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SEN. BAUCUS: We all want to thank so many people, unless we start mentioning couple three names we’re in danger of offending people whose names are not mentioned. We all know that. And there will be appropriate time to make all the thanks and I will make mine so sincerely because I’m so grateful for all the hard work my staff has put in this.
And I want to single out one person. And that one person is sitting next to me, her name is Liz Fowler. Liz Fowler, my chief health counsel, Liz Fowler is, put my team together, my health care team, Liz Fowler worked for me many years ago, since left for the private sector then came back when she realized that she could be there at the creation of health care reform, because she wanted to, in certain sense that be her professional lifetime goal. She put together that white paper last November 2008, um, 87-page document which became the basis, the foundation, the blueprint from which almost all health care measures and all bills both sides of the aisle came from. She’s an amazing person, she’s a lawyer, she’s a PhD, she’s just so decent, she’s always smiling, she’s always working, she’s always, always available to help any Senator or any staff. And I thank Liz from the bottom of my heart and in many ways she typifies, she represents all the people who’ve worked so hard to make this bill such an accomplishment.
There isn’t really much to add, but in the interest of super-full disclosure, perhaps Maudlin Max should have mentioned that during the time Ms. Fowler was away from his senatorial side, she served as VP for Public Policy and External Affairs at WellPoint—one of the nation’s largest for-profit insurance providers.
It was the Fowler-authored Baucus plan that memorialized the secret deals that the White House cut with PhRMA, the AMA, the device manufacturers, the hospitals, and the insurance industry. We knew, even before Max’s Senate well confessional, that Fowler had written the bill because her name was mistakenly left on some pages of the electronic version of the document.
Now WellPoint, and most of its Big Med cohort, stand to profit quite nicely from the Obama-Baucus-Fowler plan that was signed into law on Tuesday. No doubt their CEOs and shareholders also wish to thank Liz from the bottom of their hearts. The rest of us? We’ll be thanking her from the bottom of our wallets.
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Max needs to break his plastic surgery addiction, he looks like the puppets in Team America: World Police.
Oh the irony – it burns!
This is a very nice catch.
I wonder how long it will take for the public-service-minded Ms Fowler to scamper back to her real employer, Wellpoint, and what bounteous rewards await her there.
He is starting to look a little Colonel Steve Zodiac, isn’t he…
Baucus is so dumb he doesn’t know when he’s been had.
Well, Gregg, you should be less cynical. Who knows more about reform than someone who has actually worked in the industry. /s
This is a common occurrence. Our elites don’t think we are listening, or are paying attention. So the openness with which one corporatist was thanking another. The rest of us are, for Max, just rubes. We don’t count at all. I mean we didn’t count when they put this POS bill together. Why should we count, why should they pay attention to us now?
If by ‘had’ you mean awarded the lifetime achievement in governmental fuckery (their highest honor, with perks) from the board of WellPoint™, I think he’s cool with it.
Max can’t be had. He was in on the con. It was the rest of us who have been had by Max and his good friends at Wellpoint.
Fowler looks like she would prefer to be anywhere else, rather than have her image on C-Span.
There is a certain logic to that.
In the cloakroom afterward… “Max, what the Hell were you thinking?!?”
We fought the good fight to get a good health insurance law. I like to think that without our agitation it wouldn’t have had some of the good things it does. But it’s now time to stop griping about the outcome and move on to the next battles for progress that are pending — including continued agitation for MEDICARE FOR EVERY AMERICAN.
he wasn’t had. he was in on it.
But what about Jonathan Gruber? He had the bestest model of Health Care ever. Now he has been thrown away as if he was an Obama campaign promise. Someone in Congress should cry for him. The Boner cries a lot.
I don’t think we are griping. we are educating and learning and if we do not inform, will get away with this.
they don’t give a shit. with all the people in the veal pen, they can be as blatant as they want.
The temptation to set aside the near crimes committed by Congress and the Executive is alluring.
But I think we should make every one of them famous before we go.
exactly.. with all the dumb shits that jumped on board this bill, why would they care? I got a call from working america thanking me for supporting this bill and then telling me bald faced lies about it. The propaganda machine from so-called progressives is inconceivably unbelievable and if this is such a great bill why all the selling of it, after it is passed. But most people will fall for it. .
The Fix was in from the Start. Obama sold us all down the river even before he took the oath. From their elite perches high above the anthill they think they did us all a service. I had dinner tonight with one of my best buddies his wife and his sister and brother -in-law all part of the elite. The sister a Top Exe. at Astra Zenca in Boston her husband a dean at MIT. I asked them what they thought of the HCR bill. They both thought it was wonderful and were really shocked that I hated it. When I voiced my objections ,especially about the Forced mandate they gave me the Car Ins. analogy and I threw it back in their faces and I could see that smarted and they couldn’t really counter it. But, here was their bottom line , they said what right did people that didn’t have Ins. to go to the ER and expect everyone else to pay for it? So, I countered then it’s all really just about money then not Health care right? I also, said according to the law they had a basic HUMAN right to be treated and not simply turned out in the street like dogs to die. They just looked at me as if I was some kind of Communist . These were Democrats and what passes for Mass. Liberals these days. It was if I called their mother a whore. Anyway, they were left with their shallow arguments. They stuck to saying it was better then what existed before and I didn’t agree to play along. I told pt. blank I didn’t appreciate being thought of us a deadbeat and treated like a health Industry serf. In the end they fell back on the elit defense of being better and knowing better and that essentially the people should STFU and take the few crumbs being tossed to them and stop complaining because the GOP wanted to give them nothing. With friends and allies like these folks it’s we don’t as they say need enemies.
ditto that
Thing is, the Dems are now engaged in their victory lap. NOT getting on board is too much of a stretch for many or most.
I mean, what is the White House going to do – step up to the mic and proclaim, “This bill is shit. We are ashamed of it. We let you all down. Perhaps our next opponent will do better for the American People.”?
No.
They are going to crow. And why not? Governance is not their forté – winning at all costs is. And that is precisely what they did.
You’re saying that with tongue in-cheek right?
I didn’t see the snark there, but it has to be there…
They can’t have me this next time or ever again
Have you seen all the selling they’ve attempted here, even tonight?
I suppose there’s less than six degrees of separation between her and the Heritage Foundation. Lovely people.
There is a certain utility to that argument.
And there is always the remote possibility that since no Republicans got on board, and instead brazenly obstructed ‘progress,’ that Obama will now govern from the Left. He could rightfully argue, if he had the stones, that since the Right is all about NO, that he has no choice but to exercise his prerogative.
It’s comforting, and very 20th century Democrat-like.
But I don’t believe that for a minute.
Not wanting to lump everyone together. But everyone (here at least) knows that Baucus and about a dozen other Dems are de facto Republicans and have been all along — the chief enablers of Bush’s odious agenda and assassins of public health insurance. I guess I’d like to see more direction toward what’s coming up than what’s been.
It doesn’t look like we’re going to primary more than a couple of these rotten Dems (and I’ve seen precious little attention being paid to help Connie Saltonstall here or at Dkos) so we need to be agitating to make the finance reform bill better and pushing for better climate and energy laws. All I’m saying is we simply don’t have time to keep dissecting and complaining about what happened yesterday.
The main reason I come to sites like this is to find out what’s coming up as much or more than what’s going on — or just happened..
The announcement of Baucus rehiring Liz Fowler, dated February 26, 2008, is interesting in what it leaves out:
Bolding in original.
Maybe it’s late, maybe it’s my eyesight, but I don’t see any mention of her work as a VP for WellPoint….
But, she did indeed work for WellPoint, per Health Care Round Table.
Elizabeth J. Fowler, PHD, JD
I don’t have Lexis access, but I wonder how many articles mentioned her work for WellPoint. Blogs have, but what about the MCM (Mainstream Corporate Media)?
I should note that I didn’t come up with that.
It was spoken first (to my knowledge) by a great ‘Mer’kan who wanted to make Congressional ear-mark-hounds ‘famous’.
John McCain.
But he didn’t use any K-Y
and it hurts …. so much …
So, Fowler was brought back in Feb of 2008 — I wonder if Baucus was going to try to ram health insurance profit protection down a President Hillary’s agenda???
When I first heard of Liz Fowler and her role in the making of the Finance Committee legislation I was livid. Now understand I am unsophisticated in my understanding of Senate rules, decorum and protocol, but to me there appeared to be no gray area here and that it was plain and simple wrong. How could a former insurance company VP be the author of a major Senate bill affecting the insurance industry that once employed her? Remembering how unsophisticated I am I contacted the Senate Ethics Committee to educate them and inquire whether any complaints had been lodged against Ms. Fowler or Sen. Baucus. None. Next I contacted both my Pennsylvania senate offices only to find that to them it wasn’t a big deal, either. That was the day I stopped watching television. Anyone know if she is back to work at Wellpoint yet?
Ahh, the old government-private-sector-lobbyist revolving door.
If only you could rev up that revolving door to about a jillion RPM’s to fling such poo off the planet.
If you are interested in accountability, if you wonder when the folks out there will learn about the gigantic swindle that has been perpetuated, then setting this aside is anathema.
Did you, for instance, think the Iraq invasion was a cock-up and a lie?
How willing were you to just move along from that?
Probably won’t go back to the private sector until the rulesmaking is completed. There are still things to be done to ensure full profitability and viability of the for-profit private insurance companies.
If by the “good fight” you mean telephone calls, faxes, emails and snail mail, maybe it was a “good fight.” I wonder how much better a “fight” it would have been if there had been rallies of 500,000 + in D.C. demanding single payer and at the least a public option. The only thing the D.C. troglodytes respond to besides money is fear of the people. They really didn’t seem to fear the people this time out.
Same here– taboo to criticize this swindle w/ mainstream dems. A chasm of misunderstanding.
Great pick Gregg– confession on the table. Wellpoint rates will be on the rise.
I have heard tell that Sir Isaac Newton was for Single-Payer. Problem is, he described the laws of gravity, but had nothing to do with their origins.
Poor us.
masswaster said:
If that’s what you want to do, more power to you. But it then makes sense to pass over diaries like this one and to refrain from telling the rest of us to stop griping and move on.
By the way did you see this ironic article by Glenn Greenwald? Glenn exposes how Obama likes to lecture others (in this fitting example, about the past), but often doesn’t follow his own advice.
To the Indonesians:
About the atrocities commented by the Bush administration:
I’m going to criticize this bill. I think it’s like a government food program that separates corn bits and other fibers from…waste, and then says we can line up for subsidized food. When someone says, Hey, this is a shit sandwich! Everyone else says pipe down, you want people to go hungry? This is a baby step, after all.
And the person says, “But look, down the road is a farmer’s market, they could actually get real good food!”
That’s how I feel about this bill. It could have been good, if anyone had wanted it to be good.
Hey Margot.
You’re right I think, that this could have been better, or even good.
The politics are now overwhelming. What Democrat pol wouldn’t want to hop on board and pretend that they achieved greatness? The local politics of this ‘win’ will be staggering, but only if they can maintain the fiction that the country was well served. It is in all their interests.
Even in this complete and sorry excuse for a democratic senate, this video clip is a Shakespearian drama. You can hear the tremelo in Baucus’ voice caused either by real emotion for the industry queen or by the realization of his own full accordance with the sinister plot to undo his countrymen.
The health queen, almost undetected to the eye, squirming in her seat as the coronation goes on a bit too long as she hears the shallow praise of another dark knight bowing just beneath her thumb.
Seated just behind, the head of the finance committee, whose father had proffered some of the most heinous evidence in human history 65 years prior at the trials of Nuremberg, is in the middle of his won intrigue as the son who never lives up to his father’s legacy and instead is tasked with the duplicity of of preserving the power of the money grabbers while trying to project the veneer of integrity.
And next to him, the hunched-over specter of the beaten leader of the senate with no political position on his horizon, satisfied to hide behind Baucus and wince as he compares the speaker’s treachery to his own.
Shakespearian.
I hadn’t thought about it that way.
I was caught, stuck between rapt and infuriated.
I had those reactions, as well. But more and more, I’m struck by the theater of the Senate. There is virtually no truth spoken there, even though the odds would tell you that among 100 representatives, surely there must be SOME truth. It doesn’t even seem to be entirely kabuki, but rather a stylized pattern of miscommunication.
This particular clip just seemed to embody the notion.
To answer your question:
Over the last 5 years there are 4, count ‘em, four entries.
Results
1. Top Post Remains Vacant as Responsibilities Expand Under Reform
American Health Line , October 28, 2009 Wednesday, POLITICS & POLICY, 299 words
2. Positively Hush With Power; Whisper-Quiet Hill Aides Must Speak Up Without Standing Out
The Washington Post, October 1, 2009 Thursday, STYLE; Pg. C01, 1813 words, Manuel Roig-Franzia; Washington Post Staff Writer
3. International: US healthcare industry dispenses $380m to block key measures of Obama’s reform plans: Large donations made to important politicians: Lobbyist admits firms money is morally suspect
The Guardian (London) – Final Edition, October 2, 2009 Friday, GUARDIAN INTERNATIONAL PAGES; Pg. 20, 1067 words, Chris McGreal. Washington
4. BB&T at the 2008 Healthare Forecast Conference.
Biomedical Business & Technology, June 1, 2008, 3934 words
I would guess that Liz Fowler will share cocktails on the veranda in that nice house that PhARMA, AHIP and the rest of the folks are buying for the Obama’s in Virgin Gorda or Tortola or wherever.
With apologies to “Trading Places”
- Hey, Barry.
- Yes.
What about lunch?
The lobster or the cracked crab?
- What do you think?
- Can’t we have both?
Why not?
- Dimitri.
- Sir.
- Lobster and cracked crab for everyone.
- Extra prima good, Mr Obama, sir.
Looking good, Barry O.
Feeling good, Liz.
You didn’t understand what I wrote. I said it’s time to move forward, not “move along.”
And indulging in a hatefest against a bill that is now law, and Dems we’ve known are rotten for years — and aren’t in a position to do anything about at this time anyway — is not moving forward.
While we dawdle on this latest setback for MEDICARE FOR EVERY AMERICAN (and face it, the watered down “public option” was a piece of shit anyway), the next travesties are being planned and perpetrated by the same crowd of corporatists.
Hatefest…
I don’t see that anywhere in this exchange between us.
What I do see is a willingness to turn away not from a loss, but from an unsightly, scandalous, embarrassing and grievously flawed process, and resign from the pursuit of good governance.
We have very different paths ahead.
That’s a very good (but sad) story. I guess Scott Brown’s victory didn’t knock any sense into them.
For those who would ignore the lessons of history (Scott Brown’s victory), history is bound to repeat itself (November 2010)
Also have you heard anyone explain how the tax credits are supposed to help low income families (Below 400% poverty level) afford health insurance — any word on percentages of taxes are actually rebated? If you look in the bill starting on about page 240, there is very complicated language about how the tax credit is granted and it may be only 2% of the tax. It makes it just about impossible for anyone to figure out ahead of time what rebate they will get. It does nothing at the time you sign up for insurance to make it more affordable.
I’m concerned that the large majority of financially strapped families won’t find this new health care plan any more affordable than what they had before and almost all of the 45 million uninsured will still not sign up.
Here’s the bill:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h3590eas.txt.pdf
Like the imagery of this speed up taking place — ;->
During 2008 Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had debated HCR several times and it did not seem then that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were that far apart on very much.
It perhaps was too easy to let one’s own views or held goals shade or color how this was going to work out.
So much of the HC talk and follow-up after the Clinton WH HCR crash and burn back in 1993 had been about how Hillary had screwed it up by “ignoring” Congress. We know the American healthcare industry sabotaged and derailed what the Clinton WH HCR attempted to do. The Clinton HCR debacle seemingly fell into the “third rail rule” of not touching and changing SS in any deep way politics. Only this was HCR. Not SS reform. The lesson was given and learned. We waited sixteen years to try HCR again.
The American healthcare industry ( and this is one very big industry ) put it plain and clear in WashingtonDC and to the American people that doing reform of American for profit HC was like taking on the Pentagon or CIA.
There is a good book waiting to be authored about the Clinton WH HCR proposals compared to this Obama WH HCR. Lay it out as to what is similar and what is different. What or who played the big deal breakers or makers between the Clinton WH and this Obama WH HCR take offs and landings. I hope this book is written by someone who gets the story as revealed with this FDL catch above.
Liz Fowler surely from the get go did not have the American publics best interests in the cross hairs of her activity and had/has a proclivity to bring about what was not in the American public interest here plain to see.
The stench of conflicted interest coming off this HCR as Barack Obama sought to avoid what happened to Hillary Clinton’s 1993 HCR work up showed up early once Barack Obama was POTUS. The fear seemed very real that any attempt to bring about PUBLIC INTEREST benefit or advance must be avoided to avoid AHIP/PhRMA/ALLIED AMERICAN HC FOR PROFIT INTERESTS pushback and drive to defeat. The political model to avoid was what happened to Clinton WH HCR. So Barack Obama took any single payer ideas off the agenda and kept them off. He orchestrated “big tent” HCR politics and bipartisanship ideals. He let Max Baucus run the show early on in the U.S. Senate by giving the Senate Finance Committee the pole position. This clip above shows who Max Baucus gave the lead to. Interesting and revealing this is.
Barack Obama struck deals with AHIP and PhRMA in the WH with WH Sealed Deal status. What Obama was going for was what AHIP/PhRMA would go for.
The public interest? That got shanked early on. Then finally dumped in the ditch here in early 2010. AHIP got a win. Obama got a win. The American public did not get a win. Liz Fowler is in the middle of this being so.
We now have a AHIP engineered,calculated and insider fixed HCR that has no public interest in it. We have a mandate,we have for profit framing dead center in the middle of this “HCR” and we have a another non solution to the real problems that the Clinton WH did not solve and this Obama WH has not solved.
Max Baucus gives a big clue in the film clip above. About himself,Liz Fowler and Barack Obama. This Obama HCR is a POS. Contains too little real public interest policy and enchances what AHIP/PhRMA wanted. It is a “victory” in perverse ways that the Clinton WH HCR was not.
We can safely call this HCR POS the Liz Fowler 2010 American Health Care AHIP Approved Reform Act.
Max Baucus does here. When will Barack Obama then too?
Barack Obama owns this “victory” as he let it happen. Hopefully it will dog him the rest of his days in the WH and long after his leaving the WH. This was a AHIP insider hit job.
Barack Obama has a place in HC history. Liz Fowler has a place in HC history.
Ahh, the wonderful world of the Corporate State revolving door. Round and round they go, when they slither out of the shadows to fuck you again, nobody knows. By all rights, if there was anything between Baucus’ ears to process this reality, his head should have figuratively exploded by now.
But you have to give it to them, they are just working on efficiency by cutting out the middle men in government. Elect them to office like they want to do with Whitman and Fiorina here in California and they can save on all that lobbying money.
Well, let’s start the story with Truman. When he took over upon FDR’s death, he tried to turn Roosevelt’s beautiful Economic Bill of Rights speech into action. So fall of 1945, World War II has just ended, Truman’s first legislative priority, a national health insurance bill (what we’d now call Medicare for All) was shot down by the Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats. The one part of it that was carved out and passed was the Hill-Burton Act, which funded the construction and renovation of thousands of community hospitals all over the country. The trouble, despite the necessity of these hospitals, the plan was that the national health insurance ystem would you know, pay for the hospital services. So the Hill-Burton Act was still paying hospitals till it expired in 1997 (they have other federal funding streams they can tap). The even bigger trouble is, by funding hospital construction (over 4000 in all), Truman had inadvertently funded a big part of the opposition to every future effort at health care reform (no good deed goes unpunished and all that).
To skip ahead to 1970, Ted Kennedy sponsored another national health insurance bill, broader coverage than Medicare, universal access and no copayments. Interestingly his two lead cosponsors were REPUBLICAN senators John Sherman Cooper of KY (McConnell interned for him back in the day) and William Saxbe of Ohio. Nixon probably would have endorsed it but for the fact Kenneday had taking the lead in selling the bill. Nixon didn’t want to give Kennedy a big legislative win because he feared that he might jump into the 1972 presidential race. As an alternative to Kennedy’s taxpayer-funded single payer plan, Nixon aides came up with the employer mandate to pay 65%, ramping up to 75% of employee’s private insurance premiums. Through Nixon’s impeachment in 1974, he tried to come up with a compromise with Nixon, the first “public option” plan was the Kennedy-Mills bill, but Nixon wouldn’t back down from private insurance only (I guess the campaign checks from AHIP had started coming in). For their part, the labor unions sat on their hands because they were disappointed that Kennedy had back down from his original single payer plan.
Flash forward to 1994, Clinton proposed an employer mandate/private insurance system very much like Nixon’s, the Republicans couldn’t just give him a win of coursee, so they countered with an individual mandate bill (terribly regressive of course, because taxes should be baed on one’s income and not their health). Clinton’s bill died (not before the House ways & Means Committee passed and sent to the floor a Kennedy-Mills style bill that the House never even took up to vote on.
Now last year, instead of looking at the Truman/Kennedy (single payer( Kennedy-Mills (public option), Nixon/Clinton (employer mandate) schemes, Obama ditched the public option (according to the NY Times) b/c he made deal with the American Hospital Association– thanks for nothing Truman :o) ). Instead, Obama took up the most recent (and conservative) Republican proposal, the individual mandate. Of course, despite months of lobbying and concessions, he got not not a single Republican vote. By this time, I think Republicans have walked completely around the world and are now back at the starting line. They might as well pick up Cooper and Saxbe’s single payer banner while they’re there, or at the very least a Kennedy-Mills bill like Pete Stark’s HR193 Americare.
This just reveals their brazen arrogance and disregard for the American people. Let’s see, we have Wellpoint writng America’s public health reform legislation, and he’s applauding that? What’s wrong with this picture? It makes sense since we have Exxon writing our energy policy, and Goldman Sachs writing our financial regulation policy. Oh and did I mention we have corportions like Halliburton and Blackwater shaping our foreign policy.
I do enjoy the illusory of their walk combined with the shift in policy from party to party.
It appears that the r’s will be campaigning this summer and fall for repeal. That’s all fine and good but I believe that the components of HCR that have already taken affect (preconditions, lifetime caps etc) are popular and they’ll have to be included in the discussion of a new bill (which will replace that which they’re intending to repeal). So, it will be interesting to see if they pick up something like Starks or Cooper-Saxbe.
Thanks for the contrib beowulf …
That’s the most amazing “outing” I’ve seen. I don’t view this as Baucus being stupid, I view this a Baucus passing on the blame.
Baucus is clearly pointing the finger, and deflecting future blame by identifying the person he believes is most reaposnible for this bill. Baucus is not so stupid that he ignores the real anger and potential for violence from the teabaggers.
It would be really interesting to read the 87 page white paper mentioned.
Yes, but, having this VP of WellPoint, Inc. write this public bill is okay, because Ms. Fowler is really really really concerned that policy makers “identify and advocate on behalf of the unique needs of the public sector in this policy debate.”
http://www.healthcareroundtable.net/public/307.cfm
The Congressional Tools can’t help exposing themselves. Gregg, thanks for continuing to shine the light on butt mouth Baucus’s arrogant corporatist behind.
Yea, the kb commandos of the left here and elsewhere fought till our finger nails cracked and our coffee grew cold. We had to stock up on donuts and even cut out a few cable shows. I’m sure the boys that died at Gettysburg and Iwo Jima and on D-Day to beat the forces of reaction and darkness would have been impressed. The kb generation and I include all of us got IMO just what it deserved for the effort we put out. No wonder were held in such contempt.
“Ahh, the wonderful world of the Corporate State revolving door. Round and round they go, when they slither out of the shadows to fuck you again, nobody knows.” I had dinner last night with two of these types. Big Gov’t jobs for 20 yrs. retire take Big Private Corp. jobs one in Defense the other in Health care. I asked them how they liked the HCR bill. They loved it. Elitist to the core. They saw this as a great step forward. Thought the mandate was the key and that we had to FORCE all the deadbeats out here to pay their fair share as long as care was a right. Saw the real problem as the masses not pulling the load and trying to cheat them the elite. It was the flip side of how we all see this. Of course WTF do they really know? they’ve always had great jobs and benefits and still do plus great retirement benefits and pensions all paid for by us dead beats by the way. Their casual condescending arrogance was not unexpected. They’re the elite the top 2% and they feel that the rest of us should just suck it up and move on.
The wondrous nature of Max’s tribute is, as many have already pointed out, that even for Senators from sparsely populated states like Montana the only true constituents of those that walk the halls of our capital are the corporate elite. Mr. Baucus revels in informing those who pay attention that he owes a debt to the corporate revolving door that allows him to bring home the lobbyist bacon. Without their corporate organized assistance in fleecing the sheep he wouldn’t have become a millionaire and would instead face the specter of the grinding rural poverty he helps to enforce upon his own state by contriving ever more creative corporate windfalls. The only question is whether the politically uninformed, who represent the majority of voters in every state who are constantly visually medicated by the tube of boobs, will ever wake up to the harm they have voted upon themselves by pragmatically voting for the apparent lessor of evils. Those in the MSM press that repeatedly tell us that this is an attempt to help the disadvantaged omit that the mandate is being pushed into the beginning of the next presidential term in order to eliminate any chance that the short term memory of voting public will be able to hold onto their outrage for a sufficient length of time.
But, here was their bottom line , they said what right did people that didn’t have Ins. to go to the ER and expect everyone else to pay for it?
ER care is not free. Anyone without insurance who goes to the ER for care is going to end up heavily indebted, with huge bills to pay — unless they were penniless in the first place.
Five? Five?
Thank you for this information!
You’re welcome. Sorry for the typos,that too-long post was even longer at first , so I edited it down and added parentheticals to fill in the gaps. I cut out the part that one reason Truman’s single payer advocacy was a big part of his 1948 reelection campaign was to knock his Republican opposition off balance. His opponent, NY Gov. Tom Dewey, was opposed of course, however the GOP VP pick, CA Gov. Earl Warren had just unsuccessfully fought to enact a state single payer system in California. So Truman was able to hammer away at the GOP failing to act on his 1945 plan, because the Republicans couldn’t respond without also implicitly attacking their own VP nominee.
I think the 2010 cycle is too far along for the Republicans to give up on their long-held “market solutions” approach (which since ’94, had always meant Obama-style individual mandates). However, running up to 2012, I can see them making the pivot; the insurance anti-trust exemption meant health insurance is not a free market and that health insurers are yet another special interest that Obama was raising taxes to bail out. The fiscally conservative approach would be, stop making taxpayers provide stimulus funding to Obama’s health insurer bailout (after all, that’s just socialized medicine) and instead use the existing Medicare system to expand coverage.
Depending on what people think about W. at that point, they might point out President Bush didn’t waste four years setting up insurance exchanges to provide prescription drugs to seniors, he did it much faster and more efficiently by using Medicare. Yes, I know the Part D bill was top-heavy with corporate welfare, but the argument will flummox the Democrats anyway. :o)