I sent an email to Eric Massa some time back, thanking him for voting against HR 3962, and specified that I didn't need a reply, as I'm not one of his constituents. I got a 'form letter' response anyway, and thought I would share it.

Dear [hipparchia]:

Because you have previously been in touch about health issues, I am writing to let you know why I voted "no" on the 2009 major health care reform bill (H.R. 3962). Being accountable to you for my actions, perhaps you will forgive a detailed response.

The only reason the Howler repeats himself is that our famously free press does. As for example:

This morning, the gods rocked with laughter: On Olympus, that is. Reason? On the front page of the New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg penned a report about the way current health reform bills would deal with American health care spending. On Olympus, her opening paragraph produced some muffled laughter:

STOLBERG (11/10/09): As health care legislation moves toward a crucial airing in the Senate, the White House is facing a growing revolt from some Democrats and analysts who say the bills Congress is considering do not fulfill President Obama's promise to slow the runaway rise in health care spending.

Note that definition again: We’ll accept a rise in health care spending—it just can’t be a runaway rise! As Stolberg continued, the muffled laughter became full-throated—almost a roar:

STOLBERG (continuing directly): Mr. Obama has made cost containment a centerpiece of his health reform agenda, and in May he stood up at the White House with industry groups who pledged voluntary efforts to trim the growth of health care spending by 1.5 percent, or $2 trillion, over the next decade.

Can you see why the gods, and their guests, were now openly laughing? In the face of a “runaway rise in health care spending,” Stolberg almost seemed to suggest that a “trim” in growth, of 1.5 percent, somehow connected to the idea that “cost containment” was “a centerpiece” of Obama’s agenda! And then too, the gods, and their guests, had all seen the OECD figures—the figures which show the baseline of American health care spending. Can you see why the gods, and their guests, were now laughing hard at us mortals?

Total spending on health care, per person, 2007
United States: $7290
France: $3601
Germany: $3588
United Kingdom: $2992
Italy: $2686
Spain: $2671
Japan: $2581 (2006)

There’s the baseline for any future rise. In 2007, the U.S. spent 102 percent more than the French! In Stolberg’s account, it seems that we’re planning to “trim” 1.5 of those 102 points! But then, cost containment is a centerpiece of our health care agenda!

On Olympus, the sides of the gods are starting to split in the face of our culture’s year-long clowning—clowning which is mainly conducted at the very top of our “press corps.” Our advice: Surrender the prejudice of your youth! In a hundred different ways, you were told that “man” is “the rational animal!” As your society flounders and drowns, you—like the gods—can learn to see something quite different.

By contrast, here's how they do it in France:

Times:

A widening gap between data and reality is distorting the government’s picture of the country’s economic health, overstating growth and productivity in ways that could affect the political debate on issues like trade, wages and job creation.

The shortcomings of the data-gathering system came through loud and clear here Friday and Saturday at a first-of-its-kind gathering of economists from academia and government determined to come up with a more accurate statistical picture.

Telegraph:

Pupils in England will be given classes in sex and relationships from the age of five under Government plans to cut teenage pregnancies.

Children will learn about parts of the body, the facts of life and puberty in primary school. At secondary school, they will be taught about pregnancy, contraception, HIV and homosexual relationships, it was disclosed.

Morning-after pills available to one third of pupils All mothers and fathers will be able to keep children out on moral and religious grounds but will lose the right of withdraw when they turn 15. The ruling will affect 600,000 pupils a year.

Via ThinkProgress, both the Baucus Bill and the plan put forward by Pelosi will enroll some more people but most will not be in the Public Option and it will not cover everyone:

CBO: Public Option To Attract Only 6 Million Enrollees & Doesn’t Offer Lower Premiums

The public option would attract about 6 million enrollees by 2019 and charge premiums that are “somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges.” This is because the public option would “engage in less management of utilization” by its enrollees and “attract a less healthy pool of enrollees,” the office concludes. Moreover, since the House bill expands Medicaid up to 150% of the federal poverty line, it’s possible that the enrollees that would have enrolled in the public option went into Medicaid instead.

Below is a comparison of the relevant provisions in the House and Senate Finance Committee legislation:

	CBO Score Of House Bill	CBO Score Of Baucus Bill
Costs	Reduce deficits: $104B/10yrs Cost: $894B/10yrs Spends on subsidies: $605B/10yrs On Medicaid/CHIP: $425B/10yrs On Small Employer Credit: $25B/10yrs	Reduce deficits: $81B/10yrs Cost: $829B/10yrs Spends on subsidies: $461B/10yrs On Medicaid/CHIP: $345B/10yrs On Small Employer Credit: $23B/10yrs
Insured	Uninsured reduced by: 36M Uninsured in 2019: 18M In Exchanges: 30M | Public Plan: 6M In Medicaid: 15M	Uninsured reduced by: 29M Uninsured in 2019: 25M In Exchanges: 23M In Medicaid: 14M
Revenue	Mandate penalty: $33B/10yrs Pay-Play penalty: $135B/10yrs New taxes: $572B/10yrs	Mandate penalty: $4B/10yrs Free rider penalty: $23B/10yrs New taxes: $196B/10yrs
Medicare and Medicaid	Total savings: 426B/10yrs Medicare Advantage: $170B/10yrs	Total savings: 404B/10yrs Medicare Advantage: $117B/10yrs

With a Single Payer solution it would be everybody in and nobody out - AND it would save a heck of a lot more money for everyone.

The difference is not just everyone being covered but HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of DOLLARS saved every year:   Read more…

Insurance premiums for small businesses are being driven higher not just because of an increase in healthcare costs, but also because Wall Street wants higher returns:

The higher premiums at least partly reflect the inexorable rise of medical costs, which is forcing Medicare to raise premiums, too. Health insurance bills are also rising for big employers, but because they have more negotiating clout, their increases are generally not as steep.

Higher medical costs aside, some experts say they think the insurance industry, under pressure from Wall Street, is raising premiums to get ahead of any legislative changes that might reduce their profits.

Now, you might think with health insurance reform pending in Congress, the industry would be concerned about screwing its customers. But you'd be wrong because Washington doesn't run this country, Wall Street does:

“There’s no one out there who hasn’t had to do a mea culpa to Wall Street,” said Sheryl Skolnick, an analyst for Pali Capital who follows the companies. While the industry is particularly vulnerable now in Washington, she said, “it seems like they’re more afraid of Wall Street.”

Interesting story that got no play in our famously free press or on the A list, though Hipparchia covered the wonky version of the story. This is the snarky version! From Wednesday of this week:

The nation's medical costs will keep spiraling upward even faster than they are now under Democratic legislation pending in the House, a report from government economic experts [but see below] concluded Wednesday.

The Obama administration immediately challenged the analysis...

Of course, of course.

[chart stolen adapted from the incomparable Ian Welsh]

You've read/heard the phrase bending the [cost] curve [downward] once or twice by now, and in case you've been a tad confused [or not] about what that means, basically it's what Canada did in 1970 when single payer went completely nationwide there.

Don McCann says abort. Then reboot:

The five reform bills passed by House and Senate committees will not control health care costs, and yet these are to be merged into one bill – that will not control health care costs.

What is the worst that could happen?

The second worst is that the final bill could be defeated and everyone would walk away with yet another failed attempt at reform. (Everyone would understand that very soon we would have to return to start over since the status quo is totally unacceptable.)

The very worst is that this bill could pass and everyone would walk away insisting that we have successfully reformed health care when all we have done is to establish an unnecessary and unethical ten-year long experiment that will cause financial hardship, physical suffering and even death – adverse outcomes that could be prevented with reform based on policy evidence rather than markets.

I think Dr. McCann is an optimist.

Rally For Single Payer Healthcare

Join single payer supporters from all over Pennsylvania in the Capitol Rotunda, 100 N. State St., Harrisburg. Supporting State (HB1660 / SB400) and National (HR676 / S703) Health Care Reform Efforts

Tuesday, October 20, 10 a.m. to 12 noon

Single Payer: Pennsylvania is America's Saskatchewan

HealthCare 4 All PA Opens Office on Murray Ave,

Thank gawd we've got true progressives in office and a charismatic President who's a combination of Lincoln and FDR! Reuters blogger James Pethokoukis:

You can add House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the group of Democrats or Obama allies (John Podesta, Paul Volcker, Roget Altman) calling for a value-added tax. (I predicted all of this days ago.) Here is Pelosi (via The Hill):

Thank gawd we've got true progressives in office and a charismatic President! Reuters blogger James Pethokoukis:

You can add House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the group of Democrats or Obama allies (John Podesta, Paul Volcker, Roget Altman) calling for a value-added tax. (I predicted all of this days ago.) Here is Pelosi (via The Hill):

Pelosi, appearing on PBS’s “The Charlie Rose Show” asserted that “it’s fair to look at” the VAT as part of an overhaul of the nation’s tax code.

“I would say, Put everything on the table ...

Ha ha. Except single payer, of course, which would save the country $350 billion a year, since we wouldn't be paying the health insurance companies 30 cents on the dollar to deny us care. But whatever.

Historic legislation to expand U.S. health care and control costs won its first Republican supporter Tuesday and cleared a key Senate hurdle, a double-barreled triumph that propelled President Barack Obama’s signature issue toward votes this fall in both houses of Congress.

"When history calls, history calls," said Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, whose declaration of support ended weeks of suspense and provided the only drama of a 14-9 vote in the Senate Finance Committee. ...

That's the front page of the Bangor Daily News today.

If you read down a ways, you'll find some discussion about what is actually in the damn bill, all couched in the politics.

More than 100 rally in Albany to try to revive plan, as vote by Congress expected this month

Single Payer New York Co-chairman Mark Dunlea said voters should ask their Congressional representatives to support the measure, which is sponsored by Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-Queens .

Dunlea said a single-payer plan would help pay for itself by cutting $400 billion in insurance company overhead and profits out of health-care costs.

If you have already written your Representative and Senator about this, try to take a friend to their district office to ask them to support the Weiner amendment. Office visits are the gold standard in citizen contact.

Just wanted to give a little link love to my grrl Southern Beale, who has been turning out some increasingly stellar material lately. She also suffers the internet's most annoying trolls, so if you're inclined to stop by and show her some support she'd appreciate it. I really enjoyed this rant:

Congress is asking how we can reform the business of healthcare to better serve people. That’s the wrong question. I’d rather ask how we can keep people healthy and get affordable healthcare to everyone at those inevitable times when we are not. Business may play a role in that but it shouldn’t be the overriding focus.

The business of healthcare should serve people. That it doesn’t is a failing of the modern capitalist religion, in which people are viewed as “consumers” first, human beings second (if at all). We’ve had this drilled into our psyche so thoroughly that we blithely accept such terms as “American consumers,” not recognizing the pejorative it so clearly is. Because when humans are reduced to mere “consumers,” their value is in their purchasing power. They are nothing more than wallets, checkbooks, bank accounts. Even, ominously, “credit scores.”

This leaves a whole bunch of people out of the equation (namely, the poor), and creates a social inequity in which the wealthy are deemed of greater value to society than the rest. Just look at the rhetoric from conservatives, who routinely disparage the poor as drains on society (Nashville’s own Phil Valentine recently referred to the poor as ”greedy grumblers” who are “sucking up the tax dollars of hard-working Americans by the trillions.”)

It’s dehumanizing, yes, but also entirely inevitable under a system that sees only wallets, not people.

Cappy McGarr in the Times, today:

Back in the 1990s, I was the founding chairman of Texas’ state-run purchasing alliance — an exchange, essentially — which ultimately failed. There are lessons to be learned from that experience, as well as the similar failures of other states to create useful exchanges.

CBS:

The House Democratic plan calls for raising income taxes on upper-income people to pay for covering the uninsured. Baucus has instead proposed a tax on high-cost insurance plans worth more than $8,000 for an individual policy and $21,000 for family coverage.

Proponents of the insurance tax, which Obama has endorsed, say it would help to lower health care costs by encouraging people to become more cost-conscious health care consumers.

"I hear they're having a sale on kidneys at the Wal-Mart clinic, Merle! Should we go?"

This great quote at Shakesville made me go look for the answer to that question, which I'd been wondering about, and at Our Bodies, Ourselves, I found this:

Our Bodies Ourselves supports the single-payer model as the most effective approach for solving the United States' health and medical care crisis.

I don't have any evidence for it, but I believe that interest in the war in Iraq is waning in the US. We're the nation that invented the short attention span, and when combined with the media's decision to milk higher ratings from home grown disasters over foreign ones, I think Iraq is going the way of Afghanistan. Not for progressives, military families or Halliburton employees of course, but the former two are only tiny focus groups, and the latter can afford all the mercenaries they need to keep the looting, I mean cash flow moving along nicely for the duration of the war.