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Reid Files For Cloture. And Cloture. And Cloture. On Health Care Reform
Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
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The Senate has just entered its long glide toward passage of health care legislation. Majority Leader Harry Reid has filed for cloture on his manager's amendment to his reform bill, as well as to the reform package, and the shell bill it will be attached to. He then "filled the amendment tree" on health care bill, preventing it from being further amended beyond the amendments in his manager's package.
All of that is a really technical way of saying: the clock is running. In the coming days, the Senate will hold a series of votes, likely spaced about 30 hours apart, which will culminate in passage of health care legislation--unless, of course, Reid does not in fact have 60 supporters, as he says he does.
We'll be there at every step of the process.
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MercerReader
December 19, 2009 4:04 PM
Thanks. This is very helpful, though it doesn't sound like a "long glide" to me. More like a painful series of burning hoops -- glad I'll be drinking for most of the next five days!
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Viva!America!
December 19, 2009 4:10 PM in reply to MercerReader
Keep the bottle close. There are some major bills coming our way and there is one that I am not looking forward to - immigration.
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JefferyK
December 19, 2009 4:20 PM in reply to Viva!America!
And I can't wait to see what the Democrats in the Senate come up with for finance reform.
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shooter242
December 19, 2009 5:16 PM in reply to JefferyK
Hey! People! Do you folks understand that this is only a preliminary fight? As in, there is no healthcare bill yet, just a suggestion to the conferees?
You're not done, not even close to done, and nobody has any idea whatsoever, about the provisions in the next version. Nelson and Lieberman just hijacked the Senate for a vote that is meaningless, a throwaway, a gesture.
Keep up the good work.
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nova voter
December 19, 2009 6:56 PM in reply to shooter242
it must really suck to lose over and over and over again.
by all means, though, keep up the tantrums. i'm sure it will unsink your ship.
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JohnMcCSF
December 19, 2009 7:30 PM in reply to shooter242
Jonathan Chait
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tpmoldfuzz
December 19, 2009 8:36 PM in reply to JohnMcCSF
The GOP forgot how to play cards when they have to play with forty against sixty.
This could help them learn how to be an effective minority party.
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cgd
December 20, 2009 3:18 PM in reply to tpmoldfuzz
The GOP haven't been playing with a full deck almost forever, even when they had majorities.
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Cal Gal
December 20, 2009 3:54 PM in reply to cgd
At 40 they're 12 short of a full deck, and I'd guess they're probably missing all the "human" cards -- jacks, queens, and kings -- since they seem to be playing without a brain among them.
Of course, they're helped by the fact the two Democratic jokers are playing as IF they're Greedy Old Plutcrats, too.
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bk
December 20, 2009 8:20 PM in reply to JohnMcCSF
Thanks for posting this article. I totally agree with Mr. Chait. I am still worrying something could go wrong, so am keeping my fingers crossed until President Obama signs the bill into law! I hope the only changes are changes that make improvements in peoples' lives sooner than 2014.
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jollyroger
December 20, 2009 10:46 PM in reply to shooter242
just a suggestion to the conferees
Me & Shooter, on the same page. Take me now, Jesus, I have seen it all..
"The Conference Committee could, after all, report back single payer with a $500.00 bonus for each woman choosing an insurance plan covering abortions and a provision that insurance company executives would have to flog Joe Lieberman’s flabby naked ass at the Folsom Street Fair to keep their jobs."
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AhTrini1
December 19, 2009 4:10 PM
This is just the first step in a long, long, long process. While I am very disappointed in President Obama, I am glad the Democrats are seeing the errors of their "wussyness" and finding a way to not make this President Obama's 'Waterloo'.
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a SC mom
December 19, 2009 4:18 PM in reply to AhTrini1
RE: "Waterloo"
and if it passes, then DeMint will be vilified by his followers for not stopping it - (i'm dreaming, i know. i just wish DeMint and others like him would go away)
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MyMy
December 19, 2009 5:54 PM in reply to a SC mom
Him and all his fellow C Streeters. They have such a retrograde world view, and whereas one by one we've thought of them as individual kooks, apparently they have under past administrations exercised enormous power. Throw these rascals out.
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AJM
December 19, 2009 6:39 PM in reply to MyMy
Under this administration they have a great deal of power. Stupak is one. Obama has sold women out.
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nova voter
December 19, 2009 8:48 PM in reply to AJM
right after vetoing the ledbetter act, too. that son of a bitch.
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AJM
December 19, 2009 9:25 PM in reply to nova voter
You know, there are some things that are not negotiable.
A woman's right to control her reproductive life unimpeded is more fundamental and more threatened that the Ledbetter problem. Yes, Obama is a son of a bastard. I'm ashamed that he is related to any woman.
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nova voter
December 19, 2009 11:21 PM in reply to AJM
i see. so you're okay with women not having a right to be paid the same as a man. but you're NOT okay with a woman retaining the right to an abortion, but having to basically buy an abortion rider?
somehow, it seems to me that perhaps you're just a little too righteously indignant.
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gharlane
December 20, 2009 11:08 PM in reply to nova voter
i see. so you're okay with women not having a right to be paid the same as a man.
Nice try, but nothing in AJM's post even remotely suggested such an idea.
Next strawman, please. When you're done putting words in people's mouths that they obviously are not thinking, then maybe you will be able to have a rational discussion about issues. Maybe.
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LeeJo
December 19, 2009 10:44 PM in reply to AJM
bullshit
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Richardxx
December 19, 2009 5:56 PM in reply to a SC mom
We can hope for the rapture. Either DeMint gets taken up, or (we can hope) he commits sepuku because he was left behind with the rest of us.
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Why oh why
December 19, 2009 4:22 PM
After watching Democrats debate each other for months to produce this nightmare of a bill handing out trillions of taxpayer dollars to the private health care industry, I hope progressives realize now they have to kill well in advance any attempt by Obama and Summers to "reform" (i.e. gut) Medicare or Social Security.
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JefferyK
December 19, 2009 4:32 PM in reply to Why oh why
Just imagine what they're going to come up with for finance reform. Oy.
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USgreentech
December 19, 2009 4:32 PM
A home run for Harry Reid and the Democrats.
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agio
December 19, 2009 4:34 PM in reply to USgreentech
From where I'm sitting it looks more like a ground rules double. Better than striking out, though.
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Scott in PacNW
December 20, 2009 4:19 PM in reply to agio
I'd say a broken-bat single over the head of the first baseman.
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rachelrebecca
December 19, 2009 4:33 PM
The lack of perspective among progressives is really getting absurd. Obama and the Dem leadership really wanted a public option. They spent months working their tails off to negotiate support for it in a skeptical Senate and got nowhere. They considered reconciliation seriously but found it just couldn't be pulled off. So what did they do. They came up with a bill that according to the CBO reduces the federal deficit, slows the growth in health care costs, provides health care for 30 million currently insured Americans, provides subsidies to help keep health care affordable, and prevents insurance companies from kicking people off or jacking up rates or denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. In short, they herded cats to get a bill that while imperfect significantly improves health care in this country. By contrast they could have gone for the ideologically pure bill the progressives wanted. Clinton tried that in 1993. The bill got nowhere. The point is pragmatism. Obama and Reid made serious efforts to get the best bill they could. To get as close to the goal of increased lower cost coverage for all Americans as they could. They got pretty far but not as far as they wanted or as we wanted. Now we can all castigate them for not doing what was objectively impossible. You explain to me how you would get 60 votes for the public option. You can't, only 56 or 57 Senators, depending whose tally you believe, would bite. And threatening to throw Lieberman and Nelson out of the caucus wouldn't have worked. It would have just screwed us on other issues where we need them firstly and secondly made sure health care reform once again went down in flames with no bill. The right way to measure health care reform is whether it substantially improves on the system we have now, not whether it meets some ideal health care structure. By that test, it passes with flying colors.
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AnswerFrog
December 19, 2009 5:10 PM in reply to rachelrebecca
"The lack of perspective among progressives is really getting absurd. Obama and the Dem leadership really wanted a public option."
Absolutely.
Somehow, the makeup of the Senate is the fault of either Obama or the Dems. Nobody can explain why, but perhaps they expected Obama to sprinkle magic dust that will make Joe Lieberman less of a crook. But if I recall correctly, the voters pick their senators, not the WH or the party. So Lieberman, Snowe, Nelson, etc. ... you can blame the fools in Conn. and other states for giving us these morons.
Covering 30 mill. more people, and banning some sleazy practices by the insurance company, is a good thing. And passing this bill now doesn't preclude us strengthening it and adding a public option in a few years. (2012 might be a good time when Lieberman has his ass handed to him)
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Overreach THIS!
December 19, 2009 6:02 PM in reply to AnswerFrog
I've heard also how it's all Reid's fault, actually a lot. When you ask, okay, how would you get 60 votes, they just say you don't need 60, which is a convenient, self-serving lie.
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i said GOOD DAY sir
December 19, 2009 5:30 PM in reply to rachelrebecca
This is the best analysis of health care I've heard on the blogosphere by far. I salute you.
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Tanjaoui
December 20, 2009 3:06 PM in reply to i said GOOD DAY sir
The following article seems like a fair assessment of the plan to me:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/12/0082740
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Richardxx
December 19, 2009 6:05 PM in reply to rachelrebecca
Thank you for writing that.
This is the best bill since Medicare, and Medicare had to be improved after it was first passed too. I think this bill still has in it a sharp reduction in the Medicare Part D doughnut hole the Republicans saddled Medicare beneficiaries with, too.
I kept getting my hopes up for the public option in some iteration, but Atrios was right. He said it was just something shiny thrown in to get progressives on board, but it would be yanked away before everything was finished.
The more I see of what is in the current package the more hopeful I get. Very far from perfect, in many cases not even good, but it's a major change from the absence of an overall system that we currently suffer with.
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mcc
December 19, 2009 7:02 PM in reply to Richardxx
I'd put it like this.
Let's say the manager's amendment bill passes as is. Even if the house fails to improve it further.
This is the most progressive thing the government has done on any subject in my lifetime.
I don't know what to say beyond that.
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tpmoldfuzz
December 19, 2009 8:37 PM in reply to mcc
I say, "Hear, hear!!"
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SteveGinIL
December 21, 2009 6:19 AM in reply to mcc
mcc -
"the House improve it further"?
As I understand the way it works, if the House bill and Senate bill are not 100% identical, it goes to Conference, at which BOTH Senate and House work out their differences.
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SteveGinIL
December 21, 2009 6:28 AM in reply to mcc
mcc -
ALSO - that is a very important point, about this being the most Progressive thing they've done in your lifetime. I've got kids as old as 34 who can say that same thing.
The laws passed in the 1960s and earlier have been the basis of a better United States. The Reaganite things since then have done everything they could to dismantle a nation with laws that made life better for Joe Main Street. Fuck Republicans and the train they came in on.
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itswhatson
December 20, 2009 2:29 PM in reply to Richardxx
Shh!
Goddamit. Lieberman's listening.
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AJM
December 19, 2009 6:41 PM in reply to rachelrebecca
And on the test of turning women into second class citizens it also passes with flying colors.
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mcc
December 19, 2009 7:05 PM in reply to AJM
Do you think you could explain why you view the Senate abortion "compromise" this way?
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AJM
December 19, 2009 8:13 PM in reply to mcc
The states are allowed to bar you from obtaining insurance coverage through the exchanges if they so choose: your rights are negotiable according to other people's religious persuasion. All other classes are eligible to have 100% of their health care subsidized in case of need: this is not true for women's health care.
This is a complete sell out.
Hyde is met if the premiums paid for abortion coverage are segregated with out forcing women to jump through demeaning hoops to obtain abortion coverage. How many men would think it was okay to write two checks: one for ordinary health care and one for vasectomies?
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mcc
December 19, 2009 8:38 PM in reply to AJM
The states are allowed to bar you from obtaining insurance coverage through the exchanges if they so choose
But this does not change anything at all from the way things are now, because states are currently allowed to bar you from obtaining abortion coverage from private insurance which you have paid for with your own money. From Wikipedia:
Nothing changes under this bill.The idea that it is a restriction on your rights if you must fill out extra paperwork seems to me not supportable. I will respond at more length in the other thread if that's okay but I will say this:
How many men would think it was okay to write two checks: one for ordinary health care and one for vasectomies?
Without getting off on a tangent, obtaining a vasectomy is in practice fairly difficult.
I will put it a different way. I am likely to go on the exchange. If I wind up covered by the subsidies, I will not object to having to click two buttons on my e-bill system to receive abortion coverage on the insurance for my household.
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Kuyleh
December 19, 2009 10:29 PM in reply to mcc
1) The states are allowed to ban women from buying abortion coverage all together, based on a minority religious belief.
2) Men don't get abortions. If they did, I can guarantee you this wouldn't be in the bill.
And 3) Where exactly is the banning of erectile dysfunction drugs? Why aren't the states banning paying for that as well? Why isn't federal funding banned for it?
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LeeJo
December 19, 2009 10:54 PM in reply to rachelrebecca
Good points!
There are many who are posting on this and other progressive, i.e. liberal sites that are so full of shit that they are close to qualifying as Republicans. With this bill we have a path to a conference committee or even better a "ping pong" bill that advances the cause of health care reform further than it has been advanced in the last century. Should we reject it because it is not exactly what we want?
I think not. I will take what we can get and then work my ass off to improve on what we get. I encourage others to do the same.
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loria
December 20, 2009 3:53 PM in reply to rachelrebecca
Herding cats is the perfect description.
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jollyroger
December 20, 2009 10:52 PM in reply to rachelrebecca
They considered reconciliation seriously but found it just couldn't be pulled off
I'm not sure we would know that at this point in the process. Why would one announce "Hey, assholes, reconcile your bad selves, 'cause the fix is in"
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SteveGinIL
December 21, 2009 6:14 AM in reply to rachelrebecca
Please inform me:
Exactly HOW did the WH determine Reconciliation was not a possibility????
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Indie Pro
December 19, 2009 4:43 PM
These people have worked hard to make sure the deals with Pharma and the insurance industry are intact. Stocks will continue to soar. Banners of "Mission Accomplished" raised. Mandates for the people!
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MBH
December 19, 2009 6:02 PM in reply to Indie Pro
And the 31 million with subsidized insurance will also declare "Mission Accomplished" -- as they should.
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Overreach THIS!
December 19, 2009 6:04 PM in reply to Indie Pro
You should be President and then everything would all be so simple.
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Fitgerald
December 19, 2009 5:40 PM
White Christmas D.C style 2009
Bing Crosby played by Harry Reid, Danny Kaye played by Chuck Schumer, Rosemary Clooney played by Nancy Pelosi, Vera Ellen played by Olympia Snowe, General Waverly played by Howard Dean
The senate wants to get out of town and back to their families so they can enjoy Christmas. Yes, enjoy the joyous Christmas season kind sirs while millions are out of work, have no health insurance, and are a step away from foreclosure.
Before they can leave they need to do one last show to save the health care system, and in the process the United States.
Yes, We'll follow the old man...no matter how irrational he may be...yeeeeaaahhh
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JohnMcCSF
December 19, 2009 6:07 PM
Sen Paul Kirk
OUCH
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JohnMcCSF
December 19, 2009 6:07 PM in reply to JohnMcCSF
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-paul-g-kirk-jr/a-rebuttal-to-howard-dean_b_398218.html
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hychka
December 19, 2009 6:08 PM
Let's hear more about Waterloo as a gauntlet cuts two ways...Failure to pass HCR was to be Obama's Waterloo. So, then, therefore, what does HCR passage mean for the GOP and the Turds Excrete on America (TEA) Party?
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Tron Ididarod Palin
December 19, 2009 6:15 PM
Can anyone explain how the ONLY thing left in this bill is the ONE thing that Obama campaigned against, the individual mandate?
We have lost single payer, public option and Medicare expansion along the way to the chorus of "not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" and how we cannot let ONE small part of the whole bill be a dealbreaker to the entire package.
Fine.
So, drop the mandate. Why let that one little piece of the whole pie sink it?
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Old-Style Progressive
December 19, 2009 6:16 PM
I am very grateful for the previous comment about passing something rather than nothing. Remember the fight that the late great Ted Kennedy started: don't try it all at once-go piecemeal if you have to, if it means that you can get your desired outcome later. This is the best chance we have at the moment of finally bringing our healthcare somewhat in line with the rest of the world. Let's not blow it!!
Remember, we have been laughing our heads off at the reactionary wing of the Republican Party for waging an ideology-based purging of Republicans. We have been laughing and ridiculing because it is so crazy. Which means that we should not do the same within the Democratic Party! We were elected in 2006 and 2008 because the public saw us as better than the Republicans. Let's keep that up with our behavior. So before any more liberals and progressives spout off about how this bill is a "failure," let me say that I too am a liberal progressive and would rather see this bill, and its future incarnation as a conference bill, passed as is than be cynical about it because it isn't perfect.
"Don't let the perfect get in the way of the possible." That was Ted's mantra. Let's adopt it now.
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Tron Ididarod Palin
December 19, 2009 6:24 PM in reply to Old-Style Progressive
Ted Kennedy was the ONE who killed Nixon's healthcare bill.
He did not compromise in 1994.
No right minded person believes in allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
What happens when you convince yourself that the bad is the good just because it's SOMETHING?
A mandate without any mechanism to control costs ensures the financial ruin of this nation.
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loria
December 20, 2009 4:02 PM in reply to Tron Ididarod Palin
Senator Kennedy realized he was wrong to have opposed the imperfect hcr back in the 70's.
This bill isn't perfect, but it is a start, just as the passage of Medicare was a beginning to what exists today.
The status quo is sure to be the financial ruin of this country.
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Tron Ididarod Palin
December 19, 2009 6:19 PM
Also, the fact is that this bill has loopholes that allow the insurance companies to drop you after the fact as with pre-existing conditions.
There is language that says the insurers can drop you for fraud. I'm sure their definition of fraud is not telling that about that time you sneezed in 1998.
But WAIT...if they CANNOT deny you because of pre-existing conditions, what "fraud" could they be talking about?
There will be no such loopholes for us to get around the mandate, I promise that...
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Chris Brown
December 19, 2009 6:40 PM in reply to Tron Ididarod Palin
How about some evidence for such an assertion, Tron.
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Chris Brown
December 19, 2009 6:43 PM in reply to Chris Brown
The Senate bill provides
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Tron Ididarod Palin
December 19, 2009 9:49 PM in reply to Chris Brown
The bill includes strong insurance reforms that prevent companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions or from dropping people simply because they get sick - a practice known as rescission. But serious questions remain as to how enforceable those provisions will be.
California recently dropped an attempt to enforce its anti-rescission law against a major insurer, saying that it was financially outgunned by the insurer's legal team.
The rescission law, according to the legislation, "shall not apply to a covered individual who has performed an act or practice that constitutes fraud or makes an intentional misrepresentation of material fact as prohibited by the terms of the plan or coverage."
Insurers today routinely claim that patients engaged in "fraud" or "intentional misrepresentation" when dropping them from coverage. Much depends on who defines the terms in the bill.
It won't be the federal government. There will be no federal agency tasked with overseeing the enforcement of the bill's rules.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/19/franken-dems-unified-behi_n_398183.html
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Chris Brown
December 20, 2009 10:57 AM in reply to Tron Ididarod Palin
"It won't be the federal government. There will be no federal agency tasked with overseeing the enforcement of the bill's rules."
And etc.
Note that the Senate bill amends the Public Health Service Act
The Dept. of Health and Human Services is responsible for enforcement and the promulgation of regulations to implement the Act.
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Tron Ididarod Palin
December 20, 2009 1:19 PM in reply to Chris Brown
Sec. 2711. No lifetime or annual limits. Prohibits all plans from establishing lifetime or unreasonable annual limits on the dollar value of benefits. Sec. 2712. Prohibition on rescissions. Prohibits all plans from rescinding coverage except in instances of fraud or misrepresentation.
What is an "unreasonable" annual limit? $1 million dollars? $100 bucks? What?
If they cannot deny people for pre-existing conditions...what "fraud" or "misrepresentation" could take place?
Now, they will claim that you didn't inform them of a particular pre-existing condition and deny you based on that? After the bill passes, presumably that won't come into play, so what "fraud" are they talking about?
Insurance stocks are not going up because this is a bad deal for insurance companies, period.
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Old-Style Progressive
December 19, 2009 7:53 PM in reply to Tron Ididarod Palin
Kennedy opposed the previous bills because coverage was not guaranteed to be expanded. That's what the heart of this bill will do, and why he wouldn't oppose it today. I kindly refer you to Victoria Kennedy's op-ed in today's Washington Post on the subject. I also kindly refer you to rachelrebecca's summation of what the bill does still provide. And believe you me, Kennedy would not have opposed this one.
Additionally, may I say that every time Democrats/liberals have successfully created or expanded federally-administered social welfare programs, Republicans/conservatives called it the end of the world as we knew it. And it took a while for Americans as a whole, and conservatives in particular, to accept it. Well, after Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and SCHIP, to name a few, we're still here, and many of the Tea-Baggers who attack us wouldn't want to live without these programs. Case in point: "I don't want the Government in my Medicare!" So, these things take time in the American system. We're weird, and in many ways a bit backwards, but this is what we've got. And if we can get expanded coverage now, in a few more years, we can get public options, then perhaps the Swiss system, then perhaps the Canadian system.
Nothing in our political system can happen all at once. We need a long-term view. Let's all remember...Obama and Congress have only been in session for ONE YEAR. So you may be mad about dropping the public option and expanded Medicare. To be honest, so am I. But let's get what we've got now passed, then regroup for the next big fight-public option and guaranteed government insurance.
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hollywood
December 20, 2009 3:33 AM in reply to Old-Style Progressive
Well said.
Amen.
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Bruce Webb
December 19, 2009 8:15 PM in reply to Tron Ididarod Palin
Fraud here is not defined by the whim of the insurers as it had been. We need to read the qualifying language see who actually defines it.
Hyperbole has been a big problem all along, and not just from the Right. For five months people from the Single Payer Now contingent have been making claims against the main versions of these bills that were demontrably untrue. Ironically over the last few weeks they began to be more true. But maybe, just maybe the Team of Ten rescued the bill at the last minute.
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Chris Brown
December 19, 2009 6:33 PM
Thanks for the fine reporting your and you compatriots have been providing on this subject.
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tpmoldfuzz
December 19, 2009 8:40 PM
I'm hoping that Washington is relearning how government is done after eight years of the opposite.
I hope... I hope... I hope...
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hollywood
December 20, 2009 3:53 AM in reply to tpmoldfuzz
I am hoping as well the thinking people in this country got a good look at how dysfunctional the United States Senate has become. With the Reptilicans making 60 votes mandatory on every vote on every subject we have descended into a very crappy House of Lords government. The Senate is already grossly over populated with small state rednecks and outright fucking idiots. Wyoming has less people than Washington DC but gets TWO Senate votes! Mississippi and Alabama get the same votes as California and NewYork. How completely undemocratic is that? What a plan for bullshit outcomes is that? The healthcare debate was a template of the state of American democracy and it is a joke not a democracy at all. We should start with some reform of the 60 vote rule as it is not in the constitution at all. The Reptilicans were going to pull some NUCLEAR OPTION when Senate Dems were threatening to fillubuster one of their fascist corporate giveaways. Lets have the Dems do exactly what the Reptiles were threatening. Turnabout is fairplay especially when you are trying to give average people a break. Reptilicans bend the rules to favor corporations and the wealthy so let them bitch when little guys win one. There are a lot more of us than them ....... it's a DEMOCRACY remember!?!
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Tron Ididarod Palin
December 20, 2009 10:40 AM
Now that we have "given" health care coverage to millions of people by FORCING them to buy it or fining them...
I want to help EVERY American buy a home. 100% Home Ownership.
Very simple.
We FORCE every American to buy a home and if they don't we will fine them and if they don't pay the fines we will put them in jail.
Done. Everyone in America now either owns a home or has been put in jail for not owning a home and NOW no one is homeless.
Of course, if ANYONE opposes this idea, I have to ask...
Why do hate the homeless so much? Why don't you want to see Americans own homes? The chance to have everyone "own" a home won't come around again....
Of course, there are no measures in the bill to control the COST of houses...builders will be able to charge what they want, but...I mean...we are not socialists here...
We can't tell big business how much they can charge the millions of people we are FORCING to buy their products...this is America.
NOW, that I have solved the home ownership problem, I will solve the jobs problem...
Everyone has to hire one other person or else we fine them and jail them.
Done. Full employment.
What should we "solve" next?
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Chris Brown
December 20, 2009 12:15 PM in reply to Tron Ididarod Palin
The problem with your analogy is that folks who choose to not buy homes do not impose costs upon the rest of us. Those who do not have health insurance do.
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Tron Ididarod Palin
December 20, 2009 1:14 PM in reply to Chris Brown
You think the homeless pay for their own shelters?
I am not opposed to a mandate, but not one without any cost containment or consumer protections. Insurers have zero incentive to contain costs and I'll bet every one of them raise salaries and bonuses off our backs.
I am just sickened when they try to act like they have "provided" coverage to millions...that is a very questionable definition of "providing" in my mind.
I didn't realize that telling them to go get a job WAS, in fact, "providing" for your children.
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Chris Brown
December 20, 2009 2:15 PM in reply to Tron Ididarod Palin
It is obviously that you have not read the bill or any of the many summaries available on line. If you had you would know of the cost containment provisions.
You're simply posting inaccurate talking points, but perhaps that's your purpose.
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Tanjaoui
December 20, 2009 3:17 PM in reply to Chris Brown
Cost containment is around the edges. Very weak tea. Costs will continue to skyrocket, as they have in MA, which has a more progressive system, better risk adjuster mechanisms, etc.
Although many MA residents are officially insured, many can't afford to use their insurance because of prohibitive out of pocket expenses (deductibles, co-pays). What good is insurance if you can afford to have it (pay the premiums) but not use it (deductibles, co-pays)?
MA now has the most expensive health care in the world.
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Tron Ididarod Palin
December 20, 2009 3:37 PM in reply to Chris Brown
"MA now has the most expensive health care in the world."
The proof is in the pudding. The Senate Bill is very similar to Romneycare, which has been a total disaster.
Perhaps you needs to read more than just the section headlines of the bills...they will not label them "section 4583 - Gaping Loophole"...you realize this, right?
The insurance company stocks are up...that means the market thinks that insurance company profits are going to go UP...if the market thought that they were going to go down...the stocks would go down.
Gee, the politicians SAY this bill will contain costs...the people who know are betting their money the other way...
Who should I believe?
My purpose, btw, is to not get stuck with a POS bill with the words "Health Care Reform" because the people we elected to fight for us are NOT doing anything close.
What is your purpose?
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Chris Brown
December 20, 2009 6:25 PM in reply to Tron Ididarod Palin
My purpose is to read the bill, as I have been doing.
Of course insurance stock prices are up, there are somewhere around 30 million new customers on the way.
There are cost containment provisions throughout the bill, which to me isn't just "around the edges."
I also understand the legislative process and that our congress has been bought and paid for. Thus, I am entirely willing to accept a bill which will curb the most egregious abuses of the health insurers, provides that anyone may subscribe to the same non-profit health insurance providers available to congresspersons, that will according to the CBO will reduce the deficit in the first ten years of the bill, and a whole lot of other improvements over the current system.
The bill does not create and implement the single payer, not for profit, publicly owned, government administered system of health insurance which I favor, but it does provide great improvements over the current system and will provide health care insurance to lots of folks who have none.
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Tron Ididarod Palin
December 20, 2009 7:23 PM in reply to Chris Brown
"and will provide health care insurance to lots of folks who have none."
THIS is what I take issue with...how does it provide insurance?
It mandates the purchase of insurance.
Me forcing you to buy something is not "providing" it.
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Tanjaoui
December 20, 2009 6:35 PM
To the extent this bill regulates insurance companies, mandates purchase of their policies and subsidizes them, it entrenches them as a permanent feature of our social landscape for decades to come. This bill takes us further away from single payer, not closer.
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USgreentech
December 20, 2009 9:23 PM
It was the right thing to do.
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SteveGinIL
December 21, 2009 6:40 AM
A very basic set of civics question for anyone who knows:
1. Once this passes cloture, then is passed y the Senate, since the Senate and House bills are not identical, it goes to Conference, yes?
2. And once there, all elements from both bills are on the table, for the conference committee to accept or change, yes?
3. And if an element is changed (some must be, since that is the purpose of Conference in the first place), or deleted, it is the entire bill that is sent back to the Senate and House for passage, yes?
4. And that final form has only to pass both houses with a simple majority, isn't that true?
5. Doesn't the conference committee then have the authority to delete the portion about abortion that is in the Senate bill?
6. Is there any equivalent to "Line Item Veto" when it goes back to the House and Senate? (I am pretty certain there is not, but need to ask.)
Does anyone know the answers to these questions?
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jollyroger
December 21, 2009 11:06 PM in reply to SteveGinIL
all elements from both bills are on the table
As well as all elements that are in neither bill
as to "4",maybe--if cloture is urged under the reconciliation rule, yes. if cloture is urged under normal rules, then you need 60.
6.no
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SteveGinIL
December 21, 2009 6:59 AM
A takeoff from FDR's Pearl Harbor speech:
December 20th, 2009 - a day that will live for you and for me.
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