And what a release it is: Yes to mandates! No to public option! It really is the AHIP plan.
Does anybody else remember when Obama ran on Yes to public option and No to mandates?
Remember: Mandates, without at least strong public option, are an undisguised bail-out of the other homicidal and failing private insurance scheme. It uses the police power of the state to force you to buy a private for-profit product that is more expensive and less effective than the real made-in America choice of expanded and improved Medicare for All. Nope, not even a watered down Medicare-like public option to compete against.
There's a political winner for you.
What Digby says:
It's a good day to be an insurance company CEO. An mandate from the government forcing people to buy your product and no serious competition from anybody but your monopolistic buddies in the industry, all of whom look after each other very, very well.
And don't believe this has anything really to do with the release of the incomplete CBO mark-up of an incomplete version of a the bill in another committee. That story is for the naive and gullible.
Here is Senator Baucus (D-INO) in January when interviewed for a "follow the money" piece on ABC News.
Senator Baucus was attending a lavish pre-inaugural ball at a posh nightclub where he told Brian Ross of ABC News that "lobbyists just want what’s best for America." Baucus also had praise for the drug, insurance and other lobbyists who paid for the party, saying: "They really care about our country."
Baucus has been "negotiating" mostly with Grassley and Enzi all along, which essentially means with AHIP.
And, let's face it: Senator Dodd (D-the Insurance Company State) may not be quite the strong defender for a halfway decent health care reform bill as Kennedy would be.
Will President Obama really go for this nonsense, that is a reversal of what he ran on (Yes to public option, No to mandates)
Whatever you are for... whether it is some semi-real version of public option, or the real single payer real-deal, here are the contacts again:
White House
Tel: 202-456-1111,
E-Mail: http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
Senate HELP:
help_comments@help.senate.gov
Senator Edward Kennedy at (202) 224-4543
Senator Dodd at (202) 224-2823 | Fax: (202) 224-1083
Tom Harkin (IA): (202) 224-3254
Barbara Mikulski (MD): (202) 224-4654
Jeff Bingaman (NM): (202) 224-5521
Patty Murray (WA: (202) 224-2621
Jack Reed (RI): (202) 224-4642
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT): (202) 224-5141
Sherrod Brown (OH): (202) 224-2315
Robert Casey, Jr. (PA): (202) 224-6324
Kay Hagan (NC): (202) 224-6342
Jeff Merkley (OR): (202) 224-3753
Senate Finance:
Max Baucus at (202) 224-2651
Olympia Snowe at (202) 224-5344
Charles Schumer at 202-224-6542
John Rockefeller at (202) 224-6472
Ron Wyden at (202) 224-5244
Kent Conrad at (202) 224-2043
John Kerry at (202) 224-2742
Blanche Lincoln at 202-224-4843
Debbie Stabenow at (202) 224-4822
Maria Cantwell at 202-224-3441
Bill Nelson at 202-224-5274
Robert Menendez at 202-224-4744
Thomas Carper at (202) 224-2441
House Ways and Means Committee
Tel: 202-225-3625 | Fax: 202-225-2610
Charles B. Rangel, Chairman Ways and Means NY-15th 202-225-4365
Pete Stark, Chairman Subcommittee on Health CA-13th 202-225-5065
Lloyd Doggett, TX-25th 202-225-4865
Mike Thompson, CA-1st 202-225-3311
Xavier Becerra, CA-31st 202- 225-6235
Earl Pomeroy, ND-At Large 202-225-2611
Ron Kind, WI-3rd 202-225-5506
Earl Blumenauer, OR-3rd 202-225-4811
Bill Pascrell Jr. NJ-8th 202-225-5751
Shelley Berkley, NV-1st 202-225-5965
House Energy and Commerce Committee
Committee Telephone: 202-225-2927
And the Subcommittee on Health
Henry A. Waxman (Chairman) CA-30th 202-225-3976
Frank Pallone, Jr., Chairman, Health Subcommittee) NJ-6th 202-225-4671
John D. Dingell, Chairman Emeritus MI-15th 202-225-4071
Lois Capps, Vice Chair CA-23rd 202-225-3601
Bart Gordon, TN-6th 202-225-4231
Anna G. Eshoo, CA-14th 202-225-8104
Eliot L. Engel, NY-17th 202-225-2464
Gene Green, TX-29th 225-1688
Diana DeGette, CO-1st 202-225-4431
Jan Schakowsky, IL-9th 202-225-2111
Tammy Baldwin, WI-2nd 202-225-2906
Mike Ross, AR-4th 202-225-3772
Anthony D. Weiner, NY-9th 202-225-6616
Jim Matheson, UT-2nd 202-225-3011
Jane Harman, CA-36th 202-225-8220
Charles A. Gonzalez, TX-20th 202-225-3236
John Barrow, GA-12th 202-225-2823
Donna M. Christensen, VI-delegate 202-225-1790
Kathy Castor, FL-11th 202-225-3376
John P. Sarbanes, MD-3rd 202-225-4016
Christopher S. Murphy, CT-5th 202-225-4476
Zachary T. Space, OH-18th 202-225-6265
Betty Sutton, OH-13th 202-225-3401
Bruce L. Braley, IA-1st 202-225-2911
House Education and Labor Committee
T: 202 225-372
George Miller, Chairman CA 7th 202-225-2095
Robert Andrews, Chair Subcommittee HELP, NJ-1st 202-225-6501
David Wu OR-1st 202-225-0855
Phil Hare IL-17th 202-225-5905
John F. Tierney MA-6th 202-225-8020
Dennis J. Kucinich OH-10th 202-225-5871
Marcia Fudge OH-11th 202-225-7032
Dale E. Kildee MI-5th 202-225-3611
Carolyn McCarthy NY-4th 202-225-5516
Rush Holt NJ-12th 202-225-5801
Joe Sestak PA-7th 202-225-2011
David Loebsack IA-2nd 202-225-6576
Yvette Clarke NY-11th 202-225-6231
Joe Courtney CT-2nd 202-225-2076
Update:
Lifted from comments, analysis courtesy of JWalker whose blog I had not heard of before
(show JWalker some love and click through):
Just how bad is Senator Baucus's draft proposal? It is worse than the proposal put forward by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). That is correct -- the health insurance industry wrote a better proposal than the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee.
For the most part Baucus's proposal is almost identical to that of the AHIP lobby. Both do not include a public option and would offer a bare bones insurance plan. Both have an individual mandates, a form of community rating, and some type of health insurance exchange. Both would also limit out-of-pocket cost based on the current HSA standard. In the few places the proposals differ, Baucus's proposal is in fact less generous than the AHIP.
Paying for private insurance
Baucus Proposal – People making below 300% of the federal poverty level (FPL) would get subsidies to help buy insurance. If you make more than $31,500 you are on your own for the full cost of insurance.
AHIP Proposal – People making below 400% of the FPL would get subsidies to help buy insurance. Also everyone buying private insurance would get to deduct the full cost of their plan.
Medicaid Eligibility
Baucus Proposal – Every adult below 100% of the FPL would be eligible for Medicaid. Children below 133% of FDL would be eligible.
AHIP Proposal – Every adult below 100% of the FPL would be eligible for Medicaid. Children below 300% of FDL would be eligible.
The conclusion is simple. To claim that the health care reform plan put forward by the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee was written by health industry lobbyists would be an insult to the lobbyists. Their plan was slightly better and did more to help average Americans buy health insurance.
Update 2 - Two more actions you can take:
- Sign onto Senator Bernie Sanders single payer petition to congress.
- Send a fax asking your Senators where they stand, via the "Stand with Dr. Dean (HCAN and DFA supported) campaign, which asks for a specific email response back from your Senators.
I will let you in on a secret: You can do both! I did. I did beef up the suggested text of the HCAN/Dr. Dean fax a little, but still left it as public option, not single payer. Here is the version I sent:
Do you support a strong Medicare-like public option?
- Do you support a public healthcare option as part of healthcare reform?
- If so, do you support a public healthcare option that is available on day one?
- Do you support a strong Medicare-like public healthcare option that is national, available everywhere, and accountable to our government?
- Do you support a strong Medicare-like public healthcare option that has the clout to establish rates with providers and big drug companies?
As a constituent, I would really like to know the answers to these questions. Please respond to these questions in writing via email.
PNHP's Don McCanne:
The Senate Finance Committee members were informed by the
Congressional Budget Office that the impact their preliminary reform
proposal would have on the federal budget would be much greater than a
bipartisan consensus would permit. Before moving further forward with
the legislative process, the committee is considering changes to
reduce the amount of funds that would have to be budgeted. The draft
proposal cited above is not a definitive recommendation but merely
presents ideas for discussion.
Nevertheless, the process should alarm us. The committee members
continue to steadfastly refuse to look at financing options that would
be effective in providing affordable health care for everyone. They
begin with the insistence that reform be built on the obsolete
infrastructure of private health plans, even though they have just
proven once again that this archaic model no longer works.
Look what happens when they try to cram reform into this model. They
expect an individual or a family with an income of 300% of the federal
poverty level to pay 15% of their income for the premium alone, and
for that they receive a plan that covers only 65% of the actuarial
value of their health care services. They would require Americans to
pay to private insurers a premium that they can't afford, to purchase
an underinsurance product that would fail to prevent financial
hardship should they need health care, and to fine them should they
fail to comply.
So they say, wait, this isn't final. Let's work with these numbers so
that we can find products with adequate benefits and affordable
premiums that do not further burden our federal budget with excess
subsidies. As long as our legislators rely on an infrastructure of
private health plans, that game will never end. Those numbers do not
exist.
There is a way we can do it. We can establish separately a single,
equitably-funded, universal risk pool which would be affordable for
everyone. We could then use those funds in a much more efficient,
single health care purchasing system that would ensure that everyone
receives the care that they need.
But you've heard this before. And so have the members of Congress. Yet
they continue to craft policies that impair the health care finances
and health care access of far too many of us merely to ensure the
viability of the obsolete, dysfunctional insurance industry. Talk
about perverse priorities!
If you haven't yet co-signed Sen. Bernie Sanders' Petition to
Congress, please do so now, and ask others to do so as well:
http://sanders.senate.gov/...