The Senate is debating the health care bill this weekend–specifically they are considering the numerous amendments that have been proposed by Senators. Al Franken is acting as President right now. You can watch the debate on C-Span 2 or you can get the live stream here.
Bloomberg: President Obama plans to head to the Senate today to “rally the troops.”
At TNR, Jacob Hacker, a political science professor at Yale, has an opinion piece:You Call This a Compromise?
As the Senate debates the health care bill put together by Majority Leader Reid, the scramble is on to come up with a new compromise regarding the public option–the public health insurance plan modeled after Medicare that will be offered within the new health insurance exchange to Americans who lack workplace health insurance (and to workers in small firms that decide to buy coverage through the exchange).
The problem is that the current proposals aren’t “compromises” and don’t represent “middle ground.”
They represent abandonment of the public plan idea altogether. One proposal that is being floated, for example, is the chartering of a national nonprofit plan, similar to the “cooperatives” that Senator Kent Conrad has advocated. But the whole point of the public plan is to create a plan that is up and running quickly and constructed on the existing infrastructure of Medicare so that it can create competitive pressure for insurers and serve as a backup for consumers on day one. In 35 states, after all, the largest private insurer enrolls more than half of privately insured patients. Many of these plans are nonprofits already–the problem is that they don’t face a credible alternative.
Another, even stranger idea is to offer the nonprofit plans available in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) within the exchange. Since the FEHBP is itself a form of exchange, this amounts to offer a new set of private plans within a new set of private plans. How is that going to provide real pressure on private insurers in a consolidated insurance market in which nonprofit plans already have a large presence (and often act little differently from for-profit plans)?
In short, the new compromise proposals are anything but. They represent calls for advocates of the public plan to eat their crumbs and be happy.
If you have been following the debate so far, please share your reactions. And join us in discussing what’s happening this afternoon.
Filed under: General, Health Care Reform, Politics | Tagged: Health Care Reform, live blog, U.S. Senate |
The Confluence 
Last time I checked, they are voting on an amendment proposed by Blanche Lincoln that would limit how much victims of malpractice could pay for legal assistance. But the doctors and insurance co’s would have no limits.
Reid voted in favor!
They seem to be voting on something else right now, because the Dems are all voting yes. When I figure out what it is they are voting on, I’ll post it. I turned off the sound while I was getting the live blog up.
I think this is what they were voting on–
Click to access Lincolnexeccomp.pdf
It is the one I was talking about. It is called the “Ensign amendment.”
they’re voting on the Ensign amendment now, but the Lincoln amendment they were voting on earlier was exec comp.
OK, thanks. I didn’t hear that discussion. I just turned it on. I’ve been working on my lectures for next week…
no prob… thanks for the thread
What about “Medicare for All” is too hard for them to understand? ((restrains self from banging head))
They understand. They just don’t want us to have it.
Medicare for All gets in the way of Private Insurance for All.
It gets in the way of the purpose of this bill–bailing out the insurance companies.
From FDL: Everything You Might Not Know or Want to Know About the Current Health Care Reform Tragedy, But I Am Going to Tell You Anyway
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/17789
Dorgan is holding up bottles of Lipitor.
Dorgan can bite me. Unless he gets behind a public option.
Lol Props always help to maintain dignity.
Grassley brought poster board highlighting a single sentence from the Wall Street journal editorial pages.
oh excuse me it was TWO sentences, truncated from the original editorial:
“any policy guardrails built this year can be dismantled”
“”that is what has always happened with government health programs.”
Let’s just hope they don’t start talking about breast exams….
Or beating their breasts.
Grassley is an A-hole!
Agreed
Oh goody. Jeff Sessions.
oh shit, Sessions is talking now
ROFL
Fiction and Fact with Jeff Sessions
I think he’s confused by his visual aids.
While it’s nice that FDL is now on the right side, I really wish they had been there all along instead of whipping for a slogan. It might have made a small difference.
Fuck it. Kill this thing and start over!
Why don’t they just lget it over with quickly?
Maybe that’s the idea? Make people so sick of the process that when it’s over, no matter the result, happiness will ensue.
LOL! Me too.
Here’s a handy-dandy comparison compliments of an email I received from MoveOn (I know…I know…)
I comment rarely, cause I’m not American, and quite frankly, I’m glad I am not because I’m a senior on an afixed income. You folks are so screwed, and it is heartbreaking. I wish you the best of everything, honestly – my children have relatives in your country, and they are very good people, as are you all. None of you deserve this. Best wishes for a good outcome, although I have little hope there will be one. And BTW, all that propagana about the terrible inequities of the Canadian system, how it has failed, how it shows that single payer cannot work – bull testicles. I have lived more years than I care to remember. I have paid taxes for the entire time I have been of age – one gets used to it and one doesn’t miss it. I have never, not once in 60 years had to pay a doctor directly, other than non essential items such as Doctors letters. I have been treated for cancer (contrary to all that stuff n American TV, it was a prompt response), pancreatitis, pregnancy anomalies (1 in millions with the birth of conjoined twins). At the same time, I have watched people from other countries come here for treatment, which your news doesn’t report. For example, we have the Hrbie program, whereby Specialist/surgeons donate their time to try to correct terrible childhood problems. The administrative costs, such as transferring the children and their families here and supporting them, are covered by donations and the support for the entire family is provided by volunteers. We ain’t perfect by any means, but your press and politicians and talking head’s attempts to vilify us and hold us up as the poster child of failed single payer is ridiculous. Most of the Canadians who are being used in those infamous commercials had money and wanted immediate attention to THEIR situations. The rest of us don’t have money, and are just darned happy that we have a system that means we get basic health care.
Sorry, I’m just a lurker, but I am so sad about what is happening in your country. I do hope you get something that is liveable.
BTW, I will iterate – our health care is not free and I’m tired of the twits going on about anything being free. Northing is free. One has a choice – what does one want their taxes to support? I have paid taxes for more years than I can remember, but I’m damned happy that a percentage of thos monies supports healthcare for all – and if your pseudo-journalists and paid hacks argue against it, so be it. Bottom line, once the country has the advantage, these a@@holes may rant and raile, yet, it won’t make a smidgeoun of difference, cause the rest of us have access.
Thanks for the good wishes. Please comment more often, we have many non-Americans here–we could use you guys’ help trying to figure out how to fix all these problems.
Apparently they’re voting on stupak language tommorow.
yes, Reid said they’d do it tomorrow.
SOD, I was so upset by the other issue that I forgot the Stupid amendment. I cannot believe that this is happening, I honestly cannot. I know, I’m an alien from another country, but WTH? I receive a letter every second year that I need a mammogram. I schedule an appointment with my doctor yearly, whereby a Pap smear is standard (and one year, I was called back six times for additional tests, because of the anomalies – not one of which was chargeable – but all of which were covered by the taxes that people had paid for so many years. People forget that the taxes this year are supposed to support programs, and politicians prey on that short term memory. Examples, the tax on gasoline was supposed to pay for road improvements – Toll roads anyone? The tax on cigarettes was originally supposed to pay for health care improvements.
A sign of things to come–around the country?
http://nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/article_79a73640-3474-522d-9d79-806307f1d792.html
Yep. They can say all they want that “it was just a recommendation”, and women are not going to be denied mammograms. Yet the ink is hardly dry and already low-income women are being denied.
They are so utterly full of shit. And BTW, if there are around 30-some million uninsured, and the house and senate bills still leave 18 to 24 million still uninsured, then WHAT THE FUCK is going to cost us 8 billion dollars? What, exactly, are we paying for? They are cutting Medicare, they are cutting sevices, and not even adding THAT many people to the rolls of the insured, yet it’s going to cost so much?
Has anyone else wondered at this? It makes no damn sense! Is the cost going to a) the insurance companies and b) the thousands upon thousands of new bureacracies they want to create what with this panel and that board? Lots of cushy job opportunities for political appointees, I’ll bet.