Health Care Rally & Town Hall Meeting!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Join thousands of Americans at the

largest health care rally in history!

Limited FREE buses

Meet at 5:30 AM at Union Square; leave at 6 AM

Back at 9:30 PM

RSVP to Naomi.Rothwell2@gmail.com

www.healthcare09.org

mybarackobama.com link: http://tinyurl.com/lwappy

Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/m8bv64

Portrait of Political Irresponsibility

Starting in the 1970s, the GOP in Congress (with help from some Dems) removed the Depression-era oversight of the banking industry & prevented regulation of complex financial instruments such as credit-default swaps.

Congress (still under Dem control but totally craven in the face of GOP attacks) passed the Reagan tax cuts in 1981, resulting in federal deficits bigger than those of all previous presidents combined. (Reagan did a U-turn a year later, increasing taxes to refill the coffers, but that never made it into conservative mythology.)

In 1995, the Gingrich-era GOP Congress shut down the government in an effort to force President Clinton to slash social spending and cut taxes. Millions of people around the country, dependent on the federal government for social security payments, paychecks, various services, etc., were hurt by this stunt & the GOP had to back down.

The GOP-led Congress under President Katrina passed enormous tax cuts, turning the biggest budget surplus in U.S. history into the biggest deficit in a year. This in spite of our involvement in 2 wars simultaneously.

The GOP-led Congress voted in lockstep with President Katrina’s administration from 2001 through 2006, authorizing spending on the Iraq War, etc. It exercised no oversight during that time.

The GOP has argued, contra historical evidence, that tax cuts are the answer to the current economic crisis. Economists—including conservatives, agree that tax cuts would turn the current crisis into outright catastrophe.

In mid-September, 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed and there were large withdrawals from the Reserve fund. Against that backdrop, the bank bailouts (which I certainly agree are due for criticism on a number of grounds) began. Obama’s economic plan was crafted in response to the situation he inherited—one caused by the combination of factors mentioned above (not primarily due to activities of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, as the GOP & its wingnut chorus would have us believe). Obama’s economic plan only passed in the Senate due to a compromise with 3 GOP “moderates” & some blue dog Dems. The so-called compromise eliminated federal funding for state unemployment programs in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1940s—this despite the CBO’s study showing that one of the most effective mechanisms for reviving the economy in a recession is unemployment insurance (the people who get it need to spend it; therefore it cycles through the economy, boosting economic activity via the multiplier effect). So if the recession lasts longer & gets deeper, we all know who to thank for it.

The CBO, the Commonwealth Fund and others analyzing the numbers project that without the public option, health care costs are projected to increase to 60% of the federal budget by 2030, crowding out other federal programs. The GOP in Congress is universally opposed to Obama’s health care reform plans, especially the public option.

The GOP-led Congress refused persistently to do anything in response to global warming, making our ability to do anything about it now much more difficult—and expensive.

Despite all the above, die-hard wingnuts continue to argue that Obama is a socialist, he’s throwing money around recklessly, and we need a return to GOP govenance. Try to imagine what shape we’d be in now if the party whose only principle is tax cuts (for the richest 1% of the population, at that) were in power now. God protect us from such a fate.

Some still claim, despite all the above, that there’s no real difference between the two major parties—that “everyone does it.” The record is clear that, despite definite cravenness on the part of some Dems, overwhelming responsibility for the mess we face lies with the GOP.

Health Care Bill This Friday?

Congress Committee to release health care bill this Friday?

Rumors are circulating that the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee (HELP) will release its bipartisan health care legislation this Friday. Will the legislation include the public option, a watered-down version of the public option, or no option at all?

Last week, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, talked about creating a fallback public option that only would kick in several years down the road if insurance companies are not doing their part to bring down costs.

Can we count on an industry which has increased premiums more than 87% over six years? Highly unlikely.

For more on this topic, check out Tim Foley's great health care blog at Change.org. The public plan is in jeopardy. Please volunteer to lead a Public Option Postcard tabling event from May 30 to June 7th in your neighborhood.

*Media Coordinator Needed - Whatever time you can contribute is helpful. Please contact Naomi Rothwell, NYCforCHANGE Outreach Coordinator, if interested.

Insurance Industry Double-Cross--Fight Back

I got this from moveon.org today:

Breaking news on health care: The Washington Post is now reporting that insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield "is putting the finishing touches on a public message campaign aimed at killing a key plank in Obama's reform platform."1

The Huffington Post sums it up as "Insurers Planning on Double-Crossing Obama."2

We knew the insurance companies would eventually turn on the president, but this is much sooner than expected. And they're targeting the public health insurance option—the crucial piece that will help cover everyone. So we're immediately launching a rapid-response campaign to go toe-to-toe with Blue Cross Blue Shield and win quality health care for all Americans.

We need to raise $150,000 in the next two days. It's a lot, but we'll need every penny to take on Goliath. We'll run ads, hold events, and work like crazy to get the real truth out to voters. AND we'll keep the pressure on Congress to make sure they don't get bullied into gutting the president's plan to guarantee health care coverage for everyone. Can you chip in $35 right now to make it happen?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/blueshield.html?id=16160-655913-Nvq8QFx&t=3

Meanwhile, my friend Theresa Thanjan at South Asians for Opportunity forwarded the following message from Amy Miller at NYC for Change:

We are doing a Postcard Canvass Campaign. We are looking to gather huge numbers of postcards that we have which say "New Yorkers Demand Quality, Affordable Health Care for All." What I need is individuals who want to serve as "canvass captains."

I will work together with the captains to set up canvasses in the place/date/time that is good for them in the next few weeks (preferably May Sat 30th/ Sun 31st and June Sat 6th/ Sun 7th) and I will be providing materials, help recruit canvassers, train as necessary, and later gather the postcards and deliver them to Senator Schumer!

The idea is for canvass captains to tap into their own networks and neighborhoods so we can get postcards from all over New York!

It is very important we pressure our elected officials to include a public plan option in upcoming health care reform legislation! We can't let private insurance win!

If you know anyone who may be in interested please have them contact me asap at amymiller3@gmail.com or 415-990-2770.

I would also like to reach out to them myself if you could get me their contact info that would be a big help!

Time is of the essence. Let's get to work!

Let Them Know We Want the Public Option

Yes, it's your friendly neighborhood noodge again, this time urging you to tell your Senators you support their efforts to put the public insurance option on the health care reform agenda. Here are the people to call if you live in the state of NY:

Senator Charles Schumer
Phone: 202-224-6542

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Phone: 202-224-4451

For those unfamiliar with the terminology, the public option is a government-sponsored insurance plan, like Medicare, which would operate side-by-side with the current private insurance options. This would enable people to choose either the public or private insurance option and would force private insurance plans to compete with the public plan. Predictably, private insurers have been arguing that a public plan would not compete fairly with private insurance. When countered on this claim, they claim the public plan would make everyone's health insurance worse; as a fallback argument, they're claiming that the problems with the existing system (if that's the word for it) will be solved if we just institute more stringent regulation of the insurance industry--in other words, "please don't make us compete with a public plan."

And here we see one of the most fundamental problems with the current system--the insurance industry, which functions as an (interested) arbiter between doctors and their patients, is concerned primarily with their own profits, not the health of patients--which is why they've constructed a massive bureaucracy devoted to avoiding payment of medical claims. And this fact, in case you hadn't noticed, stands as one of the clearest refutations possible of the idea that markets, left to their own devices, will always produce optimal results for all participants. The current system, after all, is utterly dysfunctional for a large part of the population of the U.S. (we humans lacking the information and other resources available to the insurers), but it works like a charm for the insurance companies--which is why they're working as hard as possible to find a way to kill the public option.

Health Care Links

Ezra Klein says Chuck Schumer’s compromise public option plan, created in concert with Max Baucus, separates the insurance industry’s main arguments that (a) the public option will be worse for you and will take away your freedom of choice by preventing the insurance companies from competing with it and (b) the public option will compete unfairly with the insurance industry, threatening their profits.

(Note: The public plan is NOT single payer, which has been excluded thus far from the discussions in the Senate Finance Committee, as noted previously.)

Klein also reports that Chuck Schumer forced the Senate Finance Committee roundtable to address the public plan, which he defended bluntly.

Matthew Yglesias foresees Congress killing health care reform by expressing support for it publicly while opposing every reasonable way of paying for it. I worry about the same thing, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that I keep blogging about the issue. Psychohistorians take note. ;-)

He also relates that the GOP claims that Obama isn’t doing enough to compromise, but refuses (surprise) to offer anything of their own, in this case in re health care reform. I know—I was so shocked I had to sit down. ;-)

Moving from politics to policy: Since there is NO correlation between levels of health care spending and levels of improvement in public health in the U.S., Yglesias argues we should focus not on setting a specific level of spending, but on health care outcomes, in terms of increased efforts at prevention and “lifestyle issues.”

Healthcare Reform--Death by a Thousand Cuts?

I have a recurring nightmare about Barack Obama's efforts to bring health care reform--finally--to the United States of America. 

The scenario is this: Faced with solid opposition from the GOP, Obama needs enough Democratic support in the Senate to enable use of the budget reconciliation process to get a health care reform bill passed. Via reconciliation, that means he needs 51 votes. Currently, the Democratic margin in the Senate is 58-40 (the Franken-Coleman race still being in legal limbo), the number of Democrats having increased by one last week with the addition of Arlen Spector of PA, who switched parties (as I'm sure you all remember). HOWEVAH, a number of Democrats are of the genus blue dog, which may put that necessary 51-vote total in jeopardy.

I was reminded today (again) of the potential for blue dogs to vote with the GOP by recent statements by Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (D, allegedly) and Senator Spector (D, at least this week) in opposition to Obama's proposed health care plan, particularly its public option.

What is the public option & why is it important? Basically (and please bear in mind that no bill has yet been written, so the precise details of the plan have yet to be spelled out) the public option would provide medical coverage without private insurance to those who choose it. Instead of private insurance, the government would, in effect, be the insurer, a la Medicare. This would not eliminate current health care plans using private insurance; rather, the public plan would exist alongside medical coverage as currently constituted. However, given that the public option would operate without the private insurance middleman, it is expected to be less expensive than current privately insured coverage because it eliminates the extra layer of bureaucracy created by insurance companies for the purpose of minimizing their responsibility for paying insurance claims, and thus, maximizing their profits. 

Why the opposition to the public plan? Nelson specifically has stated outright that his opposition is due to the pressure on profits a public plan would represent to the insurance companies (if Spector has enunciated the reasons for his objections, I have not yet seen it). In other words, given a choice between the interests of the public and those of insurance companies, Senator Ben Nelson opts for the latter, unambiguously. It should be no surprise to learn, therefore, that insurance companies are the biggest single source of funding for Senator Nelson. They're certainly getting what they paid for. And who says there's corruption in Washington D.C.?

In any case, whatever the motivations of other blue dogs in re Obama's health care plan, it should be clear that if we want health care reform to occur this year--that is, if we want to finally seize the moment and remove the U.S. from that small list of industrialized countries without universal health care (leaving only South Africa), we need to organize to put the maximum amount of pressure on conservative Democrats who are caving in to the insurance lobby or thinking about doing so. And while we're at it, in states where there's a possibility of replacing someone like Spector with someone who'll actually vote in the interests of the public, we should do whatever we possibly can to make sure that such wolves in sheep's clothing are retired in the next election cycle. In PA, keep an eye on Joe Sestak--he seems to be edging in the direction of opposing Spector in the next election. If that's true, I think it incumbent on progressive voters and activists to support him.

GOP: Health Care a Privilege, Private Insurance Non-negotiable

Courtesy of d-day.