Tag: Max Baucus

Health Reform’s Missing Ingredient

By Ron Wyden, Senator D-OR, NYTimes Op-Ed

September 17, 2009

The various bills making their way through Congress would, as the president explained, provide some consumer choice by establishing large marketplaces where people could easily compare insurance plans and pick the one that best suits their needs.

[…]

The problem with these bills, however, is that they would not make the exchanges available to all Americans. Only very small companies and those individuals who can’t get insurance outside of the exchange – 25 million people – would be allowed to shop there. This would leave more than 200 million Americans with no more options, private or public, than they have today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09…

Wait a second, I thought the Public Option, would give us a Choice —

give US ALL a Choice?

The Insurance Exchange will be closed to “more than 200 million Americans”?

that must be a typo!?!

Poll Finds Most Doctors Support Public Option

by Joseph Shapiro, NPR — September 14, 2009

When polled, “nearly 3/4 of physicians supported some form of a public option, either alone or in combination with private insurance options,”

[…]

Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, conducted a random survey, by mail and by phone, of 2,130 doctors. They surveyed them from June right up to early September.

Most doctors – 63 percent – say they favor giving patients a choice that would include both public and private insurance.

[…]

another 10 percent of doctors say they favor a public option only; they’d like to see a single-payer health care system. Together, the two groups add up to 73 percent.

http://www.npr.org/templates/s…

Hmmm? I wonder if Doctors, know anything about our Broken Insurance System?

Ya think!?

What the band played as Titanic slowly began to sink is never disputed – ragtime, waltzes, specific tunes noted by survivors included ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ and ‘In The Shadows’. But a question mark still hangs over what the last song was as Titanic’s stern began to rise clear of the Atlantic Ocean, and indeed, would it be physically possible for them to play anything in those conditions?

http://www.titanic-titanic.com…

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, interviews Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, regarding a Robust Public Option:

AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Grijalva, I also want to ask you about Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus and his close ties to the healthcare industry. […]

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: I think the product that has come out from his committee and himself, I really believe that it has no legitimacy in this debate. It’s an insider product. It’s there to protect the industry. It is not there to try to look for that middle ground. He is key in holding up deliberations, has been key in trying to work on a consensus, but everything you see in his legislation had to be approved by the industry before it became part of the plan. So I don’t think it’s legitimate.

[…] I consider Senator Baucus’s proposal to be essentially an insider trader move to protect an industry and really doesn’t have validity at all, both political validity or content validity.

This is a follow up to dday’s excellent diary, which talks about the Baucus bill and Trojan Horse of “allowing people to buy insurance across state lines”: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

While they didn’t realize it, the Republicans and their Big Insurance enablers have actually given us a rhetorical sledge hammer. “Allowing people to buy insurance across state lines” is code for insurance deregulation, and what just happened the last time when an insurance company was allowed to do business in a deregulated environment?

Crossposted at Daily Kos

   Honestly, this is just flat out pathetic.

    Cardboard caricatures of “Sir Tax a lot” and “The Debt and Deficit Dragon”, ala Senate Republicans and Ranking Senate Finance Committee member Chuck Grassley are not only ridiculous but is a slap in the face of every American who takes health care reform dead serious. Further, it is proof to three facts that are undeniable at this point.

1.     Bi-partisanship with the Republican party is NOT to be taken seriously anymore, if it ever was to begin with.

2.     Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and Sen. Grassely are flat out jerking us around.

3.     If Health Care Reform fails, or is FUBAR, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should be the one who suffers our wrath.

    More below the fold, and a call to action.

Simulposted at Daily Kos

   Simply put, I voted for Obama/Biden, NOT Baucus/Conrad. If these fools want to try to squander away our electoral victories through Bipartisanship with the party of “No/Birthers”, I will not give one more cent to any organization that might fund Baucucrat Senators.

    Tell your Senator:     If there is no public option in health care reform, there is no public option in our Democracy.

    I am NOT holding my breath and hoping this Senate will hold Baucus/Conrad and others accountable. They didn’t do shit when Liberman sided against Obama and with McCain, they won’t do it now.

    In my opinion, the ONLY way to force these Baucucrats accountable, the only way to force Senate Misleadership to do something is to hit em in the one place they care about, their election funds.

    Therefore, I propose that we withhold ANY and ALL financial support from groups that fund incumbent Senators until a bill with a robust public option is on President Obama’s desk.  

The President gave a compelling prime time Press Conference last week mostly about Health Care Reform — the most pressing Issue of our time, and what was the lead story for the next several days?

The merits of Public Option competition?

The plight of 14,000 citizens losing their Health Insurance each day?

No, the lead story was the President’s take on the arrest of his friend — on the emotionally charged “wedge issue” of Racial Profiling. A worthy discussion, no doubt —

But what about the issues of Health Care Reform?  What about that Debate?

Of course the Media has been failing to have a Real Health Care Debate for some time now …

ABC Censors Obama’s Longtime Doctor, Dr. Scheiner

Well, we have moved on step closer top getting a more rational policy out of the Senate today. Bloomberg News is reporting that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has decided to end his participation in bipartisan talks on the health care reform. Now of course the chattering classes on our TV machines are going to spin this as another reason the sky is falling on the Presidents (and our) health care reform initiative, but the Dog does not see it that way at all.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

crossposted on Daily Kos

White House Open to Deal on Public Health Plan

By LAURA MECKLER and JANET ADAMY – JULY 7, 2009 – WSJ

WASHINGTON — It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Monday.

[…]

One of the most contentious issues is whether to create a public health-insurance plan to compete with private companies.

Mr. Emanuel said one of several ways to meet President Barack Obama’s goals is a mechanism under which a public plan is introduced only if the marketplace fails to provide sufficient competition on its own. He noted that congressional Republicans crafted a similar trigger mechanism when they created a prescription-drug benefit for Medicare in 2003. In that case, private competition has been judged sufficient and the public option has never gone into effect.

Mr. Obama has pushed hard for a vigorous public option. But he has also said he won’t draw a “line in the sand” over this point.

http://online.wsj.com/article/…

OH NO! Not that stupid Trigger Option again!

Enough Already!