United states President Obama is guiding his Democratic allies in an full scale campaign to be triumphant over wavering lawmakers before a dramatic Sunday vote on his ground-breaking healthcare revamp.
The president put off an intended trip to Asia to June so as he could possibly get 11th-hour individual appeals by phone as well as in the flesh to shift the balance in his favor inside the make-or-break House of Representatives trial.
Whitehouse spokesman Robert Gibbs stated that president obama had spoken to over 3 dozen lawmakers as of Monday on the look for the 216 votes with the aim of ensuring passage, as well as discarding his trip to Australia along with Indonesia in order to do more.
The bill is designed to increase coverage to 32 million Us citizens who presently have nothing, getting the world’s wealthiest nation nearer than ever to ensuring health insurance meant for all its people, with 95% of people insured.
Democratic Senator Max Baucus praised President obama’s capability to gain support in favor of his leading domestic priority.
The Democratic strategy involves the House to endorse the Senate’s side on the legislation as early as Sunday, subsequently by the 2 chambers agreeing upon a group of “fixes” to create the bill more towards the House’s taste.
Pelosi was trying to assemble liberal Democrats who regard the bill as too apprehensive in addition to conservative Democrats who worry the cost to pay for during November mid-term elections for passing a measure numerous in their areas consider it as overambitious.
In a massive push for Democrats, the influential AFL-CIO labor union acknowledged its “strong, active support” behind the bill in spite of reservations regarding a few of its contents.
Obama’s Republican rivals in Congress maintained their unified opposition in addition to pledged to create all attempt to disrupt what they referred to as a high priced and risky proposal that increases taxes.
President obama directed Democrats in brandishing new figures through the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) presenting the bill might reduce the United states budget deficit by 138 billion us dollars to 2019 as well as 1.2 trillion the subsequent decade.
The CBO pointed out that the proposal might cost 940 billion us dollars over ten years, approximately matching the president’s self made trillion-dollar price tag, furthermore might prolong the solvency of the vastly well-liked government run Medicare program for elderly.
The bill, which might ratify one of the most extensive overhaul of US healthcare in 4 decades, aims to stop abusive insurance corporation tactics as well as control soaring healthcare expenses that by now double those of other wealthy nations.
An agreement involving opposing Senate along with House variations passed the previous year, the package will generate fresh insurance marketplaces beginning in 2014 as well as need nearly all Us citizens to have insurance, while giving subsidies to many others.
Several of its generally well-liked measures incorporates bans on insurers restricting coverage as a result of pre-existing health problems, on insurers forcing lifetime caps went it comes to coverage along with on insurers dropping people from coverage once they get ill.
Republicans, who went against the strategy from the beginning, strongly disapproved it as an unaffordable attempt to further undesirable government intrusion distressing 1/6 of the United states economy, with probably extremely bad outcome.
The Us is really the only industrialized democracy that doesn’t guarantee universal healthcare coverage, with an calculated 36 million Us citizens uninsured.

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The Health Insurance exchange, such a simple idea and it is something that really makes protesting it very hard. It is basically a stock exchange like list where people can view the health insurance for what they are. You can see which insurance plan has the best premiums or coverage.

Even some right wing observers, most notably Bill O’Reilly , has supported this exchange. We know it would work as it works like a stock exchange and stock exchanges work! It is an outstanding way to get insurance companies to compete.

Again going back to the simple basics is great. Updating and simplifying the process would result in less paperwork which would translate to lower costs. It is sad though to think that it actually takes a President to fix this kinds of problems. Also, I do not know how much money would be saved.

Giving credits to small businesses also make a lot of sense to me. It is these guys that are the cornerstone of our economy and yet when they are often lagging behind when it comes to healthcare. They often pay more for the same kind of coverages as compared to unions and especially corporations.

The mandate is very acceptable. For people that do not qualify for the tax-filling threshold, they are not obliged to buy the plan. So this would really keep many people happy. The young also are not obliged to buy health insurance, what this means is that health insurance cost for us would be significantly lower.

Other than these few points there was nothing out there that was really catching out eyes. The Senate Plan is weak, and the President’s input did not help at all. Overall, I would not support this bill as there are just not enough cost-cutting measures.

To make matters worse, there would be just too many excuses for insurance companies to raise premiums. It has been an utter disappointment. The best hope is that with the threat of reconciliation, the public option comes into the mix. Because Congress does not bother considering other cost-cutting measures and there is still a 2:1 popular support in favor of it…

The 11 page proposal by President Obama which is actually a tweak of the Senate Bill, does clearly mention that CHILDREN can’t be denied healthcare because of a pre-existing condition, but the language is not so clear when it comes to adults, teenagers and seniors. It could have been very easily expanded to all classes, but simple-lettered, strong-armed laws were only available for children.

What this means is that there is going to be a minefield of legal loopholes that lawyers can exploit. Why can’t it be simply put that pre-existing condition discrimination is illegal? It was simple enough to be done for kids, so why not the rest of us? Why put in complicated measures that, with the benefit of a doubt, is meant to simply prevent and not end pre-existing condition discrimination?

In my opinion, I think it is because President Obama along with his Democrats, along with the Republicans are all sucked into this hole of lobbyists corruption. It is with lobbyist money that our politicians are being elected. That system has to change, but let me ramble about that another day.

Now on to some terms.. oh where do I start! Firstly the cost controlling factor. The only thing that they have done is say that the government now can somewhat regulate increase in interest premiums. And even for this, it is for companies that take part in the exchange. I am just not comfortable with the government coming in telling businesses how much to charge…

Where is the public option? Where is the competition? None, nothing, zero! We all have got to buy the bill but there is absolutely no measure to increase competition other than the exchange. Added to that, insurance companies now got to deal with half baked pre-existing conditions legislation, are forced to enrollee’s dependent children till the age of 26, offer preventive care and immunizations at no cost, etc… Do you know what all this would equate to Insurance companies : excuse for higher premiums!

President Obama also promised in his campaign that citizens should have the same healthcare as any member of Congress. Not really the case. Whilst this is not a lie; it sure is a misrepresentation of a promise! You see, we are not going to get the healthcare that Congress enjoys right now, but Congress would be forced to buy from the exchange, so they would be getting the healthcare that we would with the passing of this bill!

I get why young people, those who earn less and those with religious objections are exempted from buying health insurance but why is it that the Indians? I do get that we are living on their land and enjoying their fruits, but come on! If it is good for us, it is good for them!

Another thing is regarding the claim that they would increase revenue by closing the loopholes, but how exactly is not being mentioned in the text. Can the President please care to explain of this during his showdown on Thursday?

I would discuss the positives of this plan tomorrow, but I can tell you that is sure is shorter than this one!

In a segment with the ever so boring Dylan Ratigan, Governor Howard Dean basically threatened to stop sending in money to the respective Democratic committees in Congress if they do not have a bill in it that has a public option.

Looking back, we know that not nominating him is the biggest mistake that the Democrats ever made. They overlooked a governor that is a proven success and a person that is well informed in 2004, and they picked a long-jaw douche-bag named Senator John Kerry. So not only are the politicians pathetic, their far left voting base in the primaries are pathetic too.

Coming back to health care, I stress that this is the most important part of health care reform : the public option. The biggest problem with the health care cost in our country is cost. That should be the primary objective. And yet, our politicians came up with just one solution to curb costs : public option. (For Republican readers, I would explain in paragraphs below why their idea of buying across state lines would not work.)

Without the public option, there would be a mandate for the public to have health insurance to drive up demand and there is no other counter measure to keep the cost down. Therefore, we are literally throwing our money to the insurance companies with the Bill.

With the public option, there would be pressure to keep the price of the insurance down. If the insurance companies charge us too much, people would switch their plans to the public option which is non profit. It is not very difficult to understand the public option actually.

The Republican proposal of allowing customers to buy across state lines would not work. For it to work, there need to be national rules and guidelines. For example, in football, the rules in Saint Louis is the same as that in Dallas. If you cannot spit at the referee in Dallas, you cannot do it anywhere else.
The rules need to be the same, else you would have all the companies flocking to the state with the lowest amount of regulation. That is the case for the Credit Card companies.

So why can’t there be a national rule: The tenth amendment which guarantees states rights. With that, the federal government cannot force local governments to conform with other states on these issues. Even if our politicians want it, it would be very tricky. I also do not want it to go down that path as I think states rights are very important in our country.

A way around the Republican proposal is the idea that we in ST put up months ago. Allow the foreigners to flood the market. If the Japanese can make cars here, they can also sell their insurance, which is much more cheaper than ours, here. If Indian companies can create for us computer programs, they should also sell their insurances over here. Then let the competition begin!

Though, I hate it when politicians make threats when they can, in this case I am with Governor Dean. The Democrats should not receive any party donations if they cannot fulfill what the people want. A health care bill without the public option would wreck our country and make our lives much tougher than it already is.

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At it barest minimum, steps should be taken to ensure that these 17 million people get ensured. But guess how many people the Republican plans cover. In their own words, 750 000 households. In terms of population 3 million people. Yes 3 million people.

Is that what we really call reform? Is this what America has come down to? Where an ideology drives something so much that we are only bothered to cover 3 million people when we need to be covering 17-47 million? Come on!What in the world are they doing?

I have yet to receive the scoring of both plans by the CBO officially, so this is my first impression of the outline that I see. The Democrats claim that their $1 trillion is going to decrease the debt just like the Republicans. From what I scheme through, there are going to be lots of taxes for the top 1% and surtaxes here and there. Their plan includes the public option. It also cuts Medicare by half a trillion over 10 years.

Here are the things I would be looking out for in the Democrat bills. Firstly, what taxes are they going to raise? Are they going to raise corporate taxes which I vehemently oppose, or personal taxes of the top 1%, which I think would be okay? Furthermore, is this just a stop gap measure or are going to control cost over the long term? Can we bring the increases of health insurance cost to down to the rate of inflation? In Medicare, are we cutting it sufficiently; we waste $500billion to $800billion a year on health care; how much of that is Medicare and how much of that is being taken out?

In the Republican bills, there are notably no tax increases. So that should set the record straight for some people. But what stuns me is that it does not include the ceasing of preexisting conditions. How can people be covered if insurance companies still can say that they do not want to cover you? Also, the coverage of 3 million million people is just atrocious! It is short of 18% of the bare minimum and not slightly over 6% of the maximum.

Other than that, the questions that I would be asking is how do they intend to pay for it if they are not cutting cost or raising taxes? What are they missing in their 200 page bill? Bills are usually in the 1000 page region. What are they going to do about the 10 million people (part of the 47 million uninsured) that have the ability to buy insurance but refuse to do so? Let them be and still let the remaining taxpayer payers for their bills?

I would put up my analysis of the bills soon. From what I get, my report on both bills is not a good one., particularly for the Republicans.

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Obama proposed the pool in his September health care speech to Congress. Now, concerns are being raised about the design of the high-risk pools. The money would be used to help people in poor health pay premiums.

Obama credits his Republican presidential rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for the risk-pools idea. The six-month wait is in the health care bill the Senate Finance Committee approved last month. “If you are somebody with cancer or a heart condition who needs immediate coverage and immediate treatment, that’s not very helpful,” said Karen Pollitz, a Georgetown University health policy professor.

Both the House and the Senate Finance bills set aside $5 billion for the pools.

If the Democrats’ risk pool starts running out of money, the government may have to start a waiting list, raise premiums or take other unpopular measures.

Read more… Click here ( Powered By Yahoo! News )

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She went against the proposition that Senator Harry Reid put on the floor, which is the public option with the option for states to opt out. I am all for this and I think that the Republicans really got no excuses here. I even went as far as to say that this means that health-care should not be a state matter with state level funding rather than a federal level.

However, Rachael Maddow disagreed. This is what she said : “ Thank goodness we have 60 Democrats in the Senate right! Of all the different things that (Leader) Harry Reid could have put forward… a really modest conservative version of the public option. … How well would this work? It is public option just for uninsured people and it probably won’t be available in some states? One of the main arguments for the public option is that it would be big….”

No Rachael, sensible people do not support the public option because it is big, people support it because it is an option! It is competition to the health insurance companies. I really do not care if it is big or small! As long as it can bring my cost down, by competing with the insurance companies, I am for it!

She said that it is only for people that are uninsured, this is misleading. It is only for the uninsured because the health bill does not kick in straight away. The rest of the population would have it around 2014. The uninsured get it straight away. It is as simple as that.

Thirdly, this is the conservative option? There were options being put out where people can buy across state lines, we have mentioned in the past that those methods would not work. But that is a more conservative option than the public option. We threw out ideas of starting a trade war between health insurance companies, opening up the industry to foreign companies as well as to give a federal reward to the company with the highest customer satisfaction. I guess these are all way too right wing for you huh?

Rachael Maddow claiming that Senator John McCain wants to rig the Internet.

Come on! To put it in simplest terms, it is customers right to view content vs Internet Service Providers to cut up the content to sell (think one plan for e-mail only, one plan for social sites only, etc). I agree with her position and I am all out for net neutrality but listen to what she has to say.

“The government say, the Internet should be free. Big companies should not be able to rig the Internet for their own purposes. (Senator) John McCain bill says that they should. That is the same Senator McCain who back in 2008, when asked if he preferred a Mac or a PC, said this: ” I am a(n) illiterate (who) has to rely on my wife for all the assistance that I can get.” ”

Oh, give me a break! Where did she get that Senator McCain has evil intention to want to rig the Internet? Why must it be that he is evil rather than Senator McCain just have a different opinion? That is what makes you a wing-nut. I disagreed with him on this issue and the Rape Bill recently, but I still maintain the respect I have for respect him.

And to rub it in, she gave a very mean spirited attack on Senator McCain, over his honest answer last year. I learned something this year that I did not know last year? Does that mean that I cannot comment on that program language I learned? So if Senator McCain was a IT-illiterate, does that mean that he must be stuck in that state forever?

These are the kind of instances that can turn an Independent like me off. It also make a news-shy citizen turn off too with those blatant lies. Don’t get me wrong, the right wing bullshits too. But they do not do it as stupidly as the Liberals do. Bar Bill Maher and Alan Grayson, I cannot think of one that can match the right wing in terms of attacks. Add this to the Democrats lack of spine and what do you get : L-O-S-E-R-S!

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However, both parties did not even make an inkling of a suggestion to increase the competition other than the public option. That was all that they could come up with. Hence, when the public option was removed from the bill, I decided to oppose the bill and think that we should kill it.

Right now, there is a compromise being chiseled out by Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Carper. It is a very simple thing, if you really feel that your state does not want “government in health-care”; your state can opt-out and let other states that want it keep it. It is incredibly straight forward.

That being said, I think that there should be an additional condition to this option. Right now, if you go to the emergency room and you cannot pay for your operation as you do not have health insurance, it would be the Federal Government that has to foot the bill. They cannot just let you die.

Lets assume that this clause is passed, and some states passed public option and some other states did not. If you were a citizen of a State that does not have the public option, you do not have health insurance and you need to go the emergency room, there is a higher chance that the Federal government has to step in. Why should the I, via my federal taxes, be paying for another State’s irresponsibility?

Therefore, should this compromise of the health-care bill be passed, I think that the cost of uninsured health care should be passed on to the States. In that way, whether they have the public option or not, they pay for it. The federal government should lower taxes and the states would increase the taxes. Overall, it should not effect us financially.

I think that the continued opposition to this really underlines how much potential the public option has to be successful. The Republicans fear that this would over time force their states to also adopt the public option. Do you really think that all the 60% of the people in the poll that support the public option are liberals?

When California has the public option and people start to receive health-care as a result of it, don’t you think Arizonans would demand that their state have it too? They know that it would lead to the public option coming up in all the states. In fact, people like me think that it could even lead to a single payer system in the future.

An additional benefit to that is that the State would also be interested in preventive measures so that they can save money. They would rather invest in fitness regimes for children rather than paying their bills when they are older. It is much easier to execute this at a state or local even level rather than the federal government being involved in it.

However, as of now, there is no movement of this new public option plan. Until it has passed the committee votes, I would not be calling for support to kill this bill!

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Of course it would. Some are quoted to say that this bill is “a blow-job to the health insurance companies.” I agree. It is not that the intention of the clauses in the bill are to increase the demand, but they do increase the demand. Let me give you two examples.

There is a clause that forces individuals that has the capability to buy insurance but choose not to do so, to purchase insurance or pay a tax. It is a good clause. Why should I pay via my taxes, the hospital bills for someone who could have insurance but refused to buy it? Can they pay for my car insurance because I chose not to pay for it? However, it does increase the number of people that want or need to buy health insurance. In other words, it increases the demand.

If you force insurance companies to accept everyone, they are going to claim that the risk has gone up and that they would have to pass the cost increase to their customers. Also, there is again more customers fighting for the same number of insurance companies. This again increases the demand, without care for supply. There are other parts of the bills too that has the same consequences.

And the entire Congress put together, Republican, Democrat and Independents, they have only come up with one idea that increases the supply (competition). That was the public option. The very fact that there was only one idea that increased demand, it demonstrates the utter incompetence of Congress. Our site had more ideas!

So what did they do to the only clause that increased competition? Of course, they listened to their “paymasters” and removed it. Was it what the citizens wanted? No! 60% of Americans support the public option. So what do you think when you increase the demand and do nothing about the supply; what do you think would happen? Prices to come down because you want it to do so?

My goodness! And they are shocked that the premiums would increase? What school did these people go to? Did they become stupid just before they enter public office? Or is it, and in my opinion, that we are facing the downside of our democracy where corporations donations are more important than our votes?

I keep my stance. As long as there is no measure that increases competition, I think that it is our civic duty to kill the bill! It is going to wreck our country faster than our currently terrible health care system. Spread the word. Kill the bill till it brings the public option back!

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Jay Gellert – CEO HealthNet – $17000/day
McCallister – CEO Humana – $18000/day
Dale Wolf – CEO Conventry – $34000 / day
Angela Braly – CEO Wellpoint – $37000 / day
Edward Hanway – CEO Cigna – $47000/day
Ronald Williams – CEO Aetna – $93000/day
Stephen Hemsley – CEO United Health Group – $819000 / a day

All the figures above are based on the total compensation given to these CEOs last year, we divide it by 52 weeks and then divide it again to 5 days (on assumption that they do not work on weekends). Stephen Hemsley’s salary is an exemption as we are basing it on his over $4 million / week salary this year.

This is very much as a question to all our readers. It is also the very first The Young Turks blog. I really want to know what they feel about these wages. I guarantee that almost all the viewers would be pist off with Hemsley’s salary but the rest is subjective.

I am not saying that the government should intervene and set salary caps. I think that salary caps should only happen to companies that owe us money, aka the bailout companies. We have also seen such figures for sports personalities and are not shocked by it in any way when we read about it. There are many other CEOs that have earned even much more than this.

But the difference is how these CEOs are making their money. They are literally taking other people’s money, keep some for profit and pay the the rest for the people’s medical expenses. We do not earn. If the profits are very high, that means that they are either charging too high the premiums or are not paying for some people’s treatments. The truth is both.

Even though $800 000 a day may seem small as compared to the overall pie of the insurance companies, I feel that the very fact that there are rejections over all kinds of ridiculous excuses tell me that there is something really wrong with the system.

How about tying CEO wage to customer satisfaction? Isn’t that earning for every dollar? These people are not worth that much! Their pay is being voted on by shareholders. The shareholders would not reward better coverage. They just want more money and would reward the CEO if they earn enough money.

In my opinion, I think that earning $20 000 a day is reasonable for these CEOs. Let us know how much you think a CEO of a health insurance company should earn in the comments below.

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