My guests:Heidi Sheirholz, PhD, from the Economic Policy Institute is in the house to chat about the latest jobs numbers. Igor Volsky is the healthcare policy wonk at the Wonk Room which is part of the Great ThinkProgress.org blog.
Well, this is interesting. Both the Senate and the House supported a public option when it came to property; however, many in the House and Senate can’t support a similar public option when it comes to health insurance. Interesting.
So who was surprised that a committee chaired by Max Baucus would vote down the public option? Who? I’m not. Max hasn’t supported the public option from the start. Then you have Kent (“I love me some co-ops”) Conrad. He has also be anti-public option. Add Blanche Lincoln to the mix and the outcome of the vote was predictable.
One thing that that’s clear from today’s Finance Committee votes on the public option: Kent Conrad is the problem for the Dems. He provided the cover today for Lincoln, who was virtually invisible, to vote against the Schumer “level playing field” public option that would have done away with Conrad’s supposed problem with Rockefeller’s amendment–that it was tied to Medicare rates. If that was truly Conrad’s big problem with the bill, he should have had no problem with Schumer’s bill.
The action is going to take place in conference. At least that is what I see happening. This is where the action has always been. Once Obama supported the public option the only way that the Senate could support the much more liberal (thoughtful, American worker friendly) House version was in conference. The Wonk Room agrees:
Obviously, he’s the anti-public option problem in the Democratic caucus, if you take Baucus at his illogical word that he supports the public option, but had to vote against it because it didn’t have enough votes. But, on the other side, the most conservative of the committees to take up healthcare reform had 10 Dems supporting some form of public option–that’s more than I think anyone thought they’d get. Rockefeller told Ed Schultz today that he was suprised to have gotten eight votes for his.
Bottom line, the Finance Committee is going to pass out a bill without a public option, unless Rockefeller and Cantwell do indeed decide to oppose it and can find a third Dem (assuming Snowe will vote with the majority). But it’s also coming out of SFC with a strong majority of Democrats who will vote for the public option on the floor.
Wasn’t it the Governor of Texas, Rick “I have great hair” Perry, who declared they didn’t need the federal government? It would seem to me that if you didn’t need the federal government you would be taking care of your own citizens.
Over the weekend, thousands of Texans attended what is being called the “largest free clinic ever held in the United States” to get health care they otherwise could not afford. ABC-13, a local Houston station, reported that the event showed that there is an “epidemic” of people without proper health coverage in Texas:
It’s an epidemic here in Texas and Harris County — people without health insurance. On Saturday, the uninsured lined up to get their needs met.
More than 2,000 people came to Reliant Center to see doctors for free. Many of the people we talked to can’t afford health insurance, especially in the rough economy. Some say it shows the need for health care reform.
Numerous patients described their experience with the broken U.S. health care system to ABC-13:
“My foot was turned upside down,” said patient Lillian Beverly. Beverly has had trouble walking since she took a bad fall three months ago. “I really don’t have the money to keep going to doctors and doctors,” she said.
Kevin Braggs is worried about his diabetes. “I’ve been without insurance for six months,” said Braggs.
And Vicki Robinson wants to keep her son’s asthma under control, but she says it’s difficult. “My husband’s lost his job. We’ve gone through our savings,” said Robinson.
And nine-year-old Kempton knows it. “We can’t afford medicine,” he said.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, one of the physicians who worked at the clinic this weekend,compared what he saw there to the post-Katrina crisis:
DR. OZ: We had no idea the overwhelming response we would have, the cries for help from the city of Houston and the state of Texas. … This is the largest health mobilization in Houston since Katrina. So a national disaster which brought out this kind of response is now paralleled by a national disaster, because this is just an average day in Houston, and there are thousands of people who need help.
I have yet to warm to David Gregory. I thought he was an okay White House corespondent. I think his questions here, though, frankly, suck. Take for example this question, “Do you think the president has leveled with the American people on this fact, that Americans are going to have to pay higher taxes if they want healthcare reform?” Which Republican wrote this question? Clinton does a masterful job answering this question, but the fact remains that the question is slanted. Gregory could have asked the exact same question without the conservative bias. “Will Americans need to pay more to get more people covered under healthcare reform?”
With that as an aside, Clinton does a very good job in framing the healthcare debate. This is why he was a two-term president.
President Obama at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner last night, discussing false claims made about the health care reform bill, told a little anecdote.
“I was up at the G20 — just a little aside — I was up at the G20, and some of you saw those big flags and all the world leaders come in and Michelle and I are shaking hands with them,” the president said. “One of the leaders — I won’t mention who it was — he comes up to me. We take the picture, we go behind.
“He says, ‘Barack, explain to me this health care debate.’
“He says, ‘We don’t understand it. You’re trying to make sure everybody has health care and they’re putting a Hitler mustache on you — I don’t — that doesn’t make sense to me. Explain that to me.’”
Will Ferrell — always a helpful soul — steps up to the plate once again, leading a group of Hollywood actors and actresses in a public service announcement defending the poor, beleaguered insurance companies.
The video is not only hilarious, it’s a reminder of the narrative power of a villain — and how it could have been used to shape the health care debate in a different direction.
Add this one to the presidential collection: the heart-shaped potato.
By the time Barack Obama came on stage to the taping of the “Late Show” on Monday, host David Letterman had offered up 10 reasons why in the world the president had agreed to do it.
Among Letterman’s theories: Obama said yes without thinking about it, or as Letterman put it, “Like Bush did with Iraq.”
But Obama had other ideas. It turns out he was listening when Letterman had bantered with a woman in the audience who brought — yes — a potato in the shape of a heart to the show.
Although I don’t like the Baucus Bill and I think that it should go away, I see that there are many on Capital Hill who are also trying to kill the bill. I’m trying to kill it because I would like real healthcare reform. I don’t think that this bill will give Americans healthcare reform. I think that this bill will give insurance companies billions of dollars. Others are trying to kill the bill by amending it to death. Over 500 amendments.
And while Republicans have proposed several compromise amendments, most of their provisions seek to delay the mark-up process and undermine the bill. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), for instance, introduced an amendment (Hatch F7) to “add transition relief for the excise tax on high cost insurance plans for any State with a name the begins with the letter ‘U.’” The amendment would increase the threshold at which high-cost insurance plans could be taxed.
Prohibits authorized or appropriated federal funds under the Mark from being distributed to or used by ACORN.
Ensign 543
Strike the word “fee” everywhere it appears in the bill and replace with the word “tax.”
Roberts 137
To prevent Medicare payment policies which discourage physicians from fulfilling their Hippocratic Oath to maintain the good of their patients as their highest priority, and instead encourage the rationing of health care.
Roberts 144
To ensure that if people like the hometown hospital they have, they can keep it.
Hatch rationalizes his amendment by explaining that “the transition relief provided in the Chairman’s mark for the 17 states with the least affordable health care is obviously arbitrary and unfair. What about the 18th state? This amendment would add further transition relief in another, but no less arbitrary way to certain states.”
When Sarah Palin wrote, “the America that I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death penalty’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective of judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of healthcare. Such a system is downright evil,” I got physically nauseated. The only reason that former Governor Palin said this was to derail healthcare reform and to try to elevate her own status in the conservative movement. The statement had no basis in reality. My nausea stems not from a lie but from this person, unknowingly, making my job harder. Speaking with real patients about real end-of-life issues is incredibly difficult.
The following is an example of an end of life discussion. It has been fictionalized to protect patient’s privacy. A 80-year-old man presented after a fall at home. The patient had been in declining health for some time. He has an abnormal heart rhythm and congestive heart failure. He is on blood thinners because he is at increased risk of developing clots in his heart. The patient is awake and alert on arrival. A CT scan is obtained of his brain which reveals blood between the brain and the skull — subdural hematoma. The patient is admitted to the intensive care unit for observation. Medications are given to reverse his blood thinners. The patient does well overnight in a repeat CT scan (standard practice) performed to see if anything new has shown up. The patient has a new contusion (bruise) on his temporal and frontal lobes.
The patient, who was lucid throughout the night, is now somewhat confused. He is having some problems finding his words. His son, who is an orthopedic surgeon, had been with the patient through the night. The son is now extremely concerned. He wants to know what happened. I review the CTs with him and point out that the contusion is in the area of the speech center of the brain. This should explain his difficulty finding words.The son wanted a repeat CT scan, in spite of the fact that the second scan was only completed four hours ago. I asked whether, if we find a surgical lesion (something that can be operated on), he would like me to call a neurosurgeon. I asked if he wanted his father to undergo brain surgery if it is necessary.
I think this question is more than reasonable. Thankfully, the son never had to make that decision. The repeat CT scan was the same as the second scan. Neurology was consulted. Over the next several days, the patient slowly improved and was able to be discharged to a rehabilitation center.
You know our society is in trouble when a physician has not thought about end-of-life issues concerning his 80-year-old father who has a bad heart. From a medical standpoint, I just want to do what is right for the patient, which is to follow that patient’s wishes. Yet so very few families have talked about end-of-life issues. You don’t want to be in the position of the son where you’re having to make a decision while looking at a CT scan in the middle of an ICU. Instead, you would like to be able make decisions in the privacy of your physician’s office.
I deplore any politician that makes this situation harder. Emotions are overwhelming when families are faced with these types of decisions. Exploiting end-of-life issues for political gain should get those politicians a special place in Dante’s Inferno.
One of the reasons that healthcare is so expensive is that we are fat. In some cases we are really, really fat. When I was an intern 20 years ago, it was rare to see someone over 350 lbs. Now it is a daily occurrence. Morbid obesity leads to complications – heart failure, diabetes, kidney failure, infection, pneumonia, wound healing problems and more. Obesity is truly killing us.
Check out this video of a 600 lb woman:
I heard on NPR about this woman who was blind from a skin disease that caused corneal scarring. She went through a series of operations which put a thin tube into her corneal. She can now see through this tube. This is really cool. We can do amazing things but at what cost?
Her blindness was caused by Stevens-Johnson syndrome — a rare, life-threatening condition that causes outer layers of skin to separate from inner layers.
In Thornton’s case, it left her corneas terribly scarred. She was blind and was told that nothing could be done.
But her daughter began researching hospitals and booked an appointment at Bascom Palmer, 1,000 miles from the Thornton home in Smithdale, Miss.
Two years of failed grafts and transplants followed, before a cornea transplant expert began his own work at Bascom Palmer.
Dr. Victor Perez was frustrated with cases of patients — like Kay Thornton — who are blinded by severe cornea damage.
The rest of her eye was fine, but simply put, the lens of her camera was too dirty.
Perez was lobbying to try out a foreign technique when, unprompted, a fellow doctor sent Thornton through Perez’s door.
“Kay walked through my clinic, I saw her, I said, ‘I know exactly what we’re going to do with you,’ ” Perez said.
What he planned to do was something dreamed up by Italian doctors in the 1960s — pull out one of her teeth and transplant it into one of her eyes to help repair the damaged cornea.
With no other option, Thornton signed on.
Perez assembled a team, and for the next two years, they learned the procedure. They flew to Italy and flew Italian experts to Miami. They practiced with cadaver teeth and made trial versions of what they would do with Thornton’s tooth.
Perez hoped it would be the greatest accomplishment of his life — and that he might be able to help an estimated 200 people like Thornton who have severely damaged corneas.
But if he botched it, the procedure would never catch on in the U.S. (more…)
Next week, the Massachusetts state senate is expected to pass legislation giving Gov. Deval Patrick the authority to appoint a temporary successor to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. The interim appointee would serve until the Jan. 19 special election.
Clearly, whomever Gov. Patrick decides to appoint will have a significant role to play in the health care debate over the coming months. It is for that reason we at the Center for American Progress Action Fund believe that Dr. Atul Gawande would be best choice for the job.
Dr. Gawande is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, and has written extensively on medicine for The New Yorker. An articulate and eloquent speaker on health matters, Dr. Gawande is a former Rhodes Scholar, a MacArthur Fellow, and unquestionably one of the nation’s leading health policy experts.
So Senator Max Baucus held hearings on health care reform back in November and December. He has been working on a bipartisan bill for months. He has heard what the president wants and knows that President Obama does not want the middle-class to bear the brunt of this “reform.” I’ve not had a chance to completely go through the 223 pages of America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.
Would federal dollars be used to fund abortion? No. Federal subsidies cannot be used to cover abortions that do not involve rape or incest. All abortion procedures would have to be financed through private premiums.
Are illegal immigrants eligible for coverage and government subsidies? Illegal immigrants are exempt from the mandate and would not be eligible to purchase coverage within the Exchange; they’re relegated to the individual market (which would shrink but would presumably have the same protections as the Exchange.) Legal permanent residents with incomes below 100% of the federal poverty are ineligible for Exchange subsidies and (presumably, following existing law) have to wait five years before qualifying for Medicaid. Thus, for the first five years of their residency, most legal immigrants may remain uninsured.
What are the verification requirements? To obtain coverage within the Exchange, an applicant’s “name, social security number, and date of birth will be verified with Social Security Administration (SSA) data.” “For individuals who do not claim to be U.S. citizens but claim to be lawfully present in the United States, if the claim of lawful presence is consistent with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data then the claim will be considered substantiated”
Is tort reform part of the bill? Yes, states are encouraged “to develop and test alternatives to the current civil litigation system as a way of improving patient safety, reducing medical errors, encouraging the efficient resolution of disputes, increasing the availability of prompt and fair resolution of disputes, and improving access to liability insurance, while preserving an individual‘s right to seek redress in court.”
Who will finance Medicaid expansion? Beginning in 2014, “additional Federal financial assistance would be provided to all states to defray the costs of covering newly-eligible beneficiaries.” The Federal government would pay states on a sliding scale. “States that offer minimal or no coverage of the newly-eligible population currently would receive more assistance initially than those states that currently cover at least some non-elderly, non-pregnant individuals.” The states that already cover more than 133% FPL (like Maine, for instance) would still receive extra federal assistance, but they would see less money than states that just offer the bare minimum Medicaid coverage.
I’ll have more in the coming days. At first glance, this bill is looking like a corporate giveaway.
The newspapers (and some Senators) have apparently discovered what I pointed out a week ago. The MaxTax is completely unaffordable for the middle class.
Near the top of the list for the panel’s Democrats is worry that health insurance subsidies will not be sufficiently generous nor available to enough people despite the fact that the bill would legally require most people to obtain coverage. Beyond premiums, some Democrats are concerned that Baucus’s proposal would not do enough to protect middle-class families from high healthcare expenses.
“It’s very clear, at this point in the debate, the flashpoint is all about affordability,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “I personally think there’s a lot of heavy lifting left to do on the affordability issue.”
The healthcare bills already approved by three House committees and another Senate committee offer more generous subsidies – but at a higher cost to taxpayers.
“We’re doing our very best to make an insurance requirement as affordable as we possibly can, recognizing that we’re trying to get this bill under $900 billion total,” said Baucus, who has been courting Republican support for his measure in an attempt to guarantee that a healthcare bill can achieve the 60 votes or more needed to avoid a Senate filibuster.
“I’m going to work even harder to address any legitimate affordability concerns. I knew they were there,” Baucus said.
Just as a reminder, here are the numbers I came up with last week–showing that if a middle class family had a significant (but not catastrophic) medical event under MaxTax, it might be left with as little as $7,215 to pay transportation, utilities, school, clothing, and debt.
Here’s a very rough budget for that family making $67,000 (I’m not an accountant, so tell me where my assumptions are wrong).
In an interview broadcast on 60 Minutes tonight, President Obama told CBS journalist Steve Kroft at the White House on Friday that, “I believe that we will have enough votes to pass not just any health care bill, but a good health care bill.”
“I’m confident that we’ve got that,” Obama said.
But of course, it’s still an open question whether even a single GOP Senator will support health care reform, something Obama seemed to acknowledge by telling Kroft, “So far we haven’t gotten much cooperation from Republicans.”
The President suggested that some Republicans may be opposing reform in an effort to recreate the health care reform debacle that hobbled the early years of Bill Clinton’s presidency. (more… )
As usual, Marcy Wheeler is able to dig into reports and bills find gold. Max Baucus’ latest bill appears to be a windfall for large corporations. I think that it is nice and sweet that Senator Baucus thinks of big corporations. If it wasn’t for him who would stand up for Wal-Mart (Republicans).
I made this point in this post, but I’m going to repeat it over and over and over until it sinks MaxTax, the Baucus health care plan.
MaxTax is a plan that will use your and my tax dollars to reward companies like Wal-Mart for keeping its workers in poverty. Here’s why.
In most cases, the MaxTax fines employers up to $400 per employee if it doesn’t provide its employees with health care. The fine is absurdly small (less than half of what individuals, themselves, would be fined if they didn’t get insurance), but it could mean a company like Wal-Mart would have to pay up to $560 million if it refused to provide insurance to any of its employees.
The other option is to provide crap insurance for your employees. MaxTax gives very few requirements for this insurance (and it allows you to charge employees up to 13% of their income in premiums). But assume Wal-Mart decided to provide incredibly crappy insurance at a cost of $2,500 an employee. It would then pay $3.5 billion a year to meet its obligations under MaxTax.
So Wal-Mart chooses between paying $560 million or $3.5 billion right?
There is another option.
The MaxTax offers this one, giant, out for corporations.
A Medicaid-eligible individual can always choose to leave the employer’s coverage and enroll in Medicaid. In this circumstance, the employer is not required to pay a fee. [Read more →]
I’ve put a new comment system into place. Let me know if you like it. I think, I hope, I can change back if you don’t.
I’m gonna consider amount of comments and traffic today about Joe Wilson’s outburst. I guess a right wing blog linked to me because a lot of the comments are clearly off the wall. “Joe Wilson is a true patriot and should be lifted up on our shoulders.” “It’s about time the Republicans said something to this assmaggot Obama. It’s long overdue!!” There are more but they all are about the same. Only a few are thoughtful. There was one person who made a point that I thought was relatively insightful. He/she stated, “there is no method for clarifying whether or not a person qualifies for the plan. If it is not explicitly written into the bill that illegals are not eligible, they will slip into the system.” This is the most thoughtful response of the bunch. The commentor admits, though, that he has not read the bill by stating if it is not explicitly written into the bill. It is. Page 143 states: “Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who were not lawfully present in the United States.” Read and then comment. You sound smarter that way.
New census data is out. Since I live here in North Carolina, I was interested in North Carolina numbers. One out of six North Carolina residents lack health insurance coverage. Over the past three years an average of our 1.5 million residents were without health care. The national average was 15.5%. North Carolina averaged almost 17% of its residents without health insurance.
Median income fell almost $2000 from 2007 to 2008. The median income for Americans in 2008 was $50,303. This is a 3.6% decline in median income which is the largest one-year decline on record (since 1967). I think this completely and totally closes the book on Bush’s tax cuts. Median income dropped throughout President Bush’s tenure.
After Joe Wilson’s outburst, Democratic challenger Rob Miller has raked in over $500,000 from over 14,000 individual donors. That’s what I’m talking about!
I haven’t talked about the resignation/firing of Van Jones. I didn’t talk about it because I didn’t know anything about the man. I would like to think I follow politics pretty closely and I don’t remember ever hearing this guy’s name. Yet when he resigned people like Glenn Beck rejoiced. Why? As I understand the controversy, Van Jones said something crazy eight years ago. I don’t see this as a victory for the right but a capitulation of the Obama White House. I guarantee George W. Bush would not have accepted the resignation under such circumstances — remember Rumsfeld.
Paula Abdul is out. Ellen DeGeneres is in. Ellen is funny and Paula really isn’t. That is your American Idol update.
Tonight, President Barack Obama, in front of a joint session of Congress, spoke with conviction on healthcare. He beat down the lies and pledged his support to Medicare and seniors. He told his progressive colleagues that the public option is a means to an end. It is the end that we want. Some are calling it his best speech to date.
Before I go on, I must address Congressman Joe Wilson. What a dork. In public, there is some behavior that is simply unacceptable. If you’re a meeting with colleagues and you suddenly drop your trousers, that is unacceptable. If you’re in one of those nice hotel meeting rooms with some perspective clients and suddenly spit on the floor, that is unacceptable. Shouting in a joint session of Congress, “You lie!” Is unacceptable.
There no two ways around it. After his jaw-dropping comment, after the president’s speech was complete, the South Carolina representative released a statement which stated in part, “While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable.” Accidentally knocking over a glass of cold water which spills in your wife’s lap is regrettable. Shouting at the president as an elected official of United States Congress is totally unacceptable for Republicans or Democrats. Since it seems that no Republicans ever resign (almost never) from anything these days, I’ve donated money to Rob Miller who is challenging him in 2010.
Now, as we sit back and analyze the president’s words, we must remember that Republicans never rest. This fight is not over. Republicans, the health-insurance industry and the pharmaceutical companies are reloading. We have to be ready for their counterpunch because it is coming. Even if we pass effective healthcare reform, this fight isn’t over. There are still Republicans who are trying to kill Medicare and Social Security. We cannot become complacent because the president has just laid out his case and given a great speech. We must continue to organize. We must continue to write and call our Congressman. (No matter whether your Congressman is for or against healthcare reform he or she has to know where you stand.) This is the legislative fight of our generation. Healthcare will help level the playing field and give a huge boost to small business. We must win this fight.
Update: Tunder Pig (TP) mentions in his comment that Democrats are being hypocrites. In 2005, at the SOTU, Bush was playing smoke and mirrors with Social Security and trying to sell that to the American people. It was the privatize Social Security plan which was really the beginning to the end of Bush’s presidency. Here’s the clip.
Dems groan and moan. Some boo. No one, that I could hear, yells, “You Lie!” Or “Liar!” …or anything like that. Is this the same thing? TP thinks so. I don’t. What is appropriate conduct in the Congress while the president is speaking? Tell me what you think.
Update II: From Kos -
Yesterday, Jake McIntyre wrote:
Up until today, Joe Wilson was just another anonymous Southern Republican troglodyte Congressman, unknown to all but the poor people of South Carolina and the most serious horse race junkies.
Today, he’s the hyena who disgraced himself, his party, and the House chamber by screaming “you lie!” like an 8 year-old during the President’s eloquent speech on the most critical challenge facing our nation.
There’s something we can do to let Joe Wilson know what we think of his childish approach to a serious problem — we can help out Rob Miller. Rob is an Iraq War vet — a Marine who came back to South Carolina to try and restore dignity to South Carolina’s Second CD, where Joe Wilson was selling out the district by voting for unfair trade deals and corporate giveaways. Despite being a relative unknown, being outspent by a substantial margin, and a general Republican lean to the district, Rob came within just 8 points of knocking Wilson off in 2008. And we’re lucky to have him running again.
Rob’s a fair trade Democrat who supports the Employee Free Choice Act. He’s a breath of fresh air for a state that desperately needs new leadership. And we can help him tonight, as the nation sees what an immature loser his opponent is. Let’s chip in to help Rob — with early financial support, and with the notoriety Wilson has brought on himself, we’ve got a chance to help send Joe Wilson packing — and to bring maturity and decency to South Carolina politics.
This is a really cool tune that was sent to me by Richard Wickline. His brother Bob Wickline is the creator, musician and writer of this tune. It kinda has a Jerry Reed feel to it, doesn’t it?
For reasons completely unclear to me, the Democrats thought they could take their August recess and leave the USS Healthcare on autopilot. While the Democrats were asleep at the wheel, conservatives pounded the USS Healthcare. Death panels. Socialism. Marxism. Republican Congressmen Phil Gingrey stated that we don’t need to regulate private insurance companies, that the marketplace will regulate them for us. Senator Chuck Grassley actually told his constituents “you have every right to fear.”
I find it ironic, in the age of information and the Internet, that there can be so much misinformation. There are no death panels. No such thing exists in any of the three bills in the House or in the one bill that’s percolating in the Senate. Anyone with an Internet connection can go online and look at these bills. Yes, these bills are long, but they are easily searchable. I cannot explain why the media has allowed this misinformation to ricochet around the airwaves.
As I see it, Republicans are playing some type of child’s game where they claim to support healthcare reform. I don’t see any real effort to support healthcare reform. Senator Mike Enzi is probably the best example of this. He is supposedly negotiating for a bipartisan reform bill. Just last week he told a group of supporters at a rally that he was sure that healthcare reform was going to fail. Unfortunately, Mike Enzi is a very important senator, on the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Some Republican senators have said they won’t even read the final bill. Democrats, liberals and progressives need to read the writing on the wall. If we truly want change, we’re going to have to push for it. We are going have to march for it. We are going to have to pull the rest of the country kicking and screaming to get it. This is the only way that we are going to prevent the USS Healthcare from sinking.
I came across an enlightening poll conducted by Research 2000 (8/31- 9/3). They asked whether individuals “favor or oppose a government administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans.” This is the liberal public option. This is not including some quasi-public option that only triggers when we have 50 or 60 million Americans without health insurance. The question did not ask anything about cost control or if the public option adds to the deficit. It was a straightforward question. 58% of respondents favored the public option. 57% of independents supported the public option. America, by a three-to-two margin, supports the public option. This is even after a month of misinformation and lies. The American people still want the public option and not some watered down version of it.
BTW, we need healthcare reform. This isn’t a luxury. People are lining up for free clinics all over the country. They are having to turn away people. Where were the birthers and teabaggers shouting down these Americans who needed healthcare?
Republican Representative John Kline of Minnesota gave the weekly address on Saturday, suggesting that we just start over. Personally, I believe his suggestion was disingenuous but let’s take his advice anyway. Let’s simplify the whole equation. Medicare for all. Period. Fix the donut hole in Medicare part D. Allow Medicare to truly negotiate drug prices. Nothing fancy. Nothing complex. No triggers. No bailout for the health insurance industry. Simply the freedom to go to any doctor you choose and any hospital you choose. Why can’t we do this and make it affordable?
Finally, on a personal note, I’ve just completed one of the most emotionally and physically draining two weeks of my medical career. I’ve had to sit down with a number of families and tell them that their loved one was not going to make it. These end-of-life discussions, even under the best of circumstances, are obviously extremely difficult. To have elected officials, even senators, tell their constituents that there are “death panels” in any of these bills is beyond reprehensible. I know that there is a special place in Dante’s Inferno just for these liars.
Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
