[JustKate]

US House passes major health reform

November 8th, 2009
President Barack Obama

WASHINGTON - The US House of Representatives passed a landmark health reform bill aimed at cutting costs and extending coverage to Americans who lack insurance.

The House vote late Saturday marked the biggest victory yet for President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority and came after months of wrangling in Congress and fierce debates in the country.

The road is even tougher in the Senate, which has yet to start debating its own version of health-care legislation.

The bill passed by a 220-215 vote with 39 of Obama’s own centre-left Democrats voting against it and one opposition Republican voting yes.

Obama visited Capitol Hill Saturday to help prod members of his own party to support the legislation, which includes a controversial government-run insurance option. Some moderates among the House Democrats had sought concessions before voting with their own party.

There had been doubts until the last hours whether the vote would actually be taken Saturday or postponed until Sunday or later.

The health-care overhaul has been the subject of a highly divisive debate for the past year. Democrats, who control both houses of Congress, are pushing for reforms aimed at bending the cost curve of the world’s most expensive health-care system, which makes up about 16 percent of the economy.

Obama called Saturday’s vote “historic”, saying the bill “would finally make real the promise of quality, affordable health care for the American people”.

“Now the United States Senate must follow suit and pass its version of the legislation,” he said. “I am absolutely confident it will, and I look forward to signing comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year.”

The House measure was projected to cost $894 billion over 10 years, but its backers claimed it would reduce the federal budget deficit by $104 billion. It would be paid for through efficiency measures and new taxes on the most expensive insurance plans, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

The legislation would force Americans to buy health insurance and increase government subsidies for the poor. The Congressional Budget Office estimates are that the reforms would increase health-insurance coverage to about 96 percent of the US population, up from 83 percent.

Recent endorsements from two major lobbying groups - the American Medical Association, an advocacy group for doctors, and AARP, which represents retirees - appeared key to completing the House push.

Republicans remained strongly opposed, arguing that the proposals amount to a government takeover of the largely private system.

The bill includes a government-run insurance option, which is favoured by left-wing Democrats but has been a lightning rod for criticism of health reform by conservatives and some moderate Democrats.

Politicians have failed for decades to agree on a comprehensive overhaul of the US health-care system. The last major reform was approved in the 1960s when Congress created two government-run insurance options: Medicare for seniors and Medicaid for the poor.

http://blog.taragana.com/health/2009/11 ... orm-15234/

[CanadianGigolo]

Like to see how this is paid for, the USA dollar is going to take a big nose dive.
Government has it's hands full , but this is a promise Obama made "that he would have a health policy by end of his first term , no matter the cost."

One thing USA has, is an Elected Senate, unlike Canada...I'm sure it will not pass the senate.

Sammy

[CanadianJeff]

This works in Canada for one reason that may soon fail. We don't have an 8 trillion dollar debt. Recently the American recovery and reinvestment act increased the possible debt roof (the total amount of debt the government is allowed to have) to 12 trillion.

Currently Canada has about 60 billion in debt and that scares the pants off me personally as a tax payer.

Simply put if the US debt is not dealt with and very very soon it will cause many problems down the road.

Public Health care is not a bad idea. But it's out of the US price range at the moment if they wish to survive as a nation.

[tritium]

CanadianGigolo wrote:

Like to see how this is paid for, the USA dollar is going to take a big nose dive.
Government has it's hands full , but this is a promise Obama made "that he would have a health policy by end of his first term , no matter the cost."

One thing USA has, is an Elected Senate, unlike Canada...I'm sure it will not pass the senate.

Sammy

Congress should enact a value-added tax, the equivalent of a broad-based sales tax on all goods and services (GST) to pay for this bill...

That will 'shut up the nay sayers' -

[BeaverFever]

It should be noted, this is not a bill for Universal Healthcare, it is a series of regulatory reforms, and establishes a "pubilc option" for insurance, which will still require monthly premiums, have limited coverage, and only be available to people within a certain income bracket.

[JustKate]

tritium wrote:

CanadianGigolo wrote:

Like to see how this is paid for, the USA dollar is going to take a big nose dive.
Government has it's hands full , but this is a promise Obama made "that he would have a health policy by end of his first term , no matter the cost."

One thing USA has, is an Elected Senate, unlike Canada...I'm sure it will not pass the senate.

Sammy

Congress should enact a value-added tax, the equivalent of a broad-based sales tax on all goods and services (GST) to pay for this bill...

That will 'shut up the nay sayers' -

That could work if people weren't losing their jobs on a daily basis which hinders them from buying things!

[JustKate]

Imagine this happening with their immigration problem with Mexico too! More Mexican's will go north for American health care now! I don't know, sounds scary to me. I'm betting China will eventually pull the plug and "WE" all will be in trouble then.

[JustKate]

Sarah Palin has replied already about this:

The Pelosi Bill Was Rammed Through on Saturday, But Sunday’s Coming
Yesterday at 10:34pm

We’ve got to hold on to hope, and we’ve got to fight hard because Congressional action tonight just put America on a path toward an unrecognizable country.

The same government leaders that got us into the mortgage business and the car business are now getting us into the health care business.

Despite Americans’ decisive message last Tuesday that they reject the troubling path this country has been taking, Speaker Pelosi has broken her own promises of transparency to ram a health “care” bill through the House of Representatives just before midnight. Why did she push the 2,000 page bill this weekend? Was she perhaps afraid to give her peers and the constituents for whom she works the chance to actually read this monstrous bill carefully, if at all? Was she concerned that Americans might really digest the details of a bill that the Wall Street Journal has called “the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced”?

This out-of-control bureaucratic mess will be disastrous for our economy, our small businesses, and our personal liberty. It will slam businesses at a time when we are at double-digit unemployment rates – the highest we’ve seen in a quarter of a century. This massive new bureaucracy will cost us and our children money we don’t have. It will rob Americans of more of our freedom and further hamper the free market.

Make no mistake: we’re on course to have government commandeer one-sixth of our economy. The people who gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now want to run our health care. Think about that.

All of us who value the sanctity of life are grateful for the success of the pro-life majority in the House this evening in its battle against federal funding of abortion in this bill, but it’s ironic because we were promised that abortion wasn’t covered in the bill to begin with. Our healthy distrust of these government leaders made us look deeper into the bill because unfortunately we knew better than to trust what they were saying. The victory tonight to amend the bill and eliminate that federal funding for abortion was great – because abortion is not health care. Now we can only hope that Rep. Stupak’s amendment will hold in the final bill, though the Democratic leadership has already refused to promise that it won’t be scrapped later.

We had been told there were no “death panels” in the bill either. But look closely at the provision mandating bureaucratic panels that will be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care.

Look closely at provisions addressing illegal aliens’ health care coverage too.

Those of us who love freedom and believe in open and transparent government can only be dismayed by midnight action on a Saturday. Speaker Pelosi’s promise that Americans would have 72 hours to read the final bill before the vote was just another one of the D.C. establishment’s too-common political ploys. It’s broken promises like this that turn people off to politics and leave them disillusioned about the future of their country.

But despite this late-night maneuvering, many of us were paying close attention tonight. We’ll keep paying close attention. We need to let our legislators in Washington know that they still represent us, and that the majority of Americans are not in favor of the “reform” they are pushing. After all, this is still a country “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We will make our voices heard. It’s on to the Senate now. Our legislators can listen now, or they can hear us in 2010. It’s their choice.

- Sarah Palin

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_i ... 434&ref=nf

[BeaverFever]

JustKate wrote:

Imagine this happening with their immigration problem with Mexico too! More Mexican's will go north for American health care now!

Ummm...no, you would have to be a citizen or legal resident to participate in the public option, you cant just show up on the border and demand healthcare.

And Sarah Palin is a bona-fide idiot. This public option health care proposal does more to help the insurance industry than anyone else.

[martin14]

BeaverFever wrote:

This public option health care proposal does more to help the insurance industry than anyone else.

If that were true, they should have got better than a 220-215
vote rammed thru on a Saturday night.

[ASLplease]

well, i hope this works out for them. increasing access and availability to health care is a good idea. I hope some effective cost cutting ideas come out if this. Maybe Canada can benefit from some of the cost cutting ideas.

I think we have dug a big hole for ourselves in Canada, and we need every bit of help that we can get to figure out a solution to our health care problems.

Did you guys know that Alberta health care costs more that all alberta personal income tax? that is really f#cked up! I'm not sure how the other provinces are doing but I'll bet it is similar.

[BeaverFever]

martin14 wrote:

BeaverFever wrote:

This public option health care proposal does more to help the insurance industry than anyone else.

If that were true, they should have got better than a 220-215
vote rammed thru on a Saturday night.

Its true and they STILL couldnt get beter than 220 votes because of the ideological differences.

“But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies — a bailout under a blue cross.

“By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal."
- Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

"With a public insurance option, by contrast, hospitals and doctors would still need elaborate billing and cost-tracking systems. And overhead for even the most efficient competitive public option would be far higher than for traditional Medicare, which is efficient precisely because it doesn’t compete. It automatically enrolls seniors at 65 and deducts their premiums through the social security system, contracts with any willing provider, and does no marketing.

Health insurers compete by NOT paying for care: by seeking out the healthy and avoiding the sick; by denying payment and shifting costs onto patients; and by lobbying for unfair public subsidies (as under the Medicare HMO program). A kinder, gentler public plan that failed to emulate these behaviors would soon be saddled with the sickest, costliest patients and the highest payouts, driving premiums to uncompetitive levels. To compete successfully, a public plan would have to copy private plans.

Decades of experience teach that private insurers cannot control costs or provide families with the coverage they need. And a government-run clone of private insurers cannot fix these flaws."
- The Progressive

[commanderkai]

BeaverFever wrote:

Its true and they STILL couldnt get beter than 220 votes because of the ideological differences.

Right. That's why you quoted two obviously biased, left wing sources. There is a lot of anger over this bill because of the poor cooperation by the Democrats over this. It's being rushed through Congress for a reason, and that reason is purely political.

The Public Option, even though your sources make it sound like the only choice left to save America or whatever, but in reality there are other options that can be explored. Expanding Medicaid and Medicare, for example...even though that would show how totally inefficient government is at providing care for the sick and elderly.

A government clone of a health care insurer is a joke. They removed the tax deduction for companies to provide health care to their workers. This will make the costs for these companies go excessively higher, especially during a recession. So private companies will dump their private health care benefits, and tell their workers to pay for it themselves or, better yet, jump on board this government "public option"

Oh and guess how this new public option will be run? Probably at cost, if the US taxpayers are lucky (guaranteed by past examples of government programs, they won't be) so basically, the new government health care insurance company will provide all medical services (including costly surgeries and treatments, or what is the point then?) at a cheaper cost compared to the private companies, because the public company will have no incentive to make a profit at all. You might wonder why this matters? Because in the end, if the government company is running red ink, they'll be subsidized by the taxpayer, thus having an unlimited amount of money available. Guess what happens to those private companies? They'll be forced to compete with the government plan.

Choice and competition, right? Well, since those private companies will be forced to lower their prices to be competitive, since the government plan will probably be run at cost, those private corporations will stagnate, and either A) move into other industries, or B) shut down completely. Why? Because the government plan has unlimited capital known as the US Treasury. Thus "Choice and Competition" turns into massive government bureaucracy topped by the collapse of the private health care industry.

NOW. How would I change this? 1) Cross border health care shopping. 2) Do not remove health care tax deductibles from corporations. 3) Provide a "Pre existing condition" subsidy to health care agencies. Will it be expensive? Fuck yes it would be, but I'll make you a bet it'll be cheaper than creating a new health care insurance company that's controlled by the government and has no incentive to make a profit or be efficient.

[OldChum]

Always amazes me how Americans can pay for war any time and waste billons on space shots. But get down to childish antics over the health of it's people , hell America give up some of your foriegn wars and covert operations and you will do fine .

[BeaverFever]

commanderkai wrote:

Right. That's why you quoted two obviously biased, left wing sources. There is a lot of anger over this bill because of the poor cooperation by the Democrats over this. It's being rushed through Congress for a reason, and that reason is purely political.

The Public Option, even though your sources make it sound like the only choice left to save America or whatever, but in reality there are other options that can be explored. Expanding Medicaid and Medicare, for example...even though that would show how totally inefficient government is at providing care for the sick and elderly.

A government clone of a health care insurer is a joke. They removed the tax deduction for companies to provide health care to their workers. This will make the costs for these companies go excessively higher, especially during a recession. So private companies will dump their private health care benefits, and tell their workers to pay for it themselves or, better yet, jump on board this government "public option"

Oh and guess how this new public option will be run? Probably at cost, if the US taxpayers are lucky (guaranteed by past examples of government programs, they won't be) so basically, the new government health care insurance company will provide all medical services (including costly surgeries and treatments, or what is the point then?) at a cheaper cost compared to the private companies, because the public company will have no incentive to make a profit at all. You might wonder why this matters? Because in the end, if the government company is running red ink, they'll be subsidized by the taxpayer, thus having an unlimited amount of money available. Guess what happens to those private companies? They'll be forced to compete with the government plan.

Choice and competition, right? Well, since those private companies will be forced to lower their prices to be competitive, since the government plan will probably be run at cost, those private corporations will stagnate, and either A) move into other industries, or B) shut down completely. Why? Because the government plan has unlimited capital known as the US Treasury. Thus "Choice and Competition" turns into massive government bureaucracy topped by the collapse of the private health care industry.

NOW. How would I change this? 1) Cross border health care shopping. 2) Do not remove health care tax deductibles from corporations. 3) Provide a "Pre existing condition" subsidy to health care agencies. Will it be expensive? Fuck yes it would be, but I'll make you a bet it'll be cheaper than creating a new health care insurance company that's controlled by the government and has no incentive to make a profit or be efficient.

My point is that a LARGE segment of the US left is AGAINST this "public option" plan and see it as a sell-out by right-wing democrats. Hence, I brought you the REAL left wing opinion of the health plan, which you should not confuse with the Democrat opinion...the two words are not interchangeable.

As CBS News reported:

"Pelosi says the legislation is "historic," and celebrates the fact that is does still include a public option -- a component many pundits had said was destined for abandonment. But, while there is a public option, it is anything but robust. Progressives believe Pelosi has bent to far to the right.

And The New York Times suggests as much in its analysis, which declares that:

Under pressure from moderate-to-conservative members of the House Democratic caucus, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided to propose a government-run insurance plan that would negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals, rather than using prices set by the government...

Ms. Pelosi said the public plan, which she prefers to call a "consumer option," would compete with private insurers. But the speaker was apparently unable to muster the votes needed for the 'robust' liberal version of a public plan, which she has repeatedly said would save more money for consumers and the government.

Translation: The "public option" Pelosi and her team have proposed a plan that would not make payments for care based on Medicare rates, as the Congressional Progressive Caucus and key Senate Democrats have proposed.
Rather, under the Pelosi plan, the rates be tied to those of the big insurance companies. That's a big, big victory for the insurance industry, as it will undermine the ability of the public option to compete -- and to create pressure for reduced costs."

Pelosi's plan also drops a number of provisions that had been advanced at the committee level to promote consideration of "Medicare for All" models and to allow states to experiment with single-payer plans. That's an especially bitter pill for House progressives, who has won support for state-based experimentation in committee votes. "

BTW, medicare is very popular in the US, and controls costs quite well. Notice the "public option" will explicitly NOT pay health providers at medicare rates, but rather will pay the higher going market rates' which raises question on how it will control costs.