up the largest group, at 42 percent of respondents; 33 percent call themselves Democrats.
That's right. Despite its efforts at "rebranding", only 20% of the people identify themselves as Republican. Remember, Ross Perot, when he ran for election, got 19% of the vote. In other words, Republicans are becoming a fringe party.
The public isn't buying what Republicans are selling. President Obama's support isn't as strong as it was -- though a 57% approval rating is pretty impressive at this point -- but the GOP has failed to capitalize. To the contrary, the minority, instead of positioning itself as a serious, credible alternative, is moving backwards.
A lot of Republicans are coming forward in support of "Obamacare" suddenly. Unfortunately, none of them are current congressmen. They include Republican overnors (like Ahhnold), or former Republican Congressmen, like Bill Frist and Bob Dole. It doesn't seem to be having much effect on current Congressmen.
But there is a new "compromise" solution, which seems to be catching fire -- the public option, but with a clause allowing states to "opt out". Josh Marshall explains:
To be clear, this is not 50 different state-based public options, where individual states could opt out. It's a national public option, which individual states could opt not to participate in.
The idea is from Sen. Carper (D-DE). But Sen. Schumer (D-NY) seems to be pushing it. He just went on TV a few moments ago and said the idea was gaining traction. The two of them apparently met yesterday evening to discuss the idea.
Now, I haven't heard yet from the people who really understand the policy dimensions of this stuff, the people who know all the moving parts and whose opinions I trust. So consider my comments as very tentative, subject to change if, as is quite possible, there are dimensions of this I'm not considering. But just on the face of it, this sounds like a compromise reformers could embrace because I suspect many, probably most states would opt in, providing a plenty large enough pool to get to the bargaining power that is essential to make a public option work.
Part of my assumption here is that you'd have relatively few states opting out and they'd tend toward lower population states, likely clustered in the South and mountain states. So I suspect that a substantial majority of the population would be in opt-in states, providing the bargaining power that would make the public option threshold viable. And if the public option works, one would think the people in opt-out states would quickly become pretty envious of the folks in states who had the option and pressure their state governments to get in. Of course, if the public option was an abysmal failure the reverse would happen. But that's another matter.
I like the compromise, too, assuming the full public option won't pass. And I'm not sure where North Carolina would fall. I suspect it would not opt out.
Seriously? Watch this story about Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Maine, a subsidiary of WellPoint. They are suing the State of Maine, because Maine is not letting them jack up their health insurance premiums 18.5%.
That's a pretty ballsy lawsuit, especially with the health care debate raging.
This story shows how silly it would be to solely rely on regulation to rein in insurance industry practices.
Like many other states, Anthem Health Plans hold a monopoly on the individual insurance market in Maine, controlling 79% of all the plans. Also like many other states, they are licensed to sell insurance through the Department of Insurance, who must clear all rate increases prior to implementation. Originally, Anthem Health Plans were a nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield corporation licensed to practice in Maine since 1939. In 1999, Anthem bought the business and began to operate it as a for-profit company. Since that point, Anthem has raised premium rates 10 times, and 8 of those times have been double-digit rate increases.
The average individual Maine rate-payer is paying four times as much for insurance than they did ten years ago.
But this isn't good enough for Anthem Health Plans. They first proposed a 14.5% rate increase for its individual insurance products, then they revised it up to 18.1% and finally 18.5%. This is an average increase. Some plans would see increase of 24.5%, some 38.4%, and for its Preventive Care and Supplemental Care Accident rider, which is part of 1/3 of all their policies, Anthem proposed a rate increase of 58.2%. This amounts to Maine consumers paying $12 million more in annual premium dollars for the exact same level of benefits.
Anthem isn't hurting for profit. Their Maine operations have generated an average annual return of $70 million dollars over the last five years. Anthem paid dividends to their parent company, WellPoint, of $75 million dollars last year alone, and $152 million since 2006. Their nine highest-paid employees totaled over $4.3 million in compensation. The individual market, while a smaller portion of their overall business, still generated $5.4 million in profit over the last two years.
The reason Anthem desires these rate raises is because their actuarial charts show they can guarantee a 3% profit through this increase. That's an estimate, however, and in 8 of the last 10 years the profit margin achieved has actually been higher. The Maine Superintendent of Insurance ruled in May 2009 that the 3% profit and risk margin sought was "excessive and unfairly discriminatory," as per the laws of the state, and instead approved a rate increase of 10.9% for Anthem. Given the recession, the financial health of the company, and the years of large rate increases, there was no way she could approve anything higher.
So Anthem sued the state....
This is a very revealing case. Those arguing against a public option claim that insurance regulations alone will be sufficient to provide an affordable product for everyone. Here's a case where Maine is attempting to regulate the industry, and the industry sues the state in an effort to grab more profit. While claiming to be on the side of reform, they will fight tooth and nail, and can be expected to do so for every regulation in the national health care bill, right down the line.
So here's what The World's Worst Politican Evah (tm) said on the floor of the House last night:
For the video-impaired, here's a transcript:
"[T]he bill orders that these clinics protect patient privacy and student records. What does that mean? It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving. And as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what's going to go on — comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care — is that abortion? Does that mean that someone's 13-year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and Dad are never the wiser.
[Emphasis mine]
By the way, this is classic GOP fearmongering. You know how you can tell? Because it comes in the form of a question.
As in "Does the mean....?" or "Could it be that...?"
Example: "The Constitution says that the president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Does this mean that Obama will command the United States Marines to come to your home, rape your children, and drink the blood of your grandmother?"
Then they'll add (usually in a follow-up on MSNBC's Hardball), "Well, it doesn't say otherwise. So naturally, we must take it to mean that Obama will command the United States Marines to come to your home, rape your children, and drink the blood of your grandmother."
That's how the game works. Learn it. Look for it.
Anyway, back to Bachmann.
What she's doing is echoing a bottom-dweller convervative argument. The origin of this argument, which has been hitting GOP inboxes in chain-letter fashion, seems to have come from blogger Peter Fleckenstein and trumpeted by the anti-abortion Liberty Counsel, which recently claimed that Page 992 of the bill "will establish school-based 'health' clinics. Your children will be indoctrinated and your grandchildren may be aborted!"
The nonpartisan (and Pulitzer-Prize winning) PolitiFact, which provided the Liberty Counsel origin, found the assertion baseless, giving the charge its lowest rating, "Pants on Fire."
It concludes:
"The money could also be used to provide 'mental health assessments, crisis interventions, counseling, treatment and referral to a continuum of services including emergency psychiatric care, community support programs, inpatient care and outpatient care.' The clinics would have the option to provide 'oral health, social and age-appropriate health education services including nutritional counseling.'
"Clinics getting federal dollars must act in accordance with federal, state and local law, according to the bills. For example, clinics in Louisiana are not even allowed to counsel students on abortion, according to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals."
But these inconvenient facts are overlooked by Bachmann and her brethren. None of the three bills in the House explicitly prohibit the use of the school-based clinics to steer kids to abortion clinics, so naturally allow for it, according to the odd conservative logic.
And soon you'll see the lie-meme popping up in ads, complete with scary music underneath, presenting this as truth. Oh, and Beck, too.
I wasn't going to write about this, but there was some Democratic theatrics on the House floor yesterday. A Democratic congressman -- Alan Grayson of Florida -- got up in the House and made a tongue-in-cheek mockery of the Republican health care plan. The freshman Florida Democrat said the Republican health care plan calls for sick people to "die quickly."
"It's a very simple plan," Grayson said in the speech Tuesday night. "Don't get sick. That's what the Republicans have in mind. And if you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly."
Here's the vid:
This morning, Republicans are outraged and insulted about the terrible lack of decorum, etc. Outraged and insulted, I say. Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, announced Wednesday he will introduce a resolution condemning Grayson for the comments.
Rep. Jimmy Duncan (R-TN) declared:
"That is about the most mean-spirited partisan statement that I've ever heard made on this floor, and I, for one, don't appreciate it."
Really? The most mean-spirited partisan statement ever heard on the House floor? Apparently, they are oblivious to similar statements from their own ranks. Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post took a preliminary look at a few Republican representatives who claimed the Democratic health care plan spelled death for Americans:
Take Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.), who said in July: "Last week, Democrats released a health care bill which essentially said to America's seniors: drop dead."
Or Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), a doctor, who reviewed the public health insurance option in July and diagnosed that it is "gonna kill people."
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), not one to pull punches, suggested on the House floor that Congress "make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans and that ensures affordable access for all Americans and is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government."
July was a busy time for House floor death sentences. Also that month, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), noted: "One in five people have to die because they went to socialized medicine...I would hate to think that among five women, one of 'em is gonna die because we go to socialized care."
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) had a similar assessment. "They're going to save money by rationing care, getting you in a long line. Places like Canada, United Kingdom, and Europe. People die when they're in line," he said on the House floor in July.
UPDATE: A video compilation:
Classic case of dishing it out, but not being able to take it.
... and that's why they supposedly oppose the public option, then why are they throwing money at government programs that don't work?
That's right. The Senate Finance Committee yesterday rejected two amendments to its health bill which would have added the public option. But what amendment did the Republicans and Blue Dog Dems vote for? Providing more money to abstience education programs:
The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday night approved an amendment providing tens of millions of dollars to fund abstinence education programs for teens.
The proposal, offered by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), would provide $50 million per year through 2014 exclusively for abstinence education programs. The measure would effectively reinstate the controversial Title V program, which offered $50 million per year to states for abstinence education, but prohibited them from tapping the funds for other sex-ed subjects like contraception. The same prohibition would accompany the Hatch amendment. “Abstinence education works,” the Utah Republican said.
The vote was 12 to 11, with Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Kent Conrad (N.D.) voting with every Republican to secure passage of the measure.
Hatch, defending the truly ridiculous government spending, said, "Abstinence education works."
No, Orrin. It doesn't.
The facts have been stubborn on this. The nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that abstinence programs do not affect teenager sexual behavior. A congressionally-mandated study, which was not only comprehensive but also included long-term follow-up, found the exact same thing. Researchers keep conducting studies, and the results are always the same.
Whatever merits one hopes abstience-only education possesses, the bottom line is this: IT DOESN'T WORK. Yet, the Republicans want to fund it anyway, at the expense -- and as part of -- a healthcare reform bill intended to bring low-cost affordable health care to everybody.
The Senate Finance Committee is debating whether a public option amendment should be added to their bill. As expected, Republicans and Blue Dog Dems are opposed.
But, listening to their debate here in the background all day, their arguments against the public option are all the same: government-imposed rationing, long wait times, bureaucrats making treatment decisions, etc.
In other words, it's a bad program that doesn't work (they claim).
What doesn't get said, and what needs desparately to be said, is that the public option is designed to compete with private insurance. And people can choose the public option (if they want) or stay with their private insurance.
So... even IF the public option turns out to be the terrible nightmare that Republicans claim, what's the downside? If it's going to be that bad, then people simply won't choose it, right? So, private insurance companies "win"; it won't cost much to run, etc.
And yet, some Republicans claim that the public options is just a stepping stone to a single payer system, where there are no private insurance companies. Well, how will that work, if the public option will be so terrible?
You see, it's a shell game. The truth is that Republicans fear the public option, not because it won't work, but because they fear it will work. They fear, and rightly so, that on a level-playing feel, insurance companies will fare badly, and (at worst) have to adjust their business practices to be more consumer-friendly.
O’REILLY: The public option now is done. We discussed this, it’s not going to happen. But you say that this little marketplace that they’re going to set up, whereby the federal government would subsidize insurance for some Americans, that is, in your opinion, a public option?
OWCHARENKO: Well, it has massive new federal regulation. So you don’t necessarily need a public option if the federal government is going to control and regulate the type of health insurance that Americans can buy.
O’REILLY: But you know, I want that, Ms. Owcharenko. I want that. I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have a option, that if they don’t like their health insurance, if it’s too expensive, they can’t afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.
That really seems like an endorsement of some kind of public option, or, at least the general theory behind the public option.... from Bill O'Reilly.
See, I think he's being outflanked on his right by the bi-polarism of Beck, and he probably figures -- "Well, I might as well be honest now since Beck is getting all the attention."
The Senate Finance committee hunkered down to come up with a healthcare reform bill.
And they had a choice: either come up with a bipartisan healthcare reform bill that Republicans wouldn't vote for, or a partisan healthcare reform bill that Republicans wouldn't vote for.
Why did they choose the former? (It's clear that nobody likes the Baucus bill).
I don't mind Obama opposition in general, and concerns about exploding the deficits are more than reasonable concerns. Heck, make a coherent argument against anything I support, and I'll listen and consider it.
My problem with many -- if not most -- of the Tea Party protesters is that -- well, how shall I say it -- they're idiots. They simply don't understand how things work, so they're not in a position to criticize.
The classic example are the senior citizens who are on -- and like -- Medicare, but who loudly voice their opposition to any form of government-run healthcare. Do they have low IQs or are they just uninformed? Is there a brain severance that prevents them from understanding that the kind of thing they protest is something they actually like?
Doesn't matter, really. At the end of the day, one can dismiss their viewpoints as, at best, noise.
And today we have another example.
Last weekend, a large number of tea party protesters descended on Washington, D.C. to protest the -- well, they really didn't have a unifed message, but generally, it was against government.
And apparently, some of them were less-than-satisfied with the service they got from the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA), and found themselves facing crowded trains. It was difficult to get from point A to point B.
The irony? Well, the Washington metro is public transit — in other words, it’s run by big government. Nevertheless, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) has written a letter to WMATA complaining that the service wasn’t good enough for the tea baggers:
“These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration,” Brady wrote. “These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them.”
That's right. People opposed to government spending are now calling on government to provide better services.
By the way, they didn't only use public transportation.
Those millions tens of thousands of teabaggers used the facilities of the government-run National Park system.
They left a significant amount of trash behind in garbage cans (mostly anti-socialism signs, of course) for the government-run sanitation department to dispose of.
They arrived at the Tea Party on government-built and -maintained roads.
They relied on government-funded police to provide security.
Many of them are on government-provided social security and/or Medicare.
Apparently, many of these people think these things pay for themselves. Or they want these government services (or better government services), but they just don't want to pay for them.
Apparently, Brady heard complaints from some of his constituents who traveled to D.C. to protest "big government." They were disappointed to discover, however, that the government hadn't done more to satisfy their public-transportation expectations, and now want other government officials to address the problem.
In some instances, Brady said constituents relied on private enterprise -- taxi cabs -- rather than the (ahem) public option. The conservative lawmaker described this as a bad thing. Local officials, Brady said, should have made "a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit" to the public.
Read that sentence again and replace "transit" with "health care coverage."
That really struck me, especially since a more comprehensive non-partisan poll by the New England Journal of Medicine came out showing that "62.9 percent of physicians nationwide support proposals to expand health care coverage that include both public and private insurance options"
I tried to look deeper into this, to find out exactly how IBD had phrased its questions. Except they're not making that available. Well, that should be a clue.
Statistician extraordinaire Nate Silver gives some other reason why we should be skeptical of the IBD poll. Among them:
There is virtually no disclosure about methodology. For example, IBD doesn't bother to define the term "practicing physician", which could mean almost anything. Nor do they explain how their randomization procedure worked, provide the entire question battery, or anything like that.
At least one of the questions is blatantly biased: "Do you believe the government can cover 47 million more people and it will cost less money and th quality of care will be better?". Holy run-on-sentence, Batman? A pollster who asks a question like this one is not intending to be objective.
They say, somewhat ambiguously: "Responses are still coming in." This is also highly unorthodox. Professional pollsters generally do not report results before the survey period is compete.
As we learned during the Presidential campaign -- when, among other things, they had John McCain winning the youth vote 74-22 -- the IBD/TIPP polling operation has literally no idea what they're doing. I mean, literally none. For example, I don't trust IBD/TIPP to have competently selected anything resembling a random panel, which is harder to do than you'd think.
Yeah. Pretty much as I thought.
Of course, on the face of it, does the conclusion of the poll strike you as plausible? Will 45% of doctors consider quitting if healthcare is overhauled?
And what praytell will these doctors do for a living?
First it was "Liar, liar" (embodied in Joe Wilson); now it's "he started it" ("he" = Obama).
My favorite:
After the vote was taken, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) declared on the House floor that Obama had insulted Congress, by saying that his opponents were lying about his health care proposals. "He comes in here talking about a lie ... He says we're making wild claims," said Gohmert. "That's no way to act when you're invited into somebody else's house."
(1) Death panels for granny? Insurance for illegal immigrants? Those are lies and wild claims.
Crystal Lee Sutton, formerly Crystal Lee Jordan, was fired from her job folding towels at the J.P. Stevens textile plant in her hometown of Roanoke Rapids, N.C. for trying to organize a union in the early 1970s. Her last action at the plant -- writing the word "UNION" on a piece of cardboard and standing on her work table, leading her co-workers to turn off their machines in solidarity -- was memorialized in the 1979 film by actress Sally Field. The police physically removed Sutton from the plant for her action.
She died yesterday from brain cancer.
Her death touches upon the contemporary hot topic involving health care reform. Several years ago, Sutton was diagnosed with meningioma, a type of cancer of the nervous system. While such cancers are typically slow-growing, Sutton's was not -- and she went two months without potentially life-saving medication because her insurance wouldn't cover it initially. Sutton told the Burlington (N.C.) Times-News last year that the insurer's behavior was an example of abuse of the working poor:
"How in the world can it take so long to find out [whether they would cover the medicine or not] when it could be a matter of life or death," she said. "It is almost like, in a way, committing murder."
Though Sutton eventually received the medication, the cancer had already taken hold. She passed away on Friday, Sept. 11 in a Burlington, N.C. hospice.
The latest report from the Census Bureau on income, poverty, and health insurance is full of interesting data. (For example, median household family income in 2008, at $50,303, was below where it was in 1998. Heckuva job, Bushie, Greenie, and the whole economic team!) Perhaps the most surprising census data are the significant evidence that, even absent a reform bill, the United States is slowly nationalizing health care. In 2008, enrollment in Medicare and Medicaid rose from a combined 81 million to a combined 85.6 million. Add in military health care, and some 87.4 million Americans in 2008 got health insurance directly from a government source—about 29 percent of the total. Meanwhile, health insurance became less tethered to work. The percentage of people covered by employment-based health insurance fell from 59.3 percent in 2007 to 58.5 percent 2008, and the percentage of those working full-time and part-time who lacked health insurance rose in 2008. The ranks of those getting insurance from employers include a substantial number of public employees—teachers, state workers, etc. (In August, government accounted for about 17 percent of payroll jobs.) Add those folks to the people receiving coverage from Medicare, Medicaid, and the military, and, as Jon Bon Jovi once put it, "we're half way there." Most of the Americans who have insurance may already be getting it through the government, one way or another.
This has nothing to do with Obama's proposals. This is just a trend, brought on in part by the insurance companies themselves. As employment-based insurance plummets because it is fiscally impossible to keep, more are moving to government-run insurance programs (if they can), or (sadly), no insurance at all.
Republicans think that one way to improve health care is to engage in tort reform, i.e., somehow limit the number of malpractice cases brought to court, or limit the damages that winning plaintiffs can receive. Because (Republicans claim) of all these lawsuits, malpractice insurance for doctors and hospitals is high, which creates higher health care costs.
It's an idea, so let's give Republicans credit for actually bringing something constructive to the table. At least it's not shouting "blargh snort gruff gruff" from the bleachers.
So let's give it the closer look it deserves.
Does malpractice insurance result in higher medical costs? Sure. But the impact is negligible. As Obama said last night, malpratice tort reform is not the "silver bullet" that will solve all, or even most, of the high costs of health care.
Malpractice reform is based in part on the premise that people file frivilous lawsuits against doctors, and doctors (and their insurers) run up all kinds of money defending these frivilous lawsuits. Sadly, this is not the case.
A 2006 study was conducted by a team of eight researchers from Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Harvard Risk Management Foundation. They examined 1,452 medical malpractice lawsuits. They found that more than 90 percent of the claims showed evidence of medical injury, which means they weren't, by definition, "frivolous". (The platintiffs may not have won, but not winning in court doesn't necessarily mean that the lawsuit was baseless to begin with)
More importantly, when baseless medical malpractice suits were brought, the study further found, the courts efficiently threw them out before they got to trial. So the notion that our courts are filled with frivilous malpractice lawsuits doesn't stand up to scrutiny -- it is exaggerated.
Nor is there evidence to show that the level of jury awards has shot up. A recent RAND study looked at the growth in malpractice awards between 1960 and 1999. "Our results are striking," the research team concluded. "Not only do we show that real average awards have grown by less than real income over the 40 years in our sample, we also find that essentially all of this growth can be explained by changes in observable case characteristics and claimed economic losses."
Even then, what exactly does malpractice reform look like? Sure, Republicans can try to craft a statute that forbids frivilous lawsuits, but who will determine whether a lawsuit is "firivilous" to begin with? The fact is that we already have a way to ensure that frivilous lawsuits don't go to trial -- that way is the court system itself.
Maybe a better way for doctors and hospitals to avoid lawsuits is to, you know, do better at their jobs. It's happened before.
For example, anesthesiologists used to get hit with the most malpractice lawsuits and some of the highest insurance premiums. Then in the late 1980s, the American Society of Anesthesiologists launched a project to analyze every claim ever brought against its members and develop new ways to reduce medical error. By 2002, the specialty had one of the highest safety ratings in the profession, and its average insurance premium plummeted to its 1985 level, bucking nationwide trends.
Similarly, feeling embattled by a high rate of malpractice claims, the University of Michigan Medical System in 2002 analyzed all adverse claims and used the data to restructure procedures to guard against error. Since instituting the program, the number of suits has dropped by half, and the university's annual spending on malpractice litigation is down two-thirds. And at the Lexington, Ky., Veterans Affairs Medical Center, a program of early disclosure and settlement of malpractice claims lowered average settlement costs to $15,000, compared with $83,000 for other VA hospitals.
I'm not saying that malpractice reform can't help. But it is not the only way, or even the fair and equitable way. Rather than limiting people's ability to sue (or to recover damages), maybe the medical profession practice area can troubleshoot and fix areas that are prone to malpractice in the first place.
To conclude from these possibilities to the accusation that President Obama’s favored legislation will lead to “death panels” deciding whose life has sufficient value to be saved — let alone that Obama desires this outcome — is to leap across a logical canyon. It may well be that in a society as litigious as ours, government will err on the side of spending more rather than treating less. But that does not mean that there is nothing to worry about. Our response to Sarah Palin’s fans and her critics is to paraphrase Peter Viereck: We should be against hysteria — including hysteria about hysteria.
The cover of the current issue of National Review:
Washington Post’s Tom Shales says Obama “came across like Jimmy Stewart in ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’: a bright-eyed young idealist up against entrenched power, old ideas and obstructionism. It was also a chance for Obama to go on national television and look presidential again, asserting himself in ways that helped make up for the past few months of perceived defensiveness, of appearing to kowtow to other powers, and of seeming to do more following than leading.”
More: “One heckler, Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, shouted out, ‘You lie!’ Again, the contrast worked to Obama's advantage; he looked and sounded calm and rational, though certainly assertive, while moblike voices railed defiantly against him.”
***
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg conducted a focus group/dial test on President Obama's health-care speech with 50 independents in Denver, CO -- half who voted for Obama last fall and half who voted for John McCain. In a conference call with reporters to discuss the findings, Greenberg said that before the speech, 23 of these independents supported Obama's call for reform, 23 opposed it, and four were undecided. After the speech, the number who said they supported reform jumped from 23 to 33.
***
Vice President Biden said Joe Wilson's outburst "demeaned the institution." He said he was "embarrassed for the chamber and a Congress I love."
Eric Cantor: "Obviously, the President of the United States is always welcome on Capitol Hill. He deserves respect and decorum. ... I know that Congressman Wilson has issued an apology and made his thoughts known to the White House, which was the appropriate thing to do."
John McCain called the outburst "totally disrespectful." "There is no place for it in that setting, or any other, and he should apologize for it immediately," he said.
Rep. Joe Wilson's 2010 opponent has received more than $100,000 in contributions overnight
But while the majority of both parties' lawmakers behaved as adults, the insolence by House Republicans stole the show. There was derisive laughter on that side of the chamber when Obama noted that "there remain some significant details to be ironed out." They applauded as he spoke of "all the misinformation that's been spread over the past few months." They laughed again when he said that "many Americans have grown nervous about reform."
When Obama addressed the charge that he plans "panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens," someone on the GOP side shouted out "shame!" The president went on: "Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical." "Read the bill!" someone shouted back. Obama mentioned those who accuse him of a government takeover of health care. "It's true," someone shouted back.
***
Even as Obama delivered a tribute to the late senator Ted Kennedy, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga), a leader of House conservatives, perused his BlackBerry. Shortly before the speech ended, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) walked out to beat the rush.
This morning, the conservosphere is lining up to demonstrate that Democrats booed and hissed Bush when he gave a State of the Union in 2005. Except what they were booing and hissing at wasn't Bush, but at what Bush was saying. Bush was warning that if something wasn't done, Social Security would fail. That prompted a boo -- the spector of Social Security failing. It was not an attack on Bush, but an acknowledgement in agreement with Bush that losing Social Security would be bad.
But I suppose that;s a little to nuanced for conservatives to understand.
Two out of three Americans who watched President Barack Obama's health care reform speech Wednesday night favor his health care plans — a 14-point gain among speech-watchers, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national poll of people who tuned into Obama's address Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress.
Sixty-seven percent of people questioned in the survey say the support Obama's health care reform proposals that the president outlined in his address, with 29 percent opposed. Those figures are almost identical to a poll conducted immediately after Bill Clinton's health care speech before Congress in September, 1993.
The audience for the speech appears to be more Democratic than the U.S. population as a whole. Because of this, the results may favor Obama simply because more Democrats than Republicans tune into the speech. The poll surveyed the opinions of people who watched Wednesday night's speech, and does not reflect the views of all Americans.
I wanted to write a few final words to you to express my gratitude for your repeated personal kindnesses to me - and one last time, to salute your leadership in giving our country back its future and its truth.
On a personal level, you and Michelle reached out to Vicki, to our family and me in so many different ways. You helped to make these difficult months a happy time in my life.
You also made it a time of hope for me and for our country.
When I thought of all the years, all the battles, and all the memories of my long public life, I felt confident in these closing days that while I will not be there when it happens, you will be the President who at long last signs into law the health care reform that is the great unfinished business of our society. For me, this cause stretched across decades; it has been disappointed, but never finally defeated. It was the cause of my life. And in the past year, the prospect of victory sustained me-and the work of achieving it summoned my energy and determination.
There will be struggles - there always have been - and they are already underway again. But as we moved forward in these months, I learned that you will not yield to calls to retreat - that you will stay with the cause until it is won. I saw your conviction that the time is now and witnessed your unwavering commitment and understanding that health care is a decisive issue for our future prosperity. But you have also reminded all of us that it concerns more than material things; that what we face is above all a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.
And so because of your vision and resolve, I came to believe that soon, very soon, affordable health coverage will be available to all, in an America where the state of a family's health will never again depend on the amount of a family's wealth. And while I will not see the victory, I was able to look forward and know that we will - yes, we will - fulfill the promise of health care in America as a right and not a privilege.
In closing, let me say again how proud I was to be part of your campaign- and proud as well to play a part in the early months of a new era of high purpose and achievement. I entered public life with a young President who inspired a generation and the world. It gives me great hope that as I leave, another young President inspires another generation and once more on America's behalf inspires the entire world.
So, I wrote this to thank you one last time as a friend- and to stand with you one last time for change and the America we can become.
At the Denver Convention where you were nominated, I said the dream lives on.
And I finished this letter with unshakable faith that the dream will be fulfilled for this generation, and preserved and enlarged for generations to come.
He shot down the lies. He addressed all the BS about death panels, government coming between you and your doctor, illegal immigrants getting health insurance, etc. Not that rabid opponents will change their mind; they're entrenched in stupidity and or fearmongering. Key passage:
Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.
There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up – under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.
He chastized the liars. He was presidential, looking down his nose (as one should) and the tone of the debate and the bickering. He called out those Republicans who worked against reform merely to score political points. Key passage:
But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.
GOP hurt themselves by behaving like children. Republicans hurt themselves by having a bill in their hands, twittering, and -- in the case of Jim Wilson (R-SC) -- calling the president a "liar" (what he actually shouted out was "You lie!" -- a serious childish breach of ethics; not even during the Iraq War did a Democrat do that). Here's the video -- check out Pelosi's stare:
But there was something clarifying about a Southern good ol' boy yelling "Liar" at the president over illegal immigration. That's what the GOP now is: the worst aspects of the old Democratic party combined with a nihilism that is only eclipsed by its catastrophic governance for the past eight years. Defeating these morons and actually creating a discourse for reform is what we elected Obama to do.
But they still insist on doing it to themselves, don't they? That's the silver lining.
Those southern Repubs behaved like children, only reinforcing the point that Obama was making.
"This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility."
UPDATE UPDATE (11:35 pm): Even though the speech ended 2 hours ago, the Democratic opponent of Wilson has raised $40,000 in campaign donations as a result of Wilson's behavior.
He outlined what the plan should be. He made the (rather obvious) point that the public option is, you know, an option. It's not government-mandated. He pointed out that there must be cost-savings. For those concerned about government health care options running up the deficit, Obama pointed out that health care costs are the deficit, and if we don't do something now, we're going to find ourselves in a much much worse situation down the road. Required mandatory health care. The other big thing: making denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions "illegal".
On then public option, he didn't make it a line in the sand, but he did say (in effect): "You got a better idea?!?"
He made health care the moral imperative. The best part of the speech was the end, where he quoted from a letter he received Ted Kennedy before the latter's death, and went into the importance of health care. It's not, Obama said, government for the sake of government. It is a moral imperative which speaks to the charactor of our nation -- i.e., that we help each other, that we take care of our own.... literally. Republicans sat on their hands. Key passage:
That large-heartedness - that concern and regard for the plight of others - is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people's shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.
The GOP response, by the way, was abyssmal. It was given by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), a conformed birther, who is not only a congressman from Louisiana, but a doctor. Gives the only Republican idea on health care reform, which is malpractive reform (making it harder to sue doctors). Interestingly, Rep. Dr. Charles Boustany has been sued three times for malpractice. Anyway, Boustany's message was basically "It's time to start over". Don't believe it. They just want to kill reform.
Obama, by the way, for all his chastizing of Republicans, mentioned tort reform as a viable idea -- the GOP loved that. He also mentioned other points of the plan -- one of which was McCain's (and he gave McCain credit).
It was a great speech, the most effective and moving speech Obama has given.as President.
Will it do the job? Will it produce a bill?
Yes, it will. But not because he won over the Republicans. The ridiculous Eric Cantor was typical of his GOP colleagues. He sat up there, right in front of the President of the United States, tweeting on his Blackberry. He at least looked like a living adolescent. Most of his colleagues looked like the jury at the Salem witch trials, with an occasional madman screaming epithets at the President whose very countenance offends so many rightwingers.
But this speech worked because it will galvanize Democratic support. The President's passion -- the first time we've seen it in a year -- will bring straying Democrats back. And the Republicans now know that there will be a bill with them or without them. The implied threat of going the reconciliation route was just below the surface.
That is why the Republicans looked so miserable. They either work with Obama to produce a bill or Democrats pass a bill without them.
Nate Silver says it wasn't a home run, but a stand-up triple:
As Marc Ambinder outlined this afternoon, this was a difficult speech because it was going for a bit of a two-fer. On the one hand, Obama needed to appeal to liberals -- both the 60 or so members of the House who have threatened to vote against a watered-down bill, and the much broader, activist community who has grown wary of what they perceive as a Clintonian president who is too willing to compromise. On the other hand, he needed to appeal to independent voters and their brethren, among whom Obama's approval ratings and sentiment toward his health care package have fallen significantly. He could afford to skip over the broad mainstream of the Democratic Party, who are going to be happy with more or less anything the that he does on health care, and the quarter or so of country who disapproved of Obama from Day One and won't care for what he has to say no matter what.
I think Obama accomplished both of those things -- with some margin to spare. On the one hand, there was no absence of red meat for the liberals. Lies were called out as lies. The Republicans, who seemed to lack an understanding of the theatrics in the room, were at several points made to look petty and stupid. And Obama made the moral case for health care reform, something many liberals -- including yours truly -- have been urging him to do for a long time.
On the other hand, there was a lot of the "bipartisan" pivoting of the sort that made Obama very popular during his 2004 DNC convention speech. He made himself look like the reasonable party in the room. He got a smile out of John McCain, and a golf clap out of John Boehner. At the end of the day, he probably acknowledged the sacrifice of the "robust" public option (although a version with a trigger remains possible, and perhaps even likely). But he got some mileage out of it: using it as the left goalpost by which he'd confidently kick the field goal through.
I called the speech a triple, because I think it was about 10 minutes too long. Andrew Sullivan's readers call it a home run. FOX News, I'm sure, will call it a long fly-out to the warning track. The bottom line: it was a well-delivered speech, and a very, very smart speech. It will remind people of what they liked about Obama. It won't do miracles. But it will increase, perhaps substantially, the odds of meaningful health care reform passing.
RELATED: A message from MoveOn and REM:
UPDATE: For 30 seconds, I turned to Fox News' post-speech coverage. It was Hannity talking to Frank Luntz. And Hannity said (this is pretty close to verbatim): "I couldn't believe that Obama called out insurance company executives -- calling them 'bad people'".
Then he played the clip. And of course, Obama didn't say that. He said the opposite. Here's what Obama actually said:
My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly – by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by jacking up rates.
Insurance executives don’t do this because they are bad people. They do it because it’s profitable.
Did Hannity correct himself? Did he even know or care that he misrepresented Obama's speech?
Not really been attuned to the health care debate? That's fine. You're busy.
Fortunately, you can increase your knowledge about the central sticking point -- the public option -- in 150 seconds, just by watching this dwarf former Secretary of Labor, former boyfriend of Hilary Rodham, author, father of the Family and Medical Leave Act, Rhodes scholar and NPR commentator Robert Reich explain what "the public option" is. It's not complicated.
The town hall meetings are over. Congress is back in session. If the White House is changing its tone for the upcoming health care debate, and this is indicative of that tone, I think we might see some good things coming. As the Washington Postnoted, "In abandoning the cool, patient tone he adopted at health-care town hall meetings over the summer, Obama signaled that he is ready to take a hard-line approach on Wednesday."
Wednesday is when Obama gives his health care speech before Congress. His style will obviously be a little different than it was with the AFL-CIO yesterday. But, I hope, not too different.
Rescission -- the technical term for canceling coverage on grounds that the company was misled -- is often considered among the most offensive practices in an insurance industry that already suffers from a distinct lack of popularity among the American public. Tales of cancellations have fueled outrage among regulators, analysts, doctors and, not least, plaintiffs' lawyers, who describe insurers as too eager to shed patients to widen profits.
What typically happens is that someone gets sick, and not only does the insurer deny the coverage, but they cancel the policy on that person because (the insurer says) that person failed to disclose a pre-existing condition.
Now, let me weigh in on my experience, because, yes, for a year or two, I was a lawyer representing a major insurance company. I handled cases where people were denied disability coverage and sometimes their policies were rescinded for failing to disclose a pre-existing condition.
Okay. Here's how insurance companies defend their practice of rescission:
Insurance company officials say they need to be able to cancel policies to control fraud, which by some estimates reaches $100 billion annually.
Trust me. I'm no shill for insurance companies and I can't speak to the big-picture estimates of $100 billion annually, but yes, Virginia, many people do try to defraud the insurance company. I've seen it. There are people who claim to be unable to work because they can't move their back and lo and behold, there's videotape of them doing brickwork on their patio or gardening or something, all while collecting disability benefits. (You don't think insurance compannies check these things out?)
And who pays for this? We do. Our premiums are higher because some people are playing the system.
But what about the other side of the coin? Are insurance companies engaging in rescission of policies on the slightest pretext? The Washington Post story provides this anecdotal evidence:
The untimely disappearance of Sally Marrari's medical coverage goes a long way toward explaining why insurance companies are cast as the villain in the health-care reform drama.
"They said I never mentioned I had a back problem," said Marrari, 52, whose coverage with Blue Cross was abruptly canceled in 2006 after a thyroid disorder, fluid in the heart and lupus were diagnosed. That left the Los Angeles woman with $25,000 in medical bills and the stigma of the company's claim that she had committed fraud by not listing on a health questionnaire "preexisting conditions" Marrari said she did not know she had.
By the time she filed a lawsuit in 2008, she also got a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and her debts had swelled beyond $200,000.
And this:
In a pending case, Blue Shield searched in vain for an inconsistency in the health records of the wife of a dairy farmer after she filed a claim for emergency gallbladder surgery, according to attorneys for the family. Turning to her husband's questionnaire, the company discovered he had not mentioned his high cholesterol and dropped them both. Blue Shield officials said they would not comment on a pending case.
In other words, failure to mention some medical condition on your application form -- any medical condition -- serves as grounds for insurance companies to deny you coverage and take away your policy altogether. An egregious example often told includes a woman in Texas was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. Soon after, her insurer dropped her -- the company found an instance in which she visited a dermatologist for acne, and didn't tell the insurer about it.
It happens, and yes, it's rather unsavory. It's one thing when people fail to disclose major illnesses on their insurance application; that certainly indicates fraud on the insurance company. But if I had a stiff back for a few days four years ago, and I forgot to mention it to the insurance company (because I had forgotten about it myself), should I get dinged with denial-of-coverage and rescission if, ten years later, I develop some back problem?
The problem is that when people apply for insurance, they don't want to disclose every tiny illness, even assuming they do remember. And why? Because they know that they risk being denied coverage for a pre-existing condition.
I don't have any personal insight into the zealousness that insurers employ to deny coverage. There certainly seem to be indications that insurance companies use the "fighting fraud" excuse to, let's be blunt, raise their profit margin. Three months ago, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation held a hearing on this with executives from three of the nation's largest health insurers, WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group, and Assurant Inc. At one point, late in the discussion, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) asked each of the execs whether they would at least commit to stopping rescissions except where they could show "intentional fraud." All three responded with the same answer: "No." They liked the money-saving tactic and planned to keep using it.
As the article points out, the rescission issue is getting better if only because the government (usually at the state level) is cracking down on overt practices by the insurance companies to deny coverage or rescind policies.
My only point here is that we need to crack down not only on overt insurance practices, but also on the actual fraud committed against insurance consumers. Any reform which makes it easier for people to play the insurance racket isn't going to help us in the long run, since that leads to an increase in health care coverage costs for all.
There is a huge viral movement brewing on Facebook at the moment: Countless young people around the country are pasting the following message (or something close to it) into their status:
No one should die because they cannot afford healthcare. No one should go broke because they get sick, and no one should be tied to a job because of pre-existing condition. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
Hard to quantify, but some estimates are that the status is being used by tens of thousands. What is remarkable here is that these status updates containing a strong and clear message in favor of healthcare reform are coming not only from the political community but also from those whose lives are not immersed in these fights. These are regular young people, all around the country, speaking out in favor of reform. This movement is impressive and surprising, and, at least from this vantage, quite newsworthy.
Update:Not Just Facebook... Twitterers (Tweeters? Twitter users?) getting in on the action, too.
This video is boring and wonkish. It's boring and wonkish because it's detailed and educated. I'm telling you that right up front because my point is that the health care debate should be boring and wonkish and detailed and educated.
This is Senator Al Franken (D-MN) who was confronted by a loud and angry mob of teabagging anti-reform protesters. What happened? They asked him questions, and he answered them. He showed a grasp of the issues which, quite frankly, the teabaggers didn't have. But rather than putting them down (or worse, avoiding them), he simply talked frank.
And they didn't have much to say.
I'm not sure he convinces anybody, but even to the teabaggers, they probably see that he is infinitely more knowledgeable than Limbaugh or Beck.
Why has it become so difficult to even consider changing our minds about important issues?
Here's my diagnosis.
Increasingly, the willingness to change one's position on political issues has been misread as a mark of weakness rather than a product of attentive listening and careful deliberation.
Three factors exacerbate this paralysis by lack of analysis: labels, lifestyles and listening.
First, the labels ascribed to many potential policy tools render sensible options taboo, loading what could be rational, economic or social measures with moral baggage. This narrows our choices, hemming in policy makers.
Any proposal including the words "government-run" elicits cries of "socialism" and "communism." Any argument invoking the words "God" or "moral" sparks accusations of "right-wing extremism," "fascism," or "Bible-thumping." Instead of listening to each other's ideas, we spot the warning label and run the other way.
Second, our lifestyles favor knee-jerk reactions. The way we think, work and live in the Digital Age demands we quickly categorize information without investing time into rich interaction, research and understanding.
We're hesitant to ask questions because we don't have time to listen to the long, complicated answers that might follow. And we lack the time to fact-check competing claims. In our haste, it's easier to echo our party's position than drill down, questioning whether party leaders are motivated by our best interests or the best interests of their biggest contributors.
Third, we tend to listen only to like-minded opinions as media fragmentation encourages us to filter out varying perspectives. If you're a liberal, you avoid FOX News. If you're a conservative you revile MSNBC. The dynamic is even more pronounced online, where a niche media source can be found for any outlook.
I think he's largely right, but I also think he's largely describing the right. On the left, there is more of a tendency to listen to the "long, complicated answers" and to educate oneself. There is a bit of an echo chamber, but I find that most people on the left -- myself included -- pay a great deal of attention to what is said on Fox News, if only because we know that so many others turn to Fox as their sole new source.
I also think the left is less-guilty of seeking out like-minded opinions. This, in part, is why the left has a hard time governing, even when it is in the majority. It's because its own ranks are fractured and splintered, rather than trying to carve a cohesive whole.
Those on the left may watch Rachel Maddow, but they don't follow her as the gospel-giver. But Joe Klein gives us anecdotal evidence that the same isn't true for the other side:
I was at a Blanche Lincoln town hall meeting in Russellville, Arkansas, yesterday--and the number of people who believe that the President has larded the government with communists (!) was astonishing. One woman said there were four known communists in the government and that she'd researched it on the internet. When I asked her afterwards, she said environmental adviser Van Jones, legal advisor Cass Sunstein (who was last spotted being excoriated by the left for supporting the FISA revisions), someone named Lloyd and she didn't remember the fourth. And wasn't it suspicious that Obama had all these czars working for him--that was a Russkie commie term, wasn't it? When I asked, the woman admitted that, among other things, she occasionally listened to William Bennett's conservative radio show. I pointed out that Bennett had once been the Drug Czar, appointed by Ronald Reagan. Life sure can be complicated sometimes.
I was later told by a local observer that many of these vomitous, disgraceful notions were the fruit of Glenn Beck's fruitful imagination. "We are living Glenn Beck's fantasy life," said this audience member. The amazing thing remains not only the unwillingness of responsible Republicans--a term that is in danger of becoming an oxymoron--to call bull-- on this, but also the willingness of many prominent Republicans to join in the slinging of garbage. Michelle Cottle reports that there are Republican-sanctioned efforts afoot to have parents not send their children to school on September 8 because the President is scheduled to address the nation's school-children that day and they are afraid that he will fill their little heads with socialist propaganda. That is somewhere well beyond disgraceful.
Could I just say that the intensity of this getting pretty scary...and dangerous? We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working. Indeed, the Republicans have the pedal to the metal--rushing us toward a tragedy far greater than the California health care forum finger-biting Karen describes below. I'm usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country--even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long--but I have a sinking feeling about where we're headed now. I hope I'm wrong.
I hope he's wrong, too, but I really believe he's not.
The guy who lost his pinky was opposed to health care reform. He had verbally assaulted a woman, then started physically assaulting a pro-health care supporter. The latter fought back. That's according to this eyewitness account, which adds:
Don’t be fooled by reports ginning up sympathy for that 65-year old guy or worse yet, reports characterizing him as a senior citizen. He was aggressive and ready to mix it up.
But seriously, folk. I don't condone violence. But beating up people because they're in favor of health care reform? You can't really whine too much when they fight back.
In any event, it seems that this rightwinger lost the fight and the argument!
A new survey by Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates for the AARP reveals widespread uncertainty about the nature of the "public option" -- a government-run health insurance policy that would be offered along with private policies in the newly-created health insurance exchanges. Just 37 percent of the poll's respondents correctly identified the public option from a list of three choices provided to them....
It is tempting to attribute these results to attempts by conservatives to blur the distinctions of the health care debate. And surely that is part of the story. But it may not be all that much of it. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to correctly identify the public option in this poll, but not by all that wide a margin -- 41 percent versus 34 percent. Meanwhile, 35 percent of Republicans thought the public option refers to "creating a national healthcare system like they have in Great Britain" -- but so did 23 percent of Democrats.
The poll specifically asked, "When politicians talk about including a 'public option' in healthcare reform, what do you think they mean?" Regardless of whether the respondents actually liked the idea or not, this simply sought to measure public understanding. The results found that just 37% realized that a public option would create a government-funded alternative to compete with private insurers; 26% thought a public option would create a British-style system; 13% thought a public option would create network of co-ops, and 23% simply had no idea.
The results would not have been much different if people guessed at random.
This is yet another piece of evidence in the my thesis that health care reform opponents (and even proponent) don't care to educate themselves about health care reform proposals. To opponents, it's "Obama's" reform; therefore, it stinks. And any piece of evidence (death panels, granny euthanasia, etc.) that conforms to that worldview is accepted without question merely because it conforms to that pre-existing worldview.
What's the solution? Give it a better name than "the public option". Republicans are good at this. The "estate tax" which would have taxed the estates of people over $10,000,000 was labeled, quite simply, the "death tax". And people took that to mean that the government would tax death -- everyone's death -- and that's baaaad.
So the phrase "public option" provision needs a makeover. Maybe the "People's Choice" provision or the "U-Choose" provision?
Key conservative voices have begun to charge in the day after Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death that Democrats are inappropriately politicizing the senator’s death, his memorial and his legacy.
Kennedy was that ultimate political creature, a “lion of the Senate,” and the last son of the archetypal American political family — his passing is inevitably political. In his final days, he focused on a narrow political goal, pleading with state leaders to change state law to posthumously fill his Senate seat with an interim appointee who would be a vote in favor of the health care legislation he championed.
So his allies on the left have made no secret of their hopes that his legacy will serve to bolster the uncertain health reform plan, with Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) even suggesting the bill be named for Kennedy.
And that has some influential conservative voices sounding the alarm and calling foul.
Yeah. Call me crazy, but I don't think tone or nature of Kennedy's memorial service should be fashioned to cater the sensabilities of Kennedy's political opponents. I don't think Kennedy's opponents get to decide what is and isn't an "inappropriate" tribute to Kennedy.
Changing the name of the health care bill is a fitting way to honor a man who devoted his life to health care reform. His family would be honored; HE would be honored. Conservatives don't get to speak for him.
Excellent resource here showing what passage of HR 3200, American's Affordable Health Choice Act, would mean for every Congressional district in the country.
For example, I live in NC 5th District, so my Congressperson is the brain-dead Virginia Foxx. What would passage of HR3200 mean for my district?
America’s Affordable Health Choices Act would provide significant benefits in the 5th Congressional District of North Carolina: up to 14,200 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 13,100 seniors would avoid the donut hole in Medicare Part D; 800 families could escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $113 million in uncompensated care each year; and 85,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance.
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