health care reform passes house with abortion restrictions!

[bryantm3]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091108/..._care_overhaul

WASHINGTON – In a victory for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed landmark health care legislation Saturday night to expand coverage to tens of millions who lack it and place tough new restrictions on the insurance industry. Republican opposition was nearly unanimous.

The 220-215 vote cleared the way for the Senate to begin a long-delayed debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in Congress.

A triumphant Speaker Nancy Pelosi likened the legislation to the passage of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare 30 years later — and Obama issued a statement saying, "I look forward to signing it into law by the end of the year."

"It provides coverage for 96 percent of Americans. It offers everyone, regardless of health or income, the peace of mind that comes from knowing they will have access to affordable health care when they need it," said Rep. John Dingell, the 83-year-old Michigan lawmaker who has introduced national health insurance in every Congress since succeeding his father in 1955.

In the run-up to a final vote, conservatives from the two political parties joined forces to impose tough new restrictions on abortion coverage in insurance policies to be sold to many individuals and small groups. They prevailed on a roll call of 240-194.

Ironically, that only solidified support for the legislation, clearing the way for conservative Democrats to vote for it.

The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide federal subsidies to those who otherwise could not afford it. Large companies would have to offer coverage to their employees. Both consumers and companies would be slapped with penalties if they defied the government's mandates.

Insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions would be banned, and insurers would no longer be able to charge higher premiums on the basis of gender or medical history. In a further slap, the industry would lose its exemption from federal antitrust restrictions on price fixing and market allocation.

At its core, the measure would create a federally regulated marketplace where consumers could shop for coverage. In the bill's most controversial provision, the government would sell insurance, although the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that premiums for it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private firms.

A cheer went up from the Democratic side of the House when the bill gained 218 votes, a majority. Moments later, Democrats counted down the final seconds of the voting period in unison, and let loose an even louder roar when Pelosi grabbed the gavel and declared, "the bill is passed."

The bill drew the votes of 219 Democrats and Rep. Joseph Cao, a first-term Republican who holds an overwhelmingly Democratic seat in New Orleans. Opposed were 176 Republicans and 39 Democrats.

From the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a statement saying, "We realize the strong will for reform that exists, and we are energized that we stand closer than ever to reforming our broken health insurance system."

In his written statement, Obama praised the House's action and said, "now the United State Senate must follow suit and pass its version of the legislation. I am absolutely confident it will."

Nearly unanimous in their opposition, minority Republicans cataloged their objections across hours of debate on the 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion legislation.

United in opposition, minority Republicans cataloged their objections across hours of debate on the 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion legislation.

"We are going to have a complete government takeover of our health care system faster than you can say, `this is making me sick,'" jabbed Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., adding that Democrats were intent on passing "a jobs-killing, tax-hiking, deficit-exploding" bill.

But with little doubt about the outcome, the rhetoric lacked the fire of last summer's town hall meetings, when some critics accused Democrats of plotting "death panels" to hasten the demise of senior citizens.

The bill is projected to expand coverage to 36 million uninsured, resulting in 96 percent of the nation's eligible population having insurance.

To pay for the expansion of coverage, the bill cuts Medicare's projected spending by more than $400 billion over a decade. It also imposes a tax surcharge of 5.4 percent on income over $500,000 in the case of individuals and $1 million for families.

The bill was estimated to reduce federal deficits by about $104 billion over a decade, although it lacked two of the key cost-cutting provisions under consideration in the Senate, and its longer-term impact on government red ink was far from clear.

Democrats lined up a range of outside groups behind their legislation, none more important than the AARP, whose support promises political cover against the cuts to Medicare in next year's congressional elections.

The nation's drug companies generally support health care overhaul. And while the powerful insurance industry opposed the legislation, it did so quietly, and the result was that Republicans could not count on the type of advertising campaign that might have peeled away skittish Democrats in swing districts.

Over all, the bill envisioned the most sweeping set of changes to the health care system in more than a generation, and Democrats said it marked the culmination of a campaign that Harry Truman began when he sat in the White House 60 years ago.

Debate on the House floor had already begun when Obama strode into a closed-door meeting of the Democratic rank and file across the street from the Capitol to make a final personal appeal to them to pass his top domestic priority.

Later, in an appearance at the White House, he said he had told lawmakers, "to rise to this moment. Answer the call of history, and vote yes for health insurance reform for America."

It appeared that a compromise brokered Friday night on the volatile issue of abortion had finally secured the votes needed to pass the legislation.

As drafted, the measure denied the use of federal subsidies to purchase abortion coverage in policies sold by private insurers in the new insurance exchange, except in cases of incest, rape or when the life of the mother was in danger.

But abortion foes won far stronger restrictions that would rule out abortion coverage except in those three categories in any government-sold plan. It would also ban abortion coverage in any private plan purchased by consumers receiving federal subsidies.

Disappointed Democratic abortion rights supporters grumbled about the turn of events, but pulled back quickly from any thought of opposing the health care bill in protest.

One, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., detailed numerous other benefits for women in the bill, including free medical preventive services and better prescription drug coverage under Medicare. "Women need health care reform," she concluded in remarks on the House floor.

A Republican alternative was rejected on a near party line vote of 258-176.

It relied heavily on loosening regulations on private insurers to reduce costs for those who currently have insurance, in some cases by as much as 10 percent. But congressional budget analysts said the plan would make no dent in the ranks of the uninsured, an assessment that highlighted the difference in priorities between the two political parties.

yay!

[Troy McClure]

America, fuck yeah! How 'bout Rep. Cao (R) from Louisiana showing some major balls. I guess Rush and Mike Steele will go after him Monday.

My rep, Harry Mitchell (D) AZ-district 5 voted yes. He kept us up to date via Twitter and Facebook when reading the bill. I wouldn't say he's liberal by any stretch, either.

Jason

[bryantm3]

I can tell you my rep (Tom Price) did not vote for the bill without looking it up, He had his own health care plan, which I have to admit, had some decent aspects to it that I wish were incorporated into the Democratic bill, but some other awful aspects that far outweighed the bad side of the Dem. bill.

[stimpee]

Im glad its passed, but its been maimed by anti-abortionists. still, its a start! welcome to the 20th century!

[bryantm3]

why should the federal government fund abortions? surely you would agree that abortions should be paid for privately.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

why should the federal government fund abortions? surely you would agree that abortions should be paid for privately.

Abortion is a legal, and frequently necessary medical procedure in the United States, and any health care plan made available to women should include coverage for legal medical procedures. If it's made illegal someday, then by all means stop covering it...but that's not the case presently.

So aside from personal opinions on the religious/moral aspects of abortion, why shouldn't it be included in the coverage?

[cured]

^^ because democrats wants to keep the support of Catholics.

[Strangelet]

This is no cause for celebration. This is a farce. The only thing it illustrates is how fractured and corrupt the legislative branch is, not how modern and enlightened its become. I'm actually glad Lieberman will be fillibustering it.

How did we get to this pile of pork and nonsense from a system so simple on paper that it could be used as one of Obama's campaign promises?

1. Inject into the debate the Baucus bill. Max Baucus is nothing less than a health insurance sock puppet and the bill is actually itself worded and written and approved by the lobby. But the media slant is just that the baucus bill is merely "more conservative" than the public option, because he's a "blue dog"

AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Grijalva, I also want to ask you about Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus and his close ties to the healthcare industry. [...]
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: I think the product that has come out from his committee and himself, I really believe that it has no legitimacy in this debate. It’s an insider product. It’s there to protect the industry. It is not there to try to look for that middle ground. He is key in holding up deliberations, has been key in trying to work on a consensus, but everything you see in his legislation had to be approved by the industry before it became part of the plan. So I don’t think it’s legitimate.
[...] I consider Senator Baucus’s proposal to be essentially an insider trader move to protect an industry and really doesn’t have validity at all, both political validity or content validity.

AMY GOODMAN: [...] Yesterday, the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Baucus had distributed his healthcare plan to lobbyists on K Street prior to sharing the plan with other members of the committee.
Meanwhile, the watchdog website LittleSis.org has revealed Senator Baucus’s chief health adviser, Elizabeth Fowler, is a former executive for the insurance giant WellPoint.
Fowler has been called the "chief operating officer" of the healthcare reform process.
Baucus’s previous chief health adviser, Michelle Easton, now lobbies for WellPoint.
LittleSis.org also reports that another Senate staffer working on Baucus’s healthcare bill, Cathy Koch, is a former lobbyist for health insurance and pharmaceutical interests, including an insurance industry front group.
Koch worked as the director of global government affairs at the drug company Amgen until early 2007. Before that, she worked at Ernst & Young, where she lobbied on behalf of a number of large insurance and pharmaceutical companies, including Aetna, Blue Cross, Eli Lilly and Pfizer.

2. Let Pelosi run the vast majority she enjoys in the house into the ground by slapping together a house bill along the same structure as the Baucus bill.

Here we compare the financing provisions of the two health care plans; there are similarities and major differences. Both bills would impose a financial penalty on individuals if they do not buy health insurance, although the House penalty is higher. In both plans, employers would have to pay a penalty to either the government or to new "health exchanges" if they do not provide a government-approved health insurance plan to employees, and once again, the penalty is larger in the House bill.


Also, both health care plans are financed by large net cuts to the Medicare program, mostly by lowering what the federal government is willing to pay doctors, hospitals and other health providers. Economists expect such Medicare cuts to be felt by both the health care industry and patients covered by Medicare.

In other words, its the same template, the same structure. It does nothing to fix all of the problems with health insurance, its just made it so the broken industry now has a new bunch of mandatory customers brought on at gun point, and government subsidized as needed.

We've heard that the majority of bankruptsies are medical related. In 2007 2 of 5 americans were in financial trouble from paying medical bills. What we don't hear is that the majority of those medical related bankruptsies, the people started with insurance. It was through all the loop holes and uncovered treatments that they got burned.

"The latest data was from 2007 and at that time more than 2 out of 5 working age adults had had trouble paying their health care bills or were already paying off medical debt," said Sarah Fish-Parcham with Families USA, a national organization for health consumers. "It's a very scary situation that Americans are in right now."

3. Look at prior examples only so far as to see a way to pay for it. They are aware they will have to penalize other government programs like medicare to hedge the costs, which is exactly what happened in Washington and Massachusetts and Oregon when they passed identical bills as state programs. They stopped funding things like free clinics, because average patient costs did nothing but escalate and the number of people getting access to health care remained a zero sum game.

4. Act like corporate collusion is only a GOP tactic, and act like we've solved something by winning the argument that the new bill isn't socialism and part of the new world order plot to subjugate the country.

Seriously, dems and progressives need to stop acting like this is a step forward and a win against the evil republicans.

Why is it that extremists like ron paul and kucinich are the only ones making sense?

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

...made it so the broken industry now has a new bunch of mandatory customers brought on at gun point, and government subsidized as needed.

Nuh-uh.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by jOHN rODRIGUEZ

Nuh-uh.

um. so, like, yes-uh


the problem is how to remove the pre-existing condition exploit.

from the wsj

Democrats' health legislation would require insurance companies to accept all customers, regardless of their health history, and prevent them from charging customers more based on factors other than age. States such as New York and New Jersey curbed these practices but didn't require most people to get insurance, and the price of premiums rose sharply.
"We're worried that that creates a situation for people to ... only purchase health insurance when they need it," said Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the main industry trade group. That hurts the industry because premiums paid by people who need little health care help to pay the costs of those who need a lot of care.

the fine is different depending on which bill and which amendment but its generally around 2.5% of your income. the gun point part comes when you refuse to pay it, like any other government fine or tax.