CorrenteCeci n'est pas une caption.
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[Subtract out the time Rachel Maddow is speaking and insert an explanation of the why the awful CBO score isn't awful, putting up a chart to demonstrate how much families will save if they pay for their health care through their taxes, rather than through insurance premiums, even if that premium is to be spent on a public option.]
... keep the heat on!
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Per capita health care spending (2007):
United States: $7290
Switzerland: $4417
France: $3601
United Kingdom: $2992
Average of OECD developed nations: $2964
Italy: $2686
Japan: $2581
-- Bob Somerby
The text of HR676 (Medicare For All) as PDF (30 pages). The FAQ. Compare HR3200 with HR676.
Medicare for All would save $350 billion a year (study in New England Journal of Medicine).
In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama told an AFL-CIO meeting, "I am a proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare program*." -- Bill Moyers.
* Medicare For All.
Contact lambert_strether [dot] corrente [at] yahoo [dot] com (lambert strether) for all your pony needs. Overt and covert displays of realism ("cynicism") available at customer option.
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Comments
"unwittingly accomplish what would be interpreted as a defeat"
I'ill say this about Rahm, the force is strong with this one.
check this out...
The bill presented tomorrow will not be HR676. While we are happy to relinquish authorship of a single payer bill to any member who can do better, we do not want a weak bill brought forward in a hostile climate to unwittingly accomplish what would be interpreted as a defeat for single payer...
We are now asking you to join us in suggesting to congressional leaders that this is not the right time to call the roll on a stand-alone single payer bill. That time will come. And when it does there will not be any doubt of the outcome. This system of health care injustice will not be able to endure forever. We are pledged to make sure of that.
Sincerely,
Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/5/...
got that in my email inbox this evening
in fact this post was decidedly more shrill and railed at conyers and kucinich before i deleted the original version and substituted the videos instead.
major kudos and all due respect to both john conyers and dennis kucinich for all they have done over the years, but they have sucked at getting the word out about single payer to people like my neighbors living here in the hinterlands of the redneck riviera.
Weiner Amendment and CBO scoring
Kucinich and Conyers seem to be pretty good guys, but a couple of things they wrote (which I hadn't copied above) caught my eye...
The bill presented tomorrow will not be HR676. While we are happy to relinquish authorship of a single payer bill to any member who can do better, we do not want a weak bill brought forward in a hostile climate to unwittingly accomplish what would be interpreted as a defeat for single payer...
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has scored the bill scheduled for a vote tomorrow in a manner which is at odds with many credible assumptions, meaning that it will appear to cost way too much even though we know that true single payer saves money since one of every three dollars in the health care system goes to administrative costs caused by the insurance companies....
So now I'm curious: 1. What changes did Weiner put it in that made it "a weak bill"; 2. If the CBO scoring was conducted "at odds with many credible assumptions", then what fiscal assumptions did the CBO use?
This is important stuff because let's face it the financing part of HR 676 is rather hazy. I suspect that Weiner made the bill "weak" only in that he nailed down an actual tax regime to fund the program. It will be interesting to see how the CBO dealt with that part of the Amendment. If the CBO isn't counting "administrative savings", then the easiest way out of the woods in the future would be a reverse trigger on the revenue source. That is, set the tax rate "too high" but automatically reduce it if and when the administrative savings come through (that happened when a Tricare buy-on was offered to reservists, the actuaries had set the premiums too high, after the first year or so they cut premiums by 44%).
weak sigle payer bill
if he's using john dingell's hr 15 as his substitute, then yes, it's a weaker single payer design, modeled more along the lines of medicaid [state/federal hybrid] than medicare [federal].
at first i was gnashing my teeth over his not using hr 676, but i think that might turn out to be a good thing. we'll get a single payer bill scored [which will get us that all-important cost information] and if it goes down in defeat then conyers and kucinich can come back next year with hr 676, calling it an improvement over the one that failed. overall, a win-win situation i think.
cbo scoring... been having a bit of an argument at ol over just how that gets done. my guess is that hr 676 left out a specific funding scheme so as to be able to submit a few alternatives for scoring before deciding what to put into the bill for sure.
Well, I kind of agree with Bruce Webb on this point
Its like the artillery business, ultimately you have to fire and adjust ranging shots until you're on target. HR 676 is more like pointing "over yonder". Even with the initial cost estimate, you have to spell out enough detail so the CBO economists can extrapolate the cost of services and equally important, since the Democrats handcuff themselves with PAYGO rules the GOP never sweats when they're in charge, the amount of revenue raised from the proposed funding source.
My attitude is you have to write a bill that's ready to pass if (like Barbara Boxer did today with the Climate Change bill) its sent to the floor without a committee markup. Because you never know when the worm will turn (though I'm guessing it will involve for this bill, a Justice Scalia opinion schooling the White House on the history and limitations of the Taxing Power) and the bill is up for a vote that counts.
y'all are both wrong
i think the 'enough detail' argument is a trap, an excuse for everyone putting in a piece of pork that's so narrowly described that their program is the one that's guaranteed to get the govt funding.
further, from the cbo blog post i linked to, it looks clear to me that you can submit an 'incomplete' bill for scoring, complete with more than one scenario [for funding in this case] to be scored before deciding which one to ultimately include in the bill. anybody who thinks you have to have a 'complete' bill before it can be scored wasn't paying attention this summer.
Have we gotten to see the Weiner amendment?
Or will it not be seen until tomorrow?[Edit: I see it's linked on this page at pnhp. Must run off to teach, though, so no time to read just yet...]
I would like to know just how weak it is. I seriously hope we're not in the process of abandoning the grand scheme of HR 676 for the weaker tea of Dingell's (admirable at the time) bill.
[Edited again: from the PNHP overview [pdf], it appears that it's substantially the same content as HR 676, so I'm now curious about the suggestions that this amendment is weakened. Anyone?]
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
You Have To Wonder
How many have to die from being uninsured, before they will "take a chance"?
How many have to be reduced to poverty from being underinsured, before they will "take a chance"?
How do you tell friends from enemies if you don't put it to a vote?
This basic bill has been introduced every year since World War II, how much longer will people have to wait?
Why introduce a bill, if you don't want a vote?
friends, enemies, a handful of brash young new yorkers
i'm not sure we'll know the answer to that one even after a vote, politicians being
11-dimensional slippery eelspoliticians after all.looks like it could get ~150 votes though, so we'll consider those 150 to be at least friends-on-probation. that would leave us with a little less than 300 people to threaten, cajole, bribe, or just plain kick out of office if need be.
How many have to die from being uninsured, before they will "take a chance"?
apparently that number is something greater than 45,000. that's a number that would be noticeable in cleveland or detroit when the bodies started piling up, but would wipe out 90% of my city [and what? 100 towns the size of yours?]
eta: i don't even want to think about the poverty.
Finally someone getting it
Thanks for that last link ["poverty"], hipp.
Connecting back to the health insurance deform: When people like Krugman start going on about this bill being better than expected and now's the time for all good men, etc., I really have to wonder why these great liberal thinkers can't put themselves into the metaphorical shoes of people who haven't got much and would be actually worse off (forced to purchase insurance which they might not be able to afford to use*, for example) under the present bill. Krugman actually keeps talking about "more people covered" (by insurance) as if it meant "more people getting more health care", and he's got to know that's not necessarily true.
People are actually suffering and dying out here. That used to mean something to folks who called themselves "liberals".
* Note: a situation I've actually been in, so it's something I can't overlook.
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
People are actually suffering
People are actually suffering and dying out here. That used to mean something to folks who called themselves "liberals".
yep.
You're off by a factor of 10
And 1000 only works if you include the pets and wildlife. If it was all Republicans, Democrats could win elections in this county.
They don't even seem to realize that real wages are going down and we just officially hit 10% unemployment on the fake scale that needs to be nearly doubled for the real number.
if cats are helping you blog
then yes, of course pets and wildlife get counted.
plenty of people out there arguing that we're nowhere near having to worry about another great depression so that makes it ok, doncha know.
I can't live-blog Weiner...
... due to RL demands; if somebody's free, could they try?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
ha ha, Weiner has saved you the trouble--see press release below
I dunno, I don't understand why Kucinich, Conyers and Weiner didn't want to call the roll when they knew they had a large constituency who'd been pushing for a vote for months. Nothing shows unshakeable fortitude like caving on the brink of getting what one demands.
I'd imagine the vote would actually be pretty healthy because Democratic Members (and their lobbyist buddies) would recognize it was a free vote since it was certain to lose so it wouldn't hurt anybody's bottom line. I hope Weiner will least release the text of his revised Amendment and the CBO scoring.
Press Releases
11.06.09
NEWS: REP. WEINER WITHDRAWS SINGLE PAYER AMENDMENT FROM CURRENT HEALTH CARE DEBATE
Washington, DC – Today, Representative Anthony Weiner (D - Brooklyn and Queens), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, released the following statement on his decision to withdraw his single payer amendment to H.R. 3962, the House health care reform bill:
“I have decided not to offer a single payer alternative to the health reform bill at this time. Given how fluid the negotiations are on the final push to get comprehensive health care reform that covers millions of Americans and contains costs through a public option, I became concerned that my amendment might undermine that important goal.”
“I am going to continue to press the case for health care reform in every venue I can. And I also will continue to press for a smarter, less-expensive, more-comprehensive alternative to the employer-based health insurance system we have today.”
"I've discussed the issue with Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Waxman, and agree with them that the health reform bill is so close it deserves every chance to gain a majority."
Click here to read the statement Speaker Pelosi released supporting Rep. Weiner's decision.
###
http://weiner.house.gov/news_display.aspx?id=1368
Well, shit's "fluid" too
Too bad. Looks like Jane was right on the kabuki. Hope the Mobilization folks stage a sit-in in Weiner's office next -- just to show there's a penalty.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Oh, I Bet Pelosi Supported the Decision
for that matter, I'd bet she was behind it. Once again single payer gets taken off the table.
The good news is that it's apparently dangerous to even have a kabuki vote on it.
They really don't trust the dam to hold, do they?
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Although, really, FUCK kabuki.
Fuck
it. If you want to be dramatic, and make a scene, do so while in the act of accomplishing something real. Do something substantive with your stylishness.
Kabuki doesn't get a goddamn thing done. You've got to be like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark: when you're confronted by some guy with fancy swordplay, just pull out your pistol and shoot the bastard in the stomach.
Nothing is true; everything is permitted.
not a surprise
he's been a vocal supporter of the public option all along [as has grayson] and strikes me as a team player.
i'm thrilled that weiner proposed the substitution amendment and he was wonderful on all the republican talk shows over the summer but i've never seen any indication that he'd be willing to completely jettison the proposed legislation and start over. he's been all about dragging the overton window to the left and making the public option stronger.
from the day weiner first proposed his substitution amendment, singl epayer advocates should have started picketing nancy pelosi's office[s] nonstop, and getting arrested, in support of getting the weiner amendment scored and onto the floor for a vote. they should have made themselves visible on this. i can't really blame weiner for backing off at this point.
like you, i hope to see his revised amendment and the cbo scoring.
meanwhile, there's still eric massa to support.