Bipartisan Senate Group Making Progress on Health Care

[steven johnson]

Source: Time Magazine

A bipartisan group of nine U.S. senators, after meeting for nine months behind closed doors, is nearing an agreement on the broad strokes of a health care reform bill. The so-called Gang of Nine ...The talks have been held in parallel to negotiations orchestrated by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, ...the two main sticking points remain how to pay for a plan that some estimate could cost as much as $1 trillion and how to integrate a public, government-run plan into the private system, ...the group is considering moving the final bill through budget reconciliation, the end-of-the-year budget bill that needs only a simple majority of 50 votes to pass the Senate, avoiding a potential GOP filibuster. ...President Bush pushed several large initiatives through this same process, such as his tax cuts and deficit reduction legislation.



Read more: http://mobile.time.com/detail.jsp?key=439469&rc=po

[madfloridian]

1. "how to integrate a public, government-run plan into the private system"

Explain? Why integrate?

[jwirr]

3. I also want to know. These words make no sense to me. We already

have a government run health care plan that uses private doctors, pharmacies, hospitals, etc.

[Juche]

7. The GOP and insurance companies are trying to kill the public option

The public plan will be about 20% cheaper than private plans because overhead will be lower. So private plans want to kill it as they can't maintain cost competitiveness and the GOP wants to kill it as it'll grow the role of government.

That is my impression of what they were referring to, how to keep the public option.

[Triana]

10. The idea is to force private insurance cos to compete with a public plan....

..of course they don't want that.

This was the same as John Edwards' plan. The thought was that we cannot just close down all the private insurance cos tomorrow and put the whole nation on national healthcare. That's unrealistic. So, we have to allow private insurers to stay in the market - for a while - until they can be phased out in favor of the cheaper public plan and meanwhile, they compete with the public one.

YOU BET the insurance cos and their lobbyists don't like this one bit.

IF this is what they're doing/thinking, I can go along with it and it's realistic. But if the private insurers are going to be allowed - long-term - to continue gaming the system for profit and refusing coverage as they have been, I'm agin it. I think Obama mentioned during the campaign one other thing about this: he wouldn't allow private insurance companies to refuse coverage for pre-existing conditions. If that's made part of the plan, that would be a good thing too.

I'm taking a "wait and see" attitude at this point. I don't think we can realistically just shut down private insurers and move everyone to national healthcare in one fell swoop (no matter how badly we want/need to) and having both a national and private plans available for a while during a transition to national may be more realistic.

[madfloridian]

11. It's the word "integrate" that puzzles me.

I would think it would be a separate option. This makes it sound like it would be handled by insurance companies.

[jwirr]

13. Medicaid in Minnesota used to be administered by Blue Cross. They

did a decent job of that and I would not object to it as long as the rules are made by government - no exceptions. They could be glorified bookkeepers.

[GinaMaria]

14. Just a guess

Not all healthcare insurers are for profit, some are non-investor or customer owned or even non-profit status. There are a few of them and they get lumped together with the investor owned for profits of which there are many. Some of these are blue cross blue shield plans and some are less known. They do have a good amount of experience. Their focus is on making a large number of people healthy not a handful of people wealthy.

These companies have the technology and experience processing claims, have networks of healthcare providers that could be leveraged and people who already have a different mindset about healthcare. There may be some benefit in having them help administer a national plan or pieces of it.

Just a thought... I don't know for sure

[RC]

15. North Dakota has a NON-Profit BCBS

Their CEO just got fired over a $270,000 award trip to the Grand Cayman Islands for 33 (sales and guest) people. They were asking for an 18% rate increase. The ex CEO carted away $2,2 million for being fired. I'm all for getting rid of the private insurance companies and letting the government run things like Medicaid/Medicare.

[GinaMaria]

17. Holy Crap

That is disgusting. That is horrible. What the hell? When you work for a non-profit, you need a different mentality. Makes me want to ring this guy's neck.

Medicare is administered through government contracts to many private insurance companies, so it may be that they are following the same path with a national option.

[Donnachaidh]

2. if the plan is to set something up to hand over to private concerns

Then it will FAIL.

This is NOT what people WANT. And a mandate requiring people to buy into insurance plans (and this STINKS of that notion) WILL fail. And will likely get the writers of this nonsense tossed out of office on their collective asses.

This had better NOT be something *integrated* with insurance. :grr:

[Robbien]

4. Get ready for a Gang of nine rape

How to integrate government run plan into the private system.

Not only doesn't it sound as if it single payor, it sounds as if Medicare/Medicaid will also be moved over to the private insurance companies.

[RC]

6. If that happens, we are sunk.

NON-Profit insurance companies are the problem. In fact they need to be investigated to find out why their upper management live so high on the hog, using premium funds, while they deny good claims to those who pay those premiums.

[uberblonde]

5. Um. because if you don't integrate....

You don't get those fat campaign contributions!

[jannyk]

8. I hate the sound of this! Anyone know who the 'Gang of 9' are?? eom

[annabanana]

19. Here they are:

'Gang of Nine'
A bipartisan group of nine senators who have been holding closed-door meetings for nine months "is nearing an agreement on the broad strokes of a health reform bill," according to sources from one of the participating Senate offices, Time Magazine reports.

The group, which calls itself the "Gang of Nine -- though its number expands and contracts depending on the meeting" -- includes Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa); Senate Finance Health Subcommittee Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah); Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and ranking member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.); Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and ranking member Judd Gregg (R-N.H.); and Senate Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), according to Time.

Aides to the lawmakers declined to divulge details of a potential agreement, citing the "delicacy of the talks," Time reports. However, the "two main sticking points" have been over funding and how to introduce a public health insurance option into the private system, according to two aides (Newton-Small, Time Magazine, 3/13).

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=57470

[MidwestTransplant]

9. Well it sounds like they are pretty much done if they only need to figure how to pay for it, how

much it would cost and how to integrate the new system into the current system. Piece of cake.

[quidam56]

12. We need a cure for health care in America

Profit care comes ahead of patient care in East Tennessee http://www.wisecountyissues.com

[biopowertoday]

20. Administration Is Open to Taxing Health Benefits

how is this for a cure--pass out the 'benefits'-then tax them.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/politics/15health.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

March 15, 2009
Administration Is Open to Taxing Health Benefits

By JACKIE CALMES and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system.

The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as “the largest middle-class tax increase in history.” Most Americans with insurance get it from their employers, and taxing workers for the benefit is opposed by union leaders and some businesses.

In television advertisements last fall, Mr. Obama criticized his Republican rival for the presidency, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for proposing to tax all employer-provided health benefits. The benefits have long been tax-free, regardless of how generous they are or how much an employee earns. The advertisements did not point out that Mr. McCain, in exchange, wanted to give all families a tax credit to subsidize the purchase of coverage.

At the time, even some Obama supporters said privately that he might come to regret his position if he won the election; in effect, they said, he was potentially giving up an important option to help finance his ambitious health care agenda to reduce medical costs and to expand coverage to the 46 million uninsured Americans. Now that Mr. Obama has begun the health debate, several advisers say that while he will not propose changing the tax-free status of employee health benefits, neither will he oppose it if Congress does so.

At a recent Congressional hearing, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat whose own health plan would make benefits taxable, asked Peter R. Orszag, the president’s budget director, about the issue. Mr. Orszag replied that it “most firmly should remain on the table.”



.................

When Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, advocated taxing benefits at a recent hearing of the Finance Committee, which he leads, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner assured him that the administration was open to all ideas from Congress. Mr. Geithner did, however, allude to the position that Mr. Obama had taken as a candidate..........

[cosmicdot]

16. another link to the Time article

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1885032,00.html

[biopowertoday]

18. Single payer is not

even mentioned. damm.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1885032,00.html