Imagine if 435 member of Congress had to try to purchase for-profit, individual health insurance just like you and I?
Pre-existing conditions, exclusions, huge deductibles, skyrocketing premiums--the works. Just imagine.
Will you forgive me for returning one more time to Congressional health benefits and why this must be on the table for discussion?
We need to explore why the healthcare our elected officials happily give themselves yet deny the American people, is not part of the national discussion. This is a huge piece of our great American healthcare catastrophe.
Yesterday, I told you that "Democratic stategist" Donna Brazille dismissively said that the next Democratic president must "get something on the table" within 100 days of being inaugurated. I think we all agree.
If the "something" Ms. Brazille cites isn't a bold and audacious health reform which is nothing less than cradle to grave affordable and guaranteed healthcare to all Americans, then I submit, the "something" must be the end to heavily taxpayer-subsidized healthcare for 435 members of Congress and 100 United States Senators.
John Edwards was correct.
This morning the New York Times is reporting that the House finally passed a a mental health parity bill. It took a decade to do this. Ten. Long. Years. Tragically, it is filled with dreadful and unacceptable loopholes. Only companies with 50 or more employees must provide these benefits. As usual, the self-employed are shit out of luck.
This is still a long way from becoming the law of the land because the Senate has already passed a quite different mental health parity bill.
The House bill does not apply to health plans sponsored by an employer with 50 or fewer employees. Nor does it apply to coverage in the individual insurance market.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
A few members stood up and openly described their own benefits which already give them the mental health care denied the American people.
This deplorable and unfair taxpayer handout to our elected representatives should be unacceptable to everyone. Obama supporters. Clinton supporters. Even McBush supporters. I suppose a few people around here, will roll their eyes, wish I'd shut up and sit down. Some people think the idea of pulling their coverage is another definition of insanity. I don't agree, nor did John Edwards. I'll go with John Edwards any day of the week, over the Daily Kos naysayer patrol.
Here's some refreshing candor about Cadillac Congressional healthcare from Patrick Kennedy:
"I have a mental illness, and I am fortunately getting the best care this country has to offer because I am a member of Congress," said Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island and chief sponsor of the House bill. Mr. Kennedy has been treated for depression and drug dependence.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
And a Republican. Imagine pulling this guy's coverage? You and I are paying for his alcoholism treatment benefits. Why isn't this readily available to all Americans?
The main Republican sponsor, Representative Jim Ramstad of Minnesota, a recovering alcoholic, said, "I am living proof that treatment works and recovery is real."
http://www.nytimes.com/...
You see, when the political becomes personal even Republicans sometimes do the right thing. But these folks need to experience the healthcare horrors visited on Americans day-in and day-out. And they don't.
The House bill is named for Senator Paul Wellstone, the Minnesota Democrat killed in a plane crash in 2002. He had a brother with severe mental illness. The main sponsor of the Senate bill, Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, has a daughter with schizophrenia.
Here's one more point for you to consider.
There was a mental health parity law enacted in 1996 which gave federal employees certain guaranteed mental health benefits. Is this okay with you? Them, but not us? And once again, federal employees deserve everything they have, and more. I'm speaking only of our elected public servants.
The Senate measure also has such prominent, longtime supporters as retiring Sen. Pete V. Domenici, of New Mexico. Like Patrick Kennedy and other parity advocates, Domenici brings painful experience to the debate: his daughter, Clare, is a schizophrenic. It was while campaigning for Domenici’s last reelection six years ago that Mr. Bush publicly endorsed the principle of parity for mental-health insurance.
Both versions build on a limited mental-health parity law, enacted in 1996, that dealt largely with insurance for government employees. The bills under consideration do not force mental-health insurance upon private carriers. Rather, they require that insurers who offer any treatment for mental illness must use the same basic rules that they apply to the treatment of cancer or broken bones or other physical ailments.
http://www.projo.com/...
This is from the web site of Senator Ted Kennedy. Again, read for yourself, federal employyes our elected representatives have already taken care of themselves.
Isn't the captain supposed to go down with the ship and save the woman and children? In the United States, the woman and children going down with the ship are the American people, while the captains elected representatives have taken all the life boats.
Parity for Federal Employees
Federal employees currently have mental health parity in their health benefits. Benefits coverage for mental health and substance abuse conditions is equalized in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program. Parity in the FEHB Program means that benefits coverage for mental health, substance abuse, medical, surgical, and hospital providers will have the same limitations and cost-sharing such as deductibles, coinsurance, and copays. This amendment is modeled after the mental health benefits provided through the Federal Program.
http://www.tedkennedy.com/...
And this is the final paragraph of a letter various mental health advocacy groups are urging the public to send to members of Congress.
Since January 2001, federal employees (including Members of Congress and their staff), retirees and dependents covered by the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP) have received the benefits of mental health parity as part of their health care benefits at very low additional cost. The Senate-passed parity legislation is modeled on the FEHBP experience.
Unless the Democrats capitulate--again, to Mister Bush, he could easily veto legislation which comes out of the conference committee.
President Bush endorsed the principle of mental health parity in 2002. But on Wednesday, the White House opposed the House bill, saying it "would effectively mandate coverage of a broad range of diseases."
Pull their coverage? Yeah, I know I'm dreaming.
I'd like to add two points here from the always great Ezra Klein.
- He's been covering the AHIP 2008 policy conference in Washington, here's what he had to say on his blog about AHIP. It rings true to me.
One of the themes of today's meeting, reflected in every speech and many of the questions, was that the insurers are fiercely cognizant that their industry is about as popular as a skin lesion, and if the system collapses, it will collapse, first, atop them. People like doctors, they need hospitals, and they depend on pharmaceuticals. They don't need insurers. Blocking reform may be in their power, but if the delay only leads to an eventual catastrophe, it might also seal their eventual demise. So that was point one: Get on-board now, or risk being thrown under the bus later.
http://www.prospect.org/...
- And this is going to disappoint Team Obama. Here's what Ezra says about mandates. I think his point is worthy of consideration.
Second, single payer, which so many folks love, is a mandate by a different name. That name is taxes. Some people will feel they can't, or shouldn't, pay that level of taxes, and they will be angry, just as some will feel they can't afford insurance, or shouldn't have to buy it, and they will be angry. Now, maybe single payer is a better way to structure the mandate. But it's a mandate nevertheless.
http://www.prospect.org/...
And yes, of course, with single-payer, we've cut out the parasitic, for-profit insurance industry, this is true.
I'm finished for today.
The only solution, which neither candidate is offering is single-payer.