What Obama Must Demand from Congress on Health Care
Congress returns next week to one of the fiercest and most important debates in recent memory -- whether and to what extent the nation will provide health care to all Americans, and how we will reign in the soaring costs of health care overall. But do not expect unusual courage from this Congress in standing up to demagogic lies and money-toting lobbyists. An unusually large portion is facing close races in 2010, both in primaries and in the general election. Republicans have many primary challenges from the right. A record number of Democrats, who took over Congress in 2006, hail from traditionally Republican or swing states and districts.
In order to get anything meaningful through this session of Congress, then, the President will have to give congressional Democrats far more leadership and more cover. Doing so is harder now than before the recess, when he was still basking in the afterglow of a honeymoon and 60 percent favorabilities. Yet it's not too late. Addressing a joint session of Congress next Wednesday is a good idea but Obama can't rely solely on his exceptional rhetorical skills. He'll need to twist arms, cajole, force recalcitrant members to join him, and threaten retribution if they don't come along.
Most importantly, he'll need to be specific about what he wants -- especially about three things. I hope he says the following next Wednesday, and makes clear to individual members that he means business.
1. I will not stand for a bill that leaves millions of Americans without health care. It's vitally important to cover all Americans, not only for their and their childrens' sakes and not only because it's a moral imperitive, but because doing so will be good for all of us. One out of three Americans will experience job loss and potential loss of health insurance for themselves and their families at some point. One out of four of us who have health insurance is underinsured --unable to afford the preventive care we and our kids need on an ongoing basis. And those of us who don't get preventive care can get walloped with diabetes, heart disease, and other major illnesses that wipe us out financially, or force us into emergency rooms that all of us end up paying for.
2. The only way to cover all Americans without causing deficits to rise is to require that the wealthiest Americans pay a bit extra. The wealthy can afford to make sure all Americans are healthy. The top 1 percent of earners now take home 23 percent of total national income, the highest percentage since 1928. Their tax burden is not excessive. Even as income and wealth have become more concentrated than at any time in the past 80 years, those at the top are now taxed at lower rates than rich Americans have been taxed since before the start of World War II. Indeed, many managers of hedge funds, private-equity partners, and investment bankers -- including those who have been bailed out by taxpayers over the last year -- are paying 15 percent of their income in taxes because their earnings are, absurdly, treated as capital gains. We should eliminate this loophole as well, and use it to guarantee the health of all.
3. Finally, I want a true public insurance option -- not a "cooperative," and not something that's triggered if certain goals aren't met. A public option is critical for lowering health-care costs. Today, private insurers don't face enough competition to guarantee low prices and high service. In 36 states, three or fewer insurers account for 65 percent of the insurance market. A public insurance option would also have the scale and authority needed to negotiate low drug prices and low prices from medical providers. Commercial insurers now pay about 30 higher rates to providers than the government pays through Medicare, because Medicare has the scale to get those lower rates. A nationwide public option could get similar savings. And those savings would mean lower premiums, deductibles and co-payments for Americans who can barely afford health insurance right now.
We'll see.
Cross-posted from Robert Reich's Blog.
Allison Kilkenny: A Moment's Silence for the Public Option
A "trigger option" means the public option doesn't exist, and won't until an undefined series of events occur whereupon the public option will pop into existence. This isn't a compromise. It's an insult.
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Don't ask anyone to pay one dime more to the Federal goverment until:
1. Trial lawers are put at bay and the practice of expensive defensive medicine is stopped.
2. Tough policy decisions are made about end of life care, where half of the current costs are incurred. We can no sooner afford all posible care for all people at all stages of life than we can afford to send all kids to the college of their choice.
Congress: Stop trying to figure out how to pick pockets and do the hard work that needs to be done.
The insurance must cover all people, including undocumented.
Why go after just the wage earners in the top %, how about the top 10% of interest, capital gains, dividends (unearned income)? Let's have those not earning a wage pay a bit more. Buffett wants to pay more, exclude his billions in deductions and let him pay taxes on his exclusions.
Is this a joke?
If Obama had any cajones at all, he would pressure congress to reform the FDA. We've already lost the batltle against BigPharma, but with stricter tighter FDA regulations, and separating the Food division from the Drug division, we can at least be assured that the medications we get once everyone is covered won't end up doing more harm than good, as they currently do
Lots of luck, Mr Reich or its LOL at you.
The other thing that Obama (and the American people) must demand of Congress is that they start acting like adults, start doing their jobs as elected representatives of the American people -- not a corporation, and to start doing what is best for America not their re-election coffers.
Repubs and dems seeking re-election better look out- we are already looking for new Statesmen who will actually value American lives over townhall stunts and twitter/facebook meandering vs actually reading and understanding a bill, let alone try to actually legislate one.
I want to speak here as a health care professional. This healthcare reform legislation does not affect me personally. I am taken of. However, let me describe what parents go thru while their children are sick an dying. Can you imagine anything worse than that? Well, how about one child sick and near death and your other children may be homeless because you might lose your home over medical bills? And I'm talking about families WITH insurance. $30,000-$100,000 in debt. And some of these parents have literally cried on my shoulder, so I know what they are going thru. I've seen billing staff come right into THE ER asking parents for that $100 co-pay! And this while their child is fighting for it's life. Some of these parents go thru YEARS of this agony. Are still going thru it. Folks, Big Insurance is running a huge scam on the American people, but most of you won't realize it until you really need your insurance, and find out just how much is not covered, after all those years of making payments. And the minute you can no longer make payments because you are too sick to work, or your child is too sick for you to work, well bye bye insurance, and all those years of making payments count for nothing.
Then reform Insurance coverage.
Blue dogs dont want it. People dont want it. Republicans dont want it. Obama and Pelosi are the only two that want it. They are way out voted.
B S, who cares what the Blue Dogs want? They want the same thing that the lobbyists and special interests want, to keep profits as high as possible for themselves and their corporate masters. Who cares what the Republicans want? They want to come back to power no matter the consequences for the American people. And the last point, people, well...I beg to differ, people very much want a public option. Even those who rail against it would love it if they had it. It's like the guy who shouted "keep the government out of my Medicare". Too funny.
It aint gonna happen, Robert. President Obama is (yet again) poised to sell out his supporters and cave in to the special interests that he promised to stand up to.
"Change we can believe in". I believed, but don't anymore. :/
Then you are a fool. Politics is the art of the possible. You seem to believe that one man can make The difference on how congress votes. But count the Blue Dogs who have been bitten by the rabid insurance industry and you don't have enough votes to cut off debate so you lose everything. I want Obama to be able to demand it be done and it is done. but realistically, He can't do it unless we don't loose faith and, instead, get out there and make those weak-kneed democrats who are conservative vote with him. If we abandon the president now, he will be perceived as weak and without political clout and it will be 2040 before you get health care worthy of the name. I won't care; I'm already 65 and I will likely be dead in 2040; besides I have medicare. But I care for you now and your ability to keep the living you earn without having to pour it down the insurance hole. SO I WILL FIGHT EVEN IF YOU GIVE UP!
Unfortunately, that will be a self fulfilling prophesy if enough people follow your example and give up. I certainly understand your disappointment, but now is not the time to surrender in despair. After health care reform has failed miserably, as it may, then probably it is time to stop supporting the Democratic party and Obama, and start working on a third, really progressive party. In the short term that will only weaken the progressive cause, but it may be a price worth paying if the Democratic party keeps on selling out its cause.
For now though, let's hope for the Ted Kennedy wing of the party to achieve some sort of health care reform.
I'll follow Obama to hell and back so long as he takes the lead first. I just want him to fight for me as hard as I fought for him. As I see it, he owes it to the American people who came to believe that government could work for them again.
It aint gonna happen, Robert. President Obama is (yet again) poised to sell out his supporters and cave in to the special interests that he promised to stand up to.
"Change we can believe in." Yeah, whatever. :/
I agree with Reich on all but one point: Obama should state the case for single payer as the best means of reigning in health care costs. The public remains divided, but largely ignorant, on why single payer would be the most effective means of reducing spiraling health care costs. The private insurance industry spends over 31% of every premium dollar on overhead - bill paying/administration, marketing/advertising, corporate lobbying, high executive salaries, etc. - which is twice as high as Canada's health care system and much higher than Medicare as well. Public option will force down some of the private insurer inefficiency and waste but not to the extent that single payer will. Single payer would largely pay for the expansion of health care coverage for insured and uninsured alike. Coupled with other measures, such as lowering the cost of prescription drugs through competition, universal health care can pay for itself. But, it requires breaking control of the health care industry that the insurance and pharmaceutical companies now have. I worry that all these watered down alternatives being discussed in Congress will result in a more expensive health care system that protects waste and greed while continuing to deny coverage to all who need it.
The public option is not going to pass, Democrats are just a day late and a dollar short but we are getting closer, Harry Reid just needs to put the public option out there and let the blue dogs veto it and than see what happens in 2010 & 2012.
Twist arms, force, cajole, break kneecaps, extort, or destroy to get what he wants in healthcare? What about us? What about federal workers being exempt from a public option so we can continue to pay more for theirs than for our own? Yeh, that works for me...DUH
The Democrats while controlling both houses of congress, should if they had any brains amongst themselves, Throw out all legislation that the Insurance Industry had written on behalf of themselves to benefit themselves and no one else, at the behest of the congressional membership.
The Democrats should while controlling both houses of congress, should take it upon themselves to "Rewrite" new legislation on "Healthcare " that benefits the people and only the people. That would be a step in the right direction.
The Democrats should write legislation banning all "Lobbyist, put them out of work, or remove their jobs offshore, "say over to Libya, let them lobby from there. Let's see how they like it ! Come' on Democrats in the congress, get a "Spine" and for once stand up to the snakes on the right side of the aisle and finally put them in their place. "Remember " Election's have dire consequences".
I agree. If he wants this bill passed, he has to be mean and target those who would deter it. Pull in the Blue Dogs and the Republicans and tell them that if the reform goes down or isn't what he wants, that he will ask Pelosi and Reid to introduce a bill which will dictate that no state is permitted to get back from the Federal Government more than they send to the Treasury. Virtually all the Blue States are moocher states, in that they get more back from the Federal Government than they send. Tell them that they will pass that bill, as they will say that it will get the Federal Deficit under control and that how could the Republicans, after they have been yelling DEFICIT, fight a bill which would do what they have been claiming they want for years?
Then, they should do it. Ram it down their throats. Grassley, you know those agricultural subsidies you get for Iowa, bye bye, Alaska, that MOOCHER state extraordinaire, bye bye all that extra dollar for each dollar you send to the Treasury. Same for Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and all the rest. STAND ON YOUR OWN TWO FEET BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN SUCH A PAIN TO EVERYONE ELSE.
I am a 73 year old, lifelong Democrat. During the 8 years of Bush, I found myself in mourning for my America. I only wanted to live long enough to see a progressive Dem. in the WH, and the country saved from itself. I thought back to when as a boy how in awe I was of FDR(a God of a man), and as a teen how impressed I was with the tough honesty of HST. I thought if only it would happen again in time for me to see the change. We elected an elegant educated articulate young man as President, and I was joverjoyed, now things are goingto happen, I thought. They have not! We have a leader who is either arrogantly blas'e, or totally inept corrupt, and not ready for the job. How I hope the USA is not again the victim of another great marketing job. Someone put all the right words in his mouth during the campaign(hopefully him). Should he not get this health-care situation resolved, with a minimum of a public option, we are looking at a failed presidency and a huge setback for the Dem's. Simply put a real tragedy, and at the least a broken heart for this writer.
Obama is just trying to be a nice guy and use common sense in this and nothing about politics is nice or has any common sense. He just needs to realize this, be forced to develop a mean streak, and realize he is going to have to fight, kick, punch, scratch and intimidate his foes.
Dear Sir, Your memories and experiences I would love to hear. During this election I too was filled with so much hope I could almost grasp it, especially when Obama became our newest President.
But now I'm wondering, is he just the new and improved Mr. President Corporate Shill?
My heart is with yours . The Congress, the Senate and Mr. President can do this if only they love American lives more than Corporate interests (insurance racket etc.) and warmongering for profit.
If the Congress wants to limit AmericanDeaths/per hr. Get This Universal healthcare done. Otherwise y'all are just corporate t.e.r.r.o.r.i.s.t.$.
Gracias Ms. IHDWG: If the ulcer on the body politic is corp/$$$$$$$, we need to realize that this was hatched long before the last campaign, and that we were all punked. When there is no longer vox populi we are racing in the direction of the Roman Empire. corrupted and doomed to failure. Today BO is attending the AFL-CIO labor-day function; I am anxious to see how they handle him, being the are so pro-option or nothing.
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