It's hard to analyze the compromises coming from Blue Dog Democrats without concluding that, intentionally or not, they add up to a financial assault on working families. Every concession rings with the sound of middle-class Americans being dinged financially.
Ding! That's the sound of lower-income working Americans losing what remained of their subsidy for purchasing health insurance. They've raised the bar1 so that people making $31,200 will no longer get any help with their premiums. Neither will parents trying to raise a family of four on $63,000. That means families without employer-based coverage will have to come up with the money for health insurance (currently $12,000 per year) or face a government penalty.
But how many Americans will have employer-sponsored coverage? Ding! That's the sound of more people losing that chance, as Blue Dogs raise the minimum payroll requirement for employers from $500,000 to $750,000. 86% of small businesses will now be exempt from any mandate. Small businesses have been the engine of economic growth and recovery.
But wait. At least some of these uninsured folks will be able to buy into a public option, right? (That is, if the Blue Dogs' soul mates in the Senate don't kill it altogether.) Won't the public option be more affordable than those high-cost private insurance plans?
Ding! That's the sound of the Blue Dogs eviscerating the cost-cutting potential of the public plan by refusing to allow it to use Medicare rates with providers, even for the conservative three-year period contemplated by earlier drafts of the bill. What does that mean for uninsured working Americans? Their lowest-cost option is going to cost a lot more if the Blue Dogs get their way.
This particular initiative has a historical parallel. It's similar to the Republicans' refusal to let Medicare use its buying power to bargain on pharmaceutical costs.
What about the luckier middle class types, the ones that do get health insurance through their employers? Well, there's a lot of talk that they'll be facing a new financial burden when Congress starts taxing health benefits (although the income levels at which that will happen are still being debated). Why? Because supposedly some people are getting "Cadillac plans." Look a little closer, however, and you usually find that they're just priced like Cadillacs. It's not that they're generous (certainly not by Medicare or European standards). More often than not, those $40,000 plans you hear about are costly because they're covering sicker people.
Ding! Congress may begin taxing these benefits, if the Blue Dogs have their way. That's a regressive tax, one that's based on behavioral logic that seems questionable at best to me. Taxing the wealthiest Americans on truly luxurious plans (say, ones with concierge medicine features) would be reasonable ... if we could trust Congress to stop there. Sadly, we can't.
Where didn't the Blue Dogs and Rep. Waxman (my representative) compromise? Here's where: They didn't ease up on the mandate for individuals to obtain health insurance coverage. They made it easier for employers not to offer it, and they found several ways to make it more expensive, but they didn't give a break to the working people - mostly blue-collar working people - who will be hit the hardest by their much-vaunted compromises.
That would be the same blue-collar voters that proved so vital to the Democrats' electoral victories in 2008. You don't have to believe in the supernatural to believe that sometime soon Democrats could face some bad karma - the electoral kind - for their indifference to the needs of their constituents. In this debate, the progressives aren't just being idealistic. They're being pragmatic. Their plans have a greater likelihood of helping people who need it - and as a result, of helping their party in the years to come.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Hear that? It's the sound of the disaffected middle class in 2012 if the Blue Dogs have their way. Already alienated by big payouts to wealthy Wall Street bankers, they're counting up their new financial burdens ... and taking a second look at the Republican Party.
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1 From 300% to 400% of the Federal poverty level.
RJ Eskow blogs when he can at:
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Disregard the use of labels like socialism to frighten people and assume the responsibility to consider the proposals yourself and make up your own mind regarding their merit.
"Ding! That's the sound of lower-income working Americans losing what remained of their subsidy for purchasing health insurance. They've raised the bar1 so that people making $31,200 will no longer get any help with their premiums. Neither will parents trying to raise a family of four on $63,000. That means families without employer-based coverage will have to come up with the money for health insurance (currently $12,000 per year) or face a government penalty."
This part of the proposal guarantees a horrific disaster ahead because there is no possible way for people with incomes that low to come up with a spare $1,000 per month after they pay their rent, food, commuting, and other living expenses. I don't know what the penalty is for non-payment or what the plan is for monitoring compliance, but I'm absolutely certain there will be widespread non-compliance even if non-payment is criminalized and mandatory jail sentences are imposed. The steeper the penalty, the greater the incentive to quit working or work part time for minimum wage and quit the job before you make enough to have to buy your insurance.
This part of the proposal is a major disincentive to anyone who wants to escape poverty and I guarantee that it will function as a barrier assuring that the poor will remain poor. It's unconscionable and no person of conscience should support any proposal that contains this provision, or one like it.
Yes, with tort reform lawyers will take on fewer medical malpractice cases. They'll only be able to afford taking on the ones that are so bad they know the plaintiff will win.
Lawyers don't get paid unless or until a settlement is paid; they front most of the costs with no guarantee that those costs will be recouped. Since the insurance companies have bigger pockets, they are able to run up costs with delay tactics. That leaves every patient with a legitimate complaint and a middle or even upper middle class income out in the rain; they can't afford to take the doctor to court and the lawyers won't go out on a limb for small settlements that can't pay the potentially large expenses.
1) Will you be able to afford it if you lose your job? Probably not, so you'll add to the 47 million uninsured in the US.
2) Do you have pre-existing conditions? If you do, and for any reason you lose your current insurance, how much will it cost you to treat this pre-existing condition? The insurance companies won't.
3) Even though you have insurance, you are now paying for the medical care for all the uninsured or under-insured that show up at our overrun hospital emergency rooms. Wouldn't you like the money you pay for that care go to paying for YOUR care?
4) You think this healthcare reform is socialized medicine and we can't have that? What do you think Medicare is and the healthcare we provide to our armed forces plus our Senators & Representatives?
Beyond all this talk of costs/socialized medicine/blah, blah, blah, there is very simple question everyone should be asking themselves: Is it moral for us allow people to die from lack of healthcare just because they can't afford to pay for it? The correct answer is, of course it isn't moral.
Money is a transitory thing, as we can see from the state of the economy the last couple of years. Morality and ethics is not or should not be something that changes with your situation.
OK, fine! Let's save America from Socialized Medicine!
And here's where we'll start, with the big-govt healthcare giveaway we need least: YOURS!
That's right, let's get rid of healthcare benefits for Congress, right folks? Give the tax[payers' money back to them, and not give it away. We're gonna let you people find, apply for (no pre-existing conditions) and pay for your own healthcare.
How's that sound? Max? Mike? ...... Hey guys? ............. MAX?! MIKE!?
The petition is on a site called Care2 the petition site. You may have to do some searching to find it, but if you do, sign it and tell others about it.
Happy now?
I think the Terminator's California is a test to see how much corporate politicans can get away. They have simply eviscerated every social program from the bottom up, on the backs of the poor and working class, in ways that would never have seemed possible just a short time ago--health programs for children, the disabled, and the elderly. Imagine!
As to health care, Obama himself has talked on more than one occasion about cutting 'waste' from Medicare to help pay for health care reform, once using the high cost of end-of-life care as an example. Who's end of life, I wondered? Certainly not the parents of the wealthy.
There's an incredible hatred brewing in the country, fostered by the corporate media, to pit the working and middle classes against the poor. While we rage against immigrants, corporations are picking our pockets dry.
They want us to return to the era of the Robber Barons.
Look at FEMA. Before bush appointed a wealthy horse-trader to head it, FEMA was incredibly efficiently run, right there for every emergency, and well known for the amazing work it did. A great example of our taxes at work.
The minute you allow government to be run by those who despise it, you get perverted, broken government. Then it's simply a matter of pointing to the broken government and saying, 'See, I told you so.'
We need honest brokers, moral people to run government.--not cronies who see government simply as a stepping stone to a seat on the board of their most-favored corporations. But time is running out--they've just about gamed the system. (I would recommend everyone read Matt Tiabbi's piece on Goldman Sachs in 'Rolling Stone'--but do it on an empty stomach.)
The Blue Dogs and the Progressive Dogs are dogs that tare looking for their own interest. We know the local dogs unite to fight an outsider dog, but when there is no outsider then they fight each-other.