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10 Reasons to Kill the Senate Bill
FDL has become the go-to place for coverage of the health care bill due to the work of our incredible team. Jon Walker's second-to-none knowledge of the health care bill has made the policy and political analysis he offers up at FDL Action a driving force. Dave Dayen's reporting at the FDL News Desk, Marcy Wheeler 's research and in-depth analysis at Emptywheel, Laura Flanders' interviews at GritTV, our FDL team of writers and editors, and our community members at The Seminal provide the most independent and comprehensive picture of what's happening moment-by-moment on the health care debate to be found anywhere.
So, I asked them to help make it simple: how do we let people know what's going to happen to them if the Senate bill passes. Everyone put their heads together and came up with a list:
Top 10 Reasons to Kill Senate Health Care Bill
- Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations - whether you want to or not
- If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.
- Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can't afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums
- Massive restriction on a woman's right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court
- Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays
- Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won't see any benefits - like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions - until 2014 when the program begins.
- Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others
- Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.
- No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years
- The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year - meaning in 10 years, your family's insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.
Background information on each point:
- Hardship Waiver And Restrictions On Immigrants Buying Insurance Undercut Arguments For An Individual Mandate, by Jon Walker
- What's in the Manager's Amendment by David Dayen
- MyBarackObama Tax by Marcy Wheeler
- Emperor Ben Nelson: All Your Uteruses Are Belong To Me by Scarecrow
- The Senate Bill is Designed to Make Your Health Insurance Worse by Jon Walker
- Best way to "Fix It Later" Is With No Individual Mandate Now by Jon Walker
- The Senate Health Care Bill is Built on a Mountain of Sand by Jon Walker
- The Devil in Anna Eshoo's Details by Jane Hamsher
- Liveblog of the Dorgan Reimportation Amendment by David Dayen
- Answering Nate Silver's 20 Questions on the Health Care Bill by Jon Walker
The Senate bill isn't a "starter home," it's a sink hole. It needs to die so something else can take its place. It doesn't matter whether people are on the right or the left - once they understand the con job that's about to be foist upon them, they agree. That's why Harry Reid and President Obama are trying to jam it through as fast as they can, before people find out.
Sign the petition: kill the Senate bill.
- Posted in
99 Comments so far
Show AllThanks, Jane!
I signed the petition. Unfortunately, at this time, I cannot donate any money. I have been unemployed for 3 years, and have been eking out a life -- barely!
If you are upset with your state's Democratic Party Senators over their support of massive corporate welfare disguised as health care reform (Obamacare), wait until they vote in favor of Obama's financial industry pseudo regulation that institutionalizes the card tricks and shell games that caused the 2008 meltdown and will trigger an even worse (for us)meltdown that will make the Wall Street banks ever wealthier.
I have no illusions about the Democratic senators here in New York! I did NOT vote for Chuck Schumer, and currently, Kirsten Gillibrand is our other Democratic senator, appointed by Governor Paterson after Obama appointed Hillary Clinton to serve as Secretary of State. Senator Gillibrand already has a challenger in Jonathan Tasini who, I think, does deserve some attention. Amy Goodman has already interviewed him.
I have been voting 3rd party for a number of years, and I will continue that tradition.
I'll definitely take a look see at Tasini. It's time for Schumer to go, go and go. I get Gillibrand's e-mails and I really get the feeling there is incredible lack of strength. Yes, she's new, but so is Massa -- he is impressive. Heck, Massa is probably on Obama's growing "enemies list."
I voted for Tasini in the primary when he ran against Clinton. He is pro-labor, he is pro-choice, etc. He actually hits the streets and marches with the people. Jonathan is running against Kirsten Gillibrand in the upcoming primary.
www.jonathantasini.com
So Tasini, even if elected--which is unlikely--will be another token, impotent voice of progressive values inside the corporate sinkhole of the Democratic Party.
Progressives need to make a clean break with the Democrats and start devoting all their energies to promoting an independent progressive party that--unlike the Greens--is serious about militantly opposing the two-party duopoly AND promoting independent mass protest and social movements to achieve urgently needed social changes.
Campaigns like Tasini's simply breed more illusions and false hopes about the Democratic Party.
Up here in Canada.
When the larger Reform merged with the smaller Progressive Conservative party I thought that this would move Reform away from the Right towards a more "Moderate" Conservative position where the old "Red Tories" used to be.
What instead happened is the moderate voices were pulled way right. The Reform faction was emboldened by the increased support they had Politically (Thus seats) and saw no reason not to go even further to the right.
The "Moderates" went along being more loyal to party and the increased chances of getting elected again then they were to their principles.
I think you are quite correct in your assessment. Serving as a Progressive voice in the Democrats is meaningless. Within a year or two they will learn to shut up and go with the flow.
The progressive voices need a truly progressive banner under which they can run. Political parties have disappeared in the past. It time the Democrats vanished for the good of the people of the USA.
Kay: Sorry to hear that. I too have been out of work for about half that time. Regarding the "health care" bill, I always believed this is the change we would get. I am tired of getting screwed, but, sadly, almost used to it. On the bright side, keep posting on CD...
Remember who is supporting this. Senator Casey of Pennsylvania for example says that it is a good bill. Can you remember not to vote for fim when he is up for reelection in 2012?
I already signed the petition as requested by an email early this morning.
I 'heart' Hamsher and Wheeler - more importantly, I trust their work.
While most if not all petitions do not necessarily have any effect at all, it makes me feel like I have a voice. By my rough calculation, things go the wrong way about 85-90% of the time in Congress.
Next step? I dunno; for one thing, do not buy the damned insurance when the time comes. I myself have the useless-for-healthy-people Medicare so will just continue to go without eye/ ear/ dental care except when I (rarely) can save up enough money. Welcome to America in the 21st century where bleeding people as 'health care' is back in vogue.
Nah I agree with Paul Krugman. Get it through get it through get it thorough.
1) it wont kill Obama.
2) the ugly parts can be changed later piece by piece.
If ONLY the left rose up to demand the public option but they never did. They got Obama elected but then just went to sleep.
And NOW they want to rise up to kill the whole bill. /shakes head. Reason #216 why I am as disillusioned with the left as I am with capitalist democracy.
Capitalist democracy is an oxymoron.
Great observation; so very true!
Blame the victim instead of the corporate puppet.
How can you read the article and still want the bill?
I understand premiums on pre-existing have no cap in the bill.
Please explain what makes Obomber worth saving?
I feel like I am in Mussolini's Italy and people are saying at least we do not have Hitler.
BDS israel and kill the bill.
Who said i want the bill? Read Krugman's piece Pass the Bill http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18krugman.html?_r=1
I read it. I don't agree with any of his points or his faith that this admittedly bad legislation, which he likens to paying ransom to a hostage taker, will be transformed over the coming decades. Swing low, sweet chariot.
The shortest rebuttal is his own closing argument:
"But won’t paying the ransom now encourage more hostage-taking in the future? Maybe. But the next big fight, over the future of the financial system, will be very different. If the usual suspects try to water down financial reform, I say call their bluff: there’s not much to lose, since a merely cosmetic reform, by creating a false sense of security, could well end up being worse than nothing."
First, nice that Mr. Krugman, who has health insurance, thinks that fight will be worth the effort. But the early line does not look good for that "reform" either. It will be just another in a series of capitulations. I'd take the wager that he is wrong about that one as well, for like healthcare "reform," it will also be cosmetic, a false sense of security and worse than nothing.
Krugman used to say the free trade agreements would be a win-win for the public when I knew better, and now I'm supposed to believe him on this issue?
You don't get a perch at the NYTimes unless you're a corporate shill or a sellout. Krugman got vetted just like Obama and all the rest of them.
"Krugman used to say the free trade agreements would be a win-win for the public when I knew better, and now I'm supposed to believe him on this issue?" -- bgcd
I was about to write something very similar when I ran across your comment! Of course, the free market -- insurance industry -- is open for business! That's why Krugman is excited.
Free markets? The health insurance industry has an anti-trust exemption. Anyone who doesn't think gov't hasn't caused a big chunk of this problem is, I fear, just not thinking.
Cassandra: I agree!
This bill will not be improved over time and, indeed, when the Repubs get back in power starting in 2010 (which is very, very likely) the likelihood of the exchanges every really talking place is nil.
The idea that this was the best we could get is pure BS. It's just that nobody was really willing to fight, starting with -- to quote Green -- the "little prick" at the top, who I doubt has even bothered to read any of these bills -- House or Senate -- to date. Give one reason why Americans should settle for this crap? What they need is an ocean slap of cold water -- a defeat. It would be the ONLY THING that might send a message to Obama.
"If ONLY the left rose up to demand the public option"
exsqueeze me?
Krugman is a hack.
1) that's a bug, not a feature.
2) "can" = "won't be"
· Yr Obd't Servant
Your the kind of person who kicks the dog when you have a bad day at work, or blames the rape victim for showing too much skin.
Please check in with us, and let us know how you are rising up to change the ugly parts of the bill you want passed. Otherwise, I'm just going to be disillusioned with another centrist apologist.
TRUE HEALTH CARE REFORM ---- 20% MORE UNEMPLOYED
As most illness is caused by bad diet, average American eats 50% of calories
fat, honest healthcare reform would force the meat, dairy and processed food
industries to greatly reduce things processed by man or animal, and cause
the healthcare industry to shrink by over 50%.
So have a heart toward the rich who run government,
is not maximum production what capitalism is all about?
Got it. The lost health care workers would add to the unemployed ranks. This mirrors the lost jobs if american industry demilitarized, the toxic petrochemicals banished, and gas powered engines removed from use.
Goodness and health, both mental and physical, are on the other side of a rickety bridge.
The crossing will be shaky, but worth the effort getting to green pastures.
elohim -
Bernie Sanders pulled his genuinely progressive health care reform bill back from the Senate floor in response to a quirky but effective parliamentary manuever raised by the Republicans.
When Sanders introduced his amendment, the Repugs demanded that the entirety of the 750-plus page proposed bill be orally read, verbatim, into the Senate record. This process that would have taken many hours, or even days. While this weird delaying tactic was taking place, all other Senate business would abruptly grind to a halt - including any move to debate or pass the deeply flawed Senate health insurance bill that had just been reported out of Committee after months of backroom deal cutting.
This theatre of the absurd GOP mini-filibuster apparently caught Harry Reid and the Dem Senate leadership by surprise. Senator Sanders backed down because (1) he knew, on the merits, it was extremely unlikely his strong public option/single payer plan would ever actually pass, and (2) the Republicans' manuever had adroitly succeeded in making Sanders and the supporters of real health care reform (with a meaningful public option) appear to be the ideological obstructionists who were preventing bipartisan "reform" from even coming up for a vote.
The simple ploy of demanding that the entirety of the proposed legislation and Sanders' amendment be orally read aloud on the Senate floor worked like a charm. It sure makes you wonder why nobody in the entire legislative branch of our government had the brains or the balls to similarly stand up and demand, for instance, that the USA Patriot Act be read into the record back in the fall of 2001.
Anyway, if you believe that Senator Sanders is in the pocket of big corporate interests, and/or you seriously think Joe Lieberman is in any respect a better public servant than Bernie Sanders, I suggest you seek out a good therapist. It's probably just seasonal adjustment disorder, but you can never be too careful when it comes to such delusional ideation.
Bill from Saginaw
If this were a HuffPo post I would fan you, especially the last two paragraphs. Sanders' speech on the points of his amendment was passionate and brilliant and that is preserved on the record and on video.
Thanks, Bill
I live in Vermont and in 2006 had the distinct pleasure of voting for an avowed socialist for the US senate...and he won!
Bernie's entire career speaks much louder than some bozo on a public forum
I understand 700 pages would have taken ten hours, sounds correct to me, so what, after six months of BS what is ten hours for prosperity?
Obama, the Great Disappointer is simply playing politics with all your lives.
He does not give a rat's ass what is in the bill, so long as he can call it "reform" and claim his hollow victory.
The man has turned out to just be all talk.
On the other hand, think of the precedent it sets. Now they can eradicate hunger by passing a law requiring everybody to buy groceries once a week. Pretty neat, huh?
That's perfect! I read the Krugman link above and he says it's a good bill because it covers 30 million people. Of course, all it does is mandate that 30 million people buy crap insurance and that the tax payers subsidize however much is necessary to keep the whole fraud rolling.
Yeppers! Let's also mandate that people stop being fat and stupid, too! This is great! It's like the perpetual motion machine of politics.
Good one!
Otherwise, Barry Crusades and DEMcrappy "Health Care"!
2) If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.
Hot stuff! You mean I can pay 2% of my income to the IRS and get nothing for it. Gee, can't wait. Under Bernie Sanders' single-payer amendment I could have paid 2.2% of my income and gotten full health case, including dental, with no co-pays and no deductible.
This sure would be one hell of point to push forward in protests and meetings. Talk about a no-brainer and something every American would understand.
3) Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can't afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.
This is exactly why myself and millions of others -- especially the self-employed -- do not have insurance now. Why should I give up healthy eating, among other things that I try to do to keep healthy just to line the pockets of an insurance company CEO? I'm not going to get anything for it, bar getting extremely sick, in which case I would not be able to work, not be able to pay my premiums, and so and so forth ...
It's looks like the only thing I'll get out of this deal is the opportunity to pay somebody (IRS or a Private Insurance Company) a nice chunk of change for nothing in return.
"Hot stuff! You mean I can pay 2% of my income to the IRS and get nothing for it. Gee, can't wait. Under Bernie Sanders' single-payer amendment I could have paid 2.2% of my income and gotten full health care, including dental, with no co-pays and no deductible."
I'm not working so I'm reading a lot... and I mean A LOT.
If the above statement is true, it's the most beautiful, damning and smart thing I've read in a while.
If it's not precisely accurate, math-wise, let's make it that way, because the idea is still beautiful and it should be a mantra. We sold the cow and bought these magic beans.
Medicare with a buy in for all would have saved us a bundle, and a whole lot of grief.
What annoys me the most, and I don't hear anyone saying; The pretenses to "affordablity," and "universality," will be used to justify killing all future reform.
This isn't a "foundation." It's a stake through the heart of reform.
IF YOU KILL THE BILL THATS AS GOOD AS KILLING OBAMA, AND THEN GETTING A REPUBLICAN ELECTED IN 2012.
Will you make that sacrifice to maintain your ideological purity?
you know I'm right because Americans are stupid and gullible.
hey, its a bad bill but it can be changed. I'd take ten times worse to avoid a repug in 2012.
Of course, and there would be barely any difference.
I have no problems with this. It will be a done deal no matter what at this point. Obama is well on his way to an approval rating as bad as Dubya's in his last year. Do you have any idea how angry people are? Even the tone at HuffPo is changing dramatically. You can criticize Obama now and more cheers than jeers and snarks.
I'm not even afraid of a President Palin. And Romney? Naw. We're already getting the health care bill he was proposing. If this is what it takes to wake up Americans then I say let's do it. Obama is a heartbreak and a cruel joke. The Republican lineup is an obvious joke and no scary at all. Time to stop living in fear of the dreaded Republican.
"Even the tone at HuffPo is changing dramatically." -- Samalabear
I don't often read Huffington Post, but the other day I did read an article by Elizabeth Warren -- and I did notice a slight change of tone in the comment section.
Barry is a republican. So is Stupak.
So is Granholm in Michigan- just got behind Barry's Race to the Top with Chicago Arnie- the money bribe to schools- that uses the children as pawns in the political game of big money in education- more privatizing with charters and heaps of the worst kind of one size fits all regulation and accountability- the kind that Wall Street, Banks, the insurance industry, the Military and political party leaders seem to avoid at all costs to us. If only we had some protection from them. Sickening abuse of power these days. Literally no due process to comply with this Fed regulation and it will drive a stake in the stupid MEA union that is too weak to oppose it.
Brainwash,
since 1776 a smoke screen to blind the minds by burning the emotions.
For our capitalist government was never designed to be democratic,
all elections funded by those most wealthy, and anarchy in the
truest sense of the word.
Anarchy:
"Political or social disorder due to the absence of governmental control"
Considering Obama's performance so far, a Republican would be fine.
Maintain ideological purity? How about just wanting to maintain self-respect? I care about this country, not Obama.
If the Dems didn't want to kill the bill they would have come up with something useful.
Stop being scared of Republicans...the real problem is the coming default of the Federal Government
Pelosi took impeachment off of the table. Harry Reid has extended the conservative Democrats and Republicans' power in the Senate. Obama's DOJ is asserting all of the Bush DOJ legal positions on executive power, torture, wiretapping, war powers, yadda yadda yadda. Obama hired Dana Perino just to rub it in our faces. Why the hell do any of us on the left owe anything to the Democratic party that has become virtually indistinguishable from the Republicans. Obama is a fraud, plain and simple. You go ahead, and support these bought and paid for politicians. The left will rise up, and stay home in 2010, and 2012. The Democratic party, if it is to return to its populist roots needs some purification. Being pure really isn't a bad thing when you compare it to the stench of capitulation that you seem to enjoy.
Drew Weston's latest blog on HuffPo. It's a long read and a good one.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/leadership-obama-style-an_b_398813.html
Question? Is it REALLY true we will be forced to buy health insurance and will be criminals if we don't pay? Seriously, is this true? Anyone, please respond?
Criminals? Not yet. But, if you don't buy it you will be fined.
The day might come when our prisons will be filled with software downloaders, pot smokers and the uninsured. :-)