Lunch Break - Make Them Accountable Headlines: Health Care
Politics and Media News Headlines 6/12/09
White House
Obama in Green Bay: Broke no new ground; said Medicare/Medicaid on course to breaking Federal budget (by jawbone at Corrente)
Alas, the speech is the usual Obama points about health insurance reform: His list of reasons for change lead inexorably to single payer, but he just can't do it. Won't do it. Would be "disruptive." Obama begins by discussing socialized medicine and, after a few sentences, says that single payer is not socialized medicine. Then he repeats his lament that since we have a different system in place, it's impossible to go with single payer. Altho' he has said in his answer that Medicare is an example of single payer!
COWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Democrats hint compromise to win Senate health care deal (McClatchy)
Senate Democrats are offering to scrap a controversial government-sponsored health insurance provision in an effort to win more than a dozen moderate and conservative Republican votes to extend health care coverage to nearly 46 million uninsured Americans.
Should Health Care Reform Be Bipartisan? (by Ezra Klein, Washington Post)
Are 10 Republican votes worth lowering the subsidies from 400 percent of poverty to 300 percent of poverty and leaving out, say, eight million Americans? Are five Republican votes worth leaving out eight million Americans? Two Republican votes? It would be nice if someone published a table or something.
Co-op Health Plan Emerging as a Senate Option (by Robert Pear at The Caucus, New York Times)
Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Finance Committee...said Thursday that the public plan could take the form of an insurance cooperative, owned and operated for the benefit of its members. "I am inclined, and I think the committee is inclined, toward a co-op," Mr. Baucus said. "It's not going to be public, we won't call it public, but it will be tough enough to keep insurance companies' feet to the fire," Mr. Baucus said of the co-op.
Isn't that what Blue Cross and Blue Shield were supposed to be? Look how well that worked out.- Caro
"Strong public option" = "peace in our time" (by vastleft at Corrente)
Once you accept the "public option" frame, it's "goodnight, nurse!" for real health-insurance reform. It's only happening about everywhere in the liberal blogosphere. OTOH, maybe a compromise with the Blue Dogs, Republicans, and death-by-spreadsheet crowd will work out just fine. It would be irresponsible not to equivocate.
Going Postal: Reid's New Defense of Public Health Care (The Note, ABC News, thanks to Alegre)
"I'm confident both private companies and the option of public plan can live in harmony," Reid said on the Senate floor Thursday. "When you send a birthday present to a relative to-say I want to send something to one of my children in Nevada, the products that I choose can be sent by FedEx, UPS, DHL, or the United States Postal Service...The Postal Service may not be perfect, but the public option is there, and the private companies, FedEx, UPS, know they cannot rip you off or be slacking on their service," Reid said.
Health Care Overhaul Opponents Use Selective Stats (All Things Considered, NPR)
It's become one of the most commonly cited statistics by opponents of the health overhaul being put together by Democrats in Congress: Creating a new government-run public health insurance plan would result in 119 million people losing their private insurance...The point of the study was to show that the number of people who would eventually join a government-sponsored public insurance plan would vary-dramatically-depending on how that plan is designed...For example, Sheils says, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York "has a plan which would require the public program to pay private payer rates- the same rates that other private insurers have to pay-and under that scenario we get only between 10 and 12 million people dropping private coverage."
Good Gravy. Grassley calls Schumer's plan "obnoxious" (by Alegre)
At least Nancy Pelosi is standing up for the public option. She's taken a head-count and told HuffPo that she won't have the votes to pass a reform bill unless it includes a public option. She also said that Conrad's compromise (a system of co-ops) won't be enough. It's got to include a public option or no deal. Meanwhile Grassley continues to be the mouthpiece for the party of NO when it comes to health care reform: "No public option, no employee mandate to either provide insurance or pay a penalty, and nothing that leads to rationing of health care." If you stick to Grassley's criteria here we won't have ANY changes to our current (and messed up) system.
Well I've got news for Grassley...we've already got rationing. With nearly 50 million Americans living without access to health care services, I defy him to show us how anything they could do in Congress could make things worse than they already are.
Click here for more politics and media news headlines.
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
White House
Obama in Green Bay: Broke no new ground; said Medicare/Medicaid on course to breaking Federal budget (by jawbone at Corrente)
Alas, the speech is the usual Obama points about health insurance reform: His list of reasons for change lead inexorably to single payer, but he just can't do it. Won't do it. Would be "disruptive." Obama begins by discussing socialized medicine and, after a few sentences, says that single payer is not socialized medicine. Then he repeats his lament that since we have a different system in place, it's impossible to go with single payer. Altho' he has said in his answer that Medicare is an example of single payer!
COWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Democrats hint compromise to win Senate health care deal (McClatchy)
Senate Democrats are offering to scrap a controversial government-sponsored health insurance provision in an effort to win more than a dozen moderate and conservative Republican votes to extend health care coverage to nearly 46 million uninsured Americans.
Should Health Care Reform Be Bipartisan? (by Ezra Klein, Washington Post)
Are 10 Republican votes worth lowering the subsidies from 400 percent of poverty to 300 percent of poverty and leaving out, say, eight million Americans? Are five Republican votes worth leaving out eight million Americans? Two Republican votes? It would be nice if someone published a table or something.
Co-op Health Plan Emerging as a Senate Option (by Robert Pear at The Caucus, New York Times)
Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Finance Committee...said Thursday that the public plan could take the form of an insurance cooperative, owned and operated for the benefit of its members. "I am inclined, and I think the committee is inclined, toward a co-op," Mr. Baucus said. "It's not going to be public, we won't call it public, but it will be tough enough to keep insurance companies' feet to the fire," Mr. Baucus said of the co-op.
Isn't that what Blue Cross and Blue Shield were supposed to be? Look how well that worked out.- Caro
"Strong public option" = "peace in our time" (by vastleft at Corrente)
Once you accept the "public option" frame, it's "goodnight, nurse!" for real health-insurance reform. It's only happening about everywhere in the liberal blogosphere. OTOH, maybe a compromise with the Blue Dogs, Republicans, and death-by-spreadsheet crowd will work out just fine. It would be irresponsible not to equivocate.
Going Postal: Reid's New Defense of Public Health Care (The Note, ABC News, thanks to Alegre)
"I'm confident both private companies and the option of public plan can live in harmony," Reid said on the Senate floor Thursday. "When you send a birthday present to a relative to-say I want to send something to one of my children in Nevada, the products that I choose can be sent by FedEx, UPS, DHL, or the United States Postal Service...The Postal Service may not be perfect, but the public option is there, and the private companies, FedEx, UPS, know they cannot rip you off or be slacking on their service," Reid said.
Health Care Overhaul Opponents Use Selective Stats (All Things Considered, NPR)
It's become one of the most commonly cited statistics by opponents of the health overhaul being put together by Democrats in Congress: Creating a new government-run public health insurance plan would result in 119 million people losing their private insurance...The point of the study was to show that the number of people who would eventually join a government-sponsored public insurance plan would vary-dramatically-depending on how that plan is designed...For example, Sheils says, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York "has a plan which would require the public program to pay private payer rates- the same rates that other private insurers have to pay-and under that scenario we get only between 10 and 12 million people dropping private coverage."
Good Gravy. Grassley calls Schumer's plan "obnoxious" (by Alegre)
At least Nancy Pelosi is standing up for the public option. She's taken a head-count and told HuffPo that she won't have the votes to pass a reform bill unless it includes a public option. She also said that Conrad's compromise (a system of co-ops) won't be enough. It's got to include a public option or no deal. Meanwhile Grassley continues to be the mouthpiece for the party of NO when it comes to health care reform: "No public option, no employee mandate to either provide insurance or pay a penalty, and nothing that leads to rationing of health care." If you stick to Grassley's criteria here we won't have ANY changes to our current (and messed up) system.
Well I've got news for Grassley...we've already got rationing. With nearly 50 million Americans living without access to health care services, I defy him to show us how anything they could do in Congress could make things worse than they already are.
Click here for more politics and media news headlines.
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
Labels: Health care, health insurance, public option, single payer
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Friday, June 12, 2009
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