Health Care For America Now

Over the last week, two important constituencies in the House and Senate have come out forcefully in favor of a public health insurance option.

Yesterday, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio sent a letter to Senators Baucus and Kennedy, the chairmen of the two Senate committees overseeing health reform, expressing his support for the public health insurance option. It was signed by 15 other Senators:

As members of key committees and leaders on health care issues, we write to support a public plan option as a core component of this reform. There is no reason to believe that private insurers alone will meet the public purpose of ensuring coverage for all Americans at affordable prices for taxpayers.

The day before, members of the Progressive Caucus (CPC), the Black Caucus (CBC), the Hispanic Caucus (CHC), and the Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) in the House, 117 Members in all, sent a similar letter to President Obama and House and Senate leadership:

…our support for enacting legislation this year to guarantee affordable health care for all firmly hinges on the inclusion of a robust public health insurance plan like Medicare.

If you add in those Members of Congress who support Health Care for America Now (and take out the duplicates), we have 26 Senators and 235 Representatives.

That means, a majority of the House of Representatives supports a public health insurance option!

NEWS

US senators start writing healthcare overhaul bill - Reuters

U.S. Senators leading the effort to revamp the U.S. healthcare system said on Wednesday they had begun fleshing out proposals aimed at improving the quality of care, but are leaving until later tough decisions on how to cover the uninsured and pay for it.

Budget plan boosts health care - Politico

Congress’ new five-year budget plan, approved Wednesday, gives President Barack Obama a big leg up toward health care reform but could severely crimp the rest of his domestic agenda unless new savings and revenues are found.

Liberal senators tout public health insurance - The Hill

A new public insurance plan is an essential part of reforming the U.S. healthcare system, 16 Democratic senators declared in a letter to two powerful committee chairmen Wednesday.

The Media Matters for America Action Network has just released the definitive research document to date on Rick Scott.

Now, there's a lot that we already know about Scott, like his $1.7 billion fraud investigation, and how he's using the golden parachute he got for leading his company, Columbia/HCA, to defraud the government (a reported $10 million in severance and $300 million in stock options) to fight against health care reform with his new outfit, Conservatives for Patient's Rights.

But what happened after Scott was forced out of Columbia/HCA? Turns out, there were more shady deals.

Two months before Scott was forced out, in May of 1997, he announced Columbia/HCA's intent to buy a controlling interest in a company called America's Health Network (AHN), a cable company which produced original, health-related television. When Scott was kicked to the curb (with a $310 million golden parachute) in July amid fraud investigations, the deal fell apart, causing AHN to lay off 80% of its workforce and other investors to sell of their stakes, most likely at firesale prices.

The next year, Scott, along with another disgraced Columbia/HCA executive forced out with him, bought 75% of AHN, again, likely at firesale prices.

Now, after Scott bought his controlling interest, what original investors AHN had left filed suit against Columbia/HCA for scuttling the prior deal which led to the devaluation of AHN. According to The Tennessean:

On Friday investors in a limited partnership with the former America's Health Network an Orlando, Fla.-based cable property now known as The Health Network filed suit against HCA in Davidson County Chancery Court. The suit claims that HCA aborted a promised deal to invest in the then fledgling network on the same day in 1997 that Scott, at the time HCA's embattled chairman and chief executive officer, was shown the door. The lawsuit seeks unspecified financial compensation for losses investors say they have suffered as a result of the deal's demise.

Now, why did these investors wait a year to file suit against Columbia/HCA? And why didn't AHN sue Columbia/HCA itself, as opposed to just a group of investors? Turns out, Scott used his controlling interest in AHN to scuttle the suit against his former employers. The best part is, Scott claimed conflict of interest prevented him from suing:

In its complaint, the suing investors say Scott has failed to pursue litigation because of a 'conflict of interest' stemming from his ties to AHN and role in HCA's original decision to buy a controlling stake in AHN.

Clearly, if Scott had any morals, he would have recused himself from discussions about these suits and left the decision of whether AHN would sue Columbia/HCA to those who didn't have ties to both sides of the complaint.

But no.

Scott refused to allow the suit to go forwards on the incredibly preposterous claim that his conflict of interest prevented it. Since, Scott has used similar logic, most recently accusing President Obama of "cooking the books" with his new health care plan without noting that he made Columbia/HCA so "successful" by cooking the books, though he couldn't weasel his way out of the fraud investigation.

No morals, shady deals, circular logic, every-man-for-himself mentality. This is the life story of Richard Scott. And this is what he's selling to the American people when it comes to health care. He wants to deny us the choice of a public health insurance option. He wants to leave us at the mercy of the insurance industry. And he uses fear mongering, clever editing, and outright lies to try and bully us into submission.

Luckily, he's a borderline criminal, otherwise I'd be worried someone might actually be listening to him.

NEWS

Senate Confirms Kansas Governor as Health Secretary - New York Times

The Senate confirmed the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of health and human services on Tuesday, allowing President Obama to fill the last vacancy in his cabinet with a seasoned politician who will take charge of the fight against swine flu.

Committee to weigh reform proposals - Politico

The Senate Finance Committee will consider health care reform proposals Wednesday aimed at making doctors and hospitals more accountable, and boosting medical research with a tax on private insurance companies.

Caucuses Unite in Push for Public Health Insurance - Roll Call

The leaders of four House caucuses on Tuesday called on Democratic Congressional leaders and President Barack Obama to ensure that a public health insurance plan is part of comprehensive health care reform legislation this year.

Baucus digs into health care reform - Billings Gazette

Ezra Klein, a prominent left-leaning blogger and journalist who covers health care and politics from Washington, D.C., was in Montana last week to talk about health care reform.

Specter Switch Good News For ObamaCare - Forbes

Sen. Arlen Specter's historic decision to jump parties is a huge shot of adrenaline to the new administration's health care agenda.

Fox's Cameron provides bad medicine in health care report - Media Matters

Summary: Carl Cameron falsely suggested that President Obama has proposed a health care system similar to those of England and Canada — models Obama has explicitly rejected — and uncritically aired a misleading portion of a Conservatives for Patients' Rights ad.

Today, April 28th, is Blog for Fair Pay Day. In recognition of this important day, our guest post by Lisa Codispoti, Senior Counsel for Health and Reproductive Rights, National Women’s Law Center, relates to health care and equal pay.

Between 2000 and 2006, health insurance premiums increased 87.5 percent—4 times more than wages. In addition to the burden of inflated health care costs, women are still paid only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men—with women of color earning even less. In a world where women are earning significantly less than men for comparable work, how can they also afford health care?

Pay inequity for women compounds the issues that already exist with our broken health care system. This is a system that makes unfair practices by insurance companies flourish, such as allowing health to be more expensive for women. For example, women pay higher premiums than men when they try to buy health insurance directly from an insurance company through the individual health insurance market (a practice known as gender rating.) Even worse is that many of these health plans do not cover maternity care or expect women to pay an additional fee (what is called a rider) to gain maternity coverage. Women are then left trying to stretch their already smaller paycheck for a much larger health care bill.

Read more…

As if Republican grandstanding on the confirmation of Kathleen Sebelius weren't ridiculous enough, America now heads into what the WHO is calling something close to a global pandemic. And yet Republicans are refusing to unanimously confirm Sebelius, filibustering the nomination and forcing Democrats to overcome a 60 vote threshold. As Greg Sargent points out:

Bottom line: The filibuster over an abortion controversy is still throwing a hurdle in the way of this nomination, despite the flu epidemic.

SEIU has a petition up explaining the direct connection between Sebelius and our response to this flu:

The Center for Disease Control (CDC), which is responsible for preventing the spread of swine flu, is managed by  Health and Human Services (HHS) - a 65,000-person federal department lead by the HHS Secretary. At this moment, the office of HHS Secretary is empty. The reason? Republicans are delaying a vote to fill the office.

Head over and sign it. The vote is expected today.

NEWS

Congressional Democrats reach budget agreement - Los Angeles Times

Their plan would keep Republicans from stopping Obama's healthcare reform plan, expected this fall.

Reid, In Letter To McConnell, Calls For Bipartisan Effort On Health Care Reform - Harry Reid

Nevada Senator Harry Reid, in a letter today to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, called on Republicans to join Democrats for an open and honest debate about how to lower health care costs, expand access and improve the quality of care. In Reid’s letter to McConnell, he urges the Republican Leader to join him in providing health care for the residents of Nevada and Kentucky who are currently without coverage. More than one out of three Nevadans under the age of 65 went without health insurance during 2007 and 2008. Reid stressed the need for bipartisanship in meeting these challenges.

Post reports GOP criticism of HHS vacancy, but not GOP's role - Media Matters

Summary: The Washington Post allowed Bush HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt to criticize the Obama administration for not having an HHS secretary in place, but did not note Senate Republicans' role in delaying nominee Kathleen Sebelius' confirmation vote.

Baucus Setting Aside Talks on Public Plan To Focus on Other Aspects of Health Overhaul Legislation - Kaiser Daily News

At a meeting with reporters on Friday, Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said he will temporarily set aside talks on a new public insurance option to focus on maintaining employer self-insurance plans, CQ Today reports. Self-insured companies qualify for tax exemptions through the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The federal law allows firms to create their own tax-exempt insurance plan — a means of cutting costs by taking on the risks themselves — as long as the plans meet federal standards laid out by ERISA. Firms contract with private insurers to administer the plans. Baucus said he would aim to preserve this self-insurance system while expanding private coverage and public programs such as Medicaid. He said, "We'll end up with more private insurance and more public insurance" (Armstrong, CQ Today, 4/24).

Senate set to confirm Sebelius as health secretary - Associated Press

The Senate was set to approve President Barack Obama's nominee for health and human services secretary Tuesday, giving the agency a leader in the midst of the swine flu outbreak.

Rick Scott, the Bernie Madoff of health care, is up on the air again with another $1 million of his ill-gotten gains. It's not hard to debunk his latest lie. From the Media Matters Action Network:

Here's the full ad watch, plus a bit of facts from the doctors you see in the ad, who's words have been edited pretty carefully to make Scott's point.

As Igor Volsky at the Wonk Room points out, Scott is again using a straw man argument to mislead the public:

Obama has rejected a British/Canadian-like single-payer reform and most policy makers are looking for a “uniquely American solution” that preserves the employer-sponsored system and creates a hybrid public-private partnership. In other words, American reforms would look a bit like the Swiss health system in which the government “leaves the provision of health care and health insurance in private hands” but creates a marketplace within which insurers can compete on price, and not avoid insuring the sickest patients.

Lies, misleading comparisons, lots of money. All in a day's work for the disgraced Rick Scott.

Some of the largest and most influential newspapers in the country, The New York Times and the Washington Post, have weighed in on the public health insurance option. They both start from similar places, and yet they end up with completely different conclusions.

Both the Times and the Post start with the premise that there is more to health care reform than just the public health insurance option (like regulation on the insurance industry, affordability provisions, universal coverage). Both agree that the public health insurance option is likely to be a big political fight, and both note that progressives and conservatives are squaring off around the issue.

Now for the differences.

The most notable difference, really, is that the Times editorial endorsing the idea of a public health insurance plan relies on facts for its arguments, while the Post relies on misleading statistics.

Central to the argument the Post makes is the right-wing creation called cost-shifting:

It is difficult to imagine a truly level playing field that would simultaneously produce benefits from a government-run system. While prescription drugs are not a perfect comparison, the experience of competing plans in the Medicare prescription drug arena suggests that a government-run option is not essential to energize a competitive system that has turned out to cost less than expected. Insurers and private companies have been at least as innovative as the federal government in recent years in finding ways to provide quality care at lower costs. Medicare keeps costs under control in part because of its 800-pound-gorilla capacity to dictate prices — in effect, to force the private sector to subsidize it.

First, Medicare prescription drugs. There's not much to say here, except that it's well known that these plans pay an estimated 13% more for drugs and services than they have to. So we're just giving away 13% of the money we spend to private insurance. Good looking out for the corporate world, Washington Post.

But onto the real misleading argument: cost shifting. The insurance industry argues that the prices Medicare pays are so low, doctors are forced to "shift costs" and raise the prices they charge people with private insurance. It's a load of bull.

The non-partisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission studies the phenomenon and concluded that cost-shifting is actually a cover for inefficient providers [pdf]. Hospitals that are the least efficient at controlling costs for everyone claim they have the greatest "losses" when it comes to Medicare. Hospitals that control costs more effectively not only have higher quality care, but have less "losses." So really, when you hear cost-shifting, remember that's just inefficient providers complaining Medicare doesn't want to pay inflated prices for lower quality care.

NEWS

As flu hits, holes in W.H. health team - Politico

The Obama administration declared a “public health emergency” Sunday to confront the swine flu — but is heading into its first medical outbreak without a secretary of Health and Human Services or appointees in any of the department’s 19 key posts.

Solantic founder emerges as high-profile Obama health care opponent - Jacksonville.com

Handmade signs emblazoned with scalding slogans such as "Stop the Madne$$" and "Change: It's All We've Got Left" greeted Rick Scott as he approached the microphone to address more than 1,000 anti-tax demonstrators.

Obama Tactic Shields Health Care Bill From a Filibuster - New York Times

At the prodding of the White House, Democratic Congressional leaders have agreed to pursue a plan that would protect major health care legislation from Republican opposition by shielding it from last-minute Senate filibusters.

Shortage of Doctors Proves Obstacle to Obama Goals - New York Times

Obama administration officials, alarmed at doctor shortages, are looking for ways to increase the supply of physicians to meet the needs of an aging population and millions of uninsured people who would gain coverage under legislation championed by the president.

Blogger: Health care reform coalition faces tough battle - Missoulian

Ezra Klein, a prominent left-leaning blogger and journalist who covers health care and politics from Washington, D.C., was in Montana last week to talk about health care reform.

Health Care Reform Rally a First for Chicago - Huffington Post

According to the organizers of a rally for health care reform held on April 18 at a local college on Chicago's north side, it was a first for the Chicagoland area. It was an SRO crowd, well over 500 who gave up part of a lovely day weather-wise to be packed inside a large gymnasium-type room. If the passion, enthusiasm and determination displayed by those who attended is reflective of the electorate's mood nationwide, the lobbyists supporting the likes of the insurance industry and drug manufacturers that may oppose any change or who will try to influence those on the Hill to mouth the right words, like Motherhood and apple pie, without passing true reform, will be crushed by such public sentiment. If anything, what I observed harkens back to the movie Network, where the line most remembered line was, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more."