That is the big question everyone is wondering about these days. Most of the traditional media is drooling over the idea of a train wreck, hyping the disagreements and hoping for failure. But the disagreements are also quite real and quite significant. Conservative Democrats don't want a public option, progressives are insisting on it. Conservatives don't want to spend too much, progressives want to be sure insurance is actually affordable to the middle class. Conservatives don't want businesses to pay anything for their workers' health care, progressives don't want businesses to get a free ride, especially if their workers are being forced to buy insurance. Conservatives want workers taxed on their health plan if it's a good one, progressives would rather have the super rich pay more in taxes instead of the middle class worker with a decent insurance package.
These are tough issues to work out, but I am confident that the White House and the legislative leaders will figure out a way. When legislation is this important to pass - substantively and politically - leaders figure out a path to getting it done. I have seen it happen many different times over the years - seemingly impossible to solve policy differences worked out with patience, muscle, and creativity.
Take the public option. In what is either a sign we will pass health reform, or sign of the apocalypse (or maybe both for certain fundamentalist Christians), conservative Blue Dog Mike Ross and I, one of the original hard core public option advocates, actually agree on something related to the public option. Ross is now suggesting that "instead of creating an entirely new government bureaucracy to administer a public option, Medicare should be offered as a choice." I have fought like crazy for a new public health insurance option to be created for people under 65 years old, but I actually think that this idea is a very reasonable compromise: don't create a new entity, just open up the perfectly good public option we have - Medicare - to anyone who wants to buy into it. That would actually strengthen Medicare because younger, healthier people would be joining the risk pool. And it would satisfy progressives by giving some real competition to the private insurance industry.
Or take affordability. For the fiscally conservative Democrats, they can take reassurances on that issue from the latest CBO report which says that both of the two House bills comes close to (one slightly above, and one slightly below) the $900 billion amount targeted by fiscal conservatives, but they also cover more people, are far more affordable and are deficit neutral.
Here's the bottom line on middle class affordability: the compromise the Blue Dogs forced on the House Energy and Commerce bill made the cost for middle class families $551 a year more, while the Senate Finance bill was a staggering $3,900 a year more for middle class families than the Senate HELP Committee bill. And yet the CBO now says that the better House version of the bill (which is closer to the Senate HELP Committee) is just as fiscally responsible as the "centrist" alternatives that cost the middle class families so much more. When you look at the actual numbers and policy implications of the bills, it's easy to come to terms. In this case, the House bill allows both fiscal conservatives and those of us who want more affordability for the middle class to win.
When conservatives and progressive Democrats in the Senate and House sit down to look at these bills, compromise ideas like Ross' idea of letting everyone buy into Medicare will emerge, and when the merits of the bills are analyzed, I believe that people will come to understand that the political and policy logic of going with the better alternatives in all these areas. This is too important - to the country, to the President, to the Democratic Party - for this not to get resolved.
And if Mike Ross and a lefty like Mike Lux can find a common ground, then anything is possible.
It certainly sounds the easiest program to administer. Cutting out the middleman, you just use the same process for adding people now... and blow it up exponentially. Could provide some much-needed employment for office workers.
Only the vulture and vampire industry suffers in that case, and most people outside the insurance cartel or other big-business types would not feel all that sympathetic to their plight. To mix metaphors, they've had a good long time at the trough. If they haven't prepared for a more humane future without their obscene profits, as the cigarette companies and even the government of Saudi Arabia have done -- too bad for them.
Chalk up another win for the invisible hand of capitalism, in that case.
Where have you and Mike Ross been? - maybe you should read HuffPo's comments, not just write for it. We've been saying for months that a Medicare buy in is the only way to go, if we can't have single payer!
but right now I'd vote for this Republican before I'd vote for another spineless dem that 'negotiates' away the will of the people.
Excerpted from: http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/august/former_jasper_county.php
Former Jasper County Republican Chairman on Single Payer
"I am a Republican, former chairman of the Republican Party in Jasper County, Ga., and chair of that county commission.
Universal Medicare will both control costs and achieve universal access to high quality care. Congressmen would get the same insurance as you and I. You better believe your coverage would be just as good as or better than what you are getting now.
The problem is not technical; it is political.
It is high time we put the country ahead of ourselves and establish a single-payer system." http://www.pnhp.org
Bi-Partisanship happened on Election Day!
The For-Profit Health Industry that has caused Bankruptcy, unemployment & homelessness is no respecter of party affiliation!
One side could say it is sunny and warm and the other would automatically say is is snowing and cold.
The only way Dems and Repubs would ever agree on anything is if two NEW parties were created to get things done in a bipartisan way.
Then and only then would both the Dems and Repubs say as "One Party" that the two new were lying.
as long as the conservatives completely cave on their principles
and take more money and freedom from US citizens.
You need to quit swallowing party talking points manufactured by the uber wealthy few to keep us divided and start acting in own (and the people's) best interests.
Unless, of course, those same special interests are paying you to post this divisive crap
The soon people wake up and get it, the sooner we can take the necessary steps to break them. It will only get worse, if we do not stop them soon.
I don't ever expect the left to be happy, even with the left, so any kind of agreement with anyone else is kind of out of the question.
Seriously, regardless of what we all want, we still need to be responsible enough to not bury our children's future before they have a chance.
"Medicare and Medicaid are the single biggest drivers of the federal deficit and the federal debt by a huge margin."
- Barack Obama
Wait a sec, let's see if I can find out more? "-- which is the amount of benefits promised but not covered by taxes over the next 75 years."
So, doing a little math, a $38T divided over 75 years means a $500B shortfall/year, assuming that the situation is linear. Now, let's see how we could make up the shortfall. We spend >$500B per year on national defense, and spend 50% of world's defense expenditures, while having 25% of world's GDP. Maybe by using a little diplomacy, and not having hostilities with the rest of the world, we could acquire some allies, and reduce that spending to our percentage of world GDP.
Then, of course, given that we spend 50% more than any other industrial country for health care, we could COPY what it is that they are doing to keep their health care costs in line.
Thank you so much, I am very interested in the debate but am not familiar with so many things of life in the U.S.
Cheers
The rates are low which is why many hospitals/doctors have limited the number of Medicare patients they can see. Basically, if a treatment costs $100 but the reimbursment rates are $75 for Medicare . . . the doctor makes up the other $25 on your end.
If you are seriously this far behind in the HC discussion, you should spend some time reading unbiased information.
"For years Medicare pays 14 percent less than what it actually costs for hospitals to provide the care to patients. Medicaid payments are even lower and many times are late in coming,"
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/152553.php
More medicare is NOT a solution, because it simply does not address any of the concerns driving the huge levels of medical inflation we see every year.
SINGLE PAYER NOW: IT'S THE ONLY PLAN WORTH FIGHTING FOR.
BAUCUS BILL IS A BJ TO THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY. THEY WROTE IT FOR GOD'S SAKE.
That sounds so simple but what is currently the state of Medicare?
Everyone, including the President admits that Medicare is unsustainable and is out of money . . .
In May the Medicare trustees reported that the program has an "unfunded liability" of nearly $38 trillion -- which is the amount of benefits promised but not covered by taxes over the next 75 years.
This doesn't sound like an option that makes any sense . . . unless of course they fix Medicare first.
$38 Trillion with a T is the number.
Social Security is on the same path.
We need a breakthrough on some of these: Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. That'll fix the costs.
Sorry, got to run now, and take my pill for "restless leg syndrome". ;-)
Great, do you have one?
You implying that the reason we don't have cures for these things is that people would rather make a buck from treatment is the most insane thing I have heard since Obama said doctors are cutting people's feet off to make a buck.
You want to know the ultimate profit and notability for one of these companies . . . a cure for cancer.