Health Policy Archives - Page 19 of 22

Waxman Keeps Gathering Data

August 31, 2009/22 Comments/in Health Policy /by emptywheel

On August 17, Henry Waxman requested information from insurance companies designed to embarrass them and those who attend their conferences. We later found out that Waxman had been collecting information longer than that–he started researching insurance Astroturf in July.

Today, Waxman sent letters to Aetna, Humana, Medica, United Health, Wellmark, and Wellpoint to find out whether they’ve been purging small businesses that employ someone who experiences a medical crisis.

"I began looking into the practices of the health insurance industry in the last Congress and was deeply disturbed by what we uncovered," said Chairman Waxman. "As part of our ongoing investigation, we are now looking into the practice of health insurance companies terminating the coverage of small businesses when their employees become ill and their health insurance claims increase. We need to better understand how widespread this harmful and destructive practice has become, and how it is impacting small businesses and their employees across the country."

"As we continue our investigation into business practices in the health insurance industry, the treatment of small businesses remains a concern," said Chairman Stupak. "We have documented examples of insurance companies raising small business premiums by an unsustainable amount or canceling a policy once it is discovered a covered employee is sick. Much like rescissions in the individual market, this practice is alarming. To better understand how prevalent this practice is and precisely how many small businesses are impacted, we are asking some of the largest insurers to provide information on their small business policies."

The Committee is requesting information and documents for small group policies, including their renewal rates, factors used to determine premium rates, and the maximum premium rate increases.[my emphasis]

Now, none of this is going to do any good unless Waxman starts liberating this information to be used in the health care fight. His request for information that should embarrass the Bayhs is due back on Friday–we’ll see whether we can make use of this information then.

The Pundits Come Out in Force

August 26, 2009/62 Comments/in Democrats, Health Policy /by emptywheel

Much of the news media has, I think, treated Ted Kennedy’s passing with the appropriate respect.

But a significant swath of pundits have leapt–without pause–into issuing projections about how Ted Kennedy’s death will affect the health care debate. They are not, mind you, calling attention to how his passing changes the parliamentary landscape for the health care bill: noting that Dems will no longer have a filibuster-proof majority until such time as Massachusetts sends another Democrat to the Senate in the next five months or so, noting that one or two potentially appropriate replacements for Kennedy–like Ed Markey–would open up holes in key Committees in the House. They aren’t so much noting the things that could change the debate: Obama adopting a different stance towards the HELP bill, for example, or naming the bill after Kennedy (which Senator Byrd has already called to do).

Rather, they are suggesting they know whether Kennedy’s passing will make health care more or less likely; or make a bill with a public option more or less likely.

That pisses me off for a number of reasons.

First, such reflexive punditry–the urge to claim omniscience about politics–arises out of the 24-hour cable world, a need to fill time. Yet to so quickly jump to making pronouncements about whether Ted Kennedy’s death is a "win" for progressive Democrats or conservative Democrats, Republicans, and their corporate backers (which is really what this is about) suggests the cable news channels have exhausted all the things they have to say about Kennedy, the man. Now, Teddy Kennedy’s record of achievement in the Senate is a half-century testimony of all that progressives have brought to this country. And if the cable news can spend a week paying tribute to Michael Jackson’s half-century career in music, then they sure as hell can spend at least one day paying tribute to Ted Kennedy’s half-century leading this nation. To so quickly turn his death into one event in a horse race dishonors the man and slights his great achievements.

But I’m perhaps most pissed about this urge to claim to know what will happen now because of the way I look on death. Today is a day to pay tribute to Ted Kennedy, absolutely. But it’s also a day to reflect on what his life means, and to reflect on how–for those of us who honor that legacy–we can keep his dream alive through our own actions.

Better than Clearing Brush … Getting HELP from Kennedy?

August 23, 2009/95 Comments/in Health Policy /by emptywheel

The AP and Politico have competing stories up speculating that–along with clearing brush this week–Obama might pay Ted Kennedy a visit. The AP, relying entirely on speculation, suggests a visit could be a big boost for Obama’s efforts to pass health care reform, one of Kennedy’s lifelong goals. The Politico, relying on an email from a Kennedy aide, says Obama is not and never was scheduled to visit Kennedy.

But a Kennedy aide said in an e-mail Friday that an Obama-Kennedy visit is not going to happen and was never in the works.

Given Kennedy’s apparent health struggles of late, it may be that he’s not up to meeting with Obama in the first place, and particularly not if Obama comes with press corps in tow.

That said, for the next week, Obama will be one 10 to 15 mile chopper ride away from the man who perhaps unexpectedly bestowed on Obama the Kennedy mantle–and in doing so, had a significant role in getting Obama elected. Obama owes Kennedy, Obama is flailing with legislation Kennedy cares deeply about, and this may be the last time Kennedy can collect on Obama’s debts to him.

Therein may be the problem.

After all, the AP is correct that even reports of an Obama visit to Hyannisport would boost Obama’s fortunes and presumably those of health care legislation. A visit followed by a call to "Do it for Teddy!" might inspire Democrats (and possibly some of Kennedy’s close friends on the other side of the aisle) to pull together to get this done.

But for what bill?

Discussions I’ve seen on a potential visit all focus on Obama’s current trajectory, which appears to be an attempt to pass insurance company reform under the cover of public option kabuki. None of that discussion on a potential Kennedy visit focuses on the HELP bill–Kennedy’s bill, shepherded through by Chris Dodd. One that resembles those passed through the House, including a public option.

If I were Kennedy, I wouldn’t let Obama set foot in my house unless he promised to ditch the Rahm/Messina plan to follow the Baucus plan. If I were Kennedy, I’d use this opportunity to kick Obama’s ass for embracing that fraudulent kabuki after all the things Kennedy has done to help Obama.

And if I were Obama, I might take that opportunity to pivot. Read more →

Jello Jay Gets Into the Act

August 22, 2009/74 Comments/in Health Policy /by emptywheel

After the insurance industry started squawking when Henry Waxman started demanding more details about their business practices, Jello Jay Rockefeller has gotten into the act (h/t Susie).

A U.S. Senate Democrat asked the top 15 health insurers to explain what portion of premiums go to profits versus patient care, putting further pressure on the companies to explain their business practices as Congress considers sweeping health reform legislation.

In letters to the companies on Friday, Sen. John Rockefeller also asked for information about how insurers disclose financial practices to customers.

If nothing else, Waxman and Jello Jay are keeping the AHIP schlep trying to accuse them of being mean busy. At some point, Robert Zirkelbach will have the credibility of Baghdad Bob.

"Some in Washington are trying to shift the focus to the insurance industry rather than talk about solutions to the health care concerns raised by the American people," Zirkelbach said.

Let’s just hope Jello Jay and Waxman figure out a way to collect—and use (or, barring them collecting it successfully, using that) this information as things heat up next month.

I might yet have to ditch the moniker Jello Jay.

Waxman’s Methods

August 22, 2009/62 Comments/in Health Policy /by emptywheel

In a jello-wrestling match between Rahm Emanuel and Henry Waxman, I think I’d bet on the latter. While Rahm has been frantically and loudly pursuing two opposing strategies–the Messina-Baucus welfare program for the insurance industry hidden under the guise of the public option kabuki, Waxman has been quietly preparing for battle in September. And it sounds like the insurance industry is getting increasingly worried that Waxman will be better prepared than Rahm and his little kabuki dance.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman raised eyebrows this week when he launched a financial probe into the nation’s largest insurance companies, which are at the center of the health reform battle.

Now POLITICO has learned that Waxman’s recent investigation began almost a month earlier than previously thought – with letters to the insurance industry’s powerful trade group and its consultant regarding grassroots tactics.

A committee spokeswoman defended the probes – saying lawmakers need to know that private insurance money is being spent effectively as part of the effort to control costs. But the trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, is crying foul, saying Waxman is merely trying to bring it in line behind his version of the health reform bill.

"Congressional oversight is not a tool that should be used to chill dissent," said AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach. "These investigations are nothing more than politically motivated, taxpayer-financed fishing expeditions designed to intimidate and silence health plans."

Now, I don’t for a second think that Waxman can win this on his own, that even armed with the information he’s seeking (assuming the insurance industry doesn’t stall, which they will) he will be able to silence Baucus and his industry-owned cohort.

But at the very least, what Waxman will succeed in doing is demonstrate that his legislative foes haven’t even considered (or, more likely, would like to hide) the business realities of those whose bidding they’re doing. You’re going to have health insurance executives asking for a huge subsidy at the same time as they cry foul when asked to provide some documents about their business. And those hysterical cries will be pitted against some very rational voices speaking quietly about cost control–precisely what the Blue Dogs and the insurance industry shills claim to be pursuing.

“If we’re going to get health costs under control, we need to make sure that our private health insurance dollars are spent as efficiently as possible. That means our premium dollars should Read more →

Rick Scott Aspires to Do as al Qaeda Did

August 21, 2009/129 Comments/in Health Policy, Press and Media /by emptywheel

In 2001, terrorists capitalized on George Bush’s inattention and extended vacation to strike at America. Now, Rich Scott’s Conservatives for Patients’ Rights believes it can adopt al Qaeda’s tactics by attacking our country while the President is on vacation. "Even on vacation, the President will get no quarter on the public option from Conservatives for Patients’ Rights." And they’re running an ad that somewhat bizarrely tries to mock Obama’s vacation.

There are obvious problems with this strategy. First, regardless of what you think of the White House strategy on health care, mocking Obama for taking the first week of vacation he has had all year will only invite comparisons with Bush, who spent 977 days at either Camp David or Crawford during his presidency–well over a year on the pig farm where he twiddled as New Orleans drowned and blew off warnings about an imminent al Qaeda by dismissing briefers for "covering their ass." Conservatives for PR may be trying to mock Obama by suggesting he’s traveling to an effete location with no brush to clear. But at least this President hasn’t spent significant portions of his term AWOL during crises, like Bush did.

The big question is whether our press corps will step up to the challenge.

Already, they have enabled groups like Conservatives for PR to use terrorist tactics–the staging of scary public spectacles–to hijack the debate on health care. The media has magnified fake fear-mongering stunts rather than calming the fear by cutting through the misinformation. And perhaps predictably, the usual suspects are out pitching Conservatives for PR’s nonsensical ad for them. Apparently, Joe Scarborough and Mike Allen don’t understand that treating this ad seriously–reporting this ad without, at the same time, highlighting the irony of attacking Obama on an area in which he exposes Bush’s failures by comparison–only proves that they have been captured by the fear-mongerers hoping to put profits above Americans’ lives.

No matter, though. The President may be headed off for his reasonable one week vacation. But the rest of us will remain vigilant: you and me, the 5,000 people who have given $300,000 in a matter of days to reward those who will stand up and defend real health care reform, and of course, the tireless Jane, who I hope takes a long week on a beach once we win this fight. Read more →

Why Does SEIU’s Andy Stern Sound Like Rahm Emanuel?

August 20, 2009/44 Comments/in Health Policy /by emptywheel

Update: SEIU contacted me to say that Andy would in no way be "happy" with triggers–he was asked a hypothetical question and answered it in this way. One of the SEIU’s three demands is a public health insurance option, and the union has been running one of the largest field campaigns in support of that. I’ve changed the post to more accurately represent Andy’s comments.

It’s bad enough that a guy who usually has just as much fight as Rahm is telling ABC that ~~he’d be happy with triggers~~ triggers are a better compromise than co-ops.

He signaled that a more acceptable compromise might be to create a public option whose creation is only triggered if certain circumstances are met.

"It’s obviously better than no public option," said Stern.

Triggers, of course, are Rahm’s favorite gimmick. And Andy-who-sounds-like Rahm must know that triggers mean people who need healthcare now won’t get it until two years beyond whenever this finally gets implemented–years and years down the road. So answer me this, Andy-who-sounds-like-Rahm? Do you really think delaying health care for millions is going to solve the problem you enunciate about winning in 2010?

"I think we’re talking losing control of Congress," said Andy Stern, the President of the Service Employees International Union. "[The failure of health-care reform] would totally empower Republicans to kill all change."

"It’s hard to imagine the Democrats convincing the public that Republicans are to blame for health-care reform going down when the Democrats have such large majorities," he added. "After last year’s promise of change, voters will start feeling buyer’s remorse."

You’re telling me people are not going to feel buyer’s remorse if the Democrats take that same large majority and tell them they can have health care, but only after their current, pre-existing condition either bankrupts or kills them?

"Oh, sure, we lost Dad when good healthcare could have saved him, but we still love the Democrats because Rahm asked so nicely for that two year delay in the guise of triggers and the rest of the Democrats gave it to him."

What surprises me is that Andy-who-sounds-like Rahm knows, in a way that I suspect Rahm doesn’t, how much misery that seemingly innocuous idea of triggers would unnecessarily cause a lot of people.

But I think I’ve discovered why Andy sounds so much like Rahm.

Stern is prepared to use SEIU resources to pressure recalcitrant Democrats in Congress if progress is not made by Sept. 15, the deadline which Senate Finance Committee negotiators have set for themselves.

For now, however, he is holding his fire against fellow Democrats since the president has signaled through his staff that he does not want Democrats shooting at one another.

"We call it: ‘helping the president be successful,’" said Stern with a smile.

Almost word-for-word the prettied up version of Rahm’s fuck-laden attack on the liberal groups "in the veal Read more →

The Wind And The Lion: Ted Kennedy Mans Up To Mortality

August 19, 2009/83 Comments/in Bingo, Health Policy /by emptywheel

The question has gone unasked out of respect, or murmured only quietly in back rooms: What about Teddy’s health? Nobody wanted to be the one to say it in public. Nobody had to; once again Ted Kennedy is ahead of us. In a posting late Wednesday at the Boston Globe, comes news that Senator Edward M. Kennedy has authored a letter to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Congressional leaders requesting that provisions be made for his successor.

Literally generations of politically active American citizens have been motivated to study and participate in the political process by the men–and women–of the Kennedy family (I am one). Since the tragedies of the 60s however, the Old Lion of the family, and, indeed, the US Senate (and Democratic politics as a whole), has been Edward M. Kennedy. The sturm and drang of the current health care fight? That has been his battle cry for decades. Barack Obama? Likely still a Senator if Ted Kennedy had endorsed Hillary Clinton instead. Name an important piece of social legislation passed in the last four plus decades and his fingerprints are on it.

So the question of "what if" about his health is an unpleasant, emotional and difficult one. But recent events have made the question undeniably germane. Senator Kennedy wasn’t present for the Judiciary Committee consideration of Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination; you knew he wanted to be there, but his absence was understandable. When he also was absent from the Senate floor for the historic confirmation vote for Sotomayor, the first Hispanic American elevated to the Court, you had a feeling he was seriously ill. A week later, when he could not attend the presentation when he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by Barack Obama, a man he likens to his brother John, you knew it was bad. And then he was absent from the funeral for his sister Eunice. Ted Kennedy always gave the eulogies for Kennedy family members; he always had to, and he was always there. Always. Until now.

From The Globe:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, in a poignant acknowledgment of his mortality at a critical time in the national health care debate, has privately asked the governor and legislative leaders to change the succession law to guarantee that Massachusetts will not lack a Senate vote when his seat becomes vacant.

In a personal, sometimes wistful letter sent Tuesday to Governor Deval L. Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray, and House Speaker Read more →

A Chebby In The National Driveway & Lesson In Healthcare Messaging

August 19, 2009/30 Comments/in automobiles, Culture, Health Policy, Obama Administration, Press and Media /by emptywheel

Barack Obama is bad and he’s nationwide. And he’s got a brand new ride. Check out the sled he has rolled up in the driveway of the South Portico of the White House (image by Mark Knoller). I guess when you own GM it ain’t that hard to get a Chevrolet.

Say what you will about NASCAR, they are the absolute masters of brilliant product placement, fan involvement and brand messaging. They never miss an opportunity, and always have the discipline, to be on message, be consistent, sell their ideology and run a forceful and effective PR ship. Today, that ruthless efficiency was brought to the White House and Barack Obama. From the LA Times:

Wednesday afternoon President Obama appeared live on the ESPN2 show "NASCAR Now." The show originated from the White House because three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson was being honored for, well, being a NASCAR champion, on the South Lawn of the White House.

"NASCAR Now" host Nicole Manske and talented analyst Brad Daugherty grilled our president about who might win the Sprint Cup championship this year and what he thought about Johnson. We were rewarded with a penetrating answer to that question that included the quote: "He looks like a pretty young guy."

Like I said, brilliant. NASCAR got their champion driver, Jimmy Johnson, in the White House, rolled his #48 Rick Hendrick Lowe’s/Kobalt Tools Chevrolet Impala up for some glamor shots and prime video footage and they managed to get it all covered by ESPN for their proprietary NASCAR show, NASCAR Now.

Now that, folks, is how you sell your product. Were it only that the Barack Obama White House had a fraction of these skills in selling their national healthcare policy. Not so much. In fact, it has been an astoundingly flimsy and ill conceived pitch almost from the start, and we still don’t know what in the world Obama and the White House really stand for on the topic. As Adam Green at Open Left put it:

One could parse, and say Rahm’s quote could still include the possibility of bipartisanship, but still: there’s something called message discipline. The last four days have seen: statement, backtrack, statement, backtrack.
…
Seriously. Can someone describe for me some master plan that might be at play here? If not, White House communications team — WTF?

No kidding. As Adam noted, Jon Stewart sums it up beautifully:

Mr. Read more →

Oh yes. The Henry Waxman we know and love.

August 19, 2009/39 Comments/in Health Policy /by emptywheel

Remember back in the good old days, when Henry Waxman was Chair of Oversight? Something would piss him off and–like clockwork, approximately 4 hours into the next business day–he’d send out some letters that would make corporate CEOs quiver and bitch. We haven’t gotten to see that Henry Waxman so much now that he chairs Commerce.

However, I think Waxman is getting a little tired with Rahm’s attempts to sideline the work of the Commerce Committee.

Because on Monday he sent out a demand for information on health insurance company’s exorbitant costs–returnable in time for the health care debate in Congress in September.

He’s asking for the following by September 4:

A table listing the total compensation for every employee making more than $500,000 a year
A table listing board member compensation
A table listing off-site conferences and retreats
A table listing the company’s total revenue and net income

And the following by September 14:

Communication with the board on compensation packages
Tables listing premium revenue, claims payments, and sales expenses

And here’s the list of insurance companies mean old Henry is picking on. In case you wondering, Mrs. Bayh’s company, Wellpoint, is on that list. I would imagine that after these details become public–just as the debate between the House and Senate picks up–Evan Bayh might think a little differently about how he represents the interests of–as Mrs. Greenspan calls them–the conservative Democrats in Indiana. Likewise, once Waxman has the details of the retreats that some of those obstructing reform have attended, it may change their commitment to obstruction pretty quickly.

It appears that one of the recipient companies (I’m trying to figure out what PPM would be the abbreviation for) went whining to Mike Allen, complaining,

This is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded fishing expedition designed to silence health plans.

But jeebus! Isn’t this information precisely the kind of information we ought to have in hand before we decide how to reform health care?

Henry? Nice to see you back in old form.