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HR 3962: Why I Voted NO
We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.
Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.
But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies - a bailout under a blue cross.
By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress' blog, Think Progress, states, 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.
During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.
Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks' hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy - in which most Americans live - the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.
This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.
Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.
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211 Comments so far
Show AllI wonder why Rep. Kucinich doesn't realize that he isn't welcome in his own party, except as window dressing.
That sums it up, he is far too progressive for the Democratic Party (which is moderate/conservative)
I have written a letter to Dennis to thank him for his vote and ask him to consider "Going Green". He is the farthest left of any of the other bozos in Congress and is wasting his heart and Soul in a sell-out party.
I hope more of you will flood him with letters and get his attention. I'm sure my one letter won't be enough.
What's his plan to achieve single-payer? You know, the plan you've been saying he has. He didn't mention it in this article.
Single Payer won't sell by calling it that. To win we need to call it Medicare.
Medicare for All.
Even the Tea Baggers say "keep your hands off my Medicare".
I have been encouraging him to run as an independent Green Democrat, a new Peace coalition.
Many Greens end up voting for the progressive Dems anyway while realistically no single 3rd party has a chance.. We need to unite.
Also the Dems are gonna need the independent and progressive 3rd party vote more than ever.
If he acts outside the Democratic Box, he can start a real peace and justice movement with power for a change.
Rep Kucinich. Thanks for doing the right thing. By the time the Senate gets done with this bad legislation, it most likely be worse as the Senate is more conservative than the House.
One thing is for sure, even if a healthcare reform bill in its current form passes, coverage will continue to get worse and more expensive.
The issue will need to be revisted. Whether is will be or not is another matter.
While I admire and appreciate Rep. Kucinich's convictions and standing by his principles, I found it disappointing that he chose to vote against something in which the margin of victory was so narrow.
I think he knows, as well as other readers here, that had this bill failed, health care reform would have died with it. There would have been no "do overs" and the status quo would have won. While I don't think this is a strong bill, there are still many debates to come and many changes to be made. This is only the first step in what I believe will lead to the single payer system that Rep. Kucinich advocates.
First step toward single payer? This is a step BACKWARD.
This bill addresses neither of the two most pressing objectives of healt care reform: it will neither control costs nor significantly expand coverage.
It is a step backward because for the first time it will mandate the purchase of a criminally overpriced, lousy insurance product--with no controls on premiums or deductibles. As such, it is nothing but a giant subsidy to a corrupt, piratical industry.
So--we have in this bill a giant handout to the very private insurers that single payer would remove from the health-insurance business. Would you care to explain how this complete capitulation to the very corporations who would be put out of business by Medicare for all is a step toward single payer--even a baby step--rather than a step backward, into national peonage to these blood-sucking insurance companies?
Instead of just parroting the Democratic Party line, you might wish to exercise your critical faculties about what's actually in this two-ton, lobbyist-authored monster of a bill.
"... it will neither control costs nor significantly expand coverage."
From the CBO: "...insurers would have to accept all applicants, could not limit coverage for preexisting medical conditions, and could not vary premiums to reflect differences in enrollees’ health... (The analysis also takes into account the provisions of section 262 of Division A regarding the application of federal antitrust laws to health insurers. CBO estimates that implementing those provisions would have no significant effects on either the federal budget or the premiums that private insurers charged for health insurance.)
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10688/hr3962Rangel.pdf
There is nothing in the quoted provisions that will control costs in the health-care system as a whole because there is no cap on premiums and deductibles. Even your quote from the CBO confirms that the bill will have "no significant effects on . . . the premiums that private insurers charged for health insurance." That's how you measure health-care costs--as a percentage of GDP; the impact on the federal budget is not the key metric there.
As Paul Krugman once noted, what other countries call health-care costs the private insurers call revenues.
You obviously have no clue about any of this.
Yeah! If we've learned anything from Rush, it is to cut off reasoned discussion by harshly disparaging anyone who dares to speak on an issue we want to own. Good job! :)
The "preexisting condition" has always been a grossly exaggerated as a contribution to denied coverage. The vast majority of denials of coverage are claims for procedures, hospitals, and doctors that the insurance policy doesn't cover - buried in the 150 pages of the plan's rules. This is especially common in emergency situations, where the patient is hardly in a position to shop-around for preferred doctors and ER's while in the ambulance.
It would have been great if a few more like Kucinich had voted this very gross bailout bill down. The NO vote was the correct vote.
Maybe. But maybe not. Had it died, or if the next vote on the bill that emerges from conference is no, the alternatives for going forward are these: keep the system the way it is, broken and unsustainable, or, create a new system in accordance to the desires of the American people, who prefer true movement towards single-payer, Medicare for all. I think the latter is more to the point. The danger of passing a corporate gift to the insurance companies is that this bill with requirements for insurance and a very weak public option that fails to lower costs, is this: "reform" (so-called) will fail, giving not only a gift to the insurance industry and Wall Street, but framing reform as a failing endeavor. If the progressives in Congress were to frame this issue as fake reform, and were to vote against the conference bill, (likely worse than this House bill) THEN, after mid-terms, we can take the issue up again towards a very strong public option or true Medicare for All. On the other hand, if a very weak bill passes, Medicare for All and/or a strong public option, will remain off the table.
". . . the alternatives for going forward are these: keep the system the way it is, broken and unsustainable, or, create a new system in accordance to the desires of the American people, who prefer true movement towards single-payer, . . ."
These alternatives will exist whether this turd of a bill passes or not.
q
I would argue that health care reform died as soon as the Obama administration decided that accomodating the insurance companies was essential to passing legislation. After that, it doesn't matter how many "debates to come" and "changes to be made" there are. The meaningful debaters have been shut out of the conversation, making change a simple matter of wishful thinking.
Believe what you like. Then there's evidence.
And we wouldn't be having this conversation at all if there had been a McCain administration. I'll believe in what I know, not in "what ifs".
Typical sanctimony and retreat from evidence. I'm disappointed.
A McCain administration with an Obama sign on the front is still regressive.
War is still war.
Executive overreach is still executive overreach.
A dead Bill of Rights is still a dead Bill of Rights.
Cause-and-effect is still cause-and-effect.
Since you claim to believe in what you know, not what-ifs, then obviously you are retracting your claim that our country will achieve single-payer one day. That was a particularly egregious "what-if" in the face of movement in the opposite direction.
Yeah! What an egregiously sanctimonius disappointer! Carl should just stay out of this discussion because we have the right answers! :]
No, Carl should give good, solid support to back up his claims. He has not.
Poor Carl doesn't understand inarguable logic like "cause and effect is still cause and effect". He should learn how to use good solid support like this for his claims, and then we would probably all agree with him! :)
I encourage you to cease being purposely dense. Contribute something to the discussion for the very first time.
OK! Thanks for the encouragement! :D
Bennifer is just a paid Obama cultist troll. He/she always does this on the threads.
There is no doubt that McCain would never have proposed any sort of Health Insurance "Reform" except to ban any possibility of justice in the case of gross medical malpractice.
And without Clinton there would have been no NAFTA Treaty passed which continues to create the giant sucking sound of jobs going South or Overseas.
I was not sure of the true content of this Bill until reading Kucinich and others'
analysis. I am afraid we have been suckered again by the Wimpocrats opening the sluicegates to the widest predatory gouging of money to private Corporate interests
since the Military-Industrial Complex.
Or the Transit/Urban Destructive Auto Industry...
(well I guess the list goes on and on...)
A bad bill is a bad bill and this bill with only 6% eligible for a public option is
a bad bill giveway to private Insurers.
And after the private Healthcare deniers have billions more in their pockets to ladle out to our sycophantic "Representatives" for "lobbying" (i.e. legalized bribery) will this make it harder or easier for real reform? Hmmmmmm....
By the way, when was the last time you heard ANY of the major media mention campaign
funding reform...
What would be a very interesting Marxist analysis would be the role of private Insurance capital in our sick US capitalist system.
One would think that ALL the other industries such as GM, GE, major manufacturers and producers of real goods and services would be leading the charge to get the
private Insurance exploding health premiums off their backs. One would think the National Association of Manufacturers would be pitted against the private Insurance lobby which is bleeding them to death and forcing jobs to Canada and other countries which provide 3-6% overhead healthcare.
Why aren't they?
Here the issue to investigate is: what percentage of Corporations do these
monopoly Capital Insurance behemoths own and control?
Where do they park their billions upon billions as they deny healthcare?
I think you are right about this. I seem to remember obomber huddling with the insurance industry, and giving them some kind of promise that whatever attempts to change the system, they'd all come out ok, not to worry. Just haven't heard much about that lately.
anyway, as Dennis point out this thing he voted against is a big give away to for profit insurance
The mantra of incrementalism, especially since 2000, has become an extremely popular way of fooling oneself. Any change at all, no matter what it might be, is theorized as progress. From this it's a short step to denouncing opponents of that change. Call them extremists. Remind them that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Never, ever examine the merits of the change.
Good post! Also, never, ever mention specific republicans or blue dog dems who should be challenged for reelection! The important thing is to throw ALL Dems out in 2010! The resulting vacuum will probably result in health care for poor people and stuff. That's all we want, right? :}
Yes, RichM, you got me. That's EXACTLY what I MEANT. You're way too smart for me. Enjoy your Kucinich write in vote in 2012.
Just watch the disgusting debate over the Stupack amendment in the House, which restricts women's access to abortion even further than the Hyde amendment. In addition to the issues Kucinich discussed, this should have been reason enough for any self-respecting progressive to vote NO. I believe in the long hard fight for single payer in the country, even if it takes generations.
This is a health insurance bailout package, partly at the expense of the working poor and partly at the expense of government debt to foreigners that comes at the expense of our sovereignty and accelerates our job offsourcing.
Yep, were screwed again, I wonder what agency will take the job of waiting in the ER to issue citations for nonparticipation in the scam? Probably GCServices, the collection agency that works out of the courts...
Gee,
I already went through this insurance scam in 2006 Florida. "Mandatory" Flood Insurance covered by only one company selected by Gov Jeb Bush: Citizens. The premiums quadrupled for waterfront. So did the mandatory Hurricane Insurance for mortgages which never paid on "wind" damage (apparently, hurricanes have no wind.) Then the same thing happened to all the privatized community utilities. Then the property taxes tripled. Then the predatory loan raised its ARM sky high on me. It was the most profitable year in history for the insurance and finance sectors. It was my financial ruin.
When you force the consumer to buy insurance, you are not in a free society anymore. I left the country after all these constant corporate extortions and I have never looked back. Banana Republics have a much higher standard of living imho. I can see a US trained doctor on this island for about ten dollars. I buy NO insurance at all. I run naked. If the roof blows off it only costs about a grand to replace the whole thing. If I get sick and die, at least I'll die a free man.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Kucinich and a few others in D.C. [very few, admittedly] are willing to vote honorably. This bill should never have been on the floor, and if the likes of Pelosi constitute the Democratic Party, then it, along with the Republican one, should be eliminated. All of us on this website should now be planning to campaign AGAINST every one -EVERY ONE - WHO DID NOT WORK FOR SINGLE PAYER. Oh, sez you - the Republicans would win. So? A puppet of the corporations is a puppet of the corporations. What OTHER label you put on the puppet is irrelevant.
"Oh, sez you - the Republicans would win. So?"
Has everyone forgotten the last eight years so quickly? We wouldn't be talking health care reform of ANY kind had we had a different outcome last November.
This is one reason I become a dual citizen. THe first was the president select Bush's "administration". When I retire I have the option of going to Europe. The needed changes will come, eventually, but only after much more pain has been experienced and much more economic disruption. It is possible that democracy will reassert itself in the US. But if our media's "balance" is any indicator it will be some long time. I mean to say, consider how, decades ago, the cigarette - cancer connection was so very long in being accepted, how long it was before Vietnam was "ended" how an open and critical investigation into 9/11 was prevented and now how those guilty of destroying our economy are getting rewarded for such and global climate change is STILL being "debated". There are many, many other instances where the public's right to know and the quality of public debate and decision making has been ruinously manhandled by those who are supposed to inform the public regarding important issues so that they might support policies and programs to correctly address them. When will everyone in the US, and the world, realize we are ALL on the same team. I fear, not until some disaster forces such a realization and at great, great cost.
Right on. Health insurance and health care are two very DIFFERENT things. In fact, health insurance is the opposite of health care.
http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org/
Dennis K. is one of only a handful of D party members that are progressive. The rest are BS artists, schmoozers and corrupted liars.
He ought to leave his party and form a movement to reform the rigged election system, campaign finance system, party system, big-money, corporate dictated political process.
I called my current rep and former rep. (Pete Stark and George Miller) and told them to vote NO on the bill. Alas, they did not. They are supposed to be "progessive, left-wing Democrats. With progressive leftys like that we don't need no conservatives.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Now, Kucinich is a man who votes like a President, with the greater good of US citizenry at heart !
****Down with Team Obama and their entire bunch of cave-in
specialists. They would not know what a Reform was if
Wiliam Webster was here to define it for them in plain english.
***Rep Kucinich needs to declare NOW that he is challenging the Obama/Biden Administration, and it's complete and total failure to deliver promised campaign change and reform !
That gives us 3 years to support his Candidacy, identify the chasm and world of difference he could deliver !!
Kucinich For President !!!! Send Obama on a 10-year Tour of Duty with his adopted War in Iraq !!! He will love it!
BEAUTIFUL COMMENT!!!
I totally agree, we need a president like Kucinich or Bernie Sanders, people who have proven they are vote for the people and not for corporate interests. Is there a petition out there for "Kucinich for President" I would totally sign it and vote for him. (Yes, I was an idiot and voted for Barack, its like slapping yourself in the face).
E
I haven't seen a petition yet but I WILL start looking. I wrote to him this morning asking him to run again, consider "going green", and to thank him for his vote on this garbage bill. I hope you will also write him and have as many progressives as you can do the same.
My first thought on reading this comment is, 'As If!'
As if - a President is enough to get us what we want. We need congress too - Presidents don't make laws, they simply encourage good or bad lawmaking.
As if - a congresscritter won't vote 'yes' if there is a real danger of SOME kind of reform being squashed. As previously mentioned, this IS the way it works in Washington. It takes more than a handful of 'token' votes to enforce the will of the people over 'the powers that be.'
As if - life ... and politics... were so simple.
My second thought is, 'I wish!'
People who try to force simple solutions to complex problems make those problems worse. It doesn't matter what party or non-party one is affiliated with. Complex problems require complex solutions.
Although to be totally fair I have a simple solution of my own: BAN WALLSTREET!
ex
Well if unconstitutional garbage like this is going to be the new standard, than a new constitutional amendment is needed: Congress shall make no law where one's income is used against him or her.
Because the way it is now, if your income is low but not near or below the poverty line (if specifically it is from about 133% to 500% of poverty especially, which is many millions of people and families) you are going to be taken to the barnyard for a good fleecing of what little you have by your government and by the insurance company fat cats. Whereas if your income is ultra low, below 133% of poverty, you are off the hook: no new requirements to buy something you can't afford, and no new taxes for you.
So between this new abomination and the fact that you can't get a decent job if you don't already have one anyway, have we gone around in one big circle in the last 30 years and will we now see the return of the non or slightly working, extremely low income, but Cadillac driving, mink coat wearing, welfare drawing, food stamp drawing, heating assistance drawing, rent assistance drawing, lots of leisure time enjoying, and now no health insurance mandate Queens that Reagan spoke about? Probably so, laugh out loud.
Silly Americans, health care economics is for the serious and the successful, not for you.
"...Cadillac driving, mink coat wearing, welfare drawing, food stamp drawing, heating assistance drawing, rent assistance drawing, lots of leisure time enjoying, and now no health insurance mandate Queens that Reagan spoke about"
Way to go on expanding the debate. Yes, I'm sure living on the dole in a crappy apartment in a dangerous neighborhood is the new American dream.
we used to call those the "600 a month welfare queens"......now we're stuck w/ the 600 billion a month welfare queens in the form of UHC and goldman sachs....
can this president do ANYTHING that isn't a hand-out to corporate America?
It appears to be no...........
Here's a list, good and bad.
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richardson-report/obama-timeline-110309