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Jane appeared on ABC’s TopLine today (available through that link and on a small number cable carriers, but only at specific times), and she agrees with RNC Chair Michael Steele—cost control is something we have to focus on in the health care debate. Which is why we need—at the very minimum—a public option to exert a competitive downward pressure on the price of private insurance.
However, Jane will differ with Steele on the question of whether the CIA is subject to the rule of law. . . Steele says it isn’t; Jane’s response: “Who knew?”
16 Comments
Yay Jane!
I wish I could get some Jane Hamsher merchandise for my 9-year-old daughter to replace the High School Musical and Hannah Montana crap.
What a great idea! REAL role models for daughters.
Love the props to Steelio. How very Obama-ish! (and smart I might add…) Great job once again.
The “This has already been looked at” talking point needs to be destroyed. Also, the guy went even further by saying, “There’s not a new set of facts to be put into the record”. If that were true then Liz Cheney wouldn’t be able to show her face on television. Not that there isn’t enough already out there that she shouldn’t be able to open her mouth on TV without getting smacked down by everyone on any panel of worthless shills that she lies too anyway. But, really? All of the Facts are out there? “Who knew”?
This has already been looked at? Sure by the most politically biased justice department in the history of the Republic whose sole motivation was to whitewash everything Bush-Cheney.
GO Jane. Love the Steele mention.
I am posting this here in hope of feedback. David Addington’s mother has died and the obit was published today. I assume he will attend the funeral.
Ideas?
let him attend in peace.
Jane,
Thank you for articulating that the Public Option is the compromise. Seriously, thank you.
The public option may have been the compromise, but the ones in the Senate HELP bill and HR 3200 are absolutely not what anyone originally had in mind when the PO was first proposed By Jacob Hacker. Both those bills will be operational and political disasters, if only because even the inadequate and constrained in eligibility PO and exchange won’t be available until 2013.
The Progressives ought to go back to square one, get 100% behind HR 676 and compromise with the President and the blue dogs only on a minimalist strategy implementing three separate bills with the following content and in the following sequence:
1)Establish a public component to compete with private insurance. This can be done by extending both Medicare and Medicaid eligibility to everyone under reconciliation, and balancing off the cost by having people under 65 buy into it, and by raising taxes on those with incomes over 250,000. This will take 50 votes + 1 VP vote in the Senate to pass. The need for 50 + 1, rather than 60, will make it much easier to get this, than it is to get a comprehensive bill.
2) Eliminate the worst insurance company abuses such as denial of coverage based on preconditions, raising insurance prices for those who have become ill, and rescissions. This will take 60 Senate votes in a separate bill, but would be hard for any Democrat and even a few Republicans (Snowe, Collins, Voinovich, Lugar) to vote against. It’s hard to see how this one could fail, if it were brought to an up or down vote.
3) Creating an exchange, providing subsidies and implementing mandates. This will also take 60 votes, but it is the piece the insurance companies will really want, especially if 1) and 2) have passed first. On the other hand, progressives in both houses will be much less interested in this than they are in the first two. They’ll be interested in the subsidy part, but not really in the other two. The middle course for the blue dogs is to vote for 1) in return for progressive support on 3). Once 1) and 2) are in the tank, the insurance industry will throw its weight behind 3) so it should get a lot more than the 60 votes needed.
The firewall provision in HR 3200 and the HELP Comittee bill (has the Senate given this a number yet) were necessary to get it voted out of markup. It will probably be included in any 51-vote reconciliation package because it deals with the rush-to-the-exits concerns of many in Congress who wouldn’t otherwise support the public option. I don’t see getting that 50+1 vote without something like this. Unless the HR 676 supporters can get some real movement from folks who a squishy on the public option but still will vote for it.
The worst abuses of the insurance companies provisions will require a separate bill under reconciliation (unless the Senate parliamentarians has a loose construction of the Byrd Amendment) but will be difficult to oppose because of its popularity. Republicans will support this just to provide cover on opposition to the rest of the reforms. The problems is keeping Rahm from declaring victory on this and walking away from the rest.
Creating an exchange is what creates the “choice” that sells the public option in Congress. Now the nature of the exchange is where we will have to hold fast. Because it involves subsidies, it fits within the reconciliation package along with any rules for distribution of the subsidies, which includes rules around a public plan. This is why even if Democrats shove through the bill with a budget reconciliation package, it will likely get more than 60 votes. The reconciliation package plus 51 votes in the Senate and guaranteed House package signals that the train is really leaving the station and all those who want aboard better move quickly. That is why the contents of this package are so important for us to ensure are right.
The minimum set for the budget reconciliation package are the spending levels, spending rules, accountability rules, and revenue sources for 1 and 3. Those clearly fit within the Byrd Amendment.
Excellent analysis letsgetitdone.
Thanks TarheelDem. I hope some Congressional staff read comments like ours.
Very interesting and plausible-sounding proposal. More comments on this please. (Thx already to TarheelDem.)
Bobash, thanks for your comment. There’s a little more background and other proposals along these lines here, here, and here.
My 17 year old grandson has been convinced that as soon as he gets a job, he will have to present himself to the government to finalize his end of life decisions, that the will have to do this every 5 years, or more often if he becomes ill or has an accident. Needless to say he is extremely disturbed now, and very afraid of the government. Strangely enough he is highly intelligent and educated. He now also believes that old people will not receive health care, because they are no longer useful, that veterans will have to pay for their own combat related injuries, that we are headed into the “horrible situation” existing in Canada and England. The “conservatives”, as far as I am concerned are destroying our country. I weep for a country in which children are being taught to live in such abject terror. I have tried to educate him and the rest of the family, but they are not willing to accept any of my sources as legitimate, however, letters to the editor, cut out of newspapers, have been presented to them as being the gospel. This is being done by other family members, who are convinced that the people will rise, take names in the streets, and force the government to hold an election by the people on whether they desire health care reform. What planet am I on?
I’m afraid you’re on this one, Gabriele. Tell your Grandson to quit dissing you and start reading Firedog Lake. I know he won’t listen; but perhaps you’ll plant a seed. My own grandchildren are 4 and close 1, so I don’t have your problem yet. But their parents, at least, don’t believe anything the wingnuts have to say.
Planet MSM.