I have HCR hangover and we still have another bar to hit. The Stupak agreement is another example of Christian privilege that violates my religious rights and a woman’s right to her body. I hope that the price was enough and that we keep working on shaping the reform into what it should be including a viable Public Option that ends the monopoly practices of the health insurance industry.
Health Care Reform meeting in DC one long infomercial
I watched some of the Health Care Reform meeting held on Thursday February 25th at Blair House in Washington DC. President Obama is trying to move the processes along so something is passed before the November elections. It was also clear that really the Republicans have no intention of voting for the reform.
The Republican’s position was to start over and use all our ideas.
Sounds just like those lawyers from insurance companies that try to deny or delay claims so that people will just give up.
My views on this subject are well known – just search on the tags – so I don’t have much to say about the meeting. One thing I will point out is that CNN decided that their non-elected talking heads were more important than hearing was actually being said in the meeting. The media also decided to make it a game and decide who “won”. What a waste of air.
That’s why I stuck to the live feed from C-SPAN.
Really, my last post about Health Care Reform
I intend this to be my last post on health care reform. One reason is the battle is drawing to a close in the Congress and I need to admit that my view point of this bad bill has lost out in the debate. I also want to express my disappointment not only in the Congress but also in President Obama. I guess the kool-aid has left my system for good.
Occasionally I post things on the website Daily Kos. The debate there has been pretty nasty as I mention in the beginning of the text. Here is my recent entry with some additions made after posting it there:
I’ve been caught up in the current policy debate over the Senate version of the health care reform bill. The arguments have been nasty on both sides throwing around words like denialists, stupid, moron, kool-aid drinker and so on. And there has been some good discussions over the points in the bill between Kos, Dr. Dean, and David Axlrod among others who take these things seriously. Unfortunately the debate has been missing the forest for the trees.
On the Daily Kos it seems that those who support the bill have the means to come up with the numbers to recommend crappy diaries that support their position or whine about others who don’t agree with them. And by crappy diaries I mean ones that don’t offer any debate on the merits of the policy but either resort to name calling or appeals to emotions. People know the bill sucks. Even the “villagers” support it – that should be a red flag.
Truth be told both versions of the bills are a change of the status quo. They change the status quo in that they both do something to the current system.
The difference is can you support such a huge give away to the corporate interests just so you can say “We won health care reform…” It seems many can. I can’t support it for that reason.
A few more reasons specifically why I can’t support the Senate bill and probably won’t support the final bill if it is close to the Senate version include:
1. The Gay Tax – it seems there is language slipped in that taxes the health benefits provided to employees’ same-sex spouses or partners. Yes even though it is legal to have domestic partner benefits, the Senate has decided to tax it as a punishment.
2. The abortion language – we have a “choice” between not allowing private plans participating in the exchanges from covering abortion at all to allowing it if the woman pays extra out of pocket. So abortion is legal but the Senate decided to punish women who need to have them.
3. In an interview on Tuesday President Obama claims he never campaigned for a public option for health care reform. Not only did he campaign for a public option he also campaigned against the kind of mandate that he now says is important in the current bill. There is text and video evidence.
Those on the left who emotionally argue that the bill will be a great victory for President Obama are ignoring the truth. Yes it will change the status quo but getting anything because it is “better than nothing” is a wimpy cop out especially when Democrats supposedly had a majority in the Congress and controlled the White House.
4. The Senate bill is a big wet kiss to the insurance industry. Forcing millions to buy from private plans is a windfall of epic proportions.
Back during the 2000 elections, Ralph Nader, running for the Green Party and darling of the left, said he was running as a 3rd party candidate because Republicans and Democrats were not that different. Both were bought and sold by the corporate interests in this country. The bank bail outs and now the health care reform debate puts the truth in Nader’s words. It also seems the stock market agrees.
I wish I had a billion dollars sitting around and then maybe I could’ve gotten a bill that helps the most people rather than one that preserves the monopoly of the private insurance industry.
Supporters of the bill have said “we’ll fix it in conference” or “we’ll fix it in another bill” but since this go round was such a hassle and in the end a big sell out and based on the history of this Congress – remember the FISA fight – I highly doubt we will see anything better or fixed once the Senate bill is passed as the final version or worse the bill is watered down even more and the anti-choice language is left in.
Sure the status quo will be changed but can we really afford the price it will cost the people it is suppose to help?
What frustrates me the most is I don’t see people acknowledging that the bill under consideration is bad policy and if the abortion language is taken out I’m afraid we are going to be back right at square one. Senator Reid might have to dump another load cash on Nebraska or to others if the abortion language stays in.
In full disclosure I do not have health insurance right now so one would think I would want any bill – I don’t. I want a good one instead. I’d rather fight this issue once rather than have to fight it each time we need to “fix” what is bad in this bill.
Yes, another Health Care Reform post
It has been a bad week for those us supporting real reform in Health care insurance. We got stabbed in the back by the Senate and it looks like President Obama is getting the sell out he wanted. Instead of helping the most people – remember the 40 million who have no insurance – it is now a big wet kiss to the insurance industry. I feel used and I am not going to remain silent about it.
I have always known the health care insurance industry is broken. I use to work in the industry and knew first hand how broken and being a customer of health insurance I have experience in dealing with denied payments and tons of paperwork. You know something is wrong when a plan won’t pay to help you lose weight but will pay for you to be in the hospital if you get sick due to being overweight. Or how about knowing smoking is not healthy but your plan will not pay for anything related to quitting.
I am not alone knowing that the system is broken and needs reform – unless you are a congressional Republican or Democrat taking kick backs from the insurance industry that is.
Profit causes thousands of lives a year. Human life should never be a profit point on a ledger.
So I was happy to cast my vote for President Obama and any congress person campaigning to fix health care. I was not naive enough to think it would be easy. I knew some compromise would happen – it is Washington DC after all – and horse trading is the norm. But I was extremely disappointed after Senator Lieberman blew up a Senate version that was barely tolerable into now a bill that is a big blow job to the insurance industry.
It is telling when the White House condemns Howard Dean, who knows more about health care reform than most people, but sends Lieberman a note of thanks for playing Brutus.
The knife in the back hurts.
I really hoped that the Obama administration would be different but I see now that is not the case. They got the bill they wanted the whole time – a blow job for insurance and a kick in the gonads for the rest of us.
There is still a possibility things could change but the people who held my views like Senator Sherrod Brown and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have indicated they will accept the shell of the bill now in the Senate so it looks pretty good we will be stuck with mandates and no public option.
Why?
So Democrats can spin the lie “We passed Health Care reform, Yay us!” during the 2010 election cycle.
I’ll know the truth. Many of us will know the truth.
I could just sit out the election in protest but I probably won’t. I know I will not donate a single penny to anyone associated with stabbing us all in the back and accepting it. I will not volunteer. I am prepared to drop all web contact with Democratic associated groups and unsubscribe to any related groups e-mails. I will mark any US mail from them as “return to sender”.
If I have any opportunity to ask my Congress people why they did this to me I will ask the question and press them to answer it.
Every time they start to say “We passed Health Care Reform, Yay Us!” I will call shenanigans.
The fact is if this bad bill becomes the actual law it will not be “fixed” later. The Medicare expansion will not be added later. Just look at the so-called fixes to the Medicare Part D pharmacy plan that have either been defeated or not introduced since it was passed. The latest is trying to allow reimportation of medication.
Now I know how the religious right felt when President Reagan was elected and blew them off.
I feel used… don’t ask me to like it or be quiet about it.
The President is very lucky that the GOP are hobbled right now.
Democrats reach for the anal lube again on health care reform
It would make a great episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Health care reform is currently being debated in the Senate and before yesterday it looked like something might be passed that was decent. The public option was pulled but a compromise was reached to lower Medicare age to 55. Now it seems the Democratic majority can’t do that either.
Basically due to the work of a few Senators we might have a bill that has a mandate – you must buy insurance – without any public option to encourage private plans to do better than they do now.
What we might get is Medicare Part D for health care.
We were told then it wasn’t what was needed but it will help seniors. It didn’t allow negotiation on med prices, didn’t allow importation of meds, has a trigger that never has been pulled, and gave a big bag of money to private insurance to provide crappy coverage. I mean when the generic medications at Walmart are cheaper than copays through Medicare Part D for same medication something is wrong.
There have been attempts to “fix” and none of them have even come close to passing.
So forgive me if I call the point of this blog post on Daily Kos is BS and will probably still be BS when the details come out.
I would rather have the best bill which would help all 40 million without insurance then settle for one where the insurance companies win and maybe it helps 150,000 people.
How hard is that to understand?
Democrats have long recent history of bending over and I know they will on this issue and we will never hear about Health care reform again if this bad bill is signed into law.
It’s that simple