Yes, there are some great provisions in the health care bill, BUT...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

what's the point of making it into a 2000-page monstrosity?

I've become cynical enough to think that the purpose is to hide minefields for the unwary, lots and lots of waffling "fine print," lots and lots of little unrelated goodies such as tax breaks for specific companies, lots of provisions that should have been administrative rules.

Ending rescission, ending discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, removing anti-trust exemption from the insurance companies, these are good things. Excellent things. Shoulda been done long ago. (If you'd add ending discrimination based on age, I'd be very happy.)

So why not pass them NOW as separate bills effective immediately?

Why are the Dems treating this as an all-or-nothing package? What's with this four-year wait before the bill goes into effect?

How could the Republicanites logically argue against a bill that said, "Insurance companies will no longer dump you if you get sick after faithfully paying premiums for twenty years"?

How about lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare by five years every year, which would bring younger, healthier people into the system and help solve its financial problems? That would be extremely popular with the army of unemployed and under-employed people over 50.

Even though I despise everything the Republicanites stand for, I can understand why it's easy for them to get people riled up about these monster bills.

The solution would be to unpackage them, pass the least controversial and most urgent ones first, and then let the dust settle before moving on to major reforms. Once people see that the minor steps aren't so scary, they'll be more open to a major overhaul, including (I hope) some sort of publicly financed system that is open to everyone.

[damntexdem]

1. There are a lot of pains in that but.

And a number of good questions, too.

[Cleita]

2. I personally thought a lot of those things could have been broken into

separate bills, like the Medicare provisions, since it is an already existing program. It seemed like it didn't belong in new legislation. Also, the parts reigning in the excesses of the insurance companies like banning the pre-existing conditions clause and anti-trust clauses should have been a separate bill regulating the insurance companies. That probably would have reduced the actual new legislation into something much smaller.

[MNDemNY]

4. How do you ban "pre-existing conditions" with out a mandate?

[Cleita]

6. Why kind of mandate are you talking about?

A mandate that says: "Thou shalt not deny coverage nor payment of claims because of a pre-existing condition?" That kind of mandate? wtf are you talking about.

[MNDemNY]

9. A personal mandate to carry insurance. You know the kind that is in any bill under consideration?

Do you not see a problem?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Which is corporate welfare unless

there's a public option open to everyone without exception.

[Cleita]

16. All the new provisions of this legislation are corporate welfare IMHO. n/t

[MNDemNY]

49. Excactly.

Medicare for all.!!! These "bills" are shit.

[Cleita]

14. Mandate is the worst thing in this bill. It criminalizes the poor who still

won't be able to afford health care but will be forced to choose between food and making their insurance payments. Remember back when you were a criminal for stealing a loaf of bread because you were starving? Well, this is what it amounts to. All they need to do is raise the FICA tax a couple of points, do the extra tax on billionaires and then let everyone have insurance regardless of their ability to pay. Works all over the world in various versions. Why can't it work here? No mandates to buy are needed.

[MNDemNY]

50. Yup, medicare for all!

[subterranean]

65. It does not "criminalize the poor."

As you should know, the bill raises the Medicaid eligibility limit and provides for subsidies to buy insurance on a sliding scale (how generous the subsidies will ultimately be remains to be seen). So the poor will have access to insurance at a low cost or no cost. It's the middle class, families making around $60-80,000, who might have a problem affording it. The bill will not criminalize anyone, it will just impose an extra tax on people who don't have health insurance.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

68. Oh, that's all

:sarcasm:

And if they can't pay the tax?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Easily: You just do it

Do you think that there are massive numbers of people cynically "coasting" until they need coverage?

No, most of the people who don't have insurance can't afford it. Another premium increase and I'll be in that group.

[MNDemNY]

8. Why buy it until you need it?

You are being delusional if you think a large # wont do this. (For the record I am for Single Payer, Medicare for all)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Then that's just the insurance companies' tough luck

a risk of doing business. Why should they be exempt from risks?--which is why I oppose a private mandate.

[geek tragedy]

20. No mandates and no pre-existing conditions means either really high

premiums or it means a lot of denials of coverage.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. Or the executives have to not get such high bonuses, the buildings

don't have to be so elaborate, and, in the case of for-profit companies, the shareholders' dividends aren't so high* or even to be issued at all.

(One of the most insidious hangovers from the culture of greed that the Reagan administration encouraged was the idea that protecting the shareholders' dividends was the entire raison d'etre for a company, that shareholders were ENTITLED to high dividends. They aren't. The stock market is all about risk.)

[geek tragedy]

36. That would be the first to go, but not the last.

If you can wait until you're really sick to buy insurance, why would any healthy person buy it at all?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. Because smart people know that anyone can get sick at any time

You talk like the Republicans, who think that everyone is as devious as possible all the time and nobody ever genuinely needs anything and anyone who claims to need something is just a scammer.

[geek tragedy]

41. Well, once you get sick, then you buy insurance and

there's no problem, right?

So, only sick people would buy insurance.

If only sick people buy insurance, then it becomes unaffordable.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

44. What makes you think that only sick people would buy insurance?

Do only sick people buy insurance now? I'm not sick now, but I know that that could change in an instance, so I buy insurance at considerable expense.

See, you're thinking like a Republican, assuming that everyone is out to cheat.

[MNDemNY]

52. How many people buy wheelchairs who do not need them?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

59. Oh boy, another person who argues like a Republican (or a DLCer) making false analogies

and dumb statements.

Health insurance: For all physical and mental ailments, and no human being gets out of here without suffering SOME sort of illness or injury

Wheelchair: Only for certain kinds of illness or injury

Now if you're going to keep arguing like a Republican or DLCer, then I shall simply have to ignore the rest of your questions.

[MNDemNY]

62. You REALLY got me wrong.

This bill is shit, the house bill is shit, SINGLE PAYER OR BUST !!

[subterranean]

66. The reason you buy insurance now at considerable expense

is because you know you won't be able to get it if you become seriously ill.
If the insurance companies were legally required to give you insurance regardless of your condition, don't you think you might be tempted to put off that expense until you really need it?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

67. No, because it would be a hassle to apply for it if I were in the midst of a heart attack

But having had a heart attack in the past should not be a disqualification.

And what would be wrong with getting insurance IF you paid your premiums? Is this any different from a person who signs up for insurance and then gets a serious illness a few weeks later?

[MNDemNY]

51. Which is way you will not see it!

[mike_c]

15. with single payer, medicare-for-all universal health care, that's how....

A real solution is quite obvious and easy to implement. Note that HR 676, which does this, is only a dozen or so pages long and has more than 80 congressional CO-SPONSORS.

The bill that passed the House is a parody of health care reform.

[geek tragedy]

21. Would your proposed Single Payer bill pay for abortions?

If yes, how many votes realistically do you think, best case scenario, there would be for it?

[sandnsea]

25. Either a hamster in a wheel

or a rat in a maze that has no reward at the end - I don't know which but isn't that how you feel when you "debate" health care -- with almost anybody??

[geek tragedy]

28. The sure sign that someone doesn't know anything

is when they claim there's a simple solution.

[mike_c]

26. it covers "all medically necessary services..."

...in it's current form, including "inpatient care" and "outpatient care." Abortion is not specifically included, nor is it excluded.

As for the question of votes, that's a strawman, plain and simple. Democratic leaders in congress went to extraordinary lengths to prevent discussion of simple, straightforward medicare for all universal health care. Instead, they created a discussion that made the whole issue unnecessarily complex and gave everyone an opportunity to raise their pet objections to ambiguous reform. They did that to protect the profits of the investor owned health insurance industry.

If we had had a completely different discussion instead, I think abortion would have been irrelevant. If raising that objection were linked to an attack against Medicare? Even the republican base loves medicare. By avoiding the REAL prize, that most Americans desperately want, the dem leadership created the atmosphere in which abortion became relevant. In a different debate, the outcome could have been completely different.

[geek tragedy]

27. Medicare doesn't pay for abortion, mainly becase virtually no one

who's on Medicare can get pregnant.

Either you would have the federal government fund every abortion in the country, or you'd take away the abortion coverage from every woman who currently has it.

Just like amateurs talk about strategy and generals talk about logistics, so then do pie-eyed dreamers talk about clean solutions while reformers and activists talk about votes.

[mike_c]

42. here is a list of the 93 co-sponsors of HR 676-- the folks you characterize as...

..."pie-eyed dreamers" rather than "reformers and activists."

Rep Abercrombie, Neil - 1/24/2007
Rep Baca, Joe - 9/17/2007
Rep Baldwin, Tammy - 1/24/2007
Rep Becerra, Xavier - 6/13/2007
Rep Berman, Howard L. - 6/15/2007
Rep Bishop, Sanford D., Jr. - 12/11/2007
Rep Brady, Robert A. - 2/27/2007
Rep Brown, Corrine - 4/17/2007
Rep Capuano, Michael E. - 11/9/2007
Rep Carson, Andre - 7/10/2008
Rep Carson, Julia - 1/24/2007
Rep Christensen, Donna M. - 1/24/2007
Rep Clarke, Yvette D. - 2/16/2007
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy - 1/24/2007
Rep Cleaver, Emanuel - 4/22/2008
Rep Clyburn, James E. - 4/24/2008
Rep Cohen, Steve - 2/7/2007
Rep Cummings, Elijah E. - 1/24/2007
Rep Davis, Danny K. - 1/24/2007
Rep Delahunt, William D. - 2/12/2007
Rep Doyle, Michael F. - 3/21/2007
Rep Edwards, Donna F. - 9/29/2008
Rep Ellison, Keith - 1/24/2007
Rep Engel, Eliot L. - 1/24/2007
Rep Farr, Sam - 1/24/2007
Rep Fattah, Chaka - 1/24/2007
Rep Filner, Bob - 1/24/2007
Rep Frank, Barney - 3/7/2007
Rep Green, Al - 1/24/2007
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. - 1/24/2007
Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. - 1/24/2007
Rep Hare, Phil - 4/30/2007
Rep Hastings, Alcee L. - 1/29/2007
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. - 1/24/2007
Rep Hirono, Mazie K. - 7/23/2007
Rep Holt, Rush D. - 9/18/2008
Rep Honda, Michael M. - 1/24/2007
Rep Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. - 1/24/2007
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila - 1/24/2007
Rep Jefferson, William J. - 6/26/2007
Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice - 1/24/2007
Rep Johnson, Henry C. "Hank," Jr. - 2/13/2007
Rep Jones, Stephanie Tubbs - 5/23/2007
Rep Kaptur, Marcy - 2/12/2007
Rep Kennedy, Patrick J. - 9/24/2007
Rep Kildee, Dale E. - 4/17/2007
Rep Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. - 1/24/2007
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. - 1/24/2007
Rep Lantos, Tom - 10/1/2007
Rep Lee, Barbara - 1/24/2007
Rep Lewis, John - 1/24/2007
Rep Loebsack, David - 1/24/2007
Rep Lynch, Stephen F. - 10/9/2007
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. - 1/29/2007
Rep McDermott, Jim - 1/24/2007
Rep McGovern, James P. - 1/24/2007
Rep McNulty, Michael R. - 1/24/2007
Rep Meehan, Martin T. - 1/24/2007
Rep Meeks, Gregory W. - 9/20/2007
Rep Miller, George - 1/24/2007
Rep Moore, Gwen - 1/24/2007
Rep Moran, James P. - 1/22/2008
Rep Nadler, Jerrold - 1/29/2007
Rep Napolitano, Grace F. - 2/27/2007
Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes - 3/21/2007
Rep Olver, John W. - 2/16/2007
Rep Pastor, Ed - 1/24/2007
Rep Payne, Donald M. - 1/24/2007
Rep Rangel, Charles B. - 1/24/2007
Rep Richardson, Laura - 9/20/2007
Rep Roybal-Allard, Lucille - 1/24/2007
Rep Rush, Bobby L. - 2/6/2007
Rep Ryan, Tim - 5/8/2007
Rep Sanchez, Linda T. - 4/23/2007
Rep Sanchez, Loretta - 9/20/2007
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. - 4/17/2007
Rep Scott, David - 9/20/2007
Rep Scott, Robert C. "Bobby" - 1/24/2007
Rep Serrano, Jose E. - 2/7/2007
Rep Solis, Hilda L. - 2/12/2007
Rep Sutton, Betty - 3/27/2007
Rep Thompson, Bennie G. - 6/12/2007
Rep Tierney, John F. - 9/6/2007
Rep Towns, Edolphus - 1/24/2007
Rep Udall, Tom - 2/27/2007
Rep Waters, Maxine - 1/29/2007
Rep Watson, Diane E. - 1/24/2007
Rep Weiner, Anthony D. - 1/24/2007
Rep Welch, Peter - 5/3/2007
Rep Wexler, Robert - 1/24/2007
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. - 1/24/2007
Rep Wynn, Albert Russell - 1/24/2007
Rep Yarmuth, John A. - 2/27/2007

[geek tragedy]

43. 91/92 living members on that list voted FOR the House Bill.

1 did not--Kucinich.

2 (Ryan, Captur) voted for the Stupak Amendment.

[mike_c]

69. that suggests to me that HR 676 would likely have at least as much support...

...as the house bill that passed, had the dem leadership not betrayed us in favor of the insurance companies and their profits and started the negotiation with medicare-for-all and universal health coverage.

Still, you seem to think NO one would vote for it. I think it would have passed with MORE support than the house bill if HR 676 had been debated. Instead, the dem leadership has worked very hard to PREVENT debate on a much better health care reform.

Still calling those HR 676 co-sponsors "pie-eyed dreamers?"

[geek tragedy]

71. There's no logical reason to suggest that HR 676 would have

at least as much support as the bill that passed did. You have to assume that there are another 126 members of the House equally progressive/liberal to support it.

There aren't. You weren't going to see Earl Pomeroy and Bart Stupak and other Blue Dogs vote for single payer.

People who think HR 676 had a chance are the pie-eyed dreamers.

Those that committed to a lesser bill that still improved the status quo are earnest progressives committed to real change.

[sandnsea]

30. A strawman?? You must not be paying attention

The entire bill is held up right now, on abortion and the definition of "medically necessary". Stupak says his amendment goes no further than Hyde. Women's groups say it will end abortion and cause women to have to go back to coat hangars. Of course both of them are lying. And you think it's all a strawman??

Yikes.

[MNDemNY]

48. Yes! I could not agree more.

[MNDemNY]

3. Because this way, we get nothing without a rollback of womens rights.

It's all about the deal.With-out all the BS we would not get all this bi-partisan support! It's not like we had a majority or anything.And how else could you get it signed by a Republican White House?

[geek tragedy]

19. Imagine what Stupak would do with a Single Payer bill.

Abortion would be practically banned.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. So women need to make it clear that anyone who votes for a Stupak amendment

will not get re-elected. And stick to it.

After a few old-timers lost their seats, abortion rights would go back in.

[geek tragedy]

Again, the question is whether there would be 218 votes to for taxpayer

money to fund every single abortion in the United States.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

39. Keep voting the retrograde pols out until there are

:shrug:

[geek tragedy]

40. That could be a very, very long wait. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. Since the EXISTING bill has an anti-abortion provision in it

we're really arguing a moot point.

[MNDemNY]

55. Should we pass the excisting bill in pieces with stupak?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

57. If the bill is in pieces, then Stupak is one of the pieces that can be

conveniently laid aside--or moved so far to the end of the queue that it somehow never gets passed.

[MNDemNY]

60. Oh to be a dreamer!

:o :(

[Lydia Leftcoast]

63. The "practicality" of conservative Dems is killing us

Thank goodness for dreamers.

[MNDemNY]

64. I'm sorry I forgot the sarcasm tag.

I too am a "dreamer" SINGLE PAYER NOW!

[MNDemNY]

53. As opposed to it's effect in the house bill?

[Hannah Bell]

5. i think you're right.

[sandnsea]

10. That wouldn't help anyone pay for health care

But who gives a shit about that as long as they've got theirs. Even at DU.

The bill also limits premium variance by age at a 3:1 ratio.

If health care doesn't pass in some meaningful form, Obama should tell everybody to just go to fucking hell. This country is such a bunch of spoiled brats it isn't worth it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. The bill under consideration

1. Doesn't go into effect for four years

2. Has a really strange idea of what's "affordable"

3. Permits deductibles and co-pays

The 3:1 age ratio is a crock. Why have ANY age differential? The older people I see at the gym every day are much healthier than some of the chain-smoking, pasty-faced, flabby thirty-year-olds I see around town.

The ideas I'm talking about could go into effect TODAY, along with another one, increasing the eligibility for Medicaid.

[sandnsea]

22. Help for the insured and the poor, no one else

And nothing else would get passed either. Once again, low income working people would be screwed. Congress gets it better than you do.

[thereismore]

17. Newt Gingrich actually suggested a series of bills too. Whatever works. nt

[Cleita]

18. In Newt's case, he probably thinks it would be easier to shoot some of

them down. However, I think that would backfire on him in a predominantly Democratic Congress.

[sandnsea]

23. And it would

Especially medicaid expansion and subsidies, the only two things that really matter to the bottom 50%. Getting coverage with a pre-existing condition doesn't do someone any good if they can't afford to pay a premium. You pass it all at once, or you only get with the top 30% needs. How many times does it have to happen??

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. But that still doesn't explain why most provisions don't go into effect for FOUR years

:shrug:

Medicare went into effect in 11 months.

[sandnsea]

37. This is more complicated than Medicare

For one thing. It's not 1966, health care delivery is more complicated. The bill sets up several new departments, women's care, minority care, indian services. It sets up a long term care program. It changes Medicare and adds prescription drug negotiation. It expands medicaid to adults. It creates a subsidy program. It creates a tax credit program for small business. It creates the exchange. It creates a public option.

I mean honest to christ how can people who insist they're the smartest on the planet be completely unable to fucking THINK.

:argh:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. But still...FOUR YEARS?

Some of those provisions COULD take place immediately like the regulations on the insurance companies.

[sandnsea]

47. And some will start sooner

Stop bitching and start reading. I am so sick of bitching. I used to think it was just the political climate of the last 8 years that caused so much negativity and wallowing around here. It was understandable.

But now, nah, some people really do just like their pity pots. But for me it's starting to stink.

[MNDemNY]

56. The real reason is to collect the "new " taxes for some time before the expenditures begin.

That is the only way to make it "deficit neutral" for 10 years. Slight of hand. A lie, if you will.

[truedelphi]

24. Let's start at the very beginning. In 2004 a young man running for the Senate said that

The ONLY logical and financially effective route to go in terms of health care reform was

Universal Single Payer Health Care

Then some short years later, he started saying that although that had once been his position, now he knew that we had to have something else because after all, another system was already up and running, and so we had to work within the parameters of that system.

WTF? That doesn't even make sense... If something is so broken we need to reform, why the heck should we be including it?

And of course, our illustrious media, which should be counted on to hammer home the fact that the SPUHC is really the only sensible way to approach reform, that media is so bought and paid for that they don't even think of that as a solution, but as a topic to avoid at all costs, unless they need to use the word "Socialized" as part of their weekly quota of scare mongering expressions.

So now we have to consider "Mandates." We have to consider "Penalties" of which Congress is expecting at least One Hundred Seventy Six Billion dollars of penalties from We The People to offset the Federal Government's subsidy of 1.1 trillion. With the penalties that we pay, they will only have to come up with a bit less than 900 Billion. And so everything needs to be detailed, and it takes about 1,900 pages to do that.

Until we get someone of the earlier Obama's caliber back, we are stuck with these sold out projects, be it on social reform, economic reform, and even military reform.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[jberryhill]

34. Double spaced with large margins....

I'm sorry but this "2000 page" thing is utterly silly.

Yes, the world is complex, but not everything reduces to the size of Hop On Pop.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

35. Double-spaced with large margins means it's an 800- 1000-page bill

(I work with documents all the time.) That's more than most novels.

Still too large. Take out all the administrative rules, take out any irrelevant amendments, take it apart into its constituent provisions, and pass each part. If you pass even ONE part, you've accomplished more than any administration in 40 years.

[MNDemNY]

54. How about we just pass Stupak?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

58. Now you're just being silly

:grr:

[MNDemNY]

61. My point is much the same as yours.

SINGLE PAYER NOW !! anything short of that should be killed.Once we pass something called "health care reform" it's off the table for years if not decades. If we can't pass it now, then I say we fight for it in 2010. I think it is a winning issue.

[jberryhill]

70. Pay Me A Senator's Salary And Give Me A Staff

This is what we pay these people to DO!

If, between now and the Monday after Thanksgiving, you can't work full time on this with a dozen people to help you with what you've been working on now for the last several months, then there is something wrong with you.

How many novels does a undergraduate English major go through in a semester?

Come on. I can be pretty lazy, but I can manage a novel working full time for the better part of a year with a staff to help me.