President’s Address / Republicans’ Town Hall

11 Sep 2009 1 Comment

by Colleen in Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Health Care Reform, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

I was impressed by the President’s speech Wednesday night – he did stand up for the public option, presented the facts about what the health care legislation is proposing, and called out the Republican obstructionist tactics for what they were. Many of the Republicans seemed to be at a Town Hall (one of the kind they stage manage these days) and it wasn’t just the “You lie!” guy, Joe Wilson (who did wonders in fundraising for his Democratic opposition candidate, Rob Miller, with that infamous outburst).

President Obama laid out the case:

Our collective failure to meet this challenge — year after year, decade after decade — has led us to the breaking point.  Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.  These are not primarily people on welfare.  These are middle-class Americans.  Some can’t get insurance on the job.  Others are self-employed, and can’t afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer.  Many other Americans who are willing and able to pay are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or too expensive to cover. 

Indeed, why is America, of all countries, so backward?:

We are the only democracy — the only advanced democracy on Earth — the only wealthy nation — that allows such hardship for millions of its people.  There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.  In just a two-year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point.  And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage.  In other words, it can happen to anyone.

He told of some of the horrors:

One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn’t reported gallstones that he didn’t even know about.  They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it.  Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne.  By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer had more than doubled in size.  That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America. 

Our healthcare is expensive and inefficient:

Then there’s the problem of rising cost.  We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for it.  This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages.  It’s why so many employers — especially small businesses — are forcing their employees to pay more for insurance, or are dropping their coverage entirely.  It’s why so many aspiring entrepreneurs cannot afford to open a business in the first place, and why American businesses that compete internationally — like our automakers — are at a huge disadvantage.  And it’s why those of us with health insurance are also paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it — about $1,000 per year that pays for somebody else’s emergency room and charitable care. 

Then he dismisses the single-payer way too easily. Which is what we should have, and which is why it cracks me up when the teabaggers claim Obama and the other Democrats are flaming socialists. We wish they were socialists, like Bernie Sanders.

I like when he said “The time for games has passed.”  Unfortunately, the Republicans would prove him wrong before the night was over.

Then the President starts addressing the fear mongering:

Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan.  First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.  (Applause.)  Let me repeat this:  Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

Then he brings up what the legislation will do, like not allowing insurance companies to deny you coverage based on a pre-existing condition, drop your coverage when your sick, or have a lifetime cap. Making sure the insurance covers routine checkups and preventative care.

Then the idea of having health insurance for those who don’t have it now. The insurance exchange, using the high number of customers to keep costs down, as large businesses and the government do, as Congress does for themselves. Here’s a thought – if those Republican congess people are so willing to let their constituents do without affordable insurance as they try to derail health care, would they be willing to do without it?  It is a government program.  Maybe they should show how much they’re against government programs by their families doing without.

Then the President says it will take awhile to get it off the ground and proposes offering low cost coverage now for those who can’t due to pre-existing conditions.  A proposal by Senator John McCain (and it was good to see he was willing to work with President Obama on it).  This is the McCain who existed before the Presidential election, when he veered off into the Republican nastiness because it was required of him. I may disagree with him on a lot of issues, but Senator McCain used to, and maybe now is again, be principled and reasonable.

Requiring everyone to carry insurance (and there is mention previously of help in the form of subsidies for those who need it).  Fair enough, unless we end up compromising everything away until it’s just welfare for the insurance companies.

Then he calls the right wing talk show hosts and Congress people out on their obstructionism:

Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost.  The best example is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens.  Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible.  It is a lie, plain and simple. 
 
There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants.  This, too, is false.  The reforms — the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. 
Ahh, here’s where Joe Wilson came in with the “You lie!” Now, while I happen to disagree with the President and think we should, in fact, provide health care for all, alas, that is not true, as has been noted by PolitiFact, the President is telling the truth.
 
Here is is from the legislation:

H.R. 3200: Sec 246 NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

So, where did Congressman Wilson get his “facts” from? Well, PolitiFact notes there was a chain e-mail claiming “that page 50 of the House bill gives free health care to illegal immigrants.”

That page didn’t say that. Rather, it included a generic nondiscrimination clause that said insurers may not discriminate with regard to “personal characteristics extraneous to the provision of high quality health care or related services.”

So it isn’t there, but Rep. Wilson and others are reading it into the bill.  Let’s think about this in a moment.

 

As the President points out, “consumers do better with choice and competition.”  Competition that doesn’t exist now in many areas.  Then he makes the case for public option:

But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Now, let me be clear.  Let me be clear.  It would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance.  No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance.  In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5 percent of Americans would sign up.

 
Despite all this, the insurance companies and their allies don’t like this idea.  They argue that these private companies can’t fairly compete with the government.  And they’d be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option.  But they won’t be.  I’ve insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.  But by avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits and excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers, and would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities. 
So President Obama does makes the case for a public option, but he leaves wiggle room (which does make me nervous, given that he was previously willing to back down).  He says that “the public option is only a means to that end — and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal. “

 

Then he talks about Medicare and the fear mongering going around that when his suggestion is eliminating waste, calling out the Republicans on their hypocrisy:

So don’t pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut, especially since some of the same folks who are spreading these tall tales have fought against Medicare in the past and just this year supported a budget that would essentially have turned Medicare into a privatized voucher program.  That will not happen on my watch.  I will protect Medicare. 

Our President sounds like he’s willing to fight:

But know this:  I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than to improve it. I won’t stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are.  If you misrepresent what’s in this plan, we will call you out. And I will not — and I will not accept the status quo as a solution.  Not this time.  Not now.

Wow, he remembered he won the election!  Now will his Democratic friends in Congress, especially the “Blue Dogs” remember they won theirs?  The American people really need them to take a stand for the people, for health care for all.

 

Now back to the Republican Town Hall side show.  It really wasn’t just Joe Wilson, even though many of his Republican colleagues said they were appalled as well. All though the President’s speech, Republicans were waving their copies of the legislation.  What was that all about?  Well, we all know the wing-nuts (and the Congress members and talk show hosts egging them on), say “Read the legislation!”, implying none of the rest of us, especially congressional Democrats, have read it.

 

What they really seem to be asking though, is “read into the legislation.”  Note the innocuous passage above that Joe Wilson and the sender of those e-mail use to claim that illegal aliens are covered with this legislation.  The “death panel” for grannies and Trig claim from including counseling on end of life options such as hospice care, something that former Governor Palin actually signed into action, before she was against “death panels”

 

So, read (into) the legislation.  Read into it whatever the fear mongers want you to believe.  Do away with meaningful health care reform that would guarantee your family affordable coverage and make sure you don’t face life threatening choices for your grannies and children because of the unwillingness of your insurance care to cover it.  One suggestion though – ask your Republican congress people to give up their government provided health insurance that guarantees their families will be secure.  Insist they join you in your war against the federal government (which is, by the way, all of us – liberal, conservative or whatever politics) by refusing their government paid for, and very good, health insurance.  Let’s see how fast they stick to the principal of letting them and their loved ones fall through the health care cracks that they’re trying to sell you.

Health Care – We Won’t Back Down

05 Sep 2009 1 Comment

by Colleen in Barack Obama, Bill Moyers, Democratic Party, Health Care Reform, Politics, Protests, Seattle Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I felt inspired and empowered as I walked away from Seattle’s Health Care for All rally Thursday night with Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down playing as the crowd streamed out of Westlake Park. On the way home, though, I got to thinking about news reports that the President will drop the public option, and his administration seems to expect the Democrats to just fall in line; and worrying “Will they back down?”

I don’t think our Rep., Jim McDermott, will back down, but what about the others?

IMG_4801

We had about 3000 people in Westlake Park, but as the blog Horse’s Ass reported, the Seattle Times didn’t report it.  I was there, though, trying to connect with my Amnesty International friends and regretting I hadn’t thought to exchange phone numbers with the newer ones so we could find each other.

IMG_4785

Amnesty International believes that health care is a human right, and is working on it as part of our new Demand Dignity campaign.

Here’s some video of the highlights of the rally from the Washington State Labor Council:

In addition to Rep. McDermott, and the Rev. Leslie Braxton, who mc’d the event, we heard from a father struggling to get health care for his sick son because of the “pre-existing” condition clause, and from Jody Hall, the owner of Cupcake Royale on the struggles of a small business owner to keep her employees covered under a system that charges more and gives less in benefits for small businesses. Jody said that 25 cents of every cupcake go to employee health care, which is a larger expense than the combined rent of all four Seattle locations of her business.

We also had the Backbone Campaign’s puppets, including Count Bleed ‘Ya Dry, with his bats from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, taking blood through an IV from a seriously ailing American health system.

IMG_4789

So, speaking of backbone, how are we doing on making sure President Obama and the other Democrats get and keep one on this issue?

I believe President Obama and the Democratic majority we elected can get meaningful health care with a needed public option to keep down costs from the insurance companies, if they are willing to fight for it. 

What is interesting is that the polling data that the Washington Post reports was sent around in a memo to the congressional Democrats by Joel Benenson, the President’s pollster, show a wide support for health care reform:

–82% of Americans say that the U.S. health care system needs either fundamental changes (55%) or needs “to be rebuilt” (27%). (CBS, Aug. 31)

•A substantial majority of Americans believe that the problems in the country’s health care system will eventually affect most Americans if they are not addressed.

–65% of Americans believe that the health care system’s problems will eventually affect most Americans, while only 31% believe most Americans will continue to get good health care. (CNN, Aug. 31)

What is the problem, then?

–Only 31% say they “understand the health care reforms under consideration in Congress, while 67% say they find them confusing. (CBS, Aug. 31) 
–Indeed, even Republican pollster Public Opinion Strategies found that 37% have no opinion yet on the President’s plan, while 25% support and 37% oppose. (POS, August 13)

However:

•When voters learn about the composition of the plan, support grows considerably.
–For instance, an NBC poll found that initially, only 36% said that the President’s health care plan is “a good idea” while 42% say it is a bad idea. (NBC, Aug. 17).
–However, 53% said they favored the plan after hearing a short description of it that included:
* Requirements on insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions;
* Requiring all but the smallest employers to provide health coverage or pay a percentage of their payroll to help fund coverage for the uninsured
* Tax credits to help families and individuals to help them afford coverage

This is why the President’s televised speech to Congress on Wednesday is so important, and frankly, why both Congressional Democrats and pro-health care organizations should be focusing as much on educating the public as on rallies to counteract the conservatives whipped into a frenzy by talk radio.

Will the President have the courage to include the public option as an important piece of the plan in his speech?  President Obama certainly pushed for the Presidency, and inspired many by doing so.  One of his former campaign staffers, Mike Elk, has started a petition, and asking former campaigners and others to sign it, holding the President to the promise he made election night (and their promise to hold him to his promise):

He said, “I promise you if everybody in this hall is willing to keep doing what you guys did over the last two years, then I am optimistic about America. I may make some mistakes, but you’ll set me right.”

Mr. President, we have not forgotten the promise we made that night. We are here to set you right.
There are rumors that you are considering dropping the public option, despite 77% of the American public and the majority of U.S. Senators supporting it. Sir, there is no way we can have real health care reform without a public option. Any real change requires the inclusion of a strong public option to promote competition, bring down costs and serve the people.
If a vigorous public option is not included, it would be a major victory for the health insurance industry.

If the President is willing to take the stand, we are with him, as Mike Elk notes:

We are the most powerful grassroots army ever assembled in American history, and we want you to fight for a public option. We promise to fight with you every step of the way, just as we did during the campaign.
Mr. President, We are fired up and ready to go!
Are you ready to lead?

Bill Moyers has called for President Obama to stand up to the Republicans and insurance companies as well:

He understands President Obama’s wish for bi-partisanship, but recognizes with the current political climate, that just isn’t possible:

Poor Obama. He came to town preaching the religion of nice. But every time he bows politely, the harder the Republicans kick him.

No one’s ever conquered Washington politics by constantly saying “pretty please” to the guys trying to cut your throat. 

Moyers notes that:

As it is, we’re about to get health care reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.

As with the former campaigners, Bill Moyers remembers the promises President Obama made during the campaign, and is calling on him to keep them:

Come on, Mr. President. Show us America is more than a circus or a market. Remind us of our greatness as a democracy. When you speak to Congress next week, just come out and say it. We thought we heard you say during the campaign last year that you want a government run insurance plan alongside private insurance — mostly premium-based, with subsidies for low-and-moderate income people. Open to all individuals and employees who want to join and with everyone free to choose the doctors we want. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors whose only interest is a company’s share price and profits.

This is important:

This health care thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it’s life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter.

Fortunately, it looks like many of our Congressional leaders will stand their ground.  According to Politico:

Obama spoke by phone Friday with leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

“Caucus leaders expressed absolute commitment to the idea of a robust public option, and said they expect it to be part of any health care reform legislation,” the groups said in a statement. “The president listened, asked many questions, and suggested the dialogue should continue.”

It looks like the White House is leaning toward putting the public option back in, but still leaving room to waffle?

One top official gave this formulation: “He has consistently said that he thinks the public option is an important way to make sure there is both cost and competition control.  He has also consistently said that if someone can show him a better way or another way to get there, he’d be happy to look at it.  But he’s never committed to going another way.  He’s always said he’d be happy to look at any other proposal that gets to these goals, but he thinks this is probably the best better way to do it.”

I’d like to hear a more certain and committed statement than that on Wednesday, Mr. President.  You’ve showed you can fight and stand up for your principles during the election.  We are asking you now to stand your ground. 

PresidentAtWork

Official White House photo by Pete Souza

We are behind you, and there are a lot of us, even if newspapers like the Seattle Times don’t want to acknowledge it. Speak to the American public Wednesday and tell them the truth.  Give us hope for a health care system that really works, for all Americans, not the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Health Care – Yes, We Can (& Need to Fight for It)

23 Aug 2009 1 Comment

by Colleen in Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Health Care Reform, Politics Tags: , , , , , , ,

Last Sunday, the New York Times said the public option in the health care plan may be dropped, quoting Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius statement that “the public option was ‘not the essential element’ of reform” and President Obama himself saying at a town hall meeting:

“The public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform,” the president said. “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it.”

Similar statements came from others in the Obama administration:

In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, said the president remained convinced that a public plan was “the best way to go.” But Mr. Axelrod said the nuances of how to develop a nonprofit competitor to private industry had never been “carved in stone.”

and other (Blue Dog?) Democrats:

On Capitol Hill, the Senate Finance Committee is expected to produce a bill that features a nonprofit co-op. The author of the idea, Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, predicted Sunday that Mr. Obama would have no choice but to drop the public option.

Rachel Maddow rightly confronted President Obama and on her show Monday:

“Yes, we can’t!” Certainly if that amount of conviction was all we had from then candidate Obama and other Democrats last year, we’d be facing a McCain/Palin administration.  

Good thing at that point, he knew how to fight.

ObamaFighting

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Fortunately, the Progressive Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus still do know how to fight.  According to the New York Times:

After administration officials, including Mr. Obama, wavered on their commitment to the public option last weekend, leaders of the Progressive Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus wrote a letter to Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary, on Monday saying they would not vote for a plan without the public option. They attached a second letter signed by 60 House Democrats demanding the inclusion of a government-run insurance plan in the final legislation. Their 60 votes would be enough to kill a House bill if it had no Republican support.

The Washington Post reported:

In the Senate, where negotiations are now focused, John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.) said that a public option, as the plan has become known, is “a must.” Sen. Russell Feingold (Wis.) said that “without a public option, I don’t see how we will bring real change to a system that has made good health care a privilege for those who can afford it.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said that the plan will be included in whatever bill is voted on in the House. “There is strong support in the House for a public option,” she said, though she did not demand that the administration express support for the idea.

Co-ops are being pushed as a possible alternative to the public option by the White House and “Blue Dog” Democrats. In a Washington Post article on co-ops, Group Health Cooperative, a major HMO here in Seattle, is being cited as one possible example. Group Health has been around for years and has a whole system of hospitals and clinics, though.  So are we going to create these systems, including building health care facilities, around the country, and without the aid of the government, as that’s part of the selling point?

Would co-ops be an adequate alternative to the public option?  As noted in the Washington Post article:

However, co-ops would lack perhaps the main advantage of the public option: reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals set by federal law, like those paid by Medicare, the program for older Americans. Federally determined reimbursement rates were central to the cost-saving promise of a government-run health plan and a potentially powerful competitive advantage.

Will the Republicans support a bill if the public option is changed to co-ops? No, according to the Huffington Post.  In a conference call with reporters, Senate Majority Whip calls co-ops a “’trojan horse’ for a government-run system.”

While Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has put forth co-ops as a compromise proposal that could get 60 votes in the Senate, Republican support is elusive. Indeed, earlier in the call, Kyl said that the GOP stood no closer to offering up their votes.

“I think it is safe to say that there are a huge number of big issues that people have and these are a couple of the most prominent,” he said. “But start with the cost of it. There is no way Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar-plus bill. And when the chairman of the Finance Committee in the Senate said, ‘ah, great success, we think we got it under a trillion dollars,’ you did not hear a big round of applause from Republicans.”

According to the New York Times, former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who is now working for the lobbying firm Alston & Bird, has been pushing for co-ops.

It is an idea that happens to dovetail with the interests of many Alston & Bird clients, like the insurance giant UnitedHealth and the Tennessee Hospital Association.

Ummm, just a coincidence, I’m sure. . . ; )

Then we have the now infamous “gang of six”, reported in the Washington Post as “three Democratic and three Republican members of the Senate Finance committee” who are currently putting together the Senate bill.

As Robert Reich asks on his blog “who, exactly, anointed these six to decide the fate of the nation’s health care?”

I don’t get it. Of the three Republicans in the gang, the senior senator is Charles Grassley. In recent weeks Grassley has refused to debunk the rumor that the House’s health-care bill will spawn “death panels,” empowered to decide whether the sick and old get to live or die. At an Iowa town meeting last Tuesday Grassley called the President and Speaker Nancy Pelosi “intellectually dishonest” for claiming the opposite. On Thursday Grassley told the Washington Post that Congress should scale back its efforts to overhaul health care in the wake of intense anger at town hall meetings. But — wait — the anger is largely about distortions such as the “death panels” that Grassley refuses to debunk.

This week on Fox News Grassley termed the House bill “the Pelosi Bill,” and called it “a government takeover of heath care, exploding the deficit because it’s not paid for and it’s got high taxes in it.”

and then he asks the obvious question:

I really don’t get it. We have a Democratic president in the White House. Democrats control sixty votes in the Senate, enough to overcome a filibuster. It is possible to pass health care legislation through the Senate with 51 votes (that’s what George W. Bush did with his tax cut plan). Democrats control the House. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is a tough lady. She has said there will be no health care reform bill without a public option.

So why does the fate of health care rest in Grassley’s hands?

Do we want to leave it in Grassley’s hands?  It’s time to push back and that has started, both from the public and with the Progressive and Black Congressional caucuses saying emphatically, “No!  We won’t stand for the public option being taken out of the bill.” 

Also, people concerned about real health insurance reform are putting their money where their mouth is.  Daily Kos reports that so far $374,000 has been raised for those who signed the congressional letter in support of a public option on the Act Blue website (including my Representative Jim McDermott, I’m happy to say).

Robert Reich is calling for a march on Washington on Sept. 13 in support of the public option on Politico and Daily Kos is calling for organizing nationwide rallies. Obama’s organizers are calling for rallies and events earlier in September, but it’s going to be important to insist on his administration and all our congressmembers to included the public option at those as well. 

Yes, at one time, not too long ago, the President knew how to fight.  Now he’s acting too much like a typical Democrat, appeasing Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats instead of pushing for what he knows as well as any of us is needed.  One thing is for sure, I don’t think we should leave it to his administration or organizers if we want change.  We need to be pushing him to do the right thing, which, as I recall, was why FDR ended up with such a progressive legacy.  We always forget that the leaders don’t get there on their own.

One last thought, to all those progressive organizations and politicians out there, is why not get beyond “preaching to the choir” and beyond the commercial sound bite war?  There are a lot of people out there who are interested in health care, who would like to hear more about what this all means (single payer, public option, co-ops, etc.).  I know we’re not going to change the mind of the screamers who think we’re going to pull the plug on grandma.  That’s just the problem for the rest of the public though.  All they’re hearing is the inanity and some shouting back from our side, or sound bites.  Just like the Obama campaign did during the election, there should be more outreach so people know what the debate is, and why it’s so important for them and their families.

Something like this video where Christopher Hayes from The Nation explains the public option at the Netroots Nation, a gathering of liberal bloggers, but taking it to the general public, instead of just “preaching to the choir”:

Getting Back to a Real Discussion on Health Care Reform

16 Aug 2009 2 Comments

by Colleen in Barack Obama, Health Care Reform Tags: , , ,

I’m hoping with President Obama and other Democrats taking the offense that we can finally get back to talking about health care and health insurance reform.  First they had to, unfortunately, address the “death panels” issue, as President Obama did at a town hall forum in Grand Junction, Colorado yesterday. 

The President’s abridged comments from the Huffington Post (which includes a video from CNN that I can’t seem to post here):

“What you can’t do, or you can, but you shouldn’t do — is start saying things like we want to set up death panels to pull the plug on grandma.” President Obama paused and grew emotional, “First of all, when you make a comment like that, I just lost my grandmother last year… I know what its like to watch somebody you love, who’s aging, deteriorate… When you start making arguments like that, that’s simply dishonest. Especially when I hear the arguments coming from members of congress in the other party, who, it turns out, sponsored similar provisions!”

I did find AP video of the Grand Junction town hall of President Obama taking the discussion back to how current insurance industry practices hurt the American public, however.

Back to the alleged “death panels” for a moment, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, noted on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos (as reported by the New York Times) “all the administration was thinking about was reimbursing doctors who would engage in bedside consultations with families whose relatives are near death and who are ‘conflicted about what to do next.’ “

Unfortunately, she added, such a provision “is off the table” for now in the Senate Finance Committee because of the outcry.

“I think it’s really horrific that some opponents of the health reform bill have used this painful, personal moment to try and scare people about what is in the bill,” she said on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

So, now this help for patients and families won’t be in the bill (even though it was included in medicare reform passed by the Republican congress a few years back, as President Obama noted).

As President Obama did Saturday by recalling his grandmother’s death last year, Ms. Sebelius spoke of her mother, who spent 10 weeks in three hospitals at the end of her life. Only relatively late in the process, Ms. Sebelius said, did the family have a consultation with a doctor about what could and could not be done for her mother.

“It was the most agonizing, most painful, most terrible time for not only me and my siblings, but for my dad,” she said. “And what every family wants is good information and an ability to make a decision that suits their loved one the best way that the family is involved and engaged.”

So, what will be included in the legislation?  The problem is, it is still being hammered out and as both Katha Pollitt in The Nation and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich pointed out on his blog last week, it’s hard for the public to get behind health reform when they don’t know what’s going to be in it, or what compromises will be made.

 In his Why We Need Health Care Reform op-ed in today’s New York Times, the President lists “four main ways the reform we’re proposing will provide more stability and security to every American.“

First, if you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of high-quality, affordable coverage for yourself and your family — coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job.

Second, reform will finally bring skyrocketing health care costs under control, which will mean real savings for families, businesses and our government. We’ll cut hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies that do nothing to improve care and everything to improve their profits.

Third, by making Medicare more efficient, we’ll be able to ensure that more tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors instead of enriching insurance companies. This will not only help provide today’s seniors with the benefits they’ve been promised; it will also ensure the long-term health of Medicare for tomorrow’s seniors. And our reforms will also reduce the amount our seniors pay for their prescription drugs.

Lastly, reform will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable. A 2007 national survey actually shows that insurance companies discriminated against more than 12 million Americans in the previous three years because they had a pre-existing illness or condition. The companies either refused to cover the person, refused to cover a specific illness or condition or charged a higher premium.

President Obama has made his case for the last item especially through American’s personal stories, as noted in another New York Times article, following his visit Saturday to Grand Junction:

At a town-hall-style meeting in a high school gymnasium here on Saturday, Mr. Obama was introduced by Nathan Wilkes, whose family nearly lost their health coverage after costs to care for his 6-year-old son, Thomas, who has severe hemophilia, approached the $1 million lifetime policy cap.

On Friday, in Belgrade, Mont., Mr. Obama was introduced by Katie Gibson, who was dropped by her insurer after she received a cancer diagnosis. On Tuesday, in Portsmouth, N.H., Lori Hitchcock introduced the president; she cannot find insurance, she said, because she has a pre-existing condition.

“If you think that can’t happen to you or your family, think again,” Mr. Obama said here Saturday, adding, “This is part of the larger story, of folks with insurance paying more and more out of pocket.”

The President talks a good talk, and so do many of his allies in Congress.  How many compromises will need to be made to get the bill through (if the ultra-conservatives don’t succeed in derailing it like they’re trying to?

Robert Reich, among others, raises concerns about the deals the President has apparently already made with the pharmaceutical industry for their support (even while talking tough about them at town halls).

Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. That’s basically the same deal George W. Bush struck in getting the Medicare drug benefit, and it’s proven a bonanza for the drug industry.

and

To be sure, as part of its deal with the White House, Big Pharma apparently has promised to cut future drug costs by $80 billion. But neither the industry nor the White House nor any congressional committee has announced exactly where the $80 billion in savings will show up nor how this portion of the deal will be enforced. In any event, you can bet that the bonanza Big Pharma will reap far exceeds $80 billion. Otherwise, why would it have agreed?

The New York Times reported today that “The Obama administration sent signals on Sunday that it has backed away from its once-firm vision of a government organization to provide for the nation’s 50 million uninsured and is now open to using nonprofit cooperatives instead.”

Once again, because the administration feels it needs to compromise.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, has fought to retain the government insurer in the Obama health plan but conceded last week that the White House might not have a choice.

“We have heard from both chambers that the House sees a public plan as essential for a final product, and the Senate believes it cannot pass it as constructed and co-op is what they can do,” he said in an interview. “We are cognizant of that fact.”

But what are insurance co-ops?  Katha Pollitt is still checking on that for the Nation:

Maybe it won’t even have a public plan; it will have insurance co-ops instead. And then, maybe, I should say those will be just as good, as Rahm Emanuel’s brother, Ezekiel Emanuel, the MD/PhD bioethicist, says.

OK, but what are insurance co-ops? I poked around online for fifteen minutes and discovered that they’re untested, small, unregulated, that they exist in twenty states and that Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota really likes them–but I didn’t discover what they actually are.

I don’t know what all these compromises are going to mean, and hope at the end of all this debate we’ll have adequate coverage for everyone, especially the poor and working class, children, the elderly, those with disabilities or already ill or injured.

BidenObama

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

I know none of these negotiations are easy, and think the President and my members of Congress are trying to work for the best deal possible.  I also think those of us who care need to keep pushing them, so they have the support to do the right thing.  Especially with so much of a push on the other side – both for pro-insurance industry “reform” and total fear-mongering nonsense like “death panels.”

Palin for “Death Panels” Before She Was Against Them

15 Aug 2009 Leave a Comment

by Colleen in Barack Obama, Health Care Reform, Racism, Republican Party, Sarah Palin Tags:

So, it turns out that while Sarah Palin is now claiming the section of proposed health care providing for counseling patients in end of life care means there will be “death panels” deciding whether Trig or your grandma lives or die, as Governor she signed a proclamation supporting the same kind of services be available to Alaskans (two days before Trig was born, as someone pointed out).

So was then Governor Palin for “death panels” and she’s now against them?  Or – is she lying to terrify her far right supporters into opposing real health reform? 

According to Think Progress:

However, on April 16th 2008, then Gov. Sarah Palin endorsed some of the same end of life counseling she now decries as a form of euthanasia. In a proclamation announcing “Healthcare Decisions Day,” Palin urged public facilities to provide better information about advance directives, and made it clear that it is critical for seniors to be informed of such options:

WHEREAS, Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions. [...]

WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.

Of course, former Governor Palin isn’t the only conservative apparently for “death panels” before they were against them.  As Think Progress points out “At a conference in April of this year, Gingrich said advance directives can ‘save money’ while also helping to ‘decrease the stress felt by caregivers.’”

According to the Huffington Post, Sen Chuck Grassely, who is also now railing against “death panels” voted for counseling for end-of-life issues in the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill. He wasn’t the only one. “Reps. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), who both claimed end-of-life consultations could result in “government encouraged euthanasia,” also voted for similar policy in 2003.”

So either Republicans were for death panels in 2003 before turning against them now–or they’re lying about end-of-life counseling in order to frighten the bejeezus out of their fellow citizens and defeat health reform by any means necessary. Which is it, Mr. Grassley (“Yea,” 2003)?

As Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer notes in article in Crosscut, the most disturbing part of this is the outright lying.  Apparently, with the Republicans, no good deed goes unpunished.  It was Blumenauer’s amendment made to help make sure dying patients’ wishes would be respected that some of the far right Republicans have been making dire “death panels” warnings about.

Blumenauer, who joined the powerful Ways and Means Committee only in 2007, placed his amendment in HR 3200 as it passed the committee. His intent, which he says was shared by Republicans on the committee, is to improve patient-doctor communication when the end of life nears, to be sure patients understand all the options. Specifically, the language authorizes Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, if the patient wishes. The Blumenauer language prohibits payment for counseling that involves physician-assisted suicide, which has been legalized by popular vote in Oregon and Washington.

So, physician-assisted suicide, the right-to-die legislation we passed in both Oregon and Washington (I voted for it both times), will not be covered.  It’s a non-issue as far as national health care (and if it’s something you’d never consider, it’s a non-issue for residents of Oregon or Washington; it’s there for those of us who would consider it if the pain is bad enough and there’s no hope and our choice, not yours).

Claims by Betsy McCaughey that “the elderly would be required to have counseling on assisted suicide” were “quickly debunked by the Pulitzer-Prize-winning independent fact checker, PolitiFact.com.”  Palin’s claims “envisioning ‘death panels’ for the disabled and elderly” were quickly proven false by fact-checkers for the Associated Press. That wasn’t enough to stop Palin, though.

Palin on Thursday refused to retreat, causing Blumenauer to say he was “astounded” that Palin had not withdrawn her comments. “If she wasn’t deliberately lying at the beginning, she is deliberately allowing a terrible falsehood to be spread with her name.”

What is happening here?

This willingness to spread outright false statements, the Oregon Democrat told Crosscut, is one of the most disturbing aspects of the new political climate. “This would never have happened in the politics of our youth,” he observed. “This is not just a philosophical or policy dispute,” he continued; “it’s outright lying and then refusing to admit it when caught. They are fighting to stop the conversation [with disruptive acts at some healthcare forums].”

This is a disturbing continuation of the type of lies that started during the election. McCain deliberately misunderstanding Obama’s use of the common “lipstick on a pig” expression as being a personal attack on Palin instead of directed at McCain’s policies. Ads claiming Obama wanted to teach in depth sexual education to kindergarten students.

On the one hand, the lies are so blatant that it’s tempting to just laugh at the lies and discredited liars.  Given the amount of screaming and shouting and threats of violence these lies are stirring up, I can’t help but find the lies of Palin and others a bit more sinister, though.  I recall other big lies that worked - Nazi Germany, Rwanda. 

Yes, it’s ironic because some of these right wing nuts are bringing signs with Obama as Hitler (and other, more obviously racist signs).  That’s the idea, though – to demonize those you oppose, to make them less than human.  Instead of trying to get fair and equal health care for everyone including and especially children and the elderly, those of us on the left are allegedly really pushing for “death panels,” even though people are really dying under the current system.

There’s still the underlying racism, too, that these lies are appealing to.  Just witness the “birthers”.  Obama isn’t one of us.  No matter that a birth certificate, closely examined by FactCheck.org had been produced.  No matter that there are copies of newspaper announcements from Honolulu papers at the time.  Some how, these must all be fake and the President was, what, secretly born in Kenya or maybe Mars?

True, the birthers are the right wing fringe and we still have those on the left who claim Trig isn’t Sarah Palin’s son.  Some of the “death panels” claims are coming from elected and formerly elected Republican officials, though, including former Governor Palin.  Many of whom, including Palin, obviously know they are telling lies, yet willing to stir up hatred and anger anyways. 

Health Care: The People vs. the Insurance Companies

14 Aug 2009 Leave a Comment

by Colleen in Barack Obama, Health Care Reform, Sarah Palin Tags: , , , , , , , ,

So, now, facing the serious question of health care reform, we’re back to the silliness of the campaign trail. We have Sarah Palin claiming, on her Facebook page, that President Obama is going to set up “death panels,” a claim that merited a “pants on fire” rating on PolitiFact.com’s Truth-O-Meter:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

We have people organized by ultra-conservative groups shouting down congress members at Town Hall meetings echoing that inane claim and others, including everyone’s going to be forced to government care, but, oh, don’t mess with their Medicare (which they don’t seem to have figured out is a government plan). Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands go without insurance and many of the rest of us are in danger of losing ours.

Cupcake Royale’s blog, Legalize Frostitution, gives a humorous take on the top five health care lies, while really pushing for reform on NBC and NPR. MoveOn.org provides more facts on those same top five lies, and the White House has started a Reality Check page to refute them.

Meanwhile. . . I’m thinking of the lyrics of a Steve Earle song – Amerika v.6.0 (The Best We Can Do):

Meanwhile, back at the hospital
We got accountants playin’ God and countin’ out the pills
Yeah, I know, that sucks – that your HMO
Ain’t doin’ what you thought it would do
But everybody’s gotta die sometime and we can’t save everybody
It’s the best that we can do

We can do better though.  We had thousands marching and (hopefully still)contacting their legislators on the need for comprehensive health care reform. This is the real populist movement. 

As Katha Pollitt asks in The Nation:

Whatever happened to, um, health? Wasn’t that a big part of the original case for reform? The 46 million uninsured, the 20,000 people who die every year for lack of medical care, the studies showing that people without insurance get worse care than those with it, even after car crashes? Where are all those people with infuriating stories of being denied essential care by insurance company bureaucrats, and those who thought they were covered when they weren’t, and those who were hit with huge bills because of fine print in their contracts?

According to Washington CAN, “600,000 Washington residents are uninsured. More than 70 percent are members of working families. . . Employer-based coverage is eroding. In 2004, 38 percent of companies in Washington State did not offer health insurance. . . Small businesses and self-employed individuals are especially vulnerable.  Premium costs have increased more rapidly for small businesses than for large ones, but the  quality of coverage they receive is lower.  One third of the uninsured are self-employed.”

I’m sure former Governor Palin has good health coverage for herself and the rest of her family, including Trig. None of which will change with health care reform. Meanwhile, insurance companies are deciding the fate of others.

From Katha Pollitt’s column:

Listening to the radio earlier this summer, I heard a 59-year-old nurse named Robin Batin testify in the most heart-rending way before the House subcommittee on oversight and investigations, chaired by Representative Bart Stupak. When she developed invasive breast cancer, her insurance company, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, rescinded her coverage because of a pre-existing condition–dermatitis–even though her dermatologist called to say it was acne, not, as the company claimed, a precancerous condition. Stupak confronted the heads of Assurant Health, UnitedHealth and WellPoint with the fact that there are some 1,400 conditions that can be used to cancel a policy, most of them so minor and obscure that the executives had never heard of them. Between 2003 and 2007, the three companies saved $300 million by rescinding at least 19,776 policies. By the time Batin finally got her surgery, her tumor had doubled in size. The Congressmen were shocked–they had no idea. Neither did I. The program? This American Life. I love Ira Glass, but come on, people! “Rescission” should be a word on the tip of everyone’s tongue by now.

You see, as former insurance insider Wendell Potter explains on Bill Moyers, insurance isn’t about helping you when you get sick or injured, it’s about making profits for their Wall Street investors by paying out as little as possible.

From the transcript:

BILL MOYERS: You told Congress that the industry has hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street. You said, “I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.” How do they satisfy their Wall Street investors?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, there’s a measure of profitability that investors look to, and it’s called a medical loss ratio. And it’s unique to the health insurance industry. And by medical loss ratio, I mean that it’s a measure that tells investors or anyone else how much of a premium dollar is used by the insurance company to actually pay medical claims. And that has been shrinking, over the years, since the industry’s been dominated by, or become dominated by for-profit insurance companies. Back in the early ’90s, or back during the time that the Clinton plan was being debated, 95 cents out of every dollar was sent, you know, on average was used by the insurance companies to pay claims. Last year, it was down to just slightly above 80 percent.

So, investors want that to keep shrinking. And if they see that an insurance company has not done what they think meets their expectations with the medical loss ratio, they’ll punish them. Investors will start leaving in droves.

I’ve seen a company stock price fall 20 percent in a single day, when it did not meet Wall Street’s expectations with this medical loss ratio.

For example, if one company’s medical loss ratio was 77.9 percent, for example, in one quarter, and the next quarter, it was 78.2 percent. It seems like a small movement. But investors will think that’s ridiculous. And it’s horrible.

A truly warped way of making money, when you think of it.  What’s someone’s health, or even life worth, as long as the investors have their profit?

This is the reality of what’s happening.  Meanwhile, Sarah is trotting out Trig again for political gain.  Let’s hope she keeps whatever good insurance she has, so insurance executives and Wall Street investors don’t decide whether he can have care while she’s busy making more false claims about Obama.

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