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Grijalva Says The Senate Public Option Compromise Is A Non-Starter
WASHINGTON - An influential progressive in the House of Representatives says that the public option compromise taking shape in the Senate might not survive the lower chamber--particularly if the Senate tries to jam its health care bill through the House.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ). Grijalva says if he and other House progressives are faced with a straight vote on the Senate bill, they'll likely defect. "It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to vote yes." In an interview this afternoon, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) said he met with the Congressional Progressive Caucus' health care task force yesterday and they all agreed. "There is consensus within the progressive caucus," Grijalva said. "Personally I'm in agreement with them. I don't think very much of it."
"We're questioning whether you can define [what's coming out of the Senate] as a robust PO, and we don't think you can," he told me.
"There's rumors that we will skip conference--that we won't do conference--and bring their bill directly to the floor, and we are very, very opposed to that," Grijalva said.
At her press conference this morning, I asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi how much of a chance there is that the Senate will "ping pong" its bill over to the House. Her response was emphatic, but not definitive. "Not much," she answered. "We would like to see a full conference." But she didn't rule it out entirely.
Grijalva says if he and other House progressives are faced with a straight vote on the Senate bill, they'll likely defect. "It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to vote yes."
That said, Grijalva says he's going to wait and see the explicit details of the compromise, and read what the CBO has to say about it, before taking any concrete steps, including whipping votes.
After all, maybe the CBO will come back with a surprising report. "That consideration's always there--a member said 'if you don't want to call it a public option in the Senate, [but if it does what the public option does] we'd consider that,'" Grijalva said. "But are we ready to count heads on whether you're a no vote or a yes vote...at this point it would probably be premature."
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17 Comments so far
Show AllGiven the inconsistencies in the actions and pronouncements of this caucus, I'll believe that they are standing up for reform - or for anything for that matter - when they actually do so.
Personally, I hope that they vote 'no' but their track record is not reassuring.
q
I agree. The public option is dead in the water, as I see it. It would be better to bury it for now, in hopes of resuscitating the idea after the Congress has been swept clean of corporate shills, which probably won't be until after the Second American Revolution.
Single-payer OR SINGLE TERMINATION! (Well, MAYBE excepting Grijalva).
This bill is useless with out single payer 60% of the people are in favor of it so yes kill this bill
Letting 55-64 age group "buy in" to Medicare at 600% of 65-year-old rate is a sick joke.
Right! If people 55-64 do not have health insurance, it's probably because they can't afford it (Duh!) So they can't afford to buy into Medicare at $600/month.
If we had a reasonable minimum wage, reasonable doctor costs, reasonable lab test costs, reasonable drug costs, and reasonable short-term hospital costs; then we could pay out of pocket (with help for those who cannot). We might only need catastrophic care insurance at a low monthly rate. Total health insurance mostly helps rich people at the very top of these systems.
Medicare was designed to a great extent by the health insurance industry,
the goal being to get rid of the oldest customers.
Lowering Medicare age to 55, again a big increase in profit for health insurers.
Today 18% of workers are employed in a medical industry that consumes 18%
of our GDP.
Without a robust Public Option in 15 years 36% of workers would be employed
in such a medical disaster and to compete in the global economy our wages
would need to be cut in half.
55-64 buy into Medicare?
Aren't those 65 and older already buying private Medicare supplement to cover what Medicare isn't covering? If so, it seems to me that not only will the 55-64 have to buy into Medicare, but will likely have to buy supplemental insurance also.
Medicare now costs seniors about $100/month (taken out of ones social security payment). Medicare will cost the 55-64 buy-in people about $600/month at this time.
Both sets of people will probably need to have additional insurance.
STONE-WALL IT GRIJALVA ---- FORCE PAID ACTORS TO GIVE WAY
Surely most in Washington are paid actors,
surely they have created a bill best designed to
maximize growth and profit in capitalist medicine,
surely if no bill gets passed the public would see
clearly who were the scum-bag paid actors running a
capitalist dictatorship called Congress.
MAXIMIZE GROWTH ---- ONLY OPTION FOR CAPITALIST GOVERNMENT
In 1776 rich slave owner capitalists created a government
perfect to perpetuate slavery and maximize capital growth.
So today we see capitalist government doing its normal and only thing,
bailouts to maximize growth in banking and on Wall Street, government
ownership of auto industry, a world record budget for the military and now
a healthcare reform that does nothing but maximize growth and profit in
a capitalist competition based medical system.
And the good news is, being unable to stop the greedy expansion, comes now
our salvation, as a government so capitalist must expire in a convulsion.
One thing I haven't heard anyone comment on is the phrase: "buy into medicare"
Buying into medicare, for people 55 and up, is not the same as "extending" medicare, is it? Do 65 year olds have to "buy into" medicare?
How much more will it cost to "buy into" medicare? ...and will it be any more affordable than the existing system? And where are the rest of the details?
One other thing I've heard is that the senate proposal will cap healthcare at a certain cost limit.
This means that you can get sick, but not TOO sick. If you get too costly to care for, your medical care is cut off. Is this what progressives are fighting for?...pulling the plug on the most sick among you?
In a recent article by Kate Pickett entitled, "The Pros and Cons of Buying into Medicare", she states:
"The CBO estimated that these Americans buying in would have had to pay about $7,600 per year in premiums. (Subsidies built into the Senate bill could mitigate the cost for some, however.)" So that's over $600/month and the Senate subsidies
aren't scheduled to start until 2014.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1947063,00.html#ixzz0ZQ8wFmKt
The healthcare cap is not supposed to be there but I just read today that there's some kind of loophole allowing it. This means that a person with catastrophic illness could still be wiped out by healthcare costs.
We need to totally get rid of private healthcare insurance because private insurers are in business to make as much money as possible rather than to help sick people.
Medicare is NOT free for us disabled (me age 52) nor for the retired.
We most certainly do pay a monthly fee every month. One for Medicare itself, and a second one for part D for drug coverage, unless we go with something "all inclusive" through some insurance company, but despite their claims those "sometimes cost less" most studies prove that they cost more, deny more claims, and cost the US government more, than standard part A & B themselves. Alas, Part D has been totally farmed out to the insurance industry thanks to Bush, and studies have proven it has cost the government more.
Do we pay enough? I don't know. I would assume if we paid enough in they wouldn't say it was "going broke," so maybe we should pay more.
But I'll tell you this, about 1/4th into the year, my medications hit the $2,800.00 limit, and I fall into the mandatory "donut hole" where I am supposed to spend $4,500.00 before they start paying on my medications again.
(A) As much as my medication cost, they do not come to that much for the remainder 3/4ths of the year, so I end up paying out of pocket cash for what I can afford, and my doctors scrimping by trying to supplement my insulin and lung inhalers out of their cabinets.
(B) I still have to pay my monthly fees, both of them, in full, all 12 months, even though I don't get 12 months of coverage.
How far is that?
Of course, that "donut hole" is the Republican's and Bush's gift to us to "save" the government money" - and they wrote in a law when they constructed it making it illegal for them to go back and undo it, too, which almost no one knows about.
I only know because the owner/pharmacist at a local pharmacy whom I am friends with told me so.
Fire the whole blasted lot of them, at this point, including sell-out Obama, whom I only did not vote for because I was too sick that day to vote.
Self-serving, two-faced, back-stabbing, liars who have BETRAYED us, the people.
Wake UP!! Medicare is broke. For the last few years they have paid out over $300 billion more than they took in. Does unsustainable mean anything to anyone?
We are paying tens and hundreds of billions more than necessary because of our government's legislation and regulation. Want to do activist work? Work on that!
Guns have trumped butter and all sides are trying to blame it on another side so they don't have to simply say..."THERE IS NO MONEY--We've spent it on death and destruction and will continue to do so even with our last breath"
A major reason for Medicare's shortage of funding is insurance companies and some health care providers ripping it off. The insurance companies get overpayments of 14% to 22% from Medicare for their Advantage plans, most of which are inefficient and insufficient. Medicare Plan D, which was written by the pharmaceutical firms and specifically prohibits Medicae from bargaining for favorable drug prices, has allowed these firms and the insurers to siphon vast sums of money from Medicare.
Medicare can be saved by switchng to single payer - which would also save many lives, even the whole country, in the process.