Credit where it's due, many of those who argued for the death of the ACA did so under the impression that a single payer system would only begin as it did in Canada, one 'Provence' at a time. And of course, part of that argument was that the passage of the ACA would kill any effort for a State to pass such legislation. Those of us who argued differently were called, I believe the term was, "quislings". So, yes, there is a dark part of my soul that's having a Nelson Muntz moment.
This movement in the right direction is certainly not over. The first hurdle is getting the state waiver deadline moved from 2017 to 2014, at least for Vermont. The White House is in favor of this move. (Damn that Obama! ...) The second hurdle are efforts by Republicants to block such an effort by a state. Don't discount this one. Republicantshate youslacking weaklings. They've made no mystery of that. They will do everything in their power to stop progress towards single payer. (A quisling would suggest that that's another reason not to give the Senate back to the Republicants. So let's hammer Tester some more about his tree-hate ...)
Probably the biggest hurdle for Vermont to overcome is the economic one. A single payer program will have to prove that it can attract and provide jobs, while paying for the benefits of it's citizens. In truth, and this may be my own naivete, I don't expect that Governor Shumlin and his legislature would have moved this far without some kind of pronounced fiscal security in the effort.
This has not been a short time in coming, and it amazes me that the usual suspects have been dead quiet about their very heart's desire while it happened. Being charitable, perhaps they were waiting for Vermont to show the economic benefit of a single payer offering. In truth, that will have to happen for Montana to move in such a direction. We currently gobble $1.50 for every buck Montanans pay into the federal government. We simply don't have the population for such a program to take root without federal assistance. In truth, large population states may not be to implement such a thing without our assistance, or a change in US international tax code. We're being gobbled alive by high expense health care, and the off-shoring of the dollars that can pay for such, to countries that already have what Vermont is attempting right now.
Recently, Montana's lone Congressman pledged to start a spending showdown:
"I'm going to fulfill my promise to the people of Montana, that to the best of my ability I will defund Obamacare if we're not able to repeal it," Rehberg said in a telephone news conference.
Sam Stein is now looking at what would happen in that situation:
Democratic lawmakers tell The Huffington Post that they increasingly expect Republicans to try and freeze funding for the health care law. Such an attempt would face the same institutional hurdles as a straight repeal vote: a non-compliant Senate and a president wielding a veto pen. But whereas the repeal bill's death would mean -- in practical political terms -- absolutely nothing, the inability to pass an appropriations bill could have far-reaching effects.
"They are potentially setting up a situation where they will bring government, all of government, to a screeching halt," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said Wednesday. "Not because of the debt ceiling. This is beyond the debt ceiling ... If they think they are going to have the end game of their appropriations bills be that they drive health care reform into an early grave ... they are literally setting up a full stop for almost everything we will possibly do this year."
"I am real concerned," Rep. Charlie Gonzalez (D-Texas) said. "We do operate on yearly budgets that could exact great harm if they are dedicated to that proposition. You still have to work with the Senate. So what happens when you reach that kind of impasse? We have this gridlock ... There is no doubt in my mind that the Republican leadership ... has already charted a course. They are very disciplined and very good at what they do."
Americans for Limited Government interviews and promotes Denny Rehberg and his efforts to set up this showdown.
Look, I'd feel better about this if Rep. Rehberg ever indicated he had any idea what was in the health care bill. Pogie catches him making up more shit today abut the law. This stuff is just infuriating.
With your vote to repeal The Affordable Health Care Act postponed because of the terrible incident in Arizona, I'd like to urge you to take that additional time to reconsider your stance in favor of repealing "Obamacare" as you disrespectfully term that law.
I thought republicans stood for individually responsibility, but I find it hypocritcal of you to want to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act without also repealing the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. The Central Montana Medical Center racks up hundreds of thousands of dollars of "uncompensated" care-uncompensated that is until they shift those expenses to me and my insurance company. There's a lot I like about the Affordable Health Care Act, including the fact that I can continue to insure my daughter while she establishes herself in this economy. And I like the individual mandate. I'm responsible, why should my family have to pay and extra $4 or 5 thousand a year for those who aren't? The hospital should be able to hand somebody without insurance a brochure on how to apply a tourniquet, and wheel them back onto the sidewalk if they come in bleeding without insurance to the emergency room. Of course, a better policy would be universal health care.
In the interview, Potter apologizes for his role in the industry's attack on Moore and the film. Moore accepted his apology, but acknowledged to Potter that, "I think we both know this is much larger then what was done to me or in the movie." Moore said that the industry was willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to "stop a movie" because they were afraid it "could trigger a populist uprising against," what he called, a "sick system that will allow companies to profit off of us when we fall ill."
Interesting article in Politico about the potential rise of Denny Rehberg to the chairmanship of the health subcommittee of Appropriations in the House if the Republicans assume control of the chamber.
In contrast, Rehberg wanted to kill the law. He both offered and supported Republican amendments to repeal the whole law or deny funding to pieces of it. "Denny will continue to support efforts to deny funding the bill," said his spokesman, Jed Link.
All Republicans on the subcommittee supported motions for repeal or defunding this year, but the amendments failed to pass after the votes fell along party lines. A House Republican aide said there's no reason to think Republicans on Appropriations wouldn't continue on the same path in the majority.
Let's just keep in mind what Rehberg would be trying to de-fund -- the establishment of health exchanges, basically competitive marketplaces for people to more easily and understandably buy insurance; subsidies for small businesses and the self-employed, the people who don't currently benefit from any of the other big subsidies for insurance in this country; and research into improving efficiency in the health care system.
That's what the money in this bill basically goes to do. So if Rehberg is taking funding away, it is all basically in the cause of either immediately or in the long-term making health insurance more expensive and more difficult to buy.
I have to admit, I had no idea Rehberg had risen to a level of seniority on any committee remotely related to health care. His statements on the issue have repeatedly indicated his ignorance on how the current health care system and the bill that passed Congress work. Forget the Montana angle, it is a bad day for America when a charlatan controls the purse strings.
McDonald's plans to hire about 1,000 people across 600 restaurants in the Pacific-Sierra region, which includes Northern Nevada and California.
The company doesn't have a final estimate yet of how many people took part in the event but several stores were reporting lines this afternoon, said Jake Mossawir, regional spokesman for McDonald's.
While the lines outside of California and Nevada McDonald's restaurants augurs better service at fast-food chains in the West, I'm thinking this isn't a good sign for either the economy or the American worker.
Unemployment continues to hover well above 12 percent in the Sacramento area, and furloughs have cut hours and pay for thousands of state workers. Now, older, experienced workers compete head to head with teens and young adults for part-time positions at fast-food restaurants.
For all their differences, Smith and Giles were drawn to the McDonald's event for the same reason - the possibility of a job with health benefits.
"Medical benefits - that's the big draw right now," Smith said. "I had an allergic reaction to medication. Now I'm in debt for that."
Another strike against the health-care system. When need for insurance pushes overqualified candidates to work for a fast-food chain, that's a problem. Aren't we, as an economy, sacrificing innovation and efficiency by clinging to a broken insurance industry?
Here are two ways in which the summer of 2010 differs from the summer of 2009: First, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., spent close to three hours here last week at a public meeting where he took questions from all comers on everything from federal spending to veterans' benefits - something he did not do last year. Second, far from the raucous town hall-style meetings of 2009 that nearly derailed the Democrats' efforts to overhaul the American health care system, Baucus, a key author of that bill, encountered a crowd that was cordial, thoughtful and probing in its questions - but certainly not hostile.
Gee, I wonder what the difference is? Could it be that the "raucous" meetings last summer were, in part, staged?
So House Republicans defeated a bill that would have provided health care for the workers that rushed to New York City after 9/11 to help with the recovery and cleanup work. You know, the people George W Bush used as a prop for his famous bullhorn at Ground Zero speech.
Why? Well, according to Texas Representative Joe Barton, it's up to New Yorkers to take care of their own mess.
Hey! Ho!
This is the appropriate response:
Naturally, this kind of anger isn't expressed by the Democratic policy-makers. Instead, we're seeing a lot of folks cave on key issues that represent the will of a majority of American voters. Here's Paul Krugman, on Obama's tendency to "alienate {his} friends" and "woo...people who will never waver in their hatred..."
What explains Mr. Obama's consistent snubbing of those who made him what he is? Does he fear that his enemies would use any support for progressive people or ideas as an excuse to denounce him as a left-wing extremist? Well, as you may have noticed, they don't need such excuses: He's been portrayed as a socialist because he enacted Mitt Romney's health-care plan, as a virulent foe of business because he's been known to mention that corporations sometimes behave badly.
The point is that Mr. Obama's attempts to avoid confrontation have been counterproductive. His opponents remain filled with a passionate intensity, while his supporters, having received no respect, lack all conviction. And in a midterm election, where turnout is crucial, the "enthusiasm gap" between Republicans and Democrats could spell catastrophe for the Obama agenda.
The same could be said of politicians closer to home. Here's some advice: you won't win any elections by demoralizing your base, and pandering to those that won't vote for you anyway.
Update -- Worth noting -- Congressman Rehberg is among those who voted against this bill.
In light of yesterday's story, I thought some would find this interesting, while others might not.
Dana Goldstein reports that conservative groups are, unsurprisingly, freaking out over provisions in the health care bill that require coverage of that nasty little beast called contraception.
The conservative groups are particularly worried that a birth control coverage mandate could include teenage girls and young women covered under their parents' health insurance plans. "People who are insured don't want to pay for services they don't need or to which they have moral objections," said Chuck Donovan, senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation. "Parents want to have a say over what's covered and what's not for their children."
Quelle Whoreuer!
This raises an important question: just what are the expectations to be a "senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation?"
And more:
Experts expect the Department of Health and Human Services, led by pro-choice Obama appointee Kathleen Sebelius, to spend the next six to 18 months researching women's health before releasing new guidelines for women's "preventive health care." Under the new law, services and medications defined as "preventive" must be offered to customers of new insurance plans free of co-pays-whether that insurance is employer-provided or purchased on the individual marketplace, whether inside or outside of the new, subsidized health insurance exchanges.
Good for the administration, good for the health care bill, and, in a different sense, good for women and men.
Is Rehberg just not willing to put his money where his mouth is on his opposition to health care reform or are other health care opponents fearful that a Rehberg signature could sink their repeal proposal?
After watching the latest McDonald/Rehberg debate on television Sunday, I was surprised to read this story in today's Helena IR with the headline "Economy, immigration at heart of House race." This is simply wrong. For example, it is impossible to argue that health care reform isn't a major current issue, yet the AP story didn't report on the discussion of health care reform at the "debate." I wish there were some online source I could link to...but since there isn't, those of you who watched will also remember that Rehberg also faced strong accusations from both of his opponents that he'd allowed "partisan bickering" to hold up progress in Congress.
At the accusation, Rehberg feigned a shocked face and tried to claim that he'd be happy to work with anyone who offered. Desparate to come up with an example, he was only able to think of his work with another of D.C's biggest duds, Bart Stupak, on the so-called "Northern Border Caucus." Stupak, who claims to be a Democrat, is so unpopular that more people are clamoring to take credit for his resignation than to admit they are collaborating with him on something, so it's not exactly something to brag about.
So why is it so hard for Rehberg to get others to work with him?
Perhaps Rehberg's record of failing to pass meaningful legislation prevents others from wanting to join him on a big project they actually hope will pass. Could be that his lack of legislative prowess makes his signature an albatross of sorts to a proposal. Only if by "prowess" you mean the ability to pop the top off a Bud Light Lime with one's teeth is Rehberg going to be your go-to guy.
Actions speak louder than words, and while Dennis Rehberg has shown that he'll say anything to try and score political points, he'll ultimately only do what's best for his campaign coffers, not what's best for passing legislation. For example, when it comes to putting his money where his mouth is on his opposition to health care reform, Rehberg has once again done nothing.
Nothing of substance that is. Rehberg has had no problem kicking the old "work ethic" into gear when it comes to speaking to the media and collecting campaign checks from those who want reform repealed:
Rehberg said Montana Republican legislators are right to be pushing the state's attorney general, Steve Bullock, to join 18 other states in challenging federal health care legislation. Last week, more than 70 Republicans signed a letter to Bullock, claiming to represent a majority of Montanans on the issue.
In short, [Butler's parents] were seemingly among the lucky ones for whom the American medical system, despite its fragmentation, inequity and waste, works quite well. Medicare and supplemental insurance paid for their specialists and their trusted Middletown internist, the lean, bespectacled Robert Fales, who, like them, was skeptical of medical overdoing. "I bonded with your parents, and you don't bond with everybody," he once told me. "It's easier to understand someone if they just tell it like it is from their heart and their soul."
They were also stoics and religious agnostics. They signed living wills and durable power-of-attorney documents for health care. My mother, who watched friends die slowly of cancer, had an underlined copy of the Hemlock Society's "Final Exit" in her bookcase. Even so, I watched them lose control of their lives to a set of perverse financial incentives - for cardiologists, hospitals and especially the manufacturers of advanced medical devices - skewed to promote maximum treatment. At a point hard to precisely define, they stopped being beneficiaries of the war on sudden death and became its victims.
Butler's parents were part of the "oldest old" age group, the fastest growing group thanks to advanced medical procedures and technologies that save and preserve the lives of the oldest among us, but whose lives are often far from pleasant - "nearly a third of Americans over 85 have dementia," writes Butler. Butler's own father suffered and survived at stroke - thanks to medical technology - at 79. Later, after increasing deterioration of his health, he required surgery to fix a hernia, but his cardiologist wouldn't okay the procedure before implanting a pacemaker.
The pacemaker allowed Butler's father to live for years through increasingly severe medical problems that caused him great pain while simultaneously taking his mental capacity. By the end of his life, Butler's father was in great pain and completely change in personality, having little or no cognitive ability.
...there is no doubt that economics helped shape the wider context in which doctors made decisions. Had we been at the Mayo Clinic - where doctors are salaried, medical records are electronically organized and care is coordinated by a single doctor - things might have turned out differently. But Middletown is part of the fee-for-service medical economy. Doctors peddle their wares on a piecework basis; communication among them is haphazard; thinking is often short term; nobody makes money when medical interventions are declined; and nobody is in charge except the marketplace....
It was a case study in what primary-care doctors have long bemoaned: that Medicare rewards doctors far better for doing procedures than for assessing whether they should be done at all. The incentives for overtreatment continue, said Dr. Ted Epperly, the board chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians, because those who profit from them - specialists, hospitals, drug companies and the medical-device manufacturers - spend money lobbying Congress and the public to keep it that way....
And so my father's electronically managed heart - now requiring frequent monitoring, paid by Medicare - became part of the $24 billion worldwide cardiac-device industry and an indirect subsidizer of the fiscal health of American hospitals. The profit margins that manufacturers earn on cardiac devices is close to 30 percent. Cardiac procedures and diagnostics generate about 20 percent of hospital revenues and 30 percent of profits.
"I couldn't help feeling that something precious," writes Bulter, "our old faith in a doctor's calling, perhaps, or in a healing that is more than a financial transaction or a reflexive fixing of broken parts - had been lost."
Of course, it's this end-of-life, extremely profitable care that not only degrades our quality of life in death, it's also one of the factors responsible for our rapidly rising health care costs. It's the free market creeping into our very lives, distorting the very meaning of existence with its amoral obeisance to business' bottom line and no accountability to the humanity of consumers.
Frankly, as long as our system of fee-for-service survives, our health care costs will increase as our quality of life at end-of-life will decrease.
Our Congressman's use of his office's resources continues to amaze. In addition to using his taxpayer-funded office to encourage people to vote in an election where he faced two primary opponents, Congressman Rehberg is now using tax dollars to lie to Montanans about the health care bill he opposed.
From his latest email, a survey on how to deal with healthcare costs:
If they had been included in the new law, which provision(s) do you think would have helped reduce health care costs? (Choose as many as you want)
Lawsuit Reform
Allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines
Letting small businesses pool their resources like larger corporations and government
Here's the problem. Under reform, insurance companies can compete across state lines and small businesses (and individuals) will pool their purchasing power.
Under the federal bill, states can sign off on eachothers' regulations and allow policies licensed for sale in, say, Montana to be sold in California, provided California's state government thinks that is kosher. In other words, it allows for increased competition while maintaining states' rights. What Rehberg is really calling for here is for the federal government to gut Montana's ability (and every other state's ability) to regulate insurance at all. The federalists in the tea party should be rightfully outraged at this proposal.
As for pooling purchasing power, small employers will soon purchase through the exchanges, which are basically places for employers and individuals to buy in a competitive marketplace and leverage their collective purchasing power. I'm not really sure what other model the Congressman would support. A number of us already "pool" our policies through programs like Chamber Choices. The exchanges do this on a much larger scale and with far more competition.
So there's reality. It's a far cry from what our Congressman is proposing.
I'd also love for him to be upfront about the fact that he wants to undermine Montana's ability to regulate insurance and to move that authority to the federal level alone. I'm sure that would be popular with his base.
First, the story on the not completely insane front. Florida's Republican leaders have come out swinging against health care reform and the Attorney General has filed suit (as 74 Montana Republican legislators requested of Steve Bullock). A majority of Floridians think it is a "bad idea."
But this doesn't hold a candle to Nevada, where the frontrunner against Harry Reid wants to replace fee-for-service medicine with chicken for service medicine. Crazy.
Gotta say, I'm a big fan of this letter from Attorney General Steve Bullock to Republican legislators regarding their call for him to waste taxpayer resources on a ridiculous lawsuit.
Some of my favorite excerpts:
Like you, I take seriously my oath of office to "protect and defend the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Montana," as well as to "discharge the duties of my office with fidelity."
[...]
I have analyzed these claims as I analyze constitutional challenges to our own laws, with the understanding that overturning the constitutional judgment of a popularly elected legislature grave matter in a constitutional democracy.
Although your letter is short on legal specifics [...] [emphasis added]
[...]
As Justice Scalia explained in Raich, "[w]here necessary to make a regulation of interstate commerce effective, Congress may regulate even those intrastate activities that do not themselves substantially affect interstate commerce." Id. at 35 (Scalia, concurring).
[...]
The lawsuit you urge me to join does claim that States participating in the federal Medicaid program must provide coverage, but also concedes that States may "avoid the Act's requirements" by "drop[ping] out of the Medicaid program." Florida v. Sebelius, Complt. fl 40. Although this choice would leave millions of people uninsured, it is a choice any of the States may make if they disapprove of how Congress wants federal Medicaid funds spent, and this choice is consistent with the Tenth Amendment. See New York v. United States. 505 U.S. 144 (ree2).
But it is really the ending of the letter where Steve Bullock reminds Scott Sales not to try to play with the big kids where he is clearly out of his depth:
The lawsuit also presents serious standing and ripeness issues, given that it appears to be filed based more on the timing of the November 2010 elections than the date in2014 when individuals and states might first be subject to the Act's requirements.
Therefore, I have concluded that once you take the politics out of these issues, there is no credible constitutional claim. So, like nearly three-quarters of my Democratic and Republican colleagues in state Attorney General offices across the country, I have not joined the lawsuit. We are not alone in our bipartisan opposition to politicizing the Constitution and the courts in this way. Eighteen of your Republican counterparts in the United States Senate sponsored a similar health insurance reform bill in 1993, see 5.1770,103rd Cong. (1993), and I do not doubt their fidelity to their constitutional oath. Lawyers and constitutional scholars across the political spectrum have determined, as President Reagan's former Solicitor General Charles Fried has said, that the lawsuit is "simply a political ploy" without legal merit.
As legislators, you understand as much as any citizen the importance of resolving our heartfelt policy differences through the democratic process. Montana's decision not to join these lawsuits will not change the outcome if, contrary to nearly a century of precedent, the Supreme Court takes the surprising step of striking down this law and taking the country back to the days when the farm bill and social security were constitutionally suspect. Most importantly, however, Montana's decision not to join these lawsuits leaves these critical questions of national policy in the hands of "We the People" and our elected representatives, where these decisions belong.
State Senator Roy Brown is one of the 74 Republican lawmakers calling on Steve Bullock to waste his office's resources by joining other states in a likely futile lawsuit to strike down the new health care bill.
KULR-8 has the Billings Senator on video. In that clip, he makes two notable arguments, both of which are patently false:
First, that every single person in this country buy a product. There are huge classes of people not required to buy any product. Individuals insured through their employer or by another government program (including Medicaid, which will be available to all low-income Americans by the time the individual mandate kicks in) or for whom the purchase would represent a financial hardship are exempt from the mandate. In other words, the tax for not having insurance only applies to working Americans who make too much to qualify for Medicaid and choose to remain uninsured. They pay an extra tax in exchange for having access to the insurance regulations and protections, like the end of pre-existing condition discrimination, available under the bill to all Americans.
If you don't buy insurance you get fined and if you don't get fined you go to jail. Actually the law explicitly prevents people from being jailed:
The law specifically says that no criminal action or liens can be imposed on people who don't pay the fine. If this actually leads to a world in which large numbers of people don't buy insurance and tell the IRS to stuff it, you could see that change. But for now, the penalties are low and the enforcement is non-existent.
Enforcement would occur through the holding of tax refunds or other mechanisms presumably in the meantime.
There are two things unfortunate about this. The first is that Roy Brown is calling for Montana taxpayers to spend a bunch of money pursuing crackpot legal theories based on his factually incorrect understanding of a law. The second is that KULR-8 didn't factcheck claims made by a partisan looking to score political points.
Max Baucus's team just shared a new website featuring Montanans helped by health reform. Two examples -- a small business providing insurance that will receive tax credits (worth noting -- the employer mandate doesn't apply to businesses with fewer than 50 employees; there's been a lot of confusion bout that) and a Billings woman escaping the donut hole of the Medicare prescription drug bill.
I've heard other stories, mostly about young adults eligible to get on to their parents insurance again, sometimes at a very crucial period of their lives.
I find these stories shocking, though, since my understanding was that only BCBS's CEO would benefit under this bill. Maybe I've been misinformed.
As healthcare legislation passed Congress, the GOP's initial reaction was to form their summer campaigns around repeal. Within a few hours, of course, this changed; electoral strategy would be about amending, or "fixing" healthcare reform.
In Montana, the GOP hasn't fixed on any concrete electoral strategy around healthcare. The typical reaction is, as this AP report demonstrates, labeling it as "federal takeover" and "social engineering." A KFBB report hints at other rhetoric the GOP is trying out: that the bill is too expensive and doesn't do anything to reduce healthcare costs.
If the GOP this summer goes after health care in Beck-ian fashion, don't count on it to be a winning strategy. I don't know if I'll go as far as Baucus did in the AP report and claim that most will "like" the bill once its provisions go into effect and they'll see what we got, but it's clear they'll see that it's not the bogeyman bill that will mean the end to the country that righties have made it out to be. If you've been actually following the health care debate, it's entirely apparent this bill is hardly government takeover of health care. It's not socialism or social engineering, or really any kind of change at all: most people's health insurance won't be touched by this bill.
If on the other hand, the GOP goes after it in a more responsible manner - cooling the Teabagger extremist rhetoric and concentrating on budget deficits and cost control - they'll probably do much better. (After all, in Massachusetts - the insurance reform model for national healthcare reform - insurers are suing to raise insurance premiums as high as 32 percent.)
Whichever strategy the GOP chooses, figure on its summer plans to include health care. Kellyn Brown:
State GOP Executive Director Bowen Greenwood has maintained that health care reform would be a "winning issue" for his party in the upcoming elections. Most national polls that show a small uptick in support for the legislation still record the majority of people opposing the bill. I would guess it's even more unpopular in Libertarian-minded Montana. And even more so in the Flathead, still a conservative stronghold in the state.
How this sways the November election and thus the makeup of the 2011 state Legislature will be determined by how effective the GOP candidates are in keeping the issue alive.
And whatever Republicans say this summer, what's clear is that they'll use the next legislative session to try and block healthcare reform from coming to Montana. From Brown's post:
A GOP lawmaker told me weeks ago that, if health care reform was made federal law, her party planned on introducing legislation similar to that in Virginia, which exempts that state from certain aspects of reform and laid the groundwork for suing the federal government.
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.
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.
...if one wants to argue that this is a good bill, that's reasonable, but to claim that it is an example of Democrats' "standing up to special interests and the health insurance lobby" is so blatantly false that everyone -- especially supposedly independent commentators -- should be deeply embarrassed to espouse it.
The reason this matters so much -- aside from the intrinsic need to debunk political propaganda -- is because corporate control of the Government is one of the most serious problems, if not the single most serious problem, the nation faces. Every future bill -- from "financial reform" to energy bills to national security and surveillance legislation -- is dominated by that central fact. To pretend that these interests were vanquished or "neutralized" here ...is not just deeply misleading but, worse, helps conceal what remains the greatest threat to the democratic process: a threat that is not only stronger than ever, but has been made stronger as a result of the last several months.
And therein lies some essential clue about the rift that made the left as divisive and acrimonious as it was during the 2008 primary - Sirota's angry column on the "bleeting sheeple" being led to a "corporate giveaway" healthcare bill is Exhibit A in the kind of heated internecine rhetoric too commonly found surrounding reform.
The rift is about the health care system as a whole.
The New York Times' David Leonhardt addresses how the health care bill addresses "wealth inequality."
EJ Dionne points out that this health care reform bill is essentially a Republican plan, preserving the private insurance industry and creating a better insurance market. Dionne: "Here is the ultimate paradox of the Great Health Care Showdown: Congress will divide along partisan lines to pass a Republican version of health care reform, and Republicans will vote against it." (The mandate, for example, was a Republican invention.)
Jane Hamsher: "The health care debate was essentially a fight between political parties, not political philosophies. And the public understood that."
Of course, there's no way the current Republican party could have passed any kind of health care reform. Nor did they when they held the reins of power that last decade.
And according to a March 22 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans think it's "a good thing" that Congress passed the health care bill.
