Bad Max Provides More Details
Graphic by twolf
On Thursday, I pointed out how much better the health care plan presented by Max Baucus last November was than what he was proposing now. Well, Bad Max–the guy aiming to implement a giant subsidy for the insurance companies–has provided more details. Aside from the decision to tax Cadillac plans (which, the NYT points out, will probably be passed onto consumers), Bad Max hasn’t provided that many details.
But here’s what a comparison looks like so far.
Good Max
Mandate
Medical Exchange
Payroll deduction payment
Small business tax credit
Premium subsidies for <400% PL
Medicare buy-in for >55
Expand Medicaid
CHIP coverage to 250% PL
Public option
Preventative care
Payment incentives for quality
Health care IT
Patient-centered medical homes
Medical malpractice reform
Tax reform (incl taxing better plans)
Bad Max
Mandate
Medical Exchange
Premium subsidies for <300% PL; protections for <400% PL
Expand Medicaid
No public option
Taxing better plans
<70% expense coverage
$11,900 family out of pocket
I’m warm and fuzzy for Bad Max and his plans covering less than 70% of care already.
And, the difference in the six months between Good Max and Bad Max?
About $511,000 of Healthcare/Insurance Industry love.
I have a question about Cadillac plans (sometimes they like to call them gold-plated). If I have good coverage through my job but don’t get sick and don’t actually collect any benefits, would I be taxed because the plan itself is considered to be valuable?
You might have to pay higher premiums through your work if the insurance company figured out a way to pass on those costs. Or your employer could just switch down to shittier health care.
And of course, a lot of people with these “gold plated” plans are union members who took health care in exchange for wage increases.
Max is a fraud and has taken major payoff money from Big Healthcare as have all of the Blue Dogs. They’ve exchanged money in return for their vote to kill anything that provides competition to the gouging, rationing, death-panels called insurance companies.
Blue Dogs are ALL complicit in the effort to further gouge, dehumanize, and rape the american people.
One thing is crystal clear:
Good Max occurred BEFORE he took megabucks from Big Insurance.
Bad Max is the post-payoff Max.
Max Baucus is a national disgrace and needs to be removed from office immediately.
sadly, no. Max has been taking this money for quite some time now. and has become quite the sugar daddy among his Senate colleagues with the cash he’s distributed to them via his GlacierPac:
wildly coincidental too that his last Chief of Staff before 1/20/09 is now Rahm’s Deputy
the ‘good max’ piece was a cynical gesture – getting something outta the way before Fundraising proper could commence
Amazin’, isn’t it, how a politician can take taxpayer contributions contributed to him or her and give it to another politician that the original contributor might hate or to someone who has no willingness or ability to support the state or interests of that contributor?
The electoral funding game is so rigged, it’s like a Chinese boat with all rigging and no sails, anchored to the bottom of a lake of corporate contributions because it’s made of marble and can’t float on its own.
We need more Blue Dog ads – along with Corrupt Repuke ads. It’s time to out these crooks once and for all.
I love that his out-of-pocket payment limits are higher than those in the (already crappy) House bill.
Nothing like taking something bad and making it worse.
Right, just between out-of-pocket and premiums, Bad Max is asking middle class families to pay 26% of their income to health care.
Yes, and he’s claiming that paying more than 12 percent is bad.
Can we arrange for one of the fish to bite him, on one of his fishing trips?
We’re going to need a bigger fish.
I’ve seen some pretty large koi, almost big enough to carry Trident missiles. Would one of those help?
Oh, PJEvans, you wanna see big fishes, look at Nomi Prins updated summary of the Federal Bailout numbers. [PDF warning, for those with browser issues]
FWIW, Prins will be at FDL Book Salon in late Sept.
Wonder whether Max Baucus might get a bit more spine if he had an advanced copy of Prins’ “It Takes A Pillage”?
Should I put LOL here just for the halibut?
Think you and PJ missed my excessively subtle pop culture reference.
Heh.
Sorry, I really don’t do pop culture. I’ve been out of it for, oh, twenty or thirty years.
Bad Max strikes: not triggers, co-ops. Sheesh.
Who ever thought the Democratic party would disintegrate in this fashion?
I didn’t.
Bad Max = Democratic Party D.O.A.
Well Max, we, the people, consider you a murderer on the loose. You are a dangerous criminal on a rampage. You have killed, and there is little doubt that you intend to kill again. You are a serial murderer. You are a sociopath, and have admitted it.
I don’t suppose you will ever return to Montana now that your constituents know, will you? Where does the insurance lobby suggest you retire to?
Thanks ever so much for highlighting this travesty, EW. You bring considerable clout to the arena. As readerOfTeaLeaves sez, “Who ever thought the Democratic party would disintegrate in this fashion?” Indeed.
O/T, Labor Day. In honor of Labor Day and all those men, women and children who participated in the protected, bitter and on-going struggle for better wages, better working conditions, better benefits (including health care)–a better life for all.
This is why this entire thing needs to be scrapped, and we need to begin again with real open hearings so that the public is informed all along the way and no back room deals are done.
The problem here is “Who knows what the heck is in the 1000 pages?” Yes, there are the bullet points that sound good, but who knows if there are many other things, the result of back room deals like with pharma, that we don’t like that are stuck in there too?
We need to scrap it, bring in the light of day, and begin again and design something that really works and includes all angles of reform.
Maybe single payer, maybe tort reform, maybe other reform.
Just junk it and begin again and do it right this time.
Thanks for reminding me that someone in the public eye needs to remind PBO right now that he promised that the healthcare reform negotiations would be be broadcast live on CNN.
Which means Jaws, circa 1975, would still be in your frame of reference. *laughing*
First movie I ever saw with a date. He was so nervous and so scared, he chewed off my fingernails while holding my hand and watching the movie.
I don’t know if it was because my mother was with us.
Ugh. No movie dates with you then!!
Mother???
I was 14 years old, and it was one of my first dates. The movie theater was 30 miles away and neither my date nor I could drive.
And my mom and I had both read Benchley’s book the previous month (great beach read!).
So mom came along. My date didn’t mind anyhow.
Well, I did think about sharks, but decide he never goes close to the ocean. (The shark population in Montana is all two-legged, anyway.)
(Saw ‘Jaws’ twice, actually. Skipped the sequels; they couldn’t have beaten the first one.)
For those who have never seen it: this is more what I was thinking of.
So, let me be absolutely clear:
– Good Max is what that wonderful fellow Max Baucus proposed in November.
And
– Bad Max is what that son of a bitch is proposing today.
Just askin’.