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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMax Baucus on Obamacare: "I just see a huge train wreck coming..."
Max Baucus, facing an election next year, suddenly is "very concerned not enough is being done so far. Very concerned."
In the following video Baucus grills Kathleen Sebelius on Wednseday April 17, 2013 on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
at 9:25 President Obama explains why he didn't fight for Single Payer.
"You've got this system that's already in place. We don't want a huge disruption as we go into health care reform where suddenly we're trying to completely re-invent one sixth of the economy.."--Barack Obama
If you want to see exactly what is wrong with Congress skip to 13;21 where Amy Goodman reveals the financial holdings of key congresspeople involved with "Health Insurance Reform".
Harry Reid: $50,000 invested in a health care index,
Judd Gregg=$560,000 worth of stock holdings in major health care companies
Family of Jane Harman: 3.2 million dollars in more than 20 health care companies
John Kerry: at least 5.2 million dollars in companies such as merck and eli lilly
Chris Dodd: Wife serves on the boards of 4 health care companies
Max Baucus:
As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus called the first Senate meeting of interested parties before the committee to discuss health care reform, including representatives from pharmaceutical groups, insurance companies, and HMOs and hospital management companies. The meeting was controversial because it did not include representatives from groups calling for single-payer health care.
Advocate groups attended a Senate Finance Committee meeting in May 2009 to protest their exclusion as well as statements by Baucus that "single payer was not an option on the table." Baucus later had eight protesters removed by police who arrested them for disrupting the hearing.
Many of the single-payer advocates claimed it was a "pay to play" event. A representative of the Business Roundtable, which includes 35 memberships of health maintenance organizations, health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, admitted that other countries, with lower health costs, and higher quality of care, such as those with single-payer systems, have a competitive advantage over the United States with its private system.
At the next meeting on health care reform of the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus had five more doctors and nurses removed and arrested
Baucus has used the term "uniquely American solution" to describe the end point of current health reform and has said that he believes America is not ready yet for any form of single payer health care. This is the same term the insurance trade association, Americas Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), is using. AHIP has launched the Campaign for an American Solution, which argues for the use of private health insurance instead of a government backed program. Critics have said that Medicare is already effectively a single-payer system
Baucus has been criticized for his ties to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and has been one of the largest beneficiaries in the Senate of campaign contributions from these industries. From 2003 to 2008, Baucus received $3,973,485 from the health sector, including $852,813 from pharmaceutical companies, $851,141 from health professionals, $784,185 from the insurance industry and $465,750 from HMOs/health services, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. A 2006 study by Public Citizen found that between 1999 and 2005 Baucus, along with former Senate majority leader Bill Frist, took in the most special-interest money of any senator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Baucus
Uniquely American Indeed...
elleng
(130,126 posts)babylonsister
(170,960 posts)Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)the only one that concerns me is that Dodd's wife was on the board of several providers. That's different from investing.
Even average people with mutual funds in 401ks are invested in health care companies, no doubt.
Wealthy people are invested in literally every industry in the world. That's what investing is about.
The thing that affects this most, though, is the law that Reid & Senate (I think it was the Senate) that just reversed the law that required them to post holdings resulting from possible insider information. That is, we ALL knew what might happen to the health care industry. But Reid might know something the public doesn't know that affects say, the oil and gas industry, so he might move to sell his investments in that industry. That is illegal.
Kerry is soooo rich that I can't imagine he'd base a vote for a law on a few million dollars. That's like $50 to me. And Kerry knows that being diversified, no matter what Congress does, his investments are going to be affected in one way or the other.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)I probably have $ in all industries. Anyone who has any mutual fund in a 401k, or has a pension, is invested in the various for-profit industries.
But that has no bearing on how I feel about single payer health care. If health care doesn't continue to be profitable, the mutual funds will simply shift their holdings to other things.
Lyric
(12,675 posts)I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.
green for victory
(591 posts)GoCubsGo
(32,061 posts)Useless jerk.
green for victory
(591 posts)Senator Baucus is not amused.
If you were in Congress, you might have been arrested.
blm
(112,919 posts)part of the problem?
green for victory
(591 posts)not pretending anything.
a kennedy
(29,458 posts)not a Democrat at all in my book. Ugh.....
sendero
(28,552 posts)Who could have predicted that a 2600+ page piece of legislation with so many provisions that no one, not even the ostensible authors, could ever really understand it, would have potential problems?
That's been my problem with ACA all along, it is TOO COMPLEX TO UNDERSTAND THE INTERACTIONS AND SIDE EFFECTS.
And no one really does so it is no surprise that folks are "worried".
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)bullwinkle428
(20,626 posts)You helped WRITE the fucking thing, Baucus!!
Cleita
(75,480 posts)These Repub...er not, flip flop and lie all the time.
Zax2me
(2,515 posts)Single-payer the only way to go.
There were so many here that said this legislation would be a train wreck if passed.
DevonRex
(22,541 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)pissed because the law he tried to sabotage is being sucessfully implemented.
Howard Dean on the health care law
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022560359
HHS finalizes rule guaranteeing 100 percent funding for new Medicaid beneficiaries
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022584523
Obama budget is a disaster for drugmakers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022670043
Javaman
(62,439 posts)they could have been a part of this but they chose party over the people.
this will have such a long term positive effect upon the American people that the repukes are pulling their hair out over it.
green for victory
(591 posts)pampango
(24,692 posts)a guaranteed annual income, cap-and-trade and high tariffs at one time or another in the past, but republicans hate them all now. If we jettison every policy that a republican has ever supported - even in the distant past - we will be throwing out a lot of good with the bad. We have more to worry about from the positions of modern day far-right, tea party-intimidated republicans than we do from those of the old republican party.
green for victory
(591 posts)Paul isn't mainstream either and even he isn't talking about it. Who is?
pampango
(24,692 posts)in congress indicate that they hate Obamacare.
Or is "mainstream" a trick adjective here. 'Any republican who hates Obamacare is not 'mainstream''.
The 2012 GOP platform proposed eliminating Obamacare. The Texas state GOP party platform had the same thing. The House of Representatives votes about every two weeks to repeal Obamacare. About half the republican governors have refused federal Medicaid money on the principle that they don't want Obamacare in their states. It survived in the Supreme Court with all 4 liberal votes and 1 vote from the 5 conservatives.
I suppose that the GOP party platform drafters, the Texas GOP, the republican house members and half the republican governors are not 'mainstream' enough, much less all the state and local republicans who, at least in my area, never have a nice thing to say about Obamacare.
Is there some secret republican support for Obamacare that I have missed? Or are they just playing more of that 3D chess with us poor Democrats and their poor conservative base? Proclaiming constantly that they want to repeal it; voting every chance the get to eliminate it; but they secretly love Obamacare and are happy that it passed with no republican votes.
Or is this one of those - "If I hate something republicans must love it (even without evidence of that). Otherwise the world just does not make sense."?
WI_DEM
(33,497 posts)PragmaticLiberal
(904 posts)Let's be realistic, with folks like Baucus there was no way that was going to pass.
green for victory
(591 posts)there was no way for the people to hear about the alternative.
And that is not going to be forgotten.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)or whatever other term you want to use. Funny I almost typed "turd". I guess that would have been the truth.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Someone should just push him over to the Republicans side. He votes with them often enough.
pampango
(24,692 posts)http://blog.heritage.org/2013/04/18/dem-senator-obamacare-a-train-wreck-coming/
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/04/22/gop-at-fault-for-obamacare-tra
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/obamacare-rove-trainwreck/2013/04/18/id/500266
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346228/putting-lipstick-obamacare-pig
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/18/top-dem-sen-baucus-warns-train-wreck-for-obama-health-law/
http://michellemalkin.com/2013/04/18/key-architect-of-obamacare-this-thing-is-headed-for-a-train-wreck/
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/04/18/top-democrat-senator-on-obamacare-i-see-a-huge-train-wreck-coming-down/
DO NOT CLICK ANY OF THESE LINKS. YOUR COMPUTER WILL EXPLODE.
Max has certainly made himself a popular guy on the conservative blogs. I suppose that in his view that increases his reelection chances - so a job well done by Max for Max.
green for victory
(591 posts)pampango
(24,692 posts)HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)DevonRex
(22,541 posts)Tikki
(14,537 posts)... thrown off the train and run over on the rails with what we have had here.
Tikki