The parallel could not have been more obvious, nor more totally ignored.
On Tuesday, President Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which includes provisions that cut banks out of the student loan program. This very large market has been subsidized wastefully by taxpayers for years, bloating the profits of banks and diverting vast amounts from actually benefiting students.
"We shouldn't be providing billions in taxpayer-funded giveaways to private banks. We should be providing an affordable, accessible college education to every American." That’s what the President said in signing the bill.
Substitute “health insurance” for “banks”, and “health care” for “college education”, and the statement would read “We shouldn't be providing billions in taxpayer-funded giveaways to private health insurance. We should be providing affordable, accessible health care to every American."
Congress finally woke up and realized that a middle man is totally unnecessary in getting loans from the federal government to students. When will it wake up and realize that a middle party is totally unnecessary in getting health care from the federal government to any citizen who needs it?
If cutting out subsidies to banks will redirect $68 billion to students, think how much money could be redirected to health care by applying the same reasoning. Under the health care reform legislation, billions of dollars in tax credits will be given to lower and middle class individuals so they can buy private health insurance that currently siphons off a third of the payments into profits and executive bonuses.
While it’s true that the new legislation will eventually limit the private health insurers’ profit margins to 15-20%, this is still over twice as much as overhead for Medicare costs. In other words, the public option would enable the redirection of a tremendous amount of taxpayer funds directly to health care by having a public option available.
Notice that no proclamation of an impending Armageddon accompanied elimination of the banks from the student loan program. Of course there were Republicans who protested that too many bankers would lose their jobs, as opposed to helping students, once the profligate subsidies to banks were eliminated. That’s like saying that eliminating the subsidies to private insurance companies for Medicare Advantage plans will cost jobs in the insurance industry, instead of saving the lives of patients.
No, the ramifications of reforming the student loan program went largely ignored. There were no cries of alarm about the federal takeover and socialization of student loans, despite the obvious parallel with public financing for health care. The Congress managed to do the right thing, without a single Republican vote.
Is it really so hard to believe that this Congress could actually pass a public option for health care if it really set its mind to it?
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
“A Decisive Step Forward”
At 8:45 pm MDT last night, the House passed unchanged the Senate version of the health care reform bill, allowing it to go straight to the President for his signature. At 9:30 pm, the House passed a new bill aimed at fixing the more objectionable parts of the Senate’s version. Since all the fixes have to do with funding issues, the bill will be taken up under the Senate’s rules for “reconciliation,” which limit debate to a total of 20 hours, meaning no filibusters and no need to get a 60-vote supermajority. Only 51 senators are needed to pass a reconciliation bill, and more than that number have signed a letter committing themselves to do so. Health care reform will thus become a reality.
“This is not radical change,” as President Obama said, “but it is a decisive step forward.” Since I have been writing this blog, that is what I’ve been advocating – some sort of step away from the dysfunctional state of health care in our country, which provides health care for those who can afford it, much less to no care for those who can’t, and a rapacious, profit-making health insurance industry dependent on the illnesses, injuries, and misfortunes of others.
Notwithstanding predictions to the contrary by the more hysterical opponents of health care reform, it looks like the sun is going to rise after all in the east this morning; as I write this, day appears to be dawning over the Franklin Mountains outside my window. Furthermore, my guess is that democracy as we know it will still be operating throughout the day, and the harsh heel of totalitarianism will not be felt by nightfall, or tomorrow, or any day in the foreseeable future – at least not just because over 30 million Americans who currently do not have health insurance will eventually be able to get it.
In case you missed the 10 hour ordeal on C-SPAN yesterday (since UTEP and Kansas got knocked out of the NCAA tournament in its early stages, I didn’t have anything else to watch), those things about the end of freedom and democracy were actually stated on the floor of the House of Representatives. Then, in a twist that I found highly ironic, one opponent after another, stepped up to the microphone to announce, in these precise words, “I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks in opposition to this flawed health care bill.” In what was obviously an orchestrated event to delay the proceedings as long as possible, the Republicans came in waves, using the same wording over and over. Precisely. Just like robots. Like in Orwell’s “1984.”
This week the Senate will take up the reconciliation bill, to fix the unsavory aspects of its version of the legislation that it had to include in order to get the 60 votes before. Be warned that this will not be easy or pretty. The Senate has the capacity to turn any common-sense measure – anything that is good for all the people and not so good for the privileged few who have bought their way to influence – into a messy and still flawed piece of legislation. But this time, it’ll be a lot more fun to watch, knowing that the pompous righteousness of Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the heightened self-importance of Olympia Snowe (R-ME), the self-conscious agonizing by Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and the blatant extortion by Ben Nelson (D-NE) will have no effect. We don’t need your votes any more, thank you very much.
So we could be in for another week or two of tortured rhetoric and chest pounding. Hopefully, the worst of the opponents – the protestors who cursed and spat upon elected representatives of the people on Saturday – will crawl back under their rocks. Maybe some of the aforementioned senators, now freed from their ability to thwart the course of history, will return to being the statesmen that some of them once were. In any event, while the final buzzer hasn’t sounded, no amount of fouling by the opposition is going to alter the final outcome.
Health care reform – highly flawed, inadequate, and imperfect as it is – will finally come to the United States of America.
“This is not radical change,” as President Obama said, “but it is a decisive step forward.” Since I have been writing this blog, that is what I’ve been advocating – some sort of step away from the dysfunctional state of health care in our country, which provides health care for those who can afford it, much less to no care for those who can’t, and a rapacious, profit-making health insurance industry dependent on the illnesses, injuries, and misfortunes of others.
Notwithstanding predictions to the contrary by the more hysterical opponents of health care reform, it looks like the sun is going to rise after all in the east this morning; as I write this, day appears to be dawning over the Franklin Mountains outside my window. Furthermore, my guess is that democracy as we know it will still be operating throughout the day, and the harsh heel of totalitarianism will not be felt by nightfall, or tomorrow, or any day in the foreseeable future – at least not just because over 30 million Americans who currently do not have health insurance will eventually be able to get it.
In case you missed the 10 hour ordeal on C-SPAN yesterday (since UTEP and Kansas got knocked out of the NCAA tournament in its early stages, I didn’t have anything else to watch), those things about the end of freedom and democracy were actually stated on the floor of the House of Representatives. Then, in a twist that I found highly ironic, one opponent after another, stepped up to the microphone to announce, in these precise words, “I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks in opposition to this flawed health care bill.” In what was obviously an orchestrated event to delay the proceedings as long as possible, the Republicans came in waves, using the same wording over and over. Precisely. Just like robots. Like in Orwell’s “1984.”
This week the Senate will take up the reconciliation bill, to fix the unsavory aspects of its version of the legislation that it had to include in order to get the 60 votes before. Be warned that this will not be easy or pretty. The Senate has the capacity to turn any common-sense measure – anything that is good for all the people and not so good for the privileged few who have bought their way to influence – into a messy and still flawed piece of legislation. But this time, it’ll be a lot more fun to watch, knowing that the pompous righteousness of Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the heightened self-importance of Olympia Snowe (R-ME), the self-conscious agonizing by Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and the blatant extortion by Ben Nelson (D-NE) will have no effect. We don’t need your votes any more, thank you very much.
So we could be in for another week or two of tortured rhetoric and chest pounding. Hopefully, the worst of the opponents – the protestors who cursed and spat upon elected representatives of the people on Saturday – will crawl back under their rocks. Maybe some of the aforementioned senators, now freed from their ability to thwart the course of history, will return to being the statesmen that some of them once were. In any event, while the final buzzer hasn’t sounded, no amount of fouling by the opposition is going to alter the final outcome.
Health care reform – highly flawed, inadequate, and imperfect as it is – will finally come to the United States of America.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Top 10 Reasons to Vote for the Health Care Reform Reconciliation Bill
The reconciliation bill about to be voted on by the House this weekend is far from perfect. It represents a boon to the private health insurance industry, does not ensure that everyone will be covered, does not do enough to rein in the costs of unnecessary, defensive, and duplicative treatments, and, most regrettably, does not include a form of public health insurance for all, akin to Medicare, VA care, or Tricare.
Notwithstanding the severe deficiencies above, our representatives in Congress should be urged in the strongest terms to vote in favor of the bill. My top 10 reasons for support of this legislation are the following:
10. Provides significant support for community and mental health clinics, as the first line of defense for outpatient medical care that diverts patients from expensive and wasteful treatment in emergency rooms.
9. Reduces the national debt by billions of dollars over the first 10 years, and by over a trillion dollars in the second decade. This is the largest projected deficit-reduction bill that this Congress will consider.
8. Closes the “doughnut hole” in prescription drug coverage.
7. Significantly reduces federal subsidies to private insurance companies for so-called Medicare Advantage Plans, which provide little advantage and represent a monumental rip-off of taxpayer money for private profiteers.
6. Restrains the growth in health care costs by instituting weak but improved means of reducing fraud, waste and abuse.
5. Prohibits denial of insurance for preexisting conditions in children six months after enactment, and for everyone starting in 2014.
4. Mandates that a larger share of health insurance premiums go directly to patient health care instead of stockholder dividends and excessive executive bonuses.
3. Provides a step in the direction of a competitive health insurance market, by establishing health insurance exchanges for people otherwise lacking coverage. (While far short of the benefits of a public option, this will begin to make available to people outside the federal government, menu options similar to what members of Congress enjoy.)
2. Represents a major if imperfect step toward universal health care.
1. Consolidates into law the view that provision of affordable health care is an implicit and legitimate government responsibility. Everyone should have health care as a right, and should take responsibility for sharing in its expense.
Notwithstanding the severe deficiencies above, our representatives in Congress should be urged in the strongest terms to vote in favor of the bill. My top 10 reasons for support of this legislation are the following:
10. Provides significant support for community and mental health clinics, as the first line of defense for outpatient medical care that diverts patients from expensive and wasteful treatment in emergency rooms.
9. Reduces the national debt by billions of dollars over the first 10 years, and by over a trillion dollars in the second decade. This is the largest projected deficit-reduction bill that this Congress will consider.
8. Closes the “doughnut hole” in prescription drug coverage.
7. Significantly reduces federal subsidies to private insurance companies for so-called Medicare Advantage Plans, which provide little advantage and represent a monumental rip-off of taxpayer money for private profiteers.
6. Restrains the growth in health care costs by instituting weak but improved means of reducing fraud, waste and abuse.
5. Prohibits denial of insurance for preexisting conditions in children six months after enactment, and for everyone starting in 2014.
4. Mandates that a larger share of health insurance premiums go directly to patient health care instead of stockholder dividends and excessive executive bonuses.
3. Provides a step in the direction of a competitive health insurance market, by establishing health insurance exchanges for people otherwise lacking coverage. (While far short of the benefits of a public option, this will begin to make available to people outside the federal government, menu options similar to what members of Congress enjoy.)
2. Represents a major if imperfect step toward universal health care.
1. Consolidates into law the view that provision of affordable health care is an implicit and legitimate government responsibility. Everyone should have health care as a right, and should take responsibility for sharing in its expense.
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