I don’t understand how a country that spends 20% of its GDP on health care can compete in the world economy, and that’s too high a price. Maybe President Obama can go on television and explain this to us.

He makes that argument all the time and also states that this bill will prevent that doomsday scenario, but when a counter argument like this is made, that this reform is illusory, they switch to personal attacks.

Is Leibercare better than Hillarycare?. If so, why? If not, why not?

Good post. You’ve got to remember though that the “provisions that will make a difference” to some people come at the expense of their neighbors who are paying the mandate penalty or the excise tax. Meanwhile it’s business as usual for the health industry, corporate America, and the wealthy.

Beggar thy neighbor is not progressive reform, and it’s political poison for Democrats.

Health insurance companies have three huge problems that make them a great target for reformers. Their balance sheets are larded with goodwill and intangible assets, which don’t have a cash value. Their value depends on the ability of the company to stay in business and make profits. The recession has cost the health insurance companies millions of customers, and threatens their ability to make the kind of profits these companies need to keep that goodwill on the books. Companies responded by raising rates to appease Wall Street. This has caused great pain to the remaining customers, including small businesses and people in the individual market for health insurance. The result is that an already hated industry created even more ill-will among the general populace. These weaknesses created a real opening for substantive change.

The lack of attention paid to the weaknesses of Big Insurance’s balance sheets is a huge scandal to me. This is something that could dwarf Enron and nobody’s covering it, just like nobody covered Enron — or like how nobody but the DFHs and a few financial writers whose work was largely ignored by most mainstream media realized that what Atrios called “Big Shitpile” was going to take down the world economy.

I recognize that it does contain some provisions that will make a difference to a lot of people.

I hear that line from a lot of people, but I don’t really understand what those provisions are? And assuming there are actual benefits to real people, are those numbers of people equal to or larger than those of us who will probably be hurt by higher premiums and increased taxes?

Saying this measure “provides” insurance to 30 million more people, to me seems like saying you’re going to cure cancer by making it illegal to have cancer.

How about the oldie but goody that “other countries have private insurance and no PO and they are fine.” What would make this statement applicable is if the reforms actually mirrored those European systems. It doesn’t. Our insurance companies are not highly regulated, are for profit and we also don’t do anything to control the cost of care/drugs.

This is a corporate welfare program that conditions minor reforms and subsidized access to inferior health insurance products upon coercion and the further empowering of the pharma, device manufacturers and the zero-value-added health insurance industry.

This is a house of cards guaranteed to turn to dust as instantly as it will be introduced.

Double digit employment and structural under employment is here to stay! Neoliberal economics make an already suspect capitalist system unsupportable to ever growing numbers of public in the developed world. The American population had reached it’s economic peak in the 60′s and ever since their standard of living has been on life support.

This bill has to be killed. The ‘moral’ argument that it will help 30 million people is so fantastically dishonest, it boggles. Before this bill will become law 130,000 people will die because of ….? – what reasons were you given to explain that little death toll?

30 million – boohoo, it will be way, way more once they start cutting deficits. This whole thing when contextualized by the economic unraveling of the capitalist system is Pure unadulterated, Smoke and Mirror Ponzi scheme like bullshit galore. Believe it.

The nature of the Senate “reforms” is starting to get through. See the lead editorial in today’s Denver Post, available here: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_14021078 The Post is not exactly a bastion of Liberal thought, either.

E-Z fix. Outlaw for-profit health insurance…

With this corporate government we have, I’d have to believe that instantly strengthening the HC industry financially would immediately make any chance of coming back with new HC legislation even tougher. That is, until millions of families are once again faced with financial disaster due to our failure to address the real problems now.

“The Post is not exactly a bastion of Liberal thought, either.
reply”

and that becomes pretty obvious as soon as this alternative is this dust canard is trotted out:

“How is it possible that we still see so few ideas within the legislation, such as allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines, that would encourage competition and bring down costs?”

It makes sense that this would be far more than just a Progressive issue. Independents and free-market conservatives alike would have a philosophical problem with a government program that FORCES people to buy something from an entity unbeholden to Antitrust regulation.

So they’re going to eliminate fair competition AND force people to hand their money over for this???? With no mechanisms for cost control?

That is a fiscal conservatives nightmare. Not to mention Independents’ profound, grass roots outrage at government bail out programs. This is even worse. It’s a government corporate welfare program.

Something Progressives and Principled Fiscal Conservatives alike can agree upon.

We really oughtta resurrect a modern-day incarnation of the Bull Moose Party.

What’s wrong with allowing interstate competition and bringing down costs? The exemption from Antitrust regulation is one of the most offensive issues in this bill. I hate that we don’t have the PO, SP or MBI, but the bald-faced scotching of real competition eliminates the last possible mechanism for cost-containment.

A no deal on this, will most likely start putting some of these Wall Street hedged Insurance Monopolies out to pasture in short order, and any suggestion to bail them out would instill the proper dose of adrenalin in the public, to make the outcome dangerously unpredictable.

All they got to save the Industry for Wall Street is Democratic Pols.

Kill the Bill and watch their Potemkin facade burn to the ground!

what’s wrong is that the Industry would settle into a least regulated State, most Insurance friendly State and screw you from that high perch, at least, that’s as I understand the deal there.

I saw that–if it refers to the “national plans”, it makes so little sense in context that one might almost hope that it got accidentally fabricated in the editing process.

If, for instance, “allowing” should have been “compelling” insurance companies to compete in all states, then this might be a useful new suggestion: a mandate that health insurance companies that do business in more than one state do business in them all, while observing local regulations.

That said, I posted the link mainly because it shows that the All Wise Leaders of the Democratic Party have gut shot themselves with this. By fall, the Thuglicans will be campaigning on the Democratic Christmas gift to the hated insurance companies and the party faithful will be refusing to turn out for the same reason.

For all of my anti-liberal rhetoric, this is one idea that I can fully support.

The idea of a business making profit from another person’s pain and suffering makes me ill, as it should. I will continue to be a strong opponent to single-payer however, because as gross as for-profit healthcare is, I have absolutely zero faith that the government can do anything right. Call it the lesser of two evils if you will. I’d rather have for-profit companies providing good health care (although expensive) to the majority of americans, rather than a government system that provides horrendous, butt-shattering failure of a health system to everyone.

But I am with Mymy here. Make it illegal for healthcare to be taken as a for-profit industry. Convert ALL for-profit insurance, hospitals, clinics, pharmacuticals, et al, to a non-profit system. Let them continue to compete. Give us the freedom to choose which insurance, which doctors, and which drugs we want. And remove greed entirely from the subject of healthcare.

The problem with the sale across state lines is that bad regulation drives out good regulation. When federally chartered banks were allowed to compete across state lines, banks all moved their credit card operations to states without usury regulation. That is why you are charged 29.9% on your card instead of the usury limits in your home states. The same thing will happen to insurance.

Remember, under the McCarran-Ferguson Act, insurance companies are generally not subject to federal regulation, unless Congress passes laws expressly regulating them. That same act exempts the insurance companies from anti-trust regulation. We need to proceed very cautiously here.

The lack of attention paid to the weaknesses of Big Insurance’s balance sheets is a huge scandal to me. This is something that could dwarf Enron and nobody’s covering it,

If insurance companies can’t cover their policies lets say another Katrina hits then everyone will run for the door now which is what they should be doing.
The Obama plan is an insurance company bailout the insurance companies are not fighting for the status quo they are fighting for more cash to make up what they lost investing.

Agreed. What is interesting to me is how far gone our political elites are. In the Wall Street bailouts and the health insurance debacle, they are adopting policies that mortally offend the bases of both parties–totalling at least half the electorate–on ideological grounds. The independent voters–the remainder of the electorate–are at least as angry because of the blatant screwing they are getting on the bread-and-butter issues that decide independents. The only constuency for either action consists solely of the financial-industry fatcats that directly benefit.

Money is important in elections, no doubt. But do our political elites really think that votes are now irrelevant?

And as an added bonus, with other states seeing corporations moving to the least regulated states, it starts a race to the bottom as states gut their own regulations trying to attract the businesses.

Which is really bad news for consumers.

they are adopting policies that mortally offend the bases of both parties–totalling at least half the electorate–on ideological grounds.

And if we lefties find the mandates offensive, think how the libertarian-leaning righties and independents feel. Even the generally apolitical people will only feel the government forcing them to do something which will feel, rightly, a little tyrannical to them.

They’re managing to piss off just about everyone with this legislation.

I don’t know about the exact regulations and how they apply in detail, but what you describe is similar to the other consequences repealing Glass-Steagal (sp?). Insurance used to be a conservative business that backstopped risk from losses with modest but reliable profits from rock-solid, conservative investments. But when the walls between insurance, banking, and the investment business dissappeared, everybody rushed for the highest yields while assuming that their risks were the same. Suddenly insurance guys were investment bankers when collecting 20% or 30% profit (vs. the 5% to 6% they got as insurance companies) and insurance guys when they told regulators and shareholders that they were sound.

I know lots of them, as it happens, and, when you skip over the NRA stuff, there is remarkable similarity in our concerns. Remember the whole Ron Paul phenomena?

In fact, one of the “militia” types I know says he’ll have an AK-47 ready for my use if the aclu fails us and “they” come to take us all to Gitmo. Touching, really.

That is an outstanding objection…and makes the case for uniform, federal regulation across the board on health care. And can’t they do that already?

Presumably, the companies that settled in the best state for fucking the customer would also get the least amount of business, no? If the Delaware-base Health Insurance Companies are assholes, the customers could then go to the Vermont companies that don’t. No?

You are 100% dead on right PW.

We are watching another bailout being orchestrated in the guise of HCR.

Obama’s suggestion that unless we fix it the government will go broke, was an outrageously incredible statement to make by the Prez!

Paulson did it a year ago, now Obama is making that case! Fuck’em!

Another excellent point. I love this.

The level of discourse here is like a post-graduate PhD conference, compared to the High School Yearbook Club rah-rah-rah crap on the blogs at OFA.

Thank you. And I will reply that your point would call for uniform federal regulation to protect patients/consumers, particularly since the Feds are forcing us to buy and drink this swill. Of course, that would take another decade.

Argh.

I urge you to read masaccio @ 19.

Not exactly.

ALL of the banks “moved” their credit card operations to South Dakota and Delaware. In the case of South Dakota, the state was underpopulatd enough and economically distressed enough to do anything to get bank business.

ALL of the credit card agreements specify that the laws of the companies’ home state govern the contract. So no matter who or where the customer is, they get South Dakota’s lack of usury laws. I have a card that says they can charge 49% under some byzantine conditions.

Maybe President Obama can go on television and explain this to us.

“Y’all are thinking for yourselves,” he said. “I like that in you”. you’re so cute when you’re angry. now just stop all this fussing and be quiet.

>>The level of discourse here is like a post-graduate PhD conference<<

Except that at least some of us are not drunk (been there, seen that).

The curious and infuriating thing is that the Republicans on my teevee keep making that strawman argument with none of the hosts offering to point out that 30% usury fees are now legal precisely because such laws have liberated CC Companies from moral restrictions.

I love you. The repeal of Glass-Steagall was a huge factor in the collapse of 2008. Getting it reinstated is a favorite mission of mine.

Exactly, one of my buddies from high school is a Glenn-Beck loving neofascist, and he’s been posting gleefully in my facebook rants about the Senate HCR bill.

Excellent post. Thank you. Reinforcing the status quo is unquestionably Barack Obama’s defining characteristic. Pity we need a president capable of creating fundamental peaceful change.

In my distant past, I was with my state’s attorney general, and did some work for my insurance commissioner. The regulatory structure of insurance companies is intricate and nuanced, and generally of pretty good quality. It would be very difficult to replicate that at the national level, and would open the door to manipulation by unprincipled lobbyists.

Moderator did you take my comment down, and if so why, I said nothing that should be moderated, I thought this was a free exchange of ideas, my take may not be yours, but it is the truth, do you have a problem with that.

[Modnote: we see no comment of yours back here. Could it be on another thread perhaps?]

Yep, read it. Excellent and true.

It’s too early to drink here. Anyway, I have to sing tonight.

Not agaaa-aaaaain! =:-(

Oh, and when this Senate gets round to “cutting the deficit”, it will cut existing, well-run programs like Medicare and Social Security. We couldn’t possibly cut defense spending or even enact meaningful, symbolic change, such as eliminating benefits for Senators and Representatives. They’re full-time, temporary public employees at best, we can’t afford them and they don’t need them.

Like the MOTU, who shoved their way to the front of the flu vaccine line because their services were “invaluable” (an unintended pun), Congresscritters, too, think they’re worth every penny. Everyone else? Not so much.

A further problem is the lack of a ‘stick.’ If a company behaves badly in my state (Florida), I can at least threaten them by contacting my state’s Insurance Commissioner or state’s AG. (That threat MAY or MAY NOT do any good . . . but at least as a Florida resident/consumer, I have a place to turn.) On the other hand, if my health insurer is headquartered and regulated by the laws of SD or MD or anyplace else, my “threat” becomes quite layered and meaningless.

Why not make insurance companies subject to the laws of the customer’s state? Makes sense in terms of a minimum-contacts jurisdictional basis.

Of course it makes sense . . . that’s why it wouldn’t work. Much better for upteen thousands of customers to know the laws of the state wherein their insurer conducts business, rather than those poor, understaffed, underpaid insurance companies be required to know the laws of the states (all of ‘em?) where they sell their “valuable” service.

The real reason Lieberman became a Bush lover and traitor is because he wanted thE U.S. in the Iraq War.Why?? Because the more Americans that die the less Jews that die. He is Jewish first and an American second !!!!!!!

I recognize that it does contain some provisions that will make a difference to a lot of people. The question we have to answer is whether the costs of making that difference are too high. I don’t understand how a country that spends 20% of its GDP on health care can compete in the world economy, and that’s too high a price. Maybe President Obama can go on television and explain this to us.

Bulls-eye.
In addition, people who are stressed, ill, and anxious aren’t as productive as healthy, motivated employees.
So it’s a downward spiral.