Like Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th, the public option rose from the grave this week (instead of slashing teenage victims, it would slash health care costs). With zero input from the White House, 41 Senators have agreed to support a public option via reconciliation. Ryan Grim lays out how that can easily become 50 -- and Dick Durbin has promised to "aggressively whip" a health care bill that includes a public option. But Nancy Pelosi won't include it in the reconciliation package. Why? She claims it's because the Senate doesn't "have the votes" -- which could also be said about the House passing the Senate bill (Stupak, anyone?). So the Senate blames the House, the House blames the Senate, the White House acts as if it doesn't have a say in the matter, and the insurance companies -- lacking real competition -- keep laughing all the way to the bank.
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I have yet to hear from the Democratic Party, as a whole, where does the party stand on Health care reform. Yes, I hear a great deal of spin about maybe we are for the PO and maybe we are against it. Methinks it is now time to reform the Democratic Party, as it now stands it really is at least two parties (progressives on one side and conservatives on another)--ya can't be in the same party, that is schizophrenic.
McCharlie
Twitter: @McCharlie5
Blogs: http://blogsatmccharlie.blogspot.com/
PT. 1 OF 2, PLEASE READ IN ORDER
As our society has changed over time new situations and technologies unforseen by the Founding Fathers have posed new problems. In Roe v. Wade, whether the state had the right to outlaw or restrict abortions was at issue. Plaintiffs argued that the fact that these situations didn't exist when the country was founded should not prevent privacy from being a "right." The Defendants argued against creating "new rights" thus expanding the Constitution/Bill of Rights judicially rather than by amendment and ratification ("strict construction.")
In a stunning landmark decision SCOTUS acknowledged that this right was not explicitly named in the Const./BR. However, they found the Declaration of Independence/Const/BR and other documents showed implied respect for privacy and intent to protect it from legislative interference or regulation. Due process, which regulates the state's ability to legislate, was considered controlling. States could not infringe upon the free exercise of that right without proving that the state had an important state interest in regulation.
PT. 2 OF 2, PLEASE READ IN ORDER
Privacy is applied in cases of eavesdropping/wiretapping/cell transmissions, internet privacy, etc. It's a critical expectation to our everyday life. Similarities between the Roe scenario and health care seem pretty obvious. 200 years ago, medicine was no-tech; life was much shorter, most procedures were simple, and doctors included anyone who could write "doctor" on a shingle. Most industrialized countries have recognized this, as has the UN.
This is all from memory, folks, 25+ years later, so be nice. If you want the much longer explanation, here's the Constitutional Rights, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution and a discussion of Roe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade.
Imagine going to the hospital and the first question asked is "what seems to be the problem?" rather than "do you have health insurance?".
That's the luxury people have in every other developed country that we don't.
There is a psychological element to party identification/rhetoric that is in play here. Humans are social animals: belonging to a party make us feel safer, more comfortable. Party rhetoric reinforces the desire to remain in the group; criticizing one's own party's rhetoric destroys the illusion. The Parties are praying we don't get the nerve to walk away from parties and rhetoric, that we remain too lazy to check their facts and statistics and call them on it, and our attention spans are too short to remember the utter betrayal of this.
Passing this 2700 page bill with tweaking will not lower ever increasing costs nor will it cure the historic sins and unacceptable insurance practices of jacking up premiums, withholding or denying care, bankrupting, and killing patients.
Harsh words about health insurers said by the President will not change the facts that; this bill is a money machine for insurance companies and health care providers, and a financial disaster for consumers, employers, and taxpayers.
This bill was crafted and paid for by the healthcare industry, $600,000,000. reported so far, to yield obscene profits for them while bleeding the life blood out of helpless victims.
Were there illegal payments and deals made to facilitate these unfair schemes?
Real Public Option reforms which would save lives and save as much as a trillion dollars annually have been kept out of the health care debate by the President, Democrats, and Republicans.
Were crimes committed doing this?
If crimes are discovered, when we are able to investigate how our political process sunk so low as to allow this assault upon our families’ health and finances, we must vow to hunt down every perpetrator until each is brought to justice.
These are dastardly crimes against humanity and everyone found guilty should be forever unforgiven and forced to pay harsh consequences for their treachery.
I keep hearing this nonsense about how this legislation is a windfall for the insurance industry, yet these posters overlook the one ridiculously obvious flaw in their argument.
If this is such a good deal for insurance companies, why are they all opposed to it?
They've came close to killing the bill several times because the geniuses in the Democratic party allowed the GOP to frame the debate, so instead of talking about the indecent and blood-sucking tactics of the insurance companies we spent six months talking about the "death panels" nonsense.
Please, this isn't brain surgery, but politics: This entire health care debate shows levels of strategy and alliance that we've never seen before. I'm not talking really fringe ideas, these are clear bait and switch, smoke and mirrors, and (in Dodd's case vis-a-vis rform, hypocritical self-promotion to the point of hubris (yes all you history fans, I know it is only hubris if you lose but I'm optimistic).
Obama is throwing millions of Americans to the insurance wolves to keep insurance alive. Unless insurance has a new source of customers, they will go bankrupt.
I wonder why is that?
Why did President Obama say, at the beginning of this process, that the public option is not possible at this time? How did he know, a year in advance, that there would not be the votes in the Senate for the Public Option?
My guess is that he made a deal with the insurance industry before this process started, similar to GW Bush's Medicare Part D deal, a give-away to the corporations.
Think about it. If everyone must have insurance, there is a national minimum standard of care that a policy must offer, and anyone can buy insurance from anyone offering that minimum standard regardless of where they are based, it's only a matter of time until the first state government plan emerges... then just use you imagination to fill in what must inevitably come next.
States would be limited to providing insurance in the individual market only. ERISA prohibits state governments from offering plans for the vastly larger group market. Only Congress can grant an ERISA exemption--and they never have.
Please, let's not delude ourselves that we live in France or the UK. We have to work with what we've got.
McCharlie
twitter: @McCharlie5
Blogs: http://newaffordablewebhosting.blogspot.com
Thats why we should go back to my original comment. Why are they not reporting at all on what lobbyists are doing or how the process works?
McCharlie
twitter: @McCharlie5
Blogs: http://newaffordablewebhosting.blogspot.com
Believe it, McCharlie. Believe it!
Thats not what he stands for!
He is passionate about getting this passed and that should be clear to anybody with eyes and ears.
McCharlie
twitter: @McCharlie5
Blogs: http://newaffordablewebhosting.blogspot.com