From time to time we receive communications addressed to us here at Show Me Progress (and at They gave us a republic..., Blue Girl's shop) from individuals shopping a story, sending us a tip, and, every once in a while, bestowing an attaboy or attagirl upon one of our modest mudpies. Today I received an e-mail from a Washington, D.C. public relations firm addressed to me (at They gave us a republic...) which mentioned both blogs and our coverage of the republican debt hostage crisis (my terminology). The representative of the firm was shopping a point of view on "the health care compact":
From: xxxxxxxxxx (xxxxx@craftdc.com)
Date: Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 1:57 PM
Subject: Attn: Michael Bersin; have you caught this Nixon veto?
To: WorthyDescendants@gmail.com
Good afternoon Michael,
I know you guys are busy at Show Me Progress and They Gave Us A Republic talking about the debt ceiling negotiations, but I thought you might be interested in some interesting news from Missouri, specifically the healthcare compact legislation that passed the Missouri state legislature in the last session. It has been sitting on Gov. Nixon's desk for months and he is expected to veto the bill tomorrow without comment. The veto can be overridden in the next session, but I believe the people of Missouri deserve to hear their Governor explain why he is not signing the bill into law when it aims to give his state the authority over their federal healthcare dollars.
The health care compact isn't a health policy reform-it's a governance reform. If approved, it would give states the authority to determine how to spend their federal health care dollars, empowering member states to provide health care services (including Medicare and Medicaid) for their own citizens. It places the decision-making authority for health care policies at the state level, where the legislature would be free to tailor and pilot innovative programs that could simultaneously lower costs, while also improving health care.
See also Eric O'Keefe's Daily Caller op-ed, Why Health Care Compact could be solution to Medicaid crisis, and his interview with Ben Domenech on Big Government.
The Texas legislature passed a version of the legislation last month and Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign the bill into law on Monday. Georgia and Oklahoma have also signed health care compact bills into law and the legislation has been introduced in over a dozen other states.
Would you be interested in covering this?
Please be in touch with any questions you may have.
[xxxxxxx]
C R A F T a uniquely integrated communications approach
Hmmm, what do the Missouri General Assembly, the Texas lege, Ben Domenech and Rick Perry have in common? Right, they're either full of batshit crazy right wingnuts or are a representative sample of the same.
From Representative Vicky Hartzler's (r) town hall in Blue Springs, Missouri on April 28, 2011:
...We repealed the government takeover of health care. That, that's my version, yes, it's biased, but I can't remember the name. It's fancy name name, the path, uh, the patient protection, well, anyway, you remember, you know what bill I'm talking about. The Pre, the one which passed last year. Anyway, that is very, very costly and very onerous for job creation. Because it, health care costs for business are huge and now they cost have go, gone up even higher. So, the Path to Prosperity, uh, repeals that. In doing that it reduces the national debt which helps reduce that uncertainty, that dark cloud over businesses' heads, consolidates programs, spends, brings spending down, targets wasteful programs, and repeals [inaudible]...
...It, uh, it required the Senate, and the Senate agreed, to have to have an up or down vote on repealing Obamacare and, uh, defunding Planned Parenthood. Those were two things that, uh, you know, might be helpful next year, uh, or not. And it also is requiring four studies of [inaudible] the true expenses of last year's health care bill, uh, what it's really gonna cost businesses, what are these regulations, what's the impact going to be. And we, this information has been kind of withheld by [Secretary of Health and Human Services] Kathleen Sebelius and the department. And so this is gonna be very helpful as we look to, to, uh, find out and, and to discuss the merits of the program or whether it should be repealed...
[emphasis added]
Wait a minute, I thought you said "[w]e repealed the government takeover of health care." And later it's "to discuss the merits of the program or whether it should be repealed..." Which is it? You can't have it both ways.
And people are so not into health care reform that they're not taking advantage of any of the provisions that are just now kicking in. Or are they? (via Balloon Juice):
Hundreds of thousands of young adults are taking advantage of the health care law provision that allows people under 26 to remain on their parents' health plans, some of the nation's largest insurers are reporting. That pace appears to be faster than the government expected.
WellPoint, the nation's largest publicly traded health insurer with 34 million customers, said the dependent provision was responsible for adding 280,000 new members. That was about one third its total enrollment growth in the first three months of 2011....
...The GOP House majority ran on repealing and replacing the PPACA. They have been busy since the election with holding useless, purely political votes in the House to repeal parts of the existing health care law. In fact, the one and only health care plan Republicans have put forth is Paul Ryan's health care plan, which replaces Medicare with a private, underfunded voucher system and drastically cuts Medicaid under the guise of "block grants".
Although we all know that around 40% of Medicaid spending currently goes to the elderly and the disabled, Ryan's proposal for drastic cuts in Medicaid continues to be portrayed as gutting a program "for the poor". Medicaid is a program that serves the poor but it also serves the most vulnerable people in the country: the elderly and the disabled. They're not just "the poor". And, Medicare and Medicaid are connected. It is disingenuous to talk about health care for the elderly and limit the discussion to Ryan's 6,000 dollar Medicare vouchers. That isn't the reality of people's lives.
Republicans in the House are seeking repeal of a health care reform law that is benefiting people now, today, and they have offered nothing to replace it. Paul Ryan seeks to dramatically change the existing health care system, and has offered nothing to the people who would be without access to health care under his proposal. At the state level, Mitch Daniels in Indiana, under pressure from a certain conservative political faction, just agreed to deny access to clinics to 20,000 people who had access to those clinics.
Less than two years ago we had a health care debate in this country. We reached broad public consensus that we need to expand access to health care. Conservatives are now seeking to limit access to health care or, in the case of Mitch Daniels, actually limiting access, and no one seems to notice.
Did I miss something here? Did the public intellectuals and media personalities decide somewhere along the line that we don't need to expand access to health care, but instead need to limit access? What changed?
[emphasis added]
"....Conservatives are now seeking to limit access to health care...." From the republican point of view that's a feature, not a bug.
Yesterday, the bill setting up a health insurance exchange for Missouri, HB 609, unanimously passed in the House.
...establishes the Show-Me Health Insurance Exchange Act to comply with the requirements of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010 to facilitate the purchase and sale of qualified health plans and qualified dental plans in the individual market and to provide for the establishment of a small business health option program (SHOP exchange) to assist qualified small employers enrolling their employees in qualified health plans and dental plans offered in the small group market. The intent of the exchange is to reduce the number of uninsured; provide a transparent marketplace; increase competition in the health insurance market; increase portability of health insurance coverage; reduce health care costs; provide consumer education; and assist individuals with access to programs, tax credits, and cost-sharing reductions....
Missouri Attoney General Chris Koster filed an amicus brief [pdf] today in a federal lawsuit challenging health care reform.
From Attorney General Koster's letter to the leadership of the Missouri General Assembly:
...Although these are complex questions on which many scholars, judges, and interested parties sincerely disagree, it is the opinion of this office that the Congress reached beyond current Commerce Clause precedent when it regulated that individuals maintain "minimum essential [healthcare] coverage" or pay a penalty. Therefore, it follows that the federal courts, in reviewing this aspect of the law, must either expand Congress' Commerce Clause authority, justify the provision on alternate constitutional grounds, or strike down the individual mandate.
It is also the legal view of this office that the individual mandate is severable from the ACA and that those provisions of the bill not clearly dependant upon the mandate may stand. Our argument against the expansion of Congress' Commerce Clause authority is emphatically not based on any opposition to the expansion of health coverage for uninsured Americans.
To the contrary, I favor the expansion of health coverage...
Those state insurance exchanges for individuals without insurance which were enabled by the federal health care reform law? Representative Chris Molendorp (r), Chair of the House Health Insurance Committee, has introduced a bill in the General Assembly to set up Missouri's:
HB 609 Establishes the Show-Me Health Insurance Exchange Act
Sponsor: Molendorp, Chris (123)
Proposed Effective Date: 8/28/2011
LR Number: 1237L.02I
Last Action: 2/23/2011 - Read Second Time (H)
Bill String: HB 609
Next Hearing: Hearing not scheduled
Calendar: Bill currently not on a calendar
It doesn't mean anyone to the left of Attila the Hun and Tea Partiers. Socialism, according to Wikipedia, advocates "public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources." The public isn't going to own hospitals or medical practices. It's going to regulate them. Not that I would mind a little more socialism in this country. We've always had it:
Public libraries. Check.
Fire departments. Check.
Police departments. Check.
Public roads. Check.
Public schools. Check.
Hell, until Dubya farmed it out to private contractors, the military was socialistic.
But (yawn) Phyllis Schlafly expects us to scream in horror at that vile socialist, Barack Hussein Obama.
.......................
Coverage of the Ed Martin event has been thorough on the Missouri progressive blogosphere. St. Louis Activist Hub, in fact, has three postings:
Harvey Ferdman's testimony last week at Ed Martin's "Obamacare hearing" was unique.
Other reform proponents talked about what the bill will accomplish or appealed to the human sympathies of the Tea Partiers in the room, citing the inhumane treatment they've gotten from health insurance companies. Ya-da, ya-da, I could hear the hardhearted ones thinking. In fact, one woman began her remarks this way:
One thing I've heard here tonight over and over by ... these people is that millions--I know there's thousands and millions dying all over the streets--[at that point she flapped a dismissive hand] I know we've heard that from the administration too.
So you see what I mean. When Judith Parker and LaDonna Appelbaum described their problems with health insurance companies, when Bunnie Gronborg explained why the ACA is not socialism, that woman heard: Ya-da, ya-da. But we wanted a chance to speak about what would touch most people. We knew that the callous, ignorant folks who listen to the lies of Schlafly, et. al. would figuratively clap their hands over their ears, that hearing it wouldn't change them. We just didn't want them holing up in their comfy echo chamber. We wanted to make them uneasy.
But Harvey took a different approach. He crafted a message based on their ideology. If anything, that upset them more than what they saw as sob stories from other proponents of reform. But Harvey delivered his speech in the most sweet spirited tone possible--which went some way toward quieting them.
Here's the transcript, but you'd gain by watching it.
We've all experienced group plans. The things about a group plan is that when you change employers, they can't refuse you for a pre-existing condition. Why is that? That's because if only people who need insurance bought insurance, the insurance companies would be broke. Right? So the group plans, they're spreading out that small predictable risk against that big hopefully not gonna happen risk. And that's partially what's happening with what you guys are calling Obamacare--I call it affectionately Obamacare. And that's what they're doing by requiring that everyone participates, so that the healthy and the sick all share that cost, so no ... so the insurance companies can afford to stay in business. If we don't require everyone to have health insurance, the insurance companies are going to go broke.
That's my first point. My second point is, honestly I would much rather have an accountable government [derisive laughter], who I can elect every two or three years. You guys, you guys, [trying to be heard above the laughter] you guys are a good example. There's been a lot of political footholds made by the Tea Party. I respect that. You guys are a good example. You can change the politics. You can change the politicians. But I cannot change the bureacrats and the profit-oriented people who run the insurance companies. If they make a decision [clapping from proponents of reform], if they make a decision about the end of life, about me, I can't fire them. But I can get my politicians out of office and put someone in there who believes the way I do.
The Johnson County Democratic Club met in Warrensburg last Thursday night for their regular monthly meeting. There were over fifty individuals in attendance.
After conducting business, guest speaker Brian Colby of the Missouri Health Advocacy Alliance spoke on the health care reform law and then took questions from the audience.
Brian Colby, Director of Outreach and Communications, Missouri Health Advocacy Alliance.
A short excerpt, on the polled popularity of the components of the new law, from his remarks:
Brian Colby, Director of Outreach and Communications, Missouri Health Advocacy Alliance:
[....]
...A number of the provisions in this law [health care reform], the ones that I'm talking about there, poll very, very popularly with all types of folks in our community, not just the folks that, that here in this room, not just the folks that, that generally cast a Democratic ballot or generally believe that government can play a role in people's lives. When we do, we did some, some polling, the Missouri Foundation for Health Care did some polling here in Missouri and they really kind of, of emphasized rural areas and, and did focus groups and really drilled down. And when folks learned what was in the law, getting rid or preexisting conditions, making sure insurance companies have to be there when you need them, stop discriminating against woman and against sick people, people really, really like that. All the way across the board. It starts polling, you know, seventy-five, eighty-five percent strongly approve. Even the expansion in Medicaid that we're gonna add. Here in Missouri we know that Medicaid has been such a difficult issue and, folks with lower incomes have really suffered because of some of the attitudes about folks that, um, getting health coverage to, to folks in lower incomes. And even that polls, uh, uh, extremely well. And so, I want to, to kind of give you a challenge today. Do not get, you know, worried about Prop C. You know, we know that Rush Limbaugh, we know that the, the majority party in the legislature are saying that seventy percent of Missourians don't want this law, but you all know that was sixteen percent of registered voters.
When people learn about this law they like it. When they learn it's gonna benefit them they're gonna want to keep it. And as soon as the majority party in the state house and majority in our Congress, not our Senate, they, they realize that this is actually a popular bill, that people benefit from it, and they're gonna have to take away those benefits, they're gonna stop. They're gonna stop attacking, they're gonna stop utilizing, using this, because people will realize that they, their family members, their community, are actually gonna benefit. And we think that's gonna be a great thing. Then we can move forward and implement it...
[....]
The Johnson County Democratic Club met at a local restaurant in Warrensburg for their regular monthly meeting.
Those benefits of the health care reform law, from a video by the Kaiser Family Foundation played for the audience by Brian Colby before he spoke:
Wednesday evening at Drury Plaza in downtown St. Louis, Ed Martin gave a party aimed at drawing mainstream media. But the media stood him up--as did many of his own people. We didn't stand him up though. At least seventy health care reform advocates attended his "Obamacare" hearing, outnumbering his own crowd. ACA proponents listened stone faced to Peter Kinder's disembodied voice from Jeff City describing his heroic lawsuit; to Phyllis Schlafly's tirade about what a vile socialist Obama is; and to Bill Hennessey, insisting that "Obamacare" is unconstitutional--though why, exactly, he didn't explain. More in later postings about Schlafly and Hennessey.
As soon as the Q & A opened, Rea Kleeman was on her feet challenging Ms. Phyllis's idea that health insurance accounts would be a better solution than the Affordable Care Act. Kleeman, who is an M.D., pointed out that such accounts don't work because they require a thousand dollars to open one and because many people are too parsimonious to get the preventive care they need, thus opening themselves up to more serious expenses later. Unable to respond to Kleeman's specific criticism, Schlafly repeated her canned speech and then blamed the fact that the accounts are ineffectual on Teddy Kennedy. Rea was just the opening salvo, though. Next came a soft spoken woman named Alice Sgroi, who gently blasted Mr. Hennessey out of the water and brought the house down.
By that point, the Ed folk had to know they were in for an earful. If they didn't, the next speaker cinched it. A gentleman pointed out the hypocrisy of creating a Medicare Part D program where the government doesn't negotiate for low prices, thus handing billions over to drug companies and costing people like him money. He laid out the excuses that Republicans have used to defend that smelly setup and, pointing at the panelists, wondered aloud "Where were you then?"
That brought us to break time. After a ten minute break, audience members were to be given two minutes mic time to express their concerns about health care reform. My understanding of a "hearing" is that the panelists speak, then listen to other testimony and respond. That didn't happen. Schlafly evaporated; Hennessey and Martin stood in the back of the room for ten or fifteen minutes, often chit chatting; then Hennessey slipped out. After that, Martin murmured asides to the other suits in the back. Okay, so it wasn't a hearing.
But Martin's people, especially Bob, who was in charge of the mic, get credit where it's due. They did let the left wingers speak. Frankly, I was shocked, because it is uncharacteristic of right wing politicians, in my experience. Left wingers let it rip. I attended those McCaskill town halls in the summer of 2009 where she was subjected to heckling and screaming from angry mobs. In Jefferson County, despite the coarse uproar from those yahoos, Claire put all the questions from the audience into a fishbowl and put two right wingers in charge of picking questions out of the bowl.
I remember an incident when I was in grade school where a group of girls ganged up on another, vulnerable and unpopular girl, humiliated her and ultimately blacked her eye. This long-ago event came to my mind today when I read about a letter that Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, House Speaker Steve Tilley, and Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer have written to Attorney General Chris Koster, trying to beat him down on the subject of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). There never seems to be a shortage of bullies, whether in the schoolyard or the statehouse.
Emboldened by the ruling against the ACA by a Florida Judge, Roger Vinson, the Missouri triad ostensibly wants the weight of Koster's office behind their efforts to push the state into a questionable and potentially expensive suit against the ACA. Their letter asks Koster about the status of the ACA in Missouri:
Is the act -- now declared unconstitutional -- lawful and enforceable in our state, or isn't it?" the letter states. "Must state officials follow its unconstitutional dictates, or should we ignore them as we see the top officials of other states now doing?
Get that - "its unconstitutional dictates"? Isn't that what you call a loaded question? They use such language because their real goal isn't to tap Koster's expertise, but to push him into a corner.
I'm sure Messrs. Tilley et al. are banking on keeping a considerable number of Missourians worked up about the distorted image of the ACA that the right wing has labored to create. From that perspective, pressuring Koster is a big-time win-win. If Koster caves, they get to strut around the Tea Parties with this particular scalp in their collective belts while bragging about how they had to force him onto the straight and narrow. If he stands firm, they have the same potent, if somewhat lighter, ACA weapon to use against him.
Nor has it escaped the attention of some observers of these maneuvers, that the Gang of Three would probably just love to have a pet attorney general of the same GOP species - perhaps someone like state Senator Jack Goodman, who is already playing for the team. Goodman has introduced SJR3, which would require "the Attorney General to seek appropriate relief against actions of the federal government when directed by the Governor, General Assembly, or a petition of the voters." Nothing like trying to undermine the independence of the AG's office to make it clear what a valuable role one might play as its occupant, eh?
Of course, it isn't actually as if the Vinson ruling is a slam-dunk victory for those who want to savage the ACA; the law has been found to meet constitutional muster by two other judges, while many legal authorities consider the Vinson decision seriously flawed. And since Vinson did not issue a stay, it's not a stretch to treat the ACA as the law of the land unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise when they take it up sometime down the line.
However, the Vinson ruling, coming as it does on the heels of last fall's nullification victory for Proposition C, as well as recent resolutions passed in both the state House and the state Senate calling for Koster to get on the ACA litigation bandwagon, does put Koster between a rock and a hard place. Collectively, these events constitute a big GOP club now aimed squarely at Koster who also has to deal with a roused Democratic base trying to block his retreat.
We can only hope that Koster, who is actively bobbing and weaving to avoid the full impact of the blow, will put the welfare of Missourians first and act to preserve the very real benefits of the ACA. It is unfortunate that support for the ACA on the part of Koster, a putative Democrat, is not a forgone conclusion. Surely the well-being of the state is more important than political gamesmanship?
The first republican attempt to repeal health care reform failed in the Senate by a vote of 47-51. It has to have the most inane title for an amendment ever concocted by posturing republicans:
Question: On the Motion (Motion to Waive All Applicable Budgetary Discipline Re: McConnell Amdt. No. 13 )
Vote Number: 9 Vote Date: February 2, 2011, 06:05 PM
Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote Result: Motion Rejected
Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 13 to S. 223 (FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act)
Statement of Purpose: To repeal the job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.
Vote Counts: YEAs 47
NAYs 51
Not Voting 2
In the fall of 2010 Republicans recaptured the House of representatives in an election in which 42% of the population turned out. The percentage of Americans voting for Republicans was, obviously, south of that 42%. Not much of a mandate for Republicans really.
The GOP spent the last two years fighting health care reform tooth and nail, conducting a full-court press propaganda blitz, misrepresenting it in countless ways, and often lying about it outright - remember death panels? In spite of the media noise they generated, just recently, when Americans were polled about their perceptions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and were offered a full range of options so that those who disapprove of it were allowed to specify whether they do so because it doesn't go far enough or because it does too much, only around 26% wanted it repealed.
Nevertheless, today the GOP-controlled House will vote to repeal the ACA. The repeal vote will go nowhere; it is a largely symbolic gesture meant to generate even more media smoke, but it will no doubt be followed by numerous efforts to chip away and nullify the essence of the ACA or defund it. The propaganda will continue. The only sure thing is that any changes that the GOP will attempt to enact will benefit the bottom line of their clients in the insurance industry in one way or another.
Eager to get in on the show, Missouri lawmakers yesterday held hearings on SR 27, a non-binding resolution calling on Attorney General Koster to join a frivolous lawsuit filed against the ACA by the Attorneys General of several other states. In spite of the 60 or so citizens who traveled to the capitol to testify in favor of the ACA, the nonbinding resolution passed out of the the Rules, Joint Rules, Resolutions and Ethics Committee by a 5-2 vote. Yay, Missouri. Once again our Republican-controlled legislature plays to the peanut gallery.
As I contemplate this madness, I can't help thinking about a woman I met at a a large, rambunctuous Tea Party meeting with one of Claire McCaskill's staffers. The meeting had been organized by officials of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) to discuss the then incipient health care reform. She was one of the less shrill attendees, most of whom were shouting, hooting and waving their Gadsden flags or sporting overtly racialized, comic Obama posters throughout much of the meeting.
This woman carried a poster thanking her insurance company for the survival of her twin daughters who were also in attendance. She was friendly and open and when I complimented her on her daughters' charming, matching outfits, she told me their story. They had survived serious birth complications because of excellent medical care made possible by the great insurance that her husband's employer provided. She was attending the meeting because she feared that the heath care reform would destroy her access to that insurance. I wonder today if she is feeling all smug and full of achievement pleased when she reads about the efforts of our elected representatives to undo the ACA that she so vociferously opposed in the name of her "wonderful" insurance.
HR 39 was passed last week by the House. The resolution calls for Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster (D) to join in the frivolous anti-health care reform lawsuits getting smacked down in federal courtrooms across the country.
From Representative Denny Hoskins' (r-noun, verb, CPA) January 13, 2011 "Capitol Report":
....The full House already voted on some bills this week. I'm pleased to report on a resolution to urge Missouri to join 20 other state attorneys general in a lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of the federal health care requirement. I voted for HCR 39 and am hopeful Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster will enter into this lawsuit to make health insurance a personal choice....
There were a few amendments. A personal favorite (from the Journal of the House [pdf] for January 11, 2011):
....Representative Kelly (24) offered House Amendment No. 4.
House Amendment No. 4
AMEND House Resolution No. 39, Page 1, Line 29, by deleting the following:
"Missouri Lieutenant Governor", and inserting in lieu thereof the words "private citizen"....
Heh.
That amendment was further amended. And then:
....On motion of Representative Franz, House Resolution No. 39, as amended, was adopted by the following vote:
AYES: 115
Allen Asbury Bahr Barnes Bernskoetter Berry Black Brandom Brattin Brown 85 Brown 116 Burlison Casey Cauthorn Cierpiot Conway 14 Conway 27 Cookson Cox Crawford Cross Curtman Davis Day Denison Dieckhaus Diehl Dugger Elmer Entlicher Faith Fallert Fisher Fitzwater Flanigan Fraker Franklin Franz Frederick Fuhr Gatschenberger Gosen Grisamore Guernsey Haefner Hampton Harris Higdon Hinson Hodges Hoskins Hough Houghton Johnson Jones 89 Jones 117 Keeney Kelley 126 Klippenstein Koenig Korman Lair Lant Largent Lasater Lauer Leach Leara Lichtenegger Loehner Long Marshall McCaherty McGhee McNary Molendorp Nance Neth Nolte Parkinson Phillips Pollock Quinn Redmon Reiboldt Richardson Riddle Rowland Ruzicka Sater Schad Scharnhorst Schatz Schieber Schieffer Schneider Schoeller Shively Shumake Silvey Smith 150 Solon Stream Swinger Thomson Torpey Wallingford Wells Weter White Wieland Wright Wyatt Zerr Mr Speaker
NOES: 046
Anders Atkins Aull Brown 50 Carlson Carter Colona Curls Ellinger Holsman Hubbard Hummel Jones 63 Kander Kelly 24 Kirkton Kratky Lampe May McCann Beatty McDonald McGeoghegan McManus McNeil Meadows Montecillo Nasheed Newman Nichols Oxford Pace Peters-Baker Pierson Rizzo Schupp Sifton Smith 71 Spreng Still Swearingen Talboy Taylor Walton Gray Webb Webber Zimmerman
Senator McCaskill: Uh, I mean, the mandate obviously is the most unpopular part, but, um, when you ask people if they want to do away with preexisting conditions they say, well of course, that's so unfair. Well, who's gonna buy insurance before they're sick. You can't do away with preexisting conditions unless you set up an environment where everyone has insurance. The nice thing about this is it's not gonna be government run, it's not gonna be government policies. People are gonna be able to shop, make choices. And if they can't afford it we're gonna help 'em by making it more affordable with some help from the government. So I think it's, is it a perfect solution? No. But it's the best solution I think that anybody's come up with to an untenable spiral of healthcare costs in this country....
Sen. Claire McCaskill's once rock-solid support for a key component of President Barack Obama's national health care reform law appears to be wavering.
While saying she still backs the individual mandate portion of the law - the controversial section requiring that virtually every individual carry health insurance or pay a penalty - the Missouri Democrat said Thursday that she is searching for alternatives.
"I think there are different things we could look at to see if they would work, and I'm open to that," she said....
The Star story quotes a Sarah Steelman (r) Twitter post. Sure enough:
Senator McCaskill voted for Obamacare now looking at alternatives to health care mandate.Try following the Constitution and honoring freedom 1:18 PM Jan 5th via web
Methinks republicans protest too much. Here's the punchline:
In November, 1993, Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., introduced what was considered to be one of the main Republican health overhaul proposals: "A bill to provide comprehensive reform of the health care system of the United States."
Titled the "Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993," it had 21 co-sponsors, including two Democrats (Sens. Boren and Kerrey). The bill, which was not debated or voted upon, was an alternative to President Bill Clinton's plan. It bears similarity to the Democratic bill passed by the Senate Dec. 24, 2009, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act...
....Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005. Provides an exception for any individual who is opposed for religious reasons to health plan coverage, including those who rely on healing using spiritual means through prayer alone....
[emphasis added]
Uh, that's an individual mandate. The sponsors:
...COSPONSORS(20), ALPHABETICAL...:
Sen Bennett, Robert F. [UT] - 11/22/1993
Sen Bond, Christopher S. [MO] - 11/22/1993 Sen Boren, David L. [OK] - 5/17/1994
Sen Cohen, William S. [ME] - 11/22/1993
Sen Danforth, John C. [MO] - 11/22/1993 Sen Dole, Robert J. [KS] - 11/22/1993 Sen Domenici, Pete V. [NM] - 11/22/1993
Sen Durenberger, Dave [MN] - 11/22/1993
Sen Faircloth, Lauch [NC] - 11/22/1993
Sen Gorton, Slade [WA] - 11/22/1993
Sen Grassley, Chuck [IA] - 11/22/1993
Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] - 11/22/1993 Sen Hatfield, Mark O. [OR] - 11/22/1993
Sen Kassebaum, Nancy Landon [KS] - 11/22/1993
Sen Kerrey, J. Robert [NE] - 5/17/1994
Sen Lugar, Richard G. [IN] - 11/22/1993
Sen Simpson, Alan K. [WY] - 11/22/1993 Sen Specter, Arlen [PA] - 11/22/1993
Sen Stevens, Ted [AK] - 11/22/1993
Sen Warner, John [VA] - 11/22/1993...
[emphasis added]
How ironic, eh? Of course, the stenographer neglects to mention any republican hypocrisy.
MBersin Michael Bersin
@sarah_steelman Uh, in 1993 Bond, Dole, Grassley, Hatch, etc. sponsored HCR bill with individual mandate. Were they dishonoring freedom?23 seconds ago
The republican controlled House just voted to start the process to undo health care reform:
H.RES.26 Latest Title: Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2) to repeal the job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010; providing for consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 9) instructing certain committees to report legislation replacing the job-killing health care law; and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Dreier, David [CA-26] (introduced 1/6/2011) Cosponsors (None)
Related Bills: H.RES.9, H.R.2
Latest Major Action: 1/6/2011 Placed on the House Calendar, Calendar No. 2.
House Reports: 112-2SUMMARY AS OF:
1/6/2011--Introduced.
Sets forth the rule for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2) to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. Provides for consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 9) instructing certain committees to report legislation replacing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
No surprises in the vote:
H RES 26 RECORDED VOTE 7-Jan-2011 11:04 AM
QUESTION: On Agreeing to the Resolution
BILL TITLE: Providing for consideration of H.R. 2, to repeal the job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010; and providing for consideration of H.Res. 9, instructing certain committees to report legislation replacing the job-killing health care law
---- AYES 236 ---
Akin
Emerson
Graves (MO)
Hartzler
Long
Luetkemeyer
---- NOES 181 ---
Carnahan
Clay
Cleaver
I wonder how many of those 236 votes in favor of repeal turned down their government health insurance? Just asking.
....Randy Huggins:...Last Thursday I went to a health care information forum, I guess you could call it, Vicki Hartzler [a declared Republican candidate for the 4th Congressional District seat] held here. And she had concerns about the legislation and she had things that she liked about the legislation. Then she said she had solutions. The solution that she offered for the pre-existing condition my grandson had was, she offered to bring the family a, a hot meal. [pause] We're hungry, but that's not gonna help his heart, so.
SMP: And so, do you, do you feel some frustration when, when dealing with this, you know, the subject of health care reform and when you feel like people give you solutions that really aren't solutions?
Randy Huggins: Absolutely it's frustrating. [pause] I, I just, I don't understand where they're coming from. Why they can't see the need to fix, the system's broken. And they don't see any need to fix it or to change it in any way. Just....
"...it is time to listen to the people and repeal this onerous law in favor of common sense reforms..."
WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans want the Congress to keep the new health care law or actually expand it, despite Republican claims that they have a mandate from the people to kill it, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.
The post-election survey showed that 51 percent of registered voters want to keep the law or change it to do more, while 44 percent want to change it to do less or repeal it altogether.
Driving support for the law: Voters by margins of 2-1 or greater want to keep some of its best-known benefits, such as barring insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. One thing they don't like: the mandate that everyone must buy insurance....
Uh, if there is no individual mandate and you get sick, that's a pre-existing condition, right? Evidently those people who "don't like the mandate" believe that if you're healthy and you don't want to pay for insurance you shouldn't have to, but when you get sick you can then buy health insurance to treat your now pre-existing condition at the expense of everyone else who bought insurance before they got sick.
That's not personal responsibility nor is it even fair.
Well, it is "common sense" in the world of right wingnut republicans. Figures.
Recently, we had occasion to meet with a transplant team in a local medical center. One of the team members discretely mentioned a recent consequence of the dreaded Obamacare.
Earlier, an insurance company representing the center's patient ordered its client's name be removed from the transplant list. The patient had reached the maximum benefit caps.
Last week the insurance company was legally compelled to reinstate its client's name. When the hospital notified the patient she was stunned and confused.
She sobbed, saying, "So the insurance company granted my appeal?"
"No," came the reply. "The new health care law removed all caps on benefits..."
And Roy Blunt (r-restore the Death Panels) wants to repeal health care reform, eh?
House Republican leaders introduced a bill Thursday to repeal and replace the sweeping healthcare law adopted in late March.
According to Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the measure would repeal the current law and replace it with the alternative the minority party offered to the original healthcare legislation last November.
"As unpopular as this healthcare bill is today, it's at the height of its popularity," Blunt said. "The more the American people know about it, the more concerns they are going to have, and the more they are going to look at alternatives...."
Opposition to the landmark health care overhaul declined over the past month, to 35 percent from 41 percent, according to the latest results of a tracking poll, reported Thursday.
Fifty percent of the public held a favorable view of the law, up slightly from 48 percent a month ago, while 14 percent expressed no opinion about the measure, according to the poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation....
...The poll found that misconceptions about the legislation persist, including the "death panel" falsehood propagated by opponents of the legislation.
"A year after the town meeting wars of last summer, a striking 36% of seniors said that the law 'allowed a government panel to make decisions about end of life care for people on Medicare', and another 17% said they didn't know," Kaiser Family Foundation chief executive Drew Altman wrote.
The survey of 1,504 adults was conducted from July 8 through July 13 and, for the broadest categories of respondents, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, the Kaiser Family Foundation said...
[emphasis added]
Roy Blunt (r-lobbyists) never has been a member of the reality based community.
Jo Ann Emerson (r), the incumbent in the 8th Congressional District, is running an ad attacking challenger Tommy Sowers (D) for his support of health care reform.
...Jo Ann Emerson fought the health care bill...
[Jo Ann Emerson Fought Obamacare]
...and is working for repeal...
[emphasis added]
That's interesting.
On August 24th the Congressional Budget Office responded by letter [pdf] to a request for information from Senator Mike Crapo (R) concerning the effect on the deficit if health care reform legislation were to be repealed.
Their answer? Repealing health care reform legislation would increase the deficit by $455 billion:
...Health Care Savings under PPACA and the Reconciliation Act
Finally, you asked what the net deficit impact would be if certain provisions of PPACA and the Reconciliation Act that were estimated to generate net savings were eliminated specifically, those which were originally estimated to generate a net reduction in mandatory outlays of $455 billion over the 2010-2019 period. The estimate of $455 billion mentioned in your letter represents the net effects of many provisions. Some of those provisions generated savings for Medicare, Medicaid, or the Children's Health Insurance Program, and some generated costs. If those provisions were repealed, CBO estimates that there would be an increase in deficits similar to its original estimate of $455 billion in net savings over that period.
[page]
CBO's earlier estimate was based on the forecasts of economic conditions, health care spending, and other technical factors that CBO published in 2009. Since that time, CBO has prepared new baseline projections consistent with updated economic and technical information, and has also extended its baseline to include 2020. We have not updated the estimate of health-related savings reported in March, but CBO has no reason to believe that such an estimate would differ substantially from the original one.
I hope you find this information helpful...
"...I hope you find this information helpful...
Uh, I don't think any republicans will. Just guessing. Do you think Jo Ann Emerson (r) will change her campaign ad? The answer to that is probably no. After all, republicans are getting a lot of mileage out of noise and distortion. Why should Jo Ann Emerson (r) be any different?
Located in the heart of Westport --
The Original Kansas City
Californo's: Elegant dining in a delightful atmosphere,
located in the heart of Westport
