Blue Dog Compromise Would Impact About Three Million Uninsured
Last week, I noted that a number of progressive interest groups were urging House health care leaders to reject a compromise that would limit subsidies to the uninsured in order to push down the cost of reform legislation.
Blue Dogs have objected to the idea of taxing high-income earners to pay for about half the price of the Democrats' health care bill, and have instead proposed eliminating a proposal to partially subsidize the cost of health insurance for uninsured Americans living between 300 and 400 percent of the poverty line.
But how many people is that? According to this paper (PDF) by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, the answer is a startling 2.7 million people. Note, these people--now uninsured--would be required under the terms of the legislation to buy insurance on the individual market, which averages over $12,000 a year per family nationwide. That figure would presumably decrease over time as a number of other price-controlling provisions kicked into high gear. But in the meantime, Blue Dogs are talking about forcing a great number of middle class American families to take on a significant expenditure in order to spare families making over $350,000 from suffering a small increase in marginal rates.
Late update: For more on this, check out this piece by Robert Pear in the New York Times
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Mike Ross has so many $350K+ earners in his Arkansas district. He has to protect them.
July 27, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
And he's greatly aided and abetted in his efforts to save a few bucks for his fatcat contributors by dumbshit reporters in the MSM who don't grasp the concept of marginal tax rates. Seeing even one print or cable story that got that right would be a not-so-small miracle.
July 27, 2009 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, the basic message from the Blue Dogs is-
if you make between 32K & 43K a year - go f*@k yourself.
if you make over 350K a year - don't worry, we've got your back.
This must be that raging populism I've heard so much about.
July 27, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the worst part of this is that these Blue Dog Democrats represent some of the poorest districts in the nation.
These congressmen go out and apply all of there political leverage against their constituents best interests. And these dummies keep voting for them based on completely irrelevant criteria.
July 27, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
-Democrats pushing for health care reform got serious jolts last week from critics who warned that their proposed legislation would 'do little to slow spiraling health care costs'. A group of conservative Democrats vowed that they would join Republicans-
Blue Dogs Rake in the Dollars from the Health Care Industry ... The 20 Blue Dogs have taken a combined $6,849,273 from various segments of the health care industry, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics
Thank You !
July 27, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
You cannot have both a requirement to purchase health insurance and a small amount of public subsidies. There are too many small businesses and individuals who have no health insurance who will have to pony-up big time in the event that there is a federal statute requiring that they purchase health insurance.
We all benefit when everyone is insured, just like we all pay when someone is uninsured and is treated.
When you get right down to it, this health care thing will get us to single-payer because there will be a bunch of folks in the 80-120 range who are going to get shafted -- big time -- and they're going to demand something more (or, folks like Snowe and Specter are going to wake up and realize that the government is essentially subsidizing private insurers' business).
July 27, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't you guys get it? This is all so that the insurance cos. make money off the mandate and big bad gubmint. At the same time, you are going to have people bitching about the cost so the insurance cos. will come out with a crappy product that ofcourse the braindead blue dogs will endorse which will be like those worthless 70/30 $5,000 deductible insurance policies which the insurance cos. know won't be used. Kinda like the liability only auto insurance policies except even worse. Not good for you but covers the requirements of the law and probably won't be used.
July 27, 2009 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
A pay for outcome / value payment system, key to the deficit-neutral, might be capable of bringing all groups together.
Supporters of the agreement say it could save the Medicare System more than $100 billion a year and 'improve' care, that means more than $1trillian over a decade, and virtually needs no other resources including tax on the wealthiest. (Please visit http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=820455&catid=391 for detailed infos).
As much as 30 percent of all health-care spending in the U.S. -some $700 billion a year- may be wasted on tests and treatments that do not improve the health of the recipients,” Thus the remaining $239 billions over a decade do not matter.
Dr. Armadio at Mayo clinic says, "If we got rid of that stuff, we save a third of all that we spend and that is 2.5 trillion dollars on health care. A third of that and that is 700 billion dollars a year. That covers a lot of uninsured people."
1. There is no need for infighting and class conflict.
2. It can satisfy revenue-neutral raised by the Republicans.
3. It is able to resolve the regional disparity.
4. It may bring the private insurers to competition, innovation.
5. The focus on 'outcome' over volume can make the practitioners more accurate and creative based on IT SYSTEM and evidence, while eliminating the additional, unnecessary care that is increasing patients' pains, frustrations, and possible side-effects.
6. The desperate people will get back American dream.
THANK YOU !
July 28, 2009 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink