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Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.

Health care reform passes House, with gut punch

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Nov 09, 2009 at 06:29:32 AM MST


Well...the healthcare reform bill passed the House, but not without a gut punch to women.

First, Democrats struck a deal over healthcare to win the support of Catholic bishops by allowing an amendment to reach the House floor that would disallow any insurance passed in the health insurance exchange to cover elective abortion procedures.

Jane Hamsher: "Democrats in Congress have just proudly signed a deal...which allows a bunch of old men who have spent the better part of the last century avoiding their own sexual issues to dictate access to abortion services..." Hamsher rips Planned Parenthood and NARAL for rolling over on this and other women's issues wrapped up in health care reform.

Even Ezra Klein thinks it's a bad deal:

The idea that people are going to go out and purchase separate "abortion plans" is both cruel and laughable. If this amendment passes, it will mean that virtually all women with insurance through the exchange who find themselves in the unwanted and unexpected position of needing to terminate a pregnancy will not have coverage for the procedure. Abortion coverage will not be outlawed in this country. It will simply be tiered, reserved for those rich enough to afford insurance themselves or lucky enough to receive from their employers.

A great day for women, that started off with the Democratic women's caucus being repeatedly shouted down by Republican Congressmen on the House floor.

It's hard to jump and down and cheer for a bill with so many bad compromises in it - how did we get here? In part, I blame the group of "moderate" or "centrist" Democrats who drag their feet on Democratic policies while taking in industry donations. But those Democrats exist and wield power because the Republicans are quickly ceding their role as rational political players. They vote against every piece of legislation in Congress, and refuse to even enter negotiations in crafting legislation. The effect is particularly dire in the Senate, where Republicans so far have filibustered, or threaten to filibuster, nearly every Democratic bill or judicial nomination. As a result, the worst Senators - Lieberman, Baucus, Nelson, Lincoln - are having the most influence on policy.

And it might get worse. Krugman:

In fact, the party of Limbaugh and Beck could well make major gains in the midterm elections. The Obama administration's job-creation efforts have fallen short, so that unemployment is likely to stay disastrously high through next year and beyond. The banker-friendly bailout of Wall Street has angered voters, and might even let Republicans claim the mantle of economic populism. Conservatives may not have better ideas, but voters might support them out of sheer frustration.

And if Tea Party Republicans do win big next year, what has already happened in California could happen at the national level. In California, the G.O.P. has essentially shrunk down to a rump party with no interest in actually governing - but that rump remains big enough to prevent anyone else from dealing with the state's fiscal crisis. If this happens to America as a whole, as it all too easily could, the country could become effectively ungovernable in the midst of an ongoing economic disaster.

The point is that the takeover of the Republican Party by the irrational right is no laughing matter. Something unprecedented is happening here - and it's very bad for America.

Jay Stevens :: Health care reform passes House, with gut punch
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Mark (0.00 / 0)
you are absolutely right...but I do disagree with you on one very important point...Reid and Pelosi DO LEAD...they lead Democrats to their corporate influenced centrist views...they are NOT progressive by any stretch of the imagination.

Until progressives take the democrat party back, one precinct, one county, one state, at a time, this will continue...


Anybody else but me think it's time....................... (0.00 / 0)
time to YANK the tax free status of the catholic church?!  I mean, when their bishops send a letter around to be read in ALL churhces not once, but at least twice, that a vote for O'Bama will send you straight to hell, it's TIME! It's the free market, baby!  If the bishops got themselves such a great product, people will pay.  If not, tough shiite!  Guess that God didn't INTEND for the chuch to survive!  That's the way the religion crumbles I guess!  I'm sick of their meddling where they don't belong.

Gut punch (0.00 / 0)
I think the passage of HR-3962 is further evidence that the country has become ungovernable. At its core, the bill is a Faustian bargain with the health insurance industry: "you stop opposing health care reform, and we'll provide you with customers via the individual mandate." The price for the Democratic Party? Abandoning its 2008 platform pledge to achieve universal coverage:

"While there are different approaches within the Democratic Party about how best to achieve the commitment of covering every American, with everyone in and no one left out, we stand united to achieve this fundamental objective through the legislative process."

HR-3962 may, eventually, cover 96 percent of American citizens and legal residents. But "everyone in" means everyone: 100 percent. On this, the Democratic Party has failed those who supported its candidates in 2008.

As a question of public policy, health care reform is easy. Only a single-payer systems covers all. And it does it at the lowest cost. There's really little dispute about that among reasonably informed people with open minds.

Unfortunately, Congress is no longer able to legislate sweeping reforms such as Social Security, Medicare, or the Civil Rights Act. A year ago, under duress, Congress approved legislation to bail out the big banks, and did so in just a few weeks, but it has not followed up by enacting the reforms necessary to protect the nation from reckless and predatory banking. Why? Because the pirates of Wall Street used big campaign contributions to buy most members of both parties. The same holds true for Big Pharma and health insurance.

A equally important factor is the intensity with which so many Democrats embrace market based solutions. They've been reading Ayn Rand when they should have been study James K. and John Kenneth Galbraith. In particular, they should be reading James K. Galbraith's book, "The Predator State." This almost religious devotion to free markets can convince otherwise rational beings that there is a market based solution to health care reform, when in fact the notion that there is a market based solution is a delusion, a chimera.

So we are left with HR-3962, which won't get the job done, because our political system prevents, rather than enables, sweeping reforms when sweeping reforms are needed. A nation whose decision making systems are ossified to such an extent is a nation that's losing the ability to govern itself.

I applaud Dennis Kuninich's decision to vote against HR-3962, and urge all to read his statement explain his vote, which is available on his Congressional website.


the fault for this travesty lies with (1.00 / 1)

The ppl like Forward Montana, HCAN, SEIU and their stupid willfully ignorant nauseating push for Public Option. A RUSE par excellence from the get go. You corporate shills were either 'played' or you are in with the Insurance Cartel.
Had you the intelligence to Push for Single Payer we would NOT be in this debacle. Idiots!!!

Point the finger at yourselves, then shove your two-bit luzer Public Option bull shit where the sun doesn't shine.  


Accusations (0.00 / 0)
Not very helpful.  There are good reasons to favor a public option over single payer.  Something tells me, you've no interest in even considering them.

[ Parent ]
I think (0.00 / 0)
HCAN et al are pushing for a public option because they know that single payer has no chance at all of passing; there are too many legislators without the spine to vote for it.  

A properly structured public option is a hell of a lot better than what we have now, although, from what I can tell, the current offering isn't so great.  The only way I see the public option doing much good is if it is an option for every American, not just those without employer-provided insurance.  

Also, when did the evangelicals take over the Democratic Party?  I expect anti-choice B.S. from Republicans and a few backwoods Dems, but come on.  When your party controls a significant majority of a chamber of Congress, and your party's platform (http://www.democrats.org/a/party/platform.html) states: "The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to undermine that right," how the HELL do you let an amendment come to a vote, much less pass, which definitely undermines a woman's right to choose if she can't pay?  Ridiculous.


[ Parent ]
I think everyone who was inside knew the public option was a bargaining chip from the start. (0.00 / 0)
It was something to organize on, something to raise money on, and something to roll over on. My prediction is that the Senate will either remove it entirely or they will go the trigger route.

I also predict the senate will remove the provision for negotiating drug prices, since Max will want that done for his owners.

As a bill, we will end up with a national version of Romney Care. HCAN et al. knew this from the start, If they didn't, they are a lot stupider than i am.

The House blue dogs won't be able to oppose the bill when it has no PO, even if the Hyde amendment is simply re-affirmed and the Stupak amendment is removed.

All the left has to work or hope for is some form of the Kucinich/Sanders/Wellstone idea to place an amendment in the bill that will allow states to form their own single payer system.

I suggest the left give up on the PO joke/scam, in fact they should reject the trigger as a sham, and instead demand our few representatives threaten to with hold their votes if their isn't a provision allowing states to enact their own single payer system if they choose to do so. It should start with Sanders in the Senate, maybe joined by, who, Kerry? Franken as a tribute to Wellstone? (he introduced a bill to do that back in the 90s) Tester would be politically smart to  join it, he could use some help with the left here at home, since he seems to have forgotten we exist.

We need to work for a tiny kernel of hope in an otherwise shitty corporate giveaway bill that will enshrine the health insurance industry as the undisputed arbiters of our health care through federal law.

No cost containment will mean that this isn't a solution, just a short term money bomb until something else has to be done down the road.  And maybe that something should start in the states. I don't think the Federal Government is up to it.


[ Parent ]
Pelosi already said (0.00 / 0)
that the Kucinich amendment was stripped because it violated Obama's pledge that if you have insurance you like, you can keep it. And if a state goes single payer, then you don't get to keep it.

So Pelosi stabbed Dennis and single payer advocates in the back with that one, says Kucinich: "at the request of the administration". Why am I not surprised?  


[ Parent ]
Unfortunately (0.00 / 0)
I don't think state opt-in single-payer has any chance of passing.  The liberal caucus should have pushed single-payer harder, as a bargaining position.  The public option IS the compromise, but the left has allowed it to become the liberal option in this debate.  So, I think we'll be lucky to get even that.  That said, I'm still hopeful (maybe naively so) that we will get some sort of decent reform bill out of this whole thing.  A lot of people really want real health care reform, since it's been promised to them, and the conservadems will have to decide between pissing off the base or appeasing their insurance co. contributers. It should be interesting to see the choices they make, and the political ramifications of those choices.  Of course, if Congress passes a complete shill give-away bill, we'll all be worse off and I don't see how the Dems will have a chance of holding onto their majorities; they'll be exposed as (as some friends of mine claim) corporate enablers masquerading as populists.  

[ Parent ]
According to Politifact (0.00 / 0)
this statement:

"First, Democrats struck a deal over healthcare to win the support of Catholic bishops by allowing an amendment to reach the House floor that would disallow any insurance passed in the health insurance exchange to cover elective abortion procedures."

appears to be false.  http://politifact.com/truth-o-...

=================
On one issue right off the bat, we believe Lowey is misleading. The Stupak amendment -- which now accounts for about four pages of the nearly 2,000-page bill -- does not address the entire "private health insurance market." Rather, it addresses how abortion coverage would be handled within the health insurance "exchanges" included in the Democratic-sponsored House health care bill. These exchanges would provide a virtual marketplace for health insurance for those who do not already have coverage through their employer or through a government program such as Medicare or Medicaid.

The exchange is designed for people who are self-employed or work for very small businesses -- but it would serve at most a small fraction of Americans, since most people get their insurance either through their employer, a spouse's employer or through existing government programs. So, by not specifying that she's talking about how abortion coverage would be handled in the exchange, Lowey immediately makes the issue seem to affect many more people than it actually does...

The amendment says that individuals buying insurance on the exchange may still purchase coverage that includes abortions as long as no federal money is used. It also says that insurers may still offer abortion coverage as long as such coverage, and the administrative structure behind it, is not supported by federal money, and as long as their insurance offerings on the exchange include two nearly identical options, one of which covers abortion services and one of which does not.

Whether someone would be affected by the restriction depends on whether they receive what the bill calls "affordability credits" -- federal subsidies that would help the lower-middle class buy coverage.
=================================

If Politifact is right, perhaps some clarification is in order.


Why keep beating a dead horse? (0.00 / 0)
Stupak's amendment won't see the light of day in conference. If it does, expect a lot of democrats to bite the dust in the election next year.

[ Parent ]
And deservedly so. (0.00 / 0)
But the fact that the amendment was passed by the House is still a slap in the face.

[ Parent ]
It does if it's put in at conference. And the left could make that their price for (0.00 / 0)
final passage of the bill,  since it's quite obvious that the PO has been dead since last June and every week since.

Kucinich's state single payer option is one of two amendments to get bipartisan support, the Stupak abortion amendment being the other.

I'm pretty sure the feds have less reservation about a state passing single payer than about them passing it. It's one of those off the radar type things that they could live with if the PO is removed.

It's not their fault, after all, if a state passes single payer.

Kucinich pointed out that we still have one last chance, and that's at conference. There is no reason not to go for it and every reason to go for it from my point of view.

Snowe, Joe, Nelson, Lincoln, Baucus, Kent, and what's her name from LA aren't to hot on the PO, even the tiny crippled up arthritic PO the house passed.

So we pull it (the PO)  to get the votes in the Senate, then in conference the progressive caucus which is the largest block in congress, demands the reinclusion of the bipartsan state single payer amendment, which costs nothing, and does nothing, unless a state at some point in the future decides to pass it. Not Joe's problem, some states problem at some future time.

The house Blue dogs have to vote for the bill because it has no PO, Joe, Snowe, Nelsen, et al have to vote for the bill because it has no PO.

And the left actually gets the Wellstone Bill passed.

I could live with that compromise. But i couldn't live with any other configuration I can see passing. And that's the truth. Just Romney Care isn't going to cut it. And the PO is already dead in both the house and the Senate.



I think the state single-payer inclusion (0.00 / 0)
would be great too. I just don't think that with Pelosi and Kucinich's statements about WH interference, that conference will roll it out. I'd love to be wrong about that.

We'll see where the principles get applied: whether its more important to ignore the status quo on abortion rights (keep Stupak), or to uphold campaign rhetoric about "you can keep it if you like it" (and not include state single payer).

If you look at the history of Medicare in Canada, it started at the province level, and escalated to the national model as citizens discovered how much they liked the model. Tommy Douglass has been named the greatest Canadian for his role in setting up the Saskatchewan system.


[ Parent ]
As a commentator on MPR said the other night, both Stupak and the sunsetting of SCHIP violate (0.00 / 0)
the pledge that people who like what they have can keep it.

Women who are currently covered for abortion services  under their private insurance likely wouldn't be under the Stupak amendment, and kids and families who like SCHIP don't count apparently to Obama and Pelosi.

So keeping the bi-partisan Kucinich amendment out of the bill based on that "get to keep what you like" pledge is a hypocritical bunch of bs

Men get to keep what they like, apparently, for themselves. But women and children will have to take what Obama and Pelosi tell them they have to take.


[ Parent ]
Steve W, please prove you claim (0.00 / 0)
"Women who are currently covered for abortion services  under their private insurance likely wouldn't be under the Stupak amendment..."

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/p...



[ Parent ]
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