Interesting post on Crooks and Liars. I want it all done right now, I want complete health care change. I won't get it. But I want it done correctly, too.
Bait and Switch on Public Option? No, The Sky Really Isn't FallingSeveral bloggers
linked to this. They're taking the article in good faith and assume it's accurate in its conclusions (that the public option has been gutted and the idea of "reform" amounts to a bait and switch), and I just don't believe that.
The author doesn't even seem to understand how legislation is made. It's kind of like judging the way a finished room will look by painting a stripe on the wall: It's not the whole picture.
The bills are usually weakened at this point in the process - but they're fixed later in committee. One of the reasons it still works like this is so politicians can say, "I voted against that!" if part of a bill becomes controversial in his or her district. (Remember the thing with Kerry, where he said, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I was against it"? He's right. All politicians do it.) Some of the same politicians who are screaming on the teevee against this will be a lot more reasonable once the cameras aren't running. The final committee work is what counts.
So really, the sky isn't falling. I would tell you if I thought it was. I mean, I'm not exactly known as Obama's biggest booster, am I?
I'd rather ward off the attacks from the insurance companies and the Blue Dogs instead.
It's no secret that I think single payer is the best solution - but I'm not going to try to poison this compromise bill to prove a point.I don't want it done with the threats to cut Medicare payments and payments to hospitals who take care of patients with no health care. I want it done with a real public option, not the fake one that Howard Dean and others have warned us against.
If we have to wait, maybe people will speak up about cutting Medicare and hospital payments. I really do hope so. I was stunned to read that. I don't want a health care option at the expense of Medicare.
Obama plans 313 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid spending.Reporting from Washington -- Under pressure to pay for his ambitious reshaping of the nation's healthcare system, President Obama today will outline $313 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending cuts over the next decade to help cover the cost of expanding coverage to tens of millions of America's uninsured.
Among the proposed policy changes outlined by the president are:
* Reductions in payments to providers to reflect increased efficiencies in the system, which the White House estimates could save $110 billion over the next decade.
* Cuts in federal subsidies to hospitals that treat large populations of uninsured patients, estimated to save $106 billion over the next decade.
* Cuts in how much the federal government pays pharmaceutical companies to provide prescription drugs to seniors and others, estimated to save $75 billion over the next decade.
I can't find that acceptable. Maybe as they talk they will realize how many people that would devastate.
Maybe we can make time to get the Congress to focus on us. I doubt it, but maybe.
The Senate is "self-destructing."ESQ: But isn't that a threat to the insurance companies? Especially at a time when we want to keep businesses healthy and people employed?
HD: This is one of the many problems the Senate is now having. They are focused on anything but the American people. But the insurance companies will be fine. It won't happen overnight, and they'll make plenty of money. But this is not a matter of making the insurance companies happy. This is a matter of making the 72 percent of the people who want a public option happy, including the 50 percent of Republicans who want a public option.
ESQ: Fifty percent of Republicans want a public option?
HD: Yeah. That's in a Kaiser poll and in a New York Times/CBS poll last week. The Senate is in the process of self-destructing. They are talking about managing health-care reform to make sure that a relatively small sliver of American industry is satisfied at the expense of 72 percent of their constituents. That's unbelievable.
The poster at Crooks and Liars ends with this:
I'm actually shocked to find the more I look at the long-term strategy here, the more I like it. The fact is, it will be a lot more politically difficult for members of Congress to vote against those future incremental improvements than to vote against the entire plan now. Once it's in place, and constituents start calling their elected officials with complaints about flaws in the bill, they're going to have to fix those problems - or at the very least, not get in the way of the solution.
Remember: Social Security only covered about half of the people when it first passed. It took almost 10 years to get there, but you couldn't take it away now. The voters would be furious. We won't get there overnight, but this bill will at least be a decent start.
I want the bill passed now, just the way I would like it to be. Ain't gonna happen.
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