There is a lot of prep going on to defeat Health Care in the Senate...

by: btchakir

Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 17:58

"Danger! Danger!"

It's like we're in a Saturday morning kids scifi show... the goodguy robot (in this case MSNBC) is telling us that the Repubs are getting ready to attack the Senate's vote on a Health Care Plan any way they can.

To start with, more than one of the Repub Senators (led by Lamar Alexander - R, TN) have called for new "Town Hall" meetings, like the ones the House members had in August - and it looks like the groups of lobbyists are ready to bus the same people in.

btchakir :: There is a lot of prep going on to defeat Health Care in the Senate...

We've heard phrases like "dead on arrival" referring any consideration of the House passed bill by the Senate, and that we have to take it slow... not try to do too much. "Too much" apparently refers to doing anything at all.

We know that Lieberman is out there waiting to jump on a filibuster if there is any government based, non-profit choice option... and a good dozen Democratic Senators who will note vote for it if such an option is missing.

We won't even get into bringing the Stupak Amendment which makes property out of insured women into the Senate Bill.

But this Health Care brouhaha won't be the only problem coming up in the Senate. Chris Dodd's Banking Bill, which is a distinct pull of control away from the Treasury Department and a return to the kind of regulations we lost starting with the Reagan Devastation (oops) Administration.

Repubs are coming out of the walls already, making early attacks on Dodd for allegedly taking money from a housing funder and other unrelated things. Dodd is a tough politician, though, and has been through worse than this.

Then there is Afghanistan... and this could be used, if the Repubs have their way, to completely destroy the entire Obama Administration. Now there hasn't been a final decision on how many troops will be sent to Afghanistan yet... they are hinting at Thanksgiving week as an announcement date... but we're already hearing from the Right that Obama is not capable of making a decision here. Then there are the far left folks ( and frankly, some of us moderates who really remember Viet Nam) who want us to just get out. That doesn't look like it's in the cards. Remember, in the words of Paul Hipp's song "We're Number 37":

Were #1 one in tanks
Were #1 in planes
Were #1 in war with #2 for brains

And I'm afraid our whole government DOES have #2 for brains. (When I was playing the Paul Hipp tune it made me think of playing Country Joe and the Fish's "Feelin' Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" and wondering why in Hell we were in Viet Nam killing off our best young men. The difference now is we kill off our best young women, too.)

So tune into C-Span 2 and watch the Senate debates. Keep checking the blogs to get the information the TV news won't give you. And hope that Health Care, Finances, and War get resolved to the satisfaction of THINKING people.

Under The LobsterScope

Tags: health care, Senate, town hall meeting, Republicans, chris dodd, War, (All Tags)

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There is a lot of prep going on to defeat Health Care in the Senate... | 4 comments

I don't mourn its failure -- kill the mandate -- Stupak isn't the only problem (0.00 / 0)

My wife and I have been taking a closer look at this mandate. It's terrifying. If we hit the income limit, we'll just be squeaking by. And then we're forced to spend 12.5% of our income on insurance?

We go under. We lose our home. The money's not there.

Or we're hit with a 2.5% fine. For nothing.

The mandate might not be so awful for the very poor, or for the comfortable middle class. But for millions of Americans in the middle, this is a disaster.

And how is it to be enforced? The IRS? Will our tax return have a box saying are you insured? If not, add 2.5% of your income to what's due. If insured, give company name and policy number. And if you don't, or lie, you are now a criminal. What happens when the government starts digging into our bank accounts. When THEY decide we can pay based on their tables, and we're fined or sent to jail? This isn't the crazy death panels. This is right in there.

I'm in no way a teabagger. But when they are saying keep the government out of our lives, my heart leaps. If this bill wreaks havoc on my family, then it deserves to go down in flames. Again, the details have been kept under the radar, and progressives are caught flat-footed. Again, we'll see the problem at the last minute.

Sorry, I've sacrificed a lot over the years for social justice. Gladly and proudly. But I'm not going to be thrown under the bus because it's needed in order to make the Democrats look good.

by: RoseRoby @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 23:44:56 PM UTC

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Above comment ws submitted by Jeff Roby (0.00 / 0)

Got our log-ins mixed. Sorry.

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by: jeffroby @ Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 23:46:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Well it is hard to tell without some details (0.00 / 0)

on income. But only a small fraction of American families fall into an income band where this should be a problem, mainly a family of four making from around $88,000 to $102,000 where neither spouse has insurance available through their employer. A family of four making less than $88,000 and insured through individual insurance is eligible for a combination of Individual Premium Affordability Credits and Individual Cost Sharing Affordability Credits that would drop maximum out of pocket costs from about $6000 at the top end (400% of FPL) down to about $1000 at the bottom (133-150% of FPL).

Now for a family of two this could be a problem because subsidies stop around $44,000 and coming up with $500 or so a month could certainly be a stretch. In the other hand there is a a good argument that at those levels it is more important to have quality, comprehensive health insurance than to be a home owner.

I am totally sympathetic in general, I am going to lose my house whenever the bank gets around to actually foreclosing, sometime in the next six months I will looking for the cheapest one bedroom apartment available where three years ago I was sitting in my own office at work and commuting to a two-bedroom condo with huge equity. It is amazing what happens when you combine a career in real estate research with a housing meltdown, both the office and equity seem to vanish. But I am a lot more concerned because I have no insurance and some pre-existing conditions that not only make me uninsureable but with no way to pay for an operation I really should be having like months ago.

So given that I am losing my home and really need the near immediate access to the high risk insurance pool established by the newest version of the House bill I am not sure why I should allow someone else's home loss outweigh the interests of me and 50 million more uninsured people.

Plus this "fined or sent to jail" is a little overwrought. There are some scare stories echoing around the blogosphere originating from Rep. Camp's office that not paying the fine subjects people to $250,000 fines and five years in jail. The same letter from JCT that is being used to back that says that against 692,000 cases of the IRS applying civil penalties where the penalty is typical the orginal amount owed plus a percentage, they had 759 misdemeanor or felony prosecutions with 666 incarcerations in 2008 from willful falsification of tax forms, and you can bet most of those felony convictions were not for fudging tax forms for a grand or two, more like drugpins hiding millions.

Frankly your language seems seriously overwrought here: 'go under', 'lose our home', 'disaster' 'fined or sent to jail' 'wreaks havoc' 'thrown under the bus'. No you're being asked to buy some health insurance.

Not to mention that 12.5% is a ceiling, not a floor, it is quite likely the typical two person policy will be available for much less. My guess is that you have been the victim of some plausible sounding wingnut talking points.

Plus 2.5% of 400% of FPL for a family of two works out to right on $1000, hardly enough to drive a homeowner out of a home.

There may be a strange combination of factors that would put someone in a bad situation but it can hardly be general enough for 50 million people simply to forego medical care for a year or forever. I seriously doubt there are "millions of Americans" for whom this is really "a disaster", someone is feeding you bad numbers.

by: Bruce Webb @ Thu Nov 12, 2009 at 04:28:17 AM UTC

[ Parent ]