Forget Massachusetts, it's Citizens United that changed everything with regards to health care reform. It dwarfs the impact of Brown by orders of magnitude.
With AHIP more or less unfettered in its ability to wage political PR campaigns, the fight for HCR will be a Herculean struggle. We know insurance was already spending $1.4 million a day in this fight; imagine what they could do running ad after ad against health care reform and for every wingnut campaign under the sun in November for all eternity. Better dems would be right out, more dems a fading memory and health care reform a historical footnote.
But we can put a stop to it by passing the Senate health care reform bill NOW.
Yes; we should all be calling our Senators and insisting they make the House happy with a separate reconciliation bill. But we absolutely must pass the Senate bill as soon as possible. After Citizens United, "medical loss ratio" just became the three most important words in the health care debate.
The Senate bill has a mandated medical loss ratio of 85% for group plans (80% for individual/small group). This means that 85% of whatever money insurance companies take in on these plans must be spent on medical expenses. That leaves them just 15% for overhead, admin, profit and political advertising. This provision more than anything else will pave the way to improve the Senate bill in the future and enact further reforms for health care.
Passing the Senate bill is absolutely imperative, people. There is no way to circumvent a 60-vote threshold on the regulatory measures. If the House doesn't pass the Senate's bill, we don't get those regulations. Of course, this is why AHIP et al are all atwitter over Brown's election.
We CANNOT let them overwhelm future reform efforts with their war chests and every day Congress spends in disarray over this is a day the anti-HCR forces get to spend more money on defeat. Please call your Rep, call the CPC, call Pelosi and Reid and your Senators. Tell the House to pass the damn bill and tell the Senate to hammer out a reconciliation deal now. Please.
Calling the House:
Tell them to push for reconciliation fixes until the cows come home, just pass the damn bill NOW. We need this passed yesterday; explain how absolutely critical the 85% MLR is in light of Citizens United. We must act and we must act now.
Calling the Senate:
Tell them they absolutely need to pass a reconciliation bill to get the House on board with passing the HCR bill, whatever it takes. We just need this passed yesterday; explain how absolutely critical this is in light of Citizens United. We must act and we must act now.
The increased mandated medical loss ratios in the Senate bill before the House is the only thing standing between us and death by 1,000 ads of HCR.
Even Kevin Drum at Mother Jones says PTDB:
Sure, the Senate bill isn't perfect. Nothing ever is. But the political situation has changed and it's now the only game in town. It's beyond belief that we could get this close to a century-old goal of liberalism — we are, literally, just a hair's breadth from the finish line — and then allow the most significant social legislation of the past 40 years to slip from our grasp just because we're tired and pissed.
...We can't allow this to fail now. We can't let the Fox/Drudge/Rush axis win. So call your congressman. Go organize a rally. Write a letter to the editor. Lobby your union president. Do something. Do it now. Tell them: Pass the damn bill. Pass it now.
Please keep making those phone calls and reporting back to John Cole so he can continue keeping a whip count.
Toll-free numbers for House and Senate:
1-866-338-1015
1-866-220-0044
1-866-311-3405
And as always, please write LTEs! I am happy to help anybody with writing/proofreading them!