Yesterday was amazing.

10,000 people from just about every state in the Union came to DC. People came from all walks of life - pastors, bricklayers, restaurant workers, small business owners, actors and actresses, doctors, nurses - and they gave their legislators a clear message - we want health reform, we want health reform that's real (including a strong public health insurance option, we want health reform that will lower costs, and we want it now, in 2009, because we can't wait.

As someone who spent all day walking through the crowd and taking in the event, it was impressive. Not only the numbers - 10,000+ in Upper Senate Park was more than the Capitol Police had ever seen - but the lineup was, shall we say, star-studded. Howard Dean, Anna Berger, Senators Schumer and Brown, Congresswoman Allison Schwartz, many other Members of Congress, and our celebrity special guest, actress Edie Falco. They spoke along with grassroots supporters who shared their stories.

But the rally wasn't the only event yesterday. It wasn't even the main event. Twenty town halls were scheduled, with dozens of Members of Congress attending to hear directly from their constituents about health care. And on top of that, hundreds of people met with their legislators one-on-one in small lobbying visits, further driving home the message.

The question looms, however: Did we make a difference? I say unequivocally, yes.

The reports are still rolling in from the visits people had with their Members of Congress, but Health Care for America Now has already advanced our campaign significantly. Senator Burris and Representatives Lipiniski and Rush are the newest Members of Congress to sign on to our statement of principles. And in perhaps the biggest news of the day, Senator Arlen Specter endorsed the Schumer proposal for a public health insurance option, a proposal completely consistent with our principles.

So not only did people come to DC and talk about health care, but Congress listened. That to me says this event was worth it.

We've got a long fight ahead of us, and it won't always be all good news, but things are moving, and we're going to win, because we can't wait.

See below for photos from the event:

NEWS

Who's Afraid of a 'Public Plan,' and Why? - ABC

Why are private insurance companies and managed care organizations so frightened of a "public plan"?

Congress suspends health care debate as crowds rally for plan - McClatchy

WASHINGTON _ Senators who are negotiating how to overhaul the nation's health care system broke off formal talks Thursday until after the Fourth of July holiday, saying they lack consensus on how to pay for the $1 trillion or more that the changes could cost over the next decade.

Senators claim $1 trillion health bill in reach - Associated Press

Senators working to give President Barack Obama a comprehensive health care overhaul said Thursday they had figured out how to pare back the complex legislation to keep costs from crashing through a $1 trillion, 10-year ceiling.

Analysis: Liberals prod Obama on their health bill - Associated Press

President Barack Obama has learned the lessons of Bill Clinton's failed bid to overhaul the nation's health care system. Too well, in fact, say fellow Democrats angry over his refusal to intervene while a conservative proposal advances in the Senate.

CPR "Hammer" Ad Fails To Hit The Nail On The Head - Media Matters

On June 25, 2009, Conservatives for Patients Rights debuted a new ad titled "Hammer" that will run both nationally and in 14 targeted states through the July 4th recess. Evidently out of ideas, CPR repeats overly used (and refuted) talking points on health care.

CPR's "Doctor's Office" Could Make You Sick - Media Matters

On June 25, 2009, Conservatives for Patients Rights released a new ad titled "Doctor's Office." The ad is meant to run both nationally and in 14 targeted states through the July 4th Congressional recess. Like the "Hammer" ad released at the same time, "Doctor's Office" is full of misleading statements.

“My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years, I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick—all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.” With that powerful indictment, Mr. Potter began his Congressional testimony, shining a bright light on the abusive practices of this very secretive industry and calling for a strong public health insurance plan option to set a “benchmark in transparency and quality.”

Read more…

I'll be out in our nation's capitol all day today, covering our huge Health Care '09 rally. If you're in town, come by Upper Senate Park for the rally at 11 am.

Otherwise, check out the Health Care for America Now homepage, where all tweets with the hashtag #healthcare09 are being broadcast, as well as my latest iPhone photos, so you can follow along at home!

Let's go out and win health care for all!

At hearing this afternoon on "Consumer Choices and Transparency in the Health Insurance Industry," the Senate Committee on Commerce heard powerful testimony from three experts on the health insurance industry: Wendell Potter, a former executive at Cigna; Nancy Metcalf of Consumer Reports; and Dr. Karen Pollitz of Georgetown University's Health Policy Center. Here I want to focus on Mr. Potter's testimony.

As a former industry insider, Potter spoke with tremendous knowledge and delivered a forceful indictment of insurers' practices:

For 20 years, I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick – all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.

I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry. Insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and they make it nearly impossible to understand—or even to obtain—information we need.

[...]

To help meet Wall Street’s relentless profit expectations, insurers routinely dump policyholders who are less profitable or who get sick. Insurers have several ways to cull the sick from their rolls. One is policy rescission. They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness or a pre-existing condition when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy retroactively, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment. Asked directly about this practice just last week in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, executives of three of the nation’s largest health insurers refused to end the practice of cancelling policies for sick enrollees. Why? Because dumping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line. Ten percent of the population accounts for two-thirds of all health care spending. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigation into three insurers found that they canceled the coverage of roughly 20,000 people in a five-year period, allowing the companies to avoid paying $300 million in claims.

As lawmakers tackle the challenge of reforming our broken health care system, Potter urged Congress not to be swayed by "charm offensives" from the industry:

One of our favorite discredited spokespeople, Betsy McCaughey, was on CNN today, beating her now 20-year-old drum against health reform. Media Matters has the fact check, which CNN failed to deliver:

On June 24, CNN's American Morning co-host John Roberts did not challenge former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey's assertions that the Affordable Health Choices Act "basically" "pushes everyone into an HMO-style plan" and that most Americans will have to "go through what they call a 'medical home,' which is this decade's term for an HMO gatekeeper." However, under the proposed legislation, individuals already enrolled in a health care plan or receiving health insurance coverage are able to keep their coverage and are not "pushed" into "an HMO-style plan."

McCaughey later stated that "most Americans will have no options. When they file their taxes, they're going to have to staple a proof, like a W-2, that they've enrolled in one of these qualified health plans, with the limits of choice: limits of choices of doctors, limits of choices of when you can see a specialist, when you can have a diagnostic test." In fact, individuals do not have to enroll in "qualified health plans." Indeed, the legislation contains a provision explicitly stating that "[n]o individual shall be compelled to enroll in a qualified health plan or to participate in a Gateway." In the bill, "qualified health plans" are plans that must meet certain criteria in order to be offered under a "Gateway." A gateway is defined as a state-run mechanism that "facilitates the purchase of health insurance coverage and related insurance products through the Gateway at an affordable price by qualified individuals and qualified employer groups."

For those who haven't been following along, McCaughey is the serial liar who pretty much everyone has dismissed as laughable. She's a right-wing hack, and she should be treated as such.

Onto the next conservative lie…

The Republicans on the Ways and Means committee are parading around a false "fact" about the House health care bill - that it would cost $3.5 trillion dollars.

The study they point to for that "fact" is written byt eh HSI network. Here's a couple of real facts on the HSI network [pdf]:

• HSI's model of the Obama campaign plan predicted a Federal cost more than 4 times than that predicted by the independent Tax Policy Center.
• HSI's cost estimate of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) bill was 4 times greater than the estimate of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
• The HSI analysis assumes substantial erosion of private coverage that rests on two likely false assumptions: (1) that private plans sit idly by and fail to offer products at lower prices to compete with the public option for business; and (2) that an employer shared responsibility requirement is ineffective and leads to massive dropping of ESI, despite contrary experience in Massachusetts and in today's market where the majority of employers already offer coverage on a voluntary basis.
• The analysis says there are no offsets in the discussion draft, yet the bulk of the text consists of payment and delivery system reforms in Medicare and Medicaid that will yield hundreds of billions of dollars in savings.

So, let's get this straight. Republicans are relying on a study by a group that chronically inflates cost estimates, assumes unrealistic things about the plan that have no basis in reality, and doesn't factor in 500 pages of legislation aimed at offsetting costs.

The Republican "fact" that the House bill would cost trillions is false. Period.

That's your conservative misinformation for the day. Expect much more as the debate moves forward.

For those of you who don't know yet, health care is coming to Washington, DC tomorrow!

Health Care '09, an event put together by Health Care for America Now, will be going on all day tomorrow. We've got dozens of Members of Congress coming, and thousands of people as well. We'll be having a rally at 11:30 with Dr. Howard Dean and actress Edie Falco at Upper Senate Park, and that will be followed by a day of citizen lobbying, where thousands of health reform supporters from just about every state meet with their Members of Congress and share their comments and concerns.

You can get the ful schedule of events here. If you're in the area, come and join us!

And if you're not, you can still follow along. On our homepage, we'll be streaming live updates via the twitter hashtag #healthcare09, and I'll be updating a photo slideshow with snapshots I'll be taking throughout the day.

Last week, polls said America was for health reform. This week, all of those people will be showing up in DC to prove it.

In response to Health Care for America Now's posting and petition and MoveOn's advertisement wondering why Senator Feinstein is naysaying on health care in the face of huge momentum for real reform, Feinstein's office emailed the following statement to TPM and other news outlets:

I support:

1) Reducing costs and expanding coverage

2) Prohibiting the denial of insurance because of pre-existing conditions

3) Moving toward either a non-profit model of medical insurance or to one where premium costs can be controlled, either through competition in a public or cooperative model or through a regulated authority.

4) Assuring the financial survival of Medicare, because it is slated to run out of money in 2017.

5) Preventing the transfer of Medicaid costs to states, which could result in billions of dollars of additional loss to the State of California.

6) Establishing means testing for programs like Medicare Part D, which pays for prescription drugs

Clearly, the individual mandate - and how it is funded - is the critical, and as yet unanswered, question.

Huh? Let's look at this more closely.

Feinstein wants to:

• Control costs
• Expand coverage
• Stop insurance industry bad practices
• Move towards non-profit insurance
• Save Medicare and Medicaid
• And support comparative effectiveness research

With the exception of that last point, all of the outcomes Senator Feinstein wants to see from reform are things that are most easily accomplished - indeed, perhaps can only be accomplished - with robust health reform that includes a public health insurance option.

Feinstein wants to control costs? The Commonwealth Fund estimates a health reform bill with a public health insurance option will save an extra $2 trillion over 11 years.

Feinstein wants to expand coverage? Jacob Hacker argues [pdf] that the public health insurance option in conjunction with reform is the way to best provide expanded and quality coverage, while preserving choice.

Feinstein wants to stop insurance industry abuses? Then she'll have to help pass a law that mandates these things, because the insurance industry will never voluntarily accept these concessions, as their testimony before Congress made abundantly clear.

And Feinstein wants to save Medicare and Medicaid? Well, the only way to do that is to aggressively control costs, as Budget Director Peter Orszag points out, is to reform health care in a real way.

In short, if Senator Feinstein wants to achieve any of the goals she says she wants to achieve, she's going to need to support robust health reform, including the choice of a public health insurance option.

And that fact makes her two statements on the issue all the more puzzling. Why, in the face of huge momentum for health reform, did Feinstein go on national television and say some particularly unhelpful things like, "I don’t know that [President Obama] has the votes right now," a comment designed to give comfort to the enemies of health reform? And why did she then turn around and say she's for all kinds of goals that can only be accomplished with reform?

It doesn't make sense, it's contradictory, and it still leaves Feinstein in the naysayer camp. So keep calling her office at (202) 224-3841 and sign the petition and ask her to just come out and say it, "I'm with the President and commit to using all my muscle to pass real health care reform this year, including a choice of a public health insurance option, to achieve the goals I've laid out for our health care system."

I'll say it once again: Senator Feinstein can either make history, or stand in the way.

We've had a few discussions here about why small business owners are increasingly supporting health reform with a public option. That's why I'd like to highlight this piece from Tim Foley on some remarks Howard Dean made recently about small businesses and health care:

At a meeting in New York City that I attended, Howard Dean talked about the problems faced by small businesses dealing with increasingly unaffordable health insurance this way:  “We really do nothing for small businesses – neither party ever does – but small businesses create 80% of the jobs in this country.”  (I’m paraphrasing from inexact notes).  That’s one of many reasons why small businesses have switched sides on the health care debate this time.  In the 1990s, they were determined to kill Clinton’s employer mandate.  Now, they’re desperate for relief from the no-win scenario of our broken health insurance system.

Next, Tim zeroes in on another compelling small business story:

Ms. [Roshanda] Young is Operations Manager for the family-owned Alpha Express, an Iowa-based transportation and contracting business. They haven’t been able to offer health insurance for years – with bids starting at 13% of payroll, health care costs would be the cost equivalent of five additional employees. That might be doable, but the insurance market for small business is only slightly less capricious than individuals. Without the bargaining clout of a large employer or the capacity to spread risk out over a large number of people, small businesses are subject to the same whims over premium increases and pre-existing conditions that so many individuals face. As ReShonda put it, “the plans we’ve looked at would mean at least a 12 percent increase in our payroll expenses. And the plan would include a waiting period of 12 to 18 months before any pre-existing conditions would be covered, so the money we put out in premiums wouldn’t even cover some of the medical expenses we would incur. We also had no guarantee the premium will remain stable from one year to the next, and in fact they could ratchet up the premium the second year and drive us out of the market again.”

If that doesn’t sound surprising, you also won’t be surprised to learn part of the reason for insurance to be so unpredictable – no one’s holding their feet to the fire. “I received eight bids for coverage for our employees – but they were all from the same insurance company, Wellmark. In Waterloo-Cedar Falls and in most of Iowa, there are one or maybe two health insurers to choose from. That’s not competition, and it’s not giving us affordable choices.” It’s the old “where else are you going to go?” conundrum. As of right now, the answer is “nowhere.”

You hear a lot about how small businesses would get crushed by raising taxes on the wealthiest 1%, or how small business will be crushed by excessive regulations, or how small business would be crushed by a carbon tax or cap & trade. But those same people who claim to stand up for small businesses disappear when we’re dealing with something that does crush small businesses – the no-win scenario of either letting the employees who feel like your family go without benefits, opting for the “split the baby” solution of getting a high-deductible or high cost-sharing plan that you know will be insufficient, or subjecting to yourself to the slings and arrows of outrageous insurance monopolies, where the only safe prediction is that your costs will go up.

The anecdotal evidence as well as the survey and polling data is adding up: much of the small business community backs strong health care reform. It's time for our elected representatives to do something real for the small entrepreneurs who power our economy.

NEWS

Obama Says Government Health Coverage Plan Would Not Hurt Private Insurers - New York Times

President Obama made a detailed case on Tuesday for a new government-administered health insurance plan, but he did not rule out signing a bill that lacks such an option if he cannot win enough support from Democrats in Congress.

Former Insurance Executive Goes After Industry - Washington Post

A former public relations executive for two big health insurers is scheduled to appear before the Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday to talk about the health care industry, and the advance word is that he has changed sides with a vengeance.

Baucus Grabs Pacesetter Role on Health Bill - New York Times

As President Obama’s effort to overhaul the health care system seems to hit one roadblock after another in Congress, he is counting on Senator Max Baucus, a political shape-shifter and crafty deal maker who is not fully trusted by either party, to help him clinch his top domestic priority.

Most Want Health Reform But Fear Its Side Effects - Washington Post

A majority of Americans see government action as critical to controlling runaway health-care costs, but there is broad public anxiety about the potential impact of reform legislation and conflicting views about the types of fixes being proposed on Capitol Hill, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

MoveOn Hammers Feinstein on Health Care Remarks - New York Times

This development bears watching, as the left wing of the Democratic Party keeps going after top lawmakers within its own realm. This time, it’s the health care issue on which advocates for President Obama’s agenda (and well beyond that) have begun eating their own.