Arnold Schwarzenegger is the latest
Republican to support the developing health
insurance legislation.
In a statement,
he said that his goals as governor aligned with those of the Obama
administration — enhancing quality of care, keeping costs down,
improving people’s lives and securing economic recovery.
He underscored “the
vital importance of this issue, and that it should be addressed through
bipartisan cooperation.”
Already last
Monday, former Wisconsin governor and Bush administration health and human
services secretary Tommy Thompson came out in favor of the pending health care
legislation, calling it, “another important step toward achieving the goal of
health care reform this year,” adding that, “failure to reach an agreement on
health reform this year is not an acceptable option.”
And in his own statement yesterday, Mayor
Bloomberg also praised the bill: “The health reform proposal that Congress will
shortly consider is shaping up to merit broad, bipartisan support,
incorporating Republican ideas and earning deserved support from Republican
leaders such as former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.”
Oh yeah —
Bill Frist told Time magazine that if
he were still in Congress, the bill would get his vote.
Wow, that’s a
lot of Republican love from the sidelines. Perhaps some of the “let’s get it
done this year” sentiment is catching on…
“I don’t need
maternity care,” said Republican Jon Kyl last week during the Senate Finance
Committee’s health care discussion.
“Your mom probably did,” replied Democrat Debbie Stabenow. (See video below)
Zing! The two senators were debating an
amendment by Kyl that would have prohibited the federal government from
prescribing a minimum benefits package from all insurers, one that includes
maternity care. (The amendment was defeated by a vote of 14 to 9.)
We
couldn’t help but notice a few other instances where the overhaul of health care
has been taking shape as a women’s issue: most notably in Michelle Obama’s speech from the White House
a couple Fridays ago. Although absent from the debate until now, the first lady
stepped forward to address the impact health insurance reform represents for
women, calling it part of “the next step” in their advancement toward full
opportunity and equality.
“Women aren’t just disproportionately affected by this issue because of the
roles that we play in families,” Mrs. Obama said. “Women are affected because
of the jobs that we do in this economy.”
Some
of her key points included that:
Women are more likely to work
part-time or in small businesses or organizations that don’t provide insurance.
Women can be denied coverage
because of pre-existing conditions such as having had a C-section, an
experience of domestic violence, or being a mother (having had a baby).
For more on this subject, see our previous post
on how 7 in
10 women are underinsured or have no health insurance or
yesterday’s NY
Times article by Nancy Folberg, Economics
Professor at the University
of Massachusetts, Amherst, which deftly breaks down how women are
economically disadvantaged by our current system.
The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll conducted
this month offered a few interesting insights to what the people, you, think
about health reform and those making the big decisions.
We looked at the results of a few questions from
the 50-plus question poll so we could offer a what-does-it-all-mean type of
analysis.
Here were a few of the poll questions, plus some of
our own analysis:
Question:
Do you generally approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing in
handling the issue of health care reform?
These numbers are pretty open-ended as the
respondents on both sides could be potentially for or against a sweeping health
reform. So we should take this as a natural division of how a politician can
never make everyone happy.
Question:
Do you generally approve or disapprove of the way that Republicans in Congress
are handling the issue of health care reform?
These numbers are unfortunately also lackluster.
Both parties in Congress almost always have bad approval numbers, and the
reasons for the 65 percent disapproval could be almost anything.
Question:
How well do you think you understand the health care legislation that is
currently being debated in Congress — do you understand it very well,
pretty well, only some, or not very well?
Responses:
57 percent responded very or pretty well. 43 percent responded some or not very
well.
A 14-point swing was a bit more than we might have
thought, but it’s still a telling sign that a large percentage of
Americans still don’t know very much about this health reform bill.
That only leads to misinformation and, many times, unproductive debates.
Question:
From what you have heard about Barack Obama’s health care plan, do
you think his plan is a good idea or a bad idea?
Responses:
39 percent said it was a good idea, 41 percent said it was a bad idea.
This really highlights the deep divisions this
country actually has about health reform. Let’s face it, making
significant changes to a system that’s so big and complex can be a
scary thing. These numbers also reiterate the fact that it’s almost
impossible to make everyone happy when it comes to reform.
Question:
And from what you have heard about Barack Obama’s health care plan,
do you believe it will result in the quality of your health care getting
better, worse, or staying about the same as now?
If you were to point to one thing that could truly
kill health reform, this is probably it. If more Americans believe health care
is about to get worse for them after reform, there’s no way Congress
and the president can politically pull it off. There has to be solid assurances
and proof that health reform won’t worsen the quality of health care
for it to pass.
Question:
Do you feel [the following] absolutely must be included as part of health care
legislation, you would prefer it be included, you would prefer it NOT be
included, or you feel it absolutely must NOT be included?
Responses:
89 percent say reform absolutely must or would prefer that insurance companies are
required cover those with pre-existing conditions.
This is a huge number. Everyone agrees that we need
to be able to provide health insurance
and health care for those who have health conditions. On a side note, if there’s
going to be a “villain” in this tale, the storytellers are
doing a good job making health
insurance companies the scapegoats.
Responses:
57 percent say at absolutely must not be or would prefer not to have a
requirement that all individuals to carry health insurance in the health reform
plan.
Even though Americans want insurance companies to
cover all pre-existing conditions, they’re not willing to match it
with an individual mandate. But because insurance companies will only go for
eliminating pre-existing conditions if there is a mandate, this one might
happen despite of Americans’ worry. We think this number more
reflects our general distaste for rights restrictions and the thought of the
government making us spend money on something.
It’s
official: Governor Deval Patrick has appointed Paul G. Kirk to take over
Kennedy’s seat.
So,
does this mean the intense courting of Senator Snowe will abate? And if so, does
this renew hope for a public option? But wait, will the Republicans really let
Gov. Patrick invoke “emergency law” to make the appointment? And what’s the
latest on Senator Byrd’s convalescence?
The
phrase ‘moving target’ comes to mind. As does ‘suspense thriller’ and ‘herding
cats.’
So
much is hanging in the balance for health insurance reform right now and
any single element could tip it. Paul G. Kirk’s appointment gives Democrats the
coveted 60th vote to filibuster-proof legislation if Senator Byrd is
healthy enough to vote. But not if the Republicans successfully argue that the
legislative maneuvering that got him appointed was a disguised power grab.
It
was just five years ago that lawmakers nullified then-governor Mitt Romney’s power
to fill Senate vacancies, fearing he might appoint a fellow Republican if John Kerry
had won his bid for presidency.
So,
that isn’t anything new. What has Republicans in arms is that Gov. Patrick
signed Kirk’s appointment into immediate effect by categorizing it an
“emergency.” Which, considering the bills on health care, climate change and
economic recovery legislation coming up, some would say it is.
The
appointment could change the strategy for the Democrats, as well. Can they push
through their more controversial health insurance reforms (read: public option) now that they have 60 Senate votes?
We’ve
blogged about this before, but it’s presently coming into sharp relief: A
“trigger” may be just the right compromise to pass health insurance
reform this year.
The idea is
that a public plan would exist purely as a back-up measure, to be triggered
only if the legislation fails to provide affordable health coverage for enough
Americans.
It also has the
potential to keep pressure on the health
insurance industry and still hit policy objectives like
insurance-market reform, competition and cost management.
At the very least,
this idea might have the power to win over the only Republican in reach, Senator
Olympia Snowe. It would not only score the 60th vote necessary to send the bill
to the president, it would also technically make the bill bipartisan.
And from what
we can tell, it’s as close as you can get to (somewhat) appeasing both sides of
the public option debate.
The
problem is, well, there’s no public option guarantee, which is a major issue
for many on the left. To prove their seriousness, over 150
rallies are scheduled to protest the health insurance industry and
voice support for a public option nationwide today.
But
the trigger idea does actually have a shot at passing a Congressional vote. The
way we see it, it’s the left’s time for compromise.
So, what
happens next? Senator Snowe is expected to propose the trigger in an amendment,
though it remains to be seen if it’s in the Finance Committee or when a bill
reaches the Senate floor.
What do you
think about the public plan as a trigger back-up? Tweet it or comment below.
Last week, lawmakers in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee
submitted their amendments to the health care and health
insurance reform bill proposed by Chairman Max Baucus.
For the most part, many of the amendments stand to enhance
the bill, but it doesn’t look like any new Republicans are going to
jump ship to approve this measure.
It’s still only Senator Olympia Snowe
from Maine is the Democrats best chance to give them the elusive 60th vote they
need to send the bill to the president.
Politically, Democrats no longer have to appease
to all Republicans, just one. Looking at some of the amendments submitted, it’s
still all a political game. As an example brought to you courtesy of The New York Times,
Senator John Ensign proposed deleting all instances of the word “fee” in the bill
with “tax” to paint the health reform bill as a tax increase for Americans.
What’s clear is that there will be no
other Republicans in the Senate to vote for this bill. There’s almost
no chance at all.
It truly all comes down to Senator Snowe. Well, if
Massachusetts allows Governor Deval Patrick to appoint an interim Senator to replace
the late Edward Kennedy that would probably work for the Democrats too.
As amendments to the Baucus bill start coming in from the Finance
Committee, it’s going to be interesting to see what emerges.
The complaint that’s been consistently
lobbied at health care reform has been its price tag. But the Congressional
Budget Office has calculated the Baucus bill would only cost $774 billion over
10 years, over $100 billion less than what Baucus had estimated.
Not only that, but the CBO deemed the bill would be
fully funded through its proposed cost savings and new taxes and fees on the
health industry. As a matter of fact, they said it would save the government
money over time, reducing the federal deficit $49 billion by 2019.
However, should no reform pass, warned the CBO, the
year 2019 would instead see the 46 million people who are currently without health insurance
grow to 54 million. Here, the Baucus bill got points again for being able to
cut this number in half.
The bill doesn’t have a public option,
though, which has a lot of folks upset. As we blogged about a month ago, at
least 60
lawmakers in the house have espoused opposition to any bill that
didn’t offer a government-sponsored option…
From what we can the bill is faring okay, so far.
The Democratic leadership, the White House and even the Blue Dogs have rallied
behind it. As the 5 o’clock deadline for Finance Committee amendments
passes by, we are most intrigued to see what they reveal about who is in fact
intent on passing health care legislation this year and, of course, how they
propose to do it.
The long awaited bill from U.S. Senator Max Baucus, who is the
chairman of the all-powerful Senate Finance Committee today, released his health insurance
and health care reform bill.
Since the bill became available, there has already
been tons of commentary on it. Not surprisingly, reactions are all over the map
— and mostly drawn on party lines.
Republicans are no happier — in fact, not
even Senator Olympia Snowe pitched in support for the Baucus bill. Most look at
Senator Snowe as the only chance for a jump-ship Republican to vote for health
reform.
One bright light for Democrats, however, is that
the Blue Dogs have indicated they would support Baucus’ plan.
The White House also weighed in, with Press
Secretary Robert Gibbs calling the Montana Senator’s plan an “important
building block.”
It’s truly still is a building block as
Gibbs described because we will definitely see this bill kicked around, scrutinized
and changed many times.
This will surely be the focus of the health insurance/health
care reform conversation for the coming days and weeks.
Once we absorb this bill a bit, we’ll be
back to provide more analysis.
If you’d like to read the bill, The New
York Times did a nice job splicing it up in an interactive tool. Click here to view the bill. Also, the
Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of the bill. See what the CBO
had to say here.
This week is
something of a nail-biter for the overhaul of health insurance and
health care. When Senator Baucus unveils his finished proposal, reaction to it will
swiftly determine whether it’s bipartisan or if the Democrats have to
go it alone. Like everyone else, we’ve got our eyes trained on two senators:
Michael B. Enzi and Charles E. Grassley.
As we blogged last
week, Senator Olympia J. Snowe has already warmed up to compromise on
the bill. But the poker game is on with Mr. Grassley and Mr. Enzi: If they give
any indication they won’t vote for the bill, they risk having the provisions
they won in negotiations discarded. Naturally, the senators aren’t
revealing a thing.
As if holding the
“group of six” together wasn’t enough, Mr. Baucus
faces another challenge as daunting yet equally crucial. He also has to
orchestrate agreement among the wider 23-member Finance Committee over the
proposed expansion of Medicaid.
This will be a mess to sort out because Medicaid affects each state so
differently.
We’ve
noticed that issues like the public option and illegal immigrants have been getting
the lion’s share of publicity, but for many members of Congress —
and innumerable governors and other state lawmakers — Medicaid is an
even more important issue… and has the potential to be even more divisive.
Tonight is really big night for President Barack Obama, and even
a bigger night for health insurance and health care reform.
The reactions following the speech and the impact
of message could potentially make or break the health reform bill.
Already the political spinsters for both sides are
jockeying for position — softening and/or criticizing what the
president may or may not say tonight.
So in the spirit of trying to take a neutral view
of what President Obama is up against in his speech to Congress and the
American people, let’s have at it:
Americans
are really divided on this issue.
In a recent Gallup poll, 37 percent of America would advise
their members of Congress to vote for the eventual health reform bill.
Thirty-nine percent would advise Congress not to vote for it. A relatively
large number, 24 percent, have no opinion.
These poll numbers highlight how divided we are
about reform and how important it is the president provides a clear, concise
message.
Many Americans aren’t sure what
reform might bring.
In a recent CBS News poll, more than 66 percent of Americans
are confused by the health reform ideas being debated in Congress. Also, 60
percent say President Obama has not clearly explained his reform plans, though
in fairness, the president did leave that up to Congress.
Then again, President Obama admitted his “hands-off”
approach was a mistake.
Regardless, Americans’ perceptions of
reform are being shaped more by partisan interest groups rather than the
lawmakers who have the power to send this into law. That’s definitely
not something the president wanted.
Mid-term elections.
President Obama knows best that his political party-mates
will either reap the benefits of a passed health reform bill or suffer big-time
in the hands of defeat.
If the president wants to define the first year’s
success of his presidency and keep fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill after 2010,
a passed health reform bill is absolutely vital.
The
system really does need a fixin-up.
No matter where you fall in the political spectrum or what
you feel about the current health care debate, we all know the health system
needs a big facelift. We still have too many people who don’t have health insurance,
heavily increasing health costs and lots and lots of waste.
Doesn’t it make sense to make sure our
health care system is as efficient and effective as possible?
Let us know what you think. Sound off in the
comment section or send us a Tweet (@GoHealthDotCom).
And with the
clarity of this vantage point, we’ve been discussing if the Obama administration
made a serious tactical error by not presenting its own health insurance
legislation at the beginning of this process.
As we blogged about yesterday, the details were left open
to Congressional committees which resulted in an open-ended, ill-defined
speculation as to what reform would look like.
Now facing fading
support, President Obama is now trying to reclaim the conversation.
As a forerunner
to the president’s congressional address next week, the White House sent out a positive
summary of public sentiment toward Obama’s health care effort. Citing specific
poll results from media organizations and the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation,
the memo
stated that:
Americans
overwhelmingly favor major changes.
They support a
crackdown on insurance company practices.
Many people are
unaware of what is being proposed.
But when they are
informed about major components, overall support rises.
The
president’s pollster, Joel Benenson, asserted that there is now, “a significant
opportunity to clearly define health insurance reform, replacing Republican misrepresentations
with facts.”
This was echoed
by a new web
video from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
that accuses Republicans and conservatives of employing “fiction and fear” in
the health care debate.
The stat we found the most telling was one from
an August 31poll from CBS about the public’s lack of understanding toward the
health care overhaul. They found that, “Only 31% say they understand the health
care reforms under consideration in Congress, while 67% say they find them
confusing.”
No matter what side reform winds up coming down
on, we hope it is an outcome based on the facts, and what will actually improve
the system.
With
lawmakers returning to work next week, President Obama is gearing up to regain
control of the contentious health insurance debate.
He will deliver a prime-time address to a joint session of Congress next
Wednesday. What should we (and Congress) expect from the president in his
address? Hopefully some clarity on what’s to come.
Because the
president has handed over the crafting of the legislation to Congress, the
debate is a wide open field. You could actually think of it as a “too many
cooks in the kitchen” scenario. Match that with aggressive PR campaigns and
dying public support, the light at the end of the tunnel for health reform keeps
getting smaller.
So truly this
presidential address to Congress is a tactic to try to give the reigns back to
the president. Aides have indicated that Obama will take a more “prescriptive”
approach now.
“We’re
obviously entering a new season here and this issue has been debated and
discussed and chewed over at great length,” said David Axelrod, a senior
advisor to the president. “There are a lot of ideas on the table and now it’s
time to pull those strands together and finish the work,” reported The New York Times.
Might the
president take charge of the health reform policy making for the first time?
It’s expected that
the president will draw from the common pieces of the measures approved in
three House committees as well as the Senate committee formerly headed by the
late Senator Kennedy.
The
address is a combination of frustration and urgency from the president. And considering
that in recent days, two major Republican negotiating partners — Senators
Mike
Enzi and Charles Grassley — have attacked the Democrats’ efforts
publicly, it’s not a surprise President Obama wants to take control. We’ll see
how he does.
Yesterday there was a really great piece in the Washington Post looking at
the history of health reform, and well, how incredibly hard it is to get done.
In fact, American lawmakers and presidents have
been trying to push through some kind of reform since 1912 when Theodore
Roosevelt campaigned for national health insurance. Roosevelt lost that
election to Woodrow Wilson.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt also tried to pass
a national health insurance bill in the 1930s with the New Deal, but failed.
President Harry Truman tried in the 1940s,
President John F. Kennedy tried to overhaul health benefits for Social Security
recipients in the 1960s, President Richard Nixon offered a deal to the late
U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy to overhaul health care, President Jimmy Carter
campaigned for national health insurance, and the latest effort as we all know
was from President Bill Clinton who almost pushed a sweeping health care reform
in the early 1990s.
However, there were some significant victories for
reformers, including Medicare,
Medicaid,
SCHIP,
COBRA
and HIPAA,
but even these programs had to endure a rough terrain until passage. One thing
is for sure — no federal legislation came close to the elusive and
taboo “national health insurance” or “national health
care” idea.
Today, by the mere fact that a public health insurance
plan is even being considered, all the same past fears are evoked. What follows
is the historical tendency to kill any and all reform just as it has been for almost
100 years.
It’s shocking it’s been almost
a century of attempts to enact a sweeping national health care reform. Pretty
interesting stuff, really.
If you follow us on Twitter,
you know we’ve been wondering when the Democrats would pull budget
reconciliation out of their top hats. Well, as of this last week, it’s
officially on the table, reported The New York Times.
Democrats are
openly talking about using the procedure, which would allow them to forgo the
60 votes usually needed to overcome a filibuster. This means they wouldn’t need
any Republican support to pass health insurance legislation,
just a simple majority.
Granted, they
would have to show that the public plan changed federal spending or revenues
and that the effects were not “merely incidental” to the changes in health
policy. But this shouldn’t be too tough: Demonstrating that the public plan
would save money or cost money would probably suffice.
“If a public plan is
shown to have a cost to the government that affects outlays or revenues, it
could be included in a health care bill using reconciliation procedures,” said
Martin P. Paone, a former Senate aide who has been consulted by Senate Democrats.
The Republicans —
none of whom support a public option — are not happy about this.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch denounced the tactic as “an abuse of the process,”
adding that a new public insurance program could “bankrupt the country.”
But the Dems
are not going to back down. Like we blogged about a few
posts ago, it’s turning into a do-or-die
situation. Even hope for a bipartisan compromise out of the Finance
Committee has been abandoned. While the Obama Administration tried to downplay
the importance of a public option, it is clearly going to be the pivot point of
this historic overhaul.
Yesterday, an article in the Los Angeles Times
reported that a public health insurance option has almost no chance of coming
out of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, headed by Chairman and Senator Max
Baucus from Montana.
So then we’re left with health
insurance co-operatives. As we’ve talk about before, there’s a lot of doubt in the co-op idea.
But until now, we weren’t certain which
positions that lawmakers were going to settle into.
This LA Times article gave a bit of insight of the positions
from Republicans:
A co-op is a better idea than the public health
plan because it competes less with private insurers
A co-op is still a “government takeover” of health
care.
Co-ops would get funding and tax-advantages,
putting private companies at a disadvantage.
Democrats and liberal think tanks had their own assessment:
Co-ops wouldn’t be effective enough in
the marketplace.
Co-ops wouldn’t be solvent, and would
take years to establish.
Co-ops would not be government-run at all, they would
only require seed money to start.
The article, though, did say co-ops could be a
point of some compromise. Supporters on both sides could agree that a
co-operative would be cheaper because they don’t have turn over a
profit.
Still, the effect of health insurance co-ops in the
system would be a largely unknown.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is the latest
Republican to support the developing health
insurance legislation. 
“I don’t need
maternity care,” said Republican Jon Kyl last week during the Senate Finance
Committee’s health care discussion. 
We love polls. (Even those a few days old.)
It’s
official: Governor Deval Patrick has appointed Paul G. Kirk to take over
Kennedy’s seat.
We’ve
blogged about this before, but it’s presently coming into sharp relief: A
“trigger” may be just the right compromise to pass health insurance
reform this year.
Last week, lawmakers in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee
submitted their amendments to the health care and 
As amendments to the Baucus bill start coming in from the Finance
Committee, it’s going to be interesting to see what emerges.
The long awaited bill from U.S. Senator Max Baucus, who is the
chairman of the all-powerful Senate Finance Committee today, released his 
This week is
something of a nail-biter for the overhaul of health insurance and
health care. When Senator Baucus unveils his finished proposal, reaction to it will
swiftly determine whether it’s bipartisan or if the Democrats have to
go it alone. Like everyone else, we’ve got our eyes trained on two senators:
Michael B. Enzi and Charles E. Grassley.
Tonight is really big night for President Barack Obama, and even
a bigger night for health insurance and health care reform.
Hindsight is
20/20.
Yesterday, an