Jul 28 2009
Centrists In Senate May Get Nation On Track With Health Care Reform
Stay away from the fringes if you want to lead this nation. That appears to be the new political wisdom that has come out of years of ping-ponging between the ideological margins that the nation has experienced from the waning days of the GOP led Congress to the last few years of Liberal led Congress.
And no better example of this new trend in politics is the work being done in the senate by centrists to get health care reform back on track:
After weeks of secretive talks, three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee were edging closer to a compromise that excludes a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite Obama’s support for such a plan, officials said.
The Finance senators were considering a tax of as much as 35 percent on very high-cost insurance policies, part of an attempt to rein in rapid escalation of costs. Also likely to be included in any deal was creation of a commission charged with slowing the growth of Medicare.
Two good things are resulting out of this: no mandate on insurance on companies and no government run plan that would destroy and consume all private insurance. It is not perfect. There are no easy or painless solutions.
For example, to reduce Medicare costs means limiting what is available to the retiring baby boomers who are transitioning from a productive element of society to a drain on resources. A well earned and honorable drain, mind you, but these folks have to realize they cannot live high on the hog and will not get the same level of bottomless support their parents received. We don’t have the people in the work force to do this.
The right and left will scream their usual obstructionists screams, claiming there is a mythical simple solution, which for some dumb reason has never materialized. Trust me, these centrists will not be seen as evil or mushy by the people of this nation who want leaders to join forces and help fix our problems.
I am gonna go waaay off topic here as I just had this racially profiling thought… Didn’t President Obama “racially profile” Officer Crowley when he invited him to the White House for a “BEER!”
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Why not a martini or a Bailey’s?? Or just a drink? Do cops only drink BEER?? Does he think cops just go to bars and drink BEER?
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Cripes… I don’t know. Maybe they do. Or maybe my golden-tongue President just doesn’t think things all the way through
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Like health care reform perhaps?
I hope they don’t vote on this bill before the August recess. I still don’t trust the bill yet.
Two things that will be hard even with the slimmed down version. One – higher taxes and lower benefits and two – the liberals in Congress will not be happy with anything less than socialized medicine. I don’t think this compromise has a chance to pass both houses of Congress, unless Pelosi and Waxman die before Christmas.
This may be a gimmick to get some bill to conference. That would mean that the House would have to pass a bill in some form. Then the center left to far left can write a government takeover of health care bill in conference.
I don’t trust center left politicians. When the rubber meets the road they always run back to the left. I still think the best hope to killing any health care reform is to show the seniors that this means the end of medicare as we know it.
AJ,
“Two good things are resulting out of this: no mandate on insurance on companies and no government run plan that would destroy and consume all private insurance. It is not perfect. There are no easy or painless solutions.”
Your claim that a government run plan will destroy and consume all private insurance just got blown out of the water by the latest CBO report. “The report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the public option proposed by Democrats would not drive private insurers out of business and most people would still choose to get their medical coverage through employers.” http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090728/pl_nm/us_usa_healthcare This is the same CBO that you and the GOP have continuously cited on the cost estimates, so you can’t dismiss it as bias or skewed. Quite frankly, nobody has yet been able to intelligently explain how a government plan that provides Americans the option of public or private plans will destroy the private insurance if it will be as bad as you all claim it will be. If the public plan sucks, people will stay with their private plans.
Also, your aversion to a mandate that certain employers provide insurance to employees is at odds with your concern about costs and the potential for employers dropping coverage. As you said, there is no perfect solution and there needs to be trade offs. So you need to figure out what is your greater priority.
AJ,
“For example, to reduce Medicare costs means limiting what is available to the retiring baby boomers who are transitioning from a productive element of society to a drain on resources. A well earned and honorable drain, mind you, but these folks have to realize they cannot live high on the hog and will not get the same level of bottomless support their parents received. We don’t have the people in the work force to do this.”
Wow, now look who is advocating that we let the weak and elderly die because it is too expensive to pay their health care costs. That really surprises me that you would advocate allowing the elderly to die simply because it is too expensive when your own parents are on Medicare.
Conman,
If you could add and subtract you would know that we cannot sustain the current systems, unless you plan to cut your income in half
AJ,
I can add and subtract, and understand that the entire health care system is unsustainable due to raising costs. That is precisely why I support health care reform.
But after days of reading your bogus posts about how the government plan to reduce costs will result in the seriously ill and elderly being left to die, I couldn’t help but call you a hypocrite for advocating the same exact thing for Medicare. If you are going to equate cost reduction with letting old people die, then you have to apply it across the baord – which according to your earlier posts means that either you know that your earlier posts are bogus and you are just trying to scare people or you are now advocating that we allow the elderly to die because Medicare is too expensive. So, which one is it?
Conman,
Where did I say they had to be left to die? You’re such a drama queen. What I said is they cannot expect freebies (i.e., those who can have to pay for the extras).
And sadly, your naive view of how health care works is another illustration as to (1) why liberals can’t solve 3rd grade problems and (2) what a disaster they made of our education system.
You keep looking for the Easy Button – but most of us know that is a fairy tale told to the extremely gullible – like you!
AJ,
“Where did I say they had to be left to die? You’re such a drama queen. What I said is they cannot expect freebies (i.e., those who can have to pay for the extras).”
Do you suffer from amnesia? I could understand if you forgot about a post last month, or even last week, but yesterday? This is what you said YESTERDAY in your post entitled “It Costs Money To Save And Extend Lives”:
“A majority of an individual’s burden on the health care system comes in the waning years of life – whether those years are triggered by old age are serious conditions. The only way to significantly reduce costs is to reduce access to these expensive life saving treatments.”
“Well, we can save money by not saving lives. But look on the plus side. You will definitely get an appointment in order to get the bad news from the doctor on why the government deemed you unworthy of saving. That is what is meant by “access†under Obamacare.”
Even better, this is what you said in your July 23rd post (a mere 5 days ago) entitled President Obama Failed To Calm The Nation’s Health Care Fears:
“That is the staggering reality of Obamacare – only the strong will survive. In order to keep costs down we will need to stop trying to save the elderly and seriously ill. A reality that has people rightly concerned.”
Does that refresh your memory? By the way, I’m not looking for the Easy Button. One thing that I agree with you is that Obama and the Democrats over-sold and over-promised on health care reform. I think we need reform because our current system is unsustainable, but it is naive to think that we can fix such a large and complex problem without any additional up front costs or other trade-offs. The main reason Obama is losing support is that he failed to be up front and honest about the trade-offs, and now his credibility has been undermined and he is on the defensive. None of the health care reforms being proposed now are perfect, but on balance I think most of the plans being considered are better than the status quo.
The government option does not have to do anything to drive the private industry out of business. But the employers will look at the numbers and say, hhhmmmm…ok, you employees, time for you to choose the public option.
Not only that, the house bill does say that the employer changes policies, the only option left is the public option.
So it does drive the private industry out of business.
AJ;
You mentioned about the tax on employers, here are the sections from the House bill:
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PG 149 Line 16-24 ANY Employer with payroll 400k & above who does not provide public option pays 8% tax on all payroll.
PG 150 Line 9-13 Biz with payroll btw 251k & 400k who doesn’t provide public option pays 2-6% tax on all payroll.
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Obama says you can keep your present health plan, but what I heard is that is only for the next 5 years (grandfathered in a big company). If the plan changes (deductible, coverages, etc.) you are dropped into the public option.
Here is another example, say a med-size company’s current health plan costs 15% of income. So, if they only get taxed 8% if no health plan, what won’t the owner drop the current plan for the employees (and have them go into the public option). The Owner makes an instant 7% more.
Just saying, we will all end up in the “public option” regardless of what Congress and Obama say.
Conman, stop implying that only you are for “health care reform.” I’ll be willing to bet money that everyone on this blog is in favor of reform. Just because someone is against Obama’s plan does not mean that person is against reform. I am so tired and fed up of hearing the left and Obama saying critics want to do “nothing.”
marksbbr,
Maybe if the GOP and right actually proposed a legitimate health care reform plan, we would have something to talk about. But they haven’t. To the contrary, the GOP has openly said that this is Obama’s waterloo and that they have to do everything to kill it so he becomes a lame duck president who didn’t accomplish his primary goal of health care reform. The GOP could care less about health care reform, their sole goal is to stop real health care reform for purely political reasons.
Lurker & Bobsunshine,
You both are overlooking an important point – employers are not required to provide health care for employees under the current system. Historically, most employers have done so because employees expect it as part of the overall compensation package, but that is rapidly changing. Health care costs in this country (the highest in the industialized world – 17% of GDP and rising every year) are rising so rapidly that employers are either dropping health care coverage or are passing on the increased cost to employees. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aFRY..TvUM2M
So if your fearful of employers dropping their health care coverage, it is already happening and will continue to rise as the costs get out of control. For those employers that will continue to provide coverage for their employees, the increasing cost of premiums is a huge anchor for them. For conservatives that are supposedly pro-business, I don’t understand why they think it is a good idea to burden business owners with this enormous expense.
The GOP (Congress and the Republicans like Newt) have already submitted several health care reform ideas.
Try Big Lizards for one. Try Newt for another. Oh yes, Boenher and his group have submitted several proposals.
You are entirely wrong. The GOP do care far MORE about the health care reform.
Now you’re just displaying your ignorance, conman. There’s quite a few plans out there – we have been talking about several ideas just on this blog.
If you want to see a serious proposal from the rep’s, look at:
http://www.healthtransformation.net/
I don’t personally agree that that approach is quite enough, but it’s a start. For example, I support the co-op idea that Baucus is discussing in his committee instead of the public plan.
Give credit to the government for the rising health care costs, con.
My employer does provide health care benefits and it is struggling to keep the costs down.
I do not support this House bill.
Sorry folks, but the so-called GOP “plans” that you refer to are a joke. That is why I used the term “legitimate health care reform plan” in my comment. None of these so-called plans have specifics on the thorny issues and the GOP basically abandoned their plan shortly after they issued it on the grounds that it will never pass anyways. The GOP House proposal was a 4 page outline! http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06/17/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5093897.shtml The fact that WWS cites a specific plan and then admits that it is not quite enough illustrates my point.
I understand that there are several Democratic sponsored plans that approach the issue in different ways. But mark my words, not a single Republican will agree to any health care reform. Don’t you see, all they care about hurting Obama and winning the political battle.
conman:
The GOP plans have some basis reality whereas Obama’s plans are insane and unworkable.
He will bankrupt America with all this nonsense and destroy the health care system in the process. You can follow Obama off a cliff if you want to, but I refuse to.
Notice how liberals always have to have an enemy? Bad doctors, evil insurance companies. Now that Bush is not around, they have to look a little further afield for their bad guys.