Baucus and Grassley. The Washington Note.,com
With a committee vote on the Baucus health care bill only hours away, one of two bills that will be merged for a final senate vote, the health care insurance industry, on the eve of the vote, released a commissioned report claiming that the Baucus bill would drive up health care costs and insurance premiums not lower them.
The timing of the report, and it's source makes it apparent that it was a last ditch effort to kill the bill and it can't really be taken seriously.
The general reaction to the report so far has been that if you believe the report the health insurance industry also has a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you along with health insurance. Even Republicans are not enthusiastically embracing the report giving it only tepid support.
And as if the health insurance industry didnt have enough problems with it's credibility, John Guber, an economist at MIT said in an article in the New York Times that he analyzed the report and found it wanting. "Deeply flawed" are the words he used.
And there is a good chance that the report will not just be dismissed or ignored. It will backfire.
By claiming that implementing the provisions in the Baucus bill will cause insurance companies to increase their premiums by an average of $4000 a year for a family of four, the insurance industry has given even more ammunition to supporters of a public option and it has only increased the probability that a public option will pass the senate, since nothing will keep premiums down and reduce costs better than a public option. This is something even Max Baucus acknowledged in voting against the public option amendment.
Democrats in the senate who may have been on the fence over the public option now have a very good reason to vote for it. Republican opposition to the public option has always been that it will hurt the insurance companies. Now with their threat of raising premiums if provisions of the Baucus bill is passed, a public option becomes essential in preventing that from happening.
So the insurance industry's report itself, has now given the public option a very big boost and almost insures that a bill containing a public option will pass the senate.
Comments
I completely agree that the Public Option is not only necessary, but is also the best way to drive premium prices down.
In contrast, the individual mandate to purchase health insurance will drive prices up. As such, the weaker the individual mandate, the less it will push prices up. The complete removal of the individual mandate, coupled with the inclusion of a Public Option, is the best way to reduce health insurance premium prices.
www.examiner.com/x-17571-LA-Populist-Examiner
We all want to IMPROVE our health care system. Obamacare (in all its Orwellian manipulative versions), however, has NOTHING to do with improving our health care system. It's just another power grab that will further destroy our health care, destroy our economy, steal money from our children and grandchildren, multiply our deficit, and enslave us through lies, manipulation, intimidation and coercion.
Imitating Hugo Chavez, Obama wants to nationalize everything, including our health care system! "Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama!" Chavez cheered on Venezuelan TV. He added that he and Cuba's Fidel Castro would now have to work harder just to keep up.
www.hacer.org/report/2009/06/us-obamas-red-chorus-investors-business.html
Americans who have NOT been dumbed down DO NOT WANT to put the power of life and death in Obama’s ACORN-type bureaucracy and will vote OUT all the traitors voting for the Obamacare scam.
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