Senator Max Baucus, the boy genius wonder of the Senate Finance Committee, and the leader of the Gang of Six, has caved in to EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN DEMAND, and hasn't even included the public option in his bill that he's releasing, as we all knew was going to happen. There's also a mention of regional co-operatives in this bill.
Mr. Baucus’s plan, expected to cost $850 billion to $900 billion over 10 years, would tax insurance companies on their most expensive health care policies. The hope is that employers would buy cheaper, less generous coverage for employees, thereby reducing the overuse of medical services.
This tax on insurance companies is a terrible idea because there's nothing preventing private insurers from passing the fee on to our insurance premiums. It also penalizes employers for providing good insurance policies to their employers, and instead encourages them to buy junk insurance policies.
Here's more from the New York Times on the details of the Baucus "Fauc-Us" bill:
Another section of Mr. Baucus’s proposal would help pay insurance premiums, co-payments and deductibles for people with incomes less than 300 percent of the poverty level ($66,150 for a family of four). It would also provide some protection for people with incomes from 300 percent to 400 percent of the poverty level (up to $88,200 for a family of four), so they would generally not have to pay more than 13 percent of their income in premiums.
...
To compare health plans, experts often focus on the percentage of medical expenses paid by insurance, on average, for a given population. This figure ranges from 70 percent to 95 percent under the House bill’s options, but it would be less than 70 percent under Mr. Baucus’s proposal.
Mr. Baucus would impose limits on out-of-pocket medical costs — the co-payments, deductibles and similar charges for covered items and services. The limits would be $11,900 a year for a family and $5,950 for an individual. The comparable numbers in the House bill are $10,000 and $5,000.
How nice. Under the Baucus "Fauc-Us" bill, the subsidies for the middle class is pared back to 300% above the FPL, which means that middle-income families get squeezed even more with no subsidy help with their premiums if they happen to make more than $66,150 for a family of four. Did you know that HR 3200, the House Tri-Committee bill, has subsidies for premiums up to 400% above the FPL for a family of four that makes $88,000?
And in the Baucus "Fauc-Us" bill, private insurers are only required to pay 65% of policy claims, which means that private insurers can deny payment of the rest of your policy claim. There's also no mention of the community rating in the Baucus "Fauc-Us" bill and the last I heard about the proposed community rating in the Senate Finance Committee bill was that it would be set at 7:1, which means that if you're in your middle age or elderly, you could pay seven times what a young person pays.
And the idea that "affordability" is determined by health insurance costing 13% of your annual income if you're a family of four, is ridiculous. That means a middle-class family would have to pay $8599.50 a year for health insurance, to the tune of $716.58 a month, is nothing but an utter giveaway to private insurance companies with no cost containment such as the public option. There's also no mention about whether health insurance is capped at a certain percentage of your income if you happen to make more than 400% above the FPL. So, you wouldn't get any subsidies for your health insurance if you happen to buy health insurance for yourself and your family if you happen to make too much as a family.
This bill from Senator Baucus is indeed a bill that's designed to fuck the middle-class with guaranteed profits going straight to private insurers such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana, UnitedHealth, Cigna, and WellPoint. No wonder why private insurers see the proposed legislation coming out of the Senate Finance Committee as a "bonanza" for them.
It's why I want you to call the Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and urge them to hold firm against a trigger on the public option, to fully support the public option with no pre-conditions or triggers in the final conference bill, and to be ready to vote down the bill if it doesn't contain a robust public option.
CALL THE MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS and tell them to say NO to the trigger on the public option, and to DEMAND that it be in the final conference bill.
We also need you to help out with research on these five Democrats below today:
- Rep. Adam Schiff
- Rep. Danny Davis
- Rep. Kathy Castor
- Rep. Silvestre Reyes
- Rep. David Scott
You can start with the accountability process by researching their FEC contributions, how much they have on OpenSecrets, who's hosted political fundraisers for them, and the individual donations from lobbyists on behalf of firms that represent the worst insurers: AHIP, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealth.
And here's what's going to happen after we choose the most compromised Democrat out of these 55 Democrats who "professes" support for the public option but won't take a firm stand for it in the final bill:
- A dedicated landing page collecting all of the crowd sourced information about their relationships with lobbyists and their voting history
- Educational live calls [no robocalls] into every Democratic household in the district letting them know the member won't take a stand to defend the public option
- Post cards to every Democratic home in the district, directing them to the website and letting them know the member's history with lobbying interests
- An automated call-in number for people who can't login to the website
If you want to see more stuff like this, then please help support our work (since we do literally work for you guys) by donating to our fund at Firedoglake! Your donations go to our living stipends, expenses, and travel costs, including awesome tools like these.
Now, let's keep holding our elected officials accountable for the public option as a required component of the FINAL bill!
Please RECOMMEND this diary to CALL and HOLD our elected officials accountable on the public option as the line in the sand!
Please vote on the five Democrats that we did research on yesterday:
- Rep. Howard Berman hasn't taken any PAC donations from special interests representing private insurers, pharmaceuticals, and medical-device makers. However, he has taken thousands of dollars from lobbyists representing private insurers, huge pharmaceutical groups, and medical-device makers. One donation of the many donations he took was $1000 from Steven Champlin, a lobbyist who represents America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the group that represents private insurers such as Aetna, BlueCross Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana, United Health, Well Point, and others.
- Rep. John Dingell has taken heavy PAC contributions from huge pharmaceutical groups. He's also taken thousands in contributions from lobbyists representing pharmaceutical groups and a few private insurers. One of these lobbyists is Thomas Ryan, who represents Blue Cross Blue Shield, a private insurer, which is adamantly opposed to the public option.
- Rep. Susan Davis hasn't taken any PAC contributions from the heavy-hitters representing pharmaceutical groups and private insurers, which is good. However, she has taken donations from lobbyists representing pharmaceutical groups and a few private insurers.
- Rep. Eliot Engel has taken thousands of dollars from PACs mostly representing pharmaceutical groups such as Merck & Co, Bristol & Meyers, Amgen, and others. He really hasn't taken any contributions from lobbyists, which is good.
- Rep. Shelley Berkley has taken a few PAC contributions from mostly AFLAC, the American Hospital Association, and the American Health Care Associations. In the list of individual contributions, she's only taken one donation from a lobbyist that represents the health industry.
UPDATE: There is a mention of co-operatives in the Baucus bill, as reported by Politico. They're going to be consumer-owned co-operatives.