Deja Vu All Over Again

BP's insistence that the air is safe to breathe and workers don't need protection seems to be a repeat of the Administration assuring us that the air at the World Trade Center was safe after 9-11. The only difference seems to be that it took longer for the symptoms to show up on the 9-11 workers than it is for the workers on the oil gush cleanup.

When are we ever going to choose to be more concerned about the safety of people over corporate profits?

Cantwell & Murray Sign the Public Option Letter

According to Open Left Senator Cantwell signed the Bennett letter to pass the public option through reconciliation. Senator Murray signed earlier this week so we're 2 for 2!!

NEWS FLASH -- Healthcare Works for Multimillionaires

Rush Limbaugh has chest pains and is rushed to a hospital in Hawaii, by the way a state that requires all employers to provide their employees with health insurance.

But back to Rush: “Based on what happened to me here,” Rush Limbaugh told reporters about his hospital visit, “I don’t think there is one thing wrong with the American health care system. It is working just fine.”

Thank GAWD!! A multimillionaire, high profile person can receive decent health care. Isn't America great?! Well no need for any health care bills from Congress.

Men Protecting Us Little Women AGAIN

My fantasy Sunday morning show is Rachel Maddow hosting a panel made up of Ana Marie Cox, Arianna Huffington, Jessica Valenti, Digby, and Donna Brazile discussing the merits of the public money paying for prostrate exams and Viagra. Maybe then David Gregory and NBC will get a clue as to why it is so insulting for him to use a panel of men to discuss abortion.

Taylor Marsh covered it well:

Well, as with the late Tim Russert, once again with David Gregory on “Meet the Press,” women are not seen or heard at a time when abortion politics has been at the center of the healthcare debate. (I’ve been covering this reality for years.) That women also pay more for health insurance evidently doesn’t meet the “Meet the Press” standards for being included in the debate. That says it all, not only about the continuing If It’s Sunday, It’s Misogyny . . .

Silly me, why would the opinion of a woman be useful when talking about abortion rights anyway? We're so lucky to have the menfolk talking for us silly women!

Kill Lieberman's Bill

We Democrats stand on the verge of ushering in a world of nearly unregulated mandates, in which we're all forced by the state to hand over our money to failed private monopolies, with no cost control in return. Without a public option and no hope of expanding Medicare coverage, this bill is not worth supporting.

Please encourage your Senators to vote against the Lieberman insurance company welfare act.

We'll have to live another day to try to correct the injustice, waste, inefficiency, and unfairness of our current health care system. Nine months wasted. What a shame.

Viagra vs Abortion

The fabulous Digby has hit the nail on the head as usual:

I have a moral objection to paying for any kind of erectile dysfunction medicine in the new health reform bill and I think men who want to use it should just pay for it out of pocket. After all, I won't ever need such a pill. And anyway, it's no biggie. Just because most of them can get it under their insurance today doesn't mean they shouldn't have it stripped from their coverage in the future because of my moral objections. (I don't think there's even been a Supreme Court ruling making wood a constitutional right. I might be wrong about that.)

Many of the men who are prescribed this medication are on Medicare, so I think it should be stripped out of that coverage as well. And unlike the payments for abortion, which actually lower overall medical costs (pregnancy obviously costs much, much more) banning tax dollars from covering any kind of Viagra would result in a substantial savings. . .

I completely agree. Where do I sign the petition?

Stupak Amendment is a Poison Pill

I say if the Stupak Amendment is in the final bill after conference -- vote against it. I will not throw young women under the bus for these Blue Dogs and Republithugs.

Health Care Triggers and What is Health Insurance?

The "trigger" alternative to providing a good public option health care alternative right out of the gate like Rahm Emanuel and Olympia Snowe are pushing is just cheap political cover. The ball-less and spineless politicians just want plausible deny-ability. The "trigger" offer them the opportunity to allow for a public option only under certain conditions and they can write lame options into the legislation so that those conditions would never get met in the real world, thus doing the insurance companies' bidding.

I say if we have to swallow this sour pill and put up with them making us wait, we need a good strong definition as to what adequate insurance means. Too many companies offer what they call "insurance" but is really just a discount club or coverage in only selected and mostly unavailable providers. Wal-Mart, always the leader, has figured this scam out. Here's how the Miami Herald described their coverage:

So here's how it works: Wal-Mart offers insurance, but aggressively shifts the cost onto its employees. The low-wage workers then pass up the unaffordable coverage and turn to the states. If this isn't exactly company policy, it is at least company philosophy. CEO Lee Scott, at the company's recent ''summit'' for the media, even described it. He said some state health programs are 'so lucrative that, in fact, it's hard to be competitive with them and certainly extraordinarily expensive to be competitive with them.'

Wal-Mart provides health care options to their employees and families that have a deductible of $1,000 for individuals and $3,000 for families. Standard services – including office visit co-pays, emergency room visits and ambulance services, per-event deductibles, and pharmacy co-pays – are not applied toward the standard deductible.

I got a quote from Assurant Health of WA. Here's the highlights:
Plan Type: PPO
Office Visit for Primary Doctor: $35 Copay for the first 4 visits; deductible and coinsurance thereafter; this benefit includes Primary Doctor, Specialist, Periodic Health Exam, and Periodic OB-GYN Exam Office Visit for Specialist.
Coinsurance: 50% after deductible
Annual Deductible Individual: $10,000
Only 1 provider in my county is part of this plan.

Yes the price sounds good -- $190 per month -- but what would I get? 4 exams at $35 then a 50% discount after I spend $10 thousand. One lengthy illness or complication and I'm bankrupt.

This kind of 'insurance' shouldn't be even called insurance. Yet under Olympia Snowe's proposal it would be consdiered affordable insurance and would prevent the trigger from being pulled.

We need strong minimum standards for what qualifies as real insurance that protects people, prevents them from having to go bankrupt or worry about how they will pay for a simple procedure. Something that controls costs and really provides prevenative assistance.

Don't let them stick us with this lame "trigger" without a strong definition and standard.

Move-On Did A Great Job on Public Option

As usual, Move-On calls it right against all those that think we can have a trigger, wait until the economy gets better, or delay the issue until we're not so busy.

Everyone Supports Single Payer!!

Despite the propaganda spin from the Republithugs, single payer has broad support from many, many organizations. Apple Eating Notes assembled an impressive list of supporters for single payer. I know you'll recognize how broad and extensive the support is. Funny thing though, no insurance companies. Huh?!

Keith Olberman is a Genius

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

HELP Came Up with a GREAT Bill

Check out the bill that came out of Ted Kennedy's Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on healthcare:

+ It covers 97% of us for $600B over 10 years.
+ It has a real public option.
+ It charges businesses only $750 per year for every employee not provided coverage. The fee was forecast to generate $52 billion over 10 years, money the government would use to help provide subsidies to those who cannot afford insurance.

The same provision is also estimated to greatly reduce the number of workers whose employers would drop coverage, thus addressing a major concern noted by CBO when it reviewed the earlier proposals.

(h/t to cuteoverload.com)

One Term President?

John Amato (he'd sure look darn good in Harman's seat)over at Crooks & Liars says:

It's real simple. If President Obama doesn't include a vibrant public option in health care reform, he will lose the left and will never recover. Is that what he wants? Does he want to be a one-term president? Does he want conservatives and teabaggers to control Congress?

I'm sick and tired of hearing his representatives tell me that Congress is writing the bill. He won a mandate to reform health care. John McCain's plans for health care were rejected by Americans. So why is he involved in a kabuki dance with all the weak-kneed Democrats like Blanche Lincoln, DiFi, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad and all the rest of the corporate Dems? And why does Sen. Grassley matter at all? They don't care about American families and what's been happening to them.

I agree. And Senators Murray and Cantwell are in the same sinking ship if they betray us again. We will throw these corporatrists over and re-build the party if necessary.

A Way to Scream about Public Option

Several bloggers through ActBlue are gathering funds to run this commercial to advocate that the public option gets back on the table:



I hope you'll join us in supporting this cause. The more times we get this on the air, the better our chances are.

Bureaucrats Between Patients and Providers

Congressman John BOEHNER: ... But, at the end of the day, we want to make sure that doctors and patients are making decisions about what care is in their best interest, not some government bureaucrat in between.

I have one of the most expensive plans available through my employer -- I pay $112 per month and I'm not sure what my employer pays. I also pay $750 out of pocket in deductibles.

The insurance company, states this in their annual report:

Like other companies, we faced a challenging business environment as the global financial crisis became a defining event in 2008, and our stock closed lower at the end of 2008 than the previous year. Our stock’s performance, however, does not reflect other measures of our industry leadership, including superior medical membership growth, industry-leading operating earnings per share growth and strong revenue growth. Metrics of this industry leading performance included:
􀂃 Revenue, excluding net realized capital losses, increased 14 percent over 2007 to $31.6 billion.1
􀂃 Net medical membership increased by 848,000 members, or 5 percent, to 17.7 million.
􀂃 Operating earnings per share were $3.93, an increase of 13 percent over 2007.

Staying True to Our Strategy
Our accomplishments have been the direct result of a strategy focused on segmentation, integration, consumerism and operational excellence. Over time, executing this strategy has created value for our customers and differentiated Aetna from our competitors.

Where's their concern for the patient? I have to use their preferred provider. The preferred provider has to approve any other treatment I want -- for example I have a plantars wart on my foot and I know that I need to go see a podiatrist but I have to go to the preferred provider first to get them to approve the podiatrist visit. I'm limited to generic drugs -- I cannot get covered other than generic even if that's what the doctor thinks will work best for me. If I need hospice care, they limit me to 5 days in a 3-month period -- I better die fast. My preferred provider has to call the insurance company before sending me out or preforming any procedure to get it pre-approved.

I already have many bureaucrats between me a the medical care I need but the biggest bureaucrat impacting me, the insurance company, is primarily concerned with stock price and CEO salary. He rations out care to me and arbitarily limits what I can receive whether I need it or not -- not for the my good, not for the public good and not to ensure I receive needed care but rather to preserve stockholder value.

Thanks for you concern, Boehner, but I've tried it your way and I'd like to see if the government bureaucrat can't do it better and for cheaper.

I WANT SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE

UPDATE 6-18-09 PM:

Digby (of course) puts her finger right on the issue. She has a list of what insurance company CEO's are paid. Here's mine:

* Aetna
CEO: John Rowe
2005: 22.1 mil
5-year:57.8 mil

From me: Senator Murray's 5 largest campaign contribution industry group is Pharmaceuticals/Health at $126K.

Health Care Insurers Chutzpah or Confidence?

Last week I wrote to my Senators and Congressman:

The House and Senate needs to quit carrying the insurance industry water on their trigger proposal and other delaying techniques. Congress needs to represent the people. We, the people, want universal single payer health care. We're willing to discuss public 'option' just so long as it does not become the insurance companies' dumping ground for so called "uninsurable" high risk/high cost patients and allow the insurance companies to cherry pick the least risk patients. The public option must be a real option for people and be operated in such a way that it stays competitive with private for-profit companies.

Senator Reid and Congresswoman Pelosi are not demonstrating adequate leadership in this area. They appear to be beholding to the insurance companies and are ignoring the electorate. Universal health care is this generation's watershed issue. Please get on board and support real health care reform. Just kicking this issue down the road and trusting that for-profit companies will cut costs is unacceptable. The trigger options are unacceptable. We all remember how the problems with the prescription drug legislation were going to be fixed later and here years and years later we still have that donut hole in coverage and no negotiating for prices. This time we need real reform -- not a flawed half way measure and another empty promise of fixing it later.

Any legislator that compromises on this opportunity to reform health care will have to answer for this when they come up for re-election. This is not an issue that can be swept under the rug. You will be held accountable for your vote and leadership on this issue.

Years ago fire departments were all privately owned and for profit. We, the people, saw that there was a public interest to bring them into the public sphere and out of private hands. I'm sure the fire companies of their day stalled, whined, and threatened their public officials so they could hold onto their power and profit. But the public need was more important and today fire departments are publicly financed and managed. We are now at another watershed time in history. Basic universal health care is too important to be left to private for-profit companies. It is a public need and the public needs to finance and manage it.

Please support universal single-payer health care reform. Stand up for the people, not private for-profit interests.

This week they heard directly from our friendly health insurance companies.

Top executives of UnitedHealth's Golden Rule Insurance Co., Assurant Health and WellPoint Inc., appearing Tuesday before the the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, told angry lawmakers they would not confine such rescissions to cases in which intentional fraud on the part of the policyholder can be shown, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

I wonder if our Congress people are capable of connecting the dots. We need to get rid of these vampires who have been sucking insurance premiums from us and then when faced with maybe paying out something, recission us, canceling health insurance policies retroactively. Heads they win, tails we loose. Even faced with the (remote) possibility of a single-payer universal health care, these vampires refuse to change their practice of recission.

I'd say they had chutzpah but they are instead probably confident that they've bought the house and senate and have nothing to worry about.


UPDATE 6-17 PM -- Here's the response I got from Sen Murray:

. . . Recently, I joined with my colleagues on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, of which I am a senior member, to introduce the "Affordable Healthy Choices Act." This legislation reduces health care costs, allows Americans to keep the coverage they have if they want it, and makes health insurance affordable to those who do not have it today.

I am particularly proud that as we work to offer quality, affordable coverage to all Americans, that we have included provisions to support programs that would increase the number of Americans going into health care professions to ensure our system has enough workers to provide much needed care. . .

What does that mean?

Tom Daschle

Everybody is all a titter about Tom Daschle withdrawing today. MSM is questioning Obama's judgement. EEK the Sky is falling!

I blame Tom Daschle. We need him to get universal health care. He had the connections, clout, spine, and nerve to push this through. He had a well defined and articulated program on the shelf. BUT He KNEW he had these problems in his background. He also had to know that the Reputhugs would turn over every stone to avoid confirming him. Why didn't he give Obama a heads up BEFORE the nomination? He then could have served as an unconfirmable advisor and we would have gotten his clout and expertise. Now he's stained and out. GRRRR -- I'm really disappointed in him.

But I have a solution -- not as powerful in the Senate but maybe even more powerful in the court of public opinion and certainly knowledgeable enough: Doctor Howard Dean.

In case anyone is foolish enough to want to offer me a position that needs confirmation -- forget it. I have many sins hidden under rocks that would prevent me from being confirmed. But I can still work in your administration . . . anyone?? . . . hello??