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Barack Obama  |
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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.
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Thu Apr 01, 2010 at 13:17:39 PM MST
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| Two interesting stories on the health care bill in today's Missoulian. The first is about a piece of the bill that got highlighted repeatedly by Rehberg's colleagues on the floor of the House -- the "special deal" that Max Baucus got for Libby, MT, where a bunch of the local population is very concerned that a Grace bankruptcy will mean the end of insurance coverage.
Michael Jamison writes: If the nation's new health care bill has a hometown, it must be Libby, Mont., and if it has a face, it must be the face of Red Busby.
[...]
He's on a fixed income now, unable to work, and after basic expenses lives on less than $200 per month. Much of Busby's health care is paid for by W.R. Grace and Co. - the mining outfit that left this town riddled with asbestos - "but I have fears that they will discontinue my coverage when they have gotten out of bankruptcy." If there's a town in the country that deserves special assistance on the health care front, it is probably Libby, MT.
Meanwhile, Senator Baucus is under fire for talking about the bill as a way of correcting an upward redistribution of wealth, which is basically true. Prior to the bill, there were 3 major sets of subsidies for health insurance in this country: - The public systems like the Medicare, VA, and IHS that target certain segments of the population.
- Subsidized coverage or full coverage for certain classes of low-income people -- SCHIP, Medicaid, etc.
- The employer tax exclusion that really applies to the middle-class and up.
This bill puts in a new set of subsidies for more poor people, working poor, lower-class, and middle-class self-employed individuals. That's the big difference between this bill and the status quo -- it sets up a parallel set of subsidies to make sure that all Americans get a little bit of a boost from the government to get health insurance. Sure, that's a redistribution. It's a correction from an unjust system to a more just system. |
| Matt Singer :: Libby and Equal Playing Field: This is Controversial?!?!?!? |
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