Was there a memo that getting perfect health reform was going to be easy?

[cynatnite]

I didn't see it.

For years, I watched what happens to good people without insurance and how it tore up their lives. I saw a man lose his house because had a heart attack. He went to a homeless shelter. I've seen patients die from waiting too long to go to the doctor because they didn't have insurance.

There is nothing more horrible than hearing a mother ask how she was going to pay for antibiotics for her sick child.

You can bitch all you want about how this bill isn't what you hope, but the American people won because the road to reform got a little bit shorter tonight.

Rather than lament at how horrible this is for America and how Dems aren't really Dems, or that Dems are really Repukes, or that Dennis Kucinich is the biggest sellout since Metallica went Guitar Hero, why not just work on your reps and write letters to make this bill better?

A lot of folks seem to be more interested in eating their young and having a pitty party about how the Dems aren't doing exactly what they wanted.

Geez, folks...we beat the repukes...AGAIN!

[emulatorloo]

1. "work on your reps and write letters to make this bill better" GOOD ADVICE

Recommending (but it got canceled out)

[FrenchieCat]

2. And what the passage of this bill does is advances the chance of

38 Million Americans, many of them minority, to now be able to go see a doctor....
this will help prevent unwanted pregnancies, improve prenatal health,
and reduce infant mortality.

Many of my brothers and sisters will be
able to get tested for HIV and then get some treatment; same for high blood pressure,
diabetes, and the other fatal ailments that hurt my community more than many others....

This bill, when passed will make a difference,
and anyone who says otherwise really doesn't care about the downtrotten,
they just like to pretend that they do.

[Hekate]

3. I canceled out someone's Unrec. Yeesh. Good points, cynatnite. Good luck getting through...

... to the "Woe is me, I'm going to eat thistles" Eeyores.

Hekate

@#%^# typo

[Go2Peace]

28. You misunderstand most of the people who are dissapointed

Like me they support what we have, but we just aren't going to "celebrate" and try to put "lipstick" on this pig. What is so hard to understand about that?

[The Magistrate]

4. It Is Very Good That This Bill Passed Tonight, Ma'am

It is a very flawed Bill, but it is an important, indeed an essential first step. You are quite right that we should keep focus on the good that has been done.

[Ken Burch]

5. It's already too late to make this year's bill better

Bills are only watered down in the Senate and in conference committee. Bills never get stronger later in the process.

I'm glad something passed. I'm not sure whether it's enough to matter on any but the symbolic level, though.

We COULD have got a real bill through.

[cynatnite]

7. Medicare and medicaid are always getting tweaked and made better...

That's after they were signed, too. This will be no different, IMO.

[emulatorloo]

10. Social Security as well. When signed it was quite restrictive, it was opened up over the years nt

[Ken Burch]

16. When did they even START tweaking those? Fifteen years after they passed?

Were any meaningful gains made in Social Security in the Thirties, when it mattered?

Can the sick wait for increments? We can assume none will come while THIS Congress still sits. They'll all say "we passed the bill, the story's over, get out of my face".

Nobody that insisted on a weak bill in the first place is going to go along with making the bill better later. People's minds don't work like that.

Incrementalism was only possible in the past. It doesn't happen anymore.

[cynatnite]

18. A brief history of medicare...

1945 Harry Truman sends a message to Congress asking for
legislation establishing a national health insurance plan.

Two decades of debate ensue, with opponents warning of the
dangers of "socialized medicine."

By the end of Truman's administration, he had backed off
from a plan for universal coverage, but administrators in
the Social Security system and others had begun to focus
on the idea of a program aimed at insuring Social Security
beneficiaries.

July 30, 1965 Medicare and its companion program Medicaid, (which
insures indigent recipients), are signed into law by
President Lyndon Johnson as part of his "Great Society."

Ex-president Truman is the first to enroll in Medicare.

Medicare Part B premium is $3 per month.

1972 Disabled persons under age 65 and those with end-stage
renal disease become eligible for coverage.

Services expand to include some chiropractic services,
speech therapy and physical therapy.

Payments to HMOs are authorized.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program is established
for the elderly and disabled poor. SSI recipients are
automatically eligible for Medicaid.

1982 Hospice benefits are added on a temporary basis.

1983 Change from "reasonable cost" to prospective payment
system based on diagnosis-related groups for hospital
inpatient services begins.

Most federal civilian employees become covered.

1984 Remaining federal employees, including President, members
of Congress and federal judiciary become covered.

1986 Hospice benefits become permanent.

1988 Major overhaul of Medicare benefits is enacted aimed at
providing coverage for catastrophic illness and
prescription drugs.

Coverage is added for routine mammography.

1989 Catastrophic coverage and prescription drug coverage are
repealed.

Coverage is added for pap smears.

1992 Physician services payments are based on fee schedule.

1997 Medicare+Choice is enacted under the Balanced Budget Act.
Some provisions prove to be so financially restrictive
when regulations are unveiled that Congress is forced to
revisit the issue in 1999.

1999 Congress "refines" Medicare+Choice and relaxes some
Medicare funding restrictions under the Balanced Budget
Refinement Act of 1999.

2000 Medicare+Choice Final Rule takes effect.

Prospective payment systems for outpatient services and
home health agencies take effect.

Medicare Part B premium is $45.40 per month.

http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/2000%20Files/Aug%2000/FTR...

Now, I know you want your idea of perfect health care reform to happen right now, but it won't. Even after it happens, and it will happen, improving on it will come along in increments. That is reality.

[corpseratemedia]

23. +1

yeah I wanted single-payer, but the hate-anything-that-works-in-Europe crowd had destroyed any chance in 93-94. This is how things work here, because of hysterical anti-government (formerly anti-communism ...now that communism=government rofl) sentiment.



I don't see the teabaggers giving up their "socialist" medicare. Neither will they be complaining about the closing of the donut hole with this dem bill!

We just have to make sure that this does not start out as corrupt as Medicare part D did. I think we have at least a better chance of stopping that and changing things with a democratic majority. Even with pathetic republican blue dogs dinos standing in the way.

[Hekate]

9. It passed by the slimmest of margins as it is. We could not have gotten "a real bill through"...

... at all.

Keep on your Senators. Keep working. Social Security and Medicare have both changed since 1933 and 1965, haven't they?

Hekate

[Ken Burch]

15. Most of those who need help will have died before any changes are made

Only the healthy can settle for incrementalism. Slight changes can't help those who are sick now.

[cynatnite]

17. how about those who get sick in the future?

A lot of people will die while this thing is being done. That's a given. My biggest complaint is that much of this won't go into effect until 2013 and I'll be writing letters in hope of making some kind of difference.

I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this thing. We take what we can and work on making it better as we go. That's what they've done with medicare and medicaid. They've done that with the VA, too.

[scheming daemons]

21. Slight changes help them a damn bit more than NO changes...

If you need $10,000... are you going to turn down $1,000 because it doesn't meet your needs?


Or are you going to take it, and then work to get the other $9,000?

[Go2Peace]

29. I disagree with this analysis. We could have done better. At the very least they had cover for a

stronger "public option".

[AllentownJake]

6. At the peak of Democratic power in the past 50 years

The only thing they can manage is a bill that is shitty on cost containment, mandates insurance to the citizens with the threat of prison or fines, and a public option that is weaker than a wine cooler.

Forgive me when I'm skeptical that this is our foot in the door moment.

[andym]

22. It's the peak of Democratic power since the 95th Congress (1977-9)= 30 years

So it's only the last 30 years. 95th Congress was more Democratic--> Senate 61(D) vs 39 (R). House 292 (D) vs 143 (R)
Btw, that Congress passed the Clean Water Act among others.

[LatteLibertine]

8. I'd essentially agree

Things will be achieved slowly and in increments. Getting some form of HCR done opens the door to future reform making it all the easier. This a very long term project and a game of chess not checkers.

On another note, defeating HCR would take serious momentum and force away from President Obama. It would lend that force to Republicans and would make it much more difficult for President Obama to accomplish anything meaningful for the rest of his term. This is precisely why Republicans are so vehement in their opposition.

[BREMPRO]

11. K&R

[bluestateguy]

12. Tonight we are hearing from the crybaby/whiner faction of the Democratic Party

These are the folks who gave us McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis.

[AllentownJake]

14. Really the only primary vote I ever cast was for Barack Obama

[Ken Burch]

19. There was nobody better available in 1972

Scoop Jackson wouldn't have won(and since he was still prowar he'd have governed like Nixon on everything else). Humphrey was permanently discredited and permanently unpopular after 1968. And the smear of Muskie was Nixon's fault. McGovern's loss was solely the responsibility of the party regulars, who deserted him when he'd done nothing to them that justified the desertion. History proved McGovern was right about everything and the Humphrey/Jackson sellouts were wrong about everything.

And it was the ones who did the deserting who imposed Mondale in '84. Besides, there weren't even any Dems to his right who had any real support that year.

And Dukakis was the candidate of the regulars, the ones who never wanted the party to back universal healthcare. He was not imposed on the party by "liberals" against the better judgment of the pros.

So you're whole analysis of party history is bullshit.

[charlie]

20. Ah yes, Dukakis

I remember ideological firebrands leaping over Simon and Jackson for seemingly bloodless techo-wonk Dukakis. The stealth Maoist who signalled his true intentions with secret pinky waves for the initiated. We paid for such uncompromising far-left purity, we did indeed.

[Jamastiene]

13. Tell you what...

You pay for my forced/mandated insurance and I'll STFU.

That sounds fair enough to me.

If those of us who are uninsured could afford to be insured, we would ALREADY be insured. Forcing us to buy insurance with money we don't have isn't solving anything. They didn't need over a thousand pages to write this bill. They only needed one sentence: "All uninsured citizens of the US will now be forced by law to buy insurance."

This is not going to work.

[ProfessorGAC]

24. Highly Likely To Be Wrong

As the pool increases the price goes down, since the mutual risk is shared across a higher population. Cost of health care won't go up much since many, many uninsured are already getting health care in ER's and just can't cover the payments. So, the colletive pool of risk requires a lower premium per insured.

Hence, your problem is ameliorated somewhat since being insured will be more affordable.

Secondly, adding a public option creates a non-profit competitor with no greater overhead costs. This should lower the overall cost of premiums in quite a short time.

So, for many unisured people, this is GOING to work.
GAC

[babylonsister]

25. Rec'd. nt

[Roland99]

26. Won the "right" to be fined and/or jailed if we don't pony up $$ to the private insurers

What a victory.

[WVRICK13]

27. At Least It Is A Beginning

Once people adjust to the changes initiated by this bill they may be open to other changes in the right direction in the future. Remember our government moves slowly when it comes to doing the right thing. It only moves fast if it involves RW legislation to shaft the middle and lower income citizens in our society.