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On a related note, to the “only the nutroots hates the bill” crowd — the nurse’s union does too.
“It is tragic to see the promise from Washington this year for genuine, comprehensive reform ground down to a seriously flawed bill that could actually exacerbate the health-care crisis and financial insecurity for American families, and that cedes far too much additional power to the tyranny of a callous insurance industry,” says National Nurses Union co-president Karen Higgins, RN.
“Sadly,” adds Higgins, “we have ended up with legislation that fails to meet the test of true health-care reform, guaranteeing high quality, cost effective care for all Americans, and instead are further locking into place a system that entrenches the choke-hold of the profit-making insurance giants on our health. If this bill passes, the industry will become more powerful and could be beyond the reach of reform for generations.”
Higgins obviously doesn’t read enough Ezra Klein.
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Morning BT and everyone.
Insurers are gaming the system??!! I’m shocked.
democracynow reports ICE is holding immigrants in black sites in the U.S., i.e. is disappearing them.
BT, you want “industry,” not “industy” in the title!
/edit
Good morning, pups. We live in interesting times.
Insurers are already looking into changing the accounting rules by which they “comply” with the new law.
Does Ezra now have a mailing address in the Village? Is his PO Box right next to David Broder’s? I wonder if Jesse Taylor is embarrassed that Ezra was a blogger at Pandagon once upon a time.
Every reference to this bill ought to be the “Private Health Insurance Permanent Welfare Bill”.
And Democrats will not be able to blame anyone but themselves — no matter how hard they try to say the Republicans were obstructionist, or Joe Lieberman, blah, blah…
We have watched unfold the handing over of all of our health and health care decisions to people who care not at all about us personally.
By restricting out of pocket spending, along with individual mandates, ONLY CARE THAT IS AUTHORIZED WILL BE AVAILABLE — whether it is abortion, antibiotics, mammograms…
Obama has turned Aetna, Cigna, United Health Care… into entities that make Halliburton seem like the corner market.
Grijalva– after all that we have done to support him– if he caves, he MUST LOSE IN AZ IN NOVEMBER. He should show some leadership when it matters, not when it is convenient.
The Hispanic seniors who will lose their Medicare Advantage– 33% of them — who are not getting the sweetheart deal like FL,NY,PA— should ALL vote him out.
Treachery of the citizenry must be repaid by swift action.
EVERY progressive must now support the ARIZONA HEALTH CARE FREEDOM ACT.
NO mandates.
http://www.azhealthcarefreedom.com
Time for another hit job by Ezra me thinks, so there will be again much rejoicing at the WH.
I just unsubscribed to Russ Feingold’s, Bernie Sanders’, and Alan Grayson’s emails (Grayson said he’d vote for the bill, too).
It’s not much, but it’s something.
Potter points out a key point. No matter what the content of the bill that passes, insurers are skilled at vitiating laws by gutting the regulations that implement those laws. Presumably it will be HHS who writes the regulations that tell the insurance company what it can count toward its computation of its medical loss ratio. The clearest definition is to say only payments to providers for healthcare services count as “healthcare”. Insurers are going to try to get loopholes that allow them to define some of their own costs as “healthcare”. Wellness information programs, for example. Claims processing. Or even precertification costs. Progressives must track the development of the regulations and comment on them during the comment period to ensure that the most restrictive definition of what they can count as “healthcare” is put in place and that there is a trained staff of auditors who will monitor compliance with those regulations.
Damn, who’s gonna be left to start a Progressive Party?
I don’t think the reality of the awfulness of this bill will be felt until the Dem majorities in Congress are gone because of it. Then Prez Oh! Bumma will be able to have his bi-partisanship with the T-Baggers in the next congress and see how he likes it.
Barry the O… never met a crisis he didn’t want to avoid, or a group of people he didn’t want to lead.
Haven’t you received the memo? The U.S. is a center-right country.
People with guts, like Dennis Kucinich.
Mornin’, BT, pups
One simple rule: Profit over people.
That’s the golden rule in the good ole U.S. of A. Anything less is “socialism” don’t ya know?
What’s the enforcement part if this?
I’m gonna go back to voting for socialists.
Ask the Nurses Union if they are going to push their members to take pay cuts. A big part of all healthcare costs and rising costs are salaries and nurses rising salaries in particular.
Do you have a link documenting what % of costs are attributable to nurses?
Sounds like an insurance industry talking point.
We’ll see when VORE posts the link.
Ought to happen about the same time hell freezes over…
“Son, if your going to do something, don’t do it half-assed. Make sure you can be proud of your work when finished”.
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who heard that(or some version of it)growing up.
We seem to have gone from jack-ass to half-ass.
The feeling of dread that hung like a black cloud over my head for the last 8 years has returned after only a few days of sunshine.
Let’s just say I continue to breath while waiting.
“Son, if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right.” Grampa and dad.
That and “There’s never time to do it right but there’s always time to do it over.”
Barbara Boxer just told us that insurance companies that rescind don’t cover people because of existing conditions won’t be allowed in the exchange. HHS will oversee this.
My question is what does an individual do if it occurs?
Die.
If given a terminal diagnosis they might consider self-immolation on the steps of the Capitol. Worked in Vietnam in undermining the moral legitimacy of the Diem regime.
Sounds like the argument that when you have a lot of people who are making lower wages that adds up to a huge amount of money. If you have to increase those wages to almost liveable level because of, er, the market, that becomes a disaster and a prime reason for inflation in costs.
Forget about the $4 million/year insurance executives, the $1 million per year hospital administrators, and their well-paid MBA minions.
Forget about all those Republican oncologists and surgeons who are the time complaining about Medicaid and Medicare payments being too low.
I don’t know if this supports or refutes VORE’s postition, but it’s a link with lots of backup:
http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358
Well, an individual would not be able to fight an insurance company in court, that’s for sure.
At least not most individuals.
Right, and create a viral video of it on yoo toob.
I know an oncologist who makes well in excess of $1M per year. He buys rental properties to offset a portion of his tax bill. That said, he’s a really nice dude, gay and does lots for the community. He’s a Dem.
Eman Bin Laden is in the Saudi embassy in Iran.
Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.
I’ll check back throughout the day for VORE’s documentation. *g*
US KIA Irak: 4,371
US KIA Afghanistan: 937
US MBS 2009: 44,144
Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.
Namaste
I can’t help but think that George Washington would have wanted Wendell Potter in his unit, and among his advisors.
Potter points to a systemic problem: in a world as complex as ours, with the level of detail and accounting complexity that we allow, it is almost impossible for any non-expert to be able to really see what’s going on in a business, company, or industry if they don’t have a great deal of experience over time.
Beyond the problems of corruption, ego, and greed, this explains why we have been so unable to rein in financial entities that are created through laws (i.e., a ‘corporation’ is a legal fiction that is created through law, and consists of a bundle of contracts).
We mostly end up creating loopholes that we don’t even see, because we don’t recognize them as blind alleys, loopholes, and trapdoors.
Potter points to a serious systemic problem not only for health care reform, but for financial reform and environmental regulations.
He’s pointing to the tip of an extremely large, extremely dangerous iceberg that we hit at least back in 1986, and we’ve been taking on water steadily ever since because of it.
BT – About an hour ago I saw Durbin on CSPAN on the floor touting some nurses’ organization, apparently not the one that disapproves, endorsing this bill. I about puked.
Wonder who he got his marching orders from today??
Franz Kafka must be spinning in his grave thinking “Why didn’t I think of a health care bill like that for a really fun story?”
I’ve been on about enforcement of the health care bills’ insurance restrictions for weeks now. I have yet to see someone explain cogently how it will be done. It’s sure not visible in the Senate bill.
MLR is something that insurance companies have been able to game for years to suit there interests. Here’s a paper (PDF) from the 1990s that explains this:
Emphasis is mine, of course. What this means is that it’s a number that is derived based on a number of factors. It can almost certainly be gamed.
BT,
I’ve been gone all day. Thanks for the post. I have been focusing on the issue of MLR% and the MLR loopholes for two weeks, and the relationship to healthcare investment banking.
I am thankful to finally hear SOMEONE tie these two elements together in the MSM with clarity in regards to the profit margin and investment opportunities which lie within the MLR %.