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Unreconciled: The Dangers of the Growing Demand for Using Reconciliation To Enact Health Reform

This item is cross-posted from the Progressive Policy Institute site.
The long-running campaign to make inclusion of a “public option” a progressive litmus test for Democrats on health care reform has entered a new and potentially dangerous phase: growing demands that congressional Democrats use the budget “reconciliation” procedure to avoid a Senate filibuster and lower the effective threshold for enactment of a bill to 50 votes.
As Brian Buetler explains at TalkingPointsMemo, two major new grassroots initiatives–one sponsored by Democracy for America (and headed up by Howard Dean) and another by a new group called CREDO Action–are asserting that reconciliation can easily be used for health reform. The clear implication is that any failure to go this route is proof of Democratic irresolution if not betrayal.
The temptation to insist on the reconciliation route is certainly understandable. Aside from making enactment of a bill by the Senate much easier, reconciliation, if successfully pursued, might make Republicans irrelevant to the process, while vastly reducing the influence of those Democrats who are obdurately opposed to the public option. It could also narrow the gap between House and Senate bills, which currently makes approval in either House of the ultimate conference committee report a difficult challenge.
But unfortunately, use of reconciliation isn’t the no-brainer it’s sometimes made out to be.
There are two major risks to the use of reconciliation which have nothing to do with fear of Republican shrieks about “cramming through a bill” or with fading hopes of bipartisanship.
The first involves the arcane budget provision called “the Byrd Rule,” which creates a point of order in the Senate against material in reconciliation bills that is not germane to budgeting. If the Senate parliamentarian (to whom the chair invariably defers on such matters) rules in favor of such a point of order–and Republicans will raise them constantly–it requires 60 votes to override such a ruling, which eliminates the entire advantage of taking this route to begin with. Nobody seems entirely confident that, say, creation of health care exchanges would be judged as germane.
The second problem is that it’s almost impossible to enact permanent changes in law via reconciliation; provisions can only operate within limited-time “windows.” This problem is best illustrated by the consequences of the GOP decision to enact the big Bush administration tax cuts via reconciliation. The “limited window” requirements of the Budget Act explains why there is still a federal estate tax, even though Congress voted in 2001 to phase it out; and why the remainder of the Bush tax cuts haven’t been made permanent. Creating an elaborate new system for health care on a temporary basis could be more than a little hazardous.
There’s a deeper problem, too, which is reflected in the evolution of the “Byrd Rule,” named after the famously imperious appropriator, the senior senator from West Virginia: non-Budget Committee senators in both parties naturally resist the routinization of reconciliation as a way to bypass the authorizing and appropriating committees. This isn’t a matter of party or ideology, but of institutional prerogatives that are zealously defended even by senators who might favor the kind of health reform legislation that reconciliation would be designed to enact.
It’s entirely possible that the potential payoff of using reconciliation is worth all the risks, particularly if hard-core Republican opposition to health reform makes it the only viable option, and/or if Democratic opponents of a public option refuse to vote for cloture to allow an up-or-down vote. But the key point right now is this: the decision isn’t easy, and the White House and congressional leaders may decide against reconciliation for reasons that should not expose them to angry charges of timidity or subservience to the health care industry.
UPDATE: The indispensible Jonathan Cohn has a post up at The New Republic on reconciliation and health care that makes a similar warning about its perils.


Financing Health Reform

There’s a great piece up at TNR today from Jonathan Cohn succinctly describing the state of play among Senate Democrats on the subject of how to finance health care reform. It focuses on the proposal in the Baucus bill, originally suggested by John Kerry, to raise a very large chunk of cash through an “excise tax” on high-end private health insurance policies.
An immediate problem, as those following the debate may recall, is that some major unions have negotiated very generous health care benefits for not-necessarily well-compensated workers that could be exposed to the tax. Such union members also tend to be older, and/or work in risky occupations, both of which boost the price tag for insurance. Moreover, people in states with unusually high health-care costs could run afoul of it as well. As Cohn points out, the Senate Finance Committee, which must approve some plan for health care reform financing, has a large number of Democrats who represent one or the other of these sensitive constituencies. But there’s a potential solution:

There’s a way out of this dilemma. Since the Kerry proposal taxes insurers rather than individuals, it would be relatively straightforward to dictate that groups facing high costs because of age, unusually large regional variations, or physical risk don’t see their prices go up by that much (or at all). And while carving out some exceptions to the insurance tax change would mean reducing the revenue from the tax, that money could be made up by making the tax itself larger–or adding some other revenue source, whether it’s a smaller version of the House income tax or maybe even a small tax on sugary sodas.

This won’t be easy, but resolution of the financing issue is at least as important as all the high-profile arguments over the public option.


Public Opinion and Health Reform: Opposition Trend Has Stopped

If you are confused about the state of public opinion on health care reform, check out an exhaustive post at pollster.com by the respected nonpartisan observer Charles Franklin. Looking at every poll from virtually every available perspective, here’s what he concludes about recent trends:

[T[he big picture is that opposition ramped up significantly through June or July but has recently slowed or stopped. Support fell less precipitously but has been working back up for a month (despite or perhaps because of the circus coverage in August.) We could pick a chart to fight over the details, but we shouldn’t. It is the big picture of public opinion that is important here. Within a couple of points, opinion is evenly divided. The White House has gained a bit of momentum, but will be challenged to lower the opposition numbers, not just raise the support numbers.

All the data that Franklin analyzes was gathered before the President latest media blitz. It will take a while to assess its effectiveness, particularly since it is ongoing. But it does not look like the administration or congressional Democrats are bucking an adverse trend any longer. And it also appears the townhall meetings and the associated conservative hysteria may not have changed much of anything, and might have even backfired a bit.


Obama’s Media Blitz Impressive

My concerns about President Obama’s media blitz over-exposing him to ‘gotcha’ questions were unfounded, judging by his effectiveness on three interview programs I watched, Meet the Press (NBC), This Week (ABC) and State of the Union (CNN). He seemed more comfortable and persuasive as an interview subject now than he did as a candidate.
The formats of these three programs were one-on-one interviews with David Gregory, George Stephanopolis and John King respectively — all three of whom were even-handed enough. In addition the President was interviewed only for a portion of each program, 18 minutes, for example, on “This Week.” Although his left critics will not be happy with his flexibility in key issues like the public option, Obama did extraordinarilly-well on nearly all topics, with one exception.
The President did his homework and demonstrated an impressive grasp of the issues regarding current health care reform proposals. He didn’t bristle, calmly but firmly correcting questions based on false assumptions with a friendly spirit, and demonstrated his characteristic ‘cool’ to good effect. Equally importantly and in glaring contrast to his GOP critics, he projected the conciliatory spirit of a leader who was not a rigid ideologue.
Obama did a good job of refusing to be distracted by the efforts of interviewers to get him off on a tangential argument about race, which he called “catnip” for conflict-hungry reporters, or the fuss over ACORN which he pointed out was kind of trifling, compared to the huge issues facing America at the moment. He also called the media to account for sensationalizing debates over serious issues with side-show distractions, stating on CNN that “the easiest way” to get on CNN, FOX and other big media was to “say something rude and outrageous” and telling the MTP host that the media “encourages some of the outliers of behavior.”
He emphasized on MTP (video here) that physicians and nurses support his basic plan and Obama once again extended a bit of an olive branch to the GOP in noting that he was bucking his Party some on tort reform. Regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he said he wasn’t one who supports “indefinite occupation of other countries” and that the U.S. must avoid ‘mission creep’ and stay forcused on eliminating al-Qaeda.
But the one comment that I doubt played very well among many viewers was his statement, made on all three programs, that his Administration was still doing an assessment to formulate strategy on Afghanistan. The President correctly pointed out that you don’t commit resources to any major endeavor until the strategy is determined. But he has been in office for 9 months now, and even if there are good reasons for not having his Afghanistan strategy in place, it’s a tough sell. Yes, the public knows that the situation is highly complex, but I doubt he can delay putting a strategy in place much longer without losing support at an accelerating pace.
Afghanistan notwithstanding, health care reform remains the critical issue of the hour, and I think any fair-minded evaluation would have to give him good marks in making his case in the format allotted. I doubt he lost any support in the political center. Although speechifying is still his big edge as a communicator, the President proved he can deliver his message one-on-one as good as any Democrat, and better than most. (HuffPo has video clip highlights of his media blitz.)
Perhaps one measure of President Obama’s effectiveness was how forgettable were the comments responding to his answers in the politician and media pundit circle jerks. On MTP, Rep. John Boehner parroted the conservative sound bites unconvincingly, and Sen. Lindsay Graham was only marginally less carping. The overall impression I was left with was how predictable and nitpicking were their comments. It might have been more interesting to hear responses from a panel of public health experts.


David Brooks and Anti-Anti-Racism

It’s been a big week for anti-anti-racism. Virtually the entire conservative world has waxed indignant about Jimmy Carter’s suggestion that racism is responsible for the unusual virulence of anti-Obama sentiment.
Listening to it all, you’d think the so-called “race card” was a much bigger problem in American society than racism itself, and that does seem to be what a lot of conservatives think. But it’s getting to the point where the argument seems to be that if anti-Obama protesters have any non-racial motives for their behavior, then mentioning race as any sort of factor (hard to avoid given the revival of screaming about “welfare” and the preoccupation with the marginal organzing group ACORN) is a terrible insult.
Witness David Brooks’ unintentionally hilarious column in the New York Times today. David jogged through last Saturday’s Tea Party demonstration on The Mall, and can assure us all that there were no racists there:

[A]s I got to where the Smithsonian museums start, I came across another rally, the Black Family Reunion Celebration. Several thousand people had gathered to celebrate African-American culture. I noticed that the mostly white tea party protesters were mingling in with the mostly black family reunion celebrants. The tea party people were buying lunch from the family reunion food stands. They had joined the audience of a rap concert.

Now David is a Yankee, so perhaps he can be forgiven for believing that mingling with black folks, listening to their music, and allowing them to prepare one’s food are things no racist could possibly do. If that’s the case, of course, there’s never been any racism in the Deep South, and neo-Confederate sentiments really are and were just about abstractions like “states’ rights.”
Unfortunately, the Brooks column never much rises above this sort of superficial argument that if there’s any evidence of non-racism among Obama opponents, then even mentioning racism is an outrage.
His main contention is that the Tea Party movement reflects an authentic all-American populist tradition dating back to Jefferson that is “ill mannered, conspiratorial and over the top — since these movements always are, whether they were led by Huey Long, Father Coughlin or anybody else.” So it’s “not race,” says Brooks. “It’s another type of conflict, equally deep and old,” and it’s mainly about Obama’s “elitism” and a “producerist” revolt against redistributionist policies. Nothing to see here, folks, it’s just good old-fashioned American populism.
You’d think maybe his own reference to Father Coughlin as an example of right-wing populism would alert Brooks to the folly of his argument. Was Coughlin solely motivated by anti-semitism? No, almost certainly not. Does that mean the anti-semitism he stimulated wasn’t real and dangerous, leading eventually to his suppression by his own bishop? Absolutely not.
Lord have mercy, David, think about it: the Ku Klux Klan wasn’t just “about race;” it was about hostility to immigrants and to some extent to capitalism; early twentieth-century Kluxers, in alliance with William Jennings Bryan, thought of themselves as “progressives.” That was rather cold comfort to the people they tormented and threatened.
No, I am not comparing the Tea Party folks to Klansman; I am simply noting that every racially tinged political movement in American history has, of course, had other, non-racial motivations, so simply citing such motivations doesn’t address the possibility of racial motivations.
It makes you wonder: what if Jimmy Carter had simply said that Obama’s angry opponents were “ill mannered, conspiratorial and over the top.” I suspect the overall conservative reaction would have been just about as wounded and self-pitying, but I doubt David Brooks would have agreed with him.
Indeed, this column concludes with the signature Brooks assertion of the equivalency of right-wing craziness and the reaction to it:

What we’re seeing is the latest iteration of that populist tendency and the militant progressive reaction to it. We now have a populist news media that exaggerates the importance of the Van Jones and Acorn stories to prove the elites are decadent and un-American, and we have a progressive news media that exaggerates stories like the Joe Wilson shout and the opposition to the Obama schools speech to show that small-town folks are dumb wackos.

So if you object to Glenn Becks’s ravings, you’re as guilty as he is of extremism, and moreover, you think small-town folks are dumb wackos.
That charge is at least as offensive as any over-attribution of racial motives to Obama-haters.


The Dean-Lieberman Fallback Position?

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
Suzy Khimm’s post at The Treatment about Howard Dean’s latest remarks on health care reform strategy shows the perils of the obsession with the public option on both sides of the barricades. After a fiery demand that progressives refuse to relent on the public option, the good Doctor allowed as how if we can’t get that, he’d be fine with legislation that just regulated health insurance abuses.
Ironically enough, Dean seems to be embracing the same fallback position as his old adversary Joe Lieberman, who’s said regulate-only legislation is all he’d be willing to support if a public option is included in a comprehensive reform bill. The problem, of course, is that absent an individual mandate to bring healthier people into the risk pool, or significant subsidies to lure them in, imposing a national system of community rating or guaranteed access to insurance on behalf of less robust Americans will likely boost private insurance premiums for everybody–not exactly an ideal outcome.
Now it’s likely that Dean is really just engaged in a tactical effort to keep progressives fired up for the public option in order to keep pressure on Senate Democrats and the White House to insist on some competitive mechanism–perhaps a “triggered” public option, perhaps strong national or regional co-ops–that’s significantly stronger than the weak state co-ops in the Baucus bill. And perhaps the reconciliation route means a “robust” public option can still be passed by the Senate. But at some point, when you keep urging people to say “my way or the highway,” you have to look down that highway to see where it leads. And if the end-point is going to be a regulate-only bill, both Dean and Lieberman need to acknowledge that may actually be no better than the status quo, and could possibly be even worse.


TDS Strategy Memo – Part III — Dems must develop local activities that can evolve into enduring local community social and cultural institutions.

(This is the third part of a three-part TDS Strategy Memo. A PDF version of the entire memo is available here)
Immediately after Obama’s inauguration, there was a widespread sigh of relief and a collapse into exhaustion among huge number of Obama’s supporters. Responding to this sentiment, and occupied with the transition, the DNC and OFA made relatively few attempts to organize directly “political” activities and events or to build a formal network of “real-world” local organizations in the first several months of the Obama administration. The general view was that “everyone needs a break.”
This, however, reflects a severely limited definition of what constitutes “political” activity. In democratic countries around the world many political parties routinely support a wide range of grass-roots community activities that are not explicitly “political” but which play a significant role in maintaining their political support. They sponsor local soccer teams, hold street fairs, run youth clubs, manage pool halls, arrange holiday trips and organize hobby groups. Small businesses that support the parties put permanent banners in their windows and build their customer base around a sense of community cultural loyalty to the political party.
During 2008, the Obama campaign began to evolve in this direction. The “Yes We Can” campaign took on characteristics of a social movement rather than just a traditional political campaign. The explosion of creativity expressed in music, art, videos and other media were inspired by Obama but reflected more than simply a campaign to elect an individual candidate. There was a clear feeling that Obama represented a cultural movement of the young rather than the old, of the urban, hip and educated rather than the small town and traditional. The Obama campaign became a broad social movement united by a common outlook, sensibility and identity. The Republicans were the past and the Democrats were the future.
It is now vital that Democrats reignite this spirit and energy and find the ways to carry it into daily community life. To be specific the Democratic community needs to launch a renewed “Yes We Can” movement – not a narrowly “political” campaign to support Obama’s specific proposals, but a broad cultural response to the negativity, nihilism and divisive “real America” chauvinism of the Republicans. It must express an outlook and perspective that is based on hope for the future and openness to change.
There are two different sub-groups to whom this must be addressed – Obama’s natural constituencies and the broader group of “persuadable” voters who are open to his message. Each requires a distinct approach.
The first sub-group is Obama’s natural constituencies and social environments

College campuses and urban America – Some key steps in building a revitalized “Yes We Can” movement include building rapport with rock bands and DJ’s (e.g. by providing free items like specially developed high-quality designer clothing), sponsoring free rock concerts and art shows, Setting up special film screenings, book signings and neighborhood street fairs, engaging with the major social networks through art and music as well as narrowly “political” discussion and sponsoring sports teams in urban marathons, bicycle races, skateboarding and roller skating events.
Stores and businesses (e.g. coffee houses, bicycle shops, environmentally friendly products stores, independent bookstores) – some key steps include encouraging “Yes We Can” sales days, happy hours, special events and neighborhood parties and developing business-connected give-away “goodies” for display and distribution (coffee cups, chocolates, tire gauges, natural soaps).
Ethnic, political, social and community organizations. Some key steps include piggybacking on existing events and activities, incorporating “Yes We Can” motifs into ongoing programs and participating in organization-sponsored volunteer activities under a “Yes We Can” umbrella.

The first step in this process is to organize a major, coordinated re-launch of the “Yes We Can” campaign. Such a re-launch could begin with a national competition to create a comprehensive set of new music, new graphics, new logos, new art, new videos new slogans, new teashirts and posters for a renewed “Yes We Can” campaign. Such a contest can have dozens of awards for the best entries in specific genres (posters, videos, music etc.) and within specific states. The competition could be planned to culminate in a major live and online event with top stars, music and the awarding of serious prizes.
The success of a renewed “Yes We Can” campaign would ultimately depend on its generating ongoing “bottom-up” spontaneous grass-roots activity. There could be a closer ongoing connection with OFA and the DNC than would be advisable with the “Democratic Minutemen”, but the campaign should still not be administratively controlled by any official Democratic organization. Rather the renewed “Yes We Can” campaign should be loosely coordinated by a broad voluntary coalition of well-known figures in music and popular culture following the models of the “Live Aid”, “Farm Aid” and “We are the World” campaigns. In all of these cases a few well-known and passionately committed individuals took the lead in organizing their peers around a social issue campaign and stitched together an informal steering committee structure to make decisions.
The second sub-group a renewed “Yes We Can” campaign would need to target are the more open-minded, moderate voters in “red state” America

•Businessmen and women
•Blue-collar workers
•Religious voters
•small town voters
•Southerners

Despite the media images and clichés, not all voters in these categories are conservative. On the contrary, depending on the specific issue as many as half or more may actually be relatively “moderate” and open to Democratic candidates and to messages that are framed in the language and concepts of their broad cultural perspective. The 2006 election demonstrated that there are substantial numbers of “red state” voters who can be won by “heartland Democrats.”
In the current situation — in which Obama is struggling against declining poll numbers and stiff opposition — imagining an outreach campaign to this group may seem totally impractical. But such a campaign cannot be ignored until late in 2011 if it is to have any chance of influencing the election in 2012.
Conclusion
The predictable first reaction to a set of proposals of this kind is to argue that initiatives of this nature are important but must be postponed until the immediate challenge of passing a health care reform package is successfully completed.
This reaction is understandable but wrong. The setbacks to the health care campaign that occurred in August were in significant measure the result of the failure to begin systematic long-term organizing in January. By the time a health care reform package is passed this winter, new challenges will have already emerged that seem equally urgent and which seem to offer equally compelling reasons to delay long-term organizing once again. The result is a vicious cycle in which systematic long-term organizing never gets done.
Consider a simple and somewhat ironic fact: it is today much more difficult to launch a long-term campaign of this nature than it would have been in January when Obama’s popularity was at its peak and grass-roots enthusiasm was still high. Equally, six or nine months from now, it will in all probability be harder to launch such a campaign than it is today. At that time, hindsight will clearly suggest that September 2009 would have been a much more propitious time to begin such a campaign than “now” – whenever “now” happens to be.
The major problems that emerged for the health care reform campaign in August were severe and require careful rethinking of Democratic strategy. But the problems are not limited to the specifics of health care as an issue or the legislative strategy that was chosen to enact a bill. The setbacks also exposed profound weaknesses in the basic Democratic message strategy and in the strategies for mobilizing mass support and for building long-term pro-Democratic community institutions.
These problems affect the foundation of every future legislative campaign and every future election. Democrats must begin now to remedy the weaknesses exposed by this summer’s setbacks in the struggle for health care reform.


Obama Puts the Ground Missile Defense Hobby Horse Back in the Toy Chest

The announcement today that the administration is scrapping a Bush administration program to create a ground-based missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland is eliciting predictable howls from neoconservatives.
You can understand why. A big missile defense system has been a hobby horse for conservatives going all the way back to the Nixon administration, despite constant signs that it would cost far too much, might not work, and would be exceptionally destabilizing if it became a true centerpiece of our national security strategy. But the particular system in question has become an even bigger obsession for conservatives who favor military confrontation with both Russia and Iran.
Here’s National Security Network’s assessment:

[N]ot only do the cancelled missile defense systems have significant technological shortfalls, but they would also fail to protect against Iranian missiles because of both their location and technological advances in Iranian missile technology. Furthermore, from a geopolitical perspective, the European missile defense was a disaster. It worsened relations with Russia without even providing a credible defense against their nuclear arsenal, further undercutting nonproliferation efforts. Because there is no strategic benefit to maintaining the program – either militarily or diplomatically – the Obama administration has wisely has decided to eliminate this program and to develop a more adaptable missile defense system that better protects Europe.

Indeed, much of the negative reaction from the Right isn’t about the actual national security implications of this as opposed to alternative (probably sea-based) missile defense systems, but just psycho-babble about the alleged pleasure the step would give to Russia and/or Iran.
Funny, isn’t it? Neocons who are outraged by any consideration of diplomatic concerns in the development of national security policy nonetheless think we should perpetually let nations like Russia control our actions. If Putin doesn’t like something, we absolutely have to do it, even if it makes no real sense.


U.S. Health Care: Poor Grades from Consumers

One of the standard features of most debates about health care reform is the comparison of our system with that of other industrialized nations. Usually the evidence presented is anecdotal, but sometimes statistics having to do with mortality rates, expense etc. are trotted out. Rick Newman of U.S. News & World Report has an angle on international health care systems comparisons that merits some consideration, as he reports (flagged by TomPaine.com) on a health care consumer satisfaction study in six nations, including the U.S.:

The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions surveyed 14,000 people in six countries, asking them to grade their own healthcare system from A to F. The standardized results allow comparisons among all six countries…Here’s how all six countries fared. The survey data are from Deloitte. Also included are cost data from the OECD, to give a sense of who’s getting the most satisfaction per healthcare dollar:
Canada: Percent rating the healthcare system A or B: 46 percent; D or F: 15 percent; annual healthcare spending per person: $3,895
France: A or B: 63 percent; D or F: 12 percent; spending: $3,601
Germany: A or B: 18 percent; D or F: 44 percent; spending: $3,588
Switzerland: A or B: 66 percent; D or F: 14 percent; spending: $4,417
United Kingdom: A or B: 32 percent; D or F: 20 percent; spending: $2,992
United States: A or B: 22 percent; D or F: 38 percent; spending: $7,290

As Newman notes, Germany is the real shocker here. He doesn’t explain why. But, clearly the U.S. is the worst bargain of the lot when cost is factored in. So much for the “greatest health care system in the world” meme. As Newman concludes:

…Deloitte’s survey data show that socialized medicine in Canada and Britain is more popular than the quasi-capitalist healthcare system in America—which costs far more. Brits and Canadians may be more satisfied partly because they have a higher tolerance for government bureaucracy than Americans do. But the findings also undercut claims that the British and Canadian systems don’t work.

Newman doesn’t report on the reasons behind the satisfaction stats. But a couple of the reader comments responding to his article are instructive. Here’s Jim Atherley’s explanation:

I’m a Canadian currently living in the US. I’ve spent 22 years in Canada and 27 in the US, so I have plenty of experience with both systems. Having said that, I can assure you that the Canadian system is far superior. The US system is an expensive nightmare by comparison.
In the US, I have lower taxes but I’m forced to deal with outrageous monthly premiums, fear of being dropped at any time, fear of losing my coverage if I change jobs, fear that my wife won’t be covered because she had a benign tumor 10 years ago, etc. I also have to cough up “co-pays” for every office visit, must meet high deductibles (thousands of dollars out of pocket) before insurance even pays a penny, then have “lifetime maximum” limits on top of that – and the price just keeps going up every year. When it’s all said and done, my tax advantage here has vanished.
Meanwhile, in my 22 years in Canada, I never once paid a penny for medical care. I had gall bladder surgery, spent time in ER for a badly cut hand, spent a week in hospital with broken bones from a motorcycle crash, had many trips to the family doctor with sick children – and NEVER had to wait any unreasonable amount of time – and certainly never paid a bill. Prescriptions are also half the price in Canada.
When you phone the doctor here, the first question they ask is “what insurance do you have?” When you phone the doctor in Canada, the first question is “What seems to be the problem?” This whole debate about which system is better is a non-issue to anyone who’s actually lived under both systems. If I get laid off here (and lose my insurance), I can always go back to Canada – thanks God for that.

if the fear-mongers succeed in blocking health reform in the U.S., maybe the Canadians will have to build a long fence to keep Americans out.


Big Insurance Bootlicking: How Low Can They Go?

Sometimes the voting behavior of certain members of “the world’s greatest deliberative body” is so far beneath contempt that it can be likened to a demented limbo dance, in which the bar is set so low that only the most reptilian of U.S. Senators dare try to slither under it. Sue Sturgis of Facing South may have found a new measure for such low-lifery in the U.S. Senate in her report “The 10 Senators who vetoed insurance protection for domestic violence survivors.” As Sturgis explains:

…Health insurance companies in a number of states and the District of Columbia are allowed by law to treat domestic violence as a pre-existing condition for which they can deny individual coverage…The story was met with outrage, but it gets even worse.
The blog of the Service Employees International Union, which is pressing for health insurance reform, reports that in 2006 a Senate committee considered an amendment to the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act that would have required insurers to stop ignoring state laws that make it illegal for them to deny coverage to domestic violence survivors — and 10 Senators, all Republicans, voted against it. They were:
* Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)
* Richard Burr (R-N.C.)
* John Ensign (R-Nev.)
* Mike Enzi (R-Wy.)
* Bill Frist (R-Tenn.)
* Judd Gregg (R-N.H.)
* Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
* Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.)
* Pat Roberts (R-Kan.)
* Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)

Yes, that’s right. These ten Republican Senators reportedly voted to protect the right of health insurers to deny coverage to women who have been beaten by their spouses. As Sturgis notes, Frist, a physician no less, is thankfully out of the picture. But the others are still railing away, doing what they can to stop the Democratic reform plan. If they think it’s OK for insurance companies to penalize battered women, it’s hard to imagine what kind of “reform” they would support.