Washington Post’s Daily Dose Blog adds more fuel to the health care reform debate:
You might have known that insurers can deny health coverage based on preexisting medical conditions, but here’s something else to worry about: They can take away the coverage you thought you had when actually need it, the government says.
The Department of Health and Human Services put a spotlight on that practice Tuesday in its continuing campaign to build support for an overhaul of health insurance.
“When a person is diagnosed with an expensive condition such as cancer, some insurance companies review his/her initial health status questionnaire,” the HHS said in a posting at HealthReform.Gov. In most states, insurance companies can retroactively cancel individuals’ policies if any condition was not disclosed when the policy was obtained, “even if the medical condition is unrelated, and even if the person was not aware of the condition at the time.”
“Coverage can also be revoked for all members of a family, even if only one family member failed to disclose a medical condition,” HHS said.
The department cited recent research by the staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which found that three large insurers rescinded almost 20,000 policies over five years, saving $300 million in medical claims.
At least one insurer included such savings in an employee performance evaluation.
I teach a case in employee benefits law class, McGann v. H&H Music (5th Cir. 1992), that describes a similar practice to this. Unfortunately, the court in McGann found that the participant could not prevail under an ERISA Section 510 retaliation claim when his coverage was dramatically reduced (1 million to $5000) when he told his employer he had AIDS.
Maybe I’ll just start counting reasons why health care reform is a necessity and that health insurers cannot continue to exist in a world with little regulation and even less meaningful remedies against them for this type of disturbing conduct.
The employee performance part can be filed under “truly disturbing.”
Paul Secunda: Paul Secunda joined the Marquette University Law School as an associate professor of law in the summer of 2008. He teaches employment discrimination, employee benefits, labor law, employment law, civil procedure, and seminars in special education law, global issues in employee benefits, and public employment law. Professor Secunda is the author of nearly three dozen books, treatises, articles, and shorter writings. He is also the author, along with Rick Bales and Jeff Hirsch, of the treatise, Understanding Employment Law, along with Sam Estreicher and Rosalind Connor, of the case book, Global Issues in Employee Benefits Law, and of the Teacher’s Manual to the 14th Edition of the Cox, Bok, Gorman & Finkin Labor Law casebook.Professor Secunda is a frequent commentator on labor and employment law issues in the national media and has written numerous columns and op-eds for the National Law Journal and Legal Times. He co-edits with Rick Bales and Jeffrey Hirsch the Workplace Prof Blog, recently named one of the top law professor blogs in the country, which is part of the Law Professors Blog Network.
This article originally appeared on Workplace Prof Blog and is reprinted here with permission from the author.
According to Paul Krugman, that’s the unofficial rallying cry of the conservative opposition to health care reform. Across the country, much of the oxygen in the debate is sucked up by the tragic irony of Medicare recipients speaking out against a government takeover of health care. If the misinformation swamps our chances of overhauling the system, it will be an unmitigated disaster.
Yet it’s only the most vivid example of how too many Americans are blinded by anti-government ideology to the basic facts of how the nation’s economic and political system functions. And nobody says it better than Krugman. In his column on Monday, the economist pointed out that the very “government meddling” denounced on the right appears to have saved the economy from the worst of the economic crisis. Yet as Krugman has argued in the past, we could potentially be in much better economic shape than we are today – with hundreds of thousand fewer people out of work, for example – if we had disregarded calls to limit the size of “government meddling” and enacted a larger and more effective stimulus in the first place.
This ain’t just about Paul Krugman, perceptive though I think he is. Nor is it simply about the big national debates on health care and economy. Again and again, good, even necessary public policy smacks up against public ignorance about the way government is already deeply and intrinsically involved in structuring markets that are made to appear “free” of interference. Clear-eyed libertarians can argue that we’d be better off with a self-sustaining, self-regulating free market. The distortion comes in when we imagine that unobstructed free markets brought us the benefits we enjoy today.
Consider a point John Petro illustrated a few weeks back, in which investing in mass transit and changing land use policies gets painted as intolerable government coercion. In effect, spending public money to extend new roads, new sewer lines, new electric wiring and emergency services to areas on the exurban fringe is invisible, but public investment in light rail shows the long arm of big government. Similarly when a municipality makes a zoning ordinance that permits only large lots with single family homes in a given area, that’s the free market. If zoning regulations are altered to permit condos or mixed-use buildings, suddenly the government has “interfered.”
The same dynamic was at work from very rise of the modern American right in the suburbs of Orange County, California, where communities that owed their existence and day-to-day economic prosperity to lucrative government defense contracts, infrastructure spending, and federally insured home loans nevertheless launched contemporary conservatism with a fierce opposition to taxes and other manifestations of what they saw as unwarranted government interference in their apparently “self-made” lives.
Ideology neatly obscured the extensive public subsidies underlying ostensibly private success. It continues to do so today, preventing us from asking the genuinely relevant questions: not whether we should have government involvement, but which public actions will most effectively promote broad-based prosperity, helping to strengthen and expand the American middle class in both the short and long-term. Starting with this question helps us to evaluate whether aid to homeowners makes more sense than a bank bailout, for example, or whether food stamps make better stimulus than tax cuts. It makes it harder to distinguish between government action that lifts us all up and policy that benefits the few.
Amy Traub:Amy Traub is the Director of Research at the Drum Major Institute. A native of the Cleveland area, Amy is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago. She received a graduate fellowship to study political science at Columbia University, where she earned her Masters degree in 2001 and completed coursework towards a Ph.D. Her studies focused on comparative political economy, political theory, and social movements. Funded by a field research grant from the Tinker Foundation, Amy conducted original research in Mexico City, exploring the development of the Mexican student movement. Before coming to the Drum Major Institute, Amy headed the research department of a major New York City labor union, where her efforts contributed to the resolution of strikes and successful union organizing campaigns by hundreds of working New Yorkers. She has also been active on the local political scene working with progressive elected officials. Amy resides in Manhattan Valley with her husband.
This article originally appeared on DMI Blog on August 11, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.
The central question on the American people’s minds right now about health reform seems to be, “What’s in it for me?” Though the cost of doing nothing, as the conservatives propose, is staggering, with the average family paying $10,000 more in premiums by 2019, people still need to understand what reform will do. And while many people have answered or attempted to answer that question, I thought it might be worth another shot. So here it is – a concise and explanatory answer to the question, “What will health reform do for me?”
The below is based on the House version of health care reform, HR 3200 – America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, which is the strongest bill being discussed to date. In short, it will provide a guarantee of quality, affordable health care to everyone.
If you receive health insurance from your employer (or your spouse’s or parent’s employer):
The big things will not change – you will keep your current health insurance, keep your current doctor, and keep your current benefits. All the health reform plans being proposed allow people to keep their health insurance if they want to, and that means keeping their current benefits and choice of doctor. So if you get your coverage through work, or if your spouse or parent covers you on their health insurance through work, these big pieces will not change unless you want them to.
Your health insurance will get better and more stable. Health reform gives your employer a strong incentive to retain your health insurance or make it better. They will have to offer you at least standard, comprehensive package of benefits and your employer will not be able to continue shifting additional costs of insurance to you – they will have to pay at least about 70% of the cost of your coverage.
Your health insurance will get cheaper. As the public health insurance option forces insurance companies to compete, prices of private health insurance will fall. Your costs, even if you keep your current health insurance plan, will go down.
If you lose your job, you will always be able to get affordable insurance. If for any reason you lose your job and your employer based coverage, you will be eligible for affordable health insurance that meets your needs, as described below, with the government helping you pick up the tab until you get back to work, and expenses will be capped to make sure you can’t go bankrupt due to medical costs. You will always have a guaranteed, affordable backup to rely on if you need it.
If you are employed but do not receive health care benefits from your employer:
Your employer will have to offer you good, affordable health insurance. Under the bill proposed by the House, employers will have to offer you health benefits. Those benefits need to meet a standard for coverage, so you can’t be offered sub-par insurance that doesn’t meet the needs of you and your family. And your employer will have to cover a large percentage of your health care costs (65% for families and 72% for individuals), ensuring insurance is affordable and your employer can’t shift more costs to you. Small businesses are exempt from this regulation.
If you work for a small business that is exempt from regulations asking employers to provide health benefits you will always be able to get affordable insurance. You will be eligible for affordable health insurance that meets your needs, as described below.
If you buy health insurance on your own, or if you or your family are uninsured:
You will be able to find coverage. You will have access to a new health insurance “exchange,” where both public and private health insurance will be offered. You will be able to compare these plans side-by-side and choose what’s right for you and your family. None of these plans will be able to reject your application for pre-existing conditions or for your gender. You will have guaranteed access to health insurance.
You will be able to afford coverage. Any health insurance plan in the exchange will be subsidized if you qualify. Subsidies will be available up to 400% of the federal poverty level, or $88,000 per year for a family of four. These subsidies will ensure that you will only pay a certain percentage of your income in health care costs (that percentage varies depending on how much you make). Bottom line: Health insurance through the exchange will be affordable to you.
You will save money. Even if you do not qualify for subsidies or choose the public health insurance option, competition from the public health insurance option will force prices for insurance to fall across the board.
Your coverage will be good coverage, stable and secure. All plans in the exchange will have to conform to federal regulations, making sure that the plan you purchase covers things that you and your family need – things like preventative medicine, regular checkups, and prescription drugs. And, under health reform, your health insurance company will no longer be able to deny you coverage or care for pre-existing conditions. Your insurance company will no longer be able to drop your coverage if you become sick, or charge you more if you’re a woman. There will be no more annual or lifetime caps on coverage, so you won’t be stuck with tens of thousands in uncovered medical bills. And if you pay your premiums, your insurance company won’t be able to reject a renewal of your insurance plan.
Your expenses will be capped. Deductibles, co-pays, premiums, and other expenses will be capped at a percentage of your income (between 1.5% and 11%, depending on how much you make), so you no longer face exorbitant health insurance costs.
If you are on Medicare or Medicaid:
Your health programs will not be touched. There will be no eligibility or benefit cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Health reform will be financed partly by finding savings in these programs. These savings will come from eliminating portions of Medicare and Medicaid that are no longer needed once we’ve passed health care reform for everyone. For example, right now, Medicaid pays hospitals a reimbursement for people who come to the hospital without health insurance, and thus stick that hospital with the bill. Under health reform, most people will have health insurance, making these reimbursements unnecessary.
The Medicare “Donut Hole” will be closed. The “donut hole” in Medicare’s prescription drug program that leaves seniors with thousands of dollars in drug costs when their coverage runs out partway through the year will be gradually closed under health care reform.
Is this all paid for?
Yes. Health reform will be fully paid for, and will not increase the deficit. It will not increase your taxes, either. The House has proposed increasing taxes on those that make more than a quarter of a million dollars per year to pay for health reform. The middle class will not be affected.
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There is a short answer to the question of what health reform will do for you: Better coverage, lower costs, and the security of knowing you’re not at the mercy of private insurance anymore. This is what health care reform will do for you.
For a lot of you, this information is not news. However, you must know someone who needs to be educated. Copy and paste this post into an email and send it to someone who needs to know exactly how this bill works. Send around this link. Whatever you need to do, get that information out there. Fear can stop health care reform from happening, we need to fight back with the truth.
Jason Rosenbaum:Jason Rosenbaum is a writer and musician currently residing in Washington D.C. He is interested in the intersection of politics and culture, media consolidation issues, and making sense out of our foreign policy disasters. He currently works for Health Care for America Now and he is also the webmaster for The Seminal.
This article originally appeared on the Health Care for America NOW! Blog on August 4, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.
A heated argument is going on about the right health insurance model between those those who believe in a public option and those who believe in single payer.
Or perhaps I should say between those who are willing to take what they can get: public option; vs. those who want to hold out for what they consider the best option: single payer.
By way of reconciling what differences can be reconciled, let me ask a question of each side.
A Question for Public Option Advocates
Do you want to eventually have a single payer or a comprehensive system like the French have? If not, why not?
A Question for Single Payer Advocates
Are you willing to fight for a public option which could eventually lead to single payer or a comprehensive system like the French one? If not, why not?
At this point what I'm seeing is both sides retreating into moralistic screaming.
The public option folks are saying: “It is better to save some lives than none, and if you single payer purists don't support a public option which will save even a few lives, you're responsible for those deaths.”
The single payer people are saying: “The public option is so watered down that all it will do is discredit real public reform, aka single payer. You public option folks are settling for so little that the few lives you might save are outweighed by all the lives you won't save and the damage to the chance at real comprehensive health care reform.”
Both sides are assuming the other side is operating in bad faith. The public option folks assume the single payer folks just want to be pure rather than saving lives, the single payer that the public option folks are just sell-outs shilling for a bad bill.
But what I'm seeing, as someone with a foot in each camp, is that both sides are (mostly) sincere.
Now there is one group that can't be reconciled. People who want a public option so weak it either won't survive, or can't be used as the basis for a comprehensive system. The usual suspects like Insurance company executives, for example. But also some people in the Obama administration, such as Health Secretary Katherine Sibelius, the health secretary, who said that the plan would be drafted specifically so that it could never become single payer.
But for everyone else, for those acting in good faith, there should be some common ground from which we can work together. Let's start by recognizing that the battle over public option vs single payer is a distraction away from what we could accomplish if we worked together.
United we stand a chance. Divided, we will lose our chance at health care reform.
(Minor edits made 3 am July 26th for clarity and style)
Ian Welsh:Ian Welsh has been blogging since 2003. He was the Managing Editor of FireDogLake and the Agonist. His work has also appeared at Huffington Post, Alternet, and Truthout, as well as the now defunct Blogging of the President (BOPNews). In Canada his work has appeared in Pogge.ca and BlogsCanada. He is a social media strategy consultant and currently lives in Toronto.
This article was originally posted at Open Left on July 27, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.
Obama has said that he would favor a British-style “single payer” system in which the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are salaried but that he recognizes that such a shift would be too disruptive to the health-care industry. The Obama plan to have a government insurance provider that can undercut the premiums charged by private insurers would undoubtedly speed the arrival of such a single-payer plan.
Feldstein is simply mistaken here. “Single-payer” has to do with who pays for health care (in the case of single-payer, the federal government does). It has absolutely nothing to do with who provides health care. It’s the difference between the Canadian system, in which private doctors and hospitals are paid by the Canadian government (and indirectly, Canadian taxpayers) to provide health care to its citizenry, and the British system, in which the providers themselves — doctors, nurses, hospital administrators — are actually in the employ of Her Majesty’s Government. For that matter, it’s the difference between Medicare — a single-payer system for American seniors — and the British system. The Canadian system is nationalized health insurance. The British system is nationalized health care — or if you prefer, socialized medicine.
Obama has never expressed or implied any admiration for the British system of socalized medicine. Not that there aren’t admirable elements of it — but I doubt that you’d find even very many self-identified liberals who would suggest that it’s the right system for America. Obama, rather, has expressed admiration for a government-run monopoly on insurance — single-payer — as do about half of Americans in opinion polls.
Got it? Get it? Good.
Paul Secunda:
Paul Secunda joined the Marquette University Law School as an associate professor of law in the summer of 2008. He teaches employment discrimination, employee benefits, labor law, employment law, civil procedure, and seminars in special education law, global issues in employee benefits, and public employment law. Professor Secunda is the author of nearly three dozen books, treatises, articles, and shorter writings. He is also the author, along with Rick Bales and Jeff Hirsch, of the treatise, Understanding Employment Law, along with Sam Estreicher and Rosalind Connor, of the case book, Global Issues in Employee Benefits Law, and of the Teacher’s Manual to the 14th Edition of the Cox, Bok, Gorman & Finkin Labor Law casebook.Professor Secunda is a frequent commentator on labor and employment law issues in the national media and has written numerous columns and op-eds for the National Law Journal and Legal Times. He co-edits with Rick Bales and Jeffrey Hirsch the Workplace Prof Blog, recently named one of the top law professor blogs in the country, which is part of the Law Professors Blog Network.
This article originally appeared at Workplace Prof Blog and is reprinted here with permission from the author.
Using a combination of integrated, team-based care and technology, Kaiser Permanente of Southern California developed a Healthy Bones initiative that not only reduced fractures in the most at-risk patients by 37 percent, but lowered the care cost for the same patients by 30 percent.
Similar Kaiser programs have reduced heart disease deaths and treatment costs in Colorado and diabetes complications and costs in Hawaii.
Yesterday, a forum hosted by the National Labor College (NLC) and the Kaiser Permanente Health Care Institute explored how health care delivery and quality can be vastly improved and costs significantly lowered with integrated care and technology and by maximizing the unique labor-management partnership at Kaiser Permanente, where some 96,000 health care workers are unionized.
With the nation in the midst of a debate over how to reform the nation’s broken health care system and how to expand and improve care and reduce costs, the Kaiser model provides a promising blueprint.
One of the cornerstones of Kaiser’s success is the labor-management partnership that allows all caregivers a voice developing and delivering new care initiatives.
In an interview during a break in the presentations, George Halverson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, said:
The labor-management partnership has been very productive. It’s been a huge asset and a lot of this that we are doing with the labor-management partnership would translate to other places.
Halverson says it would be a mistake to reform health care—whether reform includes expanding coverage, establishing new insurance company rules or financing—without reforming the way health care is delivered
Integrated care ensures that everyone is involved in a patient’s care, from primary physician to specialists, pharmacist, nurse and others, and that new technology allows that information to be shared and analyzed. Speaking at the forum, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said a health care reform proposal without integrated health care reform “is not optional.” He adds that the team-based care concept is vital.
I think is perhaps our most significant work together-the use of what are called “unit-based” teams to bring doctors, nurses, technicians, pharmacists and other caregivers together on behalf of patients.
The results have included startling improvements in patient outcomes, reductions in medical errors, better preventative care, cost savings and a better, more satisfying work environment for everyone involved.
John August, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, told participants he believes the method by which Kaiser delivers health care can be successful elsewhere, but adds:
You’ve got to have a system where labor and management work together everyday…where workers can feel confident in the team.
He says when changes or new care plans come from a “top-down” management, with a “here’s the plan, implement it” style, it is likely not to have complete worker buy-in and enthusiasm. But with a team-based plan:
It doesn’t take much of a leap of faith to have confidence in it.
Sweeney says the Kaiser Permanente Labor Management Partnership has provided “a framework for what every health care delivery system should do,”
and that’s break down walls and bring caregivers together so they can use new technology and coordinate care 24-hours-a-day.
Mike Hall:Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL-CIO in 1989 and has written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. He carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. He’s also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold blood plasma, and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen him at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. He was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still has the shirts, lost the hair.
This article originally appeared on the AFL-CIO NOW Blog and is reprinted here with permission from the author.
I had the rare privilege of meeting one of my heroes, Paul Wellstone, shortly before his death in 2002 when I visited Washington as part of a conference for high school students interested in politics. We had the opportunity to meet several senators during our time in Washington, but Paul Wellstone treated us differently — more like we were friends coming over for a cup of coffee than a bunch of nerdy high school students on a trip. He insisted that we not call him “senator,” but instead simply Paul.
While other senators were going on and on about their accomplishments or telling corny jokes, Paul went around and asked what issues were important to us and what we were doing currently to advocate for these policies. He suggested ideas about how we could become more involved, more effective, and what other issues we might want to get involved in. He encouraged us “to go out and fight because that was the only way change has ever been achieved.” Paul’s faith in my ability to achieve social change inspired me so much that I spent the rest of my summer volunteering full time to help elect Ed Rendell as governor in Pennsylvania.
A few months later. I was in tears as I listened to the news over NPR that Paul Wellstone and his loving wife, Shelia, had died in a plane crash on their way to a funeral of a steelworker in Northern Minnesota. Paul Wellstone, a tireless champion of the working class served as an inspiration to a generation of activists during the dark days of a decade long Republican reign. For the last seven years, I have kept a photo of Paul Wellstone and me on my desk as a source of inspiration for when the times get tough.
Paul came to the United States Senate under the most unusual of circumstances. He was a college professor who had been arrested protesting with union workers and had previously spent most of his career organizing welfare mothers and poor farmers. No one had expected him to win his first campaign for Senate against an incumbent Republican Senator as he was outspent nearly seven to one. Paul had a secret weapon though his ability to inspire regular people to get out and organize. Unemployed, single mothers held bake sales to help fund his campaign, youth not old enough to vote spent hours volunteering for him. He formed a grassroots army of thousands of ordinary folks and trained them in community organizing.
When Paul Wellstone was elected to the Senate, he never forgot the thousands of ordinary folks that put their hopes and their dreams in him by working to get him elected. He summed up his philosophy about why he was in the Senate by saying, “I don’t represent the big oil companies, the big pharmaceuticals or the big insurance industry. They already have great representation in Washington. Its the rest of the people that need representation.”
Many Senators had referred to Paul as “The Conscience of the Senate.” Only 5 feet 4 inches tall and walking with a severe limp, Wellstone would stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate and rail against corporates interests with the tenacity of the All-American wrestler that he was once. And then he would go back home on the weekends and teach those people how to community organize and fight against the powerful interests that were ruining their lives. Its unknown how many people Wellstone inspired, but to this day you can still see thousands of green bumper stickers in Minnesota with the phrase “W.W.W.D. — What Would Wellstone Do?”
Last week, Al Franken, a friend of Paul’s who had been inspired to run for office by Paul’s death, took back Paul’s old seat from Republican Norm Coleman. After reading, I found myself wondering of what Paul would be doing now if he was still a U.S. senator. Paul had spent the majority of his career in the minority party in the Senate. In his book Conscience of a Liberal, Paul admitted that in his time in the U.S. Senate he spent nearly 85 percent of his time defending against Republican attacks on working families and he never had the opportunity to fight for things like the big reform measures that he craved. I thought about how Paul would be down on the floor of the Senate to talk about the 20,000 people that die every year due to a lack of health coverage, or to talk about how his access to quality health care as a United States senator allowed him to continue having a productive life despite his semi-debilitating multiple sclerosis.
While Paul spent the most of his career in the minority, he did indeed spend a very brief time in the majority in 1993-1994 when Democrats had the opportunity to pass a health care reform. However, Democrats caved to the insurance companies’ lobbyists and no comprehensive health care reform was passed. As Mike Lux, a top Clinton aide at the time argued in his book The Progressive Revolution, Democrats were then swept out of power for their inability to stand up to special interests. Democrats would remain in the wilderness for the rest of Wellstone’s tenure in the Senate.
If Democrats fail to deliver on a strong public health insurance plant that an overwhelming 76% favor according to the Wall Street Journal, they too will fail as a party. Reforming health care is about standing up to the big special interests that are spending $1.4 million every day on an army of lobbyists so that they can continue to deny people the health care they need.
Furthermore, health care reform is literally about saving lives. Democrats should avoid looking for some easy compromise on health care with the insurance industry that would deny some people care in order to score a quick legislative victory.
As Wellstone said, “Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people’s lives. It’s about advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and the world. Politics is about doing well for the people.”
Beating the insurance industry is going to be one of the toughest fights we as a movement have ever engaged in. Unfortunately, we don’t have Paul Wellstone around to fight for us anymore. However, we do have the people that Wellstone believed in the most — ourselves. So I say its about time that we ask ourselves, What Would Wellstone Do?
Mike Elk:Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer and worked previously for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE). He works currently as an editor at AlterNet.
This article originally appeared at The Huffington Post on July 14, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley gets a pretty sweet deal as Senator on health care. He pays $356.59 per month, and the most he pays when visiting a doctor or hospital is $300. Compare that to your average Iowan family, who would pay almost $600 a month and be on the hook for $5,000 or more if they went to the hospital.
And who pays for Grassley’s benefits? Taxpayers like you and me.
Senator Grassley’s health benefits meet his needs and their affordable. So why can’t people like you and me have something just as good?
Grassley was asked this very question by an Iowa voter at a town hall a few weeks ago. Instead of honestly answering the question, Grassley dismissed it, saying first that the citizen should get a job with John Deere (which recently laid off hundreds in Iowa) and then that the citizen should get a job with the federal government – a job like Senator Grassley’s – if he wanted health care as good.
An honest answer to the question would have seen Senator Grassley being straightforward about his position on health care. Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and the Senator currently leading his party in opposition to health reform, is against just about everything President Obama is for on the subject. He signed a letter against a public health insurance option that would lower costs and make health care available to people like me and you, and he’s against asking employers to kick in their fair share towards health reform, another key proposal from President Obama.
Finally, he’s the one who’s been holding up progress on health reform on the Senate Finance Committee. With the House introducing their bill in their three committees today, and the Senate HELP Committee already marking up a bill, that means the Senate Finance Committee is the only committee yet to unveil a health reform bill, in part because Grassley is holding up a “bipartisan compromise.”
Also, we’re advertising this video online as well, using the image you see above, so every Iowan sees Senator Grassley’s cavalier response to the health care crisis.
Senators like Chuck Grassley can’t be allowed to get away with obstructing health reform.
Jason Ronsenbaum:Jason Rosenbaum is a writer and musician currently residing in Washington D.C. He is interested in the intersection of politics and culture, media consolidation issues, and making sense out of our foreign policy disasters. He currently works for Health Care for America Now and he is also the webmaster for The Seminal.
This article was originally posted at Health Care for America NOW! on July 14, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.
I was asked today to post a diary to Daily Kos written by my boss, Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa – it is beneath the fold. In this piece we are looking into the fact that a tax hike on health benefits to pay for health care reform is a bitter, bitter pill for middle-class wage-earners to swallow.
By Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa
Congress is finally beginning to grapple with a way to give all U.S. citizens access to affordable health insurance. Unions support universal coverage like a large majority of Americans.
Almost 15 years have gone by since lawmakers considered comprehensive reform to our nation’s health care system with the goal of making sure every American can access health care. How to pay for health care reform was the problem then — and it’s the problem now.
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the powerful chairman of the Finance Committee, is suggesting an enormous new tax on employer-sponsored health insurance.
Such a tax would raise hundreds of billions of dollars. That tax revenue would help pay for a public government-sponsored plan for individuals and families.
For those who have employer-provided coverage, creating a “public” plan is a sensible way to make health insurance available to people who can’t get it through their employer and don’t qualify for Medicaid or Medicare. But a tax hike on health benefits to pay for health care reform is a bitter, bitter pill for middle-class wage-earners to swallow.
Most Americans find the prospect of such a tax downright obnoxious. Fortunately, Members of Congress are aware of the public’s hostility to taxing employer-based insurance. A recent national survey by Lake Research Partners shows 80 percent of likely voters oppose taxing health benefits.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made the mistake of floating the idea during his presidential campaign. Candidate Barack Obama lashed out with a television commercial calling it “the largest middle-class tax increase in history.” Obama’s opposition to taxing employer-based health insurance was a big reason the Teamsters supported him for president.
For all those reasons, it seems extremely unlikely that a tax on employer-sponsored health insurance will ever become a reality. Or, let us hope.
If it did, it would destroy employer-sponsored health insurance.
Adding a tax onto an already crushing expense for employers and employees would create a huge disincentive to buy employer-sponsored health insurance.
It would mostly burden people who are older or sicker, women of childbearing age, employees of small businesses and residents of high-cost communities.
It would set off a stampede to the public plan. And the public plan would lose a major source of revenue.
There is no reason that revenue to pay for health care reform has to come out of the current health care system. Middle-class taxpayers just gave Wall Street the biggest bailout in history. Wall Street can well afford to return the favor.
We know Members of Congress can be creative when they need to find revenue offsets. Let them use that creativity just as they did for Wall Street to prevent another tax on those of us who live on Main Street.
Eliminating subsidies and preferences for the wealthiest Americans would go a long way to pay for the health care reform this country so desperately needs.
President Obama is suggesting a limit on itemized deductions for the 3 million wealthiest people in this country. That would raise about $270 billion over 10 years.
Another good suggestion is to extend the 2.9 percent Medicare tax, which applies only to wages, to ALL adjusted gross income, would raise $38.1 billion.
Imposing a 1.05 percent surtax on the Medicare tax on single people who earn more than $200,000, or couples that earn more than $250,000, would raise $7.2 billion.
Raising the capital gains tax to 28 percent — the rate under President Ronald Reagan — in top income brackets would raise $34.7 billion.
Limiting tax deductions for stock options and the write-off for intangible assets would add $15 billion to the federal Treasury.
Let’s make health care reform cover the uninsured but not penalize hard-working American families and individuals who have employer-sponsored plans. For those who claim this is class warfare, I’d say it’s been going on for quite a while and it’s time for that to change. Middle-class families — the backbone of this country — deserve better.
James P. Hoffa – James P. Hoffa grew up on picket lines and in union meetings. He is the only son of James R. Hoffa, former General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. On his 18th birthday, Hoffa received his own union card and was sworn in by his father. Prior to becoming Administrative Assistant to Michigan Joint Council 43, Hoffa was a labor lawyer in Detroit for 25 years.
Hoffa is recognized as one of the foremost authorities on Union issues. As the most visible and outspoken critic of government trade policies and anti-worker corporate agendas, Hoffa is recognized as a leader on issues that affect working people.
Republicans’ primary objection is the Democrats’ push for a public health insurance plan that would serve as an alternative to private coverage. Republicans say such a plan would cause the private insurance market to unravel.
There is also the potential 10-year price tag of $1 trillion or more for the overhaul, coupled with the prospect of new taxes or fees to offset the cost. And Republicans see elements of the Democratic plans as government intrusion into personal health care decision making.
Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, said he was unaware of any House Republican inclined to support the Democrats’ proposed legislation.
Democrats don’t need Republicans to pass a health care bill:
In the budget adopted earlier this year, Democrats granted themselves the power to force health care legislation through the Senate on a simple majority vote. But many lawmakers are reluctant to do so both because of the appearance of partisanship as well as the difficulty of enacting such complex legislation under fast-track rules.
Republicans have studied how to navigate the political terrain of health care given strong public support for improvements. In a memorandum to Republican strategists, Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, urged party leaders to focus on cost concerns.
But they also warned party strategists to take note of the American public’s frustration with the soaring cost of health care. “Concern about rising health care costs outstrips every other economic concern today,” Mr. Gillespie and Mr. Ayres wrote.
Here’s the irony — the bill they are likely to pass, the one with the biggest price tag, is a bailout for the insurance industries. Also the one the Republicans are most likely to get on board with. The one that controls cost the best — single payer — they dismiss as “socialism.”
You’re never going to get a decent healthcare bill by pandering to Republicans, and with 76% of Americans in favor of a public option, you’re not going to please them and please the public at the same time. Most likely, pleasing Republicans will just get used as an excuse to do what Kay Hagan wants, which is give the insurance industry everything it wants.
We need a public plan that is:
available nationwide
on day one
and accountable to Congress and the voters
So, let’s stop trying to please the GOP, and start trying to serve the best interests of the public. If the GOP isn’t on board with something that so broadly popular, let’s just admit we can do this with Democrats, and get it done.
About the Author: Jane Founder’swork has appeared on the Huffington Post, Alternet and The American Prospect. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC and PBS and is the author of the best selling book Killer Instinct. She has produced such films Natural Born Killers and Permanent Midnight and currently lives in Washington, D.C.
Note: The views expressed in this post are the views of the author and not necessarily those of Today’s Workplace or Workplace Fairness.
This article originally appread in Campaign Silo on June 27, 2009. Re-printed with permission from the author.
According to Paul Krugman, that’s the unofficial rallying cry of the conservative opposition to health care reform. Across the country, much of the oxygen in the debate is sucked up by the tragic irony of Medicare recipients speaking out against a government takeover of health care. If the misinformation swamps our chances of overhauling the system, it will be an unmitigated disaster.
