Obama's Health Plan Bars Private Insurance After All

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Rombaldi
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Post by Rombaldi » 08-14-2009 09:39 PM

Still meaningless... there IS NO BILL YET, they react to the lies and distortion...

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Understand this....

THERE WILL BE A HEALTH REFORM BILL

THERE WILL BE A PUBLIC OPTION

and a year from now, when the benefits are know... THE GOPIGGYS WILL BE SEEN BY EVERYONE AS LIARS AND OBSTRUCTIONISTS.

.. and the GOP will need that 'end of life' counseling more than anyone else ever did, cause as a party, they will be dead.
Republican - re·pub·li·can (r-pbl-kn) - political party, which will control part of Congress 2011-2012, undermining the strength of the country - on purpose, in public, without apology or shame - simply for a campaign advantage in 2012.

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Post by racehorse » 08-14-2009 09:46 PM

The real problems with passing any of the bills are with the Democrats, Rombaldi.

Your own Democratic party members are the "obstructionists". Democrats have enough votes to pass anything they want provided they are united. They are not. Republicans no matter how much we would like to stop them on anything simply don't have the votes. Look inward to your own party, that is where your real problems are, not the GOP.
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Post by Shirleypal » 08-14-2009 09:51 PM

Democrats have enough votes to pass anything they want provided they are united.

And they will racehorse in spite of the party of "NO"

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Post by racehorse » 08-14-2009 09:58 PM

Rom, you said this about Intrade.
Originally posted by Rombaldi at showthread.php?s=&threadid=36391&highlight=intrade
Precisely... it's people risking their money based on information, not talking points or spin.


Now to the "No Spin Zone". ;)

--

http://www.intrade.com/

Health Care Reform - Will a federal government run health insurance plan (a public option) be approved in the US?

A federal government run health insurance plan to be approved before midnight ET 31 Dec 2009

A federal government run health insurance plan to be approved before midnight ET 31 Dec 2009

Last Price: 35.5 0.4

You can buy
this at 36.6

You can sell
this at 35.5

--
A federal government run health insurance plan to be approved before midnight ET 31 Dec 2009

Last Price: 35.5
What does this mean?

35.5 means the market predicts there is a 35.5%
chance that this event happens.

If you think it is more likely than this you should buy

If you think it is less likely you should sell
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Post by racehorse » 08-14-2009 10:02 PM

Shirleypal wrote: And they will racehorse in spite of the party of "NO"


They might.

Say Hello to Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader McConnell if they choose to reject a bi-partisan solution.
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Post by Rombaldi » 08-14-2009 10:06 PM

racehorse wrote: They might.

Say Hello to Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader McConnell if they choose to reject a bi-partisan solution.
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Post by racehorse » 08-14-2009 10:10 PM

Rombaldi wrote: HorsePoo


Frightened, Rom? ;)
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Post by Rombaldi » 08-14-2009 10:18 PM

racehorse wrote: Frightened, Rom? ;)
Of GOPiggy wet dream fantasies? Hardly.
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Post by racehorse » 08-14-2009 10:21 PM

:eek: :rolleyes:

We will see. ;)
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Post by HB3 » 08-15-2009 06:17 PM

Next up: Greg Palast (!):

Obama on Drugs: 98% Cheney?

by Greg Palast
Thursday, August 13, 2009

For The Huffington Post

Eighty billion dollars of WHAT?

I searched all over the newspapers and TV transcripts and no one asked the President what is probably the most important question of what passes for debate on the issue of health care reform: $80 billion of WHAT?

On June 22, President Obama said he'd reached agreement with big drug companies to cut the price of medicine by $80 billion. He extended his gratitude to Big Pharma for the deal that would, "reduce the punishing inflation in health care costs."

Hey, in my neighborhood, people think $80 billion is a lot of money. But is it?

I checked out the government's health stats (at HHS.gov), put fresh batteries in my calculator and totted up US spending on prescription drugs projected by the government for the next ten years. It added up to $3.6 trillion.

In other words, Obama's big deal with Big Pharma saves $80 billion out of a total $3.6 trillion. That's 2%.

Hey thanks, Barack! You really stuck it to the big boys. You saved America from these drug lords robbing us blind. Two percent. Cool!

For perspective: Imagine you are in a Wal-Mart and there's a sign over a flat screen TV, “BIG SAVINGS!” So, you break every promise you made never to buy from that union-busting big box - and snatch up the $500 television. And when you're caught by your spouse, you say, "But, honey, look at the deal I got! It was TWO-PERCENT OFF! I saved us $10!"

But 2% is better than nothing, I suppose. Or is it?

The Big Pharma kingpins did not actually agree to cut their prices. Their promise with Obama is something a little oilier: they apparently promised that, over ten years, they will reduce the amount at which they would otherwise raise drug prices. Got that? In other words, the Obama deal locks in a doubling of drug costs, projected to rise over the period of "savings" from a quarter trillion dollars a year to half a trillion dollars a year. Minus that 2%.

We'll still get the shaft from Big Pharma, but Obama will have circumcised the increase.

And what did Obama give up in return for $80 billion? Chief drug lobbyist Billy Tauzin crowed that Obama agreed to dump his campaign pledge to bargain down prices for Medicare purchases. Furthermore, Obama’s promise that we could buy cheap drugs from Canada simply went pffft!

What did that cost us? The New England Journal of Medicine notes that 13 European nations successfully regulate the price of drugs, reducing the average cost of name-brand prescription medicines by 35% to 55%. Obama gave that up for his 2%.

The Veterans Administration is able to push down the price it pays for patent medicine by 40% through bargaining power. George Bush stopped Medicare from bargaining for similar discounts, an insane ban that Obama said he’d overturn. But, once within Tauzin’s hypnotic gaze, Obama agreed to lock in Bush’s crazy and costly no-bargaining ban for the next decade.

What else went down in Obama's drug deal? To find out, I called C-SPAN to get a copy of the videotape of the meeting with the drug companies. I was surprised to find they didn't have such a tape despite the President's campaign promise, right there on CNN in January 2008, "These negotiations will be on C-SPAN."

This puzzled me. When Dick Cheney was caught having secret meetings with oil companies to discuss Bush's Energy Bill, we denounced the hugger-muggers as a case of foxes in the henhouse.

Cheney's secret meetings with lobbyists and industry bigshots were creepy and nasty and evil.

But the Obama crew's secret meetings with lobbyists and industry bigshots were, the President assures us, in the public interest.

We know Cheney's secret confabs were shady and corrupt because Cheney scowled out the side of his mouth.

Obama grins in your face.

See the difference?

http://www.gregpalast.com/obama-on-drugs-98-cheney/

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Post by HB3 » 08-15-2009 06:19 PM

Sidebar:

ALERT

Now it's Let's Make a Deal with hospital lobbyists.

First, the President was caught with his principles down, cutting a scuzzy back-room deal with pharmaceutical lobbyist Billy Tauzin to limit drug price savings to just 2% over 10 years (see attached, "Obama on Drugs: 98% Cheney?"), the New York Times today reports that another deal was sealed by lobbyist Chip Kahn of the American Hospital Association.

Here are the numbers they don't want you to see: Hospitals will be allowed to hike their prices and revenues by six trillion dollars ($5,853 billion) over the next ten years, only $155 billion less than they had projected before the Obama "reform."

In all, the Obama back-room deal will "reduce" our $26 trillion total hospital bill over the next decade by one-half of one percent.

Once again, the lobbyists got the gold mine, the public got the shaft.

Say it ain't so, Mr. President.

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Post by racehorse » 08-16-2009 10:27 AM

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... -insurers/

August 16, 2009

Sebelius: There will be competition with private insurers

Posted: August 16th, 2009 11:15 AM ET

From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A day after President Obama appeared to suggest that his administration might be open to health care reform legislation that does not include a public health insurance option, one of Obama’s top aides on the issue left the door open to accepting nonprofit health insurance co-ops, a proposal that has gained traction in bipartisan negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee.

“I think there will be a competition to private insurers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, “that really is the essential part, that you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace [after health care legislation is enacted] to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition.”

At a town hall in Grand Junction, Colorado Saturday, Mr. Obama seemed to downplay the necessity of having a public insurance option in the final version of any health care reform legislation presented to him by Congress.

“The public option – whether we have it or we don’t have it – is not the entirety of health care reform,” the President said. “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it. And, by the way, it’s both the right and the left that have become so fixated on this that they forget everything else . . .”

Echoing Mr. Obama’s Saturday comments, Sebelius also told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King that “what’s important is choice and competition.” A public option “is not an essential element,” the Cabinet secretary said Sunday.

North Dakota Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad has championed the inclusion of health insurance co-ops in health care reform legislation as an alternative to a public option. Conrad, who is part of a bipartisan group of six senators on the Senate Finance Committee hashing out the details of the committee’s health care reform bill, has repeatedly said that he does not believe Democrats have enough votes in the Senate to pass a bill that includes a public option.
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Post by racehorse » 08-16-2009 10:34 AM

Rombaldi wrote:


Understand this....


THERE WILL BE A PUBLIC OPTION


http://www.kentucky.com/517/v-print/story/897365.html

Sunday, Aug 16, 2009

Posted on Sun, Aug. 16, 2009

White House appears ready to drop 'public option'

By PHILIP ELLIOTT
Associated Press Writer

Apparently ready to abandon the idea, President Barack Obama's health secretary said Sunday a government alternative to private health insurance is "not the essential element" of the administration's health care overhaul.

The White House indicated it could jettison the contentious public option and settle on insurance cooperatives as an acceptable alternative, a move embraced by some Republicans lawmakers who have strongly opposed the administration's approach so far.

Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Obama has been pressing for the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation's almost 50 million uninsured.

Sebelius said the White House would be open to co-ops instead of a government-run public option, a sign Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory on the must-win showdown.

"I think there will be a competitor to private insurers," she said. "That's really the essential part, is you don't turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition."

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said co-ops might be a politically acceptable alternative as "a step away from the government takeover of the health care system" that the GOP has assailed.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate's budget committee, pushed the co-op model as an alternative, saying it has worked in other business models.

As proposed by Conrad, the co-ops would receive federal startup money, but then would operate independently of the government. They would have to maintain the same financial reserves that private companies are required to keep to handle unexpectedly high claims.

Republicans say a public option would have unfair advantages that would drive private insurers out of business. Critics say co-ops would not be genuine public options for health insurance.

Meanwhile, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he would return to the bargaining sessions to find a bipartisan solution to a health care problem that has long vexed Washington.

"I'm always ready to go back to the bargaining table," Hatch said. "Heck, I've probably helped pass more bipartisan health care legislation than anybody I know."

That legislation, however, seemed likely to strike end-of-life counseling sessions. Former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin has called the session "death panels," a label that has drawn rebuke from her fellow Republicans as well as Democrats.

Even so, Sebelius said the proposal was likely to be dropped from the final bill.

"We wanted to make sure doctors were reimbursed for that very important consultation if family members chose to make it, and instead it's been turned into this scare tactic and probably will be off the table," she said. "And that's not good news for the American public and not good news for family members."

Sebelius spoke on CNN's "State of the Union" and ABC's "This Week." Shelby and Conrad appeared on "Fox News Sunday." Hatch was interviewed on "This Week."
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Post by racehorse » 08-16-2009 10:47 AM

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capito ... id=topnews

Capitol Briefing
News and Analysis from the Hill

Conrad Sees Little Chance for Public Option

By John Amick

August 16, 2009; 10:19 AM ET

A crucial Democratic member of the Finance Committee, the panel devising what is considered to be the prime vehicle for health-care reform legislation in the Senate, said on Sunday that hope for a government-run public option to be included in a final reform bill is all but dead.

"The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option," Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) on "Fox News Sunday. "There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort."

Thus, Conrad said, proponents such as President Obama, who has voiced support for a public option to "keep the insurance companies honest," should temper their expectations.

Conrad's proposal for a health-care co-op program is seen as the likeliest of options that will come from the Finance Committee. He says the regionalized co-op plan would give insurance buyers more choice, stressing that he sees no way a public option would find its way in any final version of legislation. "So to continue to chase that rabbit I think is just a wasted effort," Conrad said.
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Post by HB3 » 08-16-2009 12:36 PM

That 'splooshy' sound you hear is the sound of heads exploding all over DU/Kos....

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