A Decent Health Care Reform Plan–from Max Baucus
Graphic by twolf
Tell me how this sounds for a health care reform plan.
- A national health care exchange
- Buy-in to Medicare at age 55
- No discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions
- No waiting period for Medicare for disabled
- CHIP covers up to 250% of poverty level
- Credits for small businesses and individuals to make health care affordable
Oh, and don’t forget this bit:
- A public option
Now, it may surprise you to learn this. But the architect of this program is none other than Max Baucus–the guy who has been pushing against a public option since the insurers were allowed to drive this debate. Here’s the language from his white paper–dated November 12, 2008–on the public option:
The Exchange would also include a new public plan option, similar to Medicare. This option would abide by the same rules as private insurance plans participating in the Exchange (e.g., offer the same levels of benefits and set the premiums the same way). Rates paid to health care providers by this option would be determined by balancing the goals of increasing competition and ensuring access for patients to high-quality health care
It’s worth reading the whole thing. It’s like a journey through the looking glass, to a time when even a conservative Democrat would openly espouse doing what’s right to truly improve health care. It’s a voyage to a time before the corporations started running this process. And it’s proof that Max Baucus doesn’t believe the option (or lack thereof) that he is currently pitching is the best for this country.
Wouldn’t it be nice if just fucking once a mainstream journalist would call attention to the obvious hypocrisy on the part of Max Baucus? Don’t they have the Googles on their computers?
The news media is corrupt in the venal sense of the term.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3845
Wow!
We need a media that is owned by the people like the Brits have or a more powerful PBS.
It’s not that they don’t have those and other tools. It’s just that doing what you suggest permanently excludes them from ever working for any News Corp outlet. They just can’t risk that.
“Googles” are only available on the “Extended Intertubes” – neither journalists nor politicians have access to this feature.
And here is one of the clear reasons for affordable health care and regulation on the industry.
Ask yourself, who will pay for their crimes?
Us.
More than once.
But at least for a little while, we’ll get to keep it.
Baucus is a smart, educated guy and an obsessional worker–an effective senator. I think he runs in marathons, not the easiest thing to do at the age of 68. He may not be as risk-aversive as we’ve been led to suppose. He’s a survivor who can certainly afford to take a chance.
Interesting, this….. Many thanks, EW, for the lead!
How dare you humanize someone we clearly don’t like???
If we don’t humanize, we have to demonize (or trivialize).
Baucus has done his own share of demonizing and trivializing. It’s worth remembering how he uttered “We need more police” as if it were the cleverest witticism this side of Oscar Wilde, and how his allies and sycophants guffawed in assent.
He wasn’t setting a good example, and there’s always lots of room for improvement….
clearly the medipharm lobbyndustrial complicated deathstar complex got to him, so incensed with his good ideas as they were.
Yep right after the markets about bottomed out, right as the corporates were whining for money. Back BEFORE we bailed them out and returned them all to super power status.
WAY SAD.
Wow. Just Wow.
It just keeps on giving (Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific). What next.
Justices to Revisit Campaign Finance
Sep 3, 2009
By JESS BRAVIN and T. W. FARNAM
WASHINGTON — “The Supreme Court next week will hear arguments on whether corporations and unions have a right to spend their money on campaign advertisements, in a case that tests not only a central pillar of federal campaign-finance law but the court’s own respect for precedent.
“The Supreme Court has been chipping away at the 2002 federal law that limits political spending by corporations and unions, finding that the regulations infringe on their free-speech rights. But it has left standing a key 1990 decision that served as a foundation for the bill — formally known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, and better known as McCain-Feingold, for its Senate sponsors, Arizona Republican John McCain and Wisconsin Democrat Russell Feingold.”
More.
Even John McCain was against torture before he was against his own bill outlawing it.
Yeah, well, I do not know why progressives to not advocate that Medicare buy-in for 55 and olders. Frankly, I think that was the most workable plan to date. I think it should have been passed with the stimulus. It’s an old Bill Clinton proposal.
Heck, you could make buy-in work starting at just about any age. If people are willing to pay the costs, or a good portion them, then younger people could be accommodated. The prime earning years usually start at what, 30, 35? If it was a question of scaling up the agency that handles Medicare, they could do that gradually over a decade, making the starting age lower gradually.
It would certainly help out the Gnome household.
I am going to promote this post on my various intertoob tools to get it wide publicity. Thanks for the Baucus WayBack machine, EW.
Yeah, that would be a good place to start, and then lower the age of eligibility every year.
Bob in AZ
I don’t find this development all that surprising.
Didn’t FDL report a week or so ago that the Democrat cty leaders in MT took the senator to the woodshed and told him to support a public option?
We need more of that.
It’s not a development–it’s ancient history. The White Paper came out last November.
Apparently written before Max’s sponsors yanked his leash.
Do you suppose his corporate masters have him wearing one of those 20,000 volt shock collars?
“Pretty effective, hey Max? Now bend over and squeal like a pig…”
Do you suppose his corporate masters have him wearing one of those 20,000
voltdollar shock collars?Fixed it.
$20,000 barely buys (a senator) lunch on K-Street these days. I think the going rate to buy a senator is $511,787 (corporate donations received by Baucus from January to June, 2009) ;-P
Call me a cynic, but this thing still doesn’t pass the smell test for me. Obviously, I hope I’m wrong about that.
If the application of pressure will get these whores to capitulate, then I suggest we up the ante and start using the bull-buster cattle prod. Sorta speed up the process…
Max has been corrupted as much as Obama by the money and the corporate interests whose lobbyists constantly have the last whisper into Villagers’ ears. The elements of the plan Baucus advocated during the Bush dynasty would be equally attractive today – and Americans need it far more than they did even seven years ago.
Whatsamatter Max? The lobbyists have caught your tongue?
considering the way things have been going, I shouldn’t be surprised if the Senate Finance Committee bill eventually will come to eliminate all of those provisions in lieu of a $500 billion cash infusion to Big Insurance in return for a vague promise that they’ll increase coverage availability. Oh,that and other things rethugs want: elimination of interstate commerce restrictions on insurers and, of course, the introduction of ultra-high-deductible policies to exploit the poor. Baucus would then proceed to label this victory.
More seriously, I guess I’m willing to suspend some of my doubts as I eagerly await the president’s speech next week.
The Baucus in my head whips this plan out at the last possible second and sends it to conference after all the Republicans have walked away and he and all the ConservaDems have stuffed their pockets with industry cash.
*sigh*
Here is a tasty morsal. From HuffPo.
Finger Bitten Off In Fight At Health Care Rally.
The victim was an anti-reformer. He walked to a nearby hospital where the finger was reattached. BTW, he had Medicare.
I kept getting a database error when I tried to include the link. The story is available on the HuffPo main page.
Finger Bitten Off In Fight At Health Care Rally.
Tastes like chicken…
At any rate, definitely the OTHER white meat.
omg!
News Release
For Immediate Release
September 2, 2009
California’s Real Death Panels: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims
PacifiCare’s Denials 40%, Cigna’s 33% in First Half of 2009
More than one of every five requests for medical claims for insured patients, even when recommended by a patient’s physician, are rejected by California’s largest private insurers, amounting to very real death panels in practice daily in the nation’s biggest state, according to data released today by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.
CNA/NNOC researchers analyzed data reported by the insurers to the California Department of Managed Care. From 2002 through June 30, 2009, the five largest insurers operating in California rejected 31.2 million claims for care — 21 percent of all claims.
The data will be presented by Don DeMoro, director of CNA/NNOC’s research arm, the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, at CNA/NNOC’s biennial convention next Tuesday, Sept. 8 in San Francisco. The convention will also feature a panel presentation from nurse leaders in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia exploding the myths about their national healthcare systems.
“With all the dishonest claims made by some politicians about alleged ‘death panels’ in proposed national legislation, the reality for patients today is a daily, cold-hearted rejection of desperately needed medical care by the nation’s biggest and wealthiest insurance companies simply because they don’t want to pay for it,” said Deborah Burger, RN, CNA/NNOC co-president.
For the first half of 2009, as the national debate over healthcare reform was escalating, the rejection rates are even more striking.
PacifiCare denied 40 percent of all California claims in the first six months of 2009. Cigna, which gained notoriety two years ago for denying a liver transplant to 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan of Northridge, Calif. and then reversing itself, tragically too late to save her life, was still rejecting one-third of all claims for the first half of 2009.
“Every claim that is denied represents a real patient enduring pain and suffering. Every denial has real, sometimes fatal consequences,” said Burger.
PacifiCare, for example, denied a special procedure for treatment of bone cancer for Nick Colombo, a 17-year-old teen from Placentia, Calif. Again, after protests organized by Nick’s family and friends, CNA/NNOC, and netroots activists, PacifiCare reversed its decision. But like Nataline Sarkisyan, the delay resulted in critical time lost, and Nick ultimately died. “This was his last effort and the procedure had worked before with people in Nick’s situation,” said his older brother Ricky.
California Blue Cross rejected 28 percent of claims in the first half of 2009. In 2008, six days before RN Kim Kutcher of Dana Point, Calif., was scheduled to have special back surgery, Blue Cross denied authorization for the procedure as “investigational” even though the lumbar artificial disc she was to receive had FDA approval.
At the time of denial, which she calls “insurance hell,” Kutcher notes she had “already gone through pre-op testing, donated a unit of blood, had appointments with four physicians.” Kutcher paid $60,000 out of pocket for the operation and is still fighting Blue Cross.
Kaiser Permanente denied 28 percent of all claims in the first half of 2009.
Rejection of care is a very lucrative business for the insurance giants. The top 18 insurance giants racked up $15.9 billion in profits last year.
“The routine denial of care by private insurers is like the elephant in the room no one in the present national healthcare debate seems to want to talk about,” Burger said. “Nothing in any of the major bills advancing in the Senate or House or proposed by the administration would challenge this practice.”
“The United States remains the only country in the industrialized world where human lives are sacrificed for private profit, a national disgrace that seems on the verge of perpetuation,” she said.
http://www.calnurses.org/media…../20…
hehe… yes. But enquiring minds want to know what % of Republican claims were rejected… since they now seem to be suggesting the death panels will be specifically designed to target them.
Interesting that as soon as Baucus announces his own plan that includes a public option, Enzi pops up like a jack-in-the box clown and says– ‘Hey! Don’t count me out. I still wants to negotiate.’ This after bragging last week at a town hall in Wyoming that he was responsible for the delay in a getting a bill out of his committee.
On a related matter, why is Obama so infatuated with getting Olympia Snow’s vote? Is he still tilting at the windmills of bipartianship? Or is it a simple matter of the math?
If the latter, why not nullify Snowe’s vote with a senator from the other side committing in advance to voting against any bill that doesn’t contain a public option? Bernie Sanders comes to mind.
If more than one senator is in play, rinse and repeat.
Enzi had nothing to do with the timetable. It’s a large important reform and it’s important for the public to have their say, so Congress can learn their concerns and inform them and get a sense of how the public feels about parts of the reform.
We know the public supports it and we know some of them are ill-informed despite lots of explanations and we know the loony-tunes Right will say and do absolutely anything to oppose Obama.
The reform should go through, though it may require the Dems pass the public option part all by themselves.
Isn’t it amazing how easy it is for senators to support reform until it actually gets going and they realize they’re going to have to vote on it? Heh.
Baucus isn’t being hypocritical. He’s consistently been an attention whore. He goes with what keeps him the center of attention.
Hate to say it, but this does sound like a pretty good plan. I wonder if we might get Baucus to switch parties, come over to the Democratic side?
Joe B is talking health care. Claims there will be screaming and yelling.
How in hell do we make these people see the obvious. If health care reform has in it what it should they have a win win situation. If they don’t include a strong public option they lose and we lose. Jesus fucking christ it is all so sad. I called Max Baucus and reminded him that we pay for everything, the savings and loan debacle, illegal wars, legal wars, bailouts etc., and this is what we get in return? no public option and a possible requirement to buy insurance. Anyway, I think the only way to make a difference now is to massively protest and I don’t see that happening but I won’t quit participating. I need more marching instructions..any ideas on how to proceed will be welcomed.
I see the past few years as the baring of the teeth in the class conflict. To oversimplify, the middle class is being squeezed out of existence by the corporations.
Is that another finger-biting joke?
No, that would be “paring by the teeth.”
Wanted to leave this as it states the obvious I mentioned above @36. It is at least a light in the darkness, and maybe some hope that what we on the left (me far far left -:)) are making a difference with our calls and actions.
Props to Jane Hamsher
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..76202.html
November, 2008? Wasn’t there some election around then?
Weird.
That must have been left over from his reelection campaign a couple weeks earlier — either that or the transition team indoctrinization program hadn’t gotten to him yet ;/
This shows how badly progressives have bungled this fight. What once was a moderate compromise is now viewed as some leftist cause. Every progressive in America should have demanded single payer from day one. This would have pulled the entire national discussion to the left, and the public option would have passed as the moderate compromise-– as it obviously is, if Max Baucus once supported it.
It didn’t help that Obama and Democratic leaders blew off single-payer as if the idea didn’t even exist. But make no mistake. By switching our support from single payer to the public option, we turned the public option into some leftist idea in the minds of many, and moderates and Blue Dogs had nowhere to go but to the right, away from the formerly moderate compromise.
Learn to make no compromises, progressives! We’re the only force capable of moving the Overton window to the left!