SEARCH
Baucus Bill Is Far Short of Real Health Care Reform |
|
 |
|
The Senate Finance Committee’s health care reform proposal released this morning falls far short of the comprehensive reform that would provide working families with the quality and affordable health they desperately need, say health care advocates.
In a statement this morning, outgoing AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the bill
“fails to meet the most basic health care needs of working families and it fails to meet the expectations we have set for our nation.”
The labor leaders say the Finance Committee bill’s reliance on so-called health care co-ops as an alternative to a public option
fails to put pressure on private insurers to control health care costs. There is no history or logic behind the claim that health care co-ops would provide real competition for the giant private insurers that have a stranglehold on health coverage today.
While the bill’s main author, committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), spent weeks trying to win some moderate Republican backing for the plan, not a single GOP senator has endorsed it. One key Finance Committee Democrat has already announced he will oppose the Baucus bill unless significant changes are made.
Along with dropping the public health insurance option-which is part of the House bill (H.R. 3200) and the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pension (HELP) committee bill-the Baucus bill also taxes some health plans and individuals who fail to buy private insurance, while providing no penalties to irresponsible employers who do not provide coverage.
While taxing group plans that may have higher costs because the plans cover older workers, workers with worse than average health histories or who simply live in higher cost areas, it imposes no taxes high cost individual plans.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a long-time advocate of health care reform, says because the bill abandons the public health insurance option-among other objections–
there is no way in present form I will vote for it. Therefore, I will not vote for it unless it changes during the amendment process by vast amounts… I am putting down a marker, which I think others should put down, too, who might feel the same way I do.
There are, some provisions in the bill that do provide important insurance industry reforms and improvements in how health care is delivered and paid for with a focus on quality over quantity. But say the AFL-CIO leaders
But the proposal’s strong points are nowhere near sufficient to outweigh its problems. However well intentioned the attempts at bipartisanship, the final product reflects the bankrupt policies of the past more than the forward-looking policies needed to drive meaningful health care reform.
We are counting on finance committee Democrats to fix the bill and side with working families, not insurance companies.
The Finance Committee is scheduled to begin mark-up of the bill-when improving amendments can added-next week. The Senate HELP committee has approved its version and action on the House legislation is expected later this month.
10 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
The provision in the Baucus bill released today, which requires every adult to purchase health insurance, may be unconstitutional. States are allowed to require drivers to obtain auto insurance, because driving is a privelege, not a right, and the state has an interest in seeing that people assume financial responsibility for getting behind a dangerous vehicle. “Living” is not a privelege. It also criminalizes poverty by making it illegal to be too poor to afford health insurance. We should all support the Single-Payer health insurance endorsed by resolution at the AFL-CIO convention.
YES, YES, YES!!!! We need UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER. Baucus bill is a piece of legislative garbage.
CAN THIS STORY BE TRUE????
http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/september/afl-cio-convention-endorses-single-payer.html
For Immediate Release
September 15, 2009
AFL-CIIO Convention Endorses Single-Payer
Unanimous Vote for Medicare-for-All Reform
PITTSBURGH – In a historic vote that adds the nation’s leading voice of American workers to a broad national campaign, the AFL-CIO voted unanimously at its national convention here today to endorse the enactment of single-payer, universal healthcare for all Americans.
n urging its support, CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, an AFL-CIO National Vice-President, noted the recent death of Crystal Lee Sutton, the real-life union organizer from the film Norma Rae who died last week after a long battle with cancer, exacerbated by her own three-year fight with her insurance company.
“No one should spend the last days of their life fighting with their insurance company,” said DeMoro. “We should not make choices of who gets healthcare based on their ethnicity, gender, or economic status. But I am addressing the labor movement, not Wall Street. And we all know what is the right thing – the moral thing – single-payer healthcare.”
It marks the first time in perhaps two decades that the AFL-CIO has been formally on record in support of single-payer, which would essentially expand and improve Medicare to cover all Americans. Labor unions around the country have been in the forefront of grassroots actions around the nation in support of single-payer and many labor bodies submitted resolutions to the national convention in support of an endorsement.
The resolution notes that “the experience of Medicare (and of nearly every other industrialized country) shows the most cost-effective and equitable way to provide quality healthcare is through a single-payer system. Our nation should provide a single high standard of comprehensive care for all.” It also sites specific single-payer bills, including HR 676, which has 86 cosponsors in Congress.
The vote came shortly after the convention was addressed by President Obama who repeated his call for comprehensive healthcare reform, and will accompany another AFL-CIO resolution supporting other Congressional efforts to pass comprehensive reform.
It also followed a reception hosted by CNA/NNOC and other unions Monday night featuring filmmaker Michael Moore whose previous film SiCKO presaged the current national debate with its indictment of the healthcare industry, and was on hand to premiere his latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story to the AFL-CIO convention.
In his speech Moore recalled that 65 years ago President Franklin Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights which called for a right to universal medical care, a fight that continues. He noted that every day the healthcare industry spends over $1 million to block reform while thousands of Americans continue to lose coverage, and urged labor and community activists to keep up the fight.
Regardless of the outcome of the current healthcare legislative action, said United Steel Workers President Leo Gerard, “we’re going to continue the fight for single-payer. I’m not in favor of universal insurance, I’m in favor of universal healthcare. We are going to fight to make sure every single American gets high quality healthcare.”
“We know the patient care crisis, we see it every day,” said CNA/NNOC co-president Zenei Cortez, RN at the reception. “We will not rest until we get rid of the private insurance companies that profit off of suffering.”
Greg Junemann, president of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and chair of the HR 676 Labor Caucus, which has won similar endorsements from hundreds of international and local unions and state and local labor federations, noted to the convention the unity of labor in fighting for real reform. He also cited the ongoing fight of workers every day to protect the health coverage many have now.
………… FOLLOW LINK ABOVE FOR FULL STORY!
WILL THIS STORY BE CONFIRMED HERE????
The Bacus Bill, and we must not forget that Senator Bacus was the Senator with the biggest “campaign” contributions from the health insurance industry, also cuts huge amounts from Medicare which will affect seniors, the poor and many children. It is a windfall for the insurance companies and does nothing to improve health care in this country.
Labor and the poor get nothing from capital unless they get on the streets and struggle for it. It is time that union’s start striking for their future’s and their children future’s. That will require a new and revolutionary leadership because what is in place today are no more then brokers for the bosses needs.
Baucus should be kicked out of the Democratic Party, along with Arlen Spectre. Baucus is no friend of workers and is the person responsible for having people arrested who dared to speak up in support of a single-payer plan at one of his staged hearings. While the Democrats and Obama have made sure they hear from representatives of Big Pharma and the insurance conglomerates, they have ignored single payer advocates, excluded nurses, and sold out the working class yet again.
You are absolutely correct. As a retired nurse and the daughter of an AFL-CIO steelworker in Gary, IN, I feel I know what I’m saying.
Boycott Tyson Foods of Arkansas who gave Mike Ross D- Arkansas money for his campaigns. Call lobbyist for Tyson Foods Chuck Penry 202 393 3921 and tell him politely that you refuse to buy Tyson chicken until Mike Ross D-Arkansas the leader of the Blue Dogs on health care gets the entire house and senate conservative Democrats to help get HR 676 enacted into law. Tell others to call. Send me email after you call to info@democratz.org
Boycott American Express who gave Max Baucus $50,000 for his campaigns. Call Joanna Lambert at 212 640 9668 and politely tell her you will not use any American Express cards until Max Baucus gets HR 676 enacted into law. Email me after you call.
As for the cuts in Medicare I want to see Medicare part C removed as it enriches private insurance companies.
I also want to see a new Medicare Prescription drug benefit that gets placed in Medicare Part B with no extra monthly premium, no extra yearly deductible and no coverage gap. People will pay the existing 96 dollars a month for Medicare Part B premiums and 130 dollars a year for the deductible. The drug benefit should cover 80 percent of all patented and generic drugs. also congress should remove the means test for Medicare Part B and make sure that the government administers this drug benefit and not insurance companies nor any drug company.
See our blog at http://blog.democratz.org
Baucus has a right to an opinion such as the “good work” he and his committee has worked on. Sad that much of the public speculates the Finance Committee hired lobbists from the big healthcare industry to write the proposal.
Yes, the proposed giveaway to the big healthcare folks would problably be in the hundred billiion dollar range. No wonder stocks of these folks soared.
I think the good folks of his state will remember this monsterous proposal for healthcare at election time. Many of folks through-out the country will also remember Mr. Baucus and give money to opponents in the next election.
Good the AFL-CIO has got around to supporting universal healthcare. Better late than never, but might be too late to influence voting on some of the “doomed to fail” healthcare proposals floating around in congress.
The only trouble with waiting to the last minute and riding in to rescue the folks, might be too late for the folks.
The title to this story is very polite. The bill that came out of that committee is a joke. But why are we shocked? Going into this whole process, we as a people have been shut out. There never was a single representative for the single payer option. The only people who were invited to the discussion were the people with the money, i.e. Big Pharma and the insurance company’s. They crafted the bill and dictated to our representatives what would be in the bill. This whole process has been has been a one way street. I just can’t figure out if it was designed to ultimately fail or to see if they could actually force us to pay them more money for there summer homes. Either way we are going to lose and the rich will not care either way.