Insurance Company Greed Kills Jobs
Posted on November 17th, 2009 by Jason Rosenbaum in Profits Before People
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Today in Chicago, a message was delivered: Insurance company greed kills jobs, and we're not going to take it anymore.
Eight small business owners from around the country met at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Chicago this afternoon, where the insurance industry was holding their national conference. They were there because they had sent a letter to Karen Ignagni, the insurance companies' top lobbyist, requesting a meeting:
Our businesses are facing dire choices- between being able to reinvest profits into the future of our businesses and meeting the ever-growing costs of health care coverage; between denying our employees coverage for needed medical services and having to cut their jobs entirely.
…
Ms. Ignagni, we are not simply opportunities for profit. We are people trying to provide for our families, contribute to our local economies, and make ends meet in this recession, who believe you should look us in the eye, hear our stories, and understand what you are lobbying against.
We plan to be at the Renaissance Hotel at noon on Tuesday and hope to see you there. Please understand that we are not interested in discussing these issues with a representative or spokesperson. With our livelihoods on the line, we feel the least you could do is participate in this meeting personally.
Ignagni didn't show up today.
She didn't have the courage to look these small business owners in the eye and hear their stories. People like Mecheall Williams from Louisiana, can't afford to stay afloat and give his employees insurance, and who worked to woo back one of his best employees even though he couldn't offer her health insurance, and a few weeks after she agreed to work for him again, got sick and had to go to the drive an hour to the hospital because she wasn't covered. Or Rick Poore from Nebraska, who said his skyrocketing health care costs are preventing him from purchasing another printing press for his t-shirt business, or giving his employees a raise they deserve. Or Alton Johnson from Arkansas, who may have to drop insurance coverage for his employees because his premiums keep rising.
Outside the Renaissance Hotel, five hundred people marched in solidarity with the small business owners inside - labor, community organizations, MoveOn.org local councils, doctors and medical students, and other health care supporters, all pulled together by Citizen Action of Illinois.
The small business owners, led by Wendell Potter, left the hotel and joined us outside when it was clear Ignagni wasn't going to show up. There, we heard the truth from a man who used to attend conferences like the one in Chicago today, but as a member of the insurance industry.
As Wendell has told the world over and over, the insurance companies are the biggest enemy of reform we have. They will do anything to keep health care in Wall Street's hands, and protect their obscene profits and bonuses. If that means killing jobs and their fellow Americans to do it, so be it.
Karen Ignagni couldn't even meet with the entrepreneurs she's putting out of business. But no matter. The insurance industry can't stop health reform from happening, especially the kind they fear the most - reform with a public health insurance option to give us a choice and to finally end their profiteering ways.
With reform, we'll be on our way to getting our economy and our lives back on track.
RECONCILIATION !
Should Be A Household Word
The Way Senate CAN Pass The Health Bill
By Greg Jones
Blacks4Barack
For some reason the media and even our politicians keep pounding the vital importance of the Senate obtaining 60 votes in the Senate to pass the health care reform legislation. There's the non-stop 'what will (Traitor) Joe Lieberman do'…or 'will they get (R) Olympia Snowe'…or 'will Harry Reid get the 60 votes he needs…'? 60…60…60 !!! That's all we hear. I'm not sure if the media is trying to add drama to the health care issue in an attempt to stimulate audience ratings or if it's an orchestrated tactic in hopes of keeping Americans ill-informed through the direction of our great politicians, but the FACT is, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid DOES NOT need 60 votes to pass the health care bill but in fact ONLY 51- a simple majority, which makes a huge difference-through a procedure commonly used and known as RECONCILIATION.
Reconciliation is " a legislative process of the United States Senate intended to allow a contentious budget bill to be considered without being subject to filibuster (only needing 51 votes to pass). Because reconciliation limits debate and amendment, the process empowers the majority party ". The reconciliation procedure is limited to being used for budget related legislation that costs or raises substantial amounts of money. In the case of the Senate health care bill, that would include the expansion of Medicare or Medicaid, revenue-raising tax provisions, and even the creation of a public health insurance option, depending on how it's written. So the reconciliation procedure CAN be used to pass the health care bill with only 51 VOTES !
The downside of the bill being passed through this procedure is that, due to a ruling known as the Byrd Rule, non-budget legislation designed to regulate the insurance industry could not be included in the bill and would have to be voted on in a separate bill which would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. But there is a strategy that can be used to overcome even this obstacle as described by Ryan Grimm of HuffPo:
" But there's another alternative, according to Martin Paone. Paone, who served as a Democratic Senate floor staffer for 29 years, has been advising Democrats as they craft their legislative strategy. He proposes that Democrats try to get 60 votes to waive the Byrd Rule — which would then allow the inclusion of those non-budget-related provision in one bill that would require only 51 votes for final passage.
What's the advantage? And why would any senator who opposes the entire bill vote for such a waiver? The answer can be found in the specific proposals that would be in violation of the Byrd Rule. Mostly, those would include reforms to the way the insurance industry operates — for example, a ban on using preexisting conditions to deny coverage, or a law that insurance companies can't drop a client just because they get sick.
Those are wildly popular reforms. Getting 60 votes to support those policies is much easier than getting 60 for a public health insurance option, which Republicans and some conservative Democrats oppose.
Conservative senators such as Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) or Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) could, in voting for a Byrd Rule waiver, put themselves on the record as being in support of popular insurance industry reforms, while still opposing final passage of the bill — a political strategy that may be appealing to them." (end of article)
So, as the media continues their daily rant of how imperative it is that EVERY Democratic Senator vote yes on the health care bill remember one FACT that they seem to want to hide from We The People. There IS a way for the Senate to get the bill passed WITHOUT 60 votes…without Traitor Joe…without Olympia Snowe…without Mary Landrieu…making them absolutely meaningless in the debate.
Now, WE must let Harry Reid know that WE know that this option is in fact avai lable to him. Call…Email…and DEMAND that if he feels he doesn't have the 60 votes needed to block the filibuster, then We The People…
DEMAND
RECONCILIATION !
When they, our great politicians realize that WE KNOW that they have this option…they will be FORCED to use it…even if they had other intentions (like letting the bill stall or even fail). Help the word RECONCILIATION become a household word. Spread the fact that this IS in fact an alternate means of the Senate getting the bill passed. Since day one, President Obama has stated that he would not be able to create Change on his own…that he would need OUR help. Time to do OUR part by DEMANDING that our politicians do EVERYTHING possible, including RECONCILIATION, to stop 44,000 Americans from DYING each year due to the lack of access to quality health care, by passing health care reform-with a strong public option-for all.
Email the media to let them know that WE know
and are DEMANDING that our politicians
Get It Done !
Related Articles:
Gibbs: White House Not Ruling Out Reconciliation
(11/09/09)
Robert Reich Pushes Getting STRONG Public Option
Through RECONCILIATION
(11/13/09)
Greg Jones
National Director
Blacks4Barack(dotBlogspot.com)
It's very simple. Without the public option voluntary euthanasia must be legal. The haves do not want the have nots to have health care. I see no problem. They can have everything. I will give up my life when it it comes to it. The CEOs, the bankers/brokers, the priviledged class can have everything. It's more simple than having the poor, homeless, and the ill around to make their beautiful lives so ugly. Of course one hand washes the other. When the barbians are at the gate they will have to answer it themselves. Good luck.
This makes me feel so much better!