health care reform

December 23, 2009April 18, 2020

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.

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.

December 15, 2009April 18, 2020

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

November 8, 2009April 18, 2020

Health care reform passes House but it’s bittersweet

The massive overhaul of our broken health care insurance system started late Saturday night when the US House of Representatives passed H R 3962 by a vote of 220 to 215. While this was a historic day, the victory was bittersweet as an unneeded amendment banning paying for abortion for anyone who buys insurance from the public option or the exchange was added at the last minute. Some believe that amendment will be removed when the House and Senate meet to combine their bills but one never knows.

The “Stupak of Michigan Amendment” showed up in the last few weeks of debate on the bill and, at least to me, was being seriously considered late Friday night when the frame work of debate was agreed on by the House leadership. The fear was the overall bill would fail unless Rep Stupak had his amendment voted on.

64 Democrats, including some women, like Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Ohio 9th District), voted to restrict paying for abortion – effectively restricting a legal right women enjoy at this time.

What is ironic is the current bill includes allowing insurance to pay for “pray healing”.

So freaky religious people who believe praying can heal were more important than women’s rights.

And funny, in a WTF? way, 26 of those Democrats who voted to restrict paying for abortion voted NO on the final bill.

Here is the list of 26 Democrats who voted “Aye” on Stupak but “Nay” on the final bill:
Altmire, Barrow, Boccieri, Boren, Bright, Chandler, Childers, Davis (AL), Davis (TN), Gordon (TN), Griffith, Holden, Marshall, Matheson, McIntyre, Melancon, Peterson, Ross, Shuler, Skelton, Tanner, Taylor, Teague
64 Democrats on the Wrong Side of Stupak-Pitts

There is still work to be done as the reform debate moves to the Senate. Hopefully a final bill can be introduced and voted on before the end of the year.

November 6, 2009April 18, 2020

How does Rep. Jim Jordan sleep at night?

An article written by Findlay Courier reporter Joy Brown about Rep Jim Jordan’s (R-Urbana) concern about the economy and jobs during the current health care reform debate is typical of the out of touch Republican party. Not only does it show Jordan’s misplaced priorites but the article also lacked any balance to the untrue GOP talking points included.

During a conference call, Jordan, R-Urbana, said legislators are too fixated on “a government takeover of health care when the focus should be on growing the economy and creating jobs.
“I think the one thing that’s hurting our ability to come out of this recession is that business owners are very nervous about what may be coming next in Washington,” said Jordan. Potential legislation could “make it tougher, more costly to do business. So instead of bringing back (laid off) workers, they’re holding off with that. That’s what’s contributing to the lack of growth that we would like to see in this economy,” he said.
Also on Thursday, representatives were debating a provision in the revised bill to restrict federal funding to pay for abortions.
“Of great concern to me is the idea of federal dollars being used to take the life of unborn children,” said Jordan.
Jordan says focus should be on economy

As one commenter on the newspaper website said

Republicans should be as concerned for the living as they are for the unborn.

I was disappointed that this article lacked any comments or information about the actual reform bill before congress now instead of the usual Republican talking points. Where was the balance?

It just amazes me that in the 21st century someone like Mr. Jordan would politicize health care and show a lack of respect for basic human dignity. I don’t seem to recall a concern for the budget or taxes when spending obscene sums on the military or bailing out the banks who made bad decisions.

How a member of Congress would say there is going to be “government run” health care when that isn’t even true and even if true we already have some programs like Medicare and Veterans health care that are, so any additional programs would NOT be a totally foreign concept. Nothing in the current plan says people have to give up their private insurance.

Why is it that we seem to be the ONLY country which hasn’t solved this issue? Why is it that with a private “for profit” system that spends the most per person and costs the most per person we don’t have the top health care system – we rank 37th – lower than Costa Rica. When will people be outraged because approximately 40,000 people die each year because they either don’t have insurance or can’t afford medical care to begin with.

Health care is one of THE biggest expenses for businesses today and true reform as noted in the current reform package is a long time in coming and will lead to those businesses finally seeing a lowering of their health care expenses for the first time ever. That would lead to more opportunities to grow their businesses which could in fact lead to more jobs.

Doing nothing to reform the health care system is a ticking time bomb that WILL be worse than a terrorist attack.