Mar 18 2010
cross-posted from Sum of Change
Just hopped off the conference call with Richard Trumka from the AFL-CIO.
This morning, the AFL-CIO leadership voted in overwhelming favor (higher than 90%) of “active support” for the current health care proposals in the face of slight changes to the excise tax agreement.
Feb 24 2010
Crossposted at Daily Kos
No public option, no deal.
I will NOT be forced to buy private insurance from the crooked cartels.
I will NOT allow my wages to be forced into padding some millionaire CEO’s salary.
I will NOT be robbed and told how much my robber is helping me.
This is what I think of your freaking mandates, mister Congresscritter.
Fine me, Tax me, whatever, I don’t give a flying fork, but I ain’t gonna pay, no way, no how.
If you want my money, you can frigging pry it from my cold, dead, uninsured hands.
More below the fold
Feb 20 2010
Yesterday, I wrote about why it is a mistake for the Democrats to cling to the Senate Finance Committee’s funding mechanism for their health insurance “reform” bill, which is a punitive, regressive excise tax on the working class’s health insurance benefits themselves, which the White House persists in calling the “Cadillac tax.”
https://www.docudharma.com/diar…
Since Friday afternoon is always good for a newsdump, according to Chris Bowers at Open Left, Jillian Rayfield at TPMDC, and Greg Sargent at The Plum Line, we have the usual Democratic anonymous WH sources/leadership aides
telling us that the President intends to offer the excise tax and no Public Option to the “Bipartisan” health care bill summit next Thursday Feb 25 th.
Sargent:
Okay, I’ve got some more info for you on what the health care compromise proposal that Obama will bring to the summit next week is going to look like.Bottom line: It’s all but certain to have the Cadillac tax in it, even though House Dems oppose it, and no public option, aides say.
http://theplumline.whorunsgov….
Oh, goody.
Now, last night at Open Left, we had the breathless BREAKING! applied to this little nugget:
Obama will support the public option if Reid will.
http://www.openleft.com/diary/…
Based on HHS Sec Kathleen Sebelius answering an interview question put to her by Rachel Maddow.
Check out this Research 2000 polling done in Nevada, this month 2/9 – 2/10/10 : http://act.boldprogressives.or…
88% of Nevada Democrats and 61% of Independents favor a govt. admin health insurance plan “like Medicare” for younger people to be able to obtain as a choice to compete with private plans
89% of Nevada Democrats and 56% of Independents would prefer passing health insurance reform that includes a public option, and that would make them more likely to vote for Democrats in the 2010 elections, even if this meant the bill didn’t get Republican votes.
88% of Democrats and 58% of Independents think Harry Reid should include a Public Option in Reconciliation.
Today, Friday, President Obama did a joint appearance with Senate Majority Leader Reid at a town hall in a high school gym in Henderson, Nevada. They hugged, they praised each other, they made boxing allegories.
“Health care has been knocking me around pretty good,” Obama said. “It’s been knocking Harry around pretty good.”
The goal was to shift the emphasis from the unpopularity of some of Reid’s votes to, in Obama’s view, the courage it took to take expensive steps to save the economy. “Sometimes he takes his licks,” Obama said of Reid. “But he gets back up. Harry Reid has never stopped fighting.”
Yup. Harry’s never stopped fighting. Fighting for what, we’re not sure, and in what decade, we don’t know, but he’s still in there, swingin’ away. Harry’s sagging in the polls in his Nevada re election race. Nevada, with the highest percentage of veterans and retirees in the nation (think living on fixed incomes), and an economy that depends on tourism and entertainment, has been battered brutally in this recession, as it also has a 13% unemployment rate, and the 2nd highest foreclosure rates in the nation. Harry needs a Big Las Vegas Finale to pull this one off.
Feb 19 2010
~Why the Excise Tax Sucks~
In the current Senate version of the Health Insurance Reform Bill, the funding mechanism is being called an “excise tax,” and it is currently designed to be applied to HEALTH INSURANCE BENEFITS
There’s 4 major things wrong with the Senate version of the bill:
1. This so called excise tax, which is regressive, hurting lower wage workers more than higher wage earners.
2. The lack of a public option to provide a guaranteed alternative to the vampire blood sucking of private for profit insurance , and therefore, the lack of universal coverage- this means insurers are guaranteed to have a rotating pool of “excludables,” perpetrating the caste system and the medical access lottery of the damned.
3. The lack of universal health care coverage for all, which, aside from the moral implications, therefore still provides a mechanism for all the things wrong with the current cannibalistic system to continue.
4. The Democrats in the Senate being unable, so far, to be willing to change the suckitudinalness and go for some serious reconciliation with the House.
Today, we’ll look at reasons to get rid of the excise tax.