Posted on 09/29/2009 12:15:42 PM PDT by Nachum
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday easily rejected the inclusion of a government-run "public" insurance option, backed by President Barack Obama, in its sweeping healthcare reform bill.
The panel voted 16-8 against a government-run insurance plan in the first of several battles expected in Congress over the issue, one of the most contentious in the raging U.S. debate over healthcare reform.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
The list, ping
The libs are not going to be happy. Things are getting interesting.
I thought Harkin said they had the votes for the po?
Before you get too happy, there’s still plenty left they cn F up.
In some ways theyve already won the battle.
Virtually everybody right now thinks there’s a “healt care crisis” and “they oughta do something about it”.
He said they have the 50 votes needed.
He did and he's full of s***.
Warning:
We have only staved off the worst-case scenario...
This does NOT MEAN A VERY BAD BILL WILL GET PASSED.
The Public Option Roach Motel
By Eric Singer | Posted Saturday, September 26, 2009
The Healthcare Reform Bill proposed by Senator Baucus is an incomparably cynical piece of legislation creating a time bomb that will eventually destroy all private health insurance. Some of the inner workings the proposed legislation uses to set the fuse on the bomb independently offer a fascinating glimpse into the legislative soul of the majority party. If only the Senate would put this much cynicism into dealing with the Russians, where it could really be used, as opposed to inflicting healthcare reform on the American people.
On the inflation side, the proposed legislation will inevitably lead to sharply higher healthcare costs because it mandates or results in (1) more coverage requirements per person; (2) more people covered; (3) fewer doctors per patient to provide care; (4) more adverse selection; (5) tort lawyers being unreformed and unrepentant; (6) sharply higher healthcare unionization; and (7) foregoes stimulating private interstate competition to mention just a few.
Given the healthcare mandates listed above, we can expect inflation in healthcare to sharply exceed general inflation as measured by the CPI because the CPI includes smart, non-union private sector companies like WalMart, Google, and CVS seeking to reduce costs in the economically rational private economy which has to compete internationally while healthcare is overwhelmingly a domestic service industry with “reform” designed to further shield it from competition. We saw this at work last year. According to the BLS, the CPI rose about 0.1% last year while Kaiser Permanente estimates the comparable rise in the cost of the average family health insurance was 5% plan to $13,375.
The progressive Commonwealth Fund acknowledges these inflationary forces and uses them to project that without healthcare reform, the national average health insurance family premium will rise from $ 12,298 in 2008 to $ 23,842 in 2020, but will settle down to only $ 21,271 by then with reform.
I believe these numbers dramatically understate the inflationary forces at work in healthcare driven by government intervention. For example, unionized employees now only account for 10% of all healthcare workers. A recent study by the Heritage Foundation shows that the average unionized government worker makes double what the average private sector worker makes. If the SEIU can use healthcare reform, card check and mandatory arbitration to drive unionization to, say, 30% of all healthcare workers, 5% annual real price increases in health insurance costs will seem like the good old days.
There are other insufficiently addressed problems with unionized government workers providing healthcare. Some of it has been quite forcefully said: chances of survival of cancers and other life-threatening diseases are much greater in the U.S., than, say, in England or Canada, where rationing plays the main role in holding down costs. That is to say, some of healthcare savings may be paid for with higher mortality. And some of it is completely unaddressed except as mundane references to the DMV. Waiting times for every aspect of healthcare will expand to the point of outrage. Workers who used to be paid $15 an hour will now be paid $25 or $30 per hour to see patients whose time will increasingly be deemed worthless in the government’s weighing of costs and benefits. Time will no longer be money for patients, only for the workers.
As these inflationary forces grow, and families begin to drop out of the private plans and seize the government option, the insurance companies will likely experience extreme adverse selection, driving premiums higher, accelerating the loss of insurance pool members, and setting up a vicious cycle which will eventually make the public option the only game in town.
Thankfully, Senator Baucus has completely changed the label of the “public option” to an insurance “cooperative” founded [and run] by the federal government and open only to new entities without existing insurance experience. Guided perhaps by the Commonwealth Fund projections of $21,271 for insurance for the average family, Senator Baucus created a “luxury” excise tax for all payments above $ 21,000 per year. Given the real growth in healthcare costs, by 2020, the average family may easily be paying 25% of their income for healthcare.
The proposed bill leaves room for debate over whether private insurers will be wiped out as early as 2014 or as late as 2022. Of course, long before that the share prices of the private insurers will decline as the stock market discounts when they might be completely forced out of business. What is so stylish in Senator Baucus’ proposal view is that it operates like the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), but on steroids. The AMT affected just a few hundred tax payers in its first year and took 40 years to swallow most deductions used by, say, [half] of America’s meaningful income taxpayers. In contrast, according the Wall Street Journal, the Mercer Group estimates Senator Baucus’ bill starts with 14% of health insurance contracts triggering the luxury tax on day one.
The Baucus proposal tidies things up within a decade. It allows President Obama, former Editor in Chief of Harvard Law Review, to say, “...if you like your insurance plan, no one will force you to change it.” Of course, if your private insurance company is forced out of business by a combination of new burdens, dramatically higher taxes, and no access to fresh capital, well no one forced you.
Sincerely,
Eric T. Singer
President
somehow it WILL get voted in even if it is done in a way that is totally underhanded and unconstitutional.
IT WILL HAPPEN.
Barack Obama “Public Will Have 5 Days To Look At Every Bill That Lands On My Desk”
Well Known liar. Do you recall his supposed Vietnam combat experience was a LIE.
There's a crisis alright, social security/medicare/medicaid, all government run operations and the libs think they can take over 1/8 of our economy (Health care) and run it efficiently.
there IS a healthcare crisis and TORT REFORM should be the first thing to be done about it!
I’m also in favor of more and better scholarships and education opportunities for nurses, NPs and MAs.
There are MANY, MANY ways to improve the healthcare in this country to bring down the costs, make services more available, cut infection and mortality rates in hospitals, etc.
But then again, Obama’s healthcare reform is NOT really about OUR HEALTHCARE is it?
Harkin said “approaching 50” for the public option on a current whip count.
REPUBLICANS
CHUCK GRASSLEY, IA
ORRIN G. HATCH, UT
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, ME
JON KYL, AZ
JIM BUNNING, KY
MIKE CRAPO, ID
PAT ROBERTS, KS
JOHN ENSIGN, NV
MIKE ENZI, WY
JOHN CORNYN, TX
DEMOCRATS
MAX BAUCUS, MT
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV
KENT CONRAD, ND
JEFF BINGAMAN, NM
JOHN F. KERRY, MA
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR
RON WYDEN, OR
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY
DEBBIE STABENOW, MI
MARIA CANTWELL, WA
BILL NELSON, FL
ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ
THOMAS CARPER, DE
Harkin lied the po died. 50 is enough for recon but I just don’t see that happening. Then again, I didn’t bambi would be elected either.....
Sure.
The House will have it in their bill, and it will get included in the final joint bill in committee.
Then they will only need 50 votes to pass it.
The Senate could just pass a blank bill and let Nanzi Pelozi fill it in when they go to committee.
TRUE
Marky Mark says HealthCare bills Unconstitutional
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU8cXGpRcw4
Quick! Someone have a peek at DU and see if there’s a bloodbath! ;-)
They should throw out the so-called healthcare bill and start over, unless they want to see another million or so middle class angry tax paying voters show up at their doorstep again....
I recall Humbert Humphrey saying that Affirmative Action would never, ever mean quotas.
All Republicans on the panel voted against Rockefeller’s amendment, in addition to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Thomas Carper, D-Del.
I think this is just maneuvering: it will be put back into the “conference” committee. ANY BILL IS A BAD BILL.
I kiss you.
Was this the Harkin attempt to pass it?
As with “comprehensive immigration reform,” the scoundrels and sociopaths in the United States Congress are not yet done trying to foist their socialist agenda on the American people.
Either there will be a lot of unfunded junk in this new “health care/insurance reform,” or there will be a lot of push to extract the taxes/funds/fees needed to “insure” illegal aliens and other laybouts, or both.
The United States Congress is not done trying to screw everyday Americans by hook or crook.
Yep. They may shoot it down for now, but beware of the conference committee.
You're on the right track. It's like the kid who makes up a host of tragedies - got his girlfried pregnant, arrested for DWI, busted for drugs. Then he softens the blow to his frantic parents by telling them none of it is true - except for his "F" in English.
They're going to bring up so much horrendous stuff that will be rejected, that the trash that does pass through will hardly be noticed.
Be gracious in victory. It shows class.
Somebody get me some popcorn...
now let’s see if the Progressives in the House stand by their threat to kill any bill without a Public Option. This is better than Monday Night Football!
They’re just going to call it something else and bury it on page 800 and something.
Keep the outrage going
I sense the old Bait and Switch coming down the line.
This is good, but it’s not over yet. At this moment, one strategy that Republicans should pursue (along with others) in public is stressing that a very important bill that will affect 1/6 of the economy has been ill prepared and rushed.
The vote was 15-8, not 16-8.
Most significantly, Olympia Snowe voted NO.
Now if Baucus could just secure the democratic nomination for President! That would be poetic justice!
ROFL!
Now if Baucus could just secure the democratic nomination for President! That would be poetic justice!
ROFL!
The panel voted 16-8
***
I guess the Senators are reading the “tea leaves” as to which way the votes are going in their states ...
Anybody have the breakdown of votes?
It’s a melt down at D.U. LOL!!!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4082763#4082771
I think they need to thank the republicans for all their "help" and then tell them that we got it from here. RAM THE PUBLIC OPTION THROUGH! JAM IT DOWN THEIR THROATS! SHOW NO MERCY! Let me get going because I am just getting to pissed off. I AM ON FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They are so clueless!
“I think this is just maneuvering: it will be put back into the “conference” committee. ANY BILL IS A BAD BILL.”
Ah, good point... and let me correct my previous verbiage.
Public Option failing now is just a small victory, but the danger of a very bad bill still lurks.
‘ANY BILL IS A BAD BILL’ is true.
that’s what gets me. when did health care suddenly become a crisis? when people decided they shouldn’t have to pay for it?
They still need 60 vote for cloture in the Senate if they add the socialized medicine option in the conference committee. I doubt that they will get 60 votes for cloture.
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