As Max Baucus barters away our Medicare, he slipped LibbyCare into the health care bill last year

[seafan]

I simply cannot express how loathsome Max Baucus is to the health of our country.


This ugly traitor is looking for ways to cut the Medicare safety net. He is using it as a bartering chip in the fight over the debt limit.


DO NOT FORGET that Baucus slipped expanded Medicare coverage into the health insurance reform care bill for his constituents in Libby, Montana last year. Regardless of age. And it fills in the gaps that traditional Medicare doesn't cover. This is Medicare For All, without any gaps in coverage.


But the rest of us aren't good enough to have universal Medicare in Baucus's world.




This is what he's doing right now:


Baucus: Revenues In Debt Limit Deal Should Match Medicare Cuts

By Brian Beutler | June 23, 2011, 1:15PM



Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) (via TPM)

One of the Democrats participating in bipartisan debt discussions said he's "very disappointed" his Republican counterpart has ditched negotiations over an impasse on taxes, but says he hopes to continue working with the group in a different context.

He also made an impassioned case that new tax revenues be part of any deal to raise the debt limit that involves significant cuts to entitlement programs.

"I'm disappointed that Leader Cantor's withdrawn," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus during a hearing on health care spending. "I think we should stay at the table. I think we should keep working, difficult as it is, and try to balance between Medicare cuts -- additional Medicare cuts -- so long as there is commensurate additional revenue. We need balance here."

.....

And this is what he did last year, under the national radar:


High-Risk-Pool Time Bomb Looms While Baucus Wins Medicare for His Chosen Few

By Jon Walker
June 29, 2010

.....

The trouble that states and the federal government are having with setting up the high-risk pools in time demonstrates an important lesson about the absurdity of creating state-based public/private hybrids to provide health insurance, which the new law does with high-risk pools and eventual exchanges. The decision was idiotic, given that the government for decades has been running the public health-insurance program, Medicare, and providing quality health insurance cost effectively.

Instead of creating these high-risk pools, Congress could have decided to provide the people most in need of health insurance with Medicare. They would have started to receive benefits more than a month ago, and the money would have covered more people. Instead, many will wait at least until August before getting help.

We have proof that expanding Medicare could have been done much quicker. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) made sure to include a provision in the law to expand Medicare to the victims of asbestos contamination in Libby—in his home state. I can happily report that less than two months after the President signed the new law, people in Libby were getting their Medicare cards. Too bad Baucus doesn’t use his powerful Finance chairmanship to make sure millions of other Americans in need also get help so quickly.

The rest of us can look, but don't touch. The rest of us are apparently undeserving of this universal care.



Baucus tailors health reform provision for asbestos-stricken Libby

By MICHAEL JAMISON
The Missoulian

April 1, 2010

.....

Baucus is Montana's ranking Democrat, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and in many ways architect of America's new health care plan. It's no accident that the bill carries special provisions for Busby, and for many more of his Libby neighbors.

In fact, buried deep in the health care package is a clause that, in Baucus' words, promises Libby's asbestos victims "benefits greater than those received by the 9/11 victims."

Forget Obamacare. This is Libbycare, and it's as good as it gets.

.....

Hiding in the national legislation is a provision - authored by Baucus - that allows for expanded health care benefits, but only for towns where health emergencies have been declared. For now, that means Libby.

The measure does three things - it allows for health screenings, it expands Medicare coverage and it spans the financial gaps Medicare doesn't plug.

The initial emergency declaration came with some money for screening, and about $6 million already has arrived. But the new health care bill provides even more, ensuring that future generations can receive asbestos assessments.

If they test positive, the new health bill then expands Medicare to all affected, regardless of age. The third provision - Baucus calls it a "pilot program" - pays for asbestos-related disease care not covered by Medicare.

And it is, Baucus said, "just for Libby."

.....

When single payer advocates tried to be heard at a meeting Baucus held in 2009, he had them arrested. ARRESTED. Doctors and nurses were among them.




"We need more police!"--- Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.), as single-payer physician and nurse activists request to be heard at his town hall meeting, but are arrested and taken away. May 5, 2009

[TheWraith]

1. Got any credible links backing up the assertion about Libby, Montana? nt

[Wilms]

5. Here's one.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8668626

There was a thread yesterday too.

[TheWraith]

6. Okay, not exactly Medicare for all--more like Medicare for asbestos victims. nt

[montanacowboy]

2. You need to understand the history of Libby

Having lived there for 20 years, I am still subject to testing every 2 years. Hundreds of people have died from the Bastards WR Grace, of the fucking Grace Commission - the State and Federal Government covered it up for decades, deadly asbestos in the air and in the land. They put it in our homes as insulation and told us to put it in the gardens, kids played on huge piles of zonolite (vermiculite) deadly fibres ready to enter your lungs and in 20 years, bang, you are dead. Whole families were contaminated by their members who worked in the mine, who brought the deadly fibres home on their clothing and into the home (tremolite) the most evil of fibers. It was everywhere and for decades to come, the contamination will remain.

Max is a lot of things I agree, but this is one of the best things he ever did for those suffering families and the disgraceful coverup by government. My son in law works all year cleaning up the yards and homes in the community, trying to bring some small measure of remediation.

And when WR Grace was brought to court, years and years afterwards - they won, Libby lost.

[DCKit]

3. Thank you for the fine explanation.

Regardless, the various industrial polluters should be held accountable for their actions.

The EPA employees been asking for their teeth back for over a decade now. They'd really like to get back to work.

[seafan]

4. We are very happy for the universal medical care that the people of Libby now have. The point is

..that Medicare For All, with complete coverage and drug price negotiation, should be the law of the land to cover every man, woman and child in America.


Nothing else will equal that.


As long as there are people like Baucus running things and no one challenges him, the rest of the country loses.

[JDPriestly]

7. What a jerk!

And California, with our huge population many times that of Montana, is barely heard at the national level on health care issues.

Baucus is one of the worst of the so-called Democrats

[no_hypocrisy]

8. "We need more police."

Democracy at work.

:sarcasm: