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President Obama's promised healthcare reform is now in the house. Nothing is definite yet, the detail to be hammered out. What components would you like to see included in the legislation? Are you in favor of a single payer system? Why or why not?
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Posts:
8,187
Registered:
11/27/04
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(3594 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house: Nov 7 2009, on the floor
Nov 7, 2009 8:33 PM
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not sure if anyone has been watching the process of bringing HR 3962 + to the house floor, but the members of the GOP are now finally forced to talk about healthcare reform on the floor with a bill pending. but instead of allowing the dems to make their unanimous consent statements, the GOP is just screaming at the top of their lungs to try to drown out speakers who have the floor. their parliamentary objections were addressed and it turned into a townhall meeting. same tactic. when a speaker tries to use their regular order time, the GOP turns into adolescents and starts yelling out, just to try to keep the dems voices from being heard.
our good friend jack kingston walked to the podium with what he's was displaying as the house bill. it looks like the real bill on massive steriods. he has basically said that he can't read it in time. he doesn't know what's in it. but he's sure he objects to it. go figure.
so why is the "bill size" issue so clearly wrong? there have been over 150 committee meetings, about 80 conferences, 24 months of formal workshops and disclosures of information and the GOP has written over 120 amendments to alter this stack of paper to its current appearance, which jack kingston and fellow GOP members are now saying they can't possibly know any of its contents.
perhaps if the GOP didn't spend so much time in whore house cheating on their spouses they'd have time to read it. or perhaps they could just remember the amendments they submitted.
today's debacle on the house floor makes me ask independent voters who vote with the GOP, why would you ever consider aligning yourself with a party of cheating adolescent liars?
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Edited by facedecoolo at 11/07/2009 5:34 PM PST
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Posts:
2,688
Registered:
6/29/09
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(3593 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 7, 2009 7:30 PM
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Because Republicans are conservative and pro-capitalist only in name. Their actual policy is verbatim fascism.
I really wish I was exaggerating.
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Posts:
923
Registered:
4/5/03
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(3592 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 7, 2009 6:40 PM
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Why can't my party just fucking end big health's anti-trust exemption? Fuck! I've had it with these pussies.
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Posts:
674
Registered:
9/16/09
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(3591 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 7, 2009 10:34 AM
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> I find it very ironic that the health care measures
> which helps millions is held hostage to the rights of
> the unborn. I guess once one is born, his/her life
> doesn't really matter anymore. The pro-life people
> are only pro life for the unborn; who cares about the
> poor, the sick, the disabled...not them. While I
> support a large umbrella in the democratic process, I
> cannot believe the weight placed on this single issue.
Puritanism at play? or is it a tool for big pharm and insurance companies to get the wingnuts on board? It doesn't make sense economically to exclude abortions. The cost of an abortion is probably around $250 while the cost of delivery and caring for a baby is well into the thousands.
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Posts:
20,652
Registered:
4/11/05
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(3590 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 7, 2009 9:49 AM
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I find it very ironic that the health care measures which helps millions is held hostage to the rights of the unborn. I guess once one is born, his/her life doesn't really matter anymore. The pro-life people are only pro life for the unborn; who cares about the poor, the sick, the disabled...not them. While I support a large umbrella in the democratic process, I cannot believe the weight placed on this single issue.
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Posts:
20,652
Registered:
4/11/05
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(3589 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 7, 2009 6:59 AM
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> > > How can anyone say 2% at this point? Where
> did
> > that
> > > number come from?
> >
> >
> > The Congressional Budget Office
>
> I don't understand how they can know that.
It's an estimate based on a finite set of criteria. The CBO can not assume unprovable savings or costs. Their function is only to take bills and score them with known statistical information for cost and savings. So, 2% is an estimate based on the wording of the the bill under discussion, without amendment. There are two such entities, the Congressional Budget office and the Congressional Research office. Both of them have said for years that if we don't fix this problem we are in deep dodo.
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Posts:
8,187
Registered:
11/27/04
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(3588 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 7, 2009 2:58 AM
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> > give this guy a prescription for truth serum and
> tell
> > him to get plenty of rest.
>
> I'll put on my Wonder Woman costume and lasso him.
> *sticking out tongue*
>
> (my emo's aren't working)
>
**big smile emo!**
(mine don't work either)
> >
> > ***NEXT PATIENT!!***
>
> Well done, face.
why thank you PW. **more smileys for you!**
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Posts:
8,187
Registered:
11/27/04
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(3587 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 7, 2009 2:54 AM
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>
> Enroll the 2% on Medicare, drop the public option and
> let's move on. It's a lot of hand-wringing over
> nothing.
you could have suggested having an obstacle course run and that idea would have been more realistic. your plan covers even less people. you were just barking at the number 2% and now you want to make it less than 1%? sheesh. plus enrollment in medicare parts A and B means eligibility for part C, part D and supplementals which are privately run & government subsidized insurance companies, who have just raised rates, raised cost sharing, cut doctors out of networks, cut formularies for the 4th straight time in 4 years. the fucking insurance companies are batting 1.000 in fucking up health coverage for seniors and you want them to have the chance to do that for the middle aged population?
don't get drunk in the afternoon anymore, ok?
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Edited by facedecoolo at 11/06/2009 11:55 PM PST
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Posts:
912
Registered:
1/17/08
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(3586 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 7, 2009 12:34 AM
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WASHINGTON — Capping months of months of struggle, House Democrats cleared an abortion-related impasse blocking a vote on sweeping health care legislation late Friday and officials expressed optimism they had finally lined up the support needed to pass President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.
A vote was expected on the legislation on Saturday, after Obama's scheduled midmorning trip to the Capitol complex to make one final pitch for its approval. The bill is designed to spread coverage to tens of millions who now lack it and ban insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.
Under the arrangement, Reps. Bart Stupak of Michigan, Brad Ellsworth of Indiana and other abortion opponents were promised an opportunity to insert tougher restrictions into the legislation during debate on the House floor.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20091107/us-health-care-overhaul/&cp
Will the healthcare legislation go to the floor of the house this week? And will they have a vote on it by Thanksgiving?
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Posts:
2,920
Registered:
10/22/06
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(3585 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 6, 2009 8:29 PM
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The point about the public option, is that there are times when you need something, even if you know you probably won't use it. The point is that its presence is intimidating enough that you don't have to use it. The threat of it is enough.
Example: The sidearm on the hip of a police officer. There are plenty of policemen who go through their whole careers and never have to draw their weapon from its holster in public. But the fact that its there can make most bad guys behave.
Maybe only 2% would use the public option. But the fact that it's there may be enough to force the other companies to deal more fairly than they would if they knew their clients had nowhere else to go except to a another similar competitor who's set to rip them the same way.
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Posts:
2,915
Registered:
3/21/08
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(3584 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 6, 2009 8:12 PM
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150 Medicare for All advocates have been arrested coast-to-coast. How many teabaggers? Zero.
No matter how much corporate lackies lie through their teeth while every year 262,800 Americans go bankrupt and 45,000 die from medical neglect. To paraphrase Rep. Alan Grayson: if a terrorist org threatened to kill 45,000 Americans next year (as many as the insurance companies have killed and will continue to kill), we would spare no expense to fight them.
November 6, 2009
Dear PNHP colleagues and friends,
We are disappointed to report that there will not be a vote on the Weiner amendment for single payer today in advance of the vote on the House bill tomorrow.
Two reasons were given by Rep. Weiner for withdrawing his amendment:
1. Speaker Pelosi said if she allowed debate on the single-payer amendment, she would have to allow debate on an expansion of the Hyde anti-abortion amendment, which the Democrats do not wish to do, and
2. There are at least 8 members who would vote against the House bill if they were given a chance to vote for Weiner's single-payer amendment. At this point the Democratic leadership is desperately counting votes; they can only afford to lose 15 votes total, and according to the Washington Post, they are currently down by 25 votes.
Next steps and interpretation -
1. The fact that single payer got so far along in the House is a testament to the strength of our single-payer movement. The huge number of calls by single-payer advocates in support of single payer and the Weiner amendment in recent weeks have been noted by several members of Congress. Increasingly the public is learning what Harvard health economist William Hsiao told the New York Times, that "[y]ou can have universal coverage and good quality health care while still managing to control costs. But you have to have a single-payer system to do it."
2. It appears that nobody, particularly President Obama, expected our single-payer option to be alive in the Congress for so long. As you know, they attempted to keep it "off the table" from the very beginning.
3. The president was directly involved in the decision to not hold a vote on the Weiner single-payer amendment, and Weiner will be meeting with him later today. Stay tuned.
4. We need to increase pressure on the Congress and White House for Medicare for All through lobbying, speaking engagements, media outreach, grassroots organizing and civil disobedience. Senator Bernie Sanders will call for a vote on single payer in the Senate - this could come up anytime in the next month. Encourage your senator to support the Sanders bill (S. 703) and also an amendment he will offer for a state single-payer option. Our friends in the California Nurses Association/NNOC have already started lobbying visits to the Senate in D.C. Lobbying materials, slides, and other materials from our spectacular Annual Meeting in Cambridge are now on-line at www.pnhp.org/annual-meeting-2009
5. In the national office we are working on press outreach regarding uninsured veterans (we'll have a release for you early next week on this) and civil disobedience by physicians in support of Medicare for All (see press release, below). Members are encouraged to continue to publish op-eds, letters to the editor, and articles in support of single payer (see articles in today's Asheville, (N.C) Citizen-Times and the Palm Beach Post, below).
6. We have been asked how to tell members to vote on the House bill. Our response is that the bill "is like aspirin for breast cancer". As noted by PNHP Past President Dr. John Geyman in his latest blog post "No bill is better than a bad bill," even the public option in the House bill is a sham.
In solidarity,
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Posts:
2,915
Registered:
3/21/08
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(3583 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 6, 2009 5:13 PM
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> > > How can anyone say 2% at this point? Where
> did
> > that
> > > number come from?
> >
> >
> > The Congressional Budget Office
>
> I don't understand how they can know that.
The CBO is a constant partner in any legislation that comes with a budget. They use the legislation to compute cost/income budget figures, and actuarial tables to determine how many people the bills will serve.
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Posts:
674
Registered:
9/16/09
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(3582 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 6, 2009 4:10 PM
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> > > > > Want and use are 2 different
> things.
> > Only
> > > 2% of
> > > > the
> > > > > people would be on The Public
> Option.
> >
> > > >
> > &
> >
> > How can anyone say 2% at this point? Where did
> that
> > number come from?
>
>
> The Congressional Budget Office
I don't understand how they can know that.
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Posts:
8,550
Registered:
6/12/07
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(3581 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 6, 2009 3:50 PM
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> > > > Want and use are 2 different things.
> Only
> > 2% of
> > > the
> > > > people would be on The Public Option.
>
> > >
> &
>
> How can anyone say 2% at this point? Where did that
> number come from?
The Congressional Budget Office
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Posts:
674
Registered:
9/16/09
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(3580 of 3594)
Re: Healthcare in the house
Nov 6, 2009 3:34 PM
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> > > Want and use are 2 different things. Only
> 2% of
> > the
> > > people would be on The Public Option.
> >
&
How can anyone say 2% at this point? Where did that number come from?
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