Healthcare Update
I’ll have more to say on the lack of a thoughtful debate a little later.
From Political Animal:
It’s not my first choice for paying for health care reform (this is), but the House is moving forward with a proposal to apply a graduated surcharge, or “surtax,” on the very wealthiest Americans. The indispensable Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report yesterday on the proposal and deemed it a “reasonable approach” to paying for reform. (thanks to K.F. for passing this along)
The House surcharge proposal is reasonable and well-targeted. In recent decades, incomes have grown disproportionately for households at the top of the income scale, while their tax burden has fallen substantially. Moreover, despite charges to the contrary, the proposal would have only a small impact on small businesses. The congressional Joint Tax Committee estimates that it would have no impact at all on 96 percent of small business owners — broadly defined as any taxpayer with as little as $1 of business income — and that only half of the 4 percent of small business owners who would be affected derive more than a third of their income from a business. At the same time, the House plan would enhance the ability of small businesses to offer affordable, quality health insurance to their employees.
And while 96% of small business would be unaffected, so too would 98.8% of taxpayers.
(I think that we need a robust public option that covers everyone. WE would save money.)
From Rep. Dennis Kicinich via the DK:
With your support, your phone calls, your emails, we won a major legislative victory today for a state single payer health care option in the House of Representatives in Washington, DC. The House Education and Labor Committee approved the Kucinich Amendment by a vote of 27-19, with 14 Democrats and 13 Republicans voting yes.
The amendment propels the growing single payer health care movement at the state level. There are at least ten states which have active single payer efforts in their legislatures. They are California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington. The amendment mandates a single payer state will receive the right to waive the application of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which has in the past been used to nullify efforts to expand state or local government health care.
Under the Kucinich Amendment a state’s application for a waiver from ERISA is granted automatically if the state has signed into law a single payer plan. With the amendment, for the first time, the state single payer health care option is shielded from an ERISA-based legal attack. Now that the underlying bill has been passed, as amended, by the full committee, we must make sure that Congress knows that we want the provision kept in the bill at final passage! (more… )
(This is very interesting. I wonder if states will be allowed to pool resources.)
From mcjoan:
It started out on the high note, before the weekend, with the good news that the CBO was going to estimate that “a strong public option–the kind that the House of Representatives is putting in its reform bill–should net somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 billion in savings over ten years.” There was also the good news that a core group of New Dems, along with a few Blue Dogs, were supporting a “robust public option.”
From there, it was a lot of rollercoaster up and down, and we end this week with the deadline of August looking unlikely.
On Tuesday, the House Tri-Committee bill was introduced, with the most controversial provision being Rangel’s surtax on the nation’s wealthiest familes. The good news on this House version of the bill is that it pays for itself:
According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the legislation would cost $1 trillion over 10 years and cover 94 percent of Americans (97% if you don’t count the undocumented).
As Jonathan Cohn reports, “between savings and a new surtax on the wealthy, the bill pays for itself. In other words, it won’t inflate the deficit.” Five hundred billion comes from savings in Medicare and Medicaid and “the rest comes from a surtax on the richest 1.5 percent.”
Most importantly, the CBO coverage tables undermine the conservative claim that a public option would eliminate private insurance and erode employer-sponsored coverage. The House bill actually increases the number of people who receive coverage through their employer by 2 million and shifts most of the uninsured into private coverage. (more… )
(This is an excellent post by McJoan. She has summarized the week’s events very well.)
From TP a bit of reality from a Republican congressman:
Today on C-Span’s Washington Journal, a caller told a story of how he was forced to see numerous doctors at different hospitals in the area in where he lives, some as far as 100 miles away, to get a diagnosis. The caller then faulted health insurance companies for preventing the practice of having “diagnostic tests done under one roof.” “So in essence,” the caller noted, “the insurance companies are the ones controlling what tests you can get, when you get them, how you get them and if they’re accepted or not.”
In a remarkable moment of candor, C-Span’s guest — Republican Congressman Tim Murphy (PA) — agreed:
MURPHY: Yeah and that brings up the point here that with regard to one of our big frustrations with insurance companies is they control the market place, they control what’s done, a lot of times doctors not making the decisions here. And you recognize the frustration.
