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Cantor To Uninsured Woman With Growing Tumors: Get ‘An Existing Government Program’ Or Find Charity

By Lee Fang on Sep 22, 2009 at 3:57 pm

At the Richmond Times-Dispatch “public square” forum yesterday, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) fielded open questions from his constituents on the health reform debate for the first time this summer.

Patricia Churchill relayed a story about a close family member who recently lost a high paying job and her health insurance. Churchill told Cantor that her relative was dying of stomach tumors and needs an operation as soon as possible. Cantor responded by suggesting that Churchill’s relative should seek “existing government programs” or find charity.

Cantor, who serves as the chief whip for his party, has said that he cannot support a health reform bill with a public option. But despite his political opposition to government insurance programs, Cantor then emphasized to Churchill that every American should be given an “option” for health care, including a government program:

CHURCHILL: I have a very close relative, a woman in her early forties, who did have a wonderful, high-paying job, owns her own home and is a real contributing member of society. She lost her job. Just a couple of weeks ago, she found out that she has tumors in her belly and that she needs an operation. Her doctors told her that they are growing and that she needs to get this operation quickly. She has no insurance. [...]

CANTOR: First of all I guess I would ask what the situation is in terms of income eligibility and the existing programs that are out there. Because if we look at the uninsured that are out there right now, there is probably 23, 24% of the uninsured that is already eligible for an existing government program [...] Beyond that, I know that there are programs, there are charitable organizations, there are hospitals here who do provide charity care if there’s an instance of indigency and the individual is not eligible for existing programs that there can be some cooperative effort. No one in this country, given who we are, should be sitting without an option to be addressed.

Watch it:

In an interview with ThinkProgress after the event, Churchill explained that her relative, who needs help now, probably won’t qualify for a low-income government program like Medicaid and that there are very long waiting periods for charity programs. Asked about Cantor’s response to her question, Churchill said, “it was helpful in a sense, but of course nowhere near as helpful as having this healthcare reform bill passed so that we could know that she could definitely go and get taken care of.”

Today, Cantor called for “scrapping” President Obama’s proposed public option insurance program.

Yglesias

Bike Lanes in Saxony

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 22, 2009 at 3:28 pm

Dresden and Freiberg had some bicycling infrastructure that a DC bike commuter can’t help but be jealous of. From the looks of it, Frankfurt is also quite bike-friendly but I haven’t really been outside much. Here’s a very convenient separated lane:

SDC10055

And here’s some nice red striping that extends through the intersection and improves visibility:

SDC10075

And here we have a lane separated out from the sidewalk:

SDC10035

For whatever reason in Northern Europe bicycles seems to be the predominant alternative to cars whereas in Southern Europe you see more scooters and mopeds and such. I’d sort of like to come up with a theory as to why that it (it’s flatter in the north?) but no obvious one is coming to mind. I note that relative to the United States, you see cyclists in Germany (like in the Netherlands) from more walks of life—more older people, more people with carseat attachments for kids and such.

Politics

Bachmann heaps praise on O’Reilly and Beck: That’s where people want to go to find the truth.

By Faiz Shakir on Sep 22, 2009 at 3:20 pm

In an interview with Fox News, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) kissed up to Bill O’Reilly and his audience, telling producer Jesse Watters, “The Factor is the factor. That’s what’s important.” Bachmann then showered O’Reilly and Glenn Beck with her praise:

People vote with their feet. And they love Bill O’Reilly; they love Glenn Beck. They love the shows that are on Fox. That’s what matters. Because people want to go where they can find truth. They obviously aren’t finding truth over on some of these other channels.

Watch it:

Bachmann has gone on Fox News to claim health care reform is unconstitutional, that the Census is dangerous because it was used to intern the Japanese, and that Alaskan caribou favor oil drilling because they like the the warmth of the pipeline. Together, the Fox News network and Bachmann create a very “truthy” tag-team.

Security

Irving Kristol And Conservative ‘Taqiya’

By Matt Duss on Sep 22, 2009 at 3:10 pm

irving kristolTo add a little to Yglesias’ post on Irving Kristol’s support for subverting facts to politics, I think there’s a real irony in the way that neoconservatives have warned ominously of Iranian “taqiya” — dissimulation in service of a higher religious goal — as if Shiite clerics invented the phenomenon of lying in politics. This is, after all, precisely the sort of thing that Irving Kristol advocated in a political context — the sacrifice of truth to Republican political imperatives:

Among the core social scientists around The Public Interest there were no economists…. This explains my own rather cavalier attitude toward the budget deficit and other monetary or fiscal problems. The task, as I saw it, was to create a new majority, which evidently would mean a conservative majority, which came to mean, in turn, a Republican majority — so political effectiveness was the priority, not the accounting deficiencies of government…

You don’t need to look hard to see that this approach is alive and well in the conservative movement. Just look to David Horowitz’s response to David Frum on Glenn Beck’s hysteria, in which Horowitz concedes that Beck’s attacks on Cass Sunstein are “over the top,” but insists that the threat from The Left is so dire that it justifies Beck’s dishonesty. (I’m curious whether Frum — whose website is titled New Majority, in reference to Kristol — recognizes Kristol as a promulgator of the sort of tactics Frum now condemns?)

Or look at NRO’s Andrew McCarthy’s defense of the “death panels” lie, justified, McCarthy wrote, by the fact that “Obama is not a normal politician. He’s a visionary, and using health care to radically expand the scope of government happens to be central to his vision.” The “stakes here couldn’t be higher,” McCarthy wrote, “time is short, and ‘death panel’ cuts to the chase.”

Irving Kristol didn’t invent this practice, of course, but he did develop and sharpen it as an American conservative political doctrine. In that respect, I think Michael Lind lets Kristol off too easily when he writes, in regard to the wilderness into which Irving’s son Bill Kristol has helped lead the conservative movement, that “the sins of the sons should not be visited upon the fathers.” There’s a clear straight through-line from Irving’s support for elites lying to the ignorant rubes to Bill’s recruiting a genuine ignorant rube to tell those lies on elites’ behalf.

Climate Progress

Myth vs. reality on international climate negotiations

By Joe Romm on Sep 22, 2009 at 3:07 pm

This analysis is from the Center for American Progress.   CAP statements on President Obama’s Speech and Chinese President Hu’s Speech at Today’s UN Climate Summit are here.  Photo above is U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon speaks during the opening of the World Climate Conference in Geneva on September 3.

Myth #1: The United States should not have to act if China and India are not doing anything.

Reality: Both China and India are now moving forward with ambitious plans for emissions reductions and low-carbon development.

China’s fuel economy standard for passenger cars is equivalent to 36.7 miles per gallon, and China is reportedly considering raising this to 42.2 mpg. The U.S. standard remained at 27.5 mpg for 20 years until President Obama recently announced a new standard in May of 35.5 mpg by 2016.

[We need to hear details about China's new carbon intensity goal.]

India recently announced that it will quantify greenhouse gas emissions and take actions to reduce emissions through deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency. India has announced the most ambitious solar energy goal in the world and is moving forward with a plan to radically improve home appliance efficiency.

The Bush administration signed on to the U.N. Bali Action Plan in December 2007, which is a commitment by developed countries to assist developing countries with technology and finance to transition to a low-carbon pathway in exchange for a commitment from those developing countries to make “measurable, reportable, and verifiable” emissions reductions. The United States and China signed an additional bilateral agreement this July that could help make this plan a reality. Such agreements will ensure that the major emerging economies will continue their efforts to reduce emissions.

Myth #2: China and India will not commit to an international agreement on climate change.

Reality: Both China and India have publically stated that they will sign a new climate agreement as long as it does not inhibit their economic growth.

Read more

Politics

Lieberman jokes about running in 2012 as a Republican.

By Matt Corley on Sep 22, 2009 at 2:30 pm

This morning, Politico reported on how some Democratic senators are already preparing for their reelection efforts in 2012, “boosting their campaign coffers, raising millions for an election that is still 37 months away.” In an interview, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) joked that he could potentially run as a Republican:

liebSeveral Senate Democrats up in 2012 have already joined the million-dollar club, including Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Bill Nelson of Florida, Dianne Feinstein of California and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, as well as independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who caucuses with Senate Democrats. Several more are expected to surpass the million-dollar mark when the latest round of campaign finance reports is released Oct. 15.

Lieberman, who had $1.4 million through June 30, said he was unsure whether he would run in 2012 as a Democrat or an independent.

“Or a Republican,” Lieberman jokingly added. “I have all sorts of options.”

Some Democrats might not find Lieberman’s joke very funny. After Lieberman bucked his party and supported Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for president — even delivering a speech at the Republican National Convention — some of his Senate colleagues wanted him to be punished, with some suggesting that he should lose his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Instead, they let him off with slap on the wrist.

Yglesias

Hedge Fund Regulation

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 22, 2009 at 2:28 pm

HP_dai_05

While nobody I’ve spoken to in Germany thinks Barack Obama’s appeasement is going to lead to Russian domination of the continent, several people have expressed the view—commonly heard from French and German officials—that they’re very perturbed by the fact that the Obama administration hasn’t yet acted to stiffen regulations on hedge funds.

Certainly that was the view of the panel we heard from yesterday at the Deutsches Aktieninstitut, a kind of in-house think tank for German firms interested in capital markets. The strange thing about this is that while I agree this should be done (and in fact I believe the administration’s proposals address this point) it’s very hard to understand the centrality they’re giving it since as best I can tell hedge funds simply didn’t play a major role in bringing on this crisis. When I put that point to the panel, they pointed to the fact that a substantial number of hedge funds have gone under in the past 18 months. But this it seems to me points in the other direction—hedge funds that have made bad bets have failed largely because they’ve been allowed to fail; unlike other forms of financial institutions it’s deemed acceptable to let them fail. The institutions we really need to worry about regulating are the ones that we don’t intend to let fail. That’s where the really bet one-sided bets with privatized profits and socialized losses are taking place.

Health

Baucus Accepts Numerous Republican And Democratic Amendments, Brings Cost Of Bill To $900 Billion

By Igor Volsky on Sep 22, 2009 at 2:09 pm

Makrup1I’m live Tweeting the Senate Finance Committee’s mark-up on @wonkroom.

Sen Max Baucus (D-MT) has just released a Chairman’s amendment to his mark. The new amendment enhances the bill’s affordability measures and increases the threshold on so-called Cadillac health care plans for ‘high-risk’ Americans. The modified amendment also preserves a subsidy to certain Medicare Advantage plans.

Baucus accepted 29 Republican amendments, including 10 from Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), who has indicated that she is open to voting for the Senate Finance Committee bill. Baucus did not address any public option amendments and will likely consider Snowe’s trigger proposal during mark-up.

Below are the most significant revisions:


Provision Baucus Mark New Baucus Amendment Amendments Accepted (Modified)
Affordability of premiums Families 100% FPL contribute 3% of income to premiums. Families 300% FPL would contribute 13% of income to premiums. Families 100% FPL contribute 2% of income to premiums. Families 300% FPL would contribute 12% of income to premiums. Menendez, Kerry, Bingaman and Schumer as amendment C1; Kerry & Menendez as amendment C9, Stabenow as amendment C1.
Out of pocket protections 300%+ FPL = HSA limit ($11,900 families, $5,590 individuals); 200-300% FPL = 1/2 of HSA limit; 100-200% FPL = 1/3 of HSA limit; 300-400% FPL = 2/3 of the HSA limit Menendez as amendment C13.
Affordability for older Americans Insurers can charge an older person 5x more for coverage. Insurers can charge an older person 4x more for coverage. Wyden as amendment C9, Kerry as amendment C15.
Easier to opt out of unaffordable employer coverage If the costs of employer-sponsored coverage exceed 13% of income, an individual can enroll in the Exchange. If the costs of employer-sponsored coverage exceed 10% of income, an individual can enroll in the Exchange. Snowe amendment number C2.
Increasing threshold for excise tax on ‘Cadillac’ plans Insurers w/ policies @ $21,000/families, $8,000/individuals pay 35% excise tax. New thresholds for high-risk enrollees & non-Medicare retirees aged 55+ ($23,000/families, $8,750/individuals- insurers pay 40% excise tax). Excise tax increased to 40% for all other enrollees, threshold level set at Consumer Price Index (CPI) + 1 percent.. Kerry, Rockefeller, Schumer, Stabenow, Cantwell, & Menendez as amendment F2.
Reducing penalty on individuals/families that don’t meet the requirements of the individual mandate. Families 100-300% FPL, penalty = $750 – $1,500. More than 300% FPL, penalty = $950-$3,800. Families 100-300% FPL, penalty = $750-$1,500 . More than 300% FPL, penalty = $1,900 max. Individuals below 100% FPL,no penalty Snowe as amendment F4 and Schumer as amendment C6
Catastrophic coverage opened to Americans exempt from individual mandate Only Americans 25 years old and younger could enroll in a ‘high deductible’ catastrophic plan. Individuals who would otherwise qualify for the exemption from the individual mandate, could now purchase the “young invincible” policy, Snowe as amendment F5.
Preserving some overpayments to private plans participating in Medicare Advantage The Medicare Advantage program is opened to competitive bidding. Preserves Medicare Advantage subsidies for seniors living in high cost areas where plans deliver benefits below the average cost of traditional Medicare. Bill Nelson as amendment D10.
Federal employees eligible for the Exchange. Federal employees would not eligible to enroll in the Exchange until approximately 2022. Beginning in 2013 elected officials and federal employees may purchase coverage through a state-based exchange, rather than using the traditional Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan Grassley Amendment C3


Update

Excluded from Taxation: The Baucus amendment excludes Class II medical devices (i.e. powered wheelchairs and some pregnancy test kits. 43% of medical devices fall under this category) and clinical labs from taxation.


Update

,Opening up the Exchange: By 2015 states can allow businesses with up to 100 employees to enroll in the Exchange. By 2017, businesses with more than 100 employees can utilize the Exchange.

Economy

General Motors Bans Michael Moore From Detroit Premiere Of His Own Movie

By Zaid Jilani on Sep 22, 2009 at 1:30 pm

Michael Moore’s next documentary is “Capitalism: A Love Story,” a film which attacks the U.S. economic system as fundamentally unjust and declares, “Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.”

Although the movie is not set to open nationwide until Oct. 2, Moore has been premiering a number of sneak preview screenings for Detroit residents in his home state of Michigan. But, as Michigan Live reports, Moore ran into problems when it turned out one of the theaters he rented for the screenings was owned by General Motors (GM) — which Moore famously skewered for its anti-worker policies in his 1989 film Roger & Me.

GM agreed to run the movie only if both Moore and the local press were locked out. Essentially, GM banned Moore from his own screening. A local Detroit news station interviewed Moore about the incident. He said GM should “get over” its grudge against him and be more accountable to citizens, especially in light of the billions of dollars the government has loaned it:

MOORE: General Motors said that I could not be on the premises doing any interviews or press. … I would get over it if I were them. … In the movie I actually try to attempt to see the new chairman to share my ideas about mass transit and other things that the General Motors factories could be building that would benefit about society. … We have 50 billion dollars of our money sitting over there. That is owned by us now. And the de facto CEO is President Barack Obama. I legally rented the four theaters to have my Detroit premiere, and yet somehow they’re able to ban me from my own premiere here? What country are we living in?

Watch it:

In addition to the over 1,000 theater opening Oct. 2, Moore plans to screen the film for free on Oct. 1 in some of the poorest parts of the country.

Update

Despite GM’s warning against Moore coming to the screening at their theater, the filmmaker decided to attend anyway. He joined Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and others to discuss the film after the credits rolled. Watch it:

Related Posts

Yglesias

Europe’s Immigration/Assimilation Problem

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 22, 2009 at 1:28 pm

Schaerbeek Town Hall

Schaerbeek Town Hall

Fascinating find from The Economist:

There can never be full integration of the migrants “swarming” into Brussels, according to a report by the Royal Belgian Geographical Society—at least among the current generation of adults. The immigrants are too different in their religious beliefs and customs, and their impact is too overwhelming. “When they are sufficiently numerous in a neighbourhood” they open their own hairdressing salons, grocery shops and bakeries, the report notes, not to mention “butcher’s shops where they sell meat from ritually slaughtered animals”. They have large families and cram twice the agreed number of tenants into flats, creating “deplorable” living conditions, annoying landlords and disturbing their neighbours. Perhaps “partial assimilation” may one day be achieved, it concludes, but it will be hard: the newcomers’ religion and language “do not ease any attempts at contact.”

The report in question? It dates from 1933 and describes the panic caused by Jewish immigrants from Poland, when they moved into Brussels neighbourhoods like Schaerbeek. It was recently unearthed by Anne Morelli, a professor of history of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Prof Morelli reproduces a long extract from the report in this thoughtful essay for KVS Express, an excellent trilingual journal published by the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels. The report is in English on page 18 of this pdf file.

And of course you see this in the United States, too, as anti-immigration rhetoric tends to very precisely parallel what was said about the un-assimilability of Jews and Catholics before the first world war. There’s even a parallel between the very real problems associated with violent strains of Islamist ideology among European Muslim Communities and the only quite real problem of anarchist violence that was associated with U.S. immigrant communities. I assume that if Nicholas Sarkozy were to be shot and killed by a French Muslim tomorrow, we’d never here the end of talk about “Eurabia” and so forth yet Leon Czolgosz didn’t prefigure the destruction of the United States at the hands of mass wave of Polish political violence.

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