Fred Hiatt employs fuzzy math to claim House health bill would bring ‘America a step closer to bankruptcy.’
Fred Hiatt employs fuzzy math to claim House health bill would bring ‘America a step closer to bankruptcy.’
In this morning’s Washington Post, editorial page editor Fred Hiatt argues that the House health care bill “could take America a step closer to bankruptcy” and harm “the poor and vulnerable.” But since the CBO’s analysis of the House health care bill doesn’t support Hiatt’s contention that it would bring America to the brink of bankruptcy, Hiatt relies on the CBO’s analysis of the President’s entire budget and implies that it’s Obama’s health “plan”:
The root difficulty is Obama’s insistence that the nation can afford a large new social program without raising taxes on anyone who earns less than $250,000 per year. Under his plan, according to a CBO analysis, the government will be spending 24.5 percent of gross domestic product — the total value of the national economy — by 2019 while raising only 19 percent in revenue: a huge, unsustainable gap.
The 24.5% of GDP isn’t a measure of government spending as a result of the House/Obama health care bill. It’s a measure of the outlays of all of the President’s policies in his 2010 budget in 2019 and does not capture the deficit-reducing effects of health care reform or the House bill. The Wonk Room has more.
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House Passes Historic, Bipartisan Health Reform Legislation
House Passes Historic, Bipartisan Health Reform Legislation
Moments ago, the House of Representatives passed the Affordable Health Care for America Act by a vote of 220-215, with one Republican — Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) — voting for the measure. Once the bill reached the needed threshold of 218 votes, the chamber erupted in applause. Members excitedly counted down the last few seconds of the vote. Watch it:
At the “House Call” tea party protest on Capitol Hill this week, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) pledged to the right-wing activists: “Be assured not one Republican will vote for this bill.” Cao’s vote must have surprised Cantor.
Cao has previously been touted by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) once as “the future” of the GOP. The White House had reportedly “been in constant contact” with him prior to the vote. “Rahm is going all in to get him,” one aide told Roll Call, referring to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
The House also approved, by a vote of 240-194, an amendment introduced by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), which imposed tighter restrictions on abortion coverage. A GOP substitute failed in a vote of 178-258, with a single Republican, Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL) voting against the legislation.
Rep. Foxx: ‘All of us want all Americans to have health insurance and access to good health care.’
Rep. Foxx: ‘All of us want all Americans to have health insurance and access to good health care.’
During this afternoon’s Rules Committee hearing to determine which amendments would be introduced during floor debate of the House health care bill, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) announced that everyone can agree that Republicans want “all Americans to have affordable health insurance and good quality health care”:
FOXX: I think we should start with the premise that I have felt all along, despite being questioned on this by my colleagues, that all of us want all Americans to have health insurance and access to good health care. Again, despite accusations made against me, I think we would be all better off if we accepted that assumption. We want to go about it in different ways. But I think accusing each other of things that aren’t true isn’t a good way to start out this meeting. And so I want to say I believe everybody wants all Americans to have affordable health insurance and good quality health care. I just take that assumption.
Watch it:
But Americans shouldn’t “just take that assumption.” In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, under the Republican alternative, the number of uninsured Americans would increase to 52 million by 2019. The plan would provide coverage to only 3 million more uninsured Americans. Earlier in the hearing, Foxx suggested that it’s better to be uninsured than enrolled in the government’s Medicaid program. “I want to ask you if you know that Medicaid patients visit the emergency room at twice the rate of uninsured patients in this country,” she said. “More government paid insurance is going to increase the number of people going to the emergency rooms.”
GOP Health Plan Would Allow For ‘Sweatshop Insurance’
GOP Health Plan Would Allow For ‘Sweatshop Insurance’
Under the Republican health care alternative filed in the House, young and healthy individuals can purchase policies from insurers that don’t abide by local benefit or rate standards. The Republican bill allows the health insurer to choose a “primary state” “whose covered laws shall govern the health insurance issuer” and sell policies to people in other states without adhering “to all of the consumer protection laws or restrictions on rate changes of the state.”
Over at MYDD, Bruce Webb calls the provision, “Sweatshop Insurance.” This bill goes far beyond merely “stripping states of power over insurance rates and conditions,” he notes. It “explicitly expands the definition of ‘State’ to include not just D.C. and Puerto Rico, which makes some sense in context, but adds BY NAME the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and Jack Abramoff’s favorite client-the Northern Marianas home of the ‘Made in the USA’ Chinese-owned close to slave labor sweatshops.” From pages 121-122 of the bill:
In 2001, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands famously hired corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff to enlist his support in stopping “legislation aimed at cracking down on sweatshops and sex shops in the American territory.”
“Given the record of corruption in the N. Marianas,” Webb writes, “and the willingness of various Caribbean and Atlantic Island nations to let themselves be used as off-shore banking and tax shelter entities, you can bet Aetna and WellPoint are slavering at the prospect of ‘basing’ their plans out of a PO Box on some tropical nation.”
GOP health bill: Insurers can ignore ‘all of the consumer protection laws’ and ‘restrictions on rate changes.’
GOP health bill: Insurers can ignore ‘all of the consumer protection laws’ and ‘restrictions on rate changes.’
The new GOP health care plan expands “coverage” and “choice” by permitting health insurers to sell policies across state lines. Under the Republican proposal, the insurer can choose a ‘primary state’ “whose covered laws shall govern the health insurance issuer” and can change states “upon renewal of the policy.” Page 129 requires a “health insurance issuer” to “provide the following notice” informing consumers in so-called ’secondary states’ that the policy is “not subject to all of the consumer protection laws or restrictions on rate changes of the state.” Here is the notice, as it is described in the legislation:
The GOP is conceding the progressive argument. Specifically, it is admitting that insurance companies would have little incentive to continue doing business under certain state rules which “require that companies issue coverage to all new customers and not set higher rates for people who are already sick.” Instead, companies could chose a state with scarce regulations and sell policies that don’t provide mental health parity, cancer screenings, or abide by regulations that limit the rates that can be charged to higher-cost consumers. This way, plans can attract the healthiest applicants and detract the sick.
Former McCain adviser nervous about moving into the individual health insurance market he once touted.
Former McCain adviser nervous about moving into the individual health insurance market he once touted.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign, “remains unemployed — and his COBRA health coverage is running out,” the Washington Post reports. “Irony of ironies, it gets worse. Holtz-Eakin, who is about to start shopping for insurance on the individual market, is 51. And he has one of those pesky ‘preexisting conditions’ that insurance companies often cite in denying coverage”:
Holtz-Eakin said he’s been paying about $1,000 a month to extend the private health insurance he received on McCain’s campaign through the government’s COBRA program, but that will expire in a few months. This is the first time in his life he has not had employer-provided health coverage. “I worry about where I go next in the way many Americans do,” he said.
During the campaign, Holtiz-Eakin fervently defended McCain’s proposal to shift more Americans out of their employer-sponsored coverage and into the individual health insurance market. “The key to real reform is to restore control over our health-care system to the patients themselves,” Holtz-Eakin said in August. “Instead of only getting it in the employer market, you would get it regardless of your source of insurance. And you get the same amount whether you’re rich or poor, $5,000 for every working family.”
Lieberman Lies To Justify Health Care Filibustering: The Public Option Will Raise Premiums And Increase The Debt
Lieberman Lies To Justify Health Care Filibustering: The Public Option Will Raise Premiums And Increase The Debt
This afternoon, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) appeared on Fox News to defend his intention to filibuster any health care reform bill that includes a national public option. Lieberman argued that a public plan would “stifle” the economic recovery and increase “the debt.” “It’s just unnecessary,” Lieberman said. The public option is “a new entitlement program and the taxpayers and the premium-payers are going to end up paying for it, or else the debt will go higher.”
Responding to proponents of the public plan who argue that it would actually lower costs, Lieberman insisted that if the public option paid lower reimbursement rates than private insurers, medical providers would shift costs to Americans with private coverage:
LIEBERMAN: If the public option, the government run health insurance company negotiates hard to lower the reimbursement — the money it’s paying to hospitals, doctors — they’re [providers] going to have to get that money somewhere. And where they’re going to get it is from the 200 million Americans who today have private health insurance. Premiums will go up. It’s exactly what’s happened with Medicare and Medicaid. [...]
When people hear public option, I think they think it’s for free. It’s not for free. Somebody is going to have to pay for it and you can bet it’s going to be the taxpayers and the people who pay health insurance premiums now.
Watch it:
Contrary to Lieberman’s claims, the public option envisioned by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would be required to compete on a level playing field with private insurers and charge premiums “in an amount sufficient to cover expected costs.” Instead of stifling the “economic recovery” and increasing “the debt,” the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the self-sustaining public option (similar to the one envisioned by Reid) could actually save the government money and slightly lower premiums.
Like Lieberman, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — the insurance industry’s lobby — and the Business Roundtable have also argued that a public option that reimburses providers at lower rates than private payers would force providers to raise costs for Americans with private coverage in order to make-up the difference. MedPAC, the Congressional Budget Office, and numerous actuarial studies dispute the insurers’ claims.
These critics confuse cost shifts with price differentials. Economists point out that “price differentials are not necessarily the recouping of losses from one payer by overcharging another”; providers often “charge different prices to different market segments” to maximize profits, not to shift costs. MedPAC has concluded that “hospitals that are forced to run efficiently are adequately funded by Medicare payments. Therefore, increasing Medicare reimbursements to hospitals would not reduce rates providers charge to private insurers.” The research suggests that hospitals “are raising prices when they have the market power to do so,” not because they are reimbursed at Medicare rates.
Public Option Opponent Mike Ross Proposes Opening Medicare To More Americans
Public Option Opponent Mike Ross Proposes Opening Medicare To More Americans
The Hill is reporting that Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR) — who led a group of seven centrist Blue Dogs who objected to a public option that reimbursed providers based on Medicare rates — is floating a proposal to open-up Medicare to Americans under 65, “but at a reimbursement rate much greater than current Medicare rates“:
I — speaking only on behalf of myself — suggested one possible idea could be that instead of creating an entirely new government bureaucracy to administer a public option, Medicare could be offered as a choice to compete alongside private insurers for those Americans eligible to enter the national health insurance exchange, but at a reimbursement rate much greater than current Medicare rates.
The last sentence is key: reimbursing providers who treat the new enrollees at market rates satisfies the provider community and conservative politicians from rural states who argue that their hospitals would close if they were reimbursed at Medicare rates. This scheme preserves the integrity of a single national program and takes advantage of Medicare’s administrative efficiencies to lower costs and spearhead delivery reforms. Still, Ross’ solution will likely save less money than a robust public option that uses Medicare-like rates and leverage.
After cutting a deal with Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to increase the public option’s reimbursement rates in August, Ross announced last month that “he will vote against health care legislation if it includes a public option.” “I have been skeptical about the public health insurance option from the beginning and used August to get feedback from you, my constituents,” Ross wrote in a newsletter to constituents. “An overwhelming number of you oppose a government-run health insurance option and it is your feedback that has led me to oppose the public option as well.”
Republicans tout discredited insurance industry study.
Republicans tout discredited insurance industry study.
Several Republicans have embraced the discredited insurance industry-funded study which claims premiums would increase dramatically under the Senate Finance Committee’s health bill. While careful to avoid mentioning the study’s connection to the insurance industry, Republicans cite the study’s claim that premiums will increase by $4,000 and disingenuously argue that the Congressional Budget Office agrees with the insurance industry’s conclusions. Watch it:
The industry’s very selective analysis undermines its conclusions and exposes the study as an industry attempt to protect the bottom line. An actual analysis of Congressional Budget Office data has concluded that premiums in the exchange would be lower than they are in the none group market today. The Wonk Room has more.
Insurance Industry Report Promises To Increase Premiums By 111% Under Health Reform
Insurance Industry Report Promises To Increase Premiums By 111% Under Health Reform
After months of publicly supporting health care reform, insurers are warning Congress that under the Baucus health care bill, “the cumulative increases in the cost of a typical family policy…will be approximately $20,700 more than it would be under the current system.”
The industry has issued a new report arguing that the weak personal responsibility requirement, taxes on health care providers, spending reductions in Medicare and taxes on high-value health plans will increase “the cost of coverage for both single and family policies in the individual, small group, large group, and self-funded insurance markets.”
Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn dispute the report’s methodology here and here, but it’s worth pointing out that industry’s argument that reform will increase insurance premiums for all Americans is simply untrue. It could also backfire. As Rep. Anthony Weinder (D-NY) explained this morning on MSNBC, “the health insurance lobby today fired the most important salvo in weeks for the public option“:
If you have the health care industry complaining that we’re going to raise costs because of these changes, it is them putting us on notice that we haven’t put enough cost containment in the bill. You know, the health care industry themselves is putting out a whole report saying that. That should be a tell to the Baucus team that you know what, maybe it’s time for them to go back and revisit the public option. In a strange way, and look, obviously they didn’t mean this, the health insurance lobby today fired the most important salvo in weeks for the public option, because they have said, as clear as day, left to their own devices, according to their own number crunchers, they’re going to raise rates 111%.
The reality is, some reform provisions would tend to make premiums higher than current-law premiums; other provisions would “tend to make them lower.” Americans from different income brackets will pay different amounts for health care, but on the whole, the Baucus bill, which provides affordability subsidies for Americans between 133-400% federal poverty line, will offer health insurance policies that are far more affordable than what the insurance industry report predicts.
Here is a comparison between the non partisan Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the cost of premiums in the Exchange and the industry’s report. As it points out, under reform, Americans — even those that don’t qualify for a subsidy — will have far more affordable insurance options than industry’s “average” suggests:
| Insurer Analysis: Premiums In 2016 | CBO Analysis: Premiums In 2016 (Exchange) |
| $21,300 | $14,400 |
Still, the Baucus bill must do more to control health care spending and lower premiums in the private market. After all, Congress shouldn’t force Americans to purchase unaffordable coverage. But for all their concern about ‘average health care costs’, insurers have a poor track record of controlling prices. As Families USA points out, insurers are “like a poker player who complains about his hand when, in fact, he is the dealer.”
Indeed, despite complaining about high health care premiums, insurers have lobbied against system-wide cost containment. They’ve spent millions of dollars opposing a public option that could reduce health case spending by some $150 billion and are even suing the state of Maine to increase premiums.
The insurance lobby is “conveniently forgetting that they imposed significant premiums increases during the past decade that are making health coverage unaffordable for families and businesses.” Now, since they’ve published a report promising to increase health insurance premiums even higher, the Senate must insert a public option mechanism (along with other cost-containment provisions) to competitively lower rates and keep the private health insurers honest.
Cross posted at The Wonk Room.
In MSNBC Smackdown, Propagandist Betsy McCaughey Proposes Eliminating Medicare For Some Seniors
In MSNBC Smackdown, Propagandist Betsy McCaughey Proposes Eliminating Medicare For Some Seniors
This morning, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and health care provocateur Betsy McCaughey took their health care debate to MSNBC’s “Morning Meeting” hosted by Dylan Ratigan. In a heated exchange that lasted almost 15 minutes, the two sparred over Medicare cuts, the public option, and health care spending.
Weiner insisted that a robust public plan could restore competition to concentrated health care markets and reduce health care costs by an estimated $150 billion. McCaughey, the architect of the false “death panels” myth, continued her scare-mongering campaign against seniors: “The elephant in the room here is that all these bills are devastating care for seniors and the Baucus bill is the deadliest of all!”
Throughout the interview, McCaughey was constantly on the defensive, complaining that she was being shut out of the debate. “Anthony, you are ignorant about health insurance,” she said, before insisting to Ratigan that “this will go down in history as one of the most browbeating interviews in television history.” “I hope that it does,” Ratigan replied. “And maybe you’ll learn at that point then to answer questions as opposed to go on television and cast accusations.” Watch a compilation:
After repeatedly refusing to explain how she would reduce health care spending, McCaughey finally proposed “inching up the eligibility age [for Medicare] one month a year until 2043 when the eligibility age reaches 70.” That could “put Medicare on a firm footing without cutting care for Medicare recipients.”
“That was a solid answer to your question,” Weiner exclaimed facetiously. “Take away 100% of Medicare for people 65 to 70.” According to the Congressional Budget Office, which McCaughey credited with the idea, eliminating “younger beneficiaries” from the Medicare program would do little to control costs. “Outlays for Medicare would [still] rise to 7.7 percent of GDP by 2050,” the CBO concluded.
Weiner pounced on McCaughey’s solution, which could cut as many as 11.3 million seniors from Medicare. “You want to gut Medicare,” Weiner told McCaughey. “You just said on this show you wanted to cut Medicare for everyone 65 to 70, isn’t that right?”
Media mischaracterizes Cantwell’s Basic Health Plan amendment as ‘quasi public option.’
Media mischaracterizes Cantwell’s Basic Health Plan amendment as ‘quasi public option.’
Several news reports are mischaracterizing Sen. Maria Cantwell’s (D-WA) ‘Basic Health Plan’ amendment — which would allow states to provide coverage to people with incomes between 133% and 200% of the federal poverty line (about 75% of the uninsured) — as a “quasi public option”:
– “…Finance Committee passed a quasi, state-based public option sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell…” [Politico, 10/1/2009]
– “…the committee voted in favor of a proposal by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to enable states to form their own public options.” [The Hill, 10/1/2009]
– “The Senate Finance Committee narrowly passed an amendment Thursday from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) that moves the conservative panel as close as it will likely get to a public health insurance option.” [Huffington Post, 10/1/2009]
Under Cantwell’s proposal, states would use their purchasing power to negotiate for more affordable coverage options, improve efficiencies, and even lower the health care costs within the Exchange (by shifting lower income and disproportionately sicker individuals into the Basic Health Plan), but they would have to contract with private insurers. Cantwell herself “declined to liken her proposal to a controversial public option, which has become a major sticking point in health care reform.” “I think we’ve hit the sweet spot,” she said. “Everybody says they want to have private providers and we’re saying fine.”
Grayson’s Right: Under The Republican Plan, ‘Don’t Get Sick’ (Or You Might Have To ‘Die Quickly’)
Grayson’s Right: Under The Republican Plan, ‘Don’t Get Sick’ (Or You Might Have To ‘Die Quickly’)
Last night, in a controversial speech on the House floor, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) announced that the Republican alternative health care proposals would force sick Americans to “die quickly”:
It’s my duty and pride tonight to be able to announce exactly what the Republicans plan to do for health care in America… It’s a very simple plan. Here it is. The Republican health care plan for America: “don’t get sick.” If you have insurance don’t get sick, if you don’t have insurance, don’t get sick; if you’re sick, don’t get sick. Just don’t get sick. … If you do get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: “die quickly.”
Watch it:
No Republican wants Americans to die, but the party’s efforts to stonewall meaningful health care reform perpetuate a status quo in which 45,000 Americans die every year because they lack health care coverage and thousands more see their policies canceled or denied by private insurers that are beholden to Wall Street’s profit expectations and not patient health.
Grayson intentionally over-stated his case. It’s not that Republicans want to kill people; it’s that their opposition to meaningful health care reform and their “free market” alternatives would further deregulate insurers and allow companies to continue pushing individuals into high deductible policies that don’t provide adequate coverage and actually harm Americans who can’t afford their medical bills:
“Don’t get sick.” Under the Republican alternatives, private insurers will deny coverage to Americans who suffer from chronic illnesses like cancers or asthma and lure healthier applicants into high deductible policies that provide limited coverage once they become sick.
“Die quickly.” If Americans in these policies do fall ill, they will go bankrupt paying off their medical bills and join the 78 percent of bankruptcy filers burdened by health care expenses who had health insurance but “still were overwhelmed by their medical debt.” Grayson is facetiously suggesting that Americans would be urged to skip the “bankruptcy” part, avoid being a financial burden on their family, and simply pass away.
In other words, the Republican alternatives harm Americans by placing our fate in the hands of the very same private for-profit corporations that have created the health care crisis in the first place.
Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.
Grassley praises Medicare as part of ‘social fabric’ of America, but also criticizes it as a ‘predator.’
Grassley praises Medicare as part of ‘social fabric’ of America, but also criticizes it as a ‘predator.’
During this morning’s debate over Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) public plan amendment, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) challenged Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) claim that the public option would lead to single payer health care. The exchange flustered Grassley. He admitted that Medicare is part of the “social fabric” of America and praised the competition between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage, but then said moments later that the government is a “predator.” “So you don’t want Medicare?” Schumer asked. Grassley concluded, “Medicare is part of the social fabric of America, and I think there’s a lot wrong with it.” Watch it:
According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of Rockefeller’s amendment — which establishes a plan that reimburses providers at 5% above Medicare rates for the first two years — the public option would save the government an estimated $50 billion. Only eight million Americans would sign-up for the program, leaving the overwhelming majority of Americans to private coverage. Rockefeller’s amendment ultimately failed by a vote of 15-8.
Hatch delays health care mark-up by questioning constitutionality of individual health mandate.
Hatch delays health care mark-up by questioning constitutionality of individual health mandate.
During last night’s walk-through of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) pulled out his bag of tricks to delay and obstruct the mark-up process. He asked waves of repetitive questions, insisted that the individual mandate provision was unconstitutional, and lectured Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) for allegedly caving to White House pressure and “rushing” — despite 9 months of grueling negotiations. “I certainly don’t want to be a clog or obnoxious about this,” Hatch said at one point, but added, “I’ve got plenty of questions.” Watch a compilation:
“We ought to look at these things seriously and we ought to ask all the questions that we have,” Hatch insisted, before proceeding to ask staffers with no experience in constitutional law at least four separate questions about the phony issue regarding the constitutionality of the individual mandate. The Wonk Room has more.
Hatch Amendment Raises Excise Tax Threshold “For Any State With A Name That Begins With The Letter ‘U’”
Hatch Amendment Raises Excise Tax Threshold “For Any State With A Name That Begins With The Letter ‘U’”
Members of the Senate Finance committee have submitted 534 amendments to Sen. Max Baucus’ (D-MT) health care mark. Democrats introduced several amendments, including provisions re-instating the public insurance option, striking the network of consumer-driven cooperatives, expanding Medicare to Americans aged 54 to 65, and improving affordability standards.
And while Republicans have proposed several compromise amendments, most of their provisions seek to delay the mark-up process and undermine the bill. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), for instance, introduced an amendment (Hatch F7) to “add transition relief for the excise tax on high cost insurance plans for any State with a name the begins with the letter ‘U.’” The amendment would increase the threshold at which high-cost insurance plans could be taxed.
Below are some of the other superfluous amendments introduced by Republicans:
| Amendment/Sponsor | Provision |
| Ensign 409 | Transparency in Czars. |
| Hatch 511 | Prohibits authorized or appropriated federal funds under the Mark from being distributed to or used by ACORN. |
| Ensign 543 | Strike the word “fee” everywhere it appears in the bill and replace with the word “tax.” |
| Roberts 137 | To prevent Medicare payment policies which discourage physicians from fulfilling their Hippocratic Oath to maintain the good of their patients as their highest priority, and instead encourage the rationing of health care. |
| Roberts 144 | To ensure that if people like the hometown hospital they have, they can keep it. |
Hatch rationalizes his amendment by explaining that “the transition relief provided in the Chairman’s mark for the 17 states with the least affordable health care is obviously arbitrary and unfair. What about the 18th state? This amendment would add further transition relief in another, but no less arbitrary way to certain states.”
Health Insurance Stocks Rally With Release Of Baucus Health Bill
Health Insurance Stocks Rally With Release Of Baucus Health Bill
Earlier this morning Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) unveiled his committee’s health care bill, which has no public option and mandates that everyone buy insurance. While Baucus has failed to garner support from any congressional Republicans and has outraged progressives, there has been one very positive response to his proposal.
Following Baucus’ announcement, HealthNet shares increased by 3%, United Health Group Inc shares rose by 2.7%, Humana Inc. grew by 2.6%, Wellpoint stock gained 1.7% and Aetna Inc rose 1.6%:
Earlier this week, ThinkProgress interviewed Wendell Potter — a former health insurance executive — who pointed out that “every time there is an article in a big newspaper questioning the success of progressives in getting a good bill passed, the stock will go up.” “The analysts/investors don’t think any good reform is going to happen, or anything that would happen that would adversely affect the insurance companies,” he said. Watch it:
In fact, since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise. “Health-care investors are starting to breathe a sigh of relief as they feel the worst case could be averted,” John Sullivan, director of research at Leerink Swann, told the Wall Street Journal in August. “Health-care stocks have risen 22% since late February, when President Barack Obama began his push for an overhaul; the overall market is up 38%” between late February and August.
Rockefeller Announces He Will Not Support Baucus’ Health Care Bill
Rockefeller Announces He Will Not Support Baucus’ Health Care Bill
This afternoon, on a conference call with reporters, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, announced that he would not support Chairman Max Baucus’ (D-MT) health care framework in its current form:
The way it is right now, now we have an amendment process coming up next week. I’ll have many, many, many amendments and we will see what happens on that. But now, there is no way that I can vote for the Senate package. For a lot of reasons. Obviously the lack of a public option is one of them. So that I want to be very clear about.
Listen:
Other Democrats have also expressed concerns about the bill’s affordability standards and financing mechanisms. “The flashpoint is all about affordability,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) told reporters. “Additional steps have to be taken to make health care more affordable.” Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) “also said he has concerns with the fees Baucus’ proposal would impose on some sectors of the healthcare industry. He did not specify which industries — pharmaceutical, medical device, health insurance or clinical labs — he was most concerned with.”
Meanwhile, the three Republicans participating in the so-called Gang-Of-Six negotiations are also unlikely to support the measure. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Mike Enzi (D-WY) have indicated that they favored smaller bill that does not impose fees on health insurance companies, establishes a five-year waiting period for legal immigrants to obtain coverage, and strictly prohibits “the use of federal money to pay for abortion.” Meanwhile, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) signaled Tuesday “she is unlikely to immediately support” Baucus’ bill, “but emphasized strongly that she is prepared to jump on board in the coming days.” “I’ll issue my statement tomorrow. But that’s not the end of the process, tomorrow. It’s just the beginning. So, I wouldn’t read too much into it,” Snowe told reporters.
On Sunday, during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Rockefeller criticized the bill’s “network of cooperatives,” telling host George Stephanopoulos that the provision is not an alternative to the public option. A cooperative “really doesn’t work on health care,” Rockefeller explained. “There are fewer than 20 in the country and there are only two that really work. … So it hasn’t had a future, it goes back to the 30s and 40s, and I don’t think you can take the chance. You have to start a national thing all the way up,” he said.
Pelosi Stands By Public Option: We Won’t Pass The ‘Private Insurance Profit Perpetuation Act’
Pelosi Stands By Public Option: We Won’t Pass The ‘Private Insurance Profit Perpetuation Act’
Today, in testimony before the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee Forum on Health Insurance Reform, health care whistle blower Wendell Potter reminded Congress why a public option is essential to reform. If Congress fails to create “a public health insurance option to compete with private insurers, the bill it sends to the President might as well be called, ‘The Insurance Industry Profit Protection And Enhancement Act,’” Potter said.
At the end of the hearing, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) agreed with Potter. “You cited a public option as one way for it to reach its achieve its goal,” she told him. “We will be passing the ‘Private Insurance Profit Perpetuation Act.’ We have no intention of doing that”:
Mr. Potter, you said it well when you said if we do a plan that doesn’t really achieve its goal, and you cited a public option as one way for it to reach its goal, we will be passing the ‘Private Insurance Profit Perpetuation Act.’ We have no intention of doing that. We want the private sector to thrive — we don’t want our members to go into an exchange where they only have one choice, where there’s sole sourcing. But that the public option provides that competition.
Watch it:
Potter has harshly criticized Sen. Max Buacus’ (D-MT) proposed framework for reform, calling the bill “an absolute gift to the industry.”
“A public option must be created to provide true choice to consumers or reform will fail to fix the root of the severe problems that have been caused in large part by the greedy demands of Wall Street. By creating a strong public option and restricting the insurance companies’ ability to enrich executives and investors at the expense of taxpayers and consumers, HR 3200 [the House health bill] will truly benefit Americans,” Potter said in his opening statement. “The Baucus plan, on the other hand, would create a government subsidized monopoly for the purchase of bare bones high deductible policies that would truly benefit big insurance. In other words, insurers would win, your constituents would lose.”
Health Insurance Insider Slams Baucus Bill: ‘An Absolute Gift To The Insurance Industry’
Health Insurance Insider Slams Baucus Bill: ‘An Absolute Gift To The Insurance Industry’
On the eve of the Senate Finance Committee’s release of its much anticipated health care plan, Wendell Potter — the insurance industry whistle blower and former communications director of health insurance giant Cigna — called the Baucus framework “an absolute gift to the industry.” “And if that is what we see in the legislation, [America’s Health Insurance Plans chief] Karen Ignagni will surely get a huge bonus,” Potter said at a briefing for reporters.
The bill establishes a new regulated health insurance exchange and compels every American to purchase qualified health insurance coverage by 2013. Americans with employer-sponsored insurance can stay in their existing plans, while the uninsured would have to enroll in an expanded Medicaid program, a new plan in the Exchange or the now-regulated individual health insurance market. According to a report released by the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would cover 94% of Americans and cost $880 billion over 10 years.
Potter argued that the lax employer requirements would shift the cost and risk of coverage onto the individual and maintained that the bill’s “network of cooperatives” would be unable to compete in today’s concentrated health insurance markets. “The co-ops won’t stand a chance,” he concluded.
Reform must also do more to regulate insurers, who have agreed to accept applicants with pre-existing conditions but are insisting on benefit and rate flexibility. Potter argued that the benefit package standards in the Exchange and the high deductible option for younger beneficiaries would allow insurers to design almost anything that they can sell in the health market place and push the country towards consumer driven health care.
Under the Baucus legislation, private insurers could also charge older individuals up to five times more for coverage. “You’re just using age as a proxy for health status,” Uwe Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton University told the New York Times. Reinhardt estimates that “Senator Baucus’s age-rating plan would allow insurers to cover roughly 70 percent of the additional risk they’d take on by being required to accept all comers, regardless of health.”
Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.
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