Nobody’s Happy About The Baucus Bill? Good.
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Democrats, Health Care, Republicans
This is partially in response to Jason’s post over at Poligazette that the Baucus bill doesn’t represent bipartisan compromise and the lion’s share of blame shouldn’t fall on Republicans to accept it. In fact, he states that the tenor of this debate (which he claims liberals are equally responsible for) is the real reason why compromise can’t be reached.
Obviously I disagree with that for many reasons, but I especially don’t think that the left blogosphere has driven the debate. Especially since nearly ALL of the coverage about workable health care legislation has been on the Baucus bill. If the left blogosphere was driving the debate, there wouldn’t be such a focus on this bill…which they hate.
However, my point in a previous post is that if Repubs don’t want to come to the table for legislation that’s a genuine attempt at bipartisanship, well, they probably never wanted to play ball in the first place. At least not play ball as the minority party, which brings with it the reality that the legislation is going to be written by the opposition and include a fair share of their ideas.
And I’ll repeat again what I said over there…the Baucus bill has ZERO publicly run options, the CBO says it’ll reduce the budget deficit, has a clause to allow these new privately run, not-for-profit co-ops the chance to phase out and no employer mandates. These are all things that Republicans said they wanted, but now they’re calling the bill purely partisan?
Yeah right…
Within minutes of the release of the Senate Finance Committee chairman’s long-awaited health-care reform bill Wednesday, the attacks started flying. Liberal Democrats and allies, particularly labor unions, fumed. Republicans, after being courted for months, denounced the work as pure partisanship.But behind the rhetorical fireworks was a sense that the fragile coalition of major industry leaders and interest groups central to refashioning the nation’s $2.5 trillion health-care system remains intact. As they scoured the 223-page document, many of the most influential players found elements to dislike, but not necessarily reasons to kill the effort. Most enticing was the prospect of 30 million new customers.
Folks, this is the best Republicans can hope for. If they don’t like it, fine, but what do they want? What does realistic compromise look like to them? I have NO idea and neither does anybody in the moderate Republicans blogosphere…which should tell you all you need to know. Sure, the tenor of bloggers could be better, but that isn’t making Republicans not accept this legislation.
Meanwhile, all the signs point to Obama getting behind this…
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), who is upset that Baucus did not include a public health insurance option, tempered his criticism after a private meeting with Obama, signaling that he hopes to work out a compromise.“Nothing is clearer than the president’s commitment to providing affordable and effective health care for all Americans, and he and I are united in our efforts to deliver on this promise,” he said.
Long story short, it seems as if Obama doesn’t care if a “public” option is run by the government or not. That’s heartening to me because that’s the type of compromise Republicans should be excited about. But they’re not. Again…why?
Do know that I think it’s fair to point out that agreeing to this legislation may not be politically smart for Republicans, but they shouldn’t have strung Baucus along and feigned interest for compromise. That’s why I blamed Republicans for walking away…because Baucus (and the President by extension) has come towards them quite a bit when they could have just passed something with a 1 vote majority and been done with it.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 and is filed under Democrats, Health Care, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 17th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Justin:
Some shocking news, unless he’s just saying for ratings O’Reilly Endorses Public Option.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/17/oreilly-public-option/
September 17th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Justin:
If Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Jesus Christ co-sponsored a health reform bill they wouldn’t get a single GOP vote. Not so long as Obama is in office. It’s all Obama-hate, all the time.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
The Republicans don’t accept the premise that “something must be done right now.” So they feel no compulsion to compromise simply in order to “do something.” The Republicans are not interested in compromising in order to help pass a bill that goes way against their fundamental ideals. Nor should they, IMO. Not if they genuinely feel its a fundamentally wrong-headed approach. I take most GOP legislators at their word when they express the belief that wider-scale government involvement is a terrible idea. I don’t agree, but I believe they’re basically sincere. They’re playing no more politics than democrats when Bush was in office, at least.
Suppose Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Jesus Christ co-sponsored a health reform bill that did not raise taxes or increase government involvement. Suppose instead that it used tax credits to help low-income families buy private healthcare and allowed more leeway for various insurance companies to provide different levels of coverage. They’d support that. No doubt in my mind.
Not saying those are good ideas. But I have no doubt that the GOP would support a bill with Republican ideas.To suggest otherwise is silly. Michael, you’ve become a genuinely silly guy since you went head first into the tank for Obama. It’s been “blame backwards rednecks and racists for every Obama failing all the time.”
Mikey, you used to do way better than your recent posts when you captained the mighty middle. Now you’re just mighty silly.
I don’t think the GOP has any sort of comprehensive vision or plan to improve our healthcare system. But I also think that GOP legislators have the right to their views, and the responsibility to act in accordance with the principles thus derived.
That means its up to democrats. If they are certain that something must be done, it’s within their power to do something, without any GOP help, via reconciliation if necessary. And then they will OWN the resulting reform, for better or worse. Personally, I don’t think democrats are genuinely convinced that something must be done, that we face a crisis. If they really believed that, they’d be willing to pay the price to ram something through for the good of the country.
But they AREN’T willing to pay that price. because it’ll be a big one. Why? Because while many Americans agree that “something” must be done, they don’t agree on what that something is, unless it’s “make MY costs go down and/or improve MY coverage access.” Obviously, we can’t all have that. So as soon as the vague “something” becomes a concrete something, the folks whose oxen get gored will be all pissed off. Democracy is a bitch.
September 17th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
KK:
And you’re not very impressive when you don’t have Tully to rush to your rescue.
Tully at least would have the wit not to resort to “Mikey.” Maybe you should email him. Get some help.
September 17th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Ahh, the old “change the subject” strategy. Always a great option when you have zero answers to the substantive points I made.
But I guess I am being silly to think you’d actually try to defend your repeated “blame backwards rednecks and racists for every Obama failing all the time” contentions.
As I’ve said many time before, I like Obama. Not a little bit, but a LOT. But I know that he swept in on the biggest wave of a cult of personality that I’ve seen in modern American politics in some time. Since I like the guy, I am not saying there is necessarily something wrong with it. That always brings a backlash. Cult of personality stuff can be very creepy to the folks not buying in. Obama derangement, where it can be found, seems to be at least as bad as Bush derangement. Perhaps in some cases worse.
Big fat oh well for the folks who want Obama to succeed. The options are to overcome it or to fail. Whining that it’s the reason for failure? Not useful or effective. Not in my opinion. Maybe you just have more faith than I do in the efficacy of whining.
September 17th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
KK:
I’ve written quite extensively on all of this in another thread on this same site. So I’m clearly not changing the subject, or avoiding the subject, or refusing to back my position. I thought it would be rude to cut and paste my extensive remarks into every comment thread. But if you’d like I can do that.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:32 am
It’s true that most of the GOP was apparently not negotiating in good faith. They knew than any bill would have to raise taxes, yet both Enzi and Grassley stayed at the negotiating table. If that was a deal-breaker they should have walked. They were stalling to advance their partisan interests in 2010.
That’s what has Justin so annoyed. He really believes in bipartisanship, so he supported their negotiations. And they were apparently using him to advance their partisan agenda of stalling reform.
Snowe is a bit different. It’s possible she could support a non-stupid bill. Unfortunately for Baucus his bill is pretty stupid, so she’d be a fool to support it.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I heard that that while Wyden-Bennett has been seemingly overlooked, there’s a proposed Wyden Amendment to the Baucus bill which would expand choice for those using employer-sponsored plans. Anyone here know the story behind why Wyden-Bennett never gained traction?
September 18th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
By the sound of it, these co-ops for health insurance would be the equivalent of credit unions in the banking industry, yeah? Member-owned and not-for-profit?
If that’s the case and this bill authorizes that without mandating employers to seek other types of coverage, I’m in favor of it. The credit union model is brilliant and credit unions routinely get better ratings than your run-of-the-mill commercial bank.
However, what I’m failing to see is how this bill covers the uninsured or underinsured. I’m all about bringing the cost down, but what about those of us who are underemployed and are *not* able to get coverage either via employer or an outside provider due to cost?
September 18th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
kranky and Michael…you both can be a bit terse at times. Obviously this is between you, but not getting in as many jabs may not derail the conversation. Just saying…
Blackout…the reason Wyden/Bennett isn’t being proposed is it would be a complete upheaval of the way we pay for insurance and while it makes A LOT of sense…there’s simply not enough political will. Basically, anybody who has insurance through their employer would lose it, along with the tax exempt status of the payments and would then have to purchase via another program.
If you think people cried socialism now, well, just try taking away their employer insurance. :-)
Ryan, co-ops are for the uninsured or underinsured. Everybody else simply keeps their coverage.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
The Baucus bill does seem to be approaching a sweet spot where a consensus approach can be found. If so, I suspect the final Senator bill will get some Republican votes — at least Snowe’s.
But Justin’s post and so much other commentary about this errs in assuming that this is about developing a “bi-partisan” bill. That’s the way Baucus and others have cast it because to the huge center of American politics — among the independents and moderate Democrats and Republicans who are tilted all those polls against more radical changes — bi-partisanship is a Good Thing and a handy way to express moderation.
What Baucus has actually been trying to do all these weeks is to develop a bill HE can support and that the other 10, 12 or so centrist Democrats in the Senate can support. In the process, if he could snare a few moderate GOP votes, all the better. But make no mistake: this is all about bringing the Democrats together to pass a bill.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Justin:
I’ve thought about changing my screen name to “That A-Hole Reynolds.”
September 18th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
[...] Justin Gardner at Donklephant continues to profess confusion about what could possibly motivate Repu… to refuse to sign on to the Baucus health care bill. Says Gardner, Long story short, it seems as if Obama doesn’t care if a “public” option is run by the government or not. That’s heartening to me because that’s the type of compromise Republicans should be excited about. But they’re not. Again…why? [...]
September 18th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
What is the Baucus bill and all others like it? An honest title would be the American Health Care Insurance Corporation Subsidy and Profit Increase Bill. The final version must screw over the lower and middle class in order to pass.
September 18th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
blackoutyears said:
There’s no way it can get to 60 in the US Senate. Unions hate it because it attempts to replace employer-based insurance. It increases taxes by eliminating the Employer Tax Deduction, so very few Republicans will support it. It makes all politicians uncomfortable because it would screw around with half the country’s health care.
The traction it gets tends to come from unelected wonks (like me and Ezra Klein), and Senators who want to look bipartisan. Some former sponsors, for example, now publicly castigate the bill.
Ryan said:
The worry is that these co-ops would be too small to be viable. Health Insurance companies need a big risk pool if they are to survive. That means hundreds of thousands of members. If one member has twins prematurely the bill is probably gonna be in the $4-$5 million range. Spread out among 1,000 co-op members that’s $4,000-$5,000. At 10,000, or 20,000 the numbers work out better, but they’re still screwed if one chick has premature twins, two more get cancer, and a fourth member has to be a airlifted top the hospital after a skiing accident.
Given that Wyoming has roughly 500,000 people, that exchanges will cover roughly 15% of the population Wyoming’s co-op would only have a total market of 75,000 or so. 20% market share would be 15,000 members, and that’s probably too small to be viable.
It would have another major disadvantage, particularly paying for the dude with a skiing accident. Why should a Denver hospital give a tiny co-op from Wyoming that 60% discount it just gave the big players in it’s state? Or a Chicago hospital? Is it even possible for a 15,000 member co-op from Wyoming negotiate deals with hospitals nation-wide?
The public option gets around those problems mostly because it’s huge. It will have millions of members. They will be nation-wide. A strong public option avoids the second problem by paying medicare rates, or Medicare rates plus a bit. Medicare doesn’t negotiate with hospitals. It prints a price list (aka: a fee schedule) and hospitals take it or leave it.
Ryan said:
If you are poor you get subsidies. So the unemployed, and most of the formerly uninsured, will get policies for virtually nothing. The subsidies apply to everyone under 300% of poverty (Baucus, ’cause he’s cheap), or 400% of poverty (everyone else because they’re liberals and they like spending money).
If you are uninsured and well off you have to buy a policy, at full price. If you have a pre-existing condition this plan saves you a bundle because insurers can’t charge you through the nose, or decide they won’t pay for a treatment.
This screws the 20-somethings with money and no insurance, but 20-somethings with money and no insurance tend to turn into 50-somethings with heart trouble. In the end even they will save money.
Nick
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:59 am
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